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I am often asked, “What is Agile?” The word is used a variety of ways, often to denote specific activities teams use to develop software. Agile is actually a philosophy for which there are a variety of practices that often reflect that philosophy. While this can be discussed in a purely intellectual or academic fashion, I prefer to “let the work teach you.”

Undoubtedly Steve Jobs is inked into history with the greats – Thomas Edison, Ben Franklin and other inventors. But just as much, he also successfully turned around two major businesses and built two from the ground up, which is overshadowed by his product brilliance. How did he do both – he lived his own life and was not afraid of what he believed.

A recent client engagement worked a pivot strategy based on a 5 year product and service launch history. Through mapping services and their resulting characteristics to an adoption quadrant, we were able to clearly see certain trends in market selection, success rates, revenue and profit results which the client had previously not realized. How can this be an eye opener for your business endeavors?

With a significantly reduced cost of doing business, compared to traditional brick and mortar upstarts, the software as a service business has leveraged the “free” model of doing business. Specifically the notion that one can determine if a market exists (and capture that market) by offering something at no cost. While powerful in its ability to create service exposure, this model is also the death knell of startups that miss that “free customers” are not, in fact, customers but rather beneficiaries.

Emergent business initiatives are steeped in continuous learning and discovery. The traditional business plan focuses more on planning with conventional models, where a well defined and executed plan is the key to success. If you’re thinking of writing a business plan, stop and consider from where success may come.