EDGE Value-Driven Digital Transformation

EDGE: The Agile Operating Model That Will Help You Successfully Execute Your Digital Transformation

“[The authors’] passion for technology allows them to recognize that for most enterprises in the 21st century, technology is THE business. This is what really separates the EDGE approach. It is a comprehensive operating model with technology at its core.”
—From the Foreword by Heidi Musser, Executive Vice President and Principal Consultant, Leading Agile; retired, Vice President and CIO, USAA

Maximum innovation happens at the edge of chaos: the messy, risky, and uncertain threshold between randomness and structure. Operating there is uncomfortable but it’s where organizations “invent the future.” EDGE is a set of fast, iterative, adaptive, lightweight, and value-driven tools to achieve digital transformation, and EDGE: Value-Driven Digital Transformation is your guide to using this operating model for innovation.

Jim Highsmith is one of the world’s leading agile pioneers and a coauthor of the Agile Manifesto. He, Linda Luu, and David Robinson know from their vast in-the-trenches experience that sustainable digital transformation requires far more than adopting isolated agile practices or conventional portfolio management. This hard, indispensable work involves changing culture and mindset, and going beyond transforming the IT department.

EDGE embraces an adaptive mindset in the face of market uncertainty, a visible, value-centered portfolio approach that encourages continual value linkages from vision to detailed initiatives, incremental funding that shifts as strategies evolve, collaborative decision-making, and better risk mitigation. This guide shows leaders how to use the breakthrough EDGE approach to go beyond incremental improvement in a world of exponential opportunities.

• Build an organization that adapts fast enough to thrive
• Clear away unnecessary governance processes, obsolete “command and control” leadership approaches, and slow budgeting/planning cycles
• Improve collaboration when major, fast-paced responses are necessary
• Continually optimize investment allocation and monitoring based on your vision and goals

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Jim Highsmith is an executive consultant at ThoughtWorks, Inc. He has over 40 years’ experience as an IT manager, product manager, project manager, consultant, software developer, and storyteller. Jim has written several books on leadership, Agile project management, and software development. Jim was the recipient of the 2005 international Stevens Award for outstanding contributions to systems development, and is a coauthor of the Agile Manifesto, a founding member of The Agile Alliance, coauthor of the Declaration of Interdependence for project leaders, and cofounder and first president of the Agile Leadership Network.

Linda Luu is a principal product and portfolio consultant at ThoughtWorks, Inc., with over 15 years' experience in product innovation, customer centered design, and organizational transformation. Experienced in Lean, Agile, and Design Thinking practices, Linda has worked with a number of clients worldwide to build digital organizations that can sense and respond to changing customer and business needs. Linda holds a double degree in commerce (finance) and science (applied maths), and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management.

David Robinson is a principal consultant at ThoughtWorks, Inc., with over 30 years experience in information technology management, organizational transformation, and technology consulting. David's career has spanned consulting with large organizations, upper management roles in enterprise IT shops, and running an organization development team.