Deere & Co. (a.k.a. John Deere) drove head-first into an agile software development process about a year ago, moving approximately 800 programmers--along with systems engineers, testers, and marketing and customer support personnel--out of their cubicles and into U-shaped pods. The sweeping change aims to remove obstacles to collaboration and speed the development process, reports Patrick Thibodeau at Computerworld.

Previously, software development reflected the way in which the company built products like tractors and combines, said Tony Thelen, the director of the Intelligent Solutions Group within the company's enterprise IT department. Requirements were set by one team and then handed off to the programmers. The company sought a process that would improve innovation and quality as well as speed.

"Breaking work down into smaller increments helped us with some of the quality aspects," Thelen said. "The incremental reviews of the work allowed us to put more eyes on the software code more often."

Implementing the agile approach in one fell swoop is not the typical way to get agile, but it has advantages over a more gradual rollout. For one, it can cut down on resistance to change. What's more, it can facilitate coordination, making it easier to get past any tendencies toward inertia.

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-Patrick Thibodeau's article at Computerworld

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