This is close to the beginning of what is billed as series of indefinite length on agility and Agility, which we are promised will at times be polemical and curmudgeonly, and are tangentially illustrated with references to Alice (the one in Wonderland, not the cryptographic exemplar). The first post in the series set some context; this second one focuses on the question of whether short-cycle software production techniques translate to business strategy. In particular, the argument is that scrum-based approaches to agile work best when the problem space is reasonably well understood and that this will be the case to different extents and different stages of an overall development cycle.
Dave Snowden is best known as the originator of the Cynefin framework, which is probably enough to guarantee that this series will be thought provoking. He positions scrum approaches within the Cynefin complex domain and as a powerful approach – but not the only or uniquely appropriate one. It will be well worth watching his arguments develop.