Agile development was first invented in 2001 by a group of practitioners who believed that the waterfall methodology, the standard practice in software development at that time, no longer met the requirements of fast-paced world. Therefore, they developed the Agile Manifesto, which focuses on incremental delivery, continuous planning and learning as well as team collaboration to be able to deliver software faster.

Examples of agile development methods are:

• Scrum 
• eXtreme Programming (XP) 
• Kanban 
• Crystal 
• Lean Software Development (LSD) 
• Adaptive Software Development (ASD) 
• Feature Driven Development (FDD) 
• Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)

When referring to agile development methods, most people think of it as something that just applies to software development teams. However, in Agile, the term “team” is not function-based. Everyone who is involved in the project – which will most likely include members of other parts of the organization – is regarded to be part of the team. This is extremely important because agile teams are always built to include all competencies needed to accomplish the work independently. Which, at the same time, means to educate stakeholders from other parts of the organization about the changing work style. This can be challenging as those team members might have to act differently in their regular role and will be required to shift attitude depending on whether they work with their agile project team colleagues or the members in their functional teams.

The Agile methodology is designed to enable software developers to work autonomously. However, implementing Agile across the entire enterprise and expecting hundreds of developers to self-organize is a recipe for disaster. To meet the challenges of implementing Agile at the enterprise scale, you'll need a strategic framework that facilitates planning and scheduling, regulatory compliance management, development, test management, and delivery across large numbers of Agile teams.

An enterprise Agile development methodology can revolutionize the operational efficiency of your business. However, you need to be able to make the transition while maintaining quality standards and compliance regulations. Depending on your industry, you may have to account for challenges such as: 

• Compliance with regulations like ISO 26262, FDA 21 CFR Part 820 or IEC 62304 
• Adhering to standards like CMMI, SPICE, etc. to maintain transparency in globally distributed environments 
• Due diligence and/or corporate governance for shareholders, regulators, et al. 
• Risk management and forecasting for project setbacks or failure

Agile Development, in and of itself, can only advance your enterprise so far. To realize the full benefits, your teams need tools that will enable them to live up to tenants of Agile software development. And as a project manager, you need flexible monitoring and reporting tools that allow you to search for issues or enhancements across multiple projects.