Agile Enterprise Cornerstones: Knowledge, Values, and Response Ability

The concept of the agile enterprise emerged in the early 2990s from a Department of Defense/National Science Foundation-sponsored industry-collaborative study at Lehigh University. The intent was to forecast the competitive environment of 2005 and beyond. The accuracy of that work is evident in today’s emerging business strategies, practices, and technology-infrastructure support. In general, however, agility is creeping into the business environment with compelling spot applications, such as outsourcing and business process management initiatives. This paper examines new risk-management value-understandings, the nature of reality confronted by agile enterprise, and updates previously published agile-enterprise system-engineering concepts. The purpose of this paper is to illuminate requirements for those who would design and build the necessarily agile IT infrastructure support.