Another Purpose for Agility: Sustainability

Abstract

This position paper aims at building a short narrative on what has been the need for agility, its evolution, and a possible re-purpose based on our global sustainable development challenges. Agile implies that a software development team (or now entire organizations) should be resilient, adaptable, and quickly learn, which is also a great capability featured by nature. However, the justification for becoming agile is being a chorus of voices repeating the same mantra: competitive advantage. The evolution of agility could be shaped by forces of cooperation, instead of only of competition, with a purpose to enable a better and more sustainable future for society. There is a strong case for inter- and trans-disciplinarity in agile, technology and sustainable development research, where agility has definitely a role.