This case study sheds light on two sides of the coin -- Intrigue's needs on the one hand and the way they were addressed through the technical debt assessment on the other. In the course of describing this specific engagement, the case study outlines some of the very many benefits to be had by reining in technical debt.

Chances are that your IT organization is structured in different departments, such as development, quality control, and operations. Although the names may vary across companies, the idea is to group people that execute similar work or have similar expertise. When you go around and ask people why this grouping is helpful, the answers typically revolve around easier management, consistency in work approach, better communication, and knowledge sharing.

Each of the lessons, or "apparent truths," presented in this Executive Report was discovered by one or more firms who actually went through an agile implementation process. The lessons include a need for a single definition of agile, a focus on agile as a quality process applied to software development, the anecdotal evidence that companies are drowning in "technical debt," a few lessons related to leadership skills, and a caution about using Scrum.

No discussion of current software development fails to mention Agile techniques like XP and Scrum; but do they work? How effective are Agile methodologies? How can we tell? In this webinar, Cutter Senior Consultant Michael Mah provides the answers to these questions in his exploration of how five companies, all ostensibly "agile", produced a range of quantitative results and resulting impact on time-to-market, staffing, and quality for each.