If I’m concerned about the company’s ability to support or service my purchase in the years ahead, I may be a little concerned about the manufacturer and the manufacturing process as it impacts their profitability.

Great title for an article. Although I’m not in IT and a little removed from the software side of the business, I can appreciate the subject content.

I agree with you, when purchasing a software package you shouldn’t worry about the methodology that was used to produce it. In addition, I fully support your point that Agile does work and quite well I would add.

As a believer, I find we use to wrong approach to promote Agility to organizations. We put too much emphasis on the processes and tools required to do it right as opposed to the actual benefits that Agility brings to the organization.

If we want to improve software development and positively improve people’s live, we need to do a better job at promoting agility. Everyone will benefit.

It is also true that your won’t decide the car to buy based on how it was manufactured. The same applies to software. If it works, who cares if it was implemented using methodology A, B or C?

However, if your are not buying software (as a package) but you are developing your own custom software, then the methodology you use is in fact very important and you should care!

Agile DOES work. There are a lot of great examples out there of how organizations (not IT geeks) are using Agile to deliver real business value, ROI and all other non technical things they care about.

Take a look at http://blog.outsystems.com/aboutagility for a bunch of examples from real companies that have real success stories to tell.