Agile + Ecosystems = Tom Peters?

Tom Peters!,
by Pieter Baert.

Tom Peters' book In Search of Excellence listed eight themes that drove success in organizations:

1. A bias for action, active decision making - 'getting on with it'. 
2. Close to the customer - learning from the people served by the business. 
3. Autonomy and entrepreneurship - fostering innovation and nurturing 'champions'. 
4. Productivity through people- treating rank and file employees as a source of quality. 
5. Hands-on, value-driven - management philosophy that guides everyday practice - management showing its commitment. 
6. Stick to the knitting - stay with the business that you know. 
7. Simple form, lean staff - some of the best companies have minimal HQ staff. 
8. Simultaneous loose-tight properties - autonomy in shop-floor activities plus centralized values.
   

Acrobats - Shanghai,
ed by Mel F.

The ZenZui Ecosystem,
by mtlin.

Two of the biggest trends in software development in 2009 are Agile  and Ecosystems.

Peters' eight themes seem to cover a lot of what makes Agile and Ecosystems work.

1. A bias for action, active decision making - 'getting on with it'. Agile 
   
2. Close to the customer - learning from the people served by the business. Agile + Ecosystems
   
3. Autonomy and entrepreneurship - fostering innovation and nurturing 'champions'.
   
4. Productivity through people- treating rank and file employees as a source of quality. Agile
   
5. Hands-on, value-driven - management philosophy that guides everyday practice - management showing its commitment. Agile
   
6. Stick to the knitting - stay with the business that you know. Ecosystems
   
7. Simple form, lean staff - some of the best companies have minimal HQ staff. Ecosystems.
   
8. Simultaneous loose-tight properties - autonomy in shop-floor activities plus centralized values. Agile + Ecosystems
   

This is not surprising since modern development practices, modern business structures and modern studies of business share many common roots. Still it seems that Peters' book is more useful than the average business book .

Having a small number of guidelines helps with getting started on actual work.

There is a good summary of In Search of Excellence in this Fast Company article . Here is an excerpt:

... Love thy people. Love thy customers. Keep it simple. Lean staff, simple organization. Get the bureaucrats out of the bloody way. Pay attention to the "real" people with dirty fingernails. That was the Oakland Raiders. They were the guys flying the Jolly Roger. They were the pirates, the underdogs. Al Davis, their renegade owner, always preached, "Just win, baby," and his avowed message was . . . "Commitment to excellence."

We got it right when we said that we were in search of excellence. Not competitive advantage. Not economic growth. Not market dominance or strategic differentiation. Not maximized shareholder value. Excellence. It's just as true today. Business isn't some disembodied bloodless enterprise. Profit is fine -- a sign that the customer honors the value of what we do. But "enterprise" (a lovely word) is about heart. About beauty. It's about art. About people throwing themselves on the line. It's about passion and the selfless pursuit of an ideal. ...