Cruising Down the Agile Stream Agile approaches do not prescribe a standard operating model. Organizations must determine what specific capabilities are relevant in their customer context and experiment (people, process, technology, and operating model) by using pilot projects and fine-tuning their approach. The best way to introduce agile techniques is to eliminate large waterfall projects immediately, and replace them with work designed to be accomplished quickly. When that work is tested with customers and they react positively, project managers and developers begin to see the benefits of receiving immediate feedback. They will warm to their task—especially if their efforts are reinforced and rewarded by management. Although this may sound straightforward, in practice it requires time, patience, and persistence. An anecdote from our experience shows that leaders can make an important difference. We recall being at an executive meeting with a retailer’s functional heads, who were striving to become more agile. After a presentation and discussion on what an agile transformation required, the head of store operations stood up to volunteer that his group be the first to adopt agile. It turned out that company wanted to relaunch a new mobile application for store associates, and the executive wanted to provide his staff members with capabilities to do their jobs better. While stores are typically the most challenging environments in which to introduce agile, this executive saw the urgency of the need to change and seized the chance.