With the widespread adoption of agile methods for project management and product development within large organizations, more and more groups are trying to experiment with these agile methods on real projects. Most learning materials on agile methods assume that a person is using these techniques in a rather small organization -- few agile resources talk about governance and the necessary constraints that apply to any project (agile or otherwise) executing within a complex (possibly even regulated) environment.

This presentation will explain how agile management methods align with standard corporate governance models. In particular, where agile methods interact with business "stage gates" that control the funding of new projects through management approvals of business cases. The presentation will explain how early agile project activities (often grouped together and called "iteration zero") fulfill fiduciary requirements for business governance and how they compare with traditional project management approaches. Also explored will be how pilots or proofs of concept play an important role in the governance of new product development projects, including both agile and traditional approaches.