ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 begins our discussion of an important agile concept: value. Agile methods are all about delivering value. What exactly do we mean by value? As previously mentioned in Chapter 1, we are referring to business value, a concept that pertains to different variations of value that define the strength and health of a company for the long term. Business value encompasses several types (stakeholder value, increased profits). Projects are taken on to increase business value. This includes producing some type of benefit or improvements to existing services. A company must consider choices and make decisions that maximize business value and reduce risks. A risk does not add value and it must be managed. To summarize, a business must maximize value coming in and minimize value going out of the firm in order to remain profitable. For the purposes of our discussion and in contrast to traditional project management, we are referring to negative risks only.
