RED FLAG. This was the text I received from a woman I’d been mentoring for a year or so. She had recently been promoted to a senior management position in the software division of a large technology company. We had developed our own language for when she had a serious professional problem. Texting RED FLAG was a call to action.

We met that evening, and she shared the reason for her text.

Eighteen months ago, her division had adopted the Agile methodology, which is basically a set of principles for software development where requirements and solutions progress with collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. Agile introduces a new way of thinking, speaking, and acting, including its own vocabulary. Her division had fully committed to it, and it had experienced extraordinary results.

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