An Agile Approach to Peace?

For the past 2 years, I’ve been working with a Baptist minister, Rev. Jeffrey Brown to help him fund and scale his violence reduction work. Rev. Brown has spent the past 25+ years helping Boston and 21 other communities reduce violence. His TED talk tells the story about the The Boston Miracle — a 29 consecutive month period of zero juvenile homicides.

As I learned more about him and his approach, it sounded very familiar. It took me a while to figure out why. Then, one day as I was listening to one of his fascinating stories, it hit me.

His approach was nearly identical to the agile approach to building software/products.

Let me explain. In Boston in the early 1990’s, youth violence was spiraling out of control, as it was in many cities. Police, community and clergy all were trying to combat…