About us

After working at IBM and experiencing its embryonic approach to a new agile philosophy, Keith Richards recognised that agile was the future. He left to set up agileKRC, offering agile consulting services to organisations.

In the mid-nineties, RAD (Rapid Application Development) became the rage in the IT industry but just as quickly fell into disrepute.

Keith saw that RAD’s advantages could potentially solve many drawbacks of the common ‘waterfall’ approach. He realised that agile needed to be conducted with the right level of control and governance or it would result in the problems that were putting people off RAD.

So just when most large UK consultancy companies were pulling out of agile, agileKRC was moving in.

PRINCE2^® was now becoming the dominant method in project management. Although seen by many as bureaucratic, it did manage projects in a sensible and controlled way.

Keith began pioneering ways of integrating its strengths with the benefits of agile. Keith believed that the secret was to apply PRINCE2 in pragmatic ways to suit the individual needs of every customer.

agileKRC soon became the leading authority in this area.

The agile manifesto was published, signaling the arrival of a new breed of lightweight approaches to software development.

agileKRC saw the potential of these and started integrating them into the agileKRC approach and evolving industry best practices.

One of the early agile frameworks DSDM was growing in popularity. Its focus on a collaborative ‘timeboxed’ approach to delivery and a rich communication environment offered many advantages over PRINCE2.

agileKRC identified DSDM as a key agile approach for the future but not to the exclusion of others.

agileKRC developed workshops and courses for customers needing help with scaling agile to fit into larger and more complex corporate cultures.

Keith became a director of the DSDM consortium and within months was the new Technical Director. He created a vision to evolve DSDM into something fit for the new millennium.

Keith’s vision kept the core DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Methodology) which was fundamentally robust but expanded it to integrate with newer approaches, and to make it work better in non-IT projects.

Keith approached APMG International with a view to taking DSDM to a wider audience. This resulted in a DSDM Foundation qualification. Later Keith helped APMG develop plans to create an agile project management qualification.

Keith investigated and researched how to evolve DSDM. Keith’s team consulted with the agile community, challenged existing ideas, and canvassed a wide variety of opinions. Work on the new framework began.

Keith was the lead author and led a team of 30 people to create the updated DSDM framework (DSDM Atern).

This version of DSDM later evolved into the successful AgilePM^® qualification for project managers.

Keith wrote the ground-breaking book ‘Agile Project Management: running PRINCE2 projects with DSDM’.

agileKRC materials and input shaped the next steps in the evolution of DSDM. This becomes a new qualification for agile project managers in the form of AgilePM.

The corporate strength agile project management qualification (AgilePM) was launched by APMG. agileKRC was at the forefront of creating and delivering this qualification.

Keith was voted ‘Most Valuable Agile Player UK’ by his peers in the agile community. This was a proud moment for agileKRC – recognition for a decade’s work promoting the wider acceptance of agile.

With the growth of Scrum, agileKRC started helping organisations apply Scrum in larger enterprise-wide contexts. Keith co-authored ‘The DSDM project framework for SCRUM’, describing how aspects of DSDM’s Agile Project Framework can complement an organisation’s existing Scrum practices.

AXELOS selected Keith to be the lead author and Chief Examiner for PRINCE2 Agile^®.

This is now an accredited PRINCE2 Agile course and qualification that builds on people’s existing knowledge of PRINCE2 and enables them to tailor PRINCE2 in an agile context.

Keith was selected to be the agile mentor for the next update to PRINCE2, the world’s most popular project management method. This update offered clearer guidance on tailoring PRINCE2 on agile projects.

agileKRC was independently verified as a Leader for Agile Project Management training in the Trusted Training Radar® report.

For the 2^nd year running agileKRC was independently verified again as a Leader for its Agile Project Management courses in the Trusted Training Radar® report.

For the 3^rd successive year, agileKRC again achieved Leader status for its Agile Project Management courses in the Trusted Training Radar® report.

agileKRC continues to be prominent in today’s agile community – always eager to learn, challenge, develop and contribute for the common good.

agileKRC regularly presents at conferences and seminars and are proud to be seen as thought leaders in this growing and vibrant community.