This is, of course, not a complete list of what is valuable.  However, these are concepts outside of mainstream Agile, although many approaches recommend some of them.

A note about the content here. Unfortunately, much of what’s on this list isn’t well known. Worse, much of it is now being discussed by those who were (or still are) denying its value as recently as five years ago. You don’t go from debunker to expert in that period of time. I ask that people use their own judgement on whether these concepts make sense.

1. Systems-Thinking
2. Lean-Thinking
   • Lean Management (Towards Middle Up Down Management)
   • Value streams
   • Value Stream Impedance Scorecard
3. Flow-Thinking
4. Minimum Business Increments
5. The value of cross-functional teams
6. Test-First
7. Emergent Design

Systems Thinking

Systems thinking is considering a system to be an interrelated and interdependent set of parts which is defined by its boundaries and is more than the sum of its parts (subsystems). Changing one part of the system affects other parts and the whole system, with predictable patterns of behavior. Positive growth and adaptation of a system depend upon how well the system is adjusted with its environment, and systems often exist to accomplish a common purpose (a work function) that also aids in the maintenance of the system or the operations may result in system failure. The goal of systems thinking is systematically discovering a system’s dynamics, constraints, conditions and elucidating principles (purpose, measure, methods, tools, etc.) that can be discerned and applied to systems at every level of nesting, and in every field for achieving an optimized end state through various means.

• If Russ Ackoff had Given a TED Talk (12 min)
• Systems Thinking and How It Can Be Applied to Frameworks and Methods

Lean-Thinking

Lean-Thinking originates from Toyota but has been extended by several Lean thinkers to apply to products being developed that has a software component.

• The Essence of Lean Thinking
• The Role of Leadership and Management
• Value streams
  • • Mapping Your Value Stream
    • Why Looking at the Value Stream Is So Important
    • Using the Value Stream to Get to Root Cause With ‘Five-Whys’
    • The Value Stream of the Effective Organization 
    • The Value Stream Impedance Scorecard (VSIS)

Flow-Thinking

• What is flow?
• Using the Theory of Flow to Find Your Impediments 

Minimum Business Increments

Minimum business increments are an essential part of Agile at scale where the coordination of realizable value must be accomplished by more than one team.

• Minimum Business Increments (MBIs)
• How Using MBIs Ties Strategies, the Intake Process, ATDD, and Planning Together
• Why WSJF Should Be Done on MBIs and Not Features or Epics
• Managing Large and Small MBIs
• Focus on Finishing Stories in the Sprint and on Finishing MBIs in the Program Increment

The value of cross-functional teams

Scrum works, when it does, because of its focus on cross-functional teams.

• Cross-Functional Teams: Improving Communication Between People who Work Together (Case Study)
• How Lean Thinking Helps Scrum
• Dynamic Feature Teams: Creating Small Mobs Within a Large Group (Case Study)  This case study shows how many tenets of Scrum need to be modified to work in situations where stable Scrum teams are not the best, but the intention of cross-functional teams is still needed.

Test-First

• Benefits of Acceptance Test-Driven Development using Behavior-Driven Development

Emergent Design

1. • Avoiding Over and Under Design in Agile Projects (Webinar Session)