Hi everyone. I'm new to the group (having learned of it from the
distinguished Ilja Preuss).

I am helping a large Fortune 500 launch a new business unit. We're
facing a number of challenges including finding enough developers fast
enough, defining the business as we being the sprints (.i.e we don't
have a business model already created and running, we're still in the
process of doing that), and trying to get agile culture to fit into
the larger organization. This last point is part of a larger cultural
issue--we're running like a startup within a large company and it
doesn't fit into all their processes.

My first question is does anyone have any general experience and tips
in doing something like this? I've run Scrum projects before, but at
startups. Doing it at a larger organization has some unique challenges.

We are currently starting iteration 1, which is beginning to build one
small piece of the system, while we continue to design the rest of the
system (e.g. imagine beginning to code up a user account system for
Amazon wile the rest of the site is being design).

One challenge we're facing is that some high level executives are now
concerned over how the project is progressing and want regular
updates--they are used to Microsoft Project GANTT charts, excel charts
with deadlines and stop lighting (e.g. yellow light, we're behind
schedule but it's not critical).

How do we map our agile process into the traditional project plans
used by upper management for their corporate planning?

--Mark