..."agile development techniques" (or offshore outsourcing in common parlance-ed)"? .....I'm confused....I thought "agile" referred to a particular style of software development....??????

I think you're right, Mark - I never worked for Mr Ramji but heard a lot about his pioneering work with agile methods, at an industry conference which honoured him with an award because of it. Things like "no project will take more than 3 months" - "no contractor will be paid more than X per day (where X is a terrifyingly small number, if you're in the services business!), and Hothousing (this one is a simple but brilliant way of initiating something) - all sound like common sense but they are really hard to do, especially on a big scale, where you have to build them into your culture. He did them. I suspect life is going to be really quite exciting at Misys Banking Division!