Can Agile Actually Work Outside of IT?
Organisations across a variety of industries — from financial services to government departments, charities and everything in between — have successfully transformed the way they work.
There’s a reason progressive organisations are looking to take agile out of the digital product world and are trying to figure out how to make it work across areas like marketing, finance, HR, legal and operations.
Agile’s roots — lean, agile manufacturing and organisational learning — actually originated outside of software development, in places like Toyota. If we can apply those methodologies in the digital product space, why can’t they be applied to any team? ‘Scrum’ is not ‘Agile’ per se, and where pure Scrum may not make a lot of sense outside of IT, the agile principles are flexible enough so that the benefits can be seen almost anywhere.
If we look at the 12 basic agile principles above, it’s clear that they are relevant and can broadly be applied to any team. Customer focus, intrinsically motivated people and reflection and learning are not new ideas. It’s not rocket science knowing that most teams should be incorporating these principles into the way they work.
Some of the most immediate benefits teams normally see when they apply agile principles are improved communication and collaboration, as well as better visual management of work. We’ve even seen plenty of examples where people have applied the same concepts in their personal life — what better way to manage your own life projects (e.g. planning a wedding) than with your own Kanban board!
What happens when you apply these concepts to your entire organisation? Ultimately, it’s a cultural change. The end goal is healthy, high performing teams; and happy customers. Somewhere in the process, you might also implement a learning mindset, more innovation and faster delivery of value.
It’s important to remember that agile isn’t a silver bullet. It’s not the answer to every problem. However, adopting this style of working is very good for identifying all the problems — and where best to focus your efforts.
Adopting agile ways of working means adopting a new mindset. It’s a mindset of learning, innovation, transparency, collaboration and focus.
In fact, in the longer term, organisations should move away from using terms like ‘agile’ and focus on the mindset factors, and how to best achieve them in the context of their own workplace.
Logically, we know agile concepts can be applied to almost any team. But are there real-life examples of actual success stories?
The answer is yes.
Organisations across a variety of industries — from financial services to government departments, charities and everything in between — have successfully transformed the way they work.
So, can agile concepts be applied in industries where this style of working hasn’t even been considered yet? We’ve identified the need for change for a variety of teams — and for some, agile isn’t even on their radar. One example is in policy creation. Bringing agile principles and product thinking into the creation of government policy wouldn’t only reduce the time it takes to do so; it would also bring the end customer — Australian citizens — closer to the process. This could deliver numerous benefits to society.
Unless you want your organisation to become the next obsolete DVD or CD when everyone is streaming Netflix and listening to Spotify, you should be constantly thinking about how to provide better products and services to your end customer and understand what it takes to really enable the best outcomes from your people.
Hi, I’m Rob. By day, I’m a General Manager at Beaker & Flint, where I help organisations unlock their potential and get on the digital front foot. By night you can find me making a bbq or planning my next overseas adventure.
If this post sparked a question or idea you want to run by me, I’d love to chat it over with you. Reach out via the comments below or by email here.
