It’s been about two decades since Agile as an ideology was born. Utilizing incremental and quick delivery via small release cycles and breaking down a task into multiple steps to enable cross-functionality between teams, Agile reduces the feedback cycle and increases collaboration, visibility and communication.
Over the years, Agile has forayed into different fields. While software remains the face of the Agile ideology, it has tasted success in hospitality, construction, marketing and advertising, among other industries. In this month’s newsletter, we take a look at some of Agile’s successes beyond IT and Software.
Beginner’s Guide to Kanban for Agile Marketing
At the core of Kanban lies a paradox: by limiting the amount of work we do, we become more productive. Although Kanban was adapted to knowledge work only a few years ago, the concept of kanban has been around for decades. In this article, Andrea Fryrear explains Kanban in detail from its origin to its application in the field of Marketing.
Hospitality and Agile
The hospitality industry, which has been severely affected in the past year, has struggled to return to the state it used to be in. In this article, Josh Galund discusses how the hospitality industry can join the Agile movement.
How the British Field Army HQ shifted to Agile
In this interview conducted by McKinsey, the HQ Field Army — the branch of the British Army responsible for the generation and preparation of soldiers on operations around the world – discusses how shifting to an agile way of working enabled them to not only respond quickly to new opportunities, but also gave their workforce the freedom to flourish.
Agile in Construction
Despite the nature of its sequentially organized projects, there have been many efforts to adopt Agile principles in the Construction industry. In this conference paper, Glenn Stracusser writes about the application of Agile principles in a project to construct a commercial nuclear power plant. We’d love to hear your feedback around whether you think they were “agile enough” or not!
Industries that would Benefit from Agile Innovation
Agile is not a ‘magic bullet’ solution. However, Agile approaches do help us define innovation using tangible criteria. Markets and consumers can turn on a dime and leaders must be both reliable and flexible if they are to withstand fluctuation. In other words, they must innovate to succeed. In this article, Alex Chenery-Howes and Shane Hastie analyze different industries that are struggling with innovation in 2021 and the impact Agile could have on them.
Product Updates
We launched a new set of capabilities on SwiftEnterprise and SwiftKanban recently! It was important for us to build capabilities that help our users devote more time to value-added work. To this effect we’ve launched End User Business Rules to help automate repetitive or manual tasks, thereby saving valuable time and effort. You’ll find more details here and some use cases here.