Who would have thought it: One of the challenges of agile is the word “agile”. It implies a fad and thus discourages or inspires people without them understanding the substance of “agile”. That’s why James Plunkett makes an interesting recommendation in an article worth reading: say goodbye to the word “agile” and concentrate on the substance.
His first approach: companies should focus on the basic principles of how good products/services are designed. This means that they should start by defining their problem in terms of user needs. It is also important to build workable solutions quickly and easily. These should then be shown and adapted to the customers/users.
Learning from history
The second approach consists of a look at history. In contrast to the past, even a small company can now use digital technologies to reach millions of people with an instance of its product or service. Revisions are inexpensive and can be immediately checked for functionality. In short: Iterative methods, in which companies build up something quickly so that they can change it earlier, are more economical than in the past. Furthermore, testing in practice has gained in importance.
Historical change explains why testing – and thus the creation of a functioning product/service as early as possible – is more important now than it was years ago. This is due to the transition from a production-based economy to a service-based economy and the greater importance of user-friendliness.
The heart of the matter
The conclusion of the author: Agile is not a fad. Rather, it represents a new way of organizing people who do good work and reflect real changes in the way the economy works. We share this view: Words alone are empty shells, they can be unsettling. It’s the content that counts – also when it comes to CRM and software selection.
The be-all and end-all is customer orientation. In the article “Successful digitization needs customer orientation” it is described that companies must put the needs of their various customer groups at the center of their activities. The target group should be the driver, which often hides behind buzzwords such as “digitization” – or “agile” – to fulfill the purpose so that its positive potential can unfold.
Testing also counts. It provides information about the current wishes and expectations of customers. This enables companies to align themselves with them. Digital experimentation means more than just the occasionally known A/B testing, as you can read here.
By the way: You can find an example of the importance of user-friendliness in our postcard: “The right software is really fun for all employees!
With this in mind: picked up!
Note: This is a machine translation. It is neither 100% complete nor 100% correct. We can therefore not guarantee the result.
