How Companies Are Using The Agile Method To Innovate Faster

In our previous content piece, we explained what the Agile Method is and its key benefits. As a recap, Agile is a method of working that focuses on small multidisciplinary teams, iterative solution development, customer empathy, and frequent feedback.

But how are companies putting this method into practice to speed up innovation? Well-known companies such as Apple, Microsoft, IBM and Procter & Gamble are already using Agile. As consumer demands increase and technological disruption quickens, more companies are looking to do the same. Here are a couple of examples of companies already transforming using Agile.

Paypal Sees The Payout

Paypal is a market leader that has maintained it’s position through aggressive product innovation and customer acquisition strategies. But in 2009, they saw innovation decelerating. Product release cycles were getting longer - surging from weeks to months. As the company grew bigger, new bottlenecks emerged and their traditional waterfall processes became water dams. Even worse, new competitors were popping up all around.

While John Deere took an incremental approach to Agile adoption, in 2013 Paypal implemented a “Big Bang” enterprise transformation project. Kristen Wolberg, who had recently joined PayPal in 2012, had experience with agile at scale in her past as CIO of salesforce and helped align executive vision with the execution.

To squash the high amount of interdependency between teams, Paypal formed over 300 cross-functional teams and ensured each team had the competencies they needed. They invested in company-wide training around agile. SCRUM masters were hired to help these teams adopt agile processes and align around two-week sprints, moving away from their long project timelines.

And what did they see? When product priorities changed, their tighter, independent teams were able to pivot more quickly. They gathered customer feedback and incorporated it into dynamic, iterative solution concepts. Innovation speeds and quality increased all around.

“Agile contains the idea that we interact with our stakeholders frequently, in our case daily … Getting feedback in a two-week iteration rather than a few weeks after a release that was in development for six months makes a significant difference. When teams put months into something and you find out it does not meet the user’s needs/desires, a company may ship it anyway, meaning that a feature people wanted is not shipping, and a feature with limited value is [shipping instead]. The sunk costs are high, so the company delivers. Their costs continue as they support and maintain that product rather than something that would have been higher value.”
- Ben Cornelius, Director of Localization at PayPal.

Farm Equipment Grows Faster

John Deere , a farm equipment company, first started implementing Agile with their software development team after noticing the demands of their industry increasing rapidly. In 2010 they adopted the Agile Method to improve speed, quality, innovation, teamwork and customer centricity.

Deere started assembling teams based on projects, rather than role disciplines. This meant everyone working on the project was sitting and collaborating together on a constant basis. They also started focusing on the micro-goals and getting feedback and reviews along the way, instead waiting until a full product was ready.

“Breaking work down into smaller increments helped us with some of the quality aspects. The incremental reviews of the work allowed us to put more eyes on the software code more often,” said Tony Thelen, the director of the Intelligent Solutions Group, which is part of the company’s enterprise IT operation.

By implementing agile, Deere sped up innovation project cycles significantly. In some cases, project completion was sped up by more than 75%. Furthermore, employee satisfaction on the teams working on Agile shot up from the bottom third of the company’s scores to the top third. And those types of results don’t stay in the shadows. Today almost every area at John Deere is using or starting to use agile.

Fitbit Flexes Its Agility

Fitbit started in 2007 with a goal of empowering people with data to help them lead healthier lives. However, with Fitbit’s fast growth came speed bumps. As it’s company size reached new heights, it’s processes slowed. The company had to evolve to continue meeting consumer needs quickly or face market share loss to nimbler competitors.

Main holidays such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s and Father’s Day drove major sales. That meant target dates were inflexible when it came to delivering new products. Fitbit had to work faster, and at scale. In 2015, Fitbit adopted the Agile Method to speed up and scale product development, adapt to market trends quicker, and break down team dependencies.

Fitbit moved its teams from up-front, long range planning to implementing a more iterative and experiment-focused process. This allowed them to catch issues faster and implement frequent feedback to deliver the highest quality products to their customer. The company started adding more and more teams, focusing them on specific projects and cutting off cross-departmental dependencies.

The company saw serious results immediately. After a year of leveraging a scaled agile approach, Fitbit saw a 33% increase in velocity year over year and achieved 100% delivery on objectives. They released four new products, shipped over 22 million devices, and what’s more - team engagement rose.

“SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework for Enterprise) has been a successful story for us. It allowed us to grow our team in a seamless way that integrated cross-functional groups and aligned with the company’s long-term strategy,” said Sr. Director of Program Management Office.

These companies have helped demonstrate not only how effective Agile can be, but how it can be implemented at scale even across large, international companies.

“We’re seeing companies going through rapid change and digital transformation due to the pandemic. Agile is one of the successful ways companies are innovating faster. Many of these companies are looking for guidance on what new talent, leaders, and experts they need to adapt and grow their business,” Ari Aronson, Founder & CEO of Ari Agency

Are you interested in becoming more agile? Contact us today to see how we can help you grow with our network of agile experts, innovation-focused executives and flexible talent.