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I’ve written numerous blogs here about Agile practices and methods that go outside of software development such as my recent one about the government adoption of Agile, to orchestras that are run without conductors, and even baby planning using Scrum. Another example I just found is an article about how the news radio channel NPR is using Agile, to develop and release radio programs faster and cheaper.
It seems the traditional method of developing new NPR programs involved a waterfall like process of a lot of upfront planning, time and costs to create a new show that could be prepared for launch. New programs were typically deployed slowly taking months to years and had costs in the upwards of millions of dollars.
Compounding this issue is the current economic downturn that has cut into the public radio funding. I’m sure the 2011 scandal involving the former high ranking NPR executive blasting the ultra conservative tea party as being blanket racists and critiquing their solicitation of taxpayer money certainly didn’t help.
Due to this, the new NPR vice president of programming, Eric Nuzum, decided to use Agile to develop their programs where more of their potential listeners had an active involvement, while also delivering the programs quicker and with less money:
The network seems to be taking a page from agile software development, the philosophy that products should be released early and iterated often. The shows are live (cheap) and/or adaptations of existing shows (easy), all produced in six- or 10- or 13-episode pilot runs instead of as permanent offerings. Listeners and local program directors are invited to help shape the sound of the programs, making it something of a public beta... Nuzum said the nimble approach to programming is more or less the new normal at NPR. “Whether [these shows] have a future or not, I’m really proud of what we’ve come up with,” he said. “The bigger experiment is the process…This wouldn’t have been possible a couple of years ago.”
While I’d have to say that their use of Agile would be more “in spirit” than in principle, I will nevertheless grant that this is another great example of Agile thinking and mindset influenced by the Agile software development movement, that is being utilized outside software development.
Posted on: August 16, 2012 08:04 PM |
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