Agile outside of technology projects: Your Experiences

Agile is not a method or process, Agile is not related to software or IT, Agile did not start with the Manifesto. Agile is a practice that was formally born in 1990 as an alternative to Lean. So, you can apply Agile in everything if and only if you make an impact analysis first and you understand your whole enteprise architecture. This activity is not new. Belongs to business analysis field from the very begining. Unfortunatelly because Agile becomes a buzzword then most of the people do not understand what Agile is. For example, your list in the answer to Brian Cohn has not sense (generally speaking) about Agile. Things like "embrace changes" are not understanding at all. But, go to the basement. Relating to original post perhaps this will help:
https://hbr.org/1986/01/the-new-new-product-development-game
https://hbr.org/2016/04/the-secret-history-of-agile-innovation
https://www.scruminc.com/wp-content/upload...-with-Agile.pdf
https://steveblank.com/2016/11/10/how-the-...vation-culture/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-agile-...e-title-publish
"Perfectly Positioned", http://www.pmnetwork-digital.com/pmnetwork/april_2016?pg=73#pg73

Joshua,

This subject was raised a lot and we are very interested in the feedback just ike you are but unfortnately, there wasn't much feedback probabably because Agile is still new to industries other than software.

Check this link:

https://www.projectmanagement.com/discussi...ology-projects-

My first experience with kanban was in manufacturing. The Agile process has evolved a little to become something more separate and distinct, leading to it becoming a framework in its own right rather than a process of lean. Agile itself takes within it the lean mindset of working to continuously improve and try to eliminate waste - and that is probably I think its biggest value to non-project work.

So I guess maybe the question isn't can or where should Agile be used, but how do you think one could further develop Lean to be more useful outside of manufacturing?

Joshua -

Lean is evolving beyond manufacturing - if you think of the old 6 M's model which evolved into the 6 P's model to address services, or the heavy use of lean in healthcare, telcos and other human oriented services work there is definite growth.

However, just as with agile, adaptation is needed.

For example, when looking at a manufacturing process which is predominantly driven by machines, you can strive for a very high (80+%) process efficiency level. When we deal with a predominantly human driven process, it's almost impossible to get over 50% process efficiency just based on the unpredictability and variation of human beings.

Kiron

Damn, humans are so unreliable ;-)