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Insight Articles

As the use of Agile increases so too does the need for appropriate governance. The answer does not lie in standard Agile methodologies.

There is growing interest in exploiting Agile development across both the public and private sector. But concerns about governance are either restricting its use to non-critical projects or resulting in its use for technical delivery only within a more traditional waterfall based project. Either way, the intended benefits of Agile are not being realised by many organisations.

Can any control be imposed without losing the inherent flexibility of the Agile approach?

There’s a danger that the overuse and misuse of the word “cloud” can lead to apathy and ultimately put your business at a disadvantage by not harnessing the overwhelming benefits that cloud computing can deliver. This paper highlights how cloud computing is a mature technology, with the launch of Hotmail in 1996 heralding the dawn of an new era in the consumerisation of technology and explains in plain terms what cloud computing is.

There were three excellent presentations at yesterday's NFP seminar, and a stimulating and interesting debate about how to get the best out of what is likely to be diminished funding levels in the future. Summary notes and the presentation slides are:

The BBC Olympics 2012 website represents a significant undertaking. It's planned to have more than 12,000 pages with individual pages for athletes, teams and event, and thousands of hours of on-demand video. With a dynamic website of this size, the management and “orchestration” of the content is a huge challenge. Particularly when it covers reports, results and statistics, all with live updates.

The wealth management industry is experiencing significant growth, and to meet the challenges in control and risk management it must undergo major changes in its use of IT. It is a sector that often has legacy IT systems and processes that require significant effort and cost to sustain a steady state. 

Customer service is most often thought about in the context of large corporate call centres many of whom provide excellent service (Amazon and first direct are often held up as prime examples), but equally with some well known cases who provide appalling service to their customers with long waiting queues, tortuous telephone menus and dreadful operatives (it’s probably best not to name the guilty here). Significant research and practical experience have gone into understanding best practice for customer service.

Membership organisations are, by their very nature, organisations that provide services for their members (and potentially other customers). Providing the best possible service experience is something that is not often considered, but is of great importance to help to ensure that members renew their membership and that the services can be provided cost effectively.

IndigoBlue has released a case study and white paper “Using Agile in Government Agencies” describing the successful piloting of Agile methods at the Home Office.

The project was part of a wider research programme managed by the Institute for Government’s (IfG) which looked at improving IT delivery in Government.

User generated content (UGC) is widely used by organisations to create deeper engagement with customers and other stakeholders, and to reduce content-production and marketing costs. There are also risks associated with UGC of brand damage and legal problems arising from misuse. To mitigate against these pitfalls you should plan carefully for its introduction by:

Looking at the Wikipedia entry for "agile project management", we were reminded that there are many myths and misinformed views surrounding this very adaptable method of delivering projects. Certainly it started us thinking about how we could update and better inform the article, but before we took that step we thought we'd try exploring and explaining some of our reasoning in a post of our own: just to provide balance to some of the alternative views of Agile that are out there.

Our Agile Matters Blog recently ran a series of posts for the A - Z of Agile.

The Contents List for the series is:

Introduction

Despite years of investment, CRM, Donor and Membership systems have failed organisations and individuals. The days of mass communication to homogenised groups is drawing to a close. This paper reviews the root causes of the failures and looks to the opportunities that are now available for organisations to communicate more effectively and support improved engagement with members, donors and other important stakeholders.

16
FEB

Agile Methodologies

16 FEB 2010 | Posted in agile methodology, DSDM, RUP, scrum, XP

This article gives an introduction to four methodologies used for Agile software development:

16
FEB

Agile FAQ

16 FEB 2010 | Posted in agile approach, agile project management, DSDM, scrum, XP

Answers to our top 9 frequently asked questions about Agile:

Social Media – all the rage

One of the much talked about social phenomena of recent times is the startling take up of Social Media and Social Enterprises – Web 2.0 – from Facebook to Twitter, from Blogging to Wikipedia. Facebook might have just passed its fifth birthday, but it, together with other social networking sites, are becoming essential elements of people’s lives. These sites are becoming platforms for local action as well as methods for engagement between people without international boundaries.

21
NOV

IndigoBlue supports IPC Media

21 NOV 2008 | Posted in kanban, lean | Author Rob Hathaway

News

21st Nov 2008

IPC Media is a leading UK consumer magazine publisher. Almost two in every three UK women and 44% of UK men read an IPC magazine. That's almost 26 million UK adults. IPC titles include NME, InStyle, Nuts, Now and Marie Claire.

05
APR

Agile CIO Solutions

05 APR 2008

Find out about IndigoBlue's IT and Business Strategy services and Agile CIO; our long term solution to IT business alignment.

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