Agile Business Change Blog Thoughts on Agile Strategic Business Change and Agile Delivery

Reading Alex’s recent post regarding the Olympics’ website brought to mind a similar situation faced by the Guardian in 2008, and a simple but effective lesson learned.

The redevelopment of the Guardian content platform and website spanned the last Olympics and therefore the implementation of the microsite became a critical business priority. The approach to development and in particular the architectural approach (which allowed existing and new functionality to seamlessly integrate) meant that this was not an insurmountable challenge.  Indeed, the site was delivered successfully. I often wondered what would have happened had the project not been Agile. Would the additional development have been so seamless?  I suspect the planning and integration would have been a nightmare, and definitely more complex than was experienced.

The reason for mentioning this is however not the success of the project, but an amusing anecdote from the process. One of the new “widgets” provided a summary of the medals table, which would continually sit on the home page. The widget was designed to show the top 3 countries, with the position of Great Britain immediately after (for example 1, 2, 3, 6). Of course when the Olympics commenced Team GB surpassed all expectations. Wins in the velodrome and pool catapulted us into second place, a position we would hold for most of the tournament before finally finishing in an impressive fourth.

When Team GB reached second place we realised that there were no test cases for this situation;  no-one had imagined the degree of success.  Fortunately the widget continued to work as one would hope with no glitches. 

However, it continues to provide me with a great example whenever I’m discussing incremental strategy and value segmentation, “imagine the unthinkable, and prepare”.