Agility Beyond Software and IT

When people hear “Agile,” many still think: standups, sprints, story points. In other words, they think Scrum. They think software development.

But that’s only part of the picture.

Agility was born in a software context, but the values behind it? They’re human. Universal. And imho they apply far beyond code.

In fact, some of the most exciting examples of agility today are showing up in places that have nothing to do with Jira tickets or Git repos...

The Four Values, Reimagined

Let’s strip out the software-specific language for a moment and look at what the Agile Manifesto is really saying:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

• Working solutions over comprehensive documentation

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

• Responding to change over following a plan

These are not rules. They’re values meant to help teams of all kinds navigate uncertainty, complexity, and change with intention.

So how do they show up outside of tech?

Agility in Education, Healthcare, Marketing & More

• Education: Teachers adapting lesson plans in real time based on student needs. Prioritizing classroom interaction over rigid testing schedules. Small feedback loops, iterative improvement, learning by doing.

• Healthcare: Cross-functional care teams adjusting treatment plans in response to evolving diagnoses. Emphasizing team communication over procedural bottlenecks. Collaborating with patients and families, not just handing down plans and prescriptions.

• Marketing: Campaign teams launching MVPs, gathering real-time response data, and iterating quickly instead of sticking to months-long fixed campaigns. Brainstorming over briefing. Co-creation over command-and-control.

• Government & Public Services: Policy teams piloting programs, gathering citizen feedback, and refining initiatives rather than locking into five-year plans. Transparency, accountability, and responsiveness as built-in feedback loops.

• Everyday Businesses: From your local coffee shop to your gym or neighborhood market, small businesses benefit when teams work together, value real-time feedback, and adapt quickly to customer needs. Agility isn't just for big systems - it thrives in small, people-centered places too!!

Wherever complexity lives, agility can help.

Same Principles, Different Practices

What changes across these domains isn’t the values — it’s the implementation. Agility isn’t about what tools you use. It’s about whether your team or organization is:

• Prioritizing collaboration

• Delivering usable outcomes

• Welcoming feedback and change

• Learning and adapting as you go

That’s not software-specific, it’s human-specific.

Why It Matters Now

In a world that’s getting faster, we need ways of working that adapt rather than snap. The good news? We already have a tested, values-based foundation that supports this. We just need to stop treating it like it only applies to developers and/or IT.

Agility is a way of being that works in any complex, people-powered environment. It’s already alive in classrooms, boardrooms, clinics, nonprofits, and studios, whether we call it “Agile” or not.

So maybe the real work now isn’t reinventing agility. It’s recognizing it, wherever it shows up, and making space for more of it.

Next Up

In the next article, we explore why Adaptability Is the Heart of Agility. While the Agile Manifesto never uses the word 'adaptability,' the concept runs through every value and principle. We'll dig into how and why adaptability isn’t just part of agility, it’s the essence of it.