Do you want your donors to truly love your products? Be agile..

There are probably a million blogs yelling at you to use agile with things like ‘fail early’, ‘ engaging sprint reviews’ and ‘better collaboration’. All good points, but in my experience the number 1 reason to make your product development process agile is that...


You will start to build products and services that your donors will love.

When I first learnt agile it literally blew my mind and changed my entire ethos as to how I develop products & services. Releasing features more frequently means that you are getting feedback quickly and are more responsive to change, continuously striving to make stuff better


So…what is agile/scrum?
Agile in its simplest sense is a way to deliver projects that puts the customer at the core of everything you do. It is a collaborative approach where the project team- a scrum will work towards a common goal, but deliver it in achievable, bite-sized chunks in a series of sprints. At the end of each sprint the product or service is showcased to the stakeholders & customers for feedback at the sprint review. Simple, right?

At each iteration of the development, you should be adding real customer value. A great example is by using a Minimum Viable Product approach. 

So, in an ever-increasing digital world where donor needs and requirements are frequently changing, you must be adaptable to the changes quickly or risk losing engagement or just not being relevant at all.


Real world experience
I was tasked with taking over a flagship project that was severely delayed and losing traction within the company. 

This gave me the opportunity to lead the project in a ‘real’ agile way, not just a daily stand up and a fortnightly sprint review but taking it back to the core principle; asking ourselves what does the donor actually need? We realised all they really needed a way to sign up to regular giving in an easy way, via the web. 

We delivered the minimum viable product in just 6 weeks and saw an increase in both the volume and value of customers donating; simply because we made what they wanted!

Our top tips..

1. ·     Put the user at the core of everything you do and learn to love insights
2. ·     Understand the real problem you are trying to solve
3. ·     Be adaptable to change & always look to improve
4. ·     Your competitors are probably already doing it.:-)

Or ask us. We are running a free ‘Introduction to agile’ session which can be run at your office, or via webinar. Email adam@innovationtribe.co.uk to sign up!


About the author
Adam Fagg is an entrepreneurial and strategic thinking leader with a proven track record of delivering commercially successful and industry recognised propositions.
He is a founding partner in Innovation Tribe www.innovationtribe.co.uk, a product and service development group dedicated to helping companies and charities delivering amazing new products and services that customers love.


Using an insight led approach, the tribe help organisations solve problems, create and launch new products & services and deliver real, sustainable change all in an agile framework.