8 Reasons to Use Agile Tools in a Non-IT Business

Updated July 6th, 2023

Agile tools allow team members to collaborate and share updates through various stages to create a flexible work process that adapts to changing events, even in a non-IT sector or with a non-IT project.

Using Agile tools and agile processes in a non-IT sector is common practice now.

Agile methodology increases performance and delivers valuable products by adapting to changing events in the workplace. Agile tools ensure a quick response to changes in every production stage with work items, including team communication, task & project management, issue tracking, and knowledge sharing.

Many industries benefit from this management method, including sectors such as marketing, education, car manufacturing, publishing, transportation, and recruiting.

Still, deciding what management tools you want to implement for your company can be difficult.

This article discusses why a non-IT company needs a management solution, and how Agile technologies can solve many of your project problems.

Explore pricing for development teams for software projects or agile development work.

Why You Should Use Agile Tools

Agile tools can improve your business, especially when your company deals with large projects. Learn the perfect time to implement agile tools depending on your situation:

1) You Often Work With Unpredictable, Large Projects

Most companies use the Agile approach as a response to evolving projects or issues like backlogs. Many businesses struggle with creating a flexible project system that encourages collaboration in a large community. Agile helps foster adaptability within large companies with cross-functional teams.

For example, many small companies depend on email as their main form of communication. Still, as the company grows with more projects and deals, the effectiveness of email decreases. 

Businesses need a tool that makes it easy for employees to prioritize tasks and guide teams throughout project stages. 

Agile tools like Jira Software, Kanban boards, or Trello can help businesses overcome these problems. These project management tools allow businesses to divide projects into smaller tasks and self-organizing these work items or tasks into groups by sprints.

Each small task has only one person responsible for its completion. The manager can monitor these tasks depending on overall project progress or by sprints. This Agile method allows businesses to change the initial plan at any time.

2) You Need to Communicate Effectively

Communication is a crucial part of a business community. The agile approach promotes employee interaction and collaboration, especially while working on the same project.

Atlassian products celebrate the main agile values of team collaboration and result-oriented work. Atlassian products ensure that companies may gather and combine tools depending on the activities they want to focus on. These tools integrate with each other and optimize workflows to build a management system tailored to company needs. Some Atlassian products are:

• Confluence, the wiki-documentation store that allows businesses to make some information private and secure while also permitting some data to be public.
• Jira Service Desk, a tool that assists businesses with customer support
• Slack, a real-time communication platform that connects with a company’s task management system

Successful agile processes thrive on open communication and collaboration. 

3) You Value Results

Agile project management tools can help businesses respond to unpredictable situations and deliver a real product. Your company can split a project into tasks and assign a person to each one. It can also create sub-tasks to involve more employees.

Jira supports different workflows, especially nonlinear work items and processes. Your company can start a task, review it, redo the task, and repeat these activities as many times as required to complete a project effectively.

Below is a scheme representing the content creation workflow at Rozdoum, a software development house providing outsourcing services. The processes were rigid and straightforward when Rozdoum started its content marketing strategy. The tools were not adaptable. 

 
With the growth of the marketing team, Rozdoum added operations to improve content creation. The initial workflow developed into a more complicated but flexible plan.

 
Although more complex, this new plan allowed Rozdoum to create a more effective and flexible workflow. All with the use of an Agile approach. 

How You Know You Need to Use Agile Tools

Businesses suffer from miscommunications and wasted time when management tools stop being helpful. Common problems that can be solved by Agile principles are:

• Emails and spreadsheets stop being sufficient. When people start missing critical messages, your usual approach may be inadequate. An agile project management tool can be a solution to your communication problems.
• Repetitive workflows and activities occupy too much valuable time during daily routines. Be smart, use a tool to automate standard actions. Create templates and patterns for tasks and documents. These tools will save time in the future.
• You are dealing with high risks projects in an uncertain environment. For example, huge enterprise projects have many factors and involve many people. It can be difficult to figure out how to execute them successfully. Project requirements can also change, so your team members must adapt. Agile tools assist with task prioritization and help highlight critical points.
• Your business wants to deliver concrete value. Like every agile tool, Jira Software facilitates personal responsibility and encourages creativity. A business can assign an employee to do a selected task, control deadlines, and monitor efforts. It can also re-plan the project roadmap, changing assignees, priorities, statuses, and details. Your company will finish a project on time with such an organized approach.

Businesses that face these common problems could benefit from Agile.

Industries That Implement Agile Tools

Many industries recognize the value of implementing agile tools. Besides software development, the following industries find agile products to be an effective management platform:

• DevOps
• Digital media
• Education
• Government
• Healthcare & life sciences
• High tech
• Human resources
• Marketing
• Media & entertainment
• Retail
• Services
• Transportation 
• Travel

As Agile tools become more common, businesses have the opportunity to streamline communication across industries. 

Benefits of Using Agile Tools

The Agile approach is a practical solution for large projects with changing requirements and workflows. Atlassian products help businesses automate processes, evaluate performance, and monitor progress. Collaboration and communication are the core mantras of an Agile framework.

Benefits of using agile tools include:

• Tracking and monitoring processes, which help prevent errors
• Evaluating a team’s performance effectively
• Prioritizing tasks
• Supporting iterative production and nonlinear cycles
• Responding and adapting to changes
• Automating workflow and diminishing repetitive activities
• Customizing tools

The benefits of using Agile practices all help streamline business processes for end users, no matter the industry.

Agile Tools: A Key to Effective Project Management

Your business knows how it wants to execute a project but needs the tools to implement an effective management process. If your business is unsure how to use Agile tools properly, then consult with an experienced software development firm for help.

The Agile approach allows businesses to respond quickly to any unexpected demands. The implementation of the Agile approach and the incorporation of Atlassian tools should improve the success of a product in any sector. 
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Additional Reading:

• 4 Website Methodologies for Web Development Projects
• How to Put Together Your Ideal Software Development Team
• 7 Principles of Lean Software Development

About the Author

Alex T is a mobile team leader and a certified Scrum Master at Rozdoum LLC, a software development contractor and a services provider founded in 2004. Rozdoum is a certified Atlassian Solution Partner and Vendor delivering apps simplifying project management.

About the Author

Alex T Mobile Team Leader & Scrum Master, Rozdoum

Alex T is a mobile team leader and a certified Scrum Master at Rozdoum LLC, a software development contractor and a services provider founded in 2004. Rozdoum is a certified Atlassian Solution Partner and Vendor delivering apps simplifying project management.

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