I'm not going to lie - when I think of the New York City government, nimble is not the first word that comes to mind. And yet while poking around on the NYC.gov website, I discovered something magical called NYC Alpha.
In a Medium Post on the subject, Rebecca Tinkelman wrote, "Most government websites are built by a group of experts, either inside the government or with the help of professional design agencies. These sites are thought up, created, and finished without getting very much input from the public."
I would say that much of that statement could apply to all website projects. NYCAlpha is a great example of "doing things differently" - a true use of agile methodology, something that makes many people (myself included) a little nervous. This anxiety, I think, carries over from the days of print. The internet is, in the great span of human history, still quite new and it's hard to wipe away the anxiety of making mistakes in print. Once you print something - or millions of something - it is what it is forever and ever. Etched in ink. No taking back any mistakes.
Websites aren't like that. They can be iterative, ever changing, and responsive. The more we embrace that fact, the better the websites we build will be. And if the NYC government can do agile, then dammit - anyone can! Thanks for the inspiration, NYCAlpha.