Butterfly: The Agile Effect

A company that is leading the way in digital projects using Agile and scrum

Butterfly has incorporated company-wide retrospectives, improving knowledge share across the business which may be working on 30-50 projects at once, meaning lessons-learned are shared at the time, rather than months later when a project review is documented, circulated and hopefully read. Butterfly’s leadership in agile is industry recognized with staff presenting papers and speaking at Agile Australia conferences. In addition, Butterfly founder John Anderton, a director of the Australian Web Industry Association, advises other web agencies across the nation on how to implement agile.

“Agile methodology helps in a lot of ways–the project can be brought to the market quicker and we can trial and test out design theories in a working prototype. Clients can receive stakeholder feedback from the business and directly from users in a way that they intuitively understand-by interacting with work rather than documentation,” McLean informs.

“Agile enables Butterfly to work in smaller pieces rather than attempt to scope and deliver the entire project in one step. This makes a project more manageable from the client’s perspective. Furthermore, clients develop strong relationships and trust in Butterfly because absolutely everything is open and transparent. Clients are empowered to make the right decision about their product, and it avoids that classic conflict between client and agency, when the decision-making mindset is all about how to manage risk and minimize cost,” McLean explains.

Butterfly uses the Agile methodology for start-ups, not just to develop code but also to help start-ups build their businesses. As start-ups pivot towards a sustainable model, adjustments can be dynamically incorporated into whatever they are building, anchored by Butterfly's strong capabili-ties and experience working with early stage ventures.

“We like the agile approach because it is a way of managing projects that reflects what we do anyway-giving clients involvement, transparency, and certainty. It’s a more organic way of working because we’re constantly taking feedback on board,” McLean concludes.