DataArts CEO Beth Tuttle authored an article for the GIA Reader that discusses DataArts’ new construct as the “Agile nonprofit.”

She writes, “… [DataArts] came face to face with a simple truth: we are a technology and data-centered national arts service organization, not one that just happens to use technology to support its work. This second realization brought our board and staff into direct engagement with the technologists and web entrepreneurs upon whom our success would depend. Our technology partners introduced us to Agile development, an approach characterized by learning from short-term successes and failures and by making next-step decisions based on what happens along the way, rather than using more traditional project management techniques that rely on meeting distant, fixed goals and aspirational commitments. What began as an unsettling mash-up of cultures permeated our organization over time and gave birth to a more flexible and empowered approach to managing our nonprofit.”

Read the full article.