TriAgile 2021

Rescuing individuals in distress by helicopter in the Swiss Alps is a highly demanding undertaking. Rough terrain and rapidly changing weather conditions add up to the already difficult task of getting the right rescue helicopter to the mission location on time. Literally, every second counts and may decide between life and death.

Software applications play an ever-increasing role in supporting rescue personnel throughout a mission. Obviously, they need to conform to the highest standards of stability and usability. Can agile practices really play a role in such a sensitive environment?

We are certain that agility und user-centricity are key to addressing the above challenges. In this session, I will show you how at Swiss Air-Rescue Rega, we are using practices such as design thinking, usability engineering and agile development and operations to make sure that our application ecosystem supports our rescuers along every step of a mission.

This, for instance, implies that the information from our very own alarm mobile app can be conveyed to our mission control center and, in a further step, directly to the helicopter crews. The latter can already view a wide range of mission-related information across different devices, but, in our opinion, there is still a long way to go. The inclusion of ground rescue services and teams poses another interesting challenge that we are also trying to address.

Join this session to get insights into how we conduct rescue operations by helicopter, what the typical challenges are and how our software application ecosystem helps addressing them. We will further look at the agile practices that Swiss Air-Rescue Rega employs to shape this ecosystem and how we ensure that the ergonomic and procedural requirements of our stakeholders are met - one step at a time.