Agile Test Flight in Southwest Marketing
An 8-person pilot team used design sprints to optimize Southwest's billion-visitor booking website, achieving a 61% test success rate and generating millions in additional annual revenue.
Download Full Case StudyIn a corner of Southwest Airlines headquarters, there was an old copy room that nobody used anymore. Printers had moved on to a new location, leaving behind a small, empty space. It was about to become the birthplace of something unexpected.
When the Agile pilot team was formed, they claimed this abandoned room as their own. They filled it with whiteboards, covered the walls with post-it notes, and made it their laboratory for innovation. What had been a forgotten utility closet became a hub of creativity, a physical manifestation of their "test and learn" philosophy.
The team was small (just eight people) but they were about to prove that a scrappy group with the right methods could uncover millions of dollars in value that a billion-dollar website had been leaving on the table.
One Billion Visitors, Countless Opportunities
Southwest.com is one of the most visited travel websites in the world, with over one billion annual site visits. The booking system was already industry-leading. But there was a problem hiding in plain sight.
For years, the focus had been on launching new features: new products, new services, new capabilities. But the existing booking experience? It was assumed to be "good enough." Nobody was systematically testing whether the current design was actually optimal for customers.
Leadership had a hypothesis: if they assembled a dedicated Agile team focused solely on optimization, they might discover improvement opportunities that had been invisible for years. They were about to find out just how right they were.
When people were assigned to this experimental team, some worried about their careers. Would working on a "pilot" team mean being sidelined? Would testing hypotheses that might fail reflect poorly on their records?
These fears were real, and they had to be addressed head-on. The team learned that failure wasn't just acceptable. It was expected and valuable. Not every hypothesis would be correct. Not every test would succeed. The goal wasn't perfection; it was learning.
This psychological shift was crucial. Team members had to feel safe proposing ideas that might not work. They had to be willing to let customer feedback, not their own design instincts, determine what went live on the website.
Five Days to Truth
Agile Velocity assembled and coached the eight-person team using a powerful combination: Design Sprints for rapid prototyping, Scrum for team coordination, and Kanban for workflow visibility.
The rhythm was intense and deliberate. Each week followed the design sprint pattern: Monday through Thursday focused on ideation, prototyping, and preparation. Friday was the moment of truth: real customers tested the prototypes and gave feedback.
The team kept their work tactile. Whiteboards covered every available wall. Post-it notes tracked ideas, hypotheses, and learnings. In the repurposed copy room, there was no hiding behind polished presentations, just raw ideas meeting real customers.
Over months of work, the team generated 35 distinct ideas. Nineteen became hypothesis-driven tests. And when the results came in, 14 of those tests were successful enough to become permanent website changes: a 61% success rate.
The design sense of a small team was no match for the feedback of one billion annual site visits. Customers were the ultimate arbiters of what worked and what didn't.
Millions in Found Revenue
The numbers were staggering. Through 92 hours of usability testing with nearly 200 customers and employees, the team had uncovered improvements generating millions of dollars in additional annual revenue. Not new products. Not new features. Just optimizing what already existed.
But the impact went beyond revenue. The success of this pilot team sparked Agile adoption across multiple departments. What started in a repurposed copy room became a model for how Southwest approached digital optimization.
Team members who had worried about their careers found themselves leading a movement. The "test and learn" mentality they had developed became valuable currency across the organization. Their willingness to let hypotheses fail, and to celebrate what they learned from failure, set a new standard for innovation at Southwest.
The small team had proven something profound: with the right methodology and customer focus, even a world-class website has room to improve. And sometimes, the best place for innovation to start is an abandoned copy room.
Transformation Progress
The Southwest Marketing team demonstrated mastery of the Learn stage, establishing foundational Agile practices and building a strong culture of experimentation and learning. Their success has sparked broader Agile adoption across marketing and other departments.
The Results
19 hypothesis-driven tests launched (from 35 ideas)
61% success rate converting tests to website changes
Millions of dollars in additional annual revenue
92 hours of usability testing conducted
~200 customers and employees tested prototypes
Sparked Agile adoption across multiple departments
Transformed team members into innovation leaders
Measurable Impact
"The design sense of a small Team was no match for the feedback of one billion annual site visits. Customers were the ultimate arbiters of what worked and what didn't."
"What started as a pilot in a repurposed copy room became a model for how Southwest approaches digital optimization and customer-driven innovation."
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