In my view, Agile does not claim ownership of any of it's principles, practices or techniques; rather it advocates doing certain things to help make improvements. So it follows that a lot of this stuff can be applied in situations other than cutting-code or delivering software. That said, the findings in the linked article come at no surprise. Agile treats good, continuous communication as a core axiom. The discovery of this importance in another (albeit undisclosed, yet seemingly IT related) field suggests the good sense in Agile is common sense for EVERYONE.