6 Principles for Strategic Agility
Rich Harris
Tech Strategy | Digital Acceleration | Value Based Delivery & Flow Management | Business Transformation | Enterprise Agility | Business Growth, Performance & Innovation Leader
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This form of Agility is seldom talked about.
Why not, Strategy is sexy right, Tactics, aren’t, they are seen as the plugs to the wrong strategy perhaps, or is it the missing part, course correcting, adapting….working the strategy to bring it to life.
Scaled Agile/SAFe embeds Strategic Agility it into Organisational Agility Competency/Capability, lower down from Business/Enterprise Agility as the ultimate outcome of Scaled Agile/Enterprise Agile Transformation, all of which are often confused as the same thing, but are not, a bit like Agile and Scrum, Vegimite and Marmite...
I think Scaled Agile Inc make a big methodology and framework mistake here, as Organisational Agility is more about Agile Organisational Design, Culture and Development including Kaizen/Relentless Continuous Improvement and more, but I guess SAFe assumes because you’re already an expert on Skelton and Prias’s Work on Team Typologies, are using Release Trains, small, cross functional Teams, and you’ve masted Org Typologies, Lean, Value Streams and your Processes are Optimised from Team to Portfolio, you’ve got it all pinned, but more often than not, it’s the opposite and Agile Org Design it’s a still a big problem area left to Business Designers and Architects, if you have them, to solve, of whom often don’t get it right either in your Operating Model, AToM/Agile Target Op Model not Cyber-physical Business Models for each Service/Product as they lack the Scaled Agile Training, knowledge and experience.
The shift from Project to Product Movement brought about the Pivot or Persevere Move, another way to say Stop, cancel that project, its not wanted, it s a white elephant, it’s not adding value, it’s just the highest paid person who shouts the loudest in PMO sessions.
There is far too much focus on Agile being in the technical domain of IT.
Infact most of Agile real value add, is for Business Management and Leadership, but they seemingly at large, ignore it, because it’s an IT thang and wasn’t taught in their prestigious business schools curricula? which is slowly changing, as Agile is BAU, is the norm since it came into existence some 24 years back, via the Manifesto, (actually before, the Manifesto just codified it)
So What is Strategic Agility?
“Its the ability to improve performance — not just survive but thrive — amid disruption, constant change, turbulence, the VUCA, the BANI etc..” or as SAFe like to pin it down as – “the ability to sense changes in market conditions and implement new strategies quickly and decisively when necessary” If you read both these statements – there is no reference to software/coding/IT, but to the overall business itself.
The days of 5 -10 year Strategic Business Plans are out dated and the average tenure of a CxO is less than 2 years, so why plan that far ahead in detail, be rigid and fail, versus, pen down a wanted. lose direction of travel, see what happens, adjust and course correct to gain competitive advantage?
This is where PMOs still force planning mistakes in a word of contestant change, what is a change request anyway, it’s just work to be done next time round and doesn’t need overkill risk management and change management to make it bigger than Ben Hur as in Agile, we take feedback in near real time and apply it, well we should be avoiding sprint injection/scope creep.
Why does it Matter?
Strategic Agility, is a key capability – something an Agile Org can do – a capability that they have built and sustained the organisational muscle to flex and use.
Way too much focus is spent on Scrum, away from it’s best use case – new, new product development and not enough on other higher level capabilities in the system of work/holistic op model for Agility.
“Organizations must invest disproportionately in the roles, skills, and mind-sets that will make or break the Scaled Agile/Enterprise Level Transformation to deliver on its ambitious strategy and leverage its tactics… McKinsey”
Lean Thinking People are key, but many are badly taught Lean, misunderstanding it as Process Efficacy only, as a cost reduction exercise, rather than an optimised process where sometimes, wait times are a good thing, are not waste, and Andon cords assure quality is built in via Jidoka, future proofing again down the line, more expensive to fix mistakes or rework.
Being able to Pivot, Stop, Change Direction, is still the key attributes, characteristic of a well oiled Agile Organisation, who doesn’t waste it resources on White Elephants and Shiny New Stuff first, without addressing/solving customer/user issues first. One of the most lauded leadership characteristics today, a leadership?superpower, is the ability to Pivot — to change course quickly when a path is blocked or revealed to be disadvantageous. This kind of rapid adaptation, often referred to as?agility, is critical in a fast-changing environment or when innovating in unknown territory where old behaviours and management practices no longer work.
Combined with Lean Portfolio, Value Stream, Product and Service Management, it gives you the ability to Avoid, Absorb & Accelerate by using Management and Emotional Intelligence to sense and respond, not hope and settle for BAU, the Status Quo as opposed to when and where bottlenecks impede flow and growth, a handful of new guidelines or a new process is implemented as a work around, so called bridging the gap between strategy and execution, but really, just digging the rabbit hole deeper. Thanks Change Management Team and Plan!
Wade, Joshi and Teracios’s multi-year research project, based on studying qualitative and quantitative data from hundreds of organizations from QANTAs Airlines, AirBNB, Disney, Bytedance, TikTok, Amazon, Netflix, Swigi, suggests that Strategic Agility can be broken down into six principles:
6 Principles for the What and How to do Strategic Agility
Principles help you to live, breath, and actually do these things in day-to-day operations as part of your business values, spirit, ethics and morales, giving you a frame for acting, behaving and making decisions to be Agile, Nible, Responsive, Flexible…
Principle 1: Prioritise Speed over Perfection
Opportunities come and go quickly, so you need to be ready, able and willing to act quickly, even if they sacrifice quality and my most non agile, dreaded word – “predictability” in the process.
There is no such thing a BAU, there is no such thing as Predictability[RH1]?, Certainty, Likelihood…
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Principle 2: Prioritise Flexibility over Planning
Strategy is often taught in business schools as a cascade of choices around where to play and how to win.
These choices are typically built into strategic plans that are devised and approved over a period of several months, and then executed over three or five years, before the cycle repeats.
However, strategic plans easily become an anchor, a lock in for an organization on a certain path that is no longer relevant, wanted or needed.
Principle 3: Prioritise Diversification and “efficient slack” over Optimisation
Many organizations struggled — and some failed — during the pandemic not because they weren’t nimble or innovative, but because they were felled by a single devastating blow.
The root of this problem, in many cases, was either a lack of diversification or an overemphasis on efficiency and optimization.
The principles of diversification and slack have fallen out of favour recently.
The share price of diversified organizations is often hit with a “conglomerate discount,” and markets and activist investors are quick to penalize any sign of slack.
Yet, these are both powerful hedges against the impact of shocks.
Pain in one area can be compensated by gain elsewhere, balancing risk, agility and stability over a period, event, circumstance etc.
Principle 4: Prioritise Empowerment over Hierarchy
Systems are most vulnerable at their weakest points.
A hierarchy, for example, is most vulnerable at the top.
Empowered teams, by contrast, are inherently robust, since they’re decentralized.
No single strike or crisis can take them all out.
The key is to maintain open and regular information flows so that they are working from the same page.
Principle 5: Prioritise Learning over Blaming
Manage the System of Work, not the People!
It has been?well established ?that organizational cultures that reward risk taking and tolerate failure move more quickly that those that don’t.
If people are criticized for failing, they are less likely to take risks and this can be fatal.
Yes HR, we are talking to you and your stupid HR Performance Systems and Leadership handing out spankings, time to change – look up Agile HR or People Ops, your not corporate lawyers…
Principle 6: Prioritise Resource Modularity and Mobility over resource?Lock-in
Since it is difficult to predict how the future will unfold, it is hard to effectively plan the allocation of resources. Build resources that are modular and/or mobile so they can be reconfigured or moved as needed.
Yes – we are done with PMOs, move to a VMO and stop calling people resources and 100 % allocated!
These 6 principles are not rules, laws, tools, methods or frameworks, but?guidelines?to help
What else can you do to have more “Strategic Agility”…
Top Tips – Transform Legal and Procurement Teams.
Nothing hurts, holds back Strategic Agility, changing direction rapidly, like boxed in 5 -10-year contract terms.
You should be able to swap contractors out like plug and play IT best in class and best of breed systems in a SOA pattern on subscription style short term contracts, at least having a 30 days termination/exit clause baked in to make them put skin in the game through their Customer Success Managers and Initiatives.
If you can’t focus on outcomes and value, their double team up on Finance and Legal and Procurement until you can as it isn’t about the mass markets any longer dinosaur’s.
Lean Agile Procurement and Supply Chains/Ecosystems Partners is the way forward.
And yeah, I assumed your Marketing folks are already plying the Agile Marketing and Selling Approach, looking across your end-to-end supply chain, not just your Operational Values Streams, or more insularly, at your Development Value Streams, I wish we had the old R&D Departments, Skunks Works Labs…not these all these Scrum based Teams that cant and have failed to do it all.
Super Top Tip: Stop with the Back to the Office Bollocks
Promote Virtual, Remote and Distributed Agile Working as the norm, the new normal, your Way of Working.
Too many old skool leaders are drawing back in workers to the prison of the 9 – 5 office.
Let people decide when they need to meet up face to face, or atleast form the team, then let them decide their modus operands, contact time through a Team Chartering Exercise – not the old Forming, Norming, Storming Performing stuff that doesn’t work and is outmoded.
Office cubicles. runs of desks, don’t create thinking time/space that fosters creativity, they provide noise, distractions and headphone wearing people who wander around seeking a quiet space to hunker down in or in search of their displaced team members using hot desking, not organised into neighbourhoods or communities and make those Obeya/War Rooms Digital, so everyone can see, use them…not some post it note clad wall visualisation that the cleaners will get to, if and when, or your CIO for displaying corp info in open office areas where others frequent.
On top of that, your wasting several hours travel time, putting people in bad moods before thy hit their desks and engage with the team, so top the nonsense, it’s you fault you over investing in real estate as Management, so sort it, and stop calling it an Agile Operating Model if your required to be in the office, in disguise, atleast a proportion of your time more in the office than from elsewhere. It’s a pattern of a failing business, rather than an sensing, feeling, responsive and adaptive agile organisation.
Be Future Ready, Avoid, Absorb & Accelerate
All shapes and sizes of Organisations will continue to face accelerated, experiential change as technology impacts us all, so avoidance, absorption and acceleration can be the difference between survival and collapse, to be nimble enough to?avoid?the worst impacts to be robust enough to?absorb?a lot of the damage and resilient enough to?accelerate?forward faster and more effectively than your peers/competitors for competitive advantage.