AGILE, a fancy label or a game-changer for businesses?!
When we first hear or think of agile, we immediately associate with software development. However now a days organizations and businesses from various industries apply this approach and manage their projects employing the agile principles. Agile is both a mindset and a methodology and “Being Agile” is all about expecting, managing, and embracing change.
As the market is becoming more competitive and customers can access a wider pool of products, services and opportunities, businesses must adjust to survive and thrive. To successfully succeed in this, businesses need to adopt, transform, and innovate.
Agile is about being quick and flexible, creating the right business culture, and putting your customers first, while remaining profitable.
At first, it seems and sound like an easy task, however in reality there are many obstacles and challenges. For some businesses agile transformation can be a game changer and can result in bigger resilience to market shifts and higher sensitivity to customer needs. For others, agile transformation might only be a fancy work and a branding tool used for publicity and only few real changes.
So, the question is where to start and how to successfully drive the agile transformation?!
Always start with the PEOPLE. Even though AI (Artificial Intelligence) and machine learning will affect what is meant to be a human, yet a lot of business processes, interactions and activities are essentially performed by people.
Having empowered individuals and teams working in an environment with the right set of tools, and skills to deliver value and achieve optimum performance levels is the key driver to becoming agile.
Releasing control to others and breaking organizations silos is the prime step towards the agile transformation. Hierarchy holds back creativity and innovation. Instead, embedding a corporate culture where professionals and teams are self-managed and self-directed will eliminate the bottlenecks that hold back agility. Bringing people together and creating a collective mindset is essential. However, it requires a culture shift that can be difficult for executives to understand and appreciate, but it does not mean it is impossible.
Thinking small and accepting failure are both crucial factors undertaking the agile transformation.
Businesses often think big whenever they choose to change any of their products, services, or operations. As a result, they engage in large scale projects which generally have long timelines and often result in employee burnout, extra spending, idle customer feedback and lost business opportunities.
Failure is painful and expensive, especially if we worked on something for a long period of time. Loss can be frustrating and devastating.
However, businesses that focus on smaller projects and have lower expectations can use failure as a positive thing.
Thinking small, encourages business executives and agile teams to look at small scale incremental changes and projects which could deliver gradual results. This approach enables more flexibility, it allows time for lessons learned and agility to move to the next opportunity much quicker. Working for continuous value delivery will allow businesses to create products and services attractive to their customers, in line with the market trends and needs.
Creating a safe to fail culture brings people together to openly share opinions, best practices and to experiment for innovation. Creating high performing teams and utilizing their talent improves performance and increases job satisfaction.
Ultimately, being able to reflect, adopt and improve is what separates a successful company. Talent is always attracted to such employers. The new generation of working millennials is attracted to innovation, they are eager to make a difference in society and are keen to develop leadership skills.
Still wondering why your organization should become agile…?
Be the agile leader in your organization and start the movement of transformation today.