Agile rush between finding solutions and best practices!

We have entered times were nothing stays the same for a long time. Every day there is something new going on and people move along with the tide to keep up. This concept of constant change according to changing situations is the agility that one possesses. It is necessary to keep updated with what is going on to know how or what to do when any problem arises. Gone are those days, when people had no option but to deliberately follow the legacy systems or the corrupt systems.

Agility is a much needed ability in these times looking at the rate at which change is taking place, be it the climate, businesses, management, product development, digital solutions or finding a cure for cancer and in fact many other ailments! With change of situations, solutions also change and if the solutions change then so should the mentality that is dealing with the problem and for adaption of this change one needs the ability of agility.

Now that the basic of what agility is has been understood, we can move on to understanding how fast the adaptation needs to be to meet the timeline and streamlining the process. Sure changing at a faster rate is looked up upon but not every situation requires this speed. In some situations, with changing solutions, deep thinking is also necessary and this takes a bit of time as all options are being analyzed to find the best of the solutions. Sometimes when we rush to find the answers we tend to overlook some procedures that are crucial to the thought process followed by the end result.

In the end this very ignorance can affect the quality of the decisions being made and in the end makes an implication on a product or project and that to a negative impact and in several instances to failures. This has no value in the market as quality is more needed than quantity.

Compromising the quality of any product or service just because the environment is changing and trying to match the speed at which these changes are taking place with money and time in the mind is the fastest way to cause the downfall of the firm that one may have spent years to build to the position it may be at in present times and not to forget that it also loses its valued customers upon whom the firm may be operating as well as drop in shares and investments due to the poor quality of work done.

There is a quote that comes to rescue in this case “slowing down is the best way to speed up”, yes change is good but speed also kills. Always trying to match the vibe of the latest crazy trends can end up creating unrealistic goals and commitments that can also promote the issue of lack of quality and can cause poor management of the project itself. Poor management leads to poor results and this in turn leads to poor outcomes.

There is another concept that goes with the agility in firm, the Minimal Viable Product (MVP) is the standard by which the products or services provided to the public are valid to the needs to the use of the consumers in the market by helping users at least do the bare minimum and work to cover up the functions for which it was intended to do. This needs careful planning and research on what actually is going on in the market or operations and what are the already available options and how to provide more to what already exists to fulfill the minimal needs of the consumer. The ideal goal shall be to initiate the reduction of the pain points of the operations and it shall seek the attention of the users followed by reducing to eliminating the human errors, out of specifications and other non-conformities.

How can one control their agility when it comes to rapidly changing market requirements and still be up to date? The answer is simple; plan the rate at which the change occurs.

The only businesses that would suffer if the vision is not clear and users, stakeholders, manufacturers, developers are not aware of their own business needs and objectives of what it wants to achieve with its existence. Once it has been cleared of why they are in existence and what their mission is for existence, the path ahead becomes clearer than before.

Change is good and to change with the latest trends is the way forward but changing at a speed at which product quality and the name of the business or service providers is at risk is no change but an instant death of the firm before it can even make a mark in the markets.