Agility Refined: Unlocking New Levels with Composability

This post marks the commencement of my five-part series on Composable Business, where I will be unfolding the concepts of Composable Thinking, Composable Business Architecture, and Composable Technology in the subsequent posts.

In today’s business world, being agile and quick to adapt is paramount for companies to succeed over time. The only constant is change – and business executives are required to prepare their organizations to adapt for the yet unknown. ?For a long time, businesses have been striving towards more agility - they worked on themselves to be able to change and adapt when needed and demanded and at the same time be more efficient in their operation. This has helped companies evolve and have increased efficiency and innovation to new levels over the last several years, but now many are starting to realize that they have reached a point where simply doing more of the same isn’t yielding the expected and historic positive outcomes anymore. They’re looking for new ways to keep evolving in acceptable pace and keep up with the ever-increasing acceleration of changes in the market.

The Agile Plateau: Navigating the Terrain of Diminishing Returns

Businesses embarked on the journey of Agile with an eagerness to revolutionize the way they manage tasks and execute projects. Initially, this Agile voyage yielded an impressive array of benefits: swifter delivery times, better team dynamics, and an overall boost in productivity. However, as more companies began to mature in their Agile practices, they encountered a plateau where the initial steep ascent in improvements tapered off. This plateau, a landscape where gains are harder to spot and the path to higher performance is less defined, is what many Agile adopters are finding themselves up against.

As companies confront this Agile stagnation, they are exploring various pathways to reignite their growth engines. Some are questioning whether the complexity of certain Agile roles, such as the Scrum Master, is necessary, or whether they should recalibrate their approach to blend Agile methods with traditional metrics and controls. This introspection stems from an ongoing struggle with challenges that were presumed to dissolve in the embrace of Agile methodologies. Yet, the anticipated resolution didn't fully materialize, leaving these organizations seeking new levers to pull to regain their momentum.?

It is crucial to acknowledge the important role Agile has played so far. Agile has brought us advances we wouldn't want to forego. It has raised the bar for what we can achieve. Still, we're now at a threshold, recognizing that to surpass our current plateau and aspire for greater heights, we must integrate an additional layer to our approach. The practice of Agile, while beneficial, is no longer a sole catalyst for the acceleration we aim to sustain.

Agile approaches have effectively altered day-to-day operations in the IT- and Digital departments to be more efficient; however, they've fallen short in providing a comprehensive blueprint for holistic business evolution. Agile values and principles have spread throughout parts of the organization, a positive sign indeed. Yet, often, such progress has remained siloed and decoupled from the grander strategy of organizational reinvention and market adaptation.

Our commitment to harvesting the full potential of becoming truly Agile remains steadfast. Thus, we will retain and cherish the sound Agile practices that have become a part of our corporate DNA, while now seeking to augment them with incisive strategic planning in our business operations and technological pursuits. This is the juncture where the concept of 'composability' emerges, offering a compelling narrative for us to delve into, potentially steering us beyond the current impasse.

Composability, with its emphasis on flexible change and rearrangement, can assist in surpassing current boundaries. It motivates organizations to set loftier goals, blending Agile methods with intelligent planning and composable thinking in both business and technology areas. This approach fosters enhanced and more extensive agility within the organization, thereby facilitating new business innovations.

The Essence of Composability in Driving Organizational Evolution

In the evolving landscape of the modern business world, the 'Composable Enterprise' stands as a beacon of innovation and adaptability. This concept hinges on the ability to rapidly reconfigure the structural components of a business to meet emerging challenges and opportunities. Imagine the versatility of a business modeled after children’s construction toys, where parts can be interchanged and reassembled to form new and exciting shapes that fit the scenario at hand. Us from Denmark will like to highlight Legos. This modular approach breaks through old-fashioned business methods, offering a flexible, robust, and progressive path for business development and staying competitive.

The transition from traditional agile methods to composability is not a complete overhaul but a supplementation and expansion of existing practices. This mindset shift has become increasingly critical as market dynamics accelerate and customer expectations evolve. Companies must pivot swiftly, akin to sprinters, but also possess the fortitude of marathon runners to endure in this race. It’s clear that in a world where the pace of technological advancements shows no sign of abating, the businesses that thrive are those prepared to leverage new technologies without being encumbered by the need to reinvent their foundational systems with each innovation.

Composability directly tackles the need for businesses to remain competitive and adaptable through three core strategies:

1. Composable Thinking: This is about encouraging a mindset in the organization that is ready to change and innovate. It means always being prepared to adjust the way they do business, always ready to adjust and recompose parts of the business model or operating model. The goal is to create a culture that not only accepts change but seeks it, making fast tactical shifts something the organization actively pursues. When fully embraced, composable thinking will lead us to design things with the expectation of future change as we begin to cherish and look forward to transformation.
2. Composable Business Architecture: This involves setting up the company in such a way that it can easily reorganize its operations, much like using different apps for different tasks. Focusing on modularity, or the ability to swap and combine different business functions like building blocks, it gives us the freedom to adapt to new business situations with confidence. To achieve this, we'll need to rethink and refine our understanding of business architecture and how we manage company data.
3. Composable Technologies: On the technical side, composability means creating and using a set of technologies that can pivot and adjust as needed. Key to this is the use of APIs, which allow different systems to communicate and work with each other, and cloud solutions that can grow or shrink to meet demand, balancing the need to be adaptable while also being dependable.

Composability thrives on the integration of Packaged Business Capabilities (PBCs), units of business functionality autonomous in development and deployment, scalable, and potentially reusable across diverse applications. This intersects neatly with the principles of Technology Business Management (TBM), which connects technological investments directly with business outcomes, advocating for a methodical approach in technology expenditure and governance – but that is a subject for detailing in another series of posts.

Envisioning composable enterprise ideals echoes the analogy of sticky notes forming a puzzle; each capability can adhere to others in various configurations, offering solutions tailored to unique business needs. The tenacity of these connections allows for adaptability and reusability, fostering an organic adapt-and-evolve business scenario.

The advocacy for composability signals a call to action for businesses to shift perspectives — to engage with the 'what-ifs' rather than remain steadfast in the 'what-nows'. The leapfrogging potential inherent in this approach is immense, offering a pathway for those trailing in the Agile adaptation race to vault forward, bypassing steps that no longer serve their intended value.

In summary, composability is not just a theoretical ideal but a practical strategy for a world that demands rapid, responsive, and robust business models. As organizations stare into the kaleidoscope of future possibilities, they find in composability a path that marries the agility of start-ups with the muscle of industry stalwarts, setting the pace for business evolution. It's about embracing growth, not just by keeping up with change but by becoming its maestro, ensuring that every orchestral movement within the enterprise is played in perfect harmony with the next act of the digital age.?

The Role of Leadership in Transitioning to Composability

In the voyage towards a composable enterprise, leadership is not just a ceremonial navigator but can be an actual driving force. The transformation involved in shifting to a composable architecture is multifaceted—impacting processes, systems, people, and most profoundly, the very culture of an organization. The most efficient transformations to a composable business are achieved by organizations with leaders who promote and understand this paradigm shift, inspiring teams, elucidating the vision, and setting concrete milestones for this purposeful reinvention.

To successfully shift to composability, leaders must use their role to blend composable thinking into how the organization works. They should inspire excitement for flexible, module-based agility and make hard but strategic decisions that mix technology and business. Leaders guide the transformation from traditional, strict businesses to ones that are quick to adapt and flexible.

A Practical Guide to a Composable Business Transition

Creating a plan to switch to a composable business is like drawing a simple, clear map for a journey. This map helps organizations navigate through changes step by step, marking important checkpoints and finding the best route. To make this big change, companies usually take one of two main paths: starting from the top and working down, or starting from the bottom and working up. Although both ways can work, experience shows that beginning from the top, with strong leadership support, is often more effective.

When we say start from the top, we mean that the executives set the direction, sponsors, and promotes the agenda strongly. They make sure that the idea of being able to rearrange the company quickly is part of the company's goals and plans right from the start. This way, the goal of being flexible spreads through every level of the business, from the big decisions to the daily tasks. Leaders at the top set the pace and turn on different parts of the business one by one so that everything fits the overall plan. This careful, step-by-step introduction sets the stage for everyone to adopt these changes smoothly.

Let's consider the bottom-up approach for implementing composability. In this scenario, a few teams within the organization—encompassing business, technology, and finance—begin to apply composability principles to their deliveries. They can do this even before getting a wholehearted endorsement from executive leaders. If these initial deliveries are successful, they can demonstrate positive impact on the specific business area, demonstrating the tangible benefits of composability – even though limited to a narrow portion of the business.

However, it's important to note that securing a nod from at least one executive sponsor is advisable. This helps mitigate the risks associated with advancing without clear endorsement from the top. By proving the value of composability in these smaller-scale endeavors, teams can then build convincing arguments for the wider organizational adoption, aiming to get the full support of executive management to integrate these practices throughout the organization. Proceed with caution in this approach—as ambitious as it may be, ensuring that you have the implicit backing of leadership can be the difference between success and stumbling.

Here’s why the top-down method is often preferred: in the past, businesses tried to be 'agile' mainly within their IT departments. But agility never really got into other parts of the business where it's also needed, like in making plans to support the company's strategy. To have agility deeply rooted and widespread, we need the support and push from executives from the start.?

Starting from the top helps ensure that the transformation is not just technical but strategic, affecting how the business operates and grows. It's also important to mention that even when starting small, the goal is to eventually get approval from higher up so that the whole company can become truly composable.

Both methods aim to avoid the disruption that often comes with big changes like this. Instead of shaking things up all at once, this is about adjusting each part of the company gradually until everything works perfectly together. It's about slowly rewriting the future of the business to be ready for anything—a future where the business is dynamic, adaptable, and always prepared for the next step.

Leapfrogging Potential?

The concept of 'leapfrogging' is about skipping over intermediary stages that seem to no longer serve a purpose or don't provide sufficient value. The term gets its roots from a simple children's game, leapfrog, where players jump over each other, advancing forward in a dynamic process. Transferred to the business context, this phenomenon suggests an ambitious acceleration towards more advanced technology or business practices, often bypassing traditional or outdated stages.

Not every firm applying Agile methodologies moves at the same pace. Some started earlier, while others ascended more quickly up the slope, now finding themselves plateauing at the Agile Plateau, seeking ways to forge ahead. Meanwhile, those later in their Agile journey are progressing more slowly or are only now starting to adopt Agile practices. For these companies, the idea of leapfrogging into composability presents an opportunity to navigate through the competitive and complex technological landscape. This approach is about drawing on the experiences and insights gained from others' Agile endeavors and incorporating those lessons from the outset into a wider strategic and architectural framework, thus making significant strides in digital innovation and market agility.

Envision leapfrogging as being similar to how some regions skipped over fixed-line phones straight to mobile technologies. They bypassed a costly and labor-intensive phase to jump right into a new world of opportunities, unleashing untapped potential and accelerating development untouched by legacy constraints. Companies at the earlier stages of Agile methods or those plateauing can similarly harness this potential by complementing their journey with composable practices—a proactive rather than reactive transformation.

Executive management should consider leapfrogging for its remarkable potential to accelerate and expand business capabilities. Agile has reshaped workflows significantly, ensuring that project management and the development life cycle are dynamic—valuable changes that aren't dismissed but rather harnessed. However, integrating composable architecture and thinking, this valuable agility is grounded within a framework that allows efficient evolution of the business model and an architecture that supports change at a pace and scale previously unattainable.

Conclusion

Reflecting on our exploration of composability, it is clear—the push to evolve doesn’t discredit Agile principles but rather underscores a necessity to build upon them. As businesses aspire to climb higher than the plateau they currently occupy, the prospect of a composable strategy unfolds, offering promise and endless potential. While Agile has undoubtedly accelerated progress and brought businesses a long way, it is no longer sufficient alone. Stepping up the ladder now calls for symphonies between Agile practices and broader, more nuanced business architecture and technical innovations.

Becoming composable sets organizations on a higher, more advanced level – a digital realm where efficiency, adaptability, and resilience merge, equipping businesses for any sudden shifts in the market. The journey ahead is more than just adapting and growing; it's about shaping organizations to be agile and responsive in an environment of continuous change.

In the broad scope of organizational agility, composable thinking isn't just the conclusion; it's a significant peak that guides us towards future adjustments. It ensures businesses are not only surviving but also thriving in the evolving narratives that will define the leaders of tomorrow's markets.

As we stand in late 2023, discussing innovations like AI, we're essentially at the very beginning – perhaps Day 1, or even Day 0. The journey of AI's impact and potential has barely started, despite the buzz it's already creating. Imagine standing at the base of a towering mountain, looking up at a path that's just beginning to ascend. Right now, we're taking the first steps, but the climb ahead will rapidly steepen.

What does this mean for businesses? It's essential to foster a culture and skill set centered on adaptability and readiness for change. As we're only at the dawn of these technological advancements, preparing to adapt and change is key. The solutions for future challenges are still unknown, and the pace at which innovations will occur is set to increase drastically. To navigate this, businesses must be agile, ready to learn, unlearn, and relearn, embracing composable strategies that allow for rapid restructuring in response to new developments.

End of the first in a series of five on Composable Business. Up next, I will delve into Composable Thinking, followed by insights into Composable Business Architecture and Composable Technology.

About the Author: Sune Vestergaard is not only an established Solutions & Enterprise Architect with extensive experience in modernizing IT architectures across different sectors but also the Founder and Partner of V10d.consulting. This consultancy specializes in Digital Transformation, IT Strategy, IT Architecture, and implementation support, with a keen focus on guiding organizations towards composability.

With his deep understanding of the challenges involved in transitioning from legacy systems to cutting-edge architectures and platforms, Sune has been instrumental in extracting core business functionalities and integrating them into modern IT environments. His expertise extends to high volume transaction systems and platforms critical to business operations with significant turnover, where he excels in creating forward-thinking solutions. These solutions are designed not only to meet today's standards but are robust and adaptable enough to evolve with future demands.

Throughout his career, Sune has led numerous high-impact projects for prestigious clients such as Falck, ?rsted, DFDS, KMD, and Codan Insurance. His experiences have honed his ability to navigate the complexities of complex enterprise IT systems, ensuring their alignment with contemporary requirements and future scalability.

At V10d.consulting, Sune leverages his extensive knowledge to help organizations increase their business agility and innovation speed through strategic IT architecture. He and his team are committed to transforming the cloud into a differentiating catalyst for future business innovations, offering a full spectrum of services from strategy development to execution, ensuring robust development, intuitive design, and reliable hosting.