Digital Agility

Digital Transformation has become the buzz word in the industry today. Countless organizations have jumped on to the “Digital” bandwagon with an objective to keep abreast with the dynamic markets, improve customer centricity, streamline operations, encourage innovation and to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Digital transformation talks about using the latest and greatest of what technology has to offer to bring about a shift in customer experience and focus energies on solving real issues. Digital transformation has several touch points within an organization and is not only restricted to IT. We are basically looking at realigning our existing business models, tools, processes and people to usher in a culture of customer focus by leveraging technology. The technology is the enabler here to achieve the vision of digital transformation and not the be-all and end-all.

Now that we have talked about what Digital Transformation is, let us try to understand the role of Agile in this endeavor. People tend to associate Agile with implementing Scrum, Kanban or deploying some scaling framework for faster deliveries and streamlining operations. Digital transformation is also about aligning the organization’s culture to the values it seeks to deliver and goals it needs to achieve. This is where the real role of Agile lies. Agile is not merely process implementation. It is about how you synergize your people, processes and tools to live your Digital transformation values. Agile may seem to be a small, irrelevant cog in the bigger scheme of things but its existence near the foundation makes it highly essential and critical for the success of this transformation initiative. Following are some elements we need to focus on-

Culture – Implementing Agile entails transforming the culture of the organization. This requires a basic shift in paradigm from managing resources to managing the flow of work. “Engage and Empower” people should be the mantra. It also means that the leadership has to play a highly visible (walk the talk) and vocal role in demonstrating their willingness to support the task force in living the Digital transformation values.

Answer the ‘WHY’ – Simon Sinek with his idea of Golden Circle proposed that certain organizations are able to inspire action by defining the purpose behind their motives and decisions. It is generally observed that people know what they are working on and how it needs to be worked on. What people don’t know is “Why” they are working on it. People need to know the reason why they are building something and how they are adding value to the business. This improves their engagement and a sense of purpose.

Design thinking – The Digital experience economy has the customer at its epicenter and fierce competition in the market has shifted the focus from features to experience. Experience is the new differentiation. Every product, platform or service that you build must focus on the experience it delivers to its targeted audience. Design thinking takes this customer-first approach to development where everything that is built must solve a specific customer problem or add value to their interaction while continuously improving through subsequent iterations.

Product Mindset - A product mindset requires the team to have end-to-end visibility of what is being built, why it is being built and how it affects the entire ecosystem. In short, this is systems thinking view of building your application. Developing applications in silos without understanding the big picture leaves limited scope for the team to understand how they are adding value to the ecosystem.

Gamify innovation – Innovation serves as the driving force for a digital transformation. But, adopting new technologies just because the market in drifting in that direction is not innovation. Innovation does not happen overnight, it too must have a defined strategy of how to introduce innovations over time into the main stream. Innovation needs to be routed in the right direction to synergize with the vision. Gamifying innovation involves regular incentivization of innovative ideas, forming innovation committees, regular hackathons and encouraging a culture of experimentation.

Efficiency @ Scale – Every organization on the digital bandwagon will go through growth pangs. The challenge lies in scaling the operations efficiently without sacrificing the core values or the customer focus. This is where adoption of the right scaling framework and standardization of engineering practices plays an important role.

Continuous Improvement – The core foundation of Agile rests on the fact that empirical decision making will lead to constructive feedback and help us improve the system. Continuous improvement is not a process but an ongoing and everlasting activity. Feedback can not only be gained from retrospectives, but also from regular interactions with the team and staying in touch with ground reality. This is where the leadership must be visible to the task force. The real feedback will come from people who are helping you transform your vision into a tangible outcome.

Digital transformation has assumed great importance in the last few years. While the interpretation of Digital may vary, what remains absolutely critical is the execution of the strategy. While organizations agree that ushering in an Agile culture is essential, doing so has its own challenges. The role of Agile has become even more important now and by getting the basics right, organizations can create that much sought-after differentiation. It is about focusing your energies in the right direction.