Don't bother with agility if you don't have this

It's a word you hear all the time. Unfortunately, you don't normally hear it together in a sentence with Agility. The two words should be inextricably linked.

It's feedback. If you are in the business of providing a product or service with value, feedback is your lifeline. In theory if your firm could obtain 100% of all positive and 100% of all negative feedback - you'd have all of the information needed to dominate your market. 

Now enter agility. Agility has gained some serious buzz word cred in recent times. However, in our opinion agility for its own sake is worthless. Is there a point to being agile if you do not know which direction you are going? You can be lightning fast to change, but without high fidelity feedback your agility might cause more problems than it solves.

Here are two important points to consider on feedback.

1.    It doesn’t matter what business you are in or what part of the business you are responsible for, there are 4 groups that you can target when obtaining feedback. Value receivers, value producers and those who manage both sides.

2.    People are bad at giving feedback when they're not immersed in an experience. The best possible feedback you can get is during value generation. How can you get feedback during value generation? The only way is through immersion and observation. The feedback you get with words will be vastly different than the feedback you observe in actions. Do whatever it takes to get feedback through observation and immersion. The words are usually a mere symptom. See below.

3.    When planning a new solution, product or service think about how to construct the most efficient feedback loop that can be started at the earliest possible moment. Changing fast is tempting but even better is making a small, cheap change that gives you valuable feedback.

It doesn't matter if the change is on th producers or the receiver side. Feedback is the entire game. Both sides create value together. An example of a change an internal producer might experience is a new digital tool to help them provide better service. We must observe them just as meticulously as we would an external receiver. On the receiver side it could be as simple as adding a new shelf to your shop floor. In both cases, don't ask them - watch them. The feedback loop must be rock solid whether you are looking externally or internally.

In the world of digital solutions - how do we do this? Through cutting edge proof of concepts, prototypes and MVPs. Crafting a kick ass feedback loop isn't part of the solution, it is the solution. The technology is out there to observe your internal and external users while they experience a digital change. Many of them are cheap, quick, and extremely efficient. Not wielding the power of feedback through actions is a missed opportunity that may leave tons of value on the table.