Part 1: The Complete Guide to Business Agility as a Driver for Innovation

Agile Beyond Software Development?

Let’s start by untangling the intricate connection between business agility and innovation management by shedding some light on all these terms: innovation, innovation management, agile and business agility.?

Innovation is a highly debated topic. You might be sick of hearing this buzzword everywhere, but whether you choose to use the word or not, the concept behind it is here to stay.

The short definition of innovation comes from the Merriam-Webster dictionary: innovation is "the introduction of something new." ? This is an oversimplification, so we have to take it one step further to explain the nuances. ?

Innovation is not just about generating and implementing new ideas. While these ideas can refer to products, services or processes, adding innovation to the mix means that you bring about positive change and create value.

Through innovation you should identify new opportunities that can be transformed into tangible outcomes that address unmet needs, solve problems, or improve existing conditions.?To achieve these results, you need to manage a series of activities that are involved in the process of introducing those new ideas. These activities can range from ideation, development prioritization, evaluation, to implementation and launching of new products or introducing new processes.?This is what we call?“innovation management ”. ??

So, innovation management is about driving business growth through the introduction of new ideas and solutions. How you go about all these activities is what makes innovation and innovation management so difficult. ?

The challenge is not only in managing all these activities to pursue innovation, but also in doing it fast. ? Here, we refer to?the pace of innovation , which plays a crucial role in sustained business growth.

In a nutshell,?the pace of innovation is the speed at which an organization can improve their existing products and services?and their ability to develop them while capturing the needs of the constantly evolving markets.? Your rate of improvement (so the pace of innovation), has compounding, exponential returns and thus gives a clear competitive advantage. ?

Why are we talking about the pace of innovation? Because it goes hand in hand with the agile mindset, which in the past decade has developed into the more holistic approach,?business agility. ?

Where does agile come from? ?

"Agile" typically means being able to move quickly and easily, being nimble or adaptable in response to change or challenges.

Agile as a business concept emerged in 2001 with the?“Agile Manifesto” . ?

At its core, agile refers to a set of twelve principles and four values intended for teams that work on software development. It started as a manifesto, but the brains behind it never imagined that their vision on how to better develop software would play such a pivotal role in management at an organizational level.?

This is, in a nutshell, the 2001 version of agile:

These are the?four values of the Agile Manifesto. The idea is that those on the left should be valued more than those on the right. ?

1. Individuals and interactions?over processes and tools
2. Working software?over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration?over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change?over following a plan?

Then, there are the twelve principles behind the Agile Manifest that the signatories followed.

So, this was the spark that started the agile fire. It’s also the basis of some of the methods identified as agile. ?

Today, "agile " left the dark chambers of software development to capture the attention of leaders across many industries. ?

These days there are countless frameworks and practices that ride the agile wave. We won’t go down that rabbit hole because many of those frameworks evolved from self-serving business ambitions and can create more confusion than provide real solutions. We believe it’s more important to understand the thinking behind the agile concept, before deciding what methodologies are fit for purpose.

So, how did agile evolve into business agility? Agile is often referred to as a methodology. But if we consider its evolution, being agile is a mindset and a way of thinking. At a practical level, it does include a series of frameworks or methodologies that facilitate agility in project management.?

Agile 2.0?

The past two decades have brought massive changes and the agile principles had to evolve to keep up with current times.

Agile 2.0 ?is the next iteration which comes from different authors who want “agile to pivot”. Given today’s use of agile and how it has been growing outside of its initial purpose, the initiative is understandable and laudable.?

Agile 2.0 is more anchored in today’s digital world and puts greater emphasis on some areas that were missing or misunderstood in the first version.

It's also more balanced and encourages a more holistic approach. For example, even though the first manifesto does not incite chaos by making the case of self-organizing teams, it fails to address the importance of leadership, which agile 2.0 wants to rectify. To get a better understanding of agile 2.0, you can read the principles on the?dedicated page . ?

To summarize, “the agile way” refers to the ability to respond to change, adapt, build things in smaller cycles, get feedback, and unveil new opportunities.?

Next week we'll explain why business agility is more relevant than isolated agile practices.

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If you can't wait for next week and you're eager to read the full guide to Agile Innovation Management in one go, the full article is available on Viima's blog .