The profound value of balance

Creating real value, how do you actually do that? That's the question we focused on during the last session of the True Agility Program (TAP). Every other Friday we get together and dive deeper into the field of our profession: Agile. The TAP goes back to the essence: What is really important? What is genuine value? And the key question: how do we put that into practice?

As human beings, we like to live forward. We enjoy imagining our future and filling it with our dreams, goals and desires. It gives us direction and sometimes even a right to exist. It is therefore not surprising that top-level sport can be addictive, or that we as humans have created the phenomenon of the 'workaholic'. Sometimes we get carried away in our desire to perform. The systems of which we are a part are also largely geared to this desire for performance. From self-management literature to the top layers of large multinationals, the adage is: set clear, measurable goals and pursue them with the ferocity of a lion.

This obsession with achievement, and especially measuring it, can become dogmatic. It is not wrong to set and chase ambitious goals, but does it leave enough room for intuition? Where does obsessive performance end and can space be made for free experimentation? In many Agile work environments today, the tendency to achieve maximum improvements prevails, without asking what that improvement really is.

From Lean, we know "value" as something the customer is willing to pay for. In Scrum we measure how many points or even how many hours we can burn in a sprint. And how long - or rather how short - it takes us to complete planned tasks. In this way, costs can be reduced to a maximum, with the most attractive price for the customer. But is this an absolute condition for the customer to use the product? At the end of the ride, have you actually created something that the customer wants? Do you know your customer better now, or have you only gotten better at delivering faster and making your final product cheaper?

The value paradox

There is nothing wrong with delivering quickly, but the intended purpose should not be lost sight of. Have you achieved what you want? For that you need to know what real value is! What makes an Elon Musk a good entrepreneur, and Max Verstappen a top F1-driver? What sets them apart from the rest is that they rely on their intuition and dare to experiment. Like Soichiro Honda already did in the 1950’s, they stand with their feet on the launch pad, or with their ear to the tarmac. First they 'feel' what is valuable, only then do they look at how this can best and most quickly be developed. They don't just focus on making what is already there better, but rather on creating something new. That is the essence of innovation.

Innovation and efficiency seem to be opposites, but are in fact extensions of each other. Innovation is needed to maintain a lead in the market. Efficiency is needed to deliver quality, always and at a good price. Too much innovation, and nothing comes off. Too much efficiency, and innovation fails to materialize.

How do you find balance?

Today's organization faces an interesting challenge. Will we collectively continue to pick the low-hanging fruit by focusing on making our existing systems infinitely more efficient? Or will we focus solely on breakthrough innovation? Why do we have to choose between a buzzing chain or a beautiful new product? Making the choice is pointless, because we need both. The challenge lies in finding the right balance.

You can find that balance by first taking a critical look at how your organization measures success. In addition to measuring process efficiency, create space for measuring customer value. Consciously create space and time to innovate. Build a culture in which people complement each other in free experimentation and optimization. Stimulate your "inner innovator" by regularly organizing a hackaton or a FedEx Day and experience how you develop an innovative product with a small team within a day.

Experimenting, innovating, going with your gut and intuition. These are not the easiest challenges, and giving space to these things takes time. Finding the balance between taking a step back, listening to your gut, and then moving on to hard and relentless improvement can be a holy grail. The key to creating real value.

This article was written by Boris Mud, Nick Nijenhuis, Remko Pieterse, Henry Suiker, Paul Takken and Noah Ferron. Want to know more about the True Agility Program? Follow our LinkedIn page, or contact us at [email protected].