What is Agile?
I recently read a piece of data: Never again will the rate of change be as slow as it is today. Ya, let THAT sink in. So, if we know change is constant, and we know that to say relevant we need to adapt to change and be able to pivot rapidly based on data and high engagement then don’t we need a way of doing business and working that supports that? Spoiler: WE DO, AGILE!
What is Agile?
By definition, Agile enables organizations to master continuous change. It permits firms to flourish in a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Does that market sound at all familiar to anyone, raise your hand. Until recently, Agile was viewed as a set of management practices relevant to software development. That’s because Agile’s initial advocates were software developers and its foundational document was the Manifesto for Software Development of 2001. Fifteen years later in 2016, following recognition by Harvard Business Review, McKinsey & Company and the 2015 Learning Consortium Project, Agile is now spreading rapidly to all parts and all types of organizations.
At its core, Agile Organizations value individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation and responding to change over following a plan.
A Different Concept of an Organization
What makes Agile difficult for some managers to grasp is that it’s not just a methodology or process that can be implemented within a firm’s current assumptions. The Agile way of running an organization redefines the very concept of a corporation that has prevailed for the last one hundred years.
Instead of a corporation being conceived as an efficient steady-state machine aimed at exploiting its existing business model, the Agile organization is a growing, learning, adapting living organism that is in constant flux to exploit new opportunities and add new value for customers.
Instead of power trickling down from the top, Agile recognizes that the future of a firm depends on inspiring those doing the work to accelerate innovation and add genuine value to customers. It recognizes that enhancing the capacity of those doing the work depends on giving autonomy to self-organizing teams within broad parameters of control. It values transparency and continuous improvement ahead of predictability and efficiency. It recognizes that open interactive conversations are more valuable than top-down directives. It stops doing anything that is not adding value to the ultimate customers. It realizes that the key to success is not to do more work faster. The key is to be smarter by generating more value from less work and delivering it sooner.
Agile obliterates the traditional management distinction between exploitation and exploration. When Agile is done right, all parts of the organization are continuously exploring how to add more value to customers. This not only creates meaning for those doing the work and delights those for whom the work is done: it results in generous returns to the organization itself.
To its advocates (ahem, me), Agile is a genuinely better way to run a company and an economy—better for those doing the work, better for those for whom the work is done, better for the organization itself. Instead of management extracting value from the firm, Agile generates value for customers and for society as a whole.
Take Aways
Agile is not the goal. The goal is the ability to quickly adapt to changing circumstances (e.g. innovation, COVID19, market disruptions). We must first look at the organization and its senior leadership, Company Values, Structure, Process and Leadership Style to truly become and Agile Organization.
To learn more on Agile and implementing it into your enterprise or team, get in touch with us for a complimentary 15-minute zoom meeting.
Take good care of yourself,
-Carly Smith, CEO & Principal Consultant
Smith & Co. Consulting Ltd.
