“Business Agility” – we’re hearing that expression more and more these days. So is it a new concept…or an old concept that demands a fresh look?
What is it? Business Agility is generally described as the ability of an organization to sense changes internally or externally, and respond quickly in order to deliver value to its customers.
Who is it For? Business Agility is appropriate for any organization that faces uncertainty and/or rapid changes associated with growth, market downturns, new competition, turnover, etc. etc. etc. Yep – it’s appropriate for just about every company you can imagine.
What are the Values of Business Agility? As you might expect, Business Agility relies on building an AGILE CULTURE that fosters the following Key Principles of Agile:
Favor individuals and interactions over processes
Respond to change (versus following a plan)
Embrace an iterative (“inspect and adapt”) approach to product/services development
Nurture collaboration and transparency amongst team members and your customers
Involve the customer at every turn
Move away from Command-and-Control to self-organized/self-managing teams
Encourage employee risks and experiments
Give decision-making authority to the front-line employees
