This is the first in a series of blogs exploring ways to transform organizations into agile organizations. Given that, this blog is foundational and intended to answer the question, at least in some limited way, why now is the time to build an agile organization. Once that question is answered, we can turn to how to build one, whether you want to use agile principles to resolve challenges you’re facing or simply recognize that having an agile organization is a better way to do business.
To answer the question we need to start by looking at the impact of technology on the evolution of business. In its earliest days technology was fairly isolated, supporting increasingly more efficient accounting practices in the back room. During my career I’ve watched technology continuing to evolve, moving into all aspects of business. Today, easy access to cloud computing resources and broadband are commonplace. So, at this time the state of technology, while it continues to evolve, can best be described as mature.
But as technology innovation and the craft of developing software continued to evolve unabated it has had unintended consequences for business as a whole. Access to information and cheap cloud computing power coupled with a pervasive drive towards innovation means that companies no longer have the sustainable competitive advantage they once had. Individuals learn the art and craft of software development and then either on their own or in collaboration with others use their talents to solve problems, often upending industry giants as they build market share with new products and services. I’m thinking here of the ex-Google employee, the ex-Salesforce employee and the doctor, an ex-McKinsey employee, collaborating and successfully filling in an Electronic Medical Record using software based on AI. Their pilot shows significant improvement in a doctor’s productivity level. How will AI disrupt healthcare companies?
However, if you take a close look at the field of technology itself you will see not only the trend of increasingly sophisticated software products coming to market but you will also see that the way IT produces software has changed. At a point in time when its way of working was no longer tenable, IT reinvented software development, learning a critical lesson in the process. IT’s lesson is critical for the enterprise to learn if it is to compete successfully. Thirty years ago, drawing on then existing best-practice business models, there was a demand in IT for extensive requirements and comprehensive documentation. But as the need to develop software for more and more business functions grew, producing extensive requirements documents and documentation not only became untenable but was also counterproductive. By the time the software was ready, the client had moved on to new requirements.
Given the critical need to develop software that would support business in a timely way, developers recognized the need to incorporate the principles of the Agile Manifesto in software development. That is, they learned how to bring effective software solutions to their clients in time cycles often measured in weeks rather than months or years. They learned how to incorporate changes even late in the project to insure their client’s competitive advantage. And IT was content to simply define a new way of working and then settle in to it. As is evident at Agile meetings, IT professionals continue to learn, not only better development techniques but also how to create effective team environments.
Just as IT did at a critical juncture in its evolution, organizations recognize that they need to take action now. They understand that if there is to be a sustainable competitive advantage in today’s highly competitive, technologically mature landscape, there needs to be a shift in the processes an enterprise uses to pursue its mission. Observing IT and how it reinvented itself, it’s apparent that the framework for this shift in business can be found in IT’s approach to software development. As data collected on SCRUM and other development processes demonstrate, there are more effective ways of accomplishing goals in a complex, fast-moving business landscape. The same principles underlying the Agile Manifesto, principles that produced efficient, effective software development, when properly translated into leadership, people, culture, and process contexts can produce value in the larger organization as well.
The Agile Manifesto and IT’s lesson along the way provide the framework. In addition, other approaches to building agile, sustainable organizations are emerging from frameworks congruent with agile that will be important to include.
Being successful means having leaders who are engaged in new approaches to leadership, having people finding reasons to be engaged in their work, and not only resolving issues in the culture that act as barriers to success but having leaders who can proactively build cultures that are agile.
