Business Agility

The quest to attain Business Agility is nothing new for organizations, but the pandemic has meant that the ability to rapidly adapt to market and environmental upheaval in a productive and cost-efficient manner has become business critical.

Prior to the pandemic we analyzed organizations’ maturity in their agile transformation and saw a clear need to accelerate transformation – only 20.4% stated they had truly established agile ways of working across the organization. Now, with the catalyzing urgency COVID-19 has provided, organizations that had not taken their Agile transformation seriously enough are finding themselves under pressure.

Organization-wide agility is not a destination – it is an ongoing commitment to deliver customer value faster and adapt better to changing conditions. But there is no ‘size fits all’ blueprint for agile transformation, no standardized framework to apply. A much more flexible approach is needed. So, how can organizations achieve true Business Agility?

Our new point of view ‘Business Agility – how it’s not yet another buzzword’ lays out how an entire organization can gain the ability to rapidly adapt to market and environmental changes in a productive and cost-efficient way. In it we identify four stages underpinned by our established agile at scale approach, that lead the way to greater flexibility and resilience:

• Experiment: 3-6 months – pilot Agile(@Scale) structures and mindset to create tangible benefits and therefore buy-in.
• Coordinate: 9-12 months – broaden and scale practices horizontally beyond the pilot within selected areas to create further momentum.
• Integrate: 12-24 months – scale practices vertically beyond to the portfolio level and adapt planning and budgeting approaches.
• Accelerate: (continuous) ­– scale to enterprise level and integrating central functions into a holistic Target Operating Model.

Working systematically through the four stages and applying our proven MVO approach will help organizations achieve Business Agility faster and more confidently. On such a dynamic playing field the goal posts will and must keep shifting. The question is – will your organization be agile enough to respond quickly when they do, not just for the sake of continued relevance, but to achieve a sizeable competitive advantage?