Agile Business see 50% Business Improvements

Customer obsession is not a nice to have. It is crucial to business excellence. Companies have to be capable of being responsive to customer and stakeholder needs and adaptive to changing priorities. Leaders have to find ways to get the best out of shrinking budgets and are under pressure to become increasingly nimble to be able to adapt to the fast changing world.

It is almost impossible to deliver timely, relevant experiences using rigid, time-bound processes in fragmented organisations with disconnected levels, regions, departments, divisions, and units.. Inflexible strategies, long planning cycles, and a lack of cross-functional collaboration lead to clunky fragmented experiences that send customers running for the hills, never to look back.

Never Mind The Quality …

But still, most companies cling to slow, unyielding annual plans and implementation cycles. They stick to inflexible strategies and plans delivered by separate departments and silos..

Let’s look at internal comms as one often overlooked and undervalued example. If employees don’t understand change,, if they don’t feel part of the change, they will not buy into the change. FACT. In some ways internal comms is the most important part of a transformation programme.

But most transformation leaders are way too busy thinking about tech and the serious business stuff, to give comms more than a cursory glance. Internal comms teams have a rigid “get the word out” brief thrown over the wall : produce collateral, videos, print, graphics, websites. Tell them what we need them to know.

Internal comms is all-too-often seen as a poor cousin of Brand and Marketing departments…who are perceived as the fluffy bit of the organisation. So CorpComms, as a necessary afterthought, get the brief and spew out more pretty data-driven, corporate messaging. KPIS are often about whether materials have been created, signed off on time and to budget, are delivered to affected stakeholders than about effectiveness.

Content is not an end to itself. Good comms is carefully designed to evoke an emotional response. Effective content makes the recipient feel something, do something, want to share something. If content doesn’t achieve this aim, it doesn’t matter how pixel-perfect it is or how clever the idea seemed in a workshop - it is a total waste of money.

The important questions; “Did you open the mail?” “Did you understand how the change will effect you?” “How did the comms make you feel?” “How do you feel about the change” “Have you shared the information with colleagues?” are seldom asked

Agility Leads To ROI

It turns out there’s a lot to be learnt from the chaps in the IT crowd.

The Agile Manifesto was written 20 years ago by a gang of change-maker developers - who could see new ways of working were necessary to be successful in a world in constant and accelerating change. Where everything has to be in constant beta. They wanted to replace linear (inefficient) development processes and ways of working.

“But what’s that got to do with me?” I hear you say. “Agile is a software thing.”

The most profitable organisations are built on platforms of change, learning, and growth. Operating models are often the biggest blockers to successful transformation. Agility separates successful companies from those that are struggling to keep up.

New ways of working are imperative.

In the words of Jim Highsmith, one of the original Agile Alliance:: “This isn’t merely a software development problem. Marketing, management, internal customers, and even developers avoid making hard trade-off decisions by imposing irrational demands through the imposition of corporate power structures.”

“OK,” you say “But changing the way we do things is risky. How do I know it will unlock business impact …?”

Well, recent McKinsey & Co research shows implementing organisation-wide agile transformation can unlock business improvements of up to 50%.. That help ?

Scrums, Stand-Ups, and Sprints

So what is Agile?

Before we start, Agile is a collective state of mind, not a rulebook. Don’t get tangled in rigid doctrine. (It happens.)

It’s really very simple. Agile is being clear about the direction of travel ( what I call the North Star,} understanding there are a myriad ways of getting to that place, and setting off on a journey to design, test, learn and improve across everything. Embedding “Everything can be better. Always.” thinking in your corporate DNA.

Agile has four core principles (collaboration, empowerment, transparency, and flexibility), operates across a continuous cycle of development (planning, scrums, reviews, and retrospective), and focuses on experimentation, validation and continuous improvement.

People from all business units, departments, regions, levels come together in open, transparent design and sprint planning sessions where collective decisions are made about priorities, tasks, and realistic goals.

Sprints are allotted periods of time to work towards a sprint goal. The length depends on the complexity of the activity (usually between a week and a month.)

Always A Better Way

The team collectively agree what “done” means for each sprint item. “Done” doesn’t mean finished. Nothing should ever be “finished.” Everything should be tweaked and continuously improved according to data informed learning.

Sprints are managed by scrums. Short stand-ups invite everyone to check in, share progress and challenges. Fifteen minutes is enough. The voice of the customer is key to the meeting.

Shared project boards mean everyone can see what’s going on at all times.. Nothing gets lost.

At the end of each sprint, stakeholders come back together for a review (what’s been done, what hasn’t been done, what have we learned, what do we need to add? ) and a sprint retrospective (what could have been done better.)

Collaboration And Cultivation

The smartest companies know agility does not stop at the edges of the IT department. It is a state of mind, a way of working, that has to permeate everyone, in all departments and all levels, if we are to successly cross the chasm of change towards customer obsession.

Deloitte says: “The current velocity of change leaves us at the doorstep of a new world. In this environment of bigger, faster, and more complex change, agility is not an option but a required core competency.”

But be careful. Changing from the safety of the traditional ways will not be easy. Be smart about how you handle transition. Mandating change and quoting statistics just don’t work.

Let’s not forget: “Organisations” don’t change. People change. If people resist change, NOTHING changes.

I would as always appreciate your comments and feedback !