How to become an "Agile Organisation": Going from Fragile to Agility at Scale

Is that even the right question to be asking?

Agile has got a bad name due to its misuse and abuse by HR, Big Management COustancies, by Agilsitis themselves in fighting on social and tech circles, Dogmatism from key personailties and thier quaotable quotes and the fact that Agile si the right question or answer.

Agile in its purest sense is a set of software development methods that started in the late 80s, mid 90s.

The Movements Origins

Devs/Engineeers started to realsie that the practise of Traditional Project Management wasn't cutting it, so the Agile Movement was born and later in 2001, the Agile Manifesto was codified by its agreement and signing in Snowbird.

The basis premise is ok - how to I become an Agile Organisation - because many of us with busienss accoumen undersetnad the laymans side of the word and ow in context to doing busienss, what folks are ffereing to.

The widesrpead Scrum Disease

Agile - Scrum sadly has taken over the software development space, as well as the Project Managment space and its an incoplete process methodoldogy fit for neither. Once you approciate this, you then understnad where and how the problems have come about to date.

The wrong Mantra for Leadership & Management to Hear

Agile - well Scrum Mantra, esposused by Jeff Sutherland, not its creator, but codifier - big difference - Twice the Work in Halft the Time, With Halft the Resources has become a rod for everyones back. With good intent, alot of truths, like many matras, it was absued. It was quickly inteprepseted by middle managment/managers as a way to do effecineicy drives, ops excellence, or as we knwo it, aka Cost Cutting or Headcount Reduction Activitities. SO like Lean befire it, Lean 6 Sigma, instead of being a faster way to work and get feedback quaickly o the direction of travel, like the two Lean apporaches to Contnous Improvement, it was hijacked. HR then started spouting were Agile, we have remote workers, we have felxible working, we have...hawrdly Agile,especially when you cosnider how many forms and permisison wer reuired to work from home a day a week as it was back then, generally only if you had a kids emergency, otherwise, it never happen, but like most of HR - claims it did.

Why Traditional Business'es arent Competitive - Their Glaical Pace of Change

Now ere getting towwrd the right questipon. Indsutrial Revolutions and the Scientific and Beracratic Managment Practices honed by it, aka The Factory Model, build them cheap, rack em high, sell them for a pretty fortune worked. Mr Fords ecominies of scale was a disprtive market force - he disprupted the horse and cariiage, the train and the publci transportation systems and netowrks for the personal motor car, a once desireable, unattainable vehicle was now mass prodcued for the mainstream. The vlaue propsition was clear, the price was right, and it gave mobility, peronal and familiy fredoms not seen before.

Mass Prodcution - the Second

Why Enterprise Agility is a Business Imperative for the Now, Next and Future

How long should it take to Pull the Levers and Evolve?

YOull get differnt ansywers to this.

My anser is max of 18 -36 months.

In 12 months, you should hav ebeen able to put in the fondations of Kanaban and Agile based Teams over teh last 20 -25 years. Yes, its been that long, since we astarted the sifht from Tradtional Org to Agile Orgs.

In 18 moths, you should have been able to rip the plasters off, and be able to operating in a Prodcut Oreinted Op Model with Modern Digital Busienss odels behig each Prodcut/Service Expereicne.

I know of a bank wose taken an orgnic route, eflt buseinsses, units, functions etc decide when it want to move. Its still going on after 15 years, 5 or 6 CEOs. I say theta way to loong, nad most other bsueinss havent got the time or cash flow to sustain such long adoption, adaption and trasition periods to an entorely new way of Operating.

Average tenuter of a C suite is 18 -24 momths, the averge life a bsuienss has dropped from 36 to 12 years, and the stats keep faliing as barrier to entry get lower.

The Levers to Pull: 5 Moving Dynamic Parts of a CAS

Complex Adaptive Systems, yes busienss are liek the hman body, always trying to maintain homestatasis, a constant, predictable, regualted, managed condition. As adaptive as the body maybe, it still affected by cosntant change, and its outcome,, is homestatsis.

The papradimg shift, from Organsiations as Machines/Factories to more as living orgnisaims that can feel, sense, respond, aadapt by bing freed of becacracy, operating silos, top down hieachy and detailed isntrctions to Fexibles Resources, People playing Rles as needed, Teams bukt around Mission/Value and each person o the team being a Leader to themslevs, and a leader to others to self manage, self orgnise the highest vlaue work to be done.

Strategy - we refere to this as Strategic Agility- the baility to move the vision, missions, goals, busienss outcomes inline with the trends and market changes to meet the needs, wants, deamnds and the most cotrical, the unknown unknowns.

Structure - we efere to this as Orgnisational Agility - the ability to go from Detla Pyramid of Becraracy, Command and Control, to a Holcracry or Sociacracy or adopt the Dual Operating YStems, ovelaying the Delta with a Hbrid Scaled Lean Agile, Prout, DevOps , CLoud and many other domains and dspline oractices andatterns.

Process - we erfer ot these as Practices. Process cotain way too much detail, stiffle innovation, stiffle the ability to repond and trap you in best practices, standards/SoPs etc. We beleive in Better, so to eveolve, we cant stay limited and cosntried by detailed processes. We wrap them around Core Vlaues, Pricnpels, Patterns and Practice to delvier fair outcomes.

People - we unleash peiple, thier creativity, passion, innner motivation, we dont care if they wear shorts, hats, jeans, as long as they are tidy, non offensive, smar casual,becuase we want the best verion of hem at work, being true to themselves, thier idienty. We waont a neroiodvierse, a nnerodivergent, equal opprtuntiy space where thye apply leadership as leaders and cuystomers of one another, not managment by numbers, lines,bxes, pay and reward systems. Transformin HR to People Operations or Agile HR is paramount.

Tech - tech is the enbling differentiator across the Indiutrial Revilutions, it what allows us to do things we couldnt do before, the key is in how we harness this tech, not chae the shiny hype ciricle for the sake f it, buyt how we intergrate, augment it, so that peopel are left to do the highest vlaue things - hence we autonomate and automate everythign we can, so the low end, repetative process stuff akak theboring but neccesary stuff is made light work of.

The above is refered to as the Operating Model. YOu must relaise this also as your Sytem of Work and Engagment. To increase your aggility, you must sytemcially optmise the whlole of it, ot make the mistake of transifomting each silio indeinoendtly becuase of how your finance and managment sytems work, in silos. Agile doesnt have silos.

How to Measure Success

We grt it, how do you know what you dont know if you don't measure it somene how.

We say that the KRA/SUccess Measure should perhaps be like these:

• Cycle Time

• Lead Time

• Innovation Rate

• Speed to Market/Time to Market

• CEo Approval

• CSAT/NPS

• Employee Happiness

• Employee Productivity

• Target Achievement Rate (TAR)

• Time to Value

• Value Created ( increased margins, uplifts, savings, reduced call centres issue volumes etc)

• Organisational Simplification i.e. from multiple businesses to a Lean Portfolio and Value Streams

There aer many other emaures, metrics, OKRS, KPIs, leading and lagging, but w suggest these are the ons to focus on, in becoming an Agile Org.

Digging Deeper than Metrics and Measures into Observations.

Its preetty eas to game metrics andmeasure on dashboads and powepoint slides and apers to tell the story you want to hear and share as opposed ot the truth. This si were observation comes in.

If youve got a northsatrt goal embbdeded into the strategy of becing an Agile Org, then you'll set a shared stagic vision for the whole busienss, and each of it sportfolios will align the exxcution to its stratgy.

You statrt to sieze opprtuntiies as your new roles of Product/Service Managers, Portfolio Leadership and Value Stream Managers and Engineers will be outfward looking facing in, not inward facing, optmising for vlaue by sharing data, info, trends, events etc

Youll start to see more and more netowrked types of teams of teams of teams, with flat strcutures, clear roles and reososibilites, desinged for dleviberate interactions, conversations and comunications for fast flow, that will look to others in thier Communivities of Practice to build expertise and new skills to solve problems, they will goveren themselves, hold themsleves accountable to each other through collaboartion and co-creations, ven draw in ecipsystem partners to help.

HR, Managers and Leaders will start to accetp Failure as a good thing, seeing it as a way of learning, to pivot quickly, and as you work thorugh the Cone fo UNcertainsny, desrisking the buienss as you release, deploy and improve, using DevOps - advancing from Agile, to detec and fix problems before customer even relaise they happened, there no P1 incidents, criiss meetings, jsut slef deetecting agents doing self healing, autscling of services on demand.

Youll see Classic Agile Co Located, Face to Face Long Lived Agile Teams myth busted, for remote, virtual, dsitbuted and augelmented working - yes AI, RPA... can be left do effectively and effeicnetly do things on its own, with lightweight human oversight, so pleeople can spend more time on humaic design that makes the xperince of a prodcut or service much mich better, value adding, revming the pains, applying better tech solutions, simplying, adding steps, giving them mobility, levergeing thier entrapenurail drive, apssions, creativity, sense of wonerwship, empowerment, trsut from the pyscological safety leadreship has created to jsut do it, not aks for persmissions.

You archtectual Runway will emerge ahead of the busienss, as people wil spend less time on heavy documentaiton for audit and compaince to never read and tick a box, as they wil be expereimenting, testing, playing with new emerging tech, new solutios, systems, to plug and play givng you the next gen platforms to sit you prducts and services on top of aka unfair advantage.

The Paradigm Shifts you'll Witness, Feel and Be Part of

From Dirtpive Innovation, steal share, undercut prices,scare reources to co-creating orgnis growth and vlaue by focusing on harness our vlaue chain, systems, streams and teams

From Ditected, hand held, sintructional direceted Teams that do nothign until thye are told, to them pulling work when they ahve the cpacity to fix and add vlaue becuase they feel empowered, trusted to get on with what thye know and understnad best

From dtailed plans, documents, drawings, to rpaid cycles of showing, telling, demontrating mock ups, proorptypes, alpha, betas, LoFi, HiFi to seek fast feedback, derisking, getting clarity, confirmatio on the asks, not guessing from written reuirment that forgot this or that or hwere witten 12months ago and coaught up in PMO land

From Mananmgnt by NUmbers, Status,Progress Meetings to letting people and teams geet on with the owrk by being a part of thhise teams, shaping,guiduing, directing when they ask

From Tech being a cost centre, a change request, an ask for budget, an ask for tools, to As a Service, on demand, build and burn, cost controlled in the cloud, by IT for the business, not as the business.

A spine of Stability from the Top/Board, to balancing Agilities everywhere there needed, not just in agile teams at eh bottom, but in Legal, Procurement, Sales, Marketing, Finance, Shared Service etc etc

Conclusion

Change happens when we are sleeping, it creeps in, suddenly goes boom, and too late, its happened its disrupted you. If thats what you want then thats a great thing, but you want the reassureance.

The easiest route is to use, apply and repeate an Entperise Agility Health Assessment very 8 -12 weeks over 18 -24mothns it should take to make the intial transition. Its show you progress on choosen areas fromyour starting basline, to the progress, even regression you'll make, befire getting to be a Responsive, Resileint Learning Orgnisations that Always On, Always Reay, Always Innovating.

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