The world is changing faster than ever. Uncertainty is a constant variable in the daily lives of individuals. Organizations, in turn, want to remain relevant from the perspective of their clients, employees and society. Their employees demand transparency, autonomy and purpose. On the other hand, customers are very informed and their expectations are higher than ever.
Business agility can be defined as the ability and desire of an organization to adapt and evolve to be connected to the purpose of its clients, with the constant alignment of the services offered as the central point of this evolution.
3 aspects for agility in business
Business agility is related to everything we do, our priorities and what we offer. In this context, organizations need to have a performance model that promotes aspects such as this ones:
- Complex Context
- Perception & Interpretation
- Connection
What has really changed? Was not all these important aspects before? Are they still relevant now?
What´s changed?
From my perspective the concerns remain the same even if we live in different temporary contexts, however, some variables make us have to rethink and remodel the way each of them observe, and even they can be integrated.
The variables that modify observation under these aspects are the Complex Context, Perception and Interpretation and Connection.
1. Complex Context
The complexity is demonstrated by high uncertainty, change speed, high speed of generation and interpretation of data for decision-making, volume of connections, among others.
“He have to recognize that we experience complexity in everyday situations and in organizations”
The complex context requires the identification of hypotheses and experimentation. In these contexts there is no easy response, not even experts or best practices can guarantee a successful result.
Short iteration cycles, which allow you to learn from experimentation, practice and collaboration, facilitate adaptability and rapid response to changes.
The use of agility, adequate and adapted to each context drives this virtuous circle. People and organizations that want to learn from their experiences are more likely to succeed.
? If you are starting in the Agile world here is a glossary with all the essential aspects of this philosophy that is going to hepl you.
2. Perception & Interpretation
The changes will require a greater ability to perceive and interpret the environment, to adapt the business to the new needs and purposes of its customers.
Understanding the client´s purpose makes it possible to dynamically adjust an organization´s strategy and objectives. The client´s purpose connects the purpose of an organizations which in turn derives from the purpose of its internal structures and consequently that of the people. The greater and deeper this alignment, the greater the value of the product or service offered.
3. Connection
Organizations need to rethink their traditional structures to turn them into a single agency or system, making all their parts work in an integrated manner, for a common purpose. Analyzing and managing dependencies becomes a fundamental topic.
It is also important that these structures have a flexible and adaptable system, adjusting to the internal and external context in which they operate. Understanding how these structures will work, through the definition of a work model that suits the needs of the business, is a key point. Communication in a connected structure, must have the same relevance to boots collaboration and transparency.
Work models that foster agility based on collaboration and short cycles, create the conditions or a process of feedback, learning and constant evolution of their practices, creating emerging approaches.
To sum up
The concept of evolution, through business agility, allows to create organizations that are more adaptable, flexible and that can react to give faster responses to changes.
Business agility is applied to every single area in the company, considering IT, business, operations and transversal functions, such as Human Resources, Costs, Communication, Marketing, Compliance and others, which are enablers for a structural, single system evolution. Always taking into account the alignment between our purpose and the purpose of our clients.
Denise Lazzeri Gastaldo Bombonatti
Santander
Enterprise Agile Coach in Santander and Visual Thinking. She is a member of the Business Agility Group of the Institute of Business Agility in Spain. She acted in the agile transformation of large national and international organizations. She is the rapporteur for agility events. She has a postdoctoral degree in Software Engineering, is a professor and a reseacher.
