Embracing Business Change with Agile Culture
We live in a historical period characterized by uncertainty, fear and a whole series of events that we are tired of remembering, even enough!
The period is frightening, everything is more complicated, we see little light around us, and we do not think we can change anything about the socio-economic context in which we live.
So in order not to suffocate inside a room of negative thoughts, we need to change our vision, our perspective. The dear old rhetoric of the glass half full, which does not mean just being optimistic, means seeing opportunity even in critical contexts: okay uncertainty, fear and anxiety, okay everything, where do I see opportunity?
Let’s make Aristotle proud and try to reason by syllogisms: change is a constant, we have to accept it, and some changes are not predictable.
In a context of imposed change, it means that both situations that work and those that do not work are changing. Changing a situation that is not working means positive transformation, it means opportunity for growth. Change = Opportunity. Although we are not sure of Aristotle’s approval, the concept is clear. The current environment, which has changed from VUCA ( Volatility Uncertainty Complexity Ambiguity) to BANI (brittle Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible), simply means that what was not working before is now a huge risk factor. It means that being in a critical socio-economic context where many organizational realities are walking on a tightrope, if we do not change processes, relationships, tools that are not delivering results, another flurry of change is likely to bring them down.
The fact that change is forced upon us and we can no longer put it off is therefore a great opportunity. Change must be anticipated, continuing in the use of the metaphor of the thread, we must walk on safer ground, ground where one last flurry of change is not enough to throw us off balance.
The prerogative then, for those in business, both entrepreneurs and people in organizations, is to be agile, fast and innovative, to be able to respond to changes in the market environment: to be creative. If change is a constant variable that must be taken into account, a traditional planning approach, which separates the time when strategic decisions are made (strategic planning), from the time when they are put into practice (operational planning), is likely to be unable to enable sudden change in the situation.
One approach to planning, which can facilitate the response to change, is an iterative approach, which involves shorter planning, divided into steps, which are evaluated in a shorter time, in order to confirm or question them, before moving on to the next phase, through experimentation and continuous comparison and feedback on the results obtained, which are not certain and predictable. An agile approach that is based on two principles: new method of planning and a renewed capacity for relationships between people involved in the change process, based on comparison and feedback. “If we were to give a definition of Agile? Agile is the ability to respond quickly even to unplanned aspects.”
The agile approach is a change of mindset and approach to change; therefore, it is not only a method but has an impact on organizational culture. Agile is innovation, and “innovation is the process by which new ideas are put into practice. Innovation is applied creativity” (Robinson K., 2017) and creativity is the process of having original and valuable ideas. This is why an agile approach that enhances people’s creativity is necessary, as creativity is a strategic value of responding to change.
The strategic aspect of Agile is that it is a Mindset, a way of thinking, an organizational paradigm of shared autonomy and only consequently a set of organizational methodologies. It is a strong leadership style shift, in which the manager must remove impediments and foster more effective communication and sharing, placing full trust in the team from a collaborative perspective. It requires a leadership shift from Management 2.0 to Management 3.0.
In management 2.0, organizations share a managerial style marked by the concept that people are the most important Asset and servant leaders who have as their goal, not only to lead, but to support and facilitate the achievement of goals. In management 3.0, organizations share a management style that encourages the engagement of people and their interactions, empowering them to improve the system and feel the value delivered to the customer as their own. Mindset Agile means for the organization to rapidly change strategy, structure, processes, roles skills and technologies to seize opportunities and produce greater value to the customer and all stakeholders.
Introducing agile methodology in an organization means proposing a real cultural revolution, a top down revolution, starting from the top, from the leaders of the organization, from those who make the decisions, directing the change to every process. It is not enough for a single department to introduce the agile approach, it is a much longer and more complex process.
Underlying the revolution are various aspects that precede the practical introduction of agile methodology, such as: creating an enabling environment that allows people to express themselves and develop their talents through the achievement of successes in their field of work, a creative environment that allows lifelong learning of all human resources, an environment that protects and trains as people and as workers the people who serve in it. Streamlining corporate bureaucracy in favor of achieving results, stimulating the development of soft skills; creating a work environment in step with the fourth industrial revolution: it is not enough to be agile.
After that, the frameworks, the agile application methods are varied, each with its own characteristics, and surely every organization will find the system of organization most in line with its needs: Scrum and Kanban are certainly the best known but there are many others: Test-Driven Development (TDD), Feature-Driven D evelopment (FDD), Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), Adaptive Software Development (ASD), eXtreme Programming (XP), Crystal Clear Methods (Crystal), Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).
In conclusion, Agile culture could be the answer organizations are looking for-just be ready for a cultural revolution!
