So you're not a software company: can you be agile?
Early in my agile journey a consulting partner gave me the smackdown for using 'agile enterprise' and 'enterprise agile' interchangeably. Yes, words matter, so for the record, enterprise agile connotes an organization that uses agile in various areas of its operations. Whereas an agile enterprise is 'end-to-end' agile. It is on a never-ending quest to integrate agile ways into every corner of the company. But let's go back to a definition of agile that I've used for a while:
Agile is a set of principles and values that create a mindset and establish ways of working which embrace collaboration, the empowerment of teams, and the incorporation of feedback into the process.
It does this through self-organizing, cross-functional teams with the purpose of delivering value to customers and the organization faster and better.
You'll notice that there's no mention of software or programmers in this definition--that might be surprising for the newly initiated to agile who have heard of its use in successful software companies. And that would not be wrong as the agile Manifesto (originally called the Manifesto for Agile Software Development) was created at the turn of the 21st century by 17 software engineers who believed there needed to be a movement to improve the way that increasingly more complex software was being developed.
As we see though, the Principles are broadly applicable to business itself. Principles like Self-organizing teams, Regular reflection and adaptation, Motivated individuals, Face to face conversation... they're aspirational to any progressive organization. When the principles are applied through an operating framework (we'll talk about SCRUM, Kanban, etc. in future) they can be a powerful way to work across an organization.
Therefore, enterprise agility is a model for scaling agile ways beyond software development or IT functions. It is the natural extension of core agile concepts across more varied teams that can include Finance, Communications, HR, Marketing, and engineering disciplines, other expertise areas in a company. Some of the hallmarks of enterprise agility include smaller cross-functional teams and smaller, more iterative development cycles informed by the appropriate business metrics to scale agility efforts. The goals of the agile enterprise are focused on increased customer satisfaction, stronger employee engagement, efficiencies over time, more predictable costs, and less risk.
The questions then fall out of the opportunity: how do I start building my agile enterprise? How do I talk to my board and staff about it? What is the structure? What areas do I start with? How do I manage the changes? These are all excellent thought-starters: let's get together and talk about it!
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