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What is Agile?

/ 31 May 2021 / 0 Comments

Do you do agile, or do you be agile?

Before we can discuss why and when to ‘be’ agile, we must first distinguish the different uses of the word. 

 

  • Agility - the noun - refers to the ability to change direction quickly
  • Agile - as an adjective - describes something as having that ability 
  • ‘Agile’ as coined by the ‘agile manifesto’ refers to a way of managing software development that makes it easier - and cheaper - to change direction in terms of features, design, etc. It is a set of values and principles. By adhering to the Agile Manifesto a company can BE more agile 
  • Agilist - a person that understands, applies, and perhaps advocates the adherence to the agile manifesto

 

All this agile terminology can be confusing. One can become more agile by adhering to the agile manifesto. Does that mean agilists ‘use’ agile? Strictly speaking: no. Agile is an adjective, not a noun, so one cannot ‘use’ or ‘do’ agile. Nevertheless, you will hear the term “we use agile” (or “we do agile”) often. It usually means that a team or company aspires to adhere to the agile manifesto or use a delivery methodology that is congruent with the agile manifesto, such as Scrum. 

 

An evolving body of techniques and frameworks that are either founded on - or compatible with - the agile manifesto help companies be more agile. One of those frameworks (arguably the most well known one) is Scrum

Agility as a Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Market forces have changed dramatically over the last few decades. Thanks to globalization and advancements in technology, consumers and businesses have more options for sourcing products than ever before. This means that innovation, new technologies, and better products can become available to customers very quickly, allowing them to easily change loyalties.

Being able to quickly respond to changes in the market or industry, or change in technology – aka being agile – is important for today’s organizations. Being able to respond to change has to become a core competency, even a competitive advantage for many companies. “Core competencies” and “competitive advantages” are capabilities that a business leverages to stay relevant – and profitable.

Let’s illustrate this with an example:Kodak is a 130-year-old New York company that once had over $15 Billion in annual revenues. It was a dominant market leader in the manufacturing and distribution of photographic film. Steven Sasson, a Kodak employee, created the first portable digital camera. However, as digital photography started to take center stage at the close of the 21st century, Kodak was too vested in its position as an analogue film maker to fundamentally change its focus.

Kodak proved unable to establish itself as a significant player in the digital photography market. It just could not quickly enough adapt to the disruptions brought on by the digital age. Despite its historical leadership position in the industry, Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and restructured the business, selling off a large number of patents and narrowing their product line.

This example shows how the ability to adapt to changing market conditions and technologies can be critical for the survival of a business. Using their ability to leverage new technologies, young, entrepreneurial companies like Amazon can substantially displace century old establishments.

 

Other examples of how market conditions are changing:

  • Cars used to be mostly mechanical. Now computers control almost everything cars do

  • Major product versions used to be released once a year, now we get updates to our mobile banking apps several times a month

  • There used to be several dozen programming languages. Now there are tens of thousands

  • Sourcing products from China used to be a privilege of few trades persons. Now anyone can order from alibaba.com

It is important to recognize that being agile is not just about the ability to change. Organizations also need to proactively recognize emerging trends and needs early on, to respond to them, and to do that repeatedly and efficiently enough to outdo the competition. It is comparable to trying to navigate a ship through a volatile weather system with limited visibility and constantly changing (evolving) circumstances.

 All this translates into four important realities for today’s organizations:

·        They have to increase their capability to innovate, or at the very least keep up by integrating new innovations into their products and processes at a faster pace

·        They have to be able to bring products and product features to market more quickly in order to keep up with their competitors and market disruptors

·        They have to learn how to deal with increasing technological complexities.

·        They have to validate their assumptions frequently as they cannot afford to go down the wrong path too far or for too long

This last point is both easily missed and fundamental to agility.

 

 

Note that all our courses are taught in live, small class sizes with very high emphasis on helping participants contextualize the learnings in their specific environments. We accomplish this through discussions, exercises, and a unique-to-us emphasis on the underlying "why's" and by providing examples from various IT and non-IT industries. Further, we verify that our students in fact meet the Learning Objective through in- and out-of- class assessments. 

After class, all our students gain access to our growing network of agile professionals, through which they are able to garner support, advise, and talent for maximum impact for your organization.

Our focus is on imparting the most modern and effective leadership skills, not on providing transactional educational hours.

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