Business Agility - Understanding it in Seven Questions

Quick POLL

How strong is your business' agility?  Elaborate in comments.

1. No idea what it is 
2. Once heard of it
3. We are considering a transformation
4. We started our business agility transformation
5. We are going through a transformation
6. Most of our business is using lean-agile methods
7. We have fully embraced business agility in all its forms

This blog is based on the seven reporter questions: what, why, who, when, where, how, and which.  You can read more about this question strategy in other posts on my blog: Simpler Agile. 

If you are interested in Business Agility please contact me directly on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulpazderski/  

What is Business Agility?

Business Agility is the organizational capability to sense upcoming changes externally or internally and respond accordingly in order to deliver value to our customers and business interests.

Business agility is a comprehensive capability that encompass everything and everyone in the business system, including the organization, its vendors, suppliers,  partners, and even customers.  It is founded on a growth mindset (see Mindset by Carol S. Dweck), four agile values, and twelve agile principles (see https://agilemanifesto.org/).  It is instantiated in an innumerable, ever growing set of varied practices organized into frameworks.

Why is Business Agility important?

Since we work in a VUCA world: (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) we need the capability to respond to whatever changes are thrown at us.  Business Agility enables us to more quickly and easily innovate and quickly deliver iterative, incremental value to our customers.  Also, Business Agility provides better alignment within your business both vertically and horizontally. Lastly, when done correctly it improves work/life balance for all involved.

Who needs Business Agility?

Business Agility is a survival capability.  It is critical to all current and future business endeavors in our VUCA world.  Therefore, anyone desiring a successful business must understand and incorporate Business Agility into their business ventures.   Also, all people working in a modern business venture must get involved and support in Business Agility.

How does Business Agility work?

Business Agility requires a comprehensive all-encompassing transformation of the company.  Every person, every team, every group, every department, and every business unit must go through this transformation.  This Business Agility Transformation starts with all individuals cultivating a growth mindset.  Than understanding, accepting, and living by the four agile values, and twelve agile principles.   Such a foundation then enables to selection and enactment of the appropriate modern lean-agile practices and frameworks.  Yet, to select the appropriate practices and frameworks you need an expert guide.  In the lean-agile community such expert guides are usually called Coaches.  We inherently accept that all athletes and sports teams have coaches, sometimes more than one.  The same is true for Business Agility Transformation.  You must have expert Coaches guiding you.

When is Business Agility engaged?

The movement toward agile methods started over 20 years ago.  Many organizations across the globe are using them.  Therefore, if you and your business are not onboard yet, you are behind the curve.  The unfortunate circumstances are that many first time attempts at transformations fail for numerous reasons - lack of commitment, weak support/leadership, and/or poor coaching for example.

Where is Business Agility visible?

First and foremost, Business Agility shows through customer loyalty and promotion; i.e. the customers are so happy with the business, its products and services that they tell everyone how great those are.  Second, the business tends to outperform their competition.  Third, products and services tend to lead the market in innovation and disruption. Fourth, the employees, vendors and suppliers are very happy and promote the business.  Finally, the community are just as happy and supportive.

Which elements are critical to Business Agility?

Find and engage a well-rounded, experienced Business Agility Coach.  Cultivate that growth mindset.  Follow with the four agile values, and twelve agile principles.   Start learning modern lean and agile practices and frameworks.  Yet, avoid trying to become the agile coach yourself.  Get a professional.

References 

For further insights on Business Agility please follow these links.

• Agile Manifesto - https://agilemanifesto.org/ 
• Simpler Agile blog - https://simpleragile.blogspot.com/
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulpazderski/  

If you are interested in Business Agility please contact me directly on LinkedIn.

How do you Kick Start a New Idea? - The Inception Journey

New ideas abound.  We all have them and play the 'What-if' game.  Yet, we wonder: is that really viable?  So we hesitate, second guess, procrastinate, and eventually move on.  Wouldn't it be easier if could test our ideas to check viability.  One day, a good friend, Jon, and I were discussing some new ideas.  Our main concern was: how do we check these?  So we tried some things and arrived at a pattern. We called it the Inception Journey.

  

Our Inception Journey pattern is not really new.  We have seen elements of this pattern in other inception  patterns.  But we have not seen it presented as a simple step by step series of questions.  Here it is.

Inception Journey

Clarify Idea - … Elevator Pitch or Pirate Metrics Canvas or something similar

MVPOC (Minimum Viable Proof Of Concept) - Tipping points to proceed

• Outcomes:

• O1: Viable idea to clients

• O2: ~ 10x clients to creators

• O3: Clients' validated potential engagement 

• Q: What is the minimum we can do to convince ourselves there is any clientele for our idea?

• Q1: What is the problem we are trying to solve?

• Q2: What is the 'new' idea we want to try?

• Q3: Who is the targeted clientele?

• Q4: How are we going to validate their potential engagement?

• Q5: How are we going to validate our new idea?

• Q6: What is that minimum experiment/activity to try?

Decide Next Steps - Proceed / Pivot / Punt 

• Retro - Collect feedback and learnings from MVPOC 

• Proceed - MVPOC was successful enough to go forward

• Pivot - MVPOC indicated need for major changes to 

• Rerun MVPOC with changes

•      Punt - Go back to the start, find new idea and new MVPOC

Define Vision to Proceed - Vision Statement 

• From Vision start building Backlog in 'Tool'

• Recruit & Charter an Agile Team to do the work

Inception Journey by Jon Jorgensen and Paul Pazderski is licensed under CC BY-SA 4

Example group event within Pandemic guardrails

While the Pandemic is in force, we still may enjoy safe group fun by following simple rules.   This is only one example of how to proceed.   Please share your approach and comments.

Couples' Yard Party within Pandemic Guardrails 

1. Maximum of only 10 people.
2. Masks always on faces, except for eating and drinking

3. Always sit and stand with 2+ meter distance

4. Only use own designated utensils, which you have cleaned with a septic wipe.

5. Only drink from single use cans and bottles, which you have cleaned with a septic wipe.
6. Only eat food from the grill, which you get with your utensils yourself.
7. Only use your designated washroom, one per couple.

Couples are not obligated to follow rules among themselves.

How – How are Zen and Agile Related

Both Zen and Agile promote balance, harmony, good will, and service, while pursuing self-development and self-actualization.

A minor difference could be that while Zen works mostly at the individual level, Agile is more focused at the group level, i.e. Teams, departments, and organizations of all sizes.

Yet, you do not need to know one to practice the other.  It is just nice to notice the alignment.

DONE.

How – How to Describe an Agile Pattern

Agile Patterns can be described in many ways.  A good way is to break it down into two parts. 

1^st: Standards – the critical elements of the Agile Pattern; 

without these the Agile Pattern cannot exist

e.g. Scrum has 3 standard Roles: Scrum Master, Product Owner, Team; 5 standard Ceremonies: Sprints, Sprint Planning, Stand-ups, Sprint Reviews, Sprint Retrospectives; and 3 standard Artifacts: Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Potentially Shippable Increment.

2^nd: Guidelines – the suggested but optional elements that support 

the effectiveness of the Agile Pattern

e.g. Scrum has Guidelines for each standard part, for example the Potentially Shippable Increment needs a Definition of Done. 

BTW - If more detail needs to be defined for the standard elements or the guidelines, consider answering the seven questions: why, who, what, when, where, how, and which.  For more info see previous posts on this blog

DONE.

How – How to use the seven questions

Here is a brief overview of how to use the Seven Questions in proposing a new idea.

“what” questions get answers about things (tangibles), concepts (intangibles), and related activities

“why” questions get answers about motivations: reasons (historical causes) and purposes (future drivers)

“who” questions get answers about the people (individual human beings) and roles (characterizations individuals portray)

“when” questions get answers about time: dates (fixed or ranges) and schedules (sequences for events)

“where” questions, we get answers about places (physical) and locations (virtual)

“how” questions get answers about strategies (approaches to the problems) and methods (patterns for solving the problems)

“which” questions build clarity by differentiating important details from unimportant details in the other six questions.

Please note - the order of answering the questions is not inherently important.  But sometimes you may want to answer the questions in a specific sequence to foster a flow of the presented idea. 

DONE.

How - How are these posted

First, selected the overarching guiding theme - Simpler Agile.

Second, select a sub-theme or general topic, currently - introduce this blog.

Third, select a simple approach for presenting the sub-theme, currently - answer seven basic questions.

Fourth, write a short post for each element of the approach while foccusing on the sub-theme, currently - answer the "How" question.

Fifth, repeat from step two until ideas are exhausted.

DONE.