SkillRary

Agile delivery models are a hot topic in organizational design circles. Organizations everywhere are implementing agile capabilities and structures at pace – and for good reason. Done right, the results can be startling: more innovative solutions, brought faster to market, with lower development costs and with stronger team engagement.

However, many organizations experience challenges in implementing them. The learning curve is long and steep, often involving both foreseen and unforeseen disruption to the business.

Some organizations have even begun to implement wholly-agile organizational models. However, these all-agile models are rarely right for most workforces and the more targeted approach tends to yield better business results for the majority.

Fast-followers have a lot to learn from the successes and failures of the early-adopters. Organizations that derive the most value from implementing agile organizations are clear about what outcomes they want from an agile delivery model. They understand what they want to achieve, as well as which parts of their organizations they want to set up in an agile way, and in which order. For the best chance of success, they adopt a multi-speed approach – one that implements and integrates new agile delivery models alongside traditionally-organized business units.

Implementing agile organizational structures also means developing the right skills, cultures and behaviours, supported by strong leadership for the change. In a world where culture consistently trumps strategy, building the right culture will make all the difference to organizations in achieving their intended outcomes.

Agile organizations are different. Traditional organizations are built around a static, siloed, structural hierarchy, whereas agile organizations are characterized as a network of teams operating in rapid learning and decision-making cycles. Traditional organizations place their governance bodies at their apex, and decision rights flow down the hierarchy; conversely, agile organizations instil a common purpose and use new data to give decision rights to the teams closest to the information. An agile organization can ideally combine velocity and adaptability with stability and efficiency.

Any enterprise-wide agile transformation needs to be both comprehensive and iterative. That is, it should be comprehensive in that it touches strategy, structure, people, process, and technology, and iterative in that not everything can be planned upfront.

Winning organizations are applying agile organizational principles more broadly, so they can respond faster and more efficiently to market dynamics.

Agile meets modern organizations’ need for flexibility and speed. Innovative products and services are coming to market much faster and being adopted by customers much more quickly. Disruptors are entering markets at pace, with new categories of products that take radically different approaches to meet user needs. Whole industries are transforming in their wake.

This transformation is powered by agile development. First evolved and perfected to support software development, agile principles focus organizations on meeting customer needs, forming multifunctional teams with delegated autonomy, prioritizing work, creating minimum viable solutions and learning to fail fast.

Many organizations have sought to exploit the potential benefits of the agile development methodology by applying it to organizational problems and their related organizational functions. By taking on the principles of an agile organization, they become more flexible and focus energy more quickly on effective innovation, ultimately responding faster and more efficiently to customer demand.

For organizations considering agile organizational design, the five takeaways below – learned from the early adopters – offer a place to start.

There’s a reason so many organizations are exploring agile organizational designs to help them fast-track against their growth and performance objectives. Disruptive innovation, faster speed-to-market, lower development costs and stronger employee engagement can help organizations excel in an ever-more competitive and disrupted market.

Winning organizations are applying agile delivery principles to their organizational models, so they can respond faster and more efficiently to market dynamics. However, template-based and wholly-agile organizational models are rarely right for most organizations. Instead, organizations are finding that by taking a more targeted approach, they can achieve better business results. By choosing the right parts of the organization to roll out an agile model and then managing the changes to skills and culture, organizations can chart a course for success.

Here are the five key takeaways to consider when taking the leap:

• Know why your company wants to take an agile organizational approach, what you expect to achieve from it and how to measure your success.
• Use an agile design where it works. Identify the business units that offer the greatest potential for growth through disruptive innovation and create effective relationships across agile and traditional business units.
• Develop a plan to support the transition to the new culture and skills required. Have leaders serve as role models who emulate the right behaviours and adapt your talent strategy to build the right skills.
• Take a multi-speed approach to implementation. It offers the best chance of building the skills and ways of working that will deliver measurable ROI. It also gives the traditionalists more time to adjust to today’s brave new agile world.
• Expect initial imperfections. There’s bound to be a learning curve. Turn these challenges into opportunities to iterate towards a model that works best for your organization.