The Agility drive
Agility, first and foremost, is a set of individual skills. In the traditional mindset, people believe the way they think and interact with the environment is the outcome of personality traits working together with experience and a learning base, which aren’t supposed to change with ease. The most treasured value is the buildup of experience throughout years of perfecting the very same routines. Hopefully, knowledge would be all about piling up complementary skills on top of what you already know.
The same principle applies to organisations. The way production, planning and information flow are carried out, work best if there are long patterns, a stable hierarchy and a rigid planning. Clients are often regarded more as a nuisance than a partner because they tend to disrupt the proper order of the system.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.
– E. F. Schumacher
Agility is a lean process of creating value adjusting painlessly to change at any time.
In contrast, an agile mindset aims to respond to changes in an environment of uncertainty, which is the standard these days. An increased focus on the client’s demands is also needed, which implies greater flexibility and the ability to adapt to changing requirements.
The skills depicted in the table below, along with others, can be taught and improved.
Organisations are made of people, and unless they are properly prepared, it will be impossible to thrive in the market. The agile organisation must also invest in teamwork, seeing that cooperation and flexible networking are instrumental in achieving goals in a fast-evolving context.
Organisation types
Agile organisations follow a model in which all aspects of their structure and functioning are designed to be lean and effortlessly react to external challenges. Different areas must work together in a consistent way to allow the whole to optimize its processes and be quick to respond to unpredictable changes in demand and market conditions. The framework must also seek to optimize quality, minimizing the resources needed to yield it.
Helping organisations to be more agile is a multidimensional task that involves several fields of expertise from management to organisational psychology. Our team has many years of experience in this activity, either in industry or the services sector. Push the button below to find out how we can assist you in improving your agile drive.