Recently, I was faced the statement: „Agile is outdated!“ Well, if agile is considered to be a trendy accessory that is a decorative feature but irrelevant for success, supporters of this stance might be right. Yet, it’s more likely that the meaning of agility has not been recognized. […] and thus, it’s not a surprise that misunderstandings and fairy tales stick in the minds of people like chewing gum on boots. [read more…]
What was first? This question, known as the famous chicken-egg-problem, also applies to agility. […] An example demonstrates the dilemma. Assume that you have realized a poor customer satisfaction due to your responsiveness and thus you want to raise the agility of your department by reducing the response time on customer queries. From this perspective, agility described by speed is the desired output. However, it can also be argued that speed is an input variable to foster agility as an outcome, e.g. by measuring the customer satisfaction. [read more…]
The mostly asked question in context of Agile is how – “How can our organization become more agile?” […] Yet, executives have to be aware that this is not the appropriate answer for transforming a whole organization towards Agile, as it usually does not meet the demands of the increasing dynamics and complexity in business, and in the end, to survive in the economic shark pool and to succeed in a disruptive environment. [read more…]
The need for agile leadership is emphasized frequently, yet, as frequently the term remains vague and abstract and thus tends to get a romantic touch. There is the vision of finally terminating the era of rigorous managers that treat their people like cattle, and to create soft leaders wearing t-shirts and sneakers building an indestructible unit with their teams. This is not completely wrong but in many cases it’s far from the reality of what a contemporary executive is supposed to be. [read more…]
