Agile Business

A recent article in Raconteur discussed business agility and outlined some interesting case studies such as Lego and Volvo which are trying to pre-empt market trends by getting there first. It also mentions Google as the champion of "Failing Fast", without really getting into the ethos of innovation requiring experimentation and an appetite to learn from failure to either tune or abandon hypotheses on what will work in the market place.

It was also interesting that the article quoted a recent CA survey stating that:

87% of executives think that responding more quickly to new opportunities will give them a distinct advantage - whereas with DAU and the DAF, the belief is that you have to identify them and try to get there first. Responding quickly is only enough to keep up.

65% expect higher customer satisfaction and retention - which may be right about satisfaction, if their organisation has adequately focused on customer experience and design thinking, but kind of misses the point that customers are less loyal in the digital market place unless an enterprise maintains its innovation and keeps its image clean (through transparency, ethics, sustainability etc.).

58% expect higher employee satisfaction and retention - which again has some qualifiers around culture (collaboration, empowerment, personal development, communication etc.) design of work and eliminating frustrating nugatory tasks which are endemic in major corporations.

I also thought the author slightly got it wrong when reporting that Agile is chaotic. Agile is in fact highly organised, but it is a good way of coping with chaotic conditions. Anyone who has seen Snowdon's Cynefin framework would appreciate that.

Anyone who wants to discuss this can join the Way of DAU discussion group on LinkedIn.