Winds of Change(*) — Towards Being More Agile

World history and prehistoric ages were full of changes and transformations all along. Change was always there, 30 years ago and a million years ago. Nevertheless, today, not only the pace of change accelerated, but also the change we experience is much more profound than we did before. The amount of change that used to take 50 years, or maybe a lifetime, is now equivalent to the amount of change we get in, well, just 1 month (or less!). The introduction of the Internet into our lives in the 90’s and us using it as a powerful communication infrastructure — unleashing instant access to information — brought change to the center of our lives.

In this brave new world, while some companies are founded and grow rapidly, some very large companies once thought indestructible are disappearing at a blink of an eye. We observe that those who can keep up with the new rules continue their existence and get stronger any minute. Companies that can sincerely change their purpose of existence from “making money” to “creating value for customer” and are passionate for knowing their customers better and thus responding to their needs better will continue to dominate the markets. The common characteristics of these successful players are that they can act and change swiftly to adapt to new conditions.

In today’s world, traditional approaches are obviously no longer able to meet the needs of organizations. Clearly enough, we need new approaches, new perspectives and a new mindset. For organizations to continue their existence and cope with this urgency of change, adoption of “agile mindset” at both individual and corporate level is inevitable. These certainly cannot be accomplished in a few days, at a few training sessions, or via a few pilot projects. Even when we believe we know it all, I have to say, it is difficult to comprehend, implement and adopt it at the core.

Adopting an agile mindset, establishing and nourishing empowered, sufficiently small, cross-functional agile teams which act in perfect harmony with customer (which will be the main subject of many other posts), and keeping these teams away from the hurdles of bureaucracy is the ultimate key to success. Don’t know where to start just yet? The only recipe I know to get better in adopting an Agile mindset and move from “doing agile” to “being agile” is to practice what we have learned along the way diligently and keep experimenting even when we fail.

*Also a song by Scorpions which is dear to my heart.