Agile is not an option
In the tech start-up sector agile is a popular mindset and method used for business and product development. It’s a methodology that aims to maximise profit, deliver value and help you to enjoy the journey of shaping and building a successful business.
When launching and growing a business and developing new products we face an environment of extreme uncertainty and constant change with disruptive and fast-moving markets. Being agile helps to navigate this journey and find the best path to creating a sustainable and scalable business model. Agile isn’t just for tech businesses, any business can use agility to springboard their growth. Companies with an agile culture that embraces and adapts to change, can turn uncertainty into opportunity, and flourish when other businesses fail.
Here are 4 ways your business can become more agile today by adopting agile thinking:
Gain a better balance: It is vital to balance both running a business and changing a business in order for it to sustain growth and deliver value.
As a business grows and develops it can struggle with capacity, less time is available for innovation and improvement. Ensure that a balance is maintained between running the day-to-day activities of the business and making time for continuous improvement and development throughout the business.
Agile embraces change and provides a methodology to manage it, agile accepts changes will happen. Plans are implemented flexibly to respond to change and allow for continuous improvement. An agile mind set embraces change as opportunity and potential for learning and growth.
Cut yourself some slack for growth and improvement
Agile is a learning-based method and builds continuous improvement into our daily workflow, build in slack to enable time to improve and respond to changing circumstances. Agile adds time to reflect, think, and experiment into the process, it provides a structure to make regular small iterative improvements. Agile works by integrating change on a regular basis, whether it is driven by internal or external forces.
Gain clarity and visibility
Visualising our work is incredibly powerful for getting things out of our heads and seeing things from a different perspective. Whether projects, plans or ideas, visual mapping helps gain immediate clarity to help order, prioritise, share and review it personally and with your team.
Get ideas out of your head and visualise work in progress to clarify and share what’s happening within the business. Agile tools literally put the writing on the wall providing a real time snapshot and practical communication channel for the business.
Agile information dashboards provide real-time, tactile communication channels for collaborating and maintaining a shared understanding throughout the business. Agile dashboards break down business silos and encourage cross team working.
Think big – act small
Being agile means to validate and test solutions early. Releasing early viable solutions for feedback provides vital information to help evolve and develop the idea into a solution that meets demand and needs. Agile works to ensure the right thing is built, and that thing is built right through test-driven development.Agile values people, collaboration, working solutions and change. An agile team values being agile over being perfect, they look to release their work early and gain feedback to enable them to continuously improve and refine the value they deliver and be responsive as markets and customers change and evolve.
Whether you are starting, running or growing a team or your business, change is inevitable and agile provides a method for building in change rather than resisting it. Agile is a highly effective method for managing change, navigating uncertainty, empowering teams and creating a positive working environment and culture.
