Business Agility - Revision history

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 == See Also ==
-*[[Business Strategy]]
+Business Agility refers to an organization's ability to adapt quickly to market changes, efficiently respond to customer demands, and effectively manage and apply changes within the organization. It encompasses not just the speed of response but also the flexibility, resilience, and innovativeness of a business in navigating complex and volatile environments. Agile businesses are characterized by their customer-centric approaches, collaborative work processes, continuous learning, and their capability to pivot and seize new opportunities with minimal disruption to operations.
-*[[Business Capability]]
-*[[IT Strategy (Information Technology Strategy)]]
+*[[Agile Methodology]]: Discussing the group of software development methodologies based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams, foundational to business agility.
-*[[IT Capability]]
+*Lean Thinking: Covering the philosophy of optimizing efficiency and minimizing waste in all forms, while maximizing customer value, which supports the agility of business operations and processes.
-*[[Agility]]
+*[[Digital Transformation (DX)]]: Explaining the process of using digital technologies to create new — or modify existing — business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements.
-*[[Strategy]]
+*[[Change Management]]: Discussing the approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations to a desired future state, critical in managing the dynamics of business agility.
-*[[Corporate Governance]]
+*[[Customer Experience (CX)]]: Covering the practices of designing and reacting to customer interactions to meet or exceed customer expectations, a key driver of business agility.
-*[[IT Governance]]
+*[[Innovation Management]]: Discussing the processes of managing an organization's innovation procedure, from initial idea generation to product and service development, crucial for sustaining competitive advantage in agile businesses.
 == References ==
 <references/>

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−	As seen in this figure, it’s not a trivial undertaking to accelerate value this way and traditional approaches using stage-gated, waterfall delivery simply won’t get you there. Instead, a number of different steps are involved in this new value stream: Sensing an opportunity involves market research, customer feedback, and direct observation of the customers in the marketplace. Even more importantly, it demands that senior executives have a thorough involvement with the customer and the market, the “go see” mentality that provides a rich source of ideas and possibilities to create value. Quickly leveraging an identified opportunity requires a flexible, lean approach to funding the people and material resources needed to produce the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) – an initial solution sufficient to both test the business hypothesis and deliver a first solid increment of value. The quick development of the MVP hinges on the ability to bring together professionals from different skills areas and form cross-functional teams and trains, that are organized or reorganized around customer value. These teams-of-teams connect to the customer by applying design thinking to intimately exploring the nature of the customer problem and define solution capabilities that help customers achieve their objectives. Through rapid, synchronized iteration and PI cycles, the teams quickly deliver the MVP which provides a strong empirical foundation for further product management, development, and funding decisions. Depending on the learnings from the MVP, the organization will choose to pivot or persevere, either abandoning the initiative, pivoting to a new opportunity, or continuing to invest in the solution as the facts and economics dictate. If the decision is made to persevere, the continuous delivery pipeline substantially minimizes the cost of delay and provides the ability to deliver value continuously. The ability to measure and adapt is integral to the process and provides routine opportunities to measure, learn and adjust direction as necessary. The business goal is simple: to establish a fast flow of value through this set of steps—the entire business agility value ~~stream—and~~ to ensure that what is being delivered enables the business opportunity.	+	As seen in this figure, it’s not a trivial undertaking to accelerate value this way and traditional approaches using stage-gated, waterfall delivery simply won’t get you there. Instead, a number of different steps are involved in this new value stream: Sensing an opportunity involves market research, customer feedback, and direct observation of the customers in the marketplace. Even more importantly, it demands that senior executives have a thorough involvement with the customer and the market, the “go see” mentality that provides a rich source of ideas and possibilities to create value. Quickly leveraging an identified opportunity requires a flexible, lean approach to funding the people and material resources needed to produce the [[Minimum Viable Product (MVP)]] – an initial solution sufficient to both test the business hypothesis and deliver a first solid increment of value. The quick development of the MVP hinges on the ability to bring together professionals from different skills areas and form cross-functional teams and trains, that are organized or reorganized around [[Customer Value\|customer value]]. These teams-of-teams connect to the customer by applying [[Design Thinking\|design thinking]] to intimately exploring the nature of the customer problem and define solution capabilities that help customers achieve their objectives. Through rapid, synchronized iteration and PI cycles, the teams quickly deliver the MVP which provides a strong empirical foundation for further product management, development, and funding decisions. Depending on the learnings from the [[Minimum Viable Product (MVP)\|MVP]], the organization will choose to pivot or persevere, either abandoning the initiative, pivoting to a new opportunity, or continuing to invest in the solution as the facts and economics dictate. If the decision is made to persevere, the [[Continuous Delivery\|continuous delivery]] pipeline substantially minimizes the cost of delay and provides the ability to deliver value continuously. The ability to measure and adapt is integral to the process and provides routine opportunities to measure, learn and adjust direction as necessary. The business goal is simple: to establish a fast flow of value through this set of steps—the entire business agility value stream — and to ensure that what is being delivered enables the business opportunity.

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−	== Business Agility Examples<ref>Examples to Understand True Business Agility [https://www.brcommunity.com/articles.php?id=b449 Ronald G. Ross ~~, "Extreme Business Agility ~ Part 3: Examples of Non-Agile vs. Agile Business Capabilities" Business Rules Journal Vol. 9, No. 11, (Nov. 2008)]~~</ref> ==	+	== Business Agility Examples<ref>Examples to Understand True Business Agility [https://www.brcommunity.com/articles.php?id=b449 Ronald G. Ross </ref> ==
	The examples below give an understanding of what true business agility looks like.		The examples below give an understanding of what true business agility looks like.

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 == Principles of Business Agility<ref>Principles of Business Agility [https://www.braintrustgroup.com/principles-of-business-agility/ Brain Trust Group]</ref> ==
- *Inspection and adaptation: Business Agility means your organization is able to continually inspect and adapt their products and their processes. Both personal and organizational retrospectives are necessary here.
+*Inspection and adaptation: Business Agility means your organization is able to continually inspect and adapt their products and their processes. Both personal and organizational retrospectives are necessary here.
 *Create an innovative culture: You want your team to feel comfortable trying new things and learning to inspect and adapt as they go. Creating a safe, innovative space where there is no blame is key! Remember, fear of failure/incrimination will undoubtedly limit innovation, creativity and job engagement.
 *Transparency: Communicate, communicate, communicate! This is where daily huddles are invaluable.

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	*Short-term solutions. Agility sometimes sacrifices long-term competitiveness. This can create disadvantages versus organizations that have invested in new technologies and strategies that require a longer development cycle. If an organization is solely in read-and-react mode, it’s difficult to define, build, and bring to market completely new solutions.		*Short-term solutions. Agility sometimes sacrifices long-term competitiveness. This can create disadvantages versus organizations that have invested in new technologies and strategies that require a longer development cycle. If an organization is solely in read-and-react mode, it’s difficult to define, build, and bring to market completely new solutions.
	*Lack of innovation. There is a high risk of different parts of the organization reinventing the wheel, duplicating efforts or creating conflicting versus complementary solutions. The larger the organization, the harder it is to effectively implement business agility at scale.		*Lack of innovation. There is a high risk of different parts of the organization reinventing the wheel, duplicating efforts or creating conflicting versus complementary solutions. The larger the organization, the harder it is to effectively implement business agility at scale.
		+
		+
		+	== See Also ==
		+	*[[Business Strategy]]
		+	*[[Business Capability]]
		+	*[[IT Strategy (Information Technology Strategy)]]
		+	*[[IT Capability]]
		+	*[[Agility]]
		+	*[[Strategy]]
		+	*[[Corporate Governance]]
		+	*[[IT Governance]]
		+
		+
		+	== References ==
		+	<references/>

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		+	== Business Agility - An Overview<ref>Overview of Business Agility [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_agility Wikipedia]</ref> ==
		+	Businesses which lack adaptability may be left paralyzed when faced with changing [[Market\|markets]] and environments. To counter this, business agility can be developed in the enterprise, making [[Organizational Change\|change a routine part of organizational life]]. An agile enterprise may be able to nimbly adjust to and take advantage of emerging opportunities in a perpetually changing environment. The agile enterprise can be viewed as an integral component of a larger system whose activities produce a ripple effect of change within both the enterprise itself and the broader system.
		+
		+	The discipline of [[Enterprise Architecture\|enterprise architecture]] supports business agility through techniques including layering, separation of concerns, [[Enterprise Architecture Framework\|architecture frameworks]], and the separation of dynamic and stable components. The model of hierarchical complexity — a framework for scoring the complexity of behavior — has been adapted to describe the stages of complexity in enterprise architecture.
		+
		+	One type of enterprise architecture that supports agility is a [[Flat Organizational Structure\|non-hierarchical organization]] without a single point of control. In such an organization, individuals function autonomously, constantly interact with each other to define the organization's vision and aims, maintain a common understanding of requirements, and monitor the work that needs to be done. Roles and responsibilities are not predetermined but in flux, and emerge from individuals' self-organizing activities. Projects are generated across in the enterprise and sometimes from outside affiliates. Key decisions are made collaboratively, on the spot, and on the fly. Because of this, knowledge, power, and intelligence are spread through the enterprise, making it capable of quickly recovering and adapting to the loss of any key enterprise component.
		+
		+	In business, projects can be complex with uncertain outcomes and goals that can change over time. Traditionally these issues were dealt with by planning experts who would attempt to pre-determine every possible detail prior to implementation; however, in many situations, even the most carefully conceived projects will be impossibly difficult to manage. Agile techniques, originating from the software development community, represent an alternative approach to the classic prescriptive planning approaches to management. The main focus of agile methods is to address the issues of complexity, uncertainty, and dynamic goals, by making planning and execution work in parallel rather than in sequence to eliminate unnecessary planning activity, and the resulting unnecessary work.
		+
		+	Pragmatic methods for achieving organizational agility should start from an organization's competitive bases and the organization's mission, vision, and values. Agile methods integrate planning with execution, allowing an organization to find an optimal ordering of work tasks and to adjust to changing requirements. The major causes of chaos on a project include an incomplete understanding of project components, incomplete understanding of component interactions, and changing requirements. Sometimes requirements change as a greater understanding of the project components unfolds over time. Requirements also change due to the changing needs and wants of the stakeholders. The agile approach allows a team or organization of collective trust, competence, and motivation to implement successful projects quickly by focusing on only a small set of details in any change iteration. This is in contrast to non-agile in which all the details necessary for completion are generally taken to be foreseeable and have equal priority inside of one large iteration.


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	As seen in this figure, it’s not a trivial undertaking to accelerate value this way and traditional approaches using stage-gated, waterfall delivery simply won’t get you there. Instead, a number of different steps are involved in this new value stream: Sensing an opportunity involves market research, customer feedback, and direct observation of the customers in the marketplace. Even more importantly, it demands that senior executives have a thorough involvement with the customer and the market, the “go see” mentality that provides a rich source of ideas and possibilities to create value. Quickly leveraging an identified opportunity requires a flexible, lean approach to funding the people and material resources needed to produce the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) – an initial solution sufficient to both test the business hypothesis and deliver a first solid increment of value. The quick development of the MVP hinges on the ability to bring together professionals from different skills areas and form cross-functional teams and trains, that are organized or reorganized around customer value. These teams-of-teams connect to the customer by applying design thinking to intimately exploring the nature of the customer problem and define solution capabilities that help customers achieve their objectives. Through rapid, synchronized iteration and PI cycles, the teams quickly deliver the MVP which provides a strong empirical foundation for further product management, development, and funding decisions. Depending on the learnings from the MVP, the organization will choose to pivot or persevere, either abandoning the initiative, pivoting to a new opportunity, or continuing to invest in the solution as the facts and economics dictate. If the decision is made to persevere, the continuous delivery pipeline substantially minimizes the cost of delay and provides the ability to deliver value continuously. The ability to measure and adapt is integral to the process and provides routine opportunities to measure, learn and adjust direction as necessary. The business goal is simple: to establish a fast flow of value through this set of steps—the entire business agility value stream—and to ensure that what is being delivered enables the business opportunity.		As seen in this figure, it’s not a trivial undertaking to accelerate value this way and traditional approaches using stage-gated, waterfall delivery simply won’t get you there. Instead, a number of different steps are involved in this new value stream: Sensing an opportunity involves market research, customer feedback, and direct observation of the customers in the marketplace. Even more importantly, it demands that senior executives have a thorough involvement with the customer and the market, the “go see” mentality that provides a rich source of ideas and possibilities to create value. Quickly leveraging an identified opportunity requires a flexible, lean approach to funding the people and material resources needed to produce the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) – an initial solution sufficient to both test the business hypothesis and deliver a first solid increment of value. The quick development of the MVP hinges on the ability to bring together professionals from different skills areas and form cross-functional teams and trains, that are organized or reorganized around customer value. These teams-of-teams connect to the customer by applying design thinking to intimately exploring the nature of the customer problem and define solution capabilities that help customers achieve their objectives. Through rapid, synchronized iteration and PI cycles, the teams quickly deliver the MVP which provides a strong empirical foundation for further product management, development, and funding decisions. Depending on the learnings from the MVP, the organization will choose to pivot or persevere, either abandoning the initiative, pivoting to a new opportunity, or continuing to invest in the solution as the facts and economics dictate. If the decision is made to persevere, the continuous delivery pipeline substantially minimizes the cost of delay and provides the ability to deliver value continuously. The ability to measure and adapt is integral to the process and provides routine opportunities to measure, learn and adjust direction as necessary. The business goal is simple: to establish a fast flow of value through this set of steps—the entire business agility value stream—and to ensure that what is being delivered enables the business opportunity.
		+
		+
		+	== Principles of Business Agility<ref>Principles of Business Agility [https://www.braintrustgroup.com/principles-of-business-agility/ Brain Trust Group]</ref> ==
		+	*Inspection and adaptation: Business Agility means your organization is able to continually inspect and adapt their products and their processes. Both personal and organizational retrospectives are necessary here.
		+	*Create an innovative culture: You want your team to feel comfortable trying new things and learning to inspect and adapt as they go. Creating a safe, innovative space where there is no blame is key! Remember, fear of failure/incrimination will undoubtedly limit innovation, creativity and job engagement.
		+	*Transparency: Communicate, communicate, communicate! This is where daily huddles are invaluable.
		+	*Executive buy-in: It’s incredibly important to have Agile approaches & values organization-wide, which starts at the top. Executives should be able to model the Business Agility behavior they want to see throughout the organization.
		+	*Reducing unnecessary policy and procedure: Watch out for an overload of policies. You don’t need a policy every time something goes wrong!
		+	*Results-based not time-based: In a Business Agility mindset, it’s about what you accomplish (quality and innovation), AND (maybe more importantly) how smartly/strategically you work. An example of this is no set working hours.
		+	*Empowering self-organizing teams: For true Business Agility, you want to shift away from command-and-control to empowering self-managing/self-organizing teams.
		+	*Focus on your customer and their changing needs (see #2!): Never forget that extreme customer service is the goal! You need to continually inspect and adapt the organization’s product and processes to make sure it fits the customer’s needs. Having a firm plan that cannot be amended is not a good agile practice.

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	**Process Agility: Process Agility encompasses an individual value stream - the combination of discrete activities that are undertaken by teams and projects. Business Agility requires operations to adapt and continuously evolve as needed in service of creating value for customers.		**Process Agility: Process Agility encompasses an individual value stream - the combination of discrete activities that are undertaken by teams and projects. Business Agility requires operations to adapt and continuously evolve as needed in service of creating value for customers.
	**Enterprise Agility: Enterprise Agility scales agility across divisions, departments, the organization, and between organizations. Business Agility requires business operations governance frameworks that enable, rather than stifle, individuals and teams pursuing emergent opportunities.		**Enterprise Agility: Enterprise Agility scales agility across divisions, departments, the organization, and between organizations. Business Agility requires business operations governance frameworks that enable, rather than stifle, individuals and teams pursuing emergent opportunities.
		+
		+
		+	== Business Agility Examples<ref>Examples to Understand True Business Agility [https://www.brcommunity.com/articles.php?id=b449 Ronald G. Ross , "Extreme Business Agility ~ Part 3: Examples of Non-Agile vs. Agile Business Capabilities" Business Rules Journal Vol. 9, No. 11, (Nov. 2008)]</ref> ==
		+	The examples below give an understanding of what true business agility looks like.
		+
		+	'''Airlines — Food Service'''<br />
		+	Source: Taken from "Branson's Flight Plan," Time Magazine, April 28, 2008, pp. 40-43.<br />
		+
		+	[[File:Airline Example Business Agility.png\|450px\|Airline Example Business Agility]]<br />
		+
		+
		+	'''Financial Services — Credit Card Fraud Detection'''<br />
		+	The scoop:
		+	*The bad guys pick up and move shop from Idaho to Manhattan.
		+	*Transactions deemed suspicious by zip code yield a 10x increase in volume.
		+	*Suspicious transactions are kicked out to fraud specialists for manual inspection.
		+	*Fraud specialists are an expensive and non-scalable resource.
		+	*Additional selection criteria (e.g., location of store, type of store, frequency of use, size of transaction, etc.) must be introduced to keep the volume of kick-outs relatively constant.
		+
		+	[[File:Financial Services Business Agility.png\|450px\|Financial Services Business Agility]]<br />
		+
		+
		+	'''Insurance — Product Offerings'''<br />
		+
		+	[[File:Insurance Business Agility.png\|450px\|Insurance Business Agility]]<br />

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-== Origins of Business Agility<ref>Origins of Business Agility [https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/business-agility-what-is-it Project Manager]</ref> ==
+== Origins of Business Agility ==
 The history of business agility as a concept begins with [[Software Development|software development]]. It is part of the agile framework that was a means to address the problems of changing requirements and uncertain outcomes because of the complexity of the technological project. The complexity of systems also lent themselves to a fast-changing environment.
 Some of the ideas that find themselves in business agility came from the study of complexity science and the notion of complex adaptive systems, where a perfect understanding of parts of the process doesn’t translate into a perfect understanding of the whole system’s behavior.
-The outcomes of software teams in such complex adaptive systems is unpredictable but does eventually form a recognizable pattern. The agile framework was developed to take advantage of the ever-changing project environments.
+The outcomes of software teams in such complex adaptive systems is unpredictable but does eventually form a recognizable pattern. The agile framework was developed to take advantage of the ever-changing project environments.<ref>Origins of Business Agility [https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/business-agility-what-is-it Project Manager]</ref>

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-[[File:Business Agility Domains.png|400px|Business Agility Domains]]<br />
+[[File:Business Agility Domains.png|350px|Business Agility Domains]]<br />
 source: Business Agility Institute
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 **Board of Directors: The Board of Directors is the highest expression of shareholder intent and ownership. Business Agility requires an open, 2 way, relationship between an organization’s leaders and the board of directors; built upon customer-focus and long-term success, which enables the company leaders to go after long-term bets, as opposed to short-term wins.
 **External Partners: Partners are the vendors, distributors and other strategic partners who enable your business. Business Agility requires partnerships crafted with flexibility and driven by customer value so both an organization and its partners are able to adapt in a coordinated and complementary manner, rather than a series of contractual transactions.
-**Leadership Dimension: The first three domains of business agility are part of the Leadership Dimension and govern how to shape an agile organization. In this context, leadership is a mindset with associated capabilities and techniques. Everyone can be a leader, whether they have institutional authority or not.
+**Leadership Dimension: The first three domains of business agility are part of the Leadership Dimension and govern how to shape an agile organization. In this context, leadership is a mindset with associated capabilities and techniques. Everyone can be a leader, whether they have institutional authority or not.  It is agile leaders (who may not be managers) who orchestrate and guide the organization towards business agility. Leaders who help align the organization to a single purpose, enabling individuals and teams, and taking corrective action where needed.

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	**Align mindset, actions, and words to the Lean-Agile principles		**Align mindset, actions, and words to the Lean-Agile principles
	**Actively lead and guide others to the new approach		**Actively lead and guide others to the new approach
		+
		+
		+	== Domains of Business Agility - The Operating Model for Agile Organizations<ref>Domains of Business Agility - The Operating Model for Agile Organizations [https://businessagility.institute/domains/domains-of-business-agility-overview Business Agility Institute]</ref> ==
		+	At its simplest, business agility is the capacity and willingness of an organization to adapt to, create, and leverage change for their customer’s benefit. This simple statement exposes the dramatic shift in mindset needed for agile organizations. Introduced by the Business Agility Institute, the Domains of Business Agility are the defining cultural and behavioral characteristics of an agile organization. It is simple model consisting of 12 interacting domains across four dimensions center around the customer. Spanning the entire organizational system, each domain is equally important, necessary, and interrelated to each other. This model outlines the capabilities needed with which an organization is instinctively able to seize emerging and unforeseen opportunities for its customers' benefit. The Domains of Business Agility also offers a helpful guide to each step of the transformation process, from just starting out to maturity.
		+
		+
		+	[[File:Business Agility Domains.png\|400px\|Business Agility Domains]]<br />
		+	source: Business Agility Institute
		+
		+
		+	'''Customer Domain''' is at the center of the model to represent your organization’s purpose. Depending on your organizational values and structure, you could define your customer as; paying clients, the broader community, the environment, society, or some combination of these. Regardless of how you define it, your customer is why you are in business and thus at the heart of the model.
		+
		+	*Relationship Dimension: The ring immediately surrounding the customer is the Relationships Dimension. The three domains within the Relationships Dimension provide context for your organization. They are highly contextual and the specific definitions change depending on your organization type (e.g. private company, public company, not-for-profit, government organization, etc.).
		+	**Workforce: Workforce is responsible for delivering value to customers. Business Agility requires a mission-aligned, passionate, empowered workforce built of individuals with a strong culture fit and potential over fit for a specific position.
		+	**Board of Directors: The Board of Directors is the highest expression of shareholder intent and ownership. Business Agility requires an open, 2 way, relationship between an organization’s leaders and the board of directors; built upon customer-focus and long-term success, which enables the company leaders to go after long-term bets, as opposed to short-term wins.
		+	**External Partners: Partners are the vendors, distributors and other strategic partners who enable your business. Business Agility requires partnerships crafted with flexibility and driven by customer value so both an organization and its partners are able to adapt in a coordinated and complementary manner, rather than a series of contractual transactions.
		+	**Leadership Dimension: The first three domains of business agility are part of the Leadership Dimension and govern how to shape an agile organization. In this context, leadership is a mindset with associated capabilities and techniques. Everyone can be a leader, whether they have institutional authority or not.