TO BE A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS LEADER IN TODAY’S FAST PACED BUSINESS LANDSCAPE REQUIRES AGILITY.
Agile is a method and mind set for navigating uncertainty, it will literally put the writing on the wall to give you the access you need to the workings of the people and processes within your business. Ensure you are building the right thing, and building that thing right.
Agile gives leaders a framework to maintain a balance between running the business and changing the business to ensure growth through innovation. Embed an agile mind set, methodology and tools across all levels of your business to create an organisational state of agility.
LEADING A BUSINESS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, PROVIDING A CLEAR AND FLEXIBLE ROADMAP FOR ALL TO FOLLOW WITH A REAL TIME BUSINESS MODEL AND PLAN
Agile has a lot of synergy with coaching, rather than telling people what to do, we help teams to work out for themselves the best way forward by providing them with the tools, environment and support they need to build effective solutions for your business.
USE AGILE TO FOSTER A HEALTHY AND POSITIVE WORKING ENVIRONMENT THAT TAKES ADVANTAGE OF THE TALENT WITHIN.
An agile leader takes advantage and leverages the talent they have within their organisation empowering and energising their teams, helping the business to play to its strengths. Agile gives leaders a way to let go without loosing control, giving teams ownership of their work, enabling them to become self-organising, and self-managing, guided by a shared vision, strategy, direction and goal.
CREATE COLLABORATIVE CHANNELS WITHIN THE BUSINESS THAT SHARE THE BUSINESSES VISION AND AMBITIONS. ENSURE A SHARED AND COMMON PURPOSE WITHIN YOUR BUSINESS AND MAINTAIN OPEN COMMUNICATION CHANNELS
Agile roadmaps are a great tool for sharing what’s happening across the business and directing change and listening to the insights your teams have. They provide a shared space that shows the big picture as it evolves, and, links the business model and strategy to the practical plan for the business. Agile works to connect the layers of an organisation providing and open and transparent platform for creating open and collaborative relationships throughout the business.
WORK COLLABORATIVELY AND IN HARMONY USING AGILE COMMUNICATION PRACTICES, CONNECT TEAMS USING LEAN VISUALISATION TOOLS
An agile team is trusted to know the route to the best solution based on the information you provide them with and their experience. The agile method provide the metrics to help leaders and teams to measure their performance and adapt accordingly. Agile gives individuals a voice and lets leaders get to know their teams, identifying key skills and experience that may otherwise go unnoticed with traditional top down leadership models.
USE AGILE AS A TOOL TO IMPROVE TEAM PERFORMANCE AND INDIVIDUAL JOB SATISFACTION
Many businesses find themselves starting lots of project and not finishing them, use agile as a tool to balance running the business with creating slack for teams to continuously improve their working practices, and, gain more traction and momentum towards your business goals.
Agile places value on individuals and interactions over processes and tools, while processes are great for ensuring consistency and repetition they can constrain your teams innovation and creativity by making their environment too rigid. Put an emphasis on creating working solutions over ticking boxes with time and energy consuming paperwork, yes, documentation is important but its not much use if your solution doesn’t actually work!
Use agile to respond to your changing environment over following the plan, a plan is vital, but as leaders we need to be able to respond to change to ensure that we don’t get left behind. Acknowledge that generally a business plan is the best guess of how we are going to reach our goals, but as we learn more about that goal we will want to improve and develop the solution further.
In agile organisations the saying build the right thing, and build the thing right helps business leaders and their teams to focus on both the inward and outward facing aspects of their work.
On one side, the ability to look outwards and engage with customers and track markets and trends to ensure the business is creating value and solutions that are an attractive proposition.
On the other, the ability to look inwards to ensure that you are building that solution in the right way.
Agile is a method for ensuring that your approach is a profitable and effective solution to product development within the business, and if it’s not to tell you clearly why.
Be an Agile Business Leader
Find out more about our courses and coaching, practical programmes, focused on your business.
Belinda Waldock is a leading business coach who has worked to help hundreds of businesses to overcome the challenges of fast growth by adopting agile practices to create a culture of agility.
Being Agile in Business provides simple, jargon-free advice that is designed to be read in an agile way – in short bursts that can then be put into action in the real world.
The book walks the reader through agile, explaining how the strategies and tools can enable organisations and individuals to work faster and smarter and navigate the uncertainty that all businesses face every day. As well as tactics, tools, templates and other practical guides,
Being Agile in Business provides real life case studies to illustrate just how agile can enable leaders to find their own way to thrive in any situation.
First Published 26/6/15 – Entrepreneur global country
http://www.entrepreneurcountryglobal.com/united-kingdom/ecosystem-economics/item/how-to-be-an-agile-business-leader
