“Being Agile” Is Not A Business Strategy.
--
That’s right!
“Being Agile” is not a business strategy. 🤔
If the people spearheading your agile initiative cannot answer these 4 fundamental questions…
1 — What purposes do customers have for selecting your product or service?
2 — What are the fitness criteria(KPIs) customers use to measure your ability to satisfy their purposes?
3 — For each of those fitness criteria, is your delivery below(unfit), within(fit), or above(over-serving) their thresholds?
4 — What areas of your business need to improve in order to achieve fitness?
… then their pursuit of agility, despite the sincerest of intentions, is likely to be lacking a motivation that is strongly rooted in satisfying the needs of its customers in a manner that is healthy and sustainable to the business.
You can help them avoid improvement treadmills. Agility for its own sake is insufficient.
➡️ Know your customers.
➡️ Know how to measure your fitness.
➡️ Know where you are fit/unfit.
➡️ Pursue elements of agility that maintain and lead to fitness.
The quest for agility should be coupled with a desire for being fit for the purposes of your customers.
James
james@squirrelnorth.com
