How Agile Methodologies Can Help Your Business Overcome Uncertainty
Using Agile Methodologies to Help Your Business Grow
Agile leadership is the idea of businesses and owners thinking differently, acting quickly, and adapting in order to stay relevant and continue seeing growth.
The biggest “why” behind agile is the ability to provide you value for what you are doing that much sooner. The world is currently in a state where there are rapidly changing markets. If you want to be in a position where your business can grow, it is important to remember that if you change nothing, nothing will change.
We have seen a digital transformation and a move and shift in how people engage since before the pandemic. An agile mindset allows you to create and respond to change in uncertain and turbulent environments.
What is Agile Methodology?
- Agile methodologies are a set of practices, not a process.
- It is a behavior rooted in the 4 core principles of the agile manifesto
- Individuals and interactions over process and tools
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiations
- Completed work over full documentation
- Responding to change over following a plan
- Being able to move quickly and easily- short phases of work with reassessments. Plan, Do, Check, Adjust, REPEAT! (PDCA)
“This is about we as a team working together to create something better than we had before,” said Brenda Kwateng, founder of Ingenuity Consulting Solutions during a #BizHackLivewebinar.
External Uncertainties
There are uncertainties that are internal to organizations and those that are external. The external we do not have much control over, but if you are aware of them then we are able to adapt to them. When it comes to agile leadership, you must be open to embracing and understanding and at least begin to seek some of the knowledge that’s out there. Look at your market shifts and industry trends, looking at what your competitors are doing. You also want to look to see how you can measure your effectiveness in the market because measurement really is a tool that tells you and helps you determine how you move forward.
Internal Uncertainties
When it comes to internal uncertainties you want to look at what your team values most and really make sure that your team knows and understands that they are the most important thing in the process.
Working as individuals and teams, it is important to have a work culture and environment that promotes diverse minds and diverse thoughts. Allow individuals within this team environment to be able to feel confident and comfortable speaking up and providing their input so that you can better move forward as an organization.
And, evaluate the common points of failure and success as an organization and how you can improve your failures, and how you can maximize, optimize and exploit your successes to move forward as an organization.
Figuring Out How to Adapt
- Incrementally do what you do and examine your work and how you can innovate
- Give yourself and your team time to think, take the opportunity to look at a problem with fresh eyes and a new perspective
- Embrace failures- know that you may fail, but when you fail you learn
- Measure, measure, measure- Agile is a science, the science of failing/succeeding and learning
