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In today’s lightning-fast business environment,
the ability for an organization to move rapidly in
response to change is becoming increasingly
important. The agile business is able to quickly
identify and address challenges as well as seize
new opportunities as they arise.
90% of executives surveyed by the Economist
Intelligence Unit across all industry sectors cite
organizational ability as critical to an organization’s
long-term success. A study conducted by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests
that companies embracing agile principles grow
revenue 37% faster and generate 30% higher
profits than non-agile companies.
Startups seem to be getting it right. Their small
sizes and relatively flat organizational structures
make it easy for them to be flexible, experiment
and pivot on a dime. This flexibility gives them
several advantages. They’re able to get to market
quickly, achieve a faster ROI, respond more
rapidly to customer feedback and changing
market conditions and, as such, are able to
ensure that their products and services are aligned
with available opportunities.
More established organizations have been slow
to adapt to the increasing speed of business and
are paying the price for their sluggishness. The
reality is that 70% of the companies that were
on the Fortune 1000 list 10 years ago have since
vanished. Startups like Airbnb, Uber and Spotify
are disrupting their industries and seizing market
share from big-name competitors. They’re doing
it by working faster and smarter. In short, they’re
winning through agility.
True business agility requires fast decisions,
a
flexible
organizational
structure
and
ease of communication. Unfortunately, in
many companies, functional silos hamper
communication
and
collaboration,
overly
specialized job roles make it difficult to effectively
reallocate resources, and complex hierarchies
slow decision-making and response times.
Adopting some of the same principles that
transformed the software industry can dramatically
improve any organization’s ability to swiftly react
and adapt to change. Flexible teams are able
to pivot quickly when priorities shift. Cross-
functional teams bring new perspectives and more
innovative ideas to the table. Employees in self-
organized teams are able to do the work they’re
best at, and without barriers to communication,
decisions can be made on the spot.
Agile teams self-optimize as they learn from their
successes and failures, continually improving their
speed and quality. As an added benefit, employees
who work in agile environments are more
productive, more engaged and more loyal than
employees in traditional corporate environments.
A flat organizational structure is not a prerequisite
for agility. More important are organizational
flexibility, the ability to quickly and efficiently
reallocate resources, and a culture that anticipates
and welcomes change. Leaders must have the
ability to communicate adjustments in strategy
in a way that engages and energizes employees.
Employees must have the ability and willingness to
shift priorities at any time.
As an HR professional, you have the opportunity
to take the lead on creating a more innovative,
productive and engaging workplace while helping
your organization to gain a competitive edge
through increased agility.
To make your workforce more agile, support your
organization in finding ways to enable teams
to self-form. Create broader, more flexible job
roles that allow employees to organize around
specific problems and initiatives they care about.
Enable them to collaborate cross-functionally to
reduce dependence on others outside the team.
Encourage them to utilize all of their skills, not
just those related to their job functions. Team size
matters. Keep teams as small as possible while
ensuring that all necessary skills are included.
Help your company find and eliminate any
communication barriers that are standing in the
way of real-time collaboration. Every “throw over
the wall” wastes valuable time. Provide channels
for quickly and easily sharing information and
expertise between groups. In agile software
development, physical co-location is considered
optimal, but close online collaboration can
produce the same results.
Finally, help find ways to give project teams more
autonomy. Allow teams to move more quickly by
giving them decision-making authority. The fewer
approvals and sign-offs a team needs along the
path to project completion, the better. Teach
managers to guide, oversee and support rather
than direct. A leader’s top priorities should be
continually removing impediments to the team’s
progress and helping the team avoid roadblocks.
Allow teams to achieve optimal efficiency and
productivity as they discover the best ways to
work together.
Employing agile methodology is a proven way to
improve productivity. The fact that the approach
also helps to improve engagement, innovation and
overall corporate agility are even better reasons
to embrace it. By adopting the principles of agile
methodology, your organization will gain the ability
to keep up with fast-moving competitors while
making the most of your workforce.
David Somers is co-founder
and CEO of Rallyteam - a
San Francisco-based startup.
Rallyteam is a next-generation
platform that enables companies
to better understand and utilize
their most valuable assets—their
people. Rallyteam intelligently
matches employees to projects, tasks, ideas and people,
enabling teams to quickly self-organize and companies to
respond faster to change.
Local Story
More established
organizations have
been slow to adapt to
the increasing speed
of business and are
paying the price for
their sluggishness.
The reality is that 70%
of the companies that
were on the Fortune
1000 list 10 years ago
have since vanished.
