Many people are talking about business agility. But talking about it and doing something about it are two different things. To be clear, business agility is the ability to realize value quickly, sustainably, predictably and with high quality.
Doing this requires:
- being able to identify what value is
- being able to decompose what is to be built into small chunks
- having enterprise wide agreement on what’s most important to less important items don’t delay more important items
- having teams organized to manifest these chunks efficiently
- avoiding delays and handoffs throughout the value stream
Necessary capabilities are:
- the concept of the minimum business increment – the smallest chunk of value that can be built, released and have value realized for
- creating visibility throughout the value stream
- directly attending to the principles of Flow and Lean
- being driven by reducing the cost of delay
This means that the entire value stream must be attended to. Fixing one part of the value stream while still having a clog in another is like cleaning out half of a clogged hose. It’s a start, but it’s not necessarily an improvement.