Business agility

To get to grips with agile thinking, look far and wide. Think obliquity; rock and water logic; and systems thinking. Drop the fiction of prediction. Our world is fast-paced and VUCA - volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Linear thinking, and step-by-step planning has dominated for so long; now think agile and take on board a new mindset. 

Agile and innovation. Aren't they brother and sister? We believe so. Collaboration is a must. Teams are essential. The customer is at the heart of everything; design thinking gets you to that heart. And Lean Startup gives you a basic framework. But let's not forget failure. It'll come along for the ride. Innovative businesses are disrupting themselves before the competition. Are you?

Teams - the heart of agile. Self-managing, empowered teams, using their strengths to move from one project to another. Teaming - people playing different roles in different teams - is all part of the mix.

But great teams don't just happen. Trust is the foundation, followed by open dialogue, and followed again by radical candour.

How do agile teams operate? This is where we take the best from traditional agile and build on it.

How do leaders lead innovation, change and uncertainty? Start with the customer, build great flexible teams, encourage experiments and learn to fail. They're all agile essentials. But let's get right back to basics. Agile leaders empower, trust, coach and collaborate. Agile leaders promote an agile mindset: a very different leadership approach for some.

Coaching who exactly? Well, agile teams and one-on-one. Agile coaching is an essential part of the agile toolkit. How else do you get empowerment? How else do you break away from command and control? And coaching isn’t telling in disguise. It means questioning, then questioning more and challenging people to bring about fresh thinking and action.

Human Resources, Customer Service, Finance, Strategy, Policy - whatever area needs agile. Or agile the whole organisation.

Yes, it's about applying an agile mindset and principles to any part of the business. But it's not about applying one standard formula. Each business area has a different jumping off point. That's why our approaches are tailored to each group of people and meets specific needs.