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Table of Contents
Enterprise Agility
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PacktPub.com
Forewords
Endorsements
Contributors
About the author
About the reviewer
Packt is searching for authors like you
Preface
The challenge of fast-paced change
Agility is a necessity
Goal of the book
Value and limitations of the book
Intended audience
What this book covers
Part 1 – The need for enterprise agility
Part 2 – The foundations of enterprise agility
Part 3 – The components of enterprise agility
Part 4 – The blind spots
Part 5 – The journey for enhancing agility
Learning outcomes
The final word
Conventions used
Get in touch
Reviews
I. The need for enterprise agility
1. Fast-Paced Change – Threat or Opportunity?
The significance of the fourth industrial revolution
The impact of fast-paced change
Disruptive innovations
Breakdown of traditional entry barriers
Intersection of domains
No place to hide
Demanding customers
Demanding employees
Plentiful and cheap information
What has worked in the past is unlikely to work now
Change as an opportunity
Summary
References
2. From Agile to Agility
The values and principles of Agile
The Agile Manifesto
Agile is a resounding success in IT
Agile has also made a difference to the business world
Issues with Agile adoption and scaling
Focus on "doing" Agile
Adoption without addressing systemic issues
Adoption for wrong/unclear reasons
The "Cookie cutter" approach
Early visibility of issues seen as a problem with Agile
Leaders feeling threatened
Wrong expectations
Underestimating the extent and impact of change
The need for enhancing agility
Adopting Agile is not enough
Enhancing agility is not the same as Agile transformation
Capabilities underlying agility
Responsiveness
Versatility
Flexibility
Resilience
Innovativeness
Adaptability
Properties of agility
Characteristics of enterprises with high agility
Optimal agility
Summary
References
II. The foundations of enterprise agility
3. The Enterprise as a Living System
The mechanistic approach that is outdated for enterprise modeling
Taylor's scientific management theory – the roots of mechanistic modeling
Managers should "think" and workers should "do"
Efficiency is the most important outcome to aim for
Processes and methods should drive ways of working
Need to reinfuse "life" into enterprises
Complex adaptive systems (CAS) – a proven model of high agility
What are CAS?
Characteristics of a CAS
Continuous evolution
Autonomous and self-organizing agents
Agents' interactions influence system behavior
Agents' behavior is driven by purpose
Loosely-coupled agents
Variety is a source of strength
Emergent behavior
The nonlinear relationship between cause and effect
Patterns of behavior
Reasons for high agility in a CAS
Implications for enterprises
Enhanced agility
Responsive structure
Build social density
Amplify success stories
Encourage healthy friction
Link purpose to work
Balance proximity and modularity
Cultivate diversity
Build on emergence
Shorter feedback loops
Experiment with lever points
Balance order and chaos
Selective destruction
Simple rules
Safe to fail experiments
Prioritize effectiveness over efficiency
Monitor and leverage patterns
Summary
References
4. Mindset and Culture
Significance
What is mindset?
What is culture?
The culture and mindset ecosystem
Changing mindset and culture
Values aligned to agility
Internal-oriented values
External-oriented values
Behaviors aligned to agility
Treat failure as a learning opportunity
Focus on continuous improvement
Value team spirit over individual heroics
Willingness to share knowledge
Diversity of thought valued
Practice "brutal" transparency
Effective feedback
Recognize the last responsible moment
Driven by value
Enabling behavior changes
Align the metrics
Levelling environment
Leadership involvement
Identify what needs to change about the current mindset and culture
Link a behavior change to business outcomes
Call out gaps between expected and actual behaviors
Have clarity and consensus around trade-offs
Deal with individual negative behaviors on a case-to-case basis
Look out for broader anti-patterns
Go beyond logic
Aligning the workplace to an agility-enabling culture
Summary
References
5. Leadership
Significance
Dimensions of leadership
Personal traits
Willingness to expand mental models
Self-awareness
Creativity
Emotional intelligence
Courage
A passion for learning
Awareness of cognitive biases
Confirmation bias
Bandwagon effect bias
"Guru" bias
Projection bias
Stability bias
Resilience
Responsiveness
Behavioral capabilities
Tolerance toward failure
Connection with peers
Comfort with "VUCA"
Ability to guide and facilitate teams
Ability to leverage risk
Connection through engagement
Ability to apply systems thinking
Being technology aware
Following servant leadership
Balancing the paradoxes
Encouraging inclusivity and diversity
"Humble inquiry"
Summary
References
III. The components of enterprise agility
6. Organization Structure
Significance
Inhibitors to agility
A "tall" hierarchy
Organizing primarily for efficiency
Devaluing knowledge workers
Centralization of core capabilities
Leadership-level silos
Enablers for enhancing agility
Organize teams around business outcomes
Self-organizing teams
Coaching
Empowered to make decisions
Team chemistry
Access to needed resources
Stable teams
Flat(ter) structure
Repurpose the "frozen middle layer"
Enable learning through communities
Delink employee growth from structure
Adhocracy as a decision-making model
Supportive tooling
Flexible, adaptable, and lean structure
Summary
References
7. Process
Significance
Inhibitors to agility
Broken processes
Processes not being aligned with the company's purpose/outcomes
Processes not being fit for purpose
Rigid processes
Striving for 100% utilization
Estimation and capacity planning done by "outsiders"
Enablers for enhancing agility
Optimize for outcomes
Valuable inputs
"Pull-based" flow
Make it visual
Seize opportunities to automate
Use of enabling tools
Build quality in
Enable teamwork and shared ownership
Determine capacity based on throughput
Summary
References
8. People
Significance
Inhibitors to agility
Mechanistic view of people
Lack of trust
Blaming people
Feeling of "being used"
Lack of appreciation
The "that's not my job" attitude
The "yes boss" mindset
Competition among individuals
Differential treatment for contractual employees
"Forcing" people to become managers
Enablers to agility
Psychological safety
Competency-driven people development
Intrinsic motivation
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Engagement
Ability to have fun at work
Hiring for diversity
Holistic and frequent feedback on performance
Learning culture
Summary
References
9. Technology
Significance
Inhibitors to agility
Treating the technology department as a cost center
The "stepchild" treatment of the technology function
Obsolete legacy systems
Silos within the technology function
Lack of engineering practices
The bimodal approach
COTS products for core capabilities
Infrastructure vulnerability
Enablers to agility
Business-technology alignment and collaboration
Shared measures of success
Business appreciating the nature of technology work
Visibility and transparency
Direct exposure to customers
Understand that change has a cost
Speak in a common language
Make the business self-reliant
Agile and DevOps
Culture of technology artisanship
Portfolio management
Evolutionary architecture
Build core capabilities internally
T-shaped skills
Platforms
Summary
References
10. Governance
Significance
Inhibitors to agility
Optimization of silos
Relying on misleading and non-actionable metrics
Watermelon metrics
Vanity metrics
Lagging indicators
Metrics that drive wrong behaviors
Sunk cost fallacy
Speed at the cost of quality
Annual budgeting
Governing for compliance and documentation
Projects/initiatives delinked from strategy
"Frozen middle"
Enablers to agility
Value-driven prioritization
Continuous validation of value
Incremental funding
Balancing of leading and lagging indicators
Attend showcases/demos
End-to-end link between purpose and initiatives
Summary
References
11. Customer
Significance
Inhibitors to the effectiveness of agility
Exploitation mindset
Taking customers for granted
Focusing only on linear customer journeys
Make assumptions about customer needs and preferences
Ignoring end users
Enablers to the effectiveness of agility
The "customer-first" culture
Aim for customer delight
Understand what value means to the customer
Summary
References
IV. The blind spots
12. Distributed Teams
Significance
Inhibitors to agility
Cultural differences
Time zone differences
Language differences
Lack of the "big picture" view
Misunderstanding of requirements
Trust deficit
Lack of visibility
Low morale
Lack of collective ownership
Risk of unpleasant surprises when "everything comes together"
Enablers for enhancing agility
People
Proxy product owner/business representative
Cross-pollination
Cultural sensitivity
Feedback culture
Leverage effective communicators
Process
Inception/project kick-off workshop
Joint stand-ups
Joint retrospectives
Maximize overlapping hours
Periodic "work in process" showcases/demo
Tools and infrastructure
Electronic work pipeline
Electronic build radiator
Communication and collaboration tools
Coding standards
Source control system
Network connectivity
Structure
Cross-functional teams
Conway's law
Perception of power
Summary
References
13. Technology Partners
Significance
Inhibitors to agility
Resistance and concerns in adopting Agile ways of working
Transactional relationship
Frozen contracts
Enablers for enhancing agility
Ways of working
True spirit of partnership
Outcome-focused partnership...
