Agile transformation
Agility meets ingenuity – Acting flexibly and close to the customer!
For many companies today, agile transformation is one of the most important fields of action that occupies the entire organization. Today, we operate in complex markets that are constantly changing in ever shorter cycles. In order to keep pace with this change, business models must be continuously scrutinized, structures adapted and products and services further developed. The faster and more agile companies can react here, the better they can survive in the VUCA world (VUCA = volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous). We call the development from the status quo to an organization that can cope with new external and internal requirements “agile transformation”.
Design Thinking or Scrum are probably the best-known agile methods or frameworks within agility. Companies that want to survive in the changed macroeconomic context regularly ask themselves the question, “Are we still doing the right thing?”. They question their “what?” It is devised by the “user” before the product is fully developed, because his perspective is the decisive one. The customer also sees interim results instead of just the finished product. In order to be able to react quickly, the question must be asked: Are our methods still suitable? How do we further develop products and services? How do we develop entirely new ones in a volatile context? So we question the “how?”.
Traditional project management often reaches its limits here. If we want to react faster, more flexibly and more customer-oriented to changes in the VUCA world, we also need other methods!
“Agile methods” or “frameworks” not only help companies that develop software. No matter what industry you come from, agile methods can help you to act faster, more flexibly and closer to the customer. Based on fundamental values and principles that often run counter to those traditionally practiced, the introduction of agile methods can mean a quantum leap for your company.
Replacing traditional project management with Scrum and starting a new sprint every four weeks …
Developing ideas in multidisciplinary teams and always keeping the user in mind …
Turning an idea into a concrete product or designing change processes for agile organizational development …
Describing a (corporate) culture is no easy task. Stereotypes easily arise, and the core of what people experience as “culture” becomes blurred and loses its appeal. We at berliner team like to approach such a description via “values” (“shared values”) that people in companies describe as “formative” and “tangible” and “principles”, i.e. rules that guide action. Values such as “trust, “courage” and “appreciation” are certainly not new or innovative. However, in companies whose culture is described by employees as “agile”, feedback, constructive handling of mistakes and collaboration characterized by a high degree of personal responsibility are part of everyday business as a matter of course. Hierarchy is rarely if ever experienced because it is simply seen as a hindrance: In this respect, the aforementioned values are lived differently and credibly for everyone. After all, agile methods only work if the values cultivated in an organization also match them. What use is it for a company with zero fault tolerance to proclaim the agile principle of “good-enough solutions”? Nobody here will have the courage to try out something new with an open mind. Can managers in companies with a pronounced hierarchy take a step back enough to allow iterative teams to work? Companies that want to use agile methods should also take a critical look at their corporate culture. We support cultural change at all levels.
To be able to deal with rapid change and enable agile working in the first place, you need a different kind of leadership than the traditional one. Agile managers have adopted agile values and principles and use them specifically to promote agility in their organization. They are so familiar with the most important agile methods that they can support their employees in selecting and implementing the appropriate ones. In an agile transformation, it is above all the managers who make the difference. We help you to recognize the agile talents of your managers and develop them into agile coaches.
If employees are to make decisions on their own, they need greater freedom of action and access to all relevant information. Letting go is the motto. Following them requires trust. At the same time, hierarchical structures need to be dismantled in favour of a lean, project-oriented organizational and operational structure. Like different organs within a body, the teams act autonomously, are connected in a network-like architecture and pursue the same goal: to maintain the organism – i.e. the company. We support you in establishing agile structures and decentralized responsibilities so that your employees can make self-organized, fast and flexible decisions in the future.
