We feel that if one does not have the courage to take on challenges, actionable growth to hold the vision in sight may not be an option. This will result in a faulty combination of anxiety and excitement, which may bring down the performance of an organization. Flexibility in a communicative and adaptive approach to clients can be good to avoid collusion. Otherwise, one may not deal with changes pertaining to the customers, but only one’s own changes. Decisive guidance creates excitement, hope, and energy to different changes that an open-minded environment recognizes for optimal team performance. This is why taking time for situations to evolve is much better than rushing to decisions.
We decided to have Change Agility in our model because it perfectly reflects what agile is about. It is about change, it is about feedback based on which we can create and respond aptly to that change.
While examining the fourth value from the Agile Manifesto, “Responding to Change Over Following a Plan,” Ambysoft2 writes: “Change is a reality of software development, a reality that your software process must reflect. There is nothing wrong with having a project plan. However, a project plan must be malleable, there must be room to change it as your situation changes otherwise your plan quickly becomes irrelevant.” We opine that change agility works when we have options. One of the options is being able to change the plan as necessary.
Analyzing yourself to build a good foundation/base for oneself to help others, learning diverse cultures encourages adapting with others and within oneself and for others. This is a strong ability to adapt as a team. This reflection improves organizational changes in several ways. For example, when there are economic and political changes in the organizational environment internally and externally, rules and regulation changes are inevitable. This is where one can wait until the last responsible moment (LRM) to make decisions to cater for the changes. This means that this moment is when negative impact will occur and that moment is the last moment to take action and not delay any further.
Many companies use A/B testing3 as an example of deferring commitment (LRM) and having options. “A/B testing is a method of comparing two or more versions of a product or process against each other to determine which one performs better. AB testing is essentially an experiment where two or more options of a product/service are shown to users at random, and statistical analysis is used to determine which option performs better for a given conversion goal.” We leaders and teams should know how and when to use A/B testing to defer commitment, to test our options, and make decisions as late as possible. Another example of deciding as late as possible in agile development methods is the sprint planning, or iteration planning. In agile, we decide what features to include in each iteration and analyze them just in time for them to be developed. This enables us to have options and we can apply the “change agility” as leaders.
As a whole, the organizations’ performance is going to change drastically. Change agility in our minds is the commanding force. For example, in Amazon,4 the performance is going to depend on the employees and how they adapt to the new changes that is going to come about, because Amazon purchased Whole Foods. Many alterations are going to jerk the employees. There may be a few employees that are not going to want these amendments to occur because they are already used to the old rules and regulations that the company once had. Due to these changes that will surface, those employees who do not want variations will begin to react differently to the new owners and how they perform while doing their job.
In terms of scope and budget, the LRM concept borrowed from Lean thinking fits perfectly for the construction industry. Reaching the end goal as satisfaction of the customers and users can be achieved without much turbulence if one keeps in mind that commitment can be deferred to the point where nondecision moments will have a negative impact. Having options is a luxury and in this particular case we need to have the cost of options in mind. During a construction project, it is vital to put intellectual efforts and decide if a building will have 10 or 20 floors. But there is little value in making decisions about the specifics of the 9th floor, for example. Here we need to use the architecture principles, which allow us to adapt to changing user requirements. For instance, developers should understand the KANO model (as shown below in Figure 4) of the customers’ and users’ satisfaction.
Figure 4
This will give them the power and knowledge to make appropriate decisions and to figure out if decisions should be deferred or left open for further dialogue. Pushing for a fixed scope is not as advantageous as communicating clearly the next steps and points of decisions.
“The Kano Model5 is an approach to prioritizing features on a product roadmap based on the degree to which they are likely to satisfy customers. Product teams can weigh a high-satisfaction feature against its costs to implement, to determine whether or not adding it to the roadmap is a strategically sound decision. Kano can help teams determine which features will satisfy and even delight customers. These feature categories can range from those that could disappoint customers, to those likely to satisfy or even delight customers. This strict focus on how customers will react to each feature distinguishes the Kano Model from other prioritization frameworks. With the Kano Model, the key consideration for any new feature is how much it will satisfy users.”
To have the change agility honed, some of the remedies that can be employed are:
- Respond quickly to the strategic opportunities presented by your environment, sector and market.
- Listen to the voice of your customers and business partners.
- Keep an eye on risks—changing quickly does not mean putting current company assets at risk.
- Make sure to have contingency plans and options.
- Anticipate and plan change—this needs to be part of your DNA.
Industry Applications by International Practitioners and Academia for Change Agility
Almost nothing changes as quickly as data. Data is fluid, changing with each new customer, transaction or social media account. While your data is changing, your stakeholders business needs are evolving. Strong data leaders are able to create and govern in a shifting environment.
Patrick N Connally, Director, Teradata, Philadelphia,
USA
I have learned that being in the present and paying attention to everything around me, helps me foresee and forecast the future. Connecting the dots aptly, actively listening to what people are saying and understanding their hesitation prepares me to anticipate and plan for obstacles and risks. These help me to figure out how to create options and manage expectations by only committing to what I truly understand because once the choices are clear, the decision is easy. It never ceases to amaze me how these small steps have helped the entire team become more efficient and productive. We have found ways to work collaboratively, find solutions and own responsibility. Being accountable and delighting our clients by delivering extremely complex projects on time is achieved due to honed change agility.
Joanna Staniszewska CEO, You’ll Ltd.,
POLAND
We do not look at where we want to take our organisation to, what our vision is, where we want to get to and what possible options are available. As a consultant, one of the many management hypes is as long as the option promises cost-saving it is adopted without asking, ‘If this is the answer, what was the question?’ In the recycling project, the equipment does a great job of separating plastic from tin and glass but is that the desired outcome? That kind of thinking reflects change agility.
Makheni Zonneveld, Future Readiness Coach,
NETHERLANDS
Organisations which firstly agree and then recognise the need to adapt their portfolio, are demonstrating change agility. They choose wisely, they innovate when those moments of portfolio resource “stretch” come and they will always consider all of the portfolio options at their disposal when deciding what needs to be changed. In today’s world where what happened an hour ago is already overtaken by what happened a minute ago, adaptability to the speed of change is the new constant by which business will either live or die. This is true for a businesses portfolio too.
Don’t change and fall behind, don’t change well and fall behind further and just like with agile, you really don’t want to fall behind in a series of sprints.
Paul Hodgkins, Executive Director, Paul Hodgkins Project Consultancy,
UNITED KINGDOM
As part of any problem solving, we also have to think about how to adjust our actions in order to meet our goals. Education reflects the needs of the business world, thus evolving with the needs of the customers. Educators have to be thoughtful in what to design/educate in order to develop the personal skills of future professionals and leaders.
Professor Linh Luong, Program Director of Master of Science in Project Management, University of SEATTLE
An organization focusing more on predictability will try to minimize and control the changes and will always look for alternatives to avoid the impact on current product capabilities so that cost and effort can be saved as the contract is fixed in nature. Whereas, an adaptable organization will allow such changes to happen in terms of supporting future needs of the business and market through agile contracts to stay competitive, evolve the product capabilities and deliver customer value at a sustainable pace even during the period of uncertainty and ambiguity.
Gaurav Dhooper (PAL-I®, PMI-ACP®, SAFe4®, CSM®, LSS-GB)
Program Manager, RPA & Agile Practitioner at Genpact
INDIA
Change agility must be carried out at all times; since it is necessary during the life cycle of our products, from the Business Case to operation. Its homonym in traditional Project management would be the process of “Perform Integrated Change Control”. Our organization must be agile in making decisions when options are provided. Currently we are not making decisions when they are required. This situation creates a negative impact to the expected benefits of our projects, therefore deriving poor main stakeholders’ satisfaction. Our Department structure wants to set up to optimize consensus or the decision-making process. This is where I think Change Agility can help us find the right organizational structure where people have real end-to-end ownership, a holistic leadership.
Rafael De La Rosa, Project-Portfolio Management Consultant,
PT. SMART tbk