Panta rhei. Everything flows. The only constant is change. Who is not familiar with this? Nowadays it is almost impossible for organizations to keep up. Erratic customers, changes in laws and regulations, new competitors - sometimes from unexpected quarters, technological innovations, and so on. One change follows another - and at an ever increasing pace.
As most of us will recognize, change is not always easy. There is often a natural resistance to change, because change is scary and creates uncertainty, especially if we cannot properly see where the changes (can) lead. This applies equally in the private sphere as for changes in the workplace and within organizations.
That is one of the reasons why organizations are increasingly choosing to work "agile". Characteristic of this is the flexible, iterative way of working in which customer-oriented teams deliver (sub) products in short sprints. Self-management and feedback are essential to achieve rapid improvements in products and services. An important advantage of this way of agile working is that changes are, as it were, cut into small pieces, so that it remains clear - and manageable for the team that is working on it. There are several advantages to agile working.
The four main advantages of working Agile:
- Faster results
Many companies that are moving to agile working are seeing that their time-to-market for new products and services decreases by an average of 40% to sometimes as much as 75%. This shortens the time between the moment the customer wants something and the actual delivery. This is not only great for the customer (he gets what he asks faster) but also ensures that you continue to better meet the wishes and requirements that exist in the market.
- Higher quality
Compared to a traditional waterfall approach where (integral) testing is only carried out relatively late in the development process, errors and deviations in agile working are found much earlier. With built-in quality techniques such as "test driven development’, ‘pair programming or four-eyes principle, andbehavior driven development"(Yes, if you want to work agile, you will come across a lot of English expressions 🙂 ) errors are detected and resolved as early as possible. This not only saves time and costs, but ultimately also results in better quality products!
- Higher productivity
Several case studies show that working agile (in small, self-managing teams) increases productivity by 25 - 50%. More focus and less consultation directly contribute to this. But also short-cyclical work in sprints, where you as a team always try to further develop a specific (sub) part of a product or service, also helps. This motivates team members, ensures less confusion, discussions and distraction, and ultimately leads to better quality (see also above).
- More involvement
Agile working puts the customer first. Het staat zelfs prominent in het Agile Manifesto It even features prominently in the agile manifesto and is the first to be named "Agile Principle": "Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer […]". This means that customer satisfaction is taken as a guideline in agile working. The customer as a stakeholder actively contributes to (the priorities of) requirements and provides feedback during the development process. At the same time, agile working also ensures more "employee engagement" or employee involvement. Not unimportant in times of tight labor market. Studies of Scaled Agile, Inc. show that employees who work according to the agile principles are on average about 30% more satisfied and more motivated.
Agile is not always the key to success
Let's be honest: not all cases agile works are the best solution. Sometimes agile working is not wise, when the outcome of the project must be clear in advance. Consider, for example, large construction projects where everything must be built according to a fixed plan and on the basis of the architect's instructions. Or think of organizations where the culture does not (yet) allow decision-making to be invested in a more decentralized manner. Here, it will first be necessary to consider how best to organize agile leadership - based on the agile philosophy, senior management is and will remain responsible for the business results. The agile revolution - if you want to call it that - must therefore be 100% supported by management and as Agile Leaders, they must lead by example, be trained and facilitate an agile culture.