I recently completed 2 workshops on agility dedicated to the early levels of management.
These were 2 companies that produce products with technology content.
These are very different realities, and in both cases we received positive feedback from participants because the workshops were dropped into the business context.
Doing this is so important because I, and the team I work with, are able to learn more about the company during the workshop itself.
It is important that any training or experiential elements be contextualized by the people attending the workshop.
In this way, people are not asked to make abstractions or logical connections, and learning is greatly facilitated.
One of the most effective tools we employ is the “Strategic Framework.”
It is described in a famous book “Blue Ocean Strategy” and allows us to bring out, thanks to the participants, the 5-7 key factors, necessary for the company to compete in the market in which it operates.
The next step is to understand in what ways these strategic factors could be addressed.
I want to talk not so much about the method of the strategic framework, but how and the benefits of contextualizing a path on agility.
The people present can look at the entire company with a broader perspective than just the process of developing a product.
In fact, the agile approach is not just about the product development process, but about the entire company.
There are 6 factors that can promote or prevent agility in business:
- The style of leadership and business management starting from the top
- Organizational culture
- The organizational structure
- People and their motivation or commitment
- The way to manage business and budgets
- The way of working
A classic agile approach focuses in the way teams work, namely on the sixth factor.
From my experience in the field, the agile way of working teams can only come into being and develop if the preceding 5 factors favor this approach.
With the strategic framework, we get up from just the product development process and push corporate management and middle leaders, to look at competitive factors.
Each competitive factor can drive organizational interventions and eventual applications of agility.
The feedback we are getting from the people involved is very positive.
This contextualization helps those involved to look at aspects of the company that they did not previously see in such a holistic or integrated way.
This helps us to understand the reality in front of us and, how eventually, to build a tailored agile suit together with them.
