Business Agility Journey E-Book

Antonio Muniz

• Herausgeber: BRASPORT
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 379

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

> Written collaboratively by 48 people with high performance in the market, sharing experiences and real cases >Content reviewed by 16 executives experienced in diversified business transformation The Jornada Colaborativa is a community passionate about people and technology that writes books uniting diverse experiences of the co-authors and curatorship of the selected organizers to maintain the high standard of quality. Book royalties are reserved with the publisher to help purchase the copies we use at Summit Day and the proceeds are donated to underprivileged institutions (we donated R$ 137,000 to 12 institutions in 2019 and 2020). We congratulate the dedication of the organizers and co-authors to carry out this work and we thank the organizations that support the Summit Day to transform more and more lives. Antonio Muniz Founder of the Jornada Colaborativa and JornadaCast Carla Krieger Leader of the organizing and curatorial team Co-authors: Alexandre Cezilla Alexandre Conceição Ana Cláudia Rodrigues Antonio Muniz Arlete Lemos de Vasconcelos Atila Belloquim Bruno Camargo Carla Krieger Felipe Oliveira Flavia Lins Gabriel de Oliveira Guayçara G. Gonçalves Guilherme Santos Henrique C. Mariano Hermann Rego Isabela Gayno Jacqueline Viana Jennifer de Sousa Freitas Joaquim Torres Julieta S. Dienstmann Júnior Rodrigues Kelly Caldas Leonardo Menezes Luciana Sales Marcelo Fernandez Piñeiro Maria Heloiza Rodrigues Magrin Maurício Corrêa Mayra Augusto Santos Natália Manha Paulo Boccaletti Paulo Marcelo Paulo Vitor Soares de Oliveira Raphael Boldrini Renato Batista Roberta Kühleis Roberto Argento Rodolfo Colares Rodrigo Monteiro Ferreira Samantha de Oliveira Fernandes Samyr Feres Sada Simone Pittner Sonia Lopes Tatiana Feitosa Thayna Mesquita de Sousa Thiago Fernandes V. de Oliveira Vanessa Gonçalves Werther Krause Wesley Soares de Oliveira Review executives: Alexandre Cezilla Alexandre Conceição Ana Cláudia Rodrigues Ana Costa Analia Irigoyen Cezar Taurion Cristiano Barbieri Joaquim Torres Jorge Cordenonsi Marcelo Fernandez Piñeiro Paulo Marcelo Renato Batista Simone Pittner Victor Arnaud Walther Krause Werther Krause

Leseprobe

Antonio Muniz

Carla Krieger

Julieta S. Dienstmann

Tatiana Feitosa

Rodolfo Colares

Business Agility Journey

Understand how business agilityprovides continuous adaptabilityand valued results to customers

✓ Written collaboratively by 48 people with high performance in the market, sharing experiences and real cases

✓ Content reviewed by 16 executives experienced in diversified business transformation

Rio de Janeiro 2021

Copyright© 2021 by Brasport Livros e Multimídia Ltda.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, by any means, especially in photocopies (xerox), without the written permission of the Publisher.

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ISBN: 978-65-88431-36-8

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Table of Contents

Jornada Colaborativa (Collaborative Journey)

Foreword by Evan Leybourn

Preface by Grace Johnson for Access Agile Foundation

Book organization

Presentation of Business Agility Journey

PART I. UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS AGILITY

1. Context of the digital age

Amplifying the consumer’s voice

he advancement in communications

Social media

Why voice amplification?

Customer centric

2. Agility context

3. What companies understand by business agility and motivators for adoption

Motivation for business agility

Definition of business agility

Rationale of business agility

What companies understand by business agility

4. Business agility domains

Dimension/Domain: customer

Dimension: relationship

Domain: board

Domain: partners

Domain: workforce

Dimension: leadership

Domain: strategic agility

Domain: one team

Domain: people management

Dimension: individuals

Domain: craft excellence

Domain: growth mindset

Domain: ownership & accountability

Dimension: operations

Domain: structural agility

Domain: process agility

Domain: enterprise agility

5. The agility story, how it all started

Agility

6. The CEO’s role in the digital journey

At the center of our problems are us!

Hiring a CEO in an agile way

7. Agility and holistic vision: strategy, architecture and culture

Strategy

Corporate architecture

8. Cultural and political aspects for the adoption of business agility

Intentional organizational culture and power relations

Culture and power

PART II. THE JOURNEY FOR ORGANIZATIONAL AGILITY

9. Measuring the current state – Assessment

Market variations

Continuity

10. Defining the business value chain

Introduction

Value chain concept

Problems in using value chain mapping

Mapping the value chain and strategic changes

Value chain and the need for innovation

11. Establishing a single vision

12. Preparing the organization

Perform an organization maturity assessment

Define roles and responsibilities

Recognize authentic informal leaders

Empower leaders and executives

Define an incremental adoption plan

Empower the teams

Have an experienced professional supporting

Think about governance from the start of the journey

13. Dealing with constraints

The ceaseless pursuit of efficiency

Assumptions about systems and people

Balancing capacity with demand

A person’s productivity depends on his potential

Use and activation for people is the same

Five steps to deal with constraints

1. Identify the constraint

2. Explore the constraint

3. Submit the system to constraint

4. Lift the constraint

5. Return to step 1 to prevent inertia

What does TOC (Theory of Constraints) have to do with business agility?

14. Understanding organizational antibodies

The challenge of transformation

Rational expressions that kill transformation

Why corporate antibodies fight against transformation programs

Understanding corporate antibodies, their thoughts and perspectives

Hindrances to the advancement of agile culture

How to deal with corporate antibodies

15. Agility in scale

The impact of a market full of uncertainties

How to scale

The first steps of scaling

Use value metrics to build scaling

Corporate metrics to support scaling

Taxonomy construction – Program view

Facilitation and agility office

PART III. CHANGE MANAGEMENT

16. How to deal with change

17. Resistance to change

18. Creating powerful alliances

1. Create a workgroup

2. Have a goal for the existence of the alliance

3. Have credible partners

4. Identify mutual benefits for alliance members

5. Execute the strategy

19. The order of actions is an important factor

McKinsey’s model of influence

Kotter’s eight steps

ADKAR® model

Lean Change Management

PART IV. SUPPORTING PEOPLE IN THE PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION

20. Characteristics of the mindset for the new generation of leaders

The technological “boom”

Innovation: are you ready to live in constant change?

The characteristics of the leader in the age of business agility: new skills that enhance the ability to generate exponential results

Developing an agile mindset

Build empathy

Delegate results

21. Why it is important to have confidence

22. Engaging people

23. Fostering continuous and systemic learning

24. Are we prepared to receive autonomy?

Forming

Storming

Norming

Performing

PART V. TECHNOLOGY LEVERAGING THE PROCESS

25. Disruptive technologies leveraging speed in companies

What is not disruptive technology

Application in different kinds of companies

Practical examples of disruptive technologies

Future and trends

26. The importance of DevOps and BizDevOps to business agility

27. Reliability engineering (SER) promoting business agility

Reliability engineering and business agility

The expectation of reliability

Resilience as business subsistence

28. Other technologies

Data lake

Chatbots

What are chatbots?

How does a chatbot work?

Will chatbots phase out human service?

Examples of chatbots

29. IT transformation

PART VI. COLLECTING RESULTS

30. How do we know if we are on the right track?

31. Ongoing improvement and adaptation of tools to the business

Continuous improvement in organizations

32. Value delivery

PART VII. LEADING THE JOURNEY – PRACTICAL CASES OF AGILITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

33. Diversifying and digitizing a product portfolio – a Gympass case study

Product view

New achievement

COVID-19

Gympass Wellness, the first digital product

Live Classes, the second digital product

Personal trainers, the third digital product

Summary

34. Three steps to increase engagement in implementing business agility

Wake up

Understand

Scale

35. Agile Journey Case – Solutis

Agile maturity and sustainability of excellence

Agile development studio: focus on people

Agile pillars

Self-managing teams

Well-defined processes

Automation

Innovation

36. Live50CIOs

37. Case of Furnas’ digital transformation strategy

Involve EVERYONE in the transformation

Conquer through fast and valued deliveries

Potentialize execution and experimentation

Focus on customer needs

Foundations of Furnas’ digital transformation

Digital ability

Data & analytics

Digital foundations

38. Agility practices in a multinational consultancy through a Lean Agile Center of Excellence

What is a Center of Excellence in an organization

Excellence in agility

Case GFT Brazil

39. Digital turn point and scare mindset

40. I already have agile teams and I launched the first train. And now?

41. From purpose to backlog

42. Digital transformation: strategies and their foundations

43. Agility in backoffice

44. Digital transformation in large organizations

45. From theory to practice: applying BDD to reduce lead time

References

Dedication and acknowledgements

About the organizers and co-authors

Reviewing executives

Jornada Colaborativa (Collaborative Journey)

Collaborative experiences transforming lives!

We connect people who love teaching and learning in a collaborative way, featuring national talents. Collective intelligence is used in collaborative books, with the opportunity to empower people and reinvest in social actions. The experiences are shared on several channels, such as JornadaCast, webinars, summits, digital media.

It all started with a dream of sharing knowledge through the book “Journey of DevOps”, written by 33 people with complementary experiences. The team’s connection with other communities in several cities encouraged the dissemination of new experiences.

In 2019, the experiment for the five launching summits of the first three books brought together more than 50 companies and communities, enabling 1,277 people to tickets with symbolic value and right to the book, in addition to the donation of R$ 25 thousand to four needy institutions.

In the first half of 2020, our collaborative work was reinforced with 50 volunteers working intensely on the Journey Against the Crisis, which raised R$ 100,000 for 10 institutions, with 13 Saturdays for more than 3,500 online participants receiving 160 high quality lectures with 25 presidents, 50 executives and 80 experts in agility, technology, innovation and digital transformation.

The Learning Journey started in the second half of 2020, aiming at training people in the market, raising funds to launch the new books of the Journey and granting free space to those who are looking for relocation, with the right to the book, workshop, mentoring and shirt of the Journey. Thanks to the support of several organizations, we provided more than 400 free places to collaborate in the relocation of people who invest in their qualification.

Our DNA is to unite people and technology, taking advantage of our multidisciplinary participants: developers, QA, sysadmin, architects, Product Owners, product managers, Agile Coach, Scrum Masters, business analysts, entrepreneurs, project managers, psychologists, executives, UX, CX, HR teams, recruiters, marketing analysts, engineers, etc.

Books already released by the Jornada Colaborativa:

1. “Jornada DevOps”, with 33 co-authors and 4 organizers.

2. “Jornada Ágil e Digital”, with 56 co-authors and 2 organizers.

3. “Jornada Ágil de Qualidade”, with 24 co-authors and 4 organizers.

4. “Jornada Saudável”, with 26 co-authors and 7 organizers.

5. “Jornada Ágil do Produto”, with 69 co-authors and 4 organizers.

6. “Jornada DevOps 2nd edition”, best-seller with 36 co-authors and 4 organizers.

7. “Jornada Ágil de Liderança”, with 86 co-authors and 5 organizers.

8. “Jornada do Ágil Escalado”, with 64 co-authors and 6 organizers.

9. “Jornada Business Agility”, with 48 co-authors and 5 organizers.

Meet our community and join the team for the next books:

https://www.jornadacolaborativa.com.br/>

https://www.linkedin.com/company/jornadacolaborativa/>

mailto:contato%40jornadacolaborativa.com.br?subject=>

Foreword by Evan Leybourn

To say that leadership is important is an understatement. The direction of every business, government, school, sports club, community, and team is oriented by the leaders within. It is the role of the leader to inspire, shape, and guide those around them. To align each person towards a common goal and ensure they have everything needed to achieve it.

And this is why business agility is so important. Mature agile organisations require and produce great leaders. Business agility is not about bringing agile practices to business environment, rather it creates a customer-centric organisation with strong feedback loops with the market so the company can continuously adapt and anticipate changes. This definition changes many fundamental assumptions in how organizations operate and leadership plays a key role; by ceasing to be controlling and becoming a people enabler.

Over my career, what became clear to me is that leadership is, simultaneously, an intensely personal experience as well as a wide-reaching collective one.

I have built deep personal connections with many leaders in my life and they all have one thing in common. An authentic sense of empathy – the ability of the leader to understand and relate to my feelings, thoughts, and experiences. This is especially true for leaders in agile organisations. As management in these organisations shifts from a top-down command and control structure to one where authority is delegated and teams self-manage, the ability to lead effectively becomes increasingly more about influence and persuasion. To be successful, leaders must be able to relate to those they wish to influence. This is the only way that leaders can develop people to be the best version of themselves.

On the other side, as a leader myself I can attest to the collective “one team” nature of leadership. Good leaders are not just focused inwards on their own people, but outward across the whole organisation. Where everyone in the organisation is clear on how they connect to everyone else. This is also the pattern in all genuinely agile organizations; where leaders can clearly communicate and connect individual purposes with the organisations purpose. Only through this broad perspective can leaders create unity of purpose.

However, this dichotomy of leadership, both personal and collective, is at the heart of what makes a good leader as well as the heart of business agility. And this is also why being a good leader is hard. But one thing is clear. In today’s VUCA world, we need good leaders now, more than ever.

- Evan Leybourn

Founder and CEO, Business Agility Institute and Author of #noprojects; a culture of continuous value (2018) and Directing the Agile Organisation (2013)

Melbourne, Australia

Preface by Grace Johnson for Access Agile Foundation

Collaboration is a life-long journey, one that never ends. A society or an organisation is a sum of the individual parts. Every fabric or team within an organisation is interwoven, hence collaboration is inevitable. Likewise, the journey of Business agility is one of an unending collaboration.

This book also has been made possible by the generosity of individuals, who in the spirit of collaboration combined their collective efforts, experiences, knowledge and more. The result of which is now a compendium and wealth of knowledge on Business Agility.

Reading this book is a challenge, one challenges the reader to not be comfortable with the current success of their organisations but to strive to be more innovative and embrace more Business Agility, as current successes may not guarantee future success. It fundamentally explains what Business Agility entails - what does it mean for an organisation to have Business Agility? But also answers the ‘’why’’ questions of Business Agility. Why must all organisations embrace Business Agility, especially in this age and time?

Most striking about this book is the journey it takes you on, it starts with the fundamentals of Agility and gradually delves into the meat of being an Agile organisation. This book is both valuable to the one who is at the start of the journey of Business Agility and the one who has been practicing Business Agility but is looking for the extra edge or more innovative ideas in Business Agility.

The approach to writing this book is a holistic one, holistic in the sense that no aspects of Business Agility as it affects the organisation is left out. It not only talks of the challenges organisations may face on the journey but proffers innovative and practical ways of overcoming these challenges.

This book may just be your most fulfilling read of all times, having to draw on the collective intelligence and experiences of forty-eight (48) authors and a review by sixteen (16) executives to better the now and future outlook of your organisation.

Book organization

This book has been organized so that the reader can navigate through the different perspectives that make up a journey in search of business agility.

PART I: UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS AGILITY

Part I of this book features the context and basic concepts related to business agility, reflecting on the main motivators and pillars that support this journey in organizations.

✓ Chapter 1 – Context of the digital age. This chapter presents the evolution of the consumer’s voice, through the communication media that have made the reach of information much broader, often exponential, with the increase in digitization and the use of technologies, leading the consumer increasingly to the main focus for organizations (customer centric).

✓ Chapter 2 – Agility context. This chapter discusses the concept of agility and the importance of migrating from a product centric focus to a customer centric focus.

✓ Chapter 3 – What companies understand by business agility and motivators for adoption and Chapter 4 – Business agility domains. These chapters present the concept, motivators and domains of business agility.

✓ Chapter 5 – The agility story, how it all started. This chapter presents the origin of agility and its evolution from the IT area to business agility.

✓ Chapter 6 – The CEO’s role in the digital journey. This chapter approaches the importance of the CEO’s role for agility to go beyond IT, presenting the three waves of organizational agility and two stories that evidence the importance of the CEO in this process.

✓ Chapter 7 – Agility and holistic vision: strategy, architecture and culture. In this chapter, the importance of having an integrated view of organizational agility, including the development of organizational architecture, is discussed.

✓ Chapter 8 – Cultural and political aspects for the adoption of business agility. This chapter reflects on the extent to which an agile initiative should always take into account the cultural and political aspects of an organization.

PART II. THE JOURNEY FOR ORGANIZATIONAL AGILITY

Part II of this book deals with aspects relevant to the journey towards greater business agility for an organization.

✓ Chapter 9 – Measuring the current state – Assessment. This chapter addresses important aspects about mapping the current situation and the objective definition of a desired situation, crucial steps for the design of an organizational agility program.

✓ Chapter 10 – Defining the business value chain. This chapter introduces concepts and benefits for mapping the organization’s business value chain.

✓ Chapter 11 – Establishing a single vision. This chapter presents the importance of making the vision and purpose of the organization clear, so that there is greater engagement on the part of people.

✓ Chapter 12 – Preparing the organization. This chapter covers the fundamental steps for an organization to be ready to enter the business agility journey.

✓ Chapter 13 – Dealing with constraints and Chapter 14 – Understanding organizational antibodies. These two chapters address the main challenges that the organization faces in the process of change in search of organizational agility, presenting some alternatives to overcome them.

✓ Chapter 15 – Agility in scale. This chapter presents some tips on how an organization can scale agility.

PART III. CHANGE MANAGEMENT

This part addresses important aspects and practices for managing change in organizations.

✓ Chapter 16 – How to deal with change. This chapter presents the importance of change management in agile transformation, where you need to be aware of several factors, since the beginning of the change planning until after its implementation, and how to deal with it.

✓ Chapter 17 – Resistance to change. This chapter explains the main factors of organizational resistance, addressing how to deal with it.

✓ Chapter 18 – Creating powerful alliances. This chapter discusses how essential it is to have allies and to keep them synchronized and engaged with the execution of what you want and how to create these alliances.

✓ Chapter 19 – The order of actions is an important factor. This chapter introduces McKinsey’s model of influence, Kotter’s eight steps and the ADKAR® model. These three together, executed with Lean Change Management mindset, are a great combination to make the change.

PART IV. SUPPORTING PEOPLE IN THE PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION

In this part, the psychological and behavioral aspects of a transformation process are discussed.

✓ Chapter 20 – Characteristics of the mindset for the new generation of leaders. This chapter presents the main characteristics of leadership and the way of thinking for the challenges of the present moment and innovation.

✓ Chapter 21 – Why it is important to have confidence. This chapter discusses the advantages of having an environment where there is trust between people who work collaboratively in the organization.

✓ Chapter 22 – Engaging people. This chapter presents some practices that encourage people’s engagement with the organization’s goals.

✓ Chapter 23 – Fostering continuous and systemic learning. This chapter delves into some concepts and draws on Peter Senge’s statement: “organizations that learn are those in which people continually improve their skills to create the future that they really would like to see happening”.

✓ Chapter 24 – Are we prepared to receive autonomy? This chapter presents the challenges of achieving team autonomy, addressing Tuckman’s team-building curve.

PART V. TECHNOLOGY LEVERAGING THE PROCESS

This part addresses the importance of technology to leverage business agility.

✓ Chapter 25 – Disruptive technologies leveraging speed in companies. This chapter presents concepts of disruptive technologies and their applicability in organizations and to innovation.

✓ Chapter 26 – The importance of DevOps and BizDevOps to business agility. This chapter covers DevOps beyond IT, where having the business area integrated into the development and operation process of the solution allows for more effective communication between areas and customers, which allows for an earlier delivery of value, the focus of business agility.

✓ Chapter 27 – Reliability engineering (SER) promoting business agility. This chapter presents the evolution of the operation through the treatment of monitoring, alerts, emergency response, effective planning of environmental capacity, efficiency and performance, effectively bringing business resilience through the way software is built, going beyond DevOps.

✓ Chapter 28 – Other technologies. This chapter covers technologies that complement decision-making processes, as well as the best consumer experience, often fostering business agility.

✓ Chapter 29 – IT transformation. This chapter presents technology as a facilitator, a means to achieve agility.

PART VI. COLLECTING RESULTS

This part addresses the importance of using metrics and indicators for monitoring results and continuous improvement.

✓ Chapter 30 – How do we know if we are on the right track? This chapter covers result metrics such as OKR and performance metrics such as lead time, so that the company can assess whether it is in the right direction or whether it should “pivot”, or even where to improve.

✓ Chapter 31 – Ongoing improvement and adaptation of tools to the business. This chapter presents the importance of quality for the good user experience and the focus on continuous improvement to achieve excellence.

✓ Chapter 32 – Value delivery. This chapter presents the different aspects that we must measure in order to know if we are in fact delivering value.

PART VII. LEADING THE JOURNEY – PRACTICAL CASES OF AGILITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

Some of the cases in this book will be recorded and made available online. However, some of them were selected to be in the text of the book:

✓ Chapter 33 – Diversifying and digitizing a product portfolio – a Gympass case study

✓ Chapter 34 – Three steps to increase engagement in implementing Business Agility

✓ Chapter 35 – Agile Journey Case – Solutis

✓ Chapter 36 – Live50CIOs

✓ Chapter 37 – Case of Furnas’ digital transformation strategy

✓ Chapter 38 – Agility practices in a multinational consultancy through a Lean Agile Center of Excellence

The cases in Chapters 39 to 45 are available online.

Presentation of Business Agility Journey

Antonio Muniz

Why doesn’t the success of traditional organizations guarantee future success? How to convince executives to change strategies when current results are satisfactory? In this fast-paced world in which we live, what is the importance of business agility? Why don’t agile methods deliver the promised benefits? What is the role of senior management in the success of organizational agility?

Greatly excited by three collaborative books launched in 2019, I thought about the possibility of bringing together new passionate people to build a series of the Jornada Colaborativa and deepen some of the 30 models and frameworks that we covered in the book “Jornada Ágil e Digital ”. My roadmap had 30 books and exceeded 40 when I opened the spreadsheet for the team to give their opinion.

Considering that the union of agility and business is increasingly important, I decided to prioritize this new book when I received a message from Guayçara, who was very interested in collaborating with the Business Agility Journey and invited her to be the leading organizer. As the organizing team has an important role in the Jornada Colaborativa, I received some suggestions and invited some friends, with complementary experiences: Carla, Julieta, Rodolfo and Tatiana. The team of co-authors was occupied by people with complementary experiences and many chapters were quickly delivered to me.

Collaborative writing enhances the collective intelligence of people with diverse experiences, but at the same time makes different opinions explicit and this enriching process makes us grow a lot. Following a personal decision, Guayçara chose to remain as co-author and I appreciated her strong contribution as an organizer at the beginning of the activities, which greatly speeded up the writing of the book.

I invited Carla to assume the role of lead organizer, to continue with the important process of curation and final review, in order to deliver high-value content to our readers. Considering that, in addition to agility, the essence of this book is the focus on business and continuous adaptation, we decided to try a new method of curation: we selected 16 executives to add cases and convey their feedback with a strategic vision. We thank everyone who accepted this important mission, which further enriched the final result!

The accelerated dynamics of the digital world puts startups at a competitive advantage, as they are already launched adapting continuously to the needs of customers, while large companies need to fight against a more rigid structure, which had worked for many years. The following is a summary of these features.

Command and control organizations

Business Agility Journey

Perfect plan guesses customer’s desire

Continuous customer feedback

Everyone pushes the customer to the SAC

Empathy, customer success, NPS

Power of the role is enough to be boss

Teams demand purpose and inspiring leader

Everyone is afraid and ashamed of failing

Trust, experimentation, MVP

Boss needs to have all the answers

Empowered team, data driven

Boss is the smartest, but suffers alone

Team diversity enriches solutions

Competition among departments

Multifunctional collaboration, communities

Large department means power

Teams in networks, squads, tribes

Top-down goals and targets (BSC)

Collaborative goals and results (OKR)

Teams limited to local work

Customer centric teams with ownership

Greater effort is to control manpower

Greater effort is to unleash creativity

Focus on extrinsic motivation and threats

Intrinsic motivation and psychological security

Quality at the end of the cycle and conflicts

Culture of quality at the origin and collaboration

GPTW CEO Ruy Shiozawa points out in the preface to our book “Jornada Ágil de Liderança” (Leadership Agile Journey) that there are three common characteristics for working in the best companies, according to millions of replies around the world: 1. trusted environment; 2. leadership; 3. collaboration. As with any organizational transformation, in order to achieve sustainable results, the biggest challenge is the engagement of people with the new vision, and the success of the Business Agility Journey depends a lot on executive engagement.

We hear a lot that we are resistant to change, and there is scientific explanation supporting this universal belief: to save energy, our brain seeks to maintain the current pattern, because, although representing less than 3% of body mass, it consumes about 20% of energy that we spend. Knowing that creating a new habit requires effort, especially at the beginning, leadership has an important role in encouraging the experimentation of new behaviors. With the headline “The Agile Executive”, the cover of the Harvard Business Review magazine of May 2020 exemplifies the use of agile practices with C-Level executives.

As highlighted below, I think that the success of business agility depends on four dimensions that must be led in synergy with multidisciplinary teams, also considering the important role of technology with quality at the source and automation:

Culture that values people

Organizational structure

Technology and automation

Customer centric and data driven

Leadership that brings forth trust and purpose

Psychological security

Experimentation

Diversity

Collaboration

Adaptability

Small and multidisciplinary teams

Value chain and product orientation

Agile practices

Agile quality

Collaborative goals that encourage ownership

Technical excellence and clean code

Low risk and anti-fragile architecture

Infra as code

Ongoing deployment

Test automation

Security by design

Customer experience

Customer success and NPS

Facts and data

Observability and telemetry

Ongoing improvement

As detailed in each chapter, this journey can and should be started no matter how many years of experience each person has in professional career, and I believe that its benefits are far greater than the dedication necessary to achieve these new organizational practices.

Business Agility Journey encourages the potential of people to create successful organizations and generate opportunities for everyone’s growth!

Congratulations to the whole team of co-authors, organizers and executives: I am sure that each reader will enhance his Business Agility Journey with this incredible content!!

Antonio Muniz

Founder of Jornada Colaborativa and JornadaCast

PART I. UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS AGILITY

1. Context of the digital age

Alexandre Conceição

Today we can see how we are all immersed in an interconnected universe and increasingly surrounded by technology. In the same way that an exponential calculation generates an enormous result when performed several times, the technology also projects itself as more people start to use it and new ones are built on it and consumed.

Every new technological capacity or new product that presents itself to a specific consumer identifies his space as something that meets a need that he has or is discarded, if it no longer serves him. Over the years, humanity is evolving with increasingly short jumps and, with each cycle, the time for adopting new technologies shortens.

Amplifying the consumer’s voice

Since the Internet came into being, people have been gaining more space to not only obtain information, but also to share content, such as thoughts, ideas, images or videos. However, in order to reach the level that we are experiencing today, it was necessary to interlink technology evolutions.

Figure 1.1. Amplification of the consumer’s voice. Source: the author.

The advancement in communications

Along human history, advances in technology have always carried an evolution of society, mainly based on new behaviors and habits in relationships and consumption. After the industrial revolution, we observed that in the last 50 years, individuals had a projection of their voice. Unlike industrial advances, based on the massive use of energy, a constant reduction in costs in the manufacture of consumer goods and the production of goods on scale, the digital age has amplified, as never before, the ability for human communication.

Through the internet, the technological communication infrastructure brought the possibility of accessing information anywhere in the world. Following the advent of its protocols, communication services and solutions could be developed. In 1989, with the first Motorola PT-550 cell phone sold in Brazil (PIRES, 2012), we have not only a breakthrough in communication between people, but mobility and a substantial reduction in the time needed to contact someone. As mobile telephony expands and services such as SMS are added, the advent of the 3G network in 2001 brought in fact an ability to use data over the mobile network that gave rise to the development of several solutions. And then came the Apple iPhone in 2007, making mobile computing a new reality for humanity and pulling a whole universe of cell phone manufacturers that have multiplied exponentially since 2008, with the use of Android, an open operating system.

Social media

But it was only with the appearance of social media that people actually started to project their voice in a dimension that was never possible before. In the mid-90s, a wave known as web 2.0 emerged, where people started to have more interaction with websites instead of just consuming their content. There began a phase of greater collaboration and participation of people on the internet. In this period we saw solutions such as forums, blogs, chats and Wikipedia itself, where the user can edit the content and publish his articles online without any knowledge of programming or developing a website.

In the early 2000s, the first different social media were introduced. People have come to meet virtually and share common interests and information about their social lives. In Brazil, Orkut was the first social media to reach thousands of users and had its operation absorbed by Facebook only ten years later (KLEINA, 2018), which has become the largest social media in the world.

Why voice amplification?

In 2011 I had a problem with a refrigerator that I had bought at Sears a few months ago. It took me a few weeks trying to get the company to fix the problem, even though I’d gotten the insurance from the store. Without the patience to make a new call after a cancellation by the company to solve the problem, I decided to appeal to the social media and posted on Twitter:

Figure 1.2. Complaint made on Twitter. Source: the author.

To my surprise, the same day I received a message asking for my phone and an employee at the company’s headquarters in Chicago called me to arrange for the delivery of a new refrigerator.

The consumer’s voice, which once was often limited to the relationship space between the customer and the company, now has no borders. Whether for satisfaction or dissatisfaction, something good or bad that happens can be projected in the eyes of anyone in seconds. As a result, other customers begin to consider on whether they want to have a similar experience or not.

In 2000, when TripAdvisor was launched, no one could have imagined that there would be a much better way to get hotel references based on other people’s experiences. Several establishments considered two or three stars by a standards assessment body simply closed the doors because the quality of services was so bad that the countless published reviews brought down the volume of customers to the point of closing. In the same way, other little-known hotels, but with excellent cleanliness and service, greatly increased the number of guests. People believe and trust other people’s experience when they identify with the situation and realize they can experience the same thing.

In this setting, every customer becomes a promoter or detractor for any brand. Today, any citizen with any connection to a social media can foment a brand, an experience or a review for hundreds of people, and these for many others. The effect of multiplying a content can enhance the valuation or devaluation of any brand, due to the strength that exists in a testimony or experience of another person.

Customer centric

With all this amplification of customer voice that exists today, there is no more room for business strategies purely focused on the efficiency and interest of organizations. The client needs to be at the center of every strategy, in order to structure his journey and experience with the product or service to promote his satisfaction and even to exceed his expectations. This will allow the sharing of positive experiences and the promotion of the brand in a natural and spontaneous way.

Likewise, any unpleasant, unfair or unfulfilled customer experience can become a force to undermine the company’s brand.

2. Agility context

Samyr Feres Sada

The term “agility” usually generates misinterpretations. Being “agile” does not mean being “fast”. Being fast does not necessarily guarantee meeting the customer’s needs. Being agile, the chances of meeting are infinitely greater.

Jumping from the 10th floor of a building is certainly one of the fastest ways to get to the ground, but it is not the most agile.

To be agile is to have continuous attention to identify what is value to the client and direct efforts to deliver it in short work cycles. Delivering in short cycles makes it possible to interact with the customer and thus validate their perception of what they received, making adjustments that will be considered in the next delivery cycles.

Agility is early delivery of value. It is based on four values and 12 principles, with dozens of associated practices. According to Stephen Denning: “agility is mindset”.

During the 20th century, we went through many changes, concentrated in a short space of time.

The third industrial revolution, which started in the late 1960s, was responsible for several technological innovations that allowed an unprecedented transformation of society. Thereafter, globalization expanded, enabling greater cultural, political and economic integration, minimizing difficulties related to people’s geographical distance. Society started to concentrate more and more in big cities.

Since the 90s, the internet has changed the world, probably more than any other factor, significantly influencing people’s behavior. Ceasing to consume only what was essential for survival, they started looking for products and services that could provide them with better experiences on a daily basis.

As a result, competitiveness has increased and the need for companies to adapt is increasing.

The concentration of power and wealth began to migrate from the owners of factories and equipment to the owners of data. The main business challenge is no longer to deliver products and services at a fair price, but to generate value for the customer on scale.

One of the reasons that has led to the failure of virtually all companies that have recently ceased to exist is that they have not been able to look for ways to continue generating value for the customer.

Due to other more interesting alternatives, its products and services are no longer of interest to customers.

Pen drives or memory cards, for example, had an exponential growth market until the expansion of the internet band made it possible to offer consumers the “cloud” as a much more attractive storage alternative. Another example to be considered is the case of Kodak, which has become tied to its main product. It had a market share of 80% on a global scale, did not pay attention to new technological trends and was knocked down by digital cameras. In addition to Kodak, Nokia in 2007 was an isolated leader in cellular telephony, with more than a billion devices worldwide, but limited itself to the “product” device and lost market to the benefits provided by smartphones. Apple, as a pioneer in the launch of smartphones, never focused on the device. Apple’s focus has always been to simplify and make people’s lives easier. Apple has always focused on providing better experiences for customers.

The failure of very solid companies in the market, focused on the product, intensified the migration of the focus on the product (product centric) to the focus on the customer (customer centric). Monitoring people’s behavior, identifying their needs, has become a success factor for companies that are achieving results in this new reality.

Table 2.1. Product centric x customer centric. Source: the author.

Product centric

Customer centric

What products or services can we sell to our customers?

What means of relationship do we need to establish with our customers?

How to make money through our customers?

What does our customer need now and how can we help?

What means of relationship do our customers expect from us?

What values do our customers need to realize in order for them to be willing to pay?

Technological breakthroughs, in addition to being a key point in favoring the migration of the focus of the companies from product/service to the customer, also favored the concept of collaborative economy. With the collaborative economy, companies that have well-structured technologies, processes and tools have started to share or negotiate their solutions with other companies. Amazon, for example, created an infrastructure of serves so robust to support its e-commerce that it was able to scale to the point of selling its solution to other companies, enabling them to process their data. Currently, the cloud is a big slice of Amazon’s revenue. The evolution of Amazon’s business illustrates very well the continuous need for companies to reinvent themselves, customer centered. Amazon started out as a bookstore and became a technology giant in a short timespan.

There are other large companies that have adjusted the essence of their business models. GE, one of the only centenary companies to compose the ranking of the largest in the world, is completely changing its operating model to become more innovative. To this end, it began to work as a startup, even with a structure of more than 300 thousand employees all over the world. See what the global CEO of GE said when asked about what has changed in the company’s performance in recent years:

Ten years ago, ideas like the industrial internet and the impact that the internet of things would in fact have on our business were not in our heads. There has been a change in the economic, geopolitical, technological context. [...] I’ve worked at GE for 35 years and there has never been so much change and volatility in the world and in business as we see today. (AMORIM, 2017)

Value delivery is, therefore, the main pursuit of agile organizations!

Considering agility as another methodology, without revisiting the current business premises, can result in yet another high investment initiative that will never bring a revenue.

Agility is not about doing more work in less time. It’s about generating more value with less work. It’s about working smarter instead of working harder.

Agility is not something that can be written in an instruction manual. It is to expand the agile mindset for the entire organization. Without an agile mindset, no benefit can be achieved. With an agile mindset, benefits can be acquired, no matter what practices and processes are being used.

The best way to explain what agile mindset means is demonstrated by Stephen Denning in his book, “The Age of Agile” (2018). Denning summarizes agile thinking in three laws, which, when well understood and incorporated into the organization, can bring unmeasurable benefits:

1. Small team law

2. Customer law

3. Connection network law

In practice, agile mindset requires an organizational transformation and effective leadership, especially by the organization’s main leader, the CEO, who plays a crucial role in setting the tone for the generation of an agile culture so that everyone can absorb this mindset.

Over the next chapters, we will describe each of Stephen Denning’s laws, which underlie business agility.

3. What companies understand by business agility and motivators for adoption

Jacqueline VianaKelly CaldasFlavia Lins

The great search of companies until the first half of the 20th century was efficiency, which is nothing more than: “how to do it”, that is, to do it correctly. The companies pursued to produce an equal or superior product at a low price, and the expectation was to win the market.

Motivation for business agility

Today, success is determined, as Peter Drucker put it in “The Effective Executive” (2006), not by doing things “very well”, but by “doing things right”. That is, produce what solves the problem, what brings value to customers, improving their experiences.

As Klaus Schwab, charmain of the World Economic Forum, said: in this new world, it is not big fish that eats small fish, it is fast fish that eats slow fish. This statement results from the advantage that startups have achieved in relation to larger companies, being more innovative because they better understand the customer’s need and continuously generate value. A picture speaks more than a thousand words. Look:

Figure 3.1. A picture speaks more than a thousand words. Source: adapted from <https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ac/6d/a9/ac6da9466eba5398c8d86ecdf81ae945.jpg>.

In the business universe of the 21st century, we are seeing several examples of startups taking down old and traditional companies. In 2019 alone, the number of Brazilian startups surpassed 12 thousand, as indicated by Startupbase, which is the official database of the Brazilian startup ecosystem. Note that the responsible for this market gain is the business agility of these startups.

There are several examples of companies that have been leaders in their industries in the past and have not kept up with market changes: Kodak, mentioned in Chapter 2, Dell and Ericsson. These companies are still operating, but not at the same level or scale. The main reasons for the fall were the inability to take advantage of new technologies and adapt to changing consumer behavior.

The main reason for its current state is the impossibility of these companies to be agile. In the current context, agility is a matter of survival. Strategic plans, which were previously made with a view to the future of years ahead, fail when companies with disruptive solutions appear on the market and, surprisingly, attract customers of large leading companies in their segments.

The following are some of the factors that put the organization on the path to business agility:

✓ Globalization

✓ Digital transformation

✓ More demanding customer

✓ Legal changes

✓ Ongoing improvement

Globalization is one of the main drivers of change, as the world today is interconnected and gives to any company the opportunity to compete on a global scale. In this globalized economy, organizations that are not agile cannot compete. With this greater global connection, complexity increases when dealing with new technologies, regulations and competitors.

The search for business agility generally has motivators related to market competitiveness, which is important for companies that wish to survive in the long term.

Definition of business agility

As we have seen, the size of the company not long ago defined its success, but today it is the ability to respond to changes effectively that makes the difference, and that is the definition of business agility.

But how to be effective? How to fail fast and improve your product, adapting to market changes? How to maintain competitiveness? How to respond to the company’s internal and external needs: customers, commercial, legal, technological, social, moral, political, etc.? How to experiment and innovate? You have to be agile.

Rationale of business agility

Business agility is based on the ability to continually improve from adaptation and learning, based on short cycles of frequent value deliveries.

Embracing agility is essential; otherwise, in these new times, companies will be engulfed by those who embrace it. Companies that push and pursue agility have made unquestionable advances.