Leaders who have the ambition to meet individual customer needs and at the same time face rapid and unpredictable changes in the market environment, need mental and organizational agility.
If the classic, hierarchical organization is too slow and resistant to change, agile systems will fare better in the VUCA world. At the same time, agility is not the answer to every question, as the increasing trend towards agility suggests.
For standardized and stable requirements that need high process reliability and only changes slowly, classical organization are still efficient.
Many organizations need both. With our customers, we integrate agile forms of work and agile leadership into classical organizational structures. In times of digitalization and continuous change, we enable your managers to expand their classical management skills with agile leadership skills.
Our team of consultants consists of numerous agile coaches who are qualified in agile frameworks such as scrum, agile networks, OKR or design thinking. They have extensive practical experience in the systematic introduction of agile working methods. By anchoring agile forms of work in your organization, we create an innovation culture in which people contribute and participate in business.
We implement agile frameworks and methods to create dual operating systems.
In the dual operating system, we combine classic hierarchical structures with agile frameworks. The hierarchical-functional system is used to create highly efficient and regulated processes to enable cost-effective standardization. The higher the speed of change and the more individual the solutions must be, more suitable are agile frameworks such as Scrum, OKR, Agile Networks and Design Thinking. We support you to select the right agile frameworks for the new requirements and introduce the appropriate methods, tools and techniques to the agile teams.
Crucial to the success of the two operating systems is that the entire management organization identifies itself with the dual operating system. If, on the other hand, new silos (classical versus agile) develop and the systems are sealed off from each other, the known rejection reactions occur. This risk can only be counteracted by a common understanding of leadership. Building and anchoring this is just as critical to success as selecting the right frameworks and competence development.
Agile networks are used to develop and implement changes and improvements. They enable faster and more creative responses to customer needs and strategic guidelines from the classical organization.
Employees initiate changes actively and are self-determinedly part of the change. They use the know-how from the network to implement their change wishes. The framework strengthens employees in self-responsibility, willingness to change and enthusiasm for innovation. It encourages process improvements and increases customer focus in the organization.
Objective and Key Results (OKR) is an agile management tool that creates alignment and transparency about the main business goals in the organization. It develops a culture of cooperation, self-organization and self-responsibility.
It allows organizations and individuals to focus and to influence the organization’s success. We support our customers in the systematic implementation of OKR and in large transformation projects.
OKR develops a content- and strategy-oriented achievement of goals and the improvement of the cooperation culture. In our OKR customer projects, we therefore also use the introduction of OKR to strengthen cross-functional cooperation and to form a guiding coalition in the leadership organization.
In our workshops, the participants get to know agile tools. These include, for example:
Design Sprints are a time-limited 5-phase process that uses design thinking. It is based on the principle of “fail fast and early” (and learn fast).
The Kanban Board visualizes all tasks that are currently being processed and that are still pending. It limits the number of unfinished work and creates transparency about which tasks are currently being processed or in which status they are.
Stand-up meetings are particularly efficient status meetings because they take place standing and are strictly time-limited.
Time boxing is a method of time management to really limit project sections or meetings and thus forces them into focus. The defined maximum time must not be exceeded under any circumstances. In advance, it is determined what will be achieved at the end of the time box.
Peer coaching is a practical case consultation that is provided by one’s own colleagues. It is based on the assumption that the solution of a problem often already exists in the system. Employees are encouraged and empowered to help each other and share their secrets of success.
Kill a stupid rule is a method to overcome obstacles in the form of rules. There are red rules (which cannot be changed, are illegal, or violate organization interests) and green rules (can be changed). It is about identifying rules that are not real rules, but mere assumptions. It also eliminates rules that interfere with customer focus or efficiency.
Scrum sprints are an important part of the scrum method and correspond to an iteration in product development. The sprint is a well-defined “time box” that requires a product increment that creates an intermediate with the greatest possible value. During the sprint, the team focuses only on the basic functionality of the increment and works strongly focused. The sprint includes all other events of the scrum method such as Daily Scrums, Scrum Review and Sprint Retrospective.
Lean Coffee is a short creative exchange meeting in which the participants create the agenda themselves and thus consider which topics they want to contribute and share with their colleagues. There is deliberately no defined objective and the results of the meeting is open. The aim is to collect as many ideas as possible first and then to vote on which topics will be dealt with. In addition, the group determines the respective timebox per topic (how much time to spend on it).
MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is an early product version that already meets customer needs and is delivered early on, to get feedback as soon as possible. This ensures that product development is in the right direction very early and with minimal development effort (in the sense of fail or learn fast). This is particularly beneficial in innovation processes.
Your contribution to the purpose is a method for strengthening the relationship between employee and organization goals and as well as strengthens commitment and identity. Every business, every organization and every career operates on three levels: What we do, how we do it and why we do it. It is about the development of an individual “why statement”: what is my contribution and what effect does it have?
Articles, interviews and contributions of the field of exprtise "agility"
