What is Business Agility?

1. The Definition of Business Agility^[1]
2. Examples of Business Agility mindsets in the real world^[2]
3. Resources^[3]
4. Partnering with the Business Agility Institute^[4]
5. Strategizing your Business Agility Transformation^[5]
6. Capabilities^[6]
7. Upcoming Events^[7]

The Definition of Business Agility

Business agility is the ability of a business to realize and sustain its full potential both in terms of its profits and its people, regardless of internal or external environment changes. We define business agility as comprising several critical organizational capabilities:

1. Deliver Fast and Responsively (Delivery Agility)
2. Innovate and Disrupt (Product Innovation)
3. Adapt Organization and Culture (Organizational Adaptability)
4. Lead through Complexity (Leadership Effectiveness)

Examples of Business Agility mindsets in the real world

Finding Agile in the real world is easy for most: go to any software company and ask to see their development team – chances are, they have converged on an Agile hybrid working process integrating Scrum^[8], Kanban^[9], and Extreme Programming (XP)^[10]. If they are advanced, they will have a full continuous delivery pipeline up and running and are taking steps to address DevOps^[11].

It is becoming just as easy to find evidence of business agility in the real world. It becomes palpable first in the growing number of voices calling to overhaul, reimagine and evolve the rest of the business so it too can benefit from Agile mindsets. When businesses have integrated agility into their everyday work, they are able to look to the future, to build a strong capability of sensing and responding to change, and to drive disruption – to become disruptors before they can be disrupted. This takes concerted efforts from leadership and supporting functions, like HR, portfolio and budgeting and more.

Resources

The path to business agility is long and difficult, but it is the only way forward. We have painstakingly collected and created resources to help light the way, whether it’s case studies that prove out the success of business agility transformation, to webinars that connect you to our thought leaders and processes for championing change, to our popular Agile Amped podcast – the voice of the agile community. Dig in, dive deep – you may be surprised by what you find.

Case Studies

A transformation is a tremendous undertaking. How do you start? What does success look like? How do you measure progress to ensure you’re heading in the right direction?

We’ve got you covered. Here we share our experiences helping to guide clients across the US and the world with their business agility transformation efforts. Our clients hail from every industry and come in all shapes and sizes, and whatever their troubles may be, we helped them approach transformation with an Agile mindset to increase the chances of success.

SEE MORE CASE STUDIES >^[12]

White Papers

Accenture | SolutionsIQ has been a thought leader in the Agile space for more than a decade. Being agilists ourselves, we are always learning, always experimenting – and we turn our learning into artifacts that have helped thousands make sense of the opportunities that stand before businesses in the shape of business agility transformation, the problems agilists and our clients face on that path, and lessons that help all of us grow.

SEE MORE WHITE PAPERS >^[13]

Webinars

In the digital age, visual media is ubiquitous and webinars are just another platform where we can engage with thought leaders, our clients, our followers and our wider community. We favor webinars for the opportunity to share our thoughts live with participants and hear from them. Our community favors webinars because they are engaging, dive deep into a topic, and provide them the chance to speak to experts in the field. Everyone wins!

SEE MORE WEBINARS >^[14]

Agile Amped Podcasts

The Agile Amped podcast is the shared voice of the Agile community, driven by compelling stories, passionate people, and innovative ideas. With more than 300,000 downloads across iTunes, SoundCloud, YouTube and more, this vehicle for learning is only growing with each day. Our Business Agility and Women in Agile^[15] Series have struck a chord with our community because, respectively, it inspires us to see the future as bright and full of opportunities and it also empowers us to support diversity and inclusion in our work place.

SEE MORE PODCASTS >^[16]

Blog Posts

What’s new, what’s hot – that what we cover in our blog posts. We provide updates about our company, share tips and tricks that agilists can use in their day-to-day work, and also tackle big ideas and gather feedback from the community. Many of our biggest ideas and most impactful offerings start small – in a blog.

SEE MORE BLOG POSTS >^[17]

Partnering with the Business Agility Institute

The mission of the Business Agility Institute^[18] (BAI) is to “advocate for, connect, educate, and inspire people within these organizations, encouraging them to create an environment of shared knowledge and trust that will usher organizations around the world into the future of business.” The Business Agility Institute believes the next generation of companies are “Agile, innovative and dynamic.”

That is why Accenture | SolutionsIQ is a founding member and global sponsor of the BAI. We actively participate in improving the engagement and impact of the Business Agility Report.

2018 Business Agility Report

Collaborating with forward-thinking organizations across the Agile community – including the BAI and AgilityHealth – we dedicate our research efforts toward understanding shifting market trends, data and business needs. And we do this with a single objective in mind: to continually enhance our ability to deliver the best outcomes for our clients and the wider community.

As a founding member and global sponsor of the BAI, we have an unwavering commitment to this goal. One of the most impactful ways we can contribute is by helping to gather more insights into what people all over the world are experiencing at work and how it enables or impedes their agility. This is where the power of the Business Agility Report stems from.

In 2018, 394 respondents from 166 companies from around the world took part in the first-ever Business Agility Survey, rating their maturity and sharing their insights, challenges, and successes. We are dedicated to expanding the participation this year.

Download 2018 Report^[19]

2019 Business Agility Survey

This is your opportunity to share learnings from your organization’s journey by participating in the 2019 Business Agility Report.

Collaborating with forward-thinking organizations across the Agile community, like the BAI and Agility Health, we dedicate our research efforts to understanding shifting market trends, data and business needs – all with a single objective in mind: to continually enhance our ability to serve clients and the wider community.

TAKE SURVEY >^[20]

Strategizing your Business Agility Transformation

Business agility represents the capabilities that businesses need to be competitive in today’s marketplace often people think of agile and business agility as Scrum or SAFe, but those while good are not enough. One of the hardest parts about achieving business agility is realizing it requires real cultural change in your organization. Understanding how to move those levers of change requires leadership commitment and fortitude to change. Understanding some of those institutional habits that slow you down – particularly in support functions like HR and budgeting, which are newer to Agile – and having the willpower to change those habits is critical for success.

Sustained culture change, leadership buy-in, and reimagining support functions must be central to your business agility transformation strategy.

Capabilities

The rate of competitive disruption and the emergence of new business models threatens traditional market leaders. Leading businesses must innovate and deliver more effectively than smaller competitors, while being willing to disrupt their own products and business models to survive and thrive into the future.

With business agility, organizations can outlearn and outperform their competition. They can become learning organizations that improve continuously, their success fueled by passionate, empowered employees.

Business agility comprises several critical organizational capabilities:

1. Deliver Fast and Responsively (Delivery Agility)
2. Innovate and Disrupt (Product Innovation)
3. Adapt Organization and Culture (Organizational Adaptability)
4. Lead through Complexity (Leadership Effectiveness)

Building strength in all of these capabilities prepares you to create and execute on your Vision, Strategy, and Goals.

Upcoming Events

As a global sponsor for the BAI, Accenture | SolutionsIQ will participate in the following conferences:

You can also learn more about Business Agility Meetups here^[21].
We also continue to support the Agile community by participating in these events in 2019:

See you there!