With technology becoming essential to the way business is delivered, agility in the IT function alone is not enough. Here are more details about the assessment process, how to identify the pilot and which path to choose when replicating its success across the business.

1. Embracing Agility Means
Agility by the Business, for the
Business
Nidhi Srivastava
Global Head Consulting Practices
June 2018

2. Achieving Agility Requires Commitment
By embracing agility,
companies can become
flexible, adaptive, and
responsive
Enterprise agility has come of
age. 20 years after agile’s arrival
as a software development
methodology, it is being applied
across many enterprises
Achieving this transformation
requires commitment
Agile is transforming strategy,
people, processes, technology,
and infrastructure to help
organizations adapt to market
and customer changes
Agile approaches are no longer the preserve of the IT department. Every part of the
business can benefit.

3. Transform to Remain Competitive
Invest in people’s skills, tools
and technologies
Adopt flatter organizational
structures
Invest in change
management
Collaborate for better
products and services, and
faster time to market
Speed up decision-making
The benefits are numerous, but digital transformation demands changes in skills, structure,
and culture.

4. Staying Ahead of Digital Natives
Play by a different set of
rules to compete
Established companies are learning that their digital native competitors have three
advantages. They can:
Develop digital systems at
greater speed than
incumbents
Use lean-agile approaches
rather than traditional,
sequential, waterfall project
management

5. Where To Begin
Being agile requires a reassessment of how people are organized, the culture they work in
and the tools they have available. The assessment can be divided into two categories:
IT-centric functions –
applies to the parts of the
organization such as IT,
operations, and quality
assurance where lean and
agile principles, methods,
and practices can be
implemented.
Business functions –
applies to business functions
such as planning, marketing,
HR, and other shared
services where agile
principles, but not all
methods, can be applied.

6. Selecting a Pilot Project
A pilot should be short
enough to show timely
outcomes and long enough
to be credible. Three months
is a viable timeframe.
A successful pilot will prove
that lean-agile is valuable
and that its benefits can be
replicated.
It should matter but not be
mission critical.
The pilot project show the value of agile in one part of the organization, and build a
business case for its broader adoption.

7. Spreading the Practice
Companies can choose between two
routes to scale.
Driving change
through the
business with IT
support
Creating talent
pools and centers
of excellence
Building cross-
functional agile teams
with authority to
spearhead change
Whichever route is preferred success
factors include:
Scaling horizontally
by emulating
success in other
business units or
functional areas
Scaling vertically by
adopting lean and
agile practices using
proven frameworks

8. Case Study: Energy Business
An Australian energy provider faced stiff competition and new regulation.
It adopted agile to reduce
speed to market, develop fit-
for-purpose solutions, and
initiate a digital
transformation
Collaboration improved as
distributed agile teams were
introduced
The CEO and CIO
reorganized business and IT
around customer experience
value streams
Time to deploy software
reduced by 90%. Production
incidents reduced by 40%,
and customer loyalty
increased

9. Case Study: Retailer
The business was
reorganized into a portfolio-
based product organization
A US retailer couldn’t meet expectations for quality and timelines because silos prevailed.
A technology refresh
supported automation
Agile methods were
introduced
Product deployments went
up eight fold
New features reached the
market 40% faster
Lead times fell by 95%

10. Winning With Enterprise Agility
Agile offers a response to non-traditional digital native competition.
Experiment, learn, and adapt
Prioritize the need for speed
Don’t fear failure
Fail quickly, learn, and go fast

11. Embracing Agility Means
Agility by the Business, for the
Business
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