Agile Is No Longer A Luxury, But A Necessity

Over the past several years the word “agile” has grown profoundly in both usage and relevance. There’s agile programming, the Agile Manifesto, agile methodology, agile management, and probably many others. Although its overuse may threaten to turn it into a cliché, many executives, financial analysts, and management consultants insist that they won’t work for, invest in, or consult with organizations that aren’t “agile.”

The question is, is agile a passing fad or an emerging paradigm poised to usher in a new age of efficiency, hyper-productivity, and supercharged shareholder value? To find out, it seemed to make sense to ask those vested in agile for the long haul. One such advocate is Harry Narang.

An author, award-winning keynote speaker, and consultant, Narang holds degrees from Punjab University, the University of British Columbia, and Stanford. Since launching Unleashed Agile Consulting, his training and consulting firm, he’s coached over 100 organizations and trained 35,000 executives and business professionals on practices which include lean agile development, systems thinking, and business value creation. His dynamic stage presence and ability to connect meaningfully with his clients has allowed him to turn his adherence to agile principles into something of a cottage industry.

Although Narang’s objective is to help organizations by empowering executives, managers, and rank and file employees to achieve breakthrough results, he doesn’t shy away from discussing the bigger picture. “Agile is Darwinism in action”, he says. “Grow and thrive or ossify and die.”

“As famed General Electric CEO Jack Welch used to say, ‘If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near,' Narang points out. “And that's what's happening to so many companies and industries today. Need I mention newspaper publishing, the recording industry, bookstores, cable television, and retailing? All are either moribund or already effectively dead.”

Without missing a beat, Narang makes it clear that while agility provides the tools to achieve greatness in a professional and personal sense, its special sauce is its ability to create positive change. “Agility has proven to be the most powerful thing that a business can incorporate in its processes, in its mindset, and in the way it approaches competition against rivals, attracting the best talent, and delivering maximum customer satisfaction,” he says.

Narang believes that embracing agility is urgent in today’s business world. “Let’s be honest – you mention the words ‘business agility’ to most people and they immediately think you’re talking about programming or team-building techniques. It’s obviously much more than that, but unless you consider the wider implications, it's understandably not super compelling,” he admits.

The good news, Narang explains, is that “being agile” is not a particularly costly or arduous journey. It’s a process which he trains his clients to put into action daily. Once they latch on to it, many of them become avid proponents of agility themselves, he asserts. It’s not just a matter of competing more effectively, he says, but of survival. “The world today is changing at a faster pace than it has ever done in the history of the human race,” he argues. “As a result, businesses need to constantly stay up-to-date and that means becoming intentionally and consistently responsive to changes in market conditions.”

Beyond efficiency, Narang believes that agility is an inevitable requisite borne out of the interconnected financial markets and flattening of the supply chain between producer and consumer triggered by the internet. “Just as economies must function within the larger global economy, businesses don’t exist in a vacuum,” he states. “Like any living organism they must be consistently improving and moving forward. To stagnate is to stop innovating, and that is the death of organizations as surely as it is the end of organisms.”

Since launching Unleashed Agile seven years ago, Narang says that building high performing teams and companies is not just his chosen career but will form his legacy as a business leader. “I’m a digital transformation coach focused on helping organizations and business leaders produce breakthrough business outcomes, by helping them implement customized scaled agile practices,” he adds. “Once I help them evolve their perspectives and practices, they take up the baton and I transition into an advisor role or move on to the next challenge.”

At the start of every engagement, Narang says he begins by orienting himself to the unique situations, wants, and needs in place before formulating the approach best suited to his training methodologies. While the specifics differ for each client, he says the underlying framework for success remains consistent.

Involve Key Stakeholders Early

Tread gingerly. You’re influencing how an organization functions and the activities germane to why people work there and the culture which attracted them in the first place. Generating buy-in and building trust pre-transformation is critical.

Identify Outcomes To Pursue

Start with the “whys.” Why do you feel compelled to implement changes in the first place? What does success look like for the entire transformation effort? And, what metrics are we going to track our progress on? These generally entail a mix of process and business outcome metrics.

Put Your Teams And Customers In The Center Of Your Decision Making

Narang often opens his first talk with the team members by promising that that if anything they change impacts them negatively as an individual or team, they are doing it wrong. For a digital transformation to successfully deliver business value, it needs to be a win-win for everyone involved.

Implement Changes Incrementally

Any transformation, whether it is digital or operational, can be overwhelming. Do not try to do it all at once. It’s important to start small and expand the transformation scope incrementally. As with the minimum viable transformation approach, start with one product or value stream at a time so that youy can iron out a replicable operating process and also create a poster child for the rest of the transformation.

Take Action Quickly

Time is of the essence. Early wins are a must. It’s easy for transformations and improvement efforts to fall through the cracks when some other shiny object shows up. Demonstrating short term wins build momentum and help avoid initiative overload and change fatigue from killing the process.

While Narang admits that committing to agility may not be easy for everyone, he insists that it already permeates our lives even if we’re not aware of it.

“As a species we’re infinitely adaptable and in a state of constant change. Our daily goals and expectations evolve from minute to minute, transforming from subconscious thoughts to actionable intentions. We were all born agile and survive through our adaptability to anything we encounter. That’s why we’re wired to continually ask ‘What’s next?’”