What is business agility?
“Success today requires the agility and drive to constantly rethink, reinvigorate, react, and reinvent.” Bill Gates
Business agility involves adopting a new mindset and a new way of thinking. According to the Agile Project Leadership Network being agile includes:
• Being value delivery focused,
• Frequently interacting with the project team and business users,
• Managing uncertainty through iterative implementations,
• Creating an environment where team members can unleash their creativity,
• Where groups hold each other accountable and information is displayed transparently,
• And finally, continuous improvement is made possible through frequent reviews and after-action reviews.
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How Are Projects, Programs, and Portfolios Different?
As a certified project manager and portfolio manager, I am often asked, what is the difference between project, program and portfolio management? The way I explained it is to use the metaphor of a musical concert series, and it goes like this.
If you are a fan of opera, orchestra music or love a Jazz series program, then this analogy should make sense. When I think of projects, programs and portfolios I think of them in terms of musical concerts. The entire season of musical concerts would be the portfolio, each event or concert in the season would be the program and each song within a concert or program would be a project. So, you would equate a portfolio to a concert series, you would think of the concert event with multiple songs as a program and each song as a project.
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Building a Positive Work Environment
“You can’t just give someone a creativity injection. You have to create an environment for curiosity and a way to encourage people and get the best out of them” (Ken Robinson, n.d.). In other words, building a positive work environment is key.
Different musical organizations have a different vision and purpose. For instance, an orchestra often performs in a hall with a large stage. The women dress in black dresses or black pantsuits, and the men dress in tuxedos. A jazz band may play in a larger auditorium, but often they play in a different environment with a different setup and feel.
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5 Secrets for Strategic Growth
Have you ever gone to a concert and heard a band that you didn’t know performing one of your favorite songs? All the notes are correct, and the singers are singing in tune, but the performance is just okay, it does not move you. Then, you go and hear the same song from a different group, and you immediately rise to your feet and started grooving? The difference is talent plus passion and not talent alone, and that is the secret. In this article, I will share what I believe are the five secrets to strategic growth which are much like listening to a band that makes you want to groove.
1. Align your organization with its value proposition.
What is your organization’s value proposition? Your value proposition is the promise that you are making to your customers that your products or services will address and meet their needs for the jobs they need to complete, the pains they need to alleviate, and the gains they want to achieve.
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3 Sure Fire Tactics To Align Culture With Strategy To Support Your Changing Business
As a kid, my family loved taking trips to see extended family and friends and more than a few were trips out of state. Growing up in central Florida meant spending lots of time on the road. One thing I remember my father doing, before these trips, was to get the car aligned. I learned later in life that alignment prolonged our tires and created a safer drive to our new destination.
Alignment isn't just for cars; organizations need it too. Follow these steps for your organization before embarking on a journey of change.
Communicate Your Strategy
According to Forbes magazine, “65% of organizations have an agreed-upon strategy but only 14% of employees understand it, and less than 10% of all organizations successfully execute it.”
That's a communication breakdown. The organization’s strategy shouldn’t be a secret.
