Agile: Surviving in a VUCA world
Tens of thousands of organizations around the world have now embraced agile thinking. They recognize that we live in a VUCA world. VUCA stands for:
Volatile (volatile)
Uncertain (uncertain)
Complex
Ambiguous (unclear)
VUCA has accelerated things even further. Old-fashioned, static, long-term strategies no longer work. There is a new management paradigm. Companies are embarking on a journey of continuous, infinite innovation. The challenge is to organize everything in such a way that you can be efficient and pragmatic, as well as creative and innovative. Companies need to deliver personal and frictionless value to their customers at scale and at high speed.
Shaping an agile organization
American author, consultant and speaker Stephen Denning calls this in his latest book 'The Age of Agile' ( aff.).
In this article I will mention the most important belgium telegram data things from the book, but my advice is above all: go read it! Discover what that new paradigm entails and how you can shape an agile organization. So often books limit themselves to theory and models, but in this book you will find dozens of cases. Real implementation stories at a high level, about companies that made their own choices. Which will give you inspiration in a very practical way, not only about the 'why', but especially also the 'how' of an agile transformation.
Spotify
Haven't you stopped reading to buy the book? Then I'll elaborate a bit. One of the examples Denning mentions is the Swedish Spotify . Not only did the music streaming service opt for self-managing teams right from the start, innovations also come from the bottom up from those teams. And they are completely focused on quickly creating value for the customer.
Who doesn't know the feature 'Discover Weekly' ? Two engineers came up with a plan. What if they would remove all the friction for the user? What if they would use algorithms to compile a playlist based on your previous choices, especially tailored to you? They did a quick experiment within a few weeks on staff members, then rolled it out to 1 percent of active members and within four months of the first concept it was rolled out to all users worldwide. The success? 65 percent of users discover a new favorite song and the feature has almost become a brand in itself.