Domains of Business Agility

Domains of Business Agility » Value-Based Delivery

How work flows through our organizations is every bit as important as the way blood flows through our bodies. When “build-ups” begin to slow and constrict the flow of work, organizations need to immediately and creatively remove these impediments — whether they are challenges in the human systems dynamics or in the processes and structures that shape the organization’s work. And significantly, the people who do the work should have a voice in how to create and modify — they often have the most creative ideas for how to liberate the workflow.

Truly agile organizations don’t optimize for efficiency. More often than not, doing so actually slows down the entire system. Business agility comes from optimizing the workflow from end to end. Because systems will always have constraints, the key is to focus on creatively resolving the most critical roadblocks – wherever they exist.

Primary Behaviors

The following 4 behaviors strongly contribute to unleashing workflow creatively.

B36: Everyone defines & optimizes the flow of work from vision to delivery of value: The organization's vision and mission are clear to all. All work can be related to how it contributes to achieving the vision and people all clearly understand how their contribution makes a difference. Done is when "value" is in the hands of the customer.

B37: Leaders create processes with the employee, contractor, or vendor experience in mind: Leaders make sure that people who will be involved or impacted by a new or changed process have an opportunity to provide input to the process design, test the process, or help improve it.

B38: Everyone limits work in progress: Work in progress (or WIP) is work that is partially complete, but not yet ready for release or delivery to the customer. Limiting the amount of work in progress allows the organization to focus on delivering the highest priority work as quickly as possible.

B39: Leaders remove impediments: When an impediment is recognized, people are empowered to do what is needed to remove or minimize the impact that it has. If it is something outside of the scope of control of the individual who recognizes it, there is a clear and rapid path to bring it to the attention of the people who have the ability to remove it and they act rapidly and decisively.