Experience Design Using the Capabilities of Business Agility

An Idea Worth Trying: Experience Design Using the Capabilities of Business Agility

Here’s an experiment worth running - how might the Domains & Capabilities of Business Agility help you create a better experience in the future? The following is a checklist of ideas - organized around the capabilities. All of the ideas may not be applicable to your particular experience, but they may spur other ideas not on the list!

Begin by considering what kind of experience you are designing. You might be planning a meeting. Or launching a team. Or championing a corporate initiative. What do you want people to experience?

Now consider each of the 18 Capabilities of Business Agility. How might each capability shape the experience? Does it give you an idea worthy of including in the experience design?

A Checklist:  
Experience Design Using the 18 Capabilities of Business Agility

Responsive Customer-Centricity

• Fiercely Champion the Customer  - Is it clear who is on the receiving end of this experience?  What is important to them?  How might this experience support them? 
• Sense & Respond Proactively - Are there patterns or trends that should be addressed as part of this experience?  How will you notice them?  What kind of responses might you need?
• Integrate Diverse Ideas - How can you seek diverse perspectives and ideas inside the organization?  Outside?  At different levels?)  How would this impact the experience? 

Engaged Culture

• Cultivate a Learning Organization - does this experience provide time and space for people to generate new insights, share knowledge and learn from the experience?  Is the experience set up as a series of small experiments with quick feedback, tolerance of failure, and course corrections? 
• Engage Transparently & Courageously - Is the “why” behind the experience clear? How can we be transparent and courageous so that others can be as well?
• Embed Psychological Safety - are we creating an experience where it is safe to be vulnerable? 
• Act as One - Is the theme of this experience a unifying one for everyone who is involved? Are the goals shared across teams and groups? Is the experience inclusive? 

Flexible Operations

• Adapt strategies seamlessly - when things change - how will we adapt our plans?  How will we communicate changes?
• Fund work dynamically - How can we redirect the time, funds, and people’s energy when our current approach no longer serves us?  How do we minimize the waste of continuing the status quo experience when we know there’s a better alternative?
• (Re)organize Structures Fluidly -  when things change - how will we adapt the experience and the underlying structures? 
• Balance Governance & Risk - What are the rules of engagement?  Are they as simple as possible?  Do they support the experience and desired outcomes or do they add unnecessary overhead?

Value-Based Delivery

• Unleash workflow creatively - What creative approaches can we take to do the work (rather than the same old-same old).  Do we understand where roadblocks may lurk?  How can we tap into the creativity of the people involved?
• Prioritize. Prioritize. Prioritize - Does everyone understand what’s most important?  When a new competing idea emerges - how we will handle it? 
• Deliver value sooner -  Do we understand what value is being created through this experience and the criteria for its completion? 
• Seize emergent opportunities -  When an emerging need or opportunity arises - how will we identify and handle it? 

People-First Leadership

• Foster authentic relationships - Is this experience designed to foster honest, respectful communication?  Is conflict seen as a catalyst for progress or something to be avoided? 
• Empower with Accountability - Are the people involved in this experience able to act of their own volition or are they unnecessarily constrained?  Do they have what is needed to proceed?  How will they share their progress and outcomes? 
• Realize people’s potential -  Will people be “better for the experience?”  How?