Are you an agile business?

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Written by David Glasbrook, Head of Delivery, Reed Professional Services

Businesses need to transform and adapt quickly to succeed in today’s fast-paced world. They need to grow with flexibility, be swift and respond more rapidly than their competitors. To do so, the organisation’s culture must be agile as well.  

But what kind of business could be considered truly agile? And what kinds of benefits would that kind of business provide?  

For the last 15 years, Reed Professional Services has been delivering agile outcome-based business and digital transformation projects for its clients – yet like so many organisations, struggled to adopt the best practices internally that they excelled at delivering for their clients. In our latest webinar, Roger Gibbon, Managing Partner at Reed Professional Services, shares the learnings and outcomes from Reed Professional’s own Agile journey.  

In this blog, we’ll discuss what it means to be truly “agile” and share our key benefits of being an agile organisation. 

 

What does an agile organisation mean?

The term “agile” means “able to move speedily and effortlessly” and that’s exactly what an agile organisation does. It allows employees to make changes quickly and easily within their organisations. In other words, an agile organisation is one that takes advantage of change instead of resisting it. It embraces new ideas and constantly adapts to avoid getting stuck in ruts or falling behind the competition. 

 A recent study shows that agile projects succeed 64% of the time, compared with 49% of waterfall projects. Agile businesses can do this because they’re focused on working iteratively, rather than getting everything right the first time. 

 

Key Benefits of being an Agile Business

If you’re not thinking about becoming an agile business, you’re missing out on some amazing benefits. Here are a few of the perks: 

 

Continuous improvement 

Agile businesses are able to improve their products, services, and processes constantly.  

This means that they’re always working towards perfection. They’re constantly evaluating what’s working and what’s not. When then they make mistakes, they can quickly identify them and fix them, so they don’t happen again.  

 

Quicker decision-making 

When you’re working in an agile environment, you can make decisions faster because you have fewer layers of bureaucracy and oversight holding you back. You’re empowered to make decisions based on what’s best for your business at that moment.  

 You don’t have to wait for a meeting or for an approval process. This means that you can make adjustments more quickly than ever before, and it helps ensure that your company stays ahead of the curve with its products and services. 

 

High-performing culture 

Agile businesses have high-performing cultures because they embrace change as part of their identity. 

Employees who work at agile companies feel valued and encouraged to take risks without fear of failure because those risks are viewed as opportunities for growth rather than liabilities for failure. Plus, people who feel valued tend to be more productive at work.  

 Healthy culture 

Agile companies focus on open communication and strive to create a culture of trust and collaboration among their employees. Because of this, agile companies tend to have a better team dynamic, which leads to happier employees.  

In fact, according to a recent study by Oxford University, employees are 13% more productive when they’re happy.  

To conclude, agile businesses will have the best chance of surviving the uncertain times that lie ahead. With agile practices and a culture focused on continuous improvement and innovation, organisations will be able to continuously adapt to change.  

 Agility allows businesses to stay one step ahead of their competition. 


Originally posted here 

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