Agility

Agile organizations are by definition quick to respond to change. “Reactivity increases with the decentralization of the control system. Instead of waiting for instructions, people are accountable for their results and they are given freedom to take initiative to solve problems or face new situations.” (Aziz, 2018)

This type of self-organization is a fundamental concept in agile project management. The shifting of any organization to agile practices requires transparency, decentralization, empowerment, and the co-creation of delivered value. The essence of agility is decentralized and empowered teams and collaboration is critical to it’s success. The co-creation of value by empowered teams requires much more collaboration than traditional command-and-control organizational frameworks and is especially important in higher education institutions where the problems cannot be solved by just a few people (Hickman & Akdere, 2017).

As you work to build agile teams, organizations, and cultures, keep the following in mind:

  1. Creating a culture of transparency regarding the work, regularly inspecting both the products we produce and our processes to produce them, and making constant adaptations based on data as the cone of certainty contracts—that’s agile.
  2. Focusing on delivering the highest value work to our customers first—that’s agile.
  3. Working together as high functioning teams to deliver high quality reliably—that’s agile.
  4. To work closely with our users to ensure we are building what they want and need—that’s agile.
  5. Thinking differently about solutions based on regular user feedback—that’s agile.
  6. Coaching our teams to communicate effectively about the work and value we are delivering—that’s agile.
  7. Understanding that constant learning is part of delivering high quality products and services to our users—that’s agile.
  8. Letting our values guide us when doing unpredictable work—that’s agile.
  9. Paying attention to the health of our teams, not just the health of our projects—that’s agile.

Bibliography

AZIZ, E. E. (2018). HOW SUCCESSFUL ORGANIZATIONS IMPLEMENT CHANGE: integrating organizational change management… and project management to deliver strategic value. S.l.: PROJECT MANAGEMENT INST.

Hickman, L., & Akdere, M. (2017). Integrated Literature Review of Information Technology Leadership in Higher Education: Implications for Total Quality Management. Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Lean Six Sigma for Higher Education. doi:10.5703/1288284316380