L
LEARNING
entirely different assumptions, a
different mindset — in Denning’s
words: “a hierarchy of competence,
not a hierarchy of authority” — but it
still exists. His agile management
paradigm is a journey, not a
destination. Companies never really
‘become’ agile: rather, an agile
mindset involves “never-ending
innovation” that requires “continuous
commitment and leadership
from management”.
I
t’s a compelling thesis.
Mindset change is one
thing; wholesale
abandonment of
management approaches that have
served organisations well for
decades is quite another. Waterfall-
style project management still has
a place where iteration is simply not
possible or desirable, regular
customer engagement is not
feasible or a critical path may still be
critical. Similarly, we should be wary
of embracing agile management
to the exclusion of everything else.
Context, of course, is everything.
Writing in Harvard Business
Review, Darrell K Rigby, Jeff
Sutherland and Hirotaka Takeuchi
offer a rousing call-to-arms to
Companies
never really
become agile;
rather, an
agile mindset
involves
never-ending
innovation
technology or learning lessons from
software development. It implies a
different approach to leadership
and management, focused on
generating “more value from less
work”. He argues that, on their own,
traditional
h i e ra rc h i c a l
bureaucracies cannot respond to
the complex problems that
organisations are increasingly
facing, challenges that require
collaboration across internal silos
and routine interaction with
customers. Instead, he has identified
three common characteristics
closely as sociated with
organisations that have successfully
embraced agile management:
1 . The Law of the Small Team:
small teams working on small tasks
in short, iterative work cycles
delivering value to customers.
2. The Law of the Customer:
a continuous focus on adding value
for customers.
3. The Law of the Network:
co-ordinated work within an
interactive network.
Crucially, that doesn’t mean that
agile organisations are completely
flat or non-hierarchical; top
management still sets direction.
That management is based on
74 // Future Talent