Business Agility: A Model for Improving Responsiveness – Pt. 2

This post concludes the series on business agility which I first explored in the March 25 post.

AGILITY IN PRACTICE

Rely on A Good Compass, Not Maps

Today’s business environment changes too rapidly for a detailed and rigid business construct to remain viable for very long.  No matter how detailed you try to make a business map it will eventually mislead you.  Developing a “compass,” however, allows you to navigate territory with a sense of direction, purpose, and by using currently available intelligence and resources to create a path forward. Here again, emphasis is placed on organic strategy, one that anticipates changing opportunities and risks, is purposely alert for their signals, and which allows for mid-course corrections. 

Cultivate Resilience Instead of Strength

Organizations that try to resist failure at all costs view doing so as a strength, often touting that this preserves resources and improves efficiency.  That may indeed be true, but it also limits the amount of experimentation constituents feel empowered to undertake, which in turn can limit the acquisition of knowledge and discovery of opportunities.  There is also the issue of speed.  High intolerance to risk requires than any new initiative or idea be thoroughly vetted by all levels of the organization before approval to proceed is granted, thereby delaying benefits of the initiative (assuming it does not die on the vine in the process).  Entrepreneurial organizations take a different approach entirely.  Here, “failing early and often” is viewed as a learning process that increases knowledge and contributes to future success.  While no one would suggest that all organizations should be entrepreneurial in nature, it is fair to suggest that those which are strongly oriented in the risk averse direction consider the costs of their stance.  Focusing on organizational structures and governance that improve resiliency provides the ability to accept reasonable risk with the assurance the organization can recover when needed.  This generally means a less autocratic structure with “check, plan, communicate, act” systems in place to speed response at the tactical level.

Pull Instead of Push

One common attribute of agile organizations is that they invariably share robust networks.  Social connections among participants provide access to intelligence and resources.  Affect networks are based in shared motives, expectation and business or operational norms.  Cognitive networks focus on shared understanding, common definitions of work, and supportive systems for doing the work.  These networks do not act alone.  While each has its own core there is significant overlap, allowing each type of network to influence the others.  Information, resources, strategies, and operational norms are all shared with trusted partners making resources outside the “home” organization available.  Leveraging these networks can provide opportunities for increasing flexibility and better aligning resources with the need of the hour.  For example, a company may choose not to fully staff and thereby consume labor resource funds when work is fluid and requirements shift.  In this case a company may choose instead to maintain a funding pool which allows it to procure specific skill sets and knowledge on an as-needed basis exactly when the need exists.

Business agility strives to create an environment at all three levels (strategic, operational, episodic) that promotes responsiveness to changing business conditions while avoiding the chaos and trauma that can paralyze an organization undergoing change.  Making increased sensitivity to conditions and robust responsiveness characteristic creates an environment where change is expected and less threatening.  In today’s shifting landscape those are valuable traits, especially in the FM arena.

Business Agility: A Model for Improving Responsiveness – Pt. 1

This post begins a short two part series, continuing the subject of business agility first examined in my March 25 post.  Part One of the series addresses the theory behind agility.  Next week’s Part Two will focus on the practice of agility.

AGILITY IN THEORY

Business agility has long been the hallmark of successful organizations, and its importance in contemporary business is growing.  True agility, however, often requires a mindset and operational dynamic that is counter intuitive given industry’s penchant for quick fixes and control.  Real agility requires a business culture and strategy that is sustainable over the long haul.  Typical business reactions such as reducing headcount and services, de-emphasizing customer service, or deferring projects and initiatives that create capability and capacity will work for the short term, but they are not generally sustainable.  These strategies consume or discard resources that may be better used creating and re-energizing.

Defining Agility – An Elusive Quest

One of the problems with “Agility” is defining exactly what one means when one uses the term.  It is a common term and strategy in the IT world, but focuses almost exclusively on IT systems that improve communication and data sharing to speed processes. Manufacturing types express agility in terms of customization and last responsible moment commitments.  Knowledge management professionals describe it as using knowledge management systems to provide greater or faster awareness of changes.

In their paper “Understanding Organizational Agility: A Work-Design Perspective” Holsapple and Li suggest a homogenized definition that can be applied in most cases, identifying alertness and response capability as key dimensions of agility. 

“Agility is the result of integrating alertness to changes (recognizing opportunities/challenges) – both internal and environmental – with a capability to use resources in responding (proactive/reactive) to such changes, all in a timely, flexible, affordable, relevant manner.”

Another important characteristic of agility is recognized in the statement,

“Business Agility is in the mind of the organization and comprises an absolute willingness to constantly monitor one’s position, in a timely and appropriate manner – not just to respond quickly.” 

This statement makes the explicit and often misunderstood point that agility is not just about speed.

Three Levels of Agility

Strategic, Operational, and Episodic agility comprise the agility spectrum.  Each is achieved intentionally through work design that promotes organizational and cultural drivers which are supportive of agility.

Strategic agility can be identified as maximizing organizational alertness to business changes and integrating response capability.  Its purpose is to structure and govern operational work to assure alignment with organizational mission and strategies, thereby enhancing the organization’s ability to identify and take advantage of business opportunities.

Operational agility derives from this integration of alertness and response capability, governing episodic work by allocating resources and setting schedules in the most efficient manner.

Episodic agility refers to what we may more colloquially describe as transactional or task-specific work.  This is where work processes produce tangible value.  It may be intellectual collaboration in the case of knowledge workers, or the fulfillment of specific service or production processes.  Importantly, it is at this level where alertness to task level environmental conditions may lead to process variance.  There is an interesting dichotomy here between agility, which emphasizes alertness and appropriate response to changing conditions, and process management which generally emphasizes control and stability.

The three levels have definite boundaries, support each other, and when taken as a whole permeate the entire organization. In this manner they provide the combined alertness to changes and response capacities that enable taking advantage of opportunities, or adjusting to threats in a nimble manner.

Next week we discuss three specific strategies that help improve agility.

Count the Paper Clips

If you read this blog even occasionally you know that I am a big fan of data and metrics in managing the FM domain.  Our group routinely tracks, analyzes and reports data on the full breadth of services we perform.  As a result we are tuned in to the pace of our business and can almost feel minute shifts that signal change we should be aware of.

We are now reaping the daily dividends of a grass roots effort begun several years ago when “count the paper clips” first came into our lexicon.  That was the direction given when a manager asked, “What should we count?” upon hearing that we were going to undertake a metrics program.  It was a brilliant answer.

That response started us immediately.  If we had said, “Let’s design a program.  We need a system before we can start,” or asked “Who has the knowledge and skillsets we need?” we would have been stalled at the start.  The answer “count the paper clips” mobilized us to immediate action.  We did not have a system, program, or organizational structure, but we knew we could count them and we did.  While we were at it, we counted everything else.

As a result, we now have data going back several years on every facet of our operation.  Over time our capabilities and sophistication have grown.  When we started we knew how to count.  Today, we capture, analyze, project, and plan strategically based on what we know for certain and can predict with high accuracy.  We can anticipate shifts in business patterns before they occur based on well established relationships between disparate data points.

The payoff for us is not simply that we are able to do a better job with greater accuracy.  The job is also more fun.  By enabling our staff with training and giving them a vision we have allowed them to learn, participate, discover, and grow.  The great bulk of the work is accomplished by line staff who are in direct contact with systems, processes, and customers.  Virtually all team members have been trained in basic statistics including data gathering, data structure, pivot tables and pivot charts, data smoothing, analysis, and how to format and report operational data.

This metrics initiative fueled the start of our Continuous Improvement initiative when it came along soon after.  Unlike some others, the Facilities staff knew and understood the importance of data driven planning and were familiar with the routines and discipline required to be effective in the quality improvement effort.

Every month line managers gather to review metrics and analyses that have been produced by staff.  We track and analyze details to identify trouble spots and opportunities.  We investigate causes, analyze data, and adjust operations. We have seen our Customer Satisfaction scores improve markedly while getting more done and focusing our efforts on what really matters.  We work hard at it and the results show it.  Our group is rightfully proud of their abilities and we serve our organization better than we did before.

And it all started with counting paper clips.  

Agile FM

You hear a lot these days about “agile” project management.  This term is generally used by IT project managers to describe software development and system roll out projects.  The general sense is that agility improves project outcomes by valuing open collaboration, speed of process, and transparency.  While “Agile Project Management” is an important and valuable tool in the PM context, even in non-IT environments, I do not believe this limited scope should be taken as the definition, or necessarily even the goal of what we might call “Agile FM.”

Given FM’s scope of responsibilities and today’s business climate with limits on capital resources, changing priorities, new competencies and more, it is important that FM be agile in the way it approaches its responsibilities and delivers services.

At a recent meeting I heard what I think is a very good articulation of an agile organization, and I think it can be directly applied to the FM function in nearly any enterprise.

Become More Efficient at Everything We Do

Efficiency is key to optimizing work processes in a manner that improves speed, quality, cost, and customer satisfaction.  The greater the gain in any of these dimensions the more efficient a process is.  Efficiency is not always about speed, rather it is about the time and/or cost of the process relative to the quality of outcome.  Anything you do to improve the quality in those dimensions makes it more efficient.

Aside from providing better outcomes to a process, improved efficiency also delivers another benefit – opportunity.  The financial and human resources freed up by more efficient processes are available for application to other areas.  The accumulated savings of multiple efficiency gains can be deployed against other processes or problems.  In effect, the organization self-funds improvement activities.   Continued over time this behavior will develop into a culture that thrives on innovating solutions and creating new opportunities.

Accelerate Transformations

Accelerating the pace of transformation provides a needed sense of urgency to help overcome resistance to change, and supports the development of favorable expectations.   This cannot happen without a focused plan and executive sponsorship that demonstrates steady commitment to transformation processes. 

Transformation is often about simplifying, creating clear pathways through complex systems and processes.  When thought of this way transformation doesn’t seem so daunting.  At its base it is about making work, and therefore life, easier.  Who doesn’t want that?  But initial changes that improve processes and systems are not the goal.  True transformation changes organizations in ways that encourage and support future transformation.  In many ways it is about creating a new culture, one that accepts constant change throughout the organization without paralyzing it.  By leveraging the existing culture and organizational values a new culture of transformation is established and nurtured.

Two final points on transformation:  First, this new culture will need to be nourished.  Abandoning efforts to validate it after the first few wins risks a quick, and likely painful regression.  Secondly, a key deliverable of any transformation initiative should be the building in of change tolerance to all core processes.  This enables the kind of continuing change that keeps moving the organization forward.

Illuminate Trade-Offs, Make Decisions

Agile organizations are by definition constantly evolving organizations.  That means that there is a never ending process of discovery, investigation, option analysis, decision making, implementation, and feedback. 

The importance of objective trade-off analyses cannot be over stated - the commitment to objectivity is a critical part of agility.  It places less value on assumptions and personal power and more value on transparency and fact-based evaluation.  In the quest for objectivity there is empowerment that supports the asking of tough questions, the kind that might not get asked if the security of that value is not present.  Answers to those questions present and illuminate facts that might not be known if the questions were never asked.

Once the objective analysis presents clearly defined options it is time to decide.  The speed of decision making is important because it helps maintain or diminishes momentum.  On the other side of the coin, the speed of decision making can be largely affected by organizational risk tolerance.  Some organizations have a culture that allows making decisions as quickly as possible, accepting that there is more risk of a wrong decision than if waiting until more facts are available.  Organizations with this model tend to be entrepreneurial in style if not practice.  Other organizations may require nearly all or all known available information before making decisions.  These tend to be long-view oriented and institutional in nature.

Generally, it is better to make decisions at the earliest possible moment in order to accelerate the benefit of those decisions.  Organizations that fall into the latter category mentioned above, those that require greater amounts of information and never ending analysis before making decisions, handicap themselves in the effort to be agile and nimble.  Unless they are in a very protected class they run the risk of analyzing themselves into irrelevancy, or worse.  Today’s world does not coddle those who cannot look, decide and act with precision and speed.

Start Now – Don’t Wait

Agility is about movement and momentum.  Waiting to start only perpetuates the present and loses the opportunity of the future.  Once you’ve made the decision (there’s that word again) then get to it.  Don’t become paralyzed by planning, scheduling, convincing and all the other reasons you could think of to wait until you can get it perfect.  Don’t worry about perfect.  Worry about getting started…now.  Start small if you must, but start now.  Start with small projects, celebrate success, build the culture, change your future.   Develop momentum - you can worry about perfection later.