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There is a lot content in the professional literature about the importance of agility. Execute a web search on the terms ‘agile’, ‘agility’ or ‘business agility’ and you will find ample examples of articles, discussions and vision and mission statements dealing or mentioning the need to exercise agility as a prerequisite for business success.

If the ongoing debate in the software development domain is anything to learn from, introducing business agility should be dependent on a set of pre-requisites, without which the call for greater agility will be nothing than an empty and meaningless declaration. Furthermore, logic would also suggest that for an organization to achieve the full benefit of agility, the relevant agility attributes should be adopted not just in the context of software development but in all other business areas as well.

A 2006 Gartner report defined Business Agility as “an organization’s ability to sense environmental change and respond efficiently and effectively to that change“.

A March 2007 CIO article by Michael Hugos suggests that Business Agility relates to the ability to “make a hundred small adjustments every day to reduce operating costs and increase revenue…by sensing and responding quickly to opportunities for new products and services that for a while, have terrific profit margins.”

Using the above definitions, the key differentiation between an Agile Business and a non-Agile Business seems to be the ability to respond quickly, efficiently and effectively to change. This, not surprisingly, is also one of the key premises of Agile software development.  In fact, the four premises of Agile, as codified in the Agile Manifesto, can be easily seen as the basic ingredients necessary for the establishment of an Agile Business.

Given that the pre-requisite for a Business Agility is the preparedness to more efficiently manage change it is worth noting that, according to the 2009 VersionOne State of Agile Survey, the biggest barrier to further adoption of Agile is management opposition to change, followed closely by a lack of upfront planning. Contrast that with the fact that 90% of  the survey respondents said that implementing Agile either improved or significantly improved their ability to manage changing priorities.

So, while Agile should be an Enterprise level endeavour it seems (at least anecdotally, based on recent focus in the written media) that it is more the domain and focus of Software Development professionals. This is best exemplified by Tom Grant in “Agile Changes How Technology Companies Operate“, where he makes the observation that “Agile is a company-wide revolution” and that Agile requires a new company philosophy.

So if you are a change agent driving Agile into your company’s software development domain, don’t forget that to realize the real benefits of agility, including those generated by your Agile experimentation, you should commence collaborating from change agents in other parts of your enterprize in order to achieve the true benefits that business agility can bring.

Think about it.

Related posts:

1. Why (Or Rather Y) Agile?
2. All About Awkward Agile Thinking
3. Agile and Data Warehousing with Ralph Hughes
4. Business Requirements SME’s – Analysts or Practitioners
5. Is The Time Ripe For The Agile Revolution?