On 24 August we told you how we at In Sprint, managed to avoid falling into the abyss by adopting the methods we use for our customers. From that experience and from the many remote interactive workshops we have done we come up with an offering especially made for companies. This fall we have offered it to various organizations, multinationals, large manufacturing companies, and managers of various companies, with great satisfaction. We have now developed a 2 days (or 3 online meetings) program, a Bootcamp, that allows to introduce business agility (we called it that) in the organization.
With the term Business agility, we mean a mindset to become outcome-driven (why we do what we do) where all members of a team contribute to the final achievement. It is implemented through the ability to create sequences of microstructures to ensure that the interrelation between people produces solutions in which everyone has contributed, whit strong ownership by the people and which are oriented towards the outcome to be achieved. This is the most effective way of making decisions in a complex context, as clearly explained by Dave Snowden’s Cynefin scheme.
Over the course of the spring, we delivered over 50 interactive workshops, developing a format that has proven to be very effective. We involved several colleagues and they too contributed to spreading it across the industries, making their versions effective too. MashUp innovation, Liberating structures, Lightning Decision Jam, Scenario Planning, Quick & Dirty Design Sprint, as well as original microstructures and sequences such as the Daisy Lab. We have used, decomposed, mixed and combined different microstructures and sequences, to arrive at forging a concept of business agility that was functional to organizations.
Functional to guarantee, as in live workshops:
- Depth of solution (thanks to unlocking the potential of all participants)
- Trust in the solution (thanks to the development of creativity and empathy in the participants)
- Commitment by all participants (commitment, thanks to the fact that the solution emerges from the participants and everyone feels it)
- Diffusion speed in its implementation (thanks to the alignment, to the mindset aimed at improvement in each of the participants)
- Effectiveness in the solution, because the results of the workshop emerge directly from people, and being implemented even when the boss is not there (because the participants feel the results are their own, because they are aligned on the direction, because the dialogue in the team is simple and natural outcome).
Moreover, functional to ensure leaders that their teams are able to produce solutions independently, a solution that leaders and teams feel they own. That this happens with the growth of internal skills (individual and organizational) in order to continue to operate within the organization. A mindset that gives these guarantees in general, but necessary to achieve the effectiveness of outcome driven work typical of smartworking, with:
- Focus on results and not on the process
- Leave the decision where there is information (Intent leadership)
- Ensure autonomy and empower people who work in multi-skilled and distributed teams (Purpose driven Engagement).
Our workshops demonstrated this and it was therefore natural that it became a request from companies to acquire the skills to be able to use it in a widespread way in their organization.
It was easy for us to think of it because as LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitators this ability is inherent in our profession. As also, developed by Richard Gold in one of his posts, you can leverage the unique and effective features of the method remotely even without using LEGO®.
From this experience, in the second half of the year we provided a course for the internal development of business agility to several large companies. This allowed us to verify how, unlike the various “transformations” (digital or agile or organizational), the bottom up approach of business agility developed by In Sprint was immediately applicable and guaranteed widespread dissemination simply because it was based on outcomes. Fewer meetings, more effective, with results that can be immediately spent and shared, together with strong ownership, makes the difference. In addition, you do not need the permission of the organization, given that if you produce better results in less time, anyone at any level of the organization will appreciate it.
We as In Sprint are happy to have been the driving force for so many professionals and to have been able to contribute to a change of mindset in several large companies simply by demonstrating the power of business agility.
We know that alone will not change the world, but it will certainly allow many people to work better and induce strategic changes in organizations (even accelerate the various “transformations”) that will allow them to better manage the complexity of these times.
If you are interested in developing a business agility path in your company, contact us. Soon we will propose physical and online Bootcamps to introduce business agility into your organization or become a business agility facilitator. Stay tuned.