How to Improve Business Agility in Your Organization

Adopting business agility can bring your organization many benefits, such as increased adaptability, faster decision-making, and improved customer satisfaction. However, agile transformation also comes with some risks, including potential resistance to change and the challenge of shifting long-standing processes.

To improve business agility, adopting agile practices is essential. Fostering a culture of collaboration, investing in continuous learning, and leveraging flexible tools and technologies aligned with an agile business methodology can make a significant difference. By focusing on meeting evolving customer needs, organizations can ensure their agile transformation is both impactful and sustainable.

We surveyed the team at Hyperdrive Agile and compiled a few practical tips to help you enhance your organization’s agility and navigate the challenges of agile practices effectively.

How to Improve Agility at Work

Become a Transformation Catalyst

Stacey Louie, CEO and Enterprise Agile Coach at Hyperdrive, suggests that every successful adoption of business agility requires a transformation catalyst – see 5 key things you need to do to be a successful transformation catalyst.

Start with You

Embrace your role as a change agent and start identifying the things that need to change in your organization and are within your ability to change.

Starting with areas in your ability to control means you don’t have to wait for permission from your leaders. It also means you must own the changes, not your direct reports. Your engagement lends credibility to the overall effort, setting the stage for continuous improvement and influencing the entire organization.

Start with Minor Projects or Small Work

Fully adopting business agility requires a significant organizational shift. Starting small with minor changes or implementing a Kanban approach can help build momentum for the larger shifts in your operating model.

Think about how you can speed up your learning and build excitement by making smaller changes first. Instead of creating a big plan, focus on small, measurable steps that can help build momentum. These initial wins not only generate excitement but also demonstrate tangible success within your organization.

Build Change as a Habit

Once you finish your first project, start your second, then your third. Build a repeatable process for introducing change.

By fostering a habit of continuous improvement, you create a sustainable approach to transformation. As momentum grows, others in your organization will become just as excited about change as you are. Building change into everyday life ensures long-term adaptability and scalability for the entire organization.

Measure the Results

Every change you make should have measurable outcomes. Use KPIs to track the success of your efforts and ensure your changes are driving the results you expect.

When you introduce change, determine how to measure success and communicate these results to stakeholders. Whether it’s through case studies or performance metrics, showing tangible improvements helps align your efforts with the organization’s goals.

Share Your Wins

Celebrate and share your successes across the organization. When changes deliver results, make sure your peers and leaders are aware of the impact. Use specific metrics or case studies to illustrate how the company benefits from the changes you’ve implemented.

Keep socializing your wins. Make it exciting and positive, and use your results-driven approach to inspire others to embrace transformation. By doing so, you’ll drive continuous improvement and create a culture of adaptability across your operating model.

Dos and Don’ts of Business Agility

There are definite Do’s and Don’ts for any business transformation, particularly for organizations wanting business agility. Breaking down silos and embracing agile principles are key to thriving in a changing market. Here are a few key steps to consider.

DO: Understand What Business Agility Is

Business agility is the ability to sense internal and external changes and respond appropriately to delight your customers and drive value for your organization. It’s about more than just adopting Agile software development practices—it’s about transforming into a truly agile organization where all parts of the business adapt and evolve. This approach enables organizations to navigate digital transformation effectively and gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

DO: Be Open-Minded to New Ways of Working and Learning

It’s natural to feel uncertain when starting any new endeavor. Taking an open-minded stance can positively impact how you approach your transformation. Pronoia—the belief that the world is working in your favor—can influence how you engage others and foster collaboration. Breaking silos and encouraging cross-functional teamwork are essential to becoming an agile organization.

DO: Find Your Allies on Your Business Agility Journey

Identify trusted individuals who challenge both you and the status quo. Don’t just recruit or hire your support system—ensure these allies align with the agile principles necessary to support meaningful change. While feeling supported matters, improving business agility requires working with individuals who can offer diverse perspectives and innovative solutions.

By focusing on these steps, organizations can respond to shifting markets, drive digital transformation, and maintain a competitive advantage in an ever-evolving landscape.

DON’T: Set Expectations of an End Goal — Instead, Set Intentions on the Journey

Expectations for minor events (e.g., meeting agenda) that are within your span of control are good practice. But expectations and goals can also often lead to rigid structures and fixed thoughts.

The inherent uncertainty of considerable change efforts makes setting expectations over broad time horizons difficult. OKRs and organizational goals may not always be within your span of control.

Intentions are within your control. The practice of daily intention setting helps to create more freedom of movement to anticipate and respond to changing conditions.

DON’T: Fall Victim to the Organizational Traps

We often see this show up in varying ways and intensities. Companies simply apply an Agile framework (e.g., SAFe) merely to apply a framework, with little understanding of whether they are creating any value.

It’s a TRAP! Instead of implementing a framework for the framework’s sake, work on identifying where you have organizational impediments and building behaviors & practices around resolving those.

Companies exclude HR in the Agile transformation and continue to hire unskilled agilists.

It’s a TRAP! Save your company large amounts of time and money and hire smartly for this journey. Your recruits will appreciate the direction you set, word will get out, and the right candidates will come knocking at your door.

Companies spend millions of dollars on an Agile playbook only to have it shelved when the organization’s culture doesn’t capitulate.

It’s a TRAP! Having shareable knowledge is important, but it is much more valuable to your organization to have a culture of working teams and products. Maximize feedback loops and generate ultra responsiveness to market demands.

DON’T: Be a Hero. Be a Sherpa.

There will be moments on your journey toward business agility when you want to crack skulls to get the promised and desired outcomes. Resist the urge.

Organizational change is more à propos to that of growing a garden. You must be patient. You must nurture and serve.

Business agility is millions of tiny movements and reflections happening on the surface. Keep your calm as you climb the face of this chaotic, complex, and complicated mountain. Observers will notice and want what you have.

How Hyperdrive Agile Can Help You Adopt Business Agility

It probably goes without saying that any change as substantial as adopting business agility goes better if you’ve done it before or get help from someone with experience.

Since a business agility transformation is not a discrete activity you do multiple times, you’re better off working with someone who has done it before. That’s where Hyperdrive Agile comes in.

Here are some ways we can help you build self-sustainable business agility. We want to show you how you can do these things on your own, not set up a permanent residence in your organization.

Discover

The first step in nearly any initiative, including one as significant as business agility transformation, is becoming more aware. Discovery, in this sense, is a highly collaborative client systems view of the operational flow of value in the organization, where you unearth impediments, metrics, and opportunities for learning.

Train

The next step is to increase your organization’s capacity for Agile knowledge, cross-functional teams, and adaptive learning. Training includes distributing knowledge or facilitating powerful conversations. Hyperdrive works with clients to find their fit-for-purpose, focused on fostering an agile mindset and embedding agile ways of working.

Coachtext

The last and critical step in supporting any change is to coach the organization, the teams, and the leaders on a path that enables sustained business agility.

Coaching is meeting you, the client, where you are today, creating containers for meaningful conversations, focusing on your bigger agenda throughout the journey, and holding you accountable for the desired outcomes. It’s a temporary partnership designed to empower agile teams, align stakeholders, and bring your initiatives to life with measurable results.