Agile Strategy

Agile Strategy is a practical guide for managers responsible for setting the strategic direction of their organisations in increasingly dynamic markets. Through its frameworks, tools and real-world examples, it explains how to transform business performance through greater organisational agility. LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT STRATEGY BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION Why do we need a new book on strategy? The pace of change is increasing, and strategic management is not keeping up. More than one in four (28%) strategic initiatives fail to meet their original goals and business intent[1], with insufficient agility identified as one of the top three barriers to successful strategy implementation[2]. The square peg of traditional strategy — vision, mission and blue-sky exercises; the separation of strategy from “implementation” — no longer fits the round hole of increasingly dynamic markets. It is time for a new approach. How is Agile Strategy different? Agile Strategy distinguishes itself from other strategy and agile books currently available in that it is: Designed for large organisations: Much of the writing on agile techniques addresses start-ups or small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which operate under very different constraints and freedoms. Agile Strategy is written for large organisations who want to be more agile. Commercially-led: The approach is not a lightly airbrushed business rewrite of agile software development practices, but rather a fundamental rethinking of commercial and operational business practices. Practical: It is anchored in innovative and robust concepts but designed as a practical “how-to” guide: a book for practitioners, written by a practitioner. Results-focused: Whilst addressing a broad range of organisational topics, the book is grounded in the definition and delivery of measurable business benefits. Why should I read it? Agile Strategy offers four key benefits to its readers: A clear framework ("RADAR") A single, easy-to-grasp guiding principle: The Horizon Measurable benefits A practical approach I hope you not only enjoy reading about this innovative new approach, but also go on to realise the full potential of your organisation by implementing it. Good luck! Ralph Fernando [1] Project Management Institute (2017) Pulse of the Profession [2] The Economist Intelligence Unit (2017) Closing the Gap: Designing and Delivering a Strategy that Works"

In a world of rapid and unpredictable change, the problem with strategic planning is that if you follow your plan through to the end, you will get exactly what you used to want. What you need is a framework for planning and implementing a strategy that is agile enough to adapt to a dynamic environment but focused enough to deliver. That framework is the Dynamic Balanced Scorecard. The original Balanced Scorecard system has proven the most popular, successful and enduring framework for strategy execution over the last 25 years. Comprising a Strategy Map and a scorecard of KPIs, targets and initiatives, the framework helped organizations distil a strategy into actionable components and measure progress towards a strategic vision, while also implementing and monitoring the actions that drove change. However, for all its success, the Balanced Scorecard system now needs to evolve for the digital age. Until now, building the system, rolling it out enterprise-wide and adapting it to external changes has been a lengthy process. While the fundamental principles of the system are still sound and relevant, it needs to become nimbler and more responsive. The book provides a step-by-step guide to agile strategy management: from formulation to implementation to learning and adapting. For each of the steps, the book explains how Dynamic Balanced Scorecards, fit for the digital age, are built and deployed.

Agile Practice Guide – First Edition has been developed as a resource to understand, evaluate, and use agile and hybrid agile approaches. This practice guide provides guidance on when, where, and how to apply agile approaches and provides practical tools for practitioners and organizations wanting to increase agility. This practice guide is aligned with other PMI standards, including A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, and was developed as the result of collaboration between the Project Management Institute and the Agile Alliance.

Ten skills for agile leadership Complex challenges are all around us—they impact our companies, our communities, and our planet. This complexity and the emergence of networks is changing the practice of strategic management. Today’s leaders need to understand how to design and guide complex collaborations to accelerate innovation and change—collaborations that cross boundaries both inside and outside organizations. Strategic Doing introduces you to the new disciplines of agile strategy and collaborative leadership. You’ll learn how to design and guide complex collaborations by following a discipline of simple rules that you won’t find anywhere else. • Unleash the power of true collaboration • Learn and master the 10 skills of agile leadership • Apply individual skills to targeted situations • Introduces a new discipline of leadership strategy Filled with compelling case studies, Strategic Doing outlines a new discipline of leadership strategy specifically designed for open, loosely-connected networks.

Your strategic initiatives are constantly under fire due to the evolving nature of markets, technology, laws, and government. To ensure your strategy succeeds, it must remain flexible while confronting these shifting challenges. Agile Strategy Management: Techniques for Continuous Alignment and Improvement explains how to achieve this flexibility by building agility into the initiation, development, implementation, and governance of your strategic initiatives. The book details what it takes to initiate, develop, implement, and govern a healthy strategy that delivers the benefits expected by all stakeholders. It presents insights gained by the author’s organization over the last 25 years helping their clients achieve success with their strategic initiatives. Filled with real-world examples and case studies, it illustrates wide-ranging situations where the author’s company helped clients reach important business objectives. Readers can use the book to look up examples that describe the various ways to use agile methods and techniques for critical business functions, including: Scope definition of strategic initiatives Stakeholder identification Team building Project and program quality management Change management Procurement of resources Solution development, implementation, and quality management Strategy governance In this book, you will find guidelines that explain how to establish internal organizations for change and how to ensure these intermediate organizations stay motivated until final solution delivery. Presenting success stories as well as major blunders, the book can help you avoid many of the pitfalls that other organizations have experienced while governing their strategic initiatives.

Agile in simple terms, means the ability to move easily and quickly. In the business circle, agility or agile strategy refers to an approach in product management wherein within the dynamic, fast-changing market place an innovative strategic approach is conducive for profit and success. Agile strategizing involves a method of planning wherein importance is given to big-picture thinking, extra customer focus, and swift learning and adaption to the changing market scenarios. Agile strategy focuses on gaining a competitive advantage mainly by capitalizing on fresh innovations. The concept of agile strategy describes an organization’s ability to stay flexible and fluid, by continuously changing as well as updating their operations through new innovations. Agile strategic approach enables and equips any organization to think and plan ahead of the market, quickly mobilizing itself, adapting to market shifts, filling capability gaps, capturing new revenue in advance of the competition, and finally creating new markets.

Agile Strategy is a practical guide for managers responsible for setting the strategic direction of their organisations in increasingly dynamic markets. Through its frameworks, tools and real-world examples, it explains how to transform business performance through greater organisational agility. Why do we need a new book on strategy? The pace of change is increasing, and strategic management is not keeping up. More than one in four (28%) strategic initiatives fail to meet their original goals and business intent[1], with insufficient agility identified as one of the top three barriers to successful strategy implementation[2]. The square peg of traditional strategy — vision, mission and blue-sky exercises; the separation of strategy from “implementation” — no longer fits the round hole of increasingly dynamic markets. It is time for a new approach. How is Agile Strategy different? Agile Strategy distinguishes itself from other strategy and agile books currently available in that it is: Designed for large organisations: Much of the writing on agile techniques addresses start-ups or small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which operate under very different constraints and freedoms. Agile Strategy is written for large organisations who want to be more agile. Commercially-led: The approach is not a lightly airbrushed business rewrite of agile software development practices, but rather a fundamental rethinking of commercial and operational business practices. Practical: It is anchored in innovative and robust concepts but designed as a practical “how-to” guide: a book for practitioners, written by a practitioner. Results-focused: Whilst addressing a broad range of organisational topics, the book is grounded in the definition and delivery of measurable business benefits. Why should I read it? Agile Strategy offers four key benefits to its readers: A clear framework ("RADAR") A single, easy-to-grasp guiding principle: The Horizon Measurable benefits A practical approach The full text downloaded to your computer With eBooks you can: search for key concepts, words and phrases make highlights and notes as you study share your notes with friends eBooks are downloaded to your computer and accessible either offline through the Bookshelf (available as a free download), available online and also via the iPad and Android apps. Upon purchase, you'll gain instant access to this eBook. Time limit The eBooks products do not have an expiry date. You will continue to access your digital ebook products whilst you have your Bookshelf installed.

Master's Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1, Donau-Universität Krems (Faculty of Business and Globalization; Department for Management and Economics), course: Danube Professional MBA; Area of Concentration: Strategic Management & Organizational Change, language: English, abstract: Strategic decision-making is a key task for every senior manager of any sized company. Strategic decisions are characterized by highly uncertain conditions. Managing this uncertainty and anticipating the future, is seen as key to success and the measure for being a successful manager. In the opposite direction, if firms fail to anticipate how the future will be, it is then often called “bad luck”. However, if “failing to anticipate the future” were correlated with bad luck, this would mean that “anticipating the future right” should be directly linked with good luck. However, good luck is often ignored and seen as excellent management performance instead. To reduce the influence of luck, this master thesis deals with the different approaches on strategy-formation and decision-making, to identify to what extent they differ in their methodology on how they manage the uncertainty and how they try to get control over the future. The aim is to identify best practice approaches that should lead to better performance on reduced risk and cost.