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Agile for Small Business: A Practical Guide to Increased Efficiency and Flexibility
Author: Sarah Chen, PMP, CSM, a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Scrum Master (CSM) with over 10 years of experience implementing agile methodologies in diverse business environments, including numerous small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Her expertise lies in tailoring agile frameworks to the unique needs of smaller organizations.
Publisher: Small Business Growth Strategies (SBGS), a leading publisher of practical business guides and research reports focusing on improving the operational efficiency and profitability of small businesses. SBGS has a strong reputation for publishing data-driven content and insightful analysis, contributing regularly to major business publications.
Editor: David Lee, MBA, a seasoned business editor with extensive experience in refining and streamlining complex business concepts for a broad audience. He has edited numerous publications on project management and organizational efficiency, and has a strong understanding of agile principles in practical business contexts.
Keywords: agile for small business, agile methodology for small business, scrum for small businesses, agile project management for small businesses, small business agility, scaling agile for small businesses, agile transformation for small businesses, benefits of agile for small businesses, implementing agile in small businesses.
Abstract: This in-depth report explores the practical application of agile methodologies for small businesses. We examine the advantages of agile, addressing common misconceptions and providing data-driven evidence of its effectiveness in improving project delivery, team collaboration, and overall business flexibility. We outline specific agile frameworks suitable for small businesses, offer practical implementation strategies, and address potential challenges. The report concludes that while adopting agile requires initial investment, the long-term benefits of increased efficiency, improved customer satisfaction, and enhanced adaptability make agile for small business a compelling strategy for growth and sustainability.
1. Understanding Agile: More Than Just Scrum
Agile is not a single methodology but rather a set of principles focused on iterative development, collaboration, and rapid adaptation to change. Unlike traditional waterfall approaches, agile for small business embraces flexibility and allows for continuous improvement throughout the project lifecycle. This iterative approach, characterized by short development cycles (sprints), enables quicker feedback loops, reducing the risk of significant deviations from customer requirements. A 2021 study by the Standish Group reported that agile projects experienced a 28% higher success rate compared to traditional projects. This success rate is particularly significant for small businesses, where resources are often limited and adaptability is crucial for survival.
2. Why Agile is Perfect for Small Businesses
Small businesses often operate in dynamic environments, facing rapid changes in market demands, competition, and technological advancements. Agile for small business provides the necessary flexibility to navigate these complexities. The core principles of agility – collaboration, iterative development, and continuous improvement – align perfectly with the resource constraints and rapid response needs of smaller organizations. By prioritizing customer feedback and adapting quickly to changes, small businesses using agile can maintain a competitive edge.
Data Point: A survey by VersionOne found that 71% of organizations using agile reported improved team collaboration and communication. This improvement is particularly beneficial for small businesses, where strong team cohesion is essential for efficient operations.
3. Suitable Agile Frameworks for Small Businesses
While Scrum is a popular choice, other agile frameworks can be equally effective for small businesses. Kanban, for instance, offers a simpler, less structured approach, ideal for businesses with less complex projects or those transitioning to agile. Lean methodologies emphasize eliminating waste and maximizing value, a particularly relevant aspect for resource-constrained small businesses. The choice of framework depends on the specific needs and context of the business. However, a key aspect for agile for small business is to choose a framework that is easy to understand and implement without requiring extensive training or overhead.
4. Implementing Agile in Your Small Business: A Step-by-Step Guide
Implementing agile for small business involves several key steps:
Assessment: Evaluate current processes and identify areas for improvement.
Training: Equip your team with the necessary knowledge and skills. Focus on practical application rather than theoretical concepts.
Pilot Project: Start with a small, manageable project to test the agile methodology and refine your processes.
Iteration and Refinement: Continuously monitor progress, gather feedback, and adapt your approach as needed.
Communication: Ensure clear communication channels and frequent interaction between team members and stakeholders.
Data Point: A study by the Agile Alliance indicated that companies adopting agile methodologies experienced a 37% increase in productivity.
5. Addressing Common Challenges in Agile for Small Business
Implementing agile for small business isn't without its challenges. Some common issues include:
Resistance to Change: Overcoming resistance from team members accustomed to traditional methods.
Lack of Resources: Allocating sufficient time and resources for agile implementation.
Maintaining Focus: Preventing agile from becoming overly complex or bureaucratic.
Addressing these challenges requires proactive communication, clear leadership, and a gradual, iterative approach to implementation.
6. Measuring the Success of Agile Implementation
Key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring the success of agile for small business include:
Project Completion Rate: The percentage of projects completed on time and within budget.
Customer Satisfaction: Feedback from customers regarding the quality of products or services.
Team Velocity: The rate at which the team completes work.
Defect Rate: The number of bugs or errors found in the final product.
Regular monitoring of these KPIs provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of the agile implementation and helps to identify areas for improvement.
7. Scaling Agile for Growing Small Businesses
As a small business grows, scaling agile methodologies is crucial. This involves adapting the chosen framework to accommodate increased complexity and team size. Techniques like scaling agile frameworks like Scrum@Scale or SAFe can be considered, but even a smaller business might find that it needs to develop a more robust system for tracking progress and managing interdependencies between different agile teams.
8. Agile for Small Business: The Future of Work
The adoption of agile methodologies is increasingly becoming the norm for businesses of all sizes. Agile for small business isn't just a trend; it's a crucial strategy for survival and growth in today's dynamic market. By embracing flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement, small businesses can enhance their efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, and build a more resilient and adaptable organization.
Conclusion: Agile for small business provides a powerful framework for improving efficiency, boosting productivity, and enhancing overall business flexibility. While initial implementation requires effort and a shift in mindset, the long-term benefits, as supported by various studies and research, significantly outweigh the initial challenges. By understanding the principles of agile, selecting the right framework, and addressing potential hurdles proactively, small businesses can unlock significant growth and competitive advantages.
FAQs:
1. What is the difference between Agile and Waterfall methodologies? Agile is iterative and flexible, focusing on collaboration and adapting to change, while Waterfall is sequential and rigid.
2. Is Agile suitable for all small businesses? While generally beneficial, its suitability depends on the specific business context, project complexity, and team dynamics.
3. How much does it cost to implement Agile? Costs vary based on training, tools, and consulting needs, but the long-term ROI often justifies the initial investment.
4. How long does it take to see results from Agile? Results can vary, but improvements in team collaboration and efficiency are often noticeable within a few sprints.
5. What are the key metrics to track Agile success? Track project completion rate, customer satisfaction, team velocity, and defect rate.
6. What if my team resists adopting Agile? Address concerns through open communication, training, and demonstrating the benefits through a pilot project.
7. Can I use Agile for non-software development projects? Yes, Agile principles are applicable to a wide range of projects, including marketing, sales, and operations.
8. Are there any free tools available to support Agile practices? Yes, many free tools like Trello, Asana, and Jira offer basic Agile project management features.
9. How can I scale Agile as my business grows? Consider scaling frameworks like Scrum@Scale or SAFe, or adapting your existing framework to manage increased complexity and teams.
Related Articles:
1. Agile Project Management for Small Businesses: A Practical Guide: This article provides a step-by-step guide to implementing agile project management in a small business setting.
2. Kanban for Small Businesses: A Simple Approach to Agile: This article focuses on the Kanban framework and its benefits for small businesses with less complex projects.
3. Scaling Agile for Small Businesses: Strategies for Growth: This article explores methods for scaling agile methodologies as a small business expands.
4. Agile and Customer Satisfaction: How Agile Improves the Customer Experience: This article highlights the link between agile practices and improved customer satisfaction.
5. Overcoming Resistance to Change in Agile Adoption: This article addresses common challenges and strategies for overcoming resistance to change during agile implementation.
6. The ROI of Agile for Small Businesses: A Data-Driven Analysis: This article provides data-driven evidence of the return on investment associated with agile for small business.
7. Agile for Marketing Teams in Small Businesses: This article focuses on the application of agile principles to marketing within small businesses.
8. Lean Principles for Small Businesses: Maximizing Value and Minimizing Waste: This article explores the application of lean methodologies to improve efficiency in small businesses.
9. Choosing the Right Agile Framework for Your Small Business: This article offers guidance on selecting the most suitable agile framework based on business needs and context.
| agile for small business: Being Agile in Business Belinda Waldock, 2015-06-15 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. |
| agile for small business: Think Agile Taffy Williams, 2014-11 The difference between businesses who are closing up shop and those who are finding new success boils down to one thing . . . agility. How agile is your company? |
| agile for small business: Doing Agile Right Darrell Rigby, Sarah Elk, Steve Berez, 2020-05-26 Agile has the power to transform work--but only if it's implemented the right way. For decades business leaders have been painfully aware of a huge chasm: They aspire to create nimble, flexible enterprises. But their day-to-day reality is silos, sluggish processes, and stalled innovation. Today, agile is hailed as the essential bridge across this chasm, with the potential to transform a company and catapult it to the head of the pack. Not so fast. In this clear-eyed, indispensable book, Bain & Company thought leader Darrell Rigby and his colleagues Sarah Elk and Steve Berez provide a much-needed reality check. They dispel the myths and misconceptions that have accompanied agile's rise to prominence--the idea that it can reshape an organization all at once, for instance, or that it should be used in every function and for all types of work. They illustrate that agile teams can indeed be powerful, making people's jobs more rewarding and turbocharging innovation, but such results are possible only if the method is fully understood and implemented the right way. The key, they argue, is balance. Every organization must optimize and tightly control some of its operations, and at the same time innovate. Agile, done well, enables vigorous innovation without sacrificing the efficiency and reliability essential to traditional operations. The authors break down how agile really works, show what not to do, and explain the crucial importance of scaling agile properly in order to reap its full benefit. They then lay out a road map for leading the transition to a truly agile enterprise. Agile isn't a goal in itself; it's a means to becoming a high-performance operation. Doing Agile Right is a must-have guide for any company trying to make the transition--or trying to sustain high agility. |
| agile for small business: On Becoming Agile Daniel J. Power, Ciara Heavin, 2021-05-15 The goal of this book is to explain and facilitate the journey to Agile. Becoming agile is an ongoing journey. As the global environment changes, and becomes more complex and more uncertain, the importance of increasing agility and developing an agile mindset grows. The goal of this book is to explain and facilitate the journey. We explore agile values, practices, and principles that can help people cope with volatile and ambiguous situations. Agile values improve processes and promote communication in an organization. Agile practices advance innovation through high-performance multidisciplinary teams. Agile is about learning to anticipate and respond appropriately to the unexpected. Being agile is about interactions with people that result in successfully completing work tasks and meeting objectives. Agile is not about blindly moving faster, rather it is about continuous flexibility and learning. This book is targeted to advanced students and managers who are interested in learning to be agile. This accessible practical text poses 30 questions and provides answers that provide a starting point for further reflection. |
| agile for small business: Righting Software Juval Löwy, 2019-11-27 Right Your Software and Transform Your Career Righting Software presents the proven, structured, and highly engineered approach to software design that renowned architect Juval Löwy has practiced and taught around the world. Although companies of every kind have successfully implemented his original design ideas across hundreds of systems, these insights have never before appeared in print. Based on first principles in software engineering and a comprehensive set of matching tools and techniques, Löwy’s methodology integrates system design and project design. First, he describes the primary area where many software architects fail and shows how to decompose a system into smaller building blocks or services, based on volatility. Next, he shows how to flow an effective project design from the system design; how to accurately calculate the project duration, cost, and risk; and how to devise multiple execution options. The method and principles in Righting Software apply regardless of your project and company size, technology, platform, or industry. Löwy starts the reader on a journey that addresses the critical challenges of software development today by righting software systems and projects as well as careers—and possibly the software industry as a whole. Software professionals, architects, project leads, or managers at any stage of their career will benefit greatly from this book, which provides guidance and knowledge that would otherwise take decades and many projects to acquire. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details. |
| agile for small business: Be Agile Do Agile Vittal Anantatmula, Timothy Kloppenborg, 2021-01-20 Many things in the world are changing more rapidly than ever and levels of global competition have increased dramatically. Clients do not always know what they want in a new system or product and younger workers chafe at old command and control restrictions. These pressures and many others have challenges traditional project management methods. What has emerged is an understanding that for some projects, a new approach is needed. Many people have worked hard and imaginatively developing new approaches. Many of these fall under a broad umbrella called Agile. One difficulty with Agile is that various approaches have been developed and are in use today, both in pure form as suggested by their approach and in hybrid form attempting to gain advantages of more than a single approach. Not only that, but the very language of some of the approaches describe the same things differently and sometimes describe not so similar things in a similar manner. Add to that, many successful, experienced project practitioners do not fully understand nor value Agile. We recognize that to capitalize fully on the benefits of Agile, one must first understand the concepts that underpin it. Only then will using the mechanics of Agile yield the sweeping benefits some organizations enjoy. In this book, we first identify the many concepts that various approaches advocate for Agile and group them into a simple, but not dumbed-down system. Then we identify the most common and most useful Agile methods regardless of the approach that promotes them, grouping them logically, and showing how to use them. The result is we have an agnostic Agile model that can be useful to anyone who is either using or considering Agile. Further, the concepts and tools of this book can also be useful to anyone who is in an organization that is using a hybrid project management approach (part Agile and part traditional). Many, if not most, of the mindset concepts can also be of great value for people performing projects in a traditional manner as they attempt to unleash the energy and creativity of their project team members. Both concepts for being Agile and tools for doing Agile are summarized into an easy to follow system. |
| agile for small business: Agile Project Management For Dummies Mark C. Layton, Steven J. Ostermiller, 2017-09-05 Flex your project management muscle Agile project management is a fast and flexible approach to managing all projects, not just software development. By learning the principles and techniques in this book, you'll be able to create a product roadmap, schedule projects, and prepare for product launches with the ease of Agile software developers. You'll discover how to manage scope, time, and cost, as well as team dynamics, quality, and risk of every project. As mobile and web technologies continue to evolve rapidly, there is added pressure to develop and implement software projects in weeks instead of months—and Agile Project Management For Dummies can help you do just that. Providing a simple, step-by-step guide to Agile project management approaches, tools, and techniques, it shows product and project managers how to complete and implement projects more quickly than ever. Complete projects in weeks instead of months Reduce risk and leverage core benefits for projects Turn Agile theory into practice for all industries Effectively create an Agile environment Get ready to grasp and apply Agile principles for faster, more accurate development. |
| agile for small business: Agile for Non-Software Teams Gil Broza, 2019-12-19 You can't achieve business agility by copying practices from software/IT teams. This practical book, free of jargon and full of non-tech examples, will help you consider, design, start, grow, and sustain an Agile way of working that fits your unique context. |
| agile for small business: A Practical Approach to Large-Scale Agile Development Gary Gruver, Mike Young, Pat Fulghum, 2012-11-15 Today, even the largest development organizations are turning to agile methodologies, seeking major productivity and quality improvements. However, large-scale agile development is difficult, and publicly available case studies have been scarce. Now, three agile pioneers at Hewlett-Packard present a candid, start-to-finish insider’s look at how they’ve succeeded with agile in one of the company’s most mission-critical software environments: firmware for HP LaserJet printers. This book tells the story of an extraordinary experiment and journey. Could agile principles be applied to re-architect an enormous legacy code base? Could agile enable both timely delivery and ongoing innovation? Could it really be applied to 400+ developers distributed across four states, three continents, and four business units? Could it go beyond delivering incremental gains, to meet the stretch goal of 10x developer productivity improvements? It could, and it did—but getting there was not easy. Writing for both managers and technologists, the authors candidly discuss both their successes and failures, presenting actionable lessons for other development organizations, as well as approaches that have proven themselves repeatedly in HP’s challenging environment. They not only illuminate the potential benefits of agile in large-scale development, they also systematically show how these benefits can actually be achieved. Coverage includes: • Tightly linking agile methods and enterprise architecture with business objectives • Focusing agile practices on your worst development pain points to get the most bang for your buck • Abandoning classic agile methods that don’t work at the largest scale • Employing agile methods to establish a new architecture • Using metrics as a “conversation starter” around agile process improvements • Leveraging continuous integration and quality systems to reduce costs, accelerate schedules, and automate the delivery pipeline • Taming the planning beast with “light-touch” agile planning and lightweight long-range forecasting • Implementing effective project management and ensuring accountability in large agile projects • Managing tradeoffs associated with key decisions about organizational structure • Overcoming U.S./India cultural differences that can complicate offshore development • Selecting tools to support quantum leaps in productivity in your organization • Using change management disciplines to support greater enterprise agility |
| agile for small business: Lean Project Management Philip Small, 2022-02-20 This Is How The World's Top Tech Companies Manage Their Projects - Use Their Methods And Let Your Startup Thrive! This book includes: Lean Startup, Lean Enterprise, Lean Analytics, Agile Project Management, Lean Six Sigma, Kaizen Do you want to run your small business using the same strategies as the leaders in your field? Do you want to have a clear advantage over your competitors? Do you want your customers to be happy and eager to pay you even more? It's time to learn Lean. With Lean Project Management, you can create highquality products in less time. You can manage projects in a way that actually empowers and motivates your employees. Last but not least, your customers will LOVE working with you if your company uses Lean and Agile methods. This book will show you how to implement Lean methods in your startup and take it to the next level. With this book, you will: Learn the step-by-step process of managing Lean projects Maximize your team's productivity with Scrum Visualize your workflows with Kanban Understand Lean Six Sigma roles and management boards Explore The 5S system - pros and cons Use Lean Analytics to measure the things that matter Adopt the Kaizen mindset to encourage growth and positive change Grow and scale your thriving business! The Lean mindset is your key to maximum productivity and genuine leadership. It's your key to innovation and success (and making more money in the process). You can use it to manage everything from your personal projects to a thriving corporation - Lean is scalable, flexible, and empowering. In fact, Lean Project Management can be used in all fields and industries - so dive in and transform your business now! Get your hands on this book before your competitors do. Get Your Copy Now! |
| agile for small business: The Age of Agile Stephen Denning, 2018-02-08 An unstoppable business revolution is under way, and it is Agile. Sparking dramatic improvements in quality, innovation, and speed-to-market, the Agile movement has helped companies learn to connect everyone and everything…all the time. With rapidly evolving consumer needs and technology that is being updated quicker than ever before, businesses are recognizing how essential it is to adapt quickly. The Agile movement enables a team, unit, or enterprise to nimbly acclimate and upgrade products and services to meet these constantly changing needs. Filled with examples from every sector, The Age of Agile helps you: Master the three laws of Agile Management (team, customer, network) Embrace the new mindset Overcome constraints Employ meaningful metrics Make the entire organization Agile Companies don’t need to be born Agile. With the groundbreaking formulas laid out in The Age of Agile, even global giants can learn to act entrepreneurially. Your company’s future may depend on it! |
| agile for small business: Agility Shift Pamela Meyer, 2016-11-03 As contrary as it sounds, planning -- as we traditionally understand the term--can be the worst thing a company can do. Consider that volatile weather events disrupt trusted supply chains, markets, and promised delivery schedules. Ever-shifting geo-political tensions, as well as internal political upheaval within U.S. and global governments, derail long-planned new ventures. Technology failures block opportunities. Competitors suddenly change their product or release date; your team cannot meet the pace of innovations in your market niche, leaving you sidelined. There are myriad ways in the current business environment for a company's well-considered business plans to go awry. Most business schools continue to prepare managers to be effective in stable and predictable environments, conditions that, if they ever existed at all, are long gone. The Agility Shift shows business leaders exactly how to make the radical mindset and strategy shift necessary to create an agile, entrepreneurial organization that can innovate and thrive in complex, ever-changing contexts. As author Pamela Meyer explains, there is much more involved than a reconfiguration of the org chart and job descriptions. It requires relinquishing the illusion of control at the very foundation of most management training and business practice. Despite most leaders' approaches, Agility is not simply accelerated planning. Unlike many agility books on the market, The Agility Shift provides specific, actionable strategies and tactics for leaders at all levels of the organization to put into practice immediately to improve agility and achieve results. |
| agile for small business: Sooner Safer Happier Jonathan Smart, 2020-11-10 This is one of the most important Agile books since The Phoenix Project. —Charles Betz, Principle Analyst, Forrester Research It's no secret that we are living in the Digital Age. Technology companies make up seven of the world's ten largest firms by market capitalization. And the key to their success is the key to all modern organizations. Jonathan Smart, business agility practitioner, thought leader, and coach, reveals the patterns and antipatterns that will help organizations from every industry deliver better value sooner, safer, and happier through high levels of engagement, inclusion, and empowerment. Through his decades of experience in the technology world, Smart provides business leaders with a blueprint for creating a world-class organization of the future. Through Agile and Lean ways of working, business leaders can empower teams to improve production, grow together, and create better services for their customers. These better ways of working have overflowed from the IT department to every corner of successful organizations, taking root in every industry from aerospace to accounting, insurance to shipping. This book is not about software development. It is not a book about the computer industry. This book is about applying agility across the entire organization. It's a book that will put you at the front of change and ahead of the competition. A true business-wide perspective on Digital Transformation and the need for whole business agility. —Adam Banks, Non Executive Director and Former CTIO of AP Moller Maersk **Note from the Authors: Purchases will result in the planting of trees and empowerment of women, in countries with the lowest scores on the IUCN's gender and environment index. It's not just carbon neutral, purchases in any format will result in, on average, 10x greater carbon offset. |
| agile for small business: Disciplined Agile Delivery Scott W. Ambler, Mark Lines, 2012-05-31 Master IBM’s Breakthrough DAD Process Framework for Succeeding with Agile in Large, Complex, Mission-Critical IT Projects It is widely recognized that moving from traditional to agile approaches to build software solutions is a critical source of competitive advantage. Mainstream agile approaches that are indeed suitable for small projects require significant tailoring for larger, complex enterprise projects. In Disciplined Agile Delivery, Scott W. Ambler and Mark Lines introduce IBM’s breakthrough Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) process framework, which describes how to do this tailoring. DAD applies a more disciplined approach to agile development by acknowledging and dealing with the realities and complexities of a portfolio of interdependent program initiatives. Ambler and Lines show how to extend Scrum with supplementary agile and lean strategies from Agile Modeling (AM), Extreme Programming (XP), Kanban, Unified Process (UP), and other proven methods to provide a hybrid approach that is adaptable to your organization’s unique needs. They candidly describe what practices work best, why they work, what the trade-offs are, and when to consider alternatives, all within the context of your situation. Disciplined Agile Delivery addresses agile practices across the entire lifecycle, from requirements, architecture, and development to delivery and governance. The authors show how these best-practice techniques fit together in an end-to-end process for successfully delivering large, complex systems--from project initiation through delivery. Coverage includes Scaling agile for mission-critical enterprise endeavors Avoiding mistakes that drive poorly run agile projects to chaos Effectively initiating an agile project Transitioning as an individual to agile Incrementally building consumable solutions Deploying agile solutions into complex production environments Leveraging DevOps, architecture, and other enterprise disciplines Adapting your governance strategy for agile projects Based on facts, research, and extensive experience, this book will be an indispensable resource for every enterprise software leader and practitioner--whether they’re seeking to optimize their existing agile/Scrum process or improve the agility of an iterative process. |
| agile for small business: Scrum Master Joe Justice, 2021-01-02 This book is the ultimate agile training seminar in book form. Business leaders, professionals who are ready to learn, and instructors will find here a complete training regimen with rich content, a training-tested structure, and high value insights that have already resulted in many thousands of agile projects delivered at all types of top tier organizations, from fortune 100 companies to lean startup companies, around the globe. We have optimized this book to be an immersive experience you can adapt to the time you have available, so we encourage you to dive headlong into these pages, exercises, and practices so you can most directly apply your learning to your work immediately. As a comprehensive course, this book offers the key practical knowledge for you to understand and be increasingly agile, and to effectively begin practicing or perfecting Scrum from the moment you begin through to realizing your definition of done.Joe Justice is a highly rated instructor who has led hundreds of agile courses and supported agile transformations for teams and across leading businesses worldwide.You really rocked your roles as instructor, cheerleader, and host- Ken Merchant, 3 Star General, USAF RetiredOne of the best professional trainings in the world - Fabian Delava, Partner, Bain & CompanyJoe has broken new ground using Scrum in manufacturing -- Dr. Jeff Sutherland, Co-creator of Scrum |
| agile for small business: Agile Estimating and Planning Mike Cohn, 2005-11-01 Agile Estimating and Planning is the definitive, practical guide to estimating and planning agile projects. In this book, Agile Alliance cofounder Mike Cohn discusses the philosophy of agile estimating and planning and shows you exactly how to get the job done, with real-world examples and case studies. Concepts are clearly illustrated and readers are guided, step by step, toward how to answer the following questions: What will we build? How big will it be? When must it be done? How much can I really complete by then? You will first learn what makes a good plan-and then what makes it agile. Using the techniques in Agile Estimating and Planning, you can stay agile from start to finish, saving time, conserving resources, and accomplishing more. Highlights include: Why conventional prescriptive planning fails and why agile planning works How to estimate feature size using story points and ideal days–and when to use each How and when to re-estimate How to prioritize features using both financial and nonfinancial approaches How to split large features into smaller, more manageable ones How to plan iterations and predict your team's initial rate of progress How to schedule projects that have unusually high uncertainty or schedule-related risk How to estimate projects that will be worked on by multiple teams Agile Estimating and Planning supports any agile, semiagile, or iterative process, including Scrum, XP, Feature-Driven Development, Crystal, Adaptive Software Development, DSDM, Unified Process, and many more. It will be an indispensable resource for every development manager, team leader, and team member. |
| agile for small business: Agile Management for Software Engineering David J. Anderson, 2003-09-17 A breakthrough approach to managing agile software development, Agile methods might just be the alternative to outsourcing. However, agile development must scale in scope and discipline to be acceptable in the boardrooms of the Fortune 1000. In Agile Management for Software Engineering, David J. Anderson shows managers how to apply management science to gain the full business benefits of agility through application of the focused approach taught by Eli Goldratt in his Theory of Constraints. Whether you're using XP, Scrum, FDD, or another agile approach, you'll learn how to develop management discipline for all phases of the engineering process, implement realistic financial and production metrics, and focus on building software that delivers maximum customer value and outstanding business results.Coverage includes: Making the business case for agile methods: practical tools and disciplines How to choose an agile method for your next project Breakthrough application of Critical Chain Project Management and constraint-driven control of the flow of value Defines the four new roles for the agile manager in software projects—and competitive IT organizations Whether you're a development manager, project manager, team leader, or senior IT executive, this book will help you achieve all four of your most urgent challenges: lower cost, faster delivery, improved quality, and focused alignment with the business. |
| agile for small business: Agile Software Requirements Dean Leffingwell, 2010-12-27 “We need better approaches to understanding and managing software requirements, and Dean provides them in this book. He draws ideas from three very useful intellectual pools: classical management practices, Agile methods, and lean product development. By combining the strengths of these three approaches, he has produced something that works better than any one in isolation.” –From the Foreword by Don Reinertsen, President of Reinertsen & Associates; author of Managing the Design Factory; and leading expert on rapid product development Effective requirements discovery and analysis is a critical best practice for serious application development. Until now, however, requirements and Agile methods have rarely coexisted peacefully. For many enterprises considering Agile approaches, the absence of effective and scalable Agile requirements processes has been a showstopper for Agile adoption. In Agile Software Requirements, Dean Leffingwell shows exactly how to create effective requirements in Agile environments. Part I presents the “big picture” of Agile requirements in the enterprise, and describes an overall process model for Agile requirements at the project team, program, and portfolio levels Part II describes a simple and lightweight, yet comprehensive model that Agile project teams can use to manage requirements Part III shows how to develop Agile requirements for complex systems that require the cooperation of multiple teams Part IV guides enterprises in developing Agile requirements for ever-larger “systems of systems,” application suites, and product portfolios This book will help you leverage the benefits of Agile without sacrificing the value of effective requirements discovery and analysis. You’ll find proven solutions you can apply right now–whether you’re a software developer or tester, executive, project/program manager, architect, or team leader. |
| agile for small business: Building the Agile Business through Digital Transformation Neil Perkin, Peter Abraham, 2017-04-03 Building the Agile Business through Digital Transformation is an in-depth look at transforming businesses so they are fit for purpose in a digitally enabled world. It is a guide for all those needing to better understand, implement and lead digital transformation in the workplace. It sets aside traditional thinking and outdated strategies to explain what steps need to be taken for an organization to become truly agile. It addresses how to build organizational velocity and establish iterative working, remove unnecessary process, embed innovation, map strategy to motivation and develop talent to succeed. Building the Agile Business through Digital Transformation provides guidance on how to set the pace and frequency for change and shows how to break old habits and reform the behaviours of a workforce to embed digital transformation, achieve organizational agility and ensure high performance. Full of practical advice, examples and real-life insights from organizational development professionals at the leading edge of digital transformation, this book is an essential guide to building an agile business. |
| agile for small business: The Art of Agile Development James Shore, Shane Warden, 2008 For those considering Extreme Programming, this book provides no-nonsense advice on agile planning, development, delivery, and management taken from the authors' many years of experience. While plenty of books address the what and why of agile development, very few offer the information users can apply directly. |
| agile for small business: Agile: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review Harvard Business Review, 2020-04-21 More than a buzzword, agile is a powerful business tool for all. To the uninitiated, agile is a software development and project management process involving white boards, colored Post-it Notes, and stand-up meetings. It may seem as though agile doesn’t and won't ever apply to you. But agile is here to stay, and its benefits can be realized beyond IT and project management into other areas of your business. If you're a leader, it's worth exploring how your group can benefit from the higher productivity and morale agile brings. Agile: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review brings you today's most essential thinking on agile, from exploring the conditions under which agile is most effective and easiest to implement to reducing new-product development risk to bringing the most valuable products and features to market faster and more predictably. The lessons in this book will help you introduce agile into a broader range of activities and accelerate profitable growth for your company. Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind? Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues--blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more--each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas--and prepare you and your company for the future. |
| agile for small business: Large-Scale Scrum Craig Larman, Bas Vodde, 2016-09-30 The Go-To Resource for Large-Scale Organizations to Be Agile Rather than asking, “How can we do agile at scale in our big complex organization?” a different and deeper question is, “How can we have the same simple structure that Scrum offers for the organization, and be agile at scale rather than do agile?” This profound insight is at the heart of LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum). In Large-Scale Scrum: More with LeSS, Craig Larman and Bas Vodde have distilled over a decade of experience in large-scale LeSS adoptions towards a simpler organization that delivers more flexibility with less complexity, more value with less waste, and more purpose with less prescription. Targeted to anyone involved in large-scale development, Large-Scale Scrum: More with LeSS, offers straight-to-the-point guides for how to be agile at scale, with LeSS. It will clearly guide you to Adopt LeSS Structure a large development organization for customer value Clarify the role of management and Scrum Master Define what your product is, and why Be a great Product Owner Work with multiple whole-product focused feature teams in one Sprint that produces a shippable product Coordinate and integrate between teams Work with multi-site teams |
| agile for small business: Small Business Management for Online Business Nicolae Sfetcu, 2014-10-20 Revision 1.1 A guide for home business and small business companies to develop online strategies for online presence, using the advantages of Web 2.0, web development, online promotion and social media. Web 2.0 is the evolution of the Web towards greater simplicity (requiring no technical knowledge or computer for users) and interactivity (allowing everyone, individually or collectively, to contribute, share and collaborate in various forms). Crowdsourcing, or participatory production, one of the emerging areas of knowledge management, is the use of creativity, intelligence and know-how of a large number of people, outsourcing, to perform certain tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor. Web development can take different forms: from a simple static page to dynamic pages with a connection to a database. Agile methods are groups of practices for the development of projects in IT (software design) that can be applied to various types of projects. They involve the maximum the applicant (client) and allow greater responsiveness to requests. They aim to real customer satisfaction a priority under a development agreement. A succesful web development is primarily based on iterative refinement of needs implemented in functionality in progress and even already completed. The marketing strategy aims to put the company in question in line with the implicit or explicit requirements of the market in which it operates. The foundations of the strategy are to discover and especially to influence the needs of potential customers and identify products and services. E-marketing, or Internet marketing, is used to manage a web presence and a report to the user and to the communities it represents. The challenge here is to disseminate a consistent image of brand and company regardless of the communication media. Marketing 2.0 refers to a new generation of emerging marketing concepts of the Internet age. A social network is a set of brands, such as individuals or organizations, interconnected by links created during social interactions. It is represented by a structure or a dynamic form of a social group. The analysis of social networks is based on network theory, the use of graphs, and sociological analysis. Pnline social networking services are used to build a social network by connecting friends, associates, and generally individuals together using a variety of tools in order to facilitate, for example, management of professional careers, distribution and artistic visibility, or private meetings. Social commerce is a subset of e-commerce. It involves social media, and other digital media that support social interaction and user contributions, to assist in buying and selling products and services online. Simply put, social commerce is the use of social networks for e-commerce transactions. |
| agile for small business: Winning in Turbulence Darrell Rigby, 2009-08-24 The current downturn may prove more brutal than most previous recessions. It's already hammering companies in markets around the globe. It will test businesses to their fullest-many won't survive. But downturns present strategic opportunities, too. In fact, many more companies achieve dramatic gains during recessions than in normal times. How to ensure your company emerges successful? In Winning in Turbulence, a new volume in the Memo to the CEO series, Bain & Company downturn strategist Darrell Rigby provides the playbook. He presents a powerful framework and diagnostic tool (available in the book and online) for assessing three dimensions of your situation: Your industry's sensitivity: How hard is it hit by this downturn? Your company's strategic position: Are you an industry leader or follower? Your firm's financial position, including cash reserves. The author then explains how to craft an action plan tailored to the situation you've diagnosed, providing tools for: Cutting costs intelligently-sustaining your margins and brand Boosting revenue by refocusing your sales force on the right customers Channeling resources into your core businesses Preparing for bold moves, such as game-changing acquisitions Timely and practical, this book positions you to survive a downturn and emerge stronger once the recovery begins. |
| agile for small business: Agile for Everybody Matt LeMay, 2018-10-10 The Agile movement provides real, actionable answers to the question that keeps many company leaders awake at night: How do we stay successful in a fast-changing and unpredictable world? Agile has already transformed how modern companies build and deliver software. This practical book demonstrates how entire organizations—from product managers and engineers to marketers and executives—can put Agile to work. Author Matt LeMay explains Agile in clear, jargon-free terms and provides concrete and actionable steps to help any team put its values and principles into practice. Examples from a wide variety of organizations, including small nonprofits and global financial enterprises, bring to life the on-the-ground realities of Agile across industries and functions. Understand exactly what Agile is and why it matters Use Agile to address your organization’s specific needs and goals Take customer centricity from theory into practice Stop wasting time in report and critique meetings and start making better decisions Create a harmonious cycle of learning, collaborating, and delivering Learn from Agile experts at companies like IBM, Spotify, and Coca-Cola |
| agile for small business: The Problem with Software Adam Barr, 2018-10-23 An industry insider explains why there is so much bad software—and why academia doesn't teach programmers what industry wants them to know. Why is software so prone to bugs? So vulnerable to viruses? Why are software products so often delayed, or even canceled? Is software development really hard, or are software developers just not that good at it? In The Problem with Software, Adam Barr examines the proliferation of bad software, explains what causes it, and offers some suggestions on how to improve the situation. For one thing, Barr points out, academia doesn't teach programmers what they actually need to know to do their jobs: how to work in a team to create code that works reliably and can be maintained by somebody other than the original authors. As the size and complexity of commercial software have grown, the gap between academic computer science and industry has widened. It's an open secret that there is little engineering in software engineering, which continues to rely not on codified scientific knowledge but on intuition and experience. Barr, who worked as a programmer for more than twenty years, describes how the industry has evolved, from the era of mainframes and Fortran to today's embrace of the cloud. He explains bugs and why software has so many of them, and why today's interconnected computers offer fertile ground for viruses and worms. The difference between good and bad software can be a single line of code, and Barr includes code to illustrate the consequences of seemingly inconsequential choices by programmers. Looking to the future, Barr writes that the best prospect for improving software engineering is the move to the cloud. When software is a service and not a product, companies will have more incentive to make it good rather than “good enough to ship. |
| agile for small business: Integrating CMMI and Agile Development Paul E. McMahon, 2010-08-09 Many organizations that have improved process maturity through Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI®) now also want greater agility. Conversely, many organizations that are succeeding with Agile methods now want the benefits of more mature processes. The solution is to integrate CMMI and Agile. Integrating CMMI® and Agile Development offers broad guidance for melding these process improvement methodologies. It presents six detailed case studies, along with essential real-world lessons, big-picture insights, and mistakes to avoid. Drawing on decades of process improvement experience, author Paul McMahon explains how combining an Agile approach with the CMMI process improvement framework is the fastest, most effective way to achieve your business objectives. He offers practical, proven techniques for CMMI and Agile integration, including new ways to extend Agile into system engineering and project management and to optimize performance by focusing on your organization’s unique, culture-related weaknesses. |
| agile for small business: Hybrid Project Management Mark Tolbert, Susan Parente, 2020-10-08 Compared to a few decades ago, companies today are faced with a much more challenging environment providing successful products and solutions for their customers. They are dealing with global competition, very rapid change in technologies, and tremendous volatility in economic conditions. As project managers, we are helping our companies survive in this difficult landscape. We are “agents of change” and “drivers of change.” The most important project management methodology today that will help us deal with this change and this volatility is Agile. However, no one process or project management methodology fits all situations! Agile is not a panacea for all projects. Many times, our projects are large enough and complex enough that some parts of the project are best suited to using a predictive planning approach, and other parts are more suited to using Agile. Therefore, a hybrid approach that mixes the traditional, waterfall approach with Agile is really required in many situations today. The agile community oftentimes has quite a negative view of hybrid approaches. Key writers on Agile often say that attempting to use hybrid will corrupt all attempts to use Agile, and will result in failure. In this book, the argument is made that integrating these methodologies can be done if approached the right way, and in fact, this is necessary today. |
| agile for small business: Working Backwards Colin Bryar, Bill Carr, 2021-02-09 Working Backwards is an insider's breakdown of Amazon's approach to culture, leadership, and best practices from two long-time Amazon executives—with lessons and techniques you can apply to your own company, and career, right now. In Working Backwards, two long-serving Amazon executives reveal the principles and practices that have driven the success of one of the most extraordinary companies the world has ever known. With twenty-seven years of Amazon experience between them—much of it during the period of unmatched innovation that created products and services including Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Studios, and Amazon Web Services—Bryar and Carr offer unprecedented access to the Amazon way as it was developed and proven to be repeatable, scalable, and adaptable. With keen analysis and practical steps for applying it at your own company—no matter the size—the authors illuminate how Amazon’s fourteen leadership principles inform decision-making at all levels of the company. With a focus on customer obsession, long-term thinking, eagerness to invent, and operational excellence, Amazon’s ground-level practices ensure these characteristics are translated into action and flow through all aspects of the business. Working Backwards is both a practical guidebook and the story of how the company grew to become so successful. It is filled with the authors’ in-the-room recollections of what “Being Amazonian” is like and how their time at the company affected their personal and professional lives. They demonstrate that success on Amazon’s scale is not achieved by the genius of any single leader, but rather through commitment to and execution of a set of well-defined, rigorously-executed principles and practices—shared here for the very first time. Whatever your talent, career or organization might be, find out how you can put Working Backwards to work for you. |
| agile for small business: Mastering Marketing Agility Andrea Fryrear, 2020-07-07 The leading authority on agile marketing shows how to build marketing operations that can pivot freely and yet remain committed to priorities. As a marketer, are you tired of chasing marketing fads and algorithm rumors that seem to change every couple of months? This guide to building the perfect marketing department will help you achieve the latest and greatest without having to rebuild your operations from scratch every time the wind shifts. Agile strategies have been the accepted modus operandi for software development for two decades, and marketing is poised to follow in its footsteps. As the audiences we market to become ever more digital, agile frameworks are emerging as the best and only way to manage marketing. This book is a signpost showing the way toward the agile future of marketing operations, explaining how every role, from social media intern up to chief marketing officer, can work in unison, responding to the market's demanding challenges without losing focus on the big picture. You will learn what it takes for marketing agility to thrive—customer focus, transparency, continuous improvement, adaptability, trust, bias for action, and courage—along with the antipatterns that can drag you down. Most important, you will learn how to implement the systems, strategies, and practices that will truly transform your marketing operations. |
| agile for small business: Navigating Change in Small Business Environments Bob Kosse, 2024-05-09 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) find themselves at the forefront of change in the ever-evolving business landscape. To thrive and remain competitive, SME owners and leaders constantly seek ways to adapt their organizations, streamline operations, and embrace innovation. This e-book is a comprehensive collection of stories that will help you navigate during your journey of transformation. I understand that your SME is unique, facing its own set of challenges and opportunities. Whether you're in manufacturing, technology, services, or any other industry, the principles and practices within these pages are designed to help you elevate your business to new heights. In the following chapters, we will address ten critical questions that SME owners often have when implementing modern, efficient, and adaptable work practices. These questions are not limited to a specific methodology, but focus on the core principles underpinning successful organizational change and enhanced productivity. You'll discover real-world examples, practical strategies, and stories of SMEs like yours that have successfully transformed their operations, improved customer satisfaction, and empowered their teams to excel. We'll explore how to break through resistance to change, build collaborative and highly productive teams, and measure the impact of your efforts. Whether you are considering adopting Agile practices or simply aiming to make your SME more adaptable and innovative, this e-book guides you. It's a resource to help you overcome challenges, drive growth, and lead your organization toward a brighter future. I invite you to embark on this journey of transformation with me. Let's work together to take your SME to the next level, ensuring your business remains resilient, agile, and ready for the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. |
| agile for small business: Agile Business Rule Development Jérôme Boyer, Hafedh Mili, 2011-03-23 Business rules are everywhere. Every enterprise process, task, activity, or function is governed by rules. However, some of these rules are implicit and thus poorly enforced, others are written but not enforced, and still others are perhaps poorly written and obscurely enforced. The business rule approach looks for ways to elicit, communicate, and manage business rules in a way that all stakeholders can understand, and to enforce them within the IT infrastructure in a way that supports their traceability and facilitates their maintenance. Boyer and Mili will help you to adopt the business rules approach effectively. While most business rule development methodologies put a heavy emphasis on up-front business modeling and analysis, agile business rule development (ABRD) as introduced in this book is incremental, iterative, and test-driven. Rather than spending weeks discovering and analyzing rules for a complete business function, ABRD puts the emphasis on producing executable, tested rule sets early in the project without jeopardizing the quality, longevity, and maintainability of the end result. The authors’ presentation covers all four aspects required for a successful application of the business rules approach: (1) foundations, to understand what business rules are (and are not) and what they can do for you; (2) methodology, to understand how to apply the business rules approach; (3) architecture, to understand how rule automation impacts your application; (4) implementation, to actually deliver the technical solution within the context of a particular business rule management system (BRMS). Throughout the book, the authors use an insurance case study that deals with claim processing. Boyer and Mili cater to different audiences: Project managers will find a pragmatic, proven methodology for delivering and maintaining business rule applications. Business analysts and rule authors will benefit from guidelines and best practices for rule discovery and analysis. Application architects and software developers will appreciate an exploration of the design space for business rule applications, proven architectural and design patterns, and coding guidelines for using JRules. |
| agile for small business: Introduction to Disciplined Agile Delivery Mark Lines, Scott W. Ambler, 2015 Introduction to Disciplined Agile Delivery provides a quick overview of how agile software development works from beginning-to-end. It describes the Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) process decision framework and then works through a case study describing a typical agile team's experiences adopting a disciplined agile approach. The book describes how the team develops the first release of a mission-critical application while working in a legacy enterprise environment. It describes their experiences from beginning-to-end, starting with their initial team initiation efforts through construction and finally to deploying the solution into production. It also describes how the team stays together for future releases, overviewing their process improvement efforts from their Scrum-based beginnings through to a lean continuous delivery approach that fits in with their organization's evolving DevOps strategy.The DAD framework is a hybrid of existing methods such as Scrum, Kanban, Agile Modeling, SAFe, Extreme Programming, Agile Data, Unified Process and many others. DAD provides the flexibility to use various approaches and plugs the gaps not addressed by mainstream agile methods. In a nutshell, DAD is pragmatic agile. DAD describes proven strategies to adapt and scale your agile initiatives to suit the unique realities of your enterprise without having to figure it all out by yourself.Here's an overview of what each chapter covers:* Chapter 1: Introduction. This chapter provides a quick overview of the book and a brief history of Disciplined Agile.* Chapter 2: Reality over Rhetoric. This chapter explores several common myths about DAD and more importantly disproves them.* Chapter 3: Disciplined Agile Delivery in a Nutshell. This chapter provides a brief yet comprehensive overview of the DAD framework. * Chapter 4: Introduction to the Case Study. This chapter introduces us to the team, describes the market opportunity that they hope to address, and describes the environment in which they're working.* Chapter 5: Inception. The team's initiation effort includes initial requirements modeling and planning with their stakeholders in a streamlined manner, initial architecture modeling, setting up their physical work environment, setting up the start of their tooling infrastructure, initial risk identification, and finally securing stakeholder support and funding for the rest of the first release.* Chapters 6 through 10: Construction. These chapters each describe a single Construction iteration, sharing the team's experiences during each of those two-week timeboxes. * Chapter 11: Transition. The two-week transition phase focuses on final testing and fixing, training the support/help-desk staff, finishing a few short end-user how to videos, and deploying the solution into production.* Chapter 12: Future Releases. This chapter overviews the team's improvement efforts over the next few releases, describing how they evolve from the agile Scrum-based lifecycle to a leaner approach and eventually to continuous delivery.* Chapter 13: Closing Thoughts. This chapter overviews the disciplined agile resources that are available to you.* Appendix: The Disciplined Agile IT Department. This short appendix overviews our ongoing work on the Disciplined Agile framework to address the full scope of an IT department. At 102 pages, you should find this book to be a quick, informative read. |
| agile for small business: Scaling Software Agility Dean Leffingwell, 2007-02-26 “Companies have been implementing large agile projects for a number of years, but the ‘stigma’ of ‘agile only works for small projects’ continues to be a frequent barrier for newcomers and a rallying cry for agile critics. What has been missing from the agile literature is a solid, practical book on the specifics of developing large projects in an agile way. Dean Leffingwell’s book Scaling Software Agility fills this gap admirably. It offers a practical guide to large project issues such as architecture, requirements development, multi-level release planning, and team organization. Leffingwell’s book is a necessary guide for large projects and large organizations making the transition to agile development.” —Jim Highsmith, director, Agile Practice, Cutter Consortium, author of Agile Project Management “There’s tension between building software fast and delivering software that lasts, between being ultra-responsive to changes in the market and maintaining a degree of stability. In his latest work, Scaling Software Agility, Dean Leffingwell shows how to achieve a pragmatic balance among these forces. Leffingwell’s observations of the problem, his advice on the solution, and his description of the resulting best practices come from experience: he’s been there, done that, and has seen what’s worked.” —Grady Booch, IBM Fellow Agile development practices, while still controversial in some circles, offer undeniable benefits: faster time to market, better responsiveness to changing customer requirements, and higher quality. However, agile practices have been defined and recommended primarily to small teams. In Scaling Software Agility, Dean Leffingwell describes how agile methods can be applied to enterprise-class development. Part I provides an overview of the most common and effective agile methods. Part II describes seven best practices of agility that natively scale to the enterprise level. Part III describes an additional set of seven organizational capabilities that companies can master to achieve the full benefits of software agility on an enterprise scale. This book is invaluable to software developers, testers and QA personnel, managers and team leads, as well as to executives of software organizations whose objective is to increase the quality and productivity of the software development process but who are faced with all the challenges of developing software on an enterprise scale. |
| agile for small business: Impact Mapping Gojko Adzic, 2012-10 A practical guide to impact mapping, a simple yet incredibly effective method for collaborative strategic planning that helps organizations make an impact with software. |
| agile for small business: Business Model Innovation Constantinos Markides, 2023-06-29 Digital technologies have allowed for the proliferation of new business models, something that has attracted the attention of academic research. Much of this research has focused on (i) understanding what a business model is and its theoretical connection to the concept of strategy, and (ii) exploring what business model innovation is and what its sources and outcomes are. Less work has gone into studying the issues that established firms face in business model innovation – such as how to respond to the arrival of a disruptive business model in one's industry, or how to compete with dual business models or how to migrate from one business model to another. This Element approaches the topic of business model innovation from the perspective of the established firm and examines the unique strategic and organizational issues that big, established companies face when a new business model enters their markets. |
| agile for small business: The Future of the Office Peter Cappelli, 2021-08-10 A GLOBE & MAIL BEST BUSINESS BOOK OF 2021 The COVID-19 pandemic forced an unprecedented experiment that reshaped white-collar work and turned remote work into a kind of new normal. Now comes the hard part. Many employees want to continue that normal and keep working remotely, and most at least want the ability to work occasionally from home. But for employers, the benefits of employees working from home or hybrid approaches are not so obvious. What should both groups do? In a prescient new book, The Future of the Office: Work from Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We All Face, Wharton professor Peter Cappelli lays out the facts in an effort to provide both employees and employers with a vision of their futures. Cappelli unveils the surprising tradeoffs both may have to accept to get what they want. Cappelli illustrates the challenges we face by in drawing lessons from the pandemic and deciding what to do moving forward. Do we allow some workers to be permanently remote? Do we let others choose when to work from home? Do we get rid of their offices? What else has to change, depending on the approach we choose? His research reveals there is no consensus among business leaders. Even the most high-profile and forward-thinking companies are taking divergent approaches: --Facebook, Twitter, and other tech companies say many employees can work remotely on a permanent basis. --Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and others say it is important for everyone to come back to the office. --Ford is redoing its office space so that most employees can work from home at least part of the time, and --GM is planning to let local managers work out arrangements on an ad-hoc basis. As Cappelli examines, earlier research on other types of remote work, including telecommuting offers some guidance as to what to expect when some people will be in the office and others work at home, and also what happened when employers tried to take back offices. Neither worked as expected. In a call to action for both employers and employees, Cappelli explores how we should think about the choices going forward as well as who wins and who loses. As he implores, we have to choose soon. |
| agile for small business: Agile 2 Cliff Berg, Kurt Cagle, Lisa Cooney, Philippa Fewell, Adrian Lander, Raj Nagappan, Murray Robinson, 2021-03-09 Agile is broken. Most Agile transformations struggle. According to an Allied Market Research study, 63% of respondents stated the failure of agile implementation in their organizations. The problems with Agile start at the top of most organizations with executive leadership not getting what agile is or even knowing the difference between success and failure in agile. Agile transformation is a journey, and most of that journey consists of people learning and trying new approaches in their own work. An agile organization can make use of coaches and training to improve their chances of success. But even then, failure remains because many Agile ideas are oversimplifications or interpreted in an extreme way, and many elements essential for success are missing. Coupled with other ideas that have been dogmatically forced on teams, such as agile team rooms, and an overall inertia and resistance to change in the Agile community, the Agile movement is ripe for change since its birth twenty years ago. Agile 2 represents the work of fifteen experienced Agile experts, distilled into Agile 2: The Next Iteration of Agile by seven members of the team. Agile 2 values these pairs of attributes when properly balanced: thoughtfulness and prescription; outcomes and outputs, individuals and teams; business and technical understanding; individual empowerment and good leadership; adaptability and planning. With a new set of Agile principles to take Agile forward over the next 20 years, Agile 2 is applicable beyond software and hardware to all parts of an agile organization including Agile HR, Agile Finance, and so on. Like the original Agile, Agile 2, is just a set of ideas - powerful ideas. To undertake any endeavor, a single set of ideas is not enough. But a single set of ideas can be a powerful guide. |
| agile for small business: Agile Systems with Reusable Patterns of Business Knowledge Amit Mitra, Amar Gupta, 2005 Driven by the need for global excellence and customer value, agility and innovation have become imperative for business. However, most business process engineering and information system approaches address only operational efficiency and economics. This unique book closes this gap. It shows you how innovation can be systematized with normalized patterns of information. You learn how business processes and information systems can be tightly aligned and how they can automatically adapt to change by re-configuring shared patterns of knowledge. This is a practical resource that combines world class experience from industry with the best in academic experience and leading edge research. It will help you design business processes and systems that are both agile and adaptable, coordinate integration of information across supply chains and extended enterprises, reduce time-to-market, and improve computer aided systems engineering and computer aided process engineering tools. |
| agile for small business: The 6 Enablers of Business Agility Karim Harbott, 2021-06-01 Adopting the latest agile tools and practices won't be enough to respond to rapid market change. Leaders must first lay the groundwork by creating the right environment for these tools to work. Many managers struggle to install the underlying organizational operating system for business agility. High-performing agile organizations depend on the strength of six key enabling factors: leadership, culture, structure, people, governance, and ways of working. This book explains why these factors are important and how they work together to increase organizational agility. Real-world examples, stories, and tools will help leaders get realistic about the scope of changes needed in their organizations and show them how to get started. Karim Harbott does not offer a book of recipes. Instead, he focuses on mindset, principles, and general patterns. This book summarizes of the most important factors in increasing organizational agility and why they work, which leaders will need to consider in a so-called agile transformation. Because every organization is different, each will have its own route to agility and high performance. Managers will need to tackle all the areas that are crucial to creating an environment in which any chosen approach can work. |
Agile at Scale - AgileLeanHouse
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In this article I am going to attempt to provide an alternative recipe for adopting and scaling agile. Using Moonpig as a case study I will attempt to provide a series of steps that provide a set of …
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What is agile? - McKinsey & Company
Agile, in business, is a way of working that seeks to go with the flow of inevitable change rather than work against it.
Dimensions of an agile approach to strategy - Agile Business
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Agile operating models are characterized by rapid learning and decision-making cycles. Here’s how organizations can use agile practices to transform their organizations.
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Towards an Agile Culture - Agile Business
Business agility is concerned with the adoption and evolution of values, behaviours and capabilities that enable businesses and individuals to be more adaptive, creative and resilient …
Enterprise agility: Buzz or business impact? - McKinsey
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Our research found that leadership is an essential enabling factor to building a strong agile culture. We commissioned this third State of Agile Culture Report in 2023 to examine the …
GS Engineering is an agile small business with corporate …
GS Engineering is an agile small business with corporate offices in Houghton, Michigan delivering advanced engineering solutions to military and commercial transportation markets through …
Agile at Scale - AgileLeanHouse
Agile teams are best suited to innovation—that is, the profitable application of creativity to improve products and services, processes, or business models. They are small and multidisciplinary.
Towards SMEs’ digital transformation: The role of agile …
research aims to test the role of agile leadership and strategic flexibility to improve digital transformation in SMEs among ASEAN countries. The data from this research were from 539 …
Agile (Project) Management NOT a contradiction - Agile …
In the agile community we hear “In agile we don’t need (project) management”, or “project management is only about command and control” or “project management is not relevant to …
A Perspective from Large vs Small Companies Adoption of …
propose to see how small companies adapted Agile Methodologies and to perform a comparison of how Agile methodologies are used in small companies, re-spectively large companies …
Applying Scaled Agile Frameworks in a Small Company
In order to build on the tangible success of traditional agile, for instance in cus-tomer-centricity, several frameworks have been developed for larger scale, such as Scaled Agile Frameworks …
The Impact of Agile Leadership on Innovation within SMEs: A …
For the purpose of this paper, we have employed a scoping review to depict the main factors that influence the enactment of agile leadership within SMEs. Findings reveal that agile leadership …
Introduction to Agile Change Management
Agile change management is a natural extension of Agile development methodologies including Scrum®, SAFe® and AgilePM® which set out how best to create a ‘production line’ that …
Agile Strategies to Bounce Back- A Case Study of Small …
An agile management strategy is identified as key to organizing effective teams working in collaborative set-up. It focuses on flexible and proactive teams to outperform on changing …
How to Plan and Budget for Agile at Scale - Bain & Company
Agile teams to business capabilities, such as human resources and digital marketing. Moving to a product model (rather than projects) requires investment and organizational change. …
ARTICLE OPERATIONS Agile at Scale - TodoPMP
by now most business leaders are familiar with agile innovation teams. these small, entrepreneurial groups are designed to stay close to customers and adapt quickly to changing …
Adopting Business Agility at Moonpig: A Case Study
In this article I am going to attempt to provide an alternative recipe for adopting and scaling agile. Using Moonpig as a case study I will attempt to provide a series of steps that provide a set of …
Agility in the age of enterprise solutions - Accenture
• Emphasizes pivot opportunities that increase business agility • Implements lean practices with enterprise solutions delivery • Requires ongoing business engagement and alignment • …
What is agile? - McKinsey & Company
Agile, in business, is a way of working that seeks to go with the flow of inevitable change rather than work against it.
Dimensions of an agile approach to strategy - Agile Business
An agile organisation can respond quickly and effectively to opportunities and threats found in its internal and external environments (be they commercial, legal, technological, social, moral or …
The journey to agile: How companies can become faster, …
Agile operating models are characterized by rapid learning and decision-making cycles. Here’s how organizations can use agile practices to transform their organizations.
Enterprise Agility: Where to start - KPMG
Agile impacts the entire enterprise. It introduces new language, culture, mind-set, roles, ways of working and funding, and a new team approach. Full sponsorship by leaders is vital for this …
Towards an Agile Culture - Agile Business
Business agility is concerned with the adoption and evolution of values, behaviours and capabilities that enable businesses and individuals to be more adaptive, creative and resilient …
Enterprise agility: Buzz or business impact? - McKinsey & …
We analyzed 22 organizations in six sectors, and our preliminary results identified three main outcomes of agile transformations: improved customer satisfaction, employee engagement, …
The third annual State of Agile Culture Report - Agile Business
Our research found that leadership is an essential enabling factor to building a strong agile culture. We commissioned this third State of Agile Culture Report in 2023 to examine the …
GS Engineering is an agile small business with corporate …
GS Engineering is an agile small business with corporate offices in Houghton, Michigan delivering advanced engineering solutions to military and commercial transportation markets through …
