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Senior Director Digital Optimization & Transformation at PHV Crop
Agile is Dead. Long live Business Agility! The underestimated role of HR in Digital Transformations
With the digital age came software development and as the world kept changing at the speed of light, there was a need to change software development processes - the Agile Manifesto was born. Today, not only tech companies work Agile, but also tech departments in the more traditional organizations started adopting Agile principles and product models.
As the world continues to change, faster than ever, digital transformation is no longer just an option, it’s a necessity. To remain competitive, organizations need to adopt and implement digital technologies and automate processes. At the heart of this is software development, so it is only logical that Agile started to cross over into other areas of the business. And that is a challenge….
In the earlier days of digital transformation, most focus was on IT departments automating processes. In today’s world, technology has become more and more important and eventually, every company will become (somewhat of) a tech company. Where the IT department was viewed as a cost driver earlier, it is now changing from a cost center to a profit center. If you do it right.
That means that people must look at running a business differently. We must let go of old-schoolmodels, structures, processes and roles that were designed in the industrial era when things were completely different than they are now. In today’s world, the need for speed and the need to be adaptable to changing environments is high. With technology at the core of everything, roles and responsibilities are changing. Continuing to do the same, is not going to cut it.
That is why I’m surprised that many organizations still don’t have a CIO or CDOas part of their executive leadership team. Instead, they’re mostly still reporting into the CFO or COO. To me that shows that many people still view IT merely as a cost center, whereas tech can make or break any organization in today’s world.
Another surprise is that organizations are talking a lot about having to break silos, being innovative, and empowering and motivating their employees, yet at the same time, at the core, nothing radically changes to enable this.
To become Agile, we need to change mindset. Also, not only IT departments need to become more Agile, but the whole eco-system needs to adopt a different mindset. Therefore, I rather focus on Business Agility, rather than just Agile in the sense of software development and productmanagement.
If we view ‘Business Agility’ as the ability to compete and thrive in the digital age by quickly responding to market changes and emerging opportunities with innovative, digitally-enabled business solutions, it becomes clear that traditional structures, mindsets, and processes do not allow for that to happen easily. Instead, we need to
• experiment more and learn from those experiments to continuously improve quickly,
• give teams more autonomy, so they can operate as independently as possible,
• place decision making power as low as possible in the organization to increase speed,
• share information freely and embrace transparency, so everyone has all data needed to take the right decisions,
• train each and everyone in the organization to become tech savvy, starting with C-suite.
As the world continues to change, faster than ever, digital transformation is no longer just an option, it’s a necessity
Traditional corporates don’t typically encourage failing fast often, hence experimentation doesn’t come naturally, which stalls innovation.
Hierarchies don’t typically allow for easy cross-collaboration or co-creation, due to all kinds of administrative bottlenecks.
Empowering people sounds great, but when it comes down to giving someone the possibility to make decisions that have a financial impact, it becomes more difficult.
Sharing information tends to be a no go because of today’s data privacy regulationsand data sensitivity that may impact a company’s value.
Upskilling all levels in an organization, different focus on leadership skills and adjusting recruitment strategies is a slow process.
I’m not saying that the will is not there with HR departments. What I am saying is that in any digital transformation, HR should have a key role from the beginning. To be able to do what’s needed, everyone in HR should understand what it means to … and to become Agile.
Digital transformation requires a company-wide change with technology at its core. To unlock the full potential of digital, people’s mindsetsmust change as well. To be successful with digital transformation, HR and technology together must drive this change. There are examples of organizations that did it right (ING bank comes to mind). Let’s learn from them, experimenting and adjusting as you go.
