What Are the Agile Environment Practices?

Agile Environment Practices

WHAT ARE THE AGILE ENVIRONMENT PRACTICES?

An agile work environment is an external component of agility. An agile environment encourages and supports adaptive action on the part of the team. Leaders should focus on implementing four practices for building and maintaining agility in the work environment:

Autonomy: Be very clear about what the results should be, but less exact about how people get the results. To accomplish this, as an example, leaders clarify decision rights to enable effective and quick judgments in the moment.
Context: Avoid the temptation to control; rather, set a direction and provide broad guidelines about how to follow it. A good context defines success and key metrics and links to organizational and functional goals; prioritizes the critical versus the “nice to haves”; and identifies key stakeholders and why they are important.
Simplicity: Reduce unnecessary business complexity. For example, eliminate unnecessary processes, as well as initiatives, meetings, reports, signoffs, and the like that do not add value.
Learning: Cultivate experiences to uncover new opportunities and encourage action. Leaders who implement learning—for example, by defining tolerable errors and favoring rapid recovery over error avoidance—spur quicker action and more innovative approaches.

Why are they important?

Transition situations inevitably require that teams and leaders take action to adapt to changing circumstances. Yet even a team in which everyone is highly tolerant of ambiguity cannot act with agility if the work environment prevents quick adaptation when needed. Implementing the four practices of an agile environment helps the leader ensure that the team can act with agility.

Tool: Agile environment worksheet

WHAT IS IT?

The Agile Environment Worksheet helps you to identify specific steps you can take
—actions that will work in your organization—to create and sustain an environment that supports agility in your team.

WHY USE IT?

AchieveForum’s research showed that an agile environment supports the leader and team’s ability to adapt quickly to changing circumstances—a skill that is increasingly required in today’s business world and is paramount in transition success.

Use this tool:

To remind yourself about the research-based practices that leaders use to create and sustain an agile environment
To identify specific actions you can take to implement these practices with your team

HOW DO YOU USE IT?

1.RevieweachpracticeandtheexamplesoftacticsusedbyleadersinAchieveForum’s research.

1.Think about your organization and identify specific steps you can take to implement each practice with your team. These should be steps that are within your power to take or that you can take by working with yourmanager.

REMEMBER

Have a discussion with your team to identify barriers to agility.
Work with your manager to identify specific actions to take and/or to gather support for your ideas.

Agile Environment Worksheet

AchieveForum’s research revealed that managers should focus on four key practices to help build and maintain a work environment that supports agility.

Review the tactics below—which are examples of some of the things companies in AchieveForum’s study focused on to support the agile environment. Capture your own ideas about how to implement the practices in your specific environment.

Practice / Examples of Tactics (What to Do) Used by Leaders in AchieveForum’s Research / How I Will Implement This Practice with My Team
Create autonomy:
Give your team members the freedom to exercise their talents and explore new ways to reach goals. /

Clarify decision rights to enable effective and quick judgments in the moment.
Be very clear about what the results should be, but less exact about how people get the results.
Reward people for their impact, not necessarily for the quantity of work they complete.
Commit to the direction and be willing to let people try new things to follow it.
Be flexible about switching people’s responsibilities.

Agile Environment Worksheet (CONT.)

Practice / Examples of Tactics (What to Do) Used by Leaders in AchieveForum’s Research / How I Will Implement This Practice with My Team
Provide a context:
Set a direction and provide broad guidelines about how to follow it. /

Avoid controlling when possible (for example, opaque decision making; management approvals; valuing planning/ process over results; committees).
Set a good context by defining success and key metrics and by linking to organizational and functional goals; prioritizing the critical versus the “nice to haves”; identifying key stakeholders and why they are important.
When tempted to control, ask what context you could set instead.
When someone talented makes a mistake, ask yourself, “What context did I fail to set?”

Emphasize simplicity:
Reduce unnecessary business complexity. /

Get rid of initiatives, meetings, reports, signoffs, and so on that do not add value.
Stay focused on the top three to five critical priorities at all times—these can change, but they are all people can handle.
Eliminate unnecessary processes—unnecessary processes try to prevent recoverable risks, while necessary processes help people get more done and prevent irrevocable disaster.

Agile Environment Worksheet (Cont.)

Practice / Examples of Tactics (What to Do) Used by Leaders in AchieveForum’s Research / How I Will Implement This Practice with My Team
Enhance learning:
Cultivate experiences to uncover new opportunities and encourage action. /

Define tolerable errors and favor rapid recovery over error-avoidance.
Move forward with imperfect information, even if it’s on a small-scale experimental basis.
Charge people with stretch assignments just before they think they are ready, and support them.
Conduct reviews before, during, and after taking action.
Make it okay for people to have a sound rationale, to try, and to fail—but not okay for them to take no action.
Make sure people know that “because we’ve always done it that way” is not an acceptable explanation.