In order for us to explore this concept, we have to fist look at what agility in business means. The marketplace is changing rapidly due to never ending and never subsiding improvements and innovations. Any strategy a business uses needs to be more fluid, rather than concrete. Organisations, businesses and brands need to shift their approach to adapt new values. This will help them to establish a mindset focused on collaboration. When leaders are more focused on co-creating and collaboration, they are more involved in the process, not just watching it unfold.

Vision + flexible roadmap

Of course you need to have a plan or roadmap when you are creating and executing any strategy. What is important here is that you, as a business or strategist, need to ensure that your plan or roadmap is flexible. Having flexibility will enable you to respond quickly, calmly and effectively to any change you might encounter. Having agility enables you to adjust to any unexpected or abrupt change efficiently.

Your company vision will always form the backbone of any strategy or plan that your organisation, business or brand employs. It serves to direct your long-term constant achievement and relates hugely to your business’ purpose. Having innovation as a value enables your company to be flexible and have an open approach to explore new offerings in your field. It also enables your organisation, brand or business to experiment and explore which of the new offerings serves your organisation, business or brand best.

Agile strategy is transformative

From the moment you adapt an agile strategy process, you should be seeing changes. Conduct your strategy in sprints rather than in marathon sessions that may take years to complete. This does not mean that you need to chuck your current strategy out of the window. When you break up an enormous task or plan into smaller, more achievable sections, it becomes easier to complete and upon completion of each smaller task, a sense of rewarding is felt by the parties involved. This helps with keeping a team motivated and inspired and helps to keep company morale high.

When you change your outlook from long term projects to shorter-term end goals, you reduce stagnation. Boredom is eliminated and the environment is conducive to productivity. When individuals know there is a short time to complete their goals, (from one day, days, weeks to at most a few months), they are more likely to give their all for the short duration of the project. Employing and executing your strategy in this manner helps people to think on their feet and further allows for innovative and creative thinking as well as problem solving.

Effective implementation of strategy

In order to execute your strategy sprint effectively, you have to have a clear and specific goal or problem in mind. You have to define the rules, explain the process and set the time constraints appropriately. If you expect your team to do too much they might burn out and the whole aspect of incorporating agility in your strategy process will flop. It is important to create a safe space where everyone is given the opportunity to speak their mind and have their voice heard without discrimination. Creative and innovative solutions often come from unexpected sources or contributors. Lastly, make sure to record the whole process, due to the time limit, every word is important and should be used to facilitate the process.