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Article
Publication date: 1 March 2024

Marya Tabassum, Muhammad Mustafa Raziq and Naukhez Sarwar

Agile project teams are self-managing and self-organizing teams, and these two characteristics are pivotal attributes of emergent leadership. Emergent leadership is thus common in…

Abstract

Purpose

Agile project teams are self-managing and self-organizing teams, and these two characteristics are pivotal attributes of emergent leadership. Emergent leadership is thus common in agile teams – however, how these (informal) emergent leaders can be identified in teams remains far from understood. The purpose of this research is to uncover techniques that enable top management to identify emergent agile leaders.

Methodology/design

We approached six agile teams from four organizations. We employ social network analysis (SNA) and aggregation approaches to identify emergent agile leaders.

Design/methodology/approach

We approached six agile teams from four organizations. We employ SNA and aggregation approaches to identify emergent agile leaders.

Findings

Seven emergent leaders are identified using the SNA and aggregation approaches. The same leaders are also identified using the KeyPlayer algorithms. One emergent leader is identified from each of the five teams, for a total of five emergent leaders from the five teams. However, two emergent leaders are identified for the remaining sixth team.

Originality/value

Emergent leadership is a relatively new phenomenon where leaders emerge from within teams without having a formal leadership assigned role. A challenge remains as to how such leaders can be identified without any formal leadership status. We contribute by showing how network analysis and aggregation approaches are suitable for the identification of emergent leadership talent within teams. In addition, we help advance leadership research by describing the network behaviors of emergent leaders and offering a way forward to identify more than one emergent leader in a team. We also show some limitations of the approaches used and offer some useful insights.

Details

Benchmarking: An International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-5771

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 September 2016

Stephen Denning

By learning how to overcome implementation challenges, the Agile methodology can enable organizations to cope with the 21st Century marketplace and deliver what customers expect…

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Abstract

Purpose

By learning how to overcome implementation challenges, the Agile methodology can enable organizations to cope with the 21st Century marketplace and deliver what customers expect and demand: easy, quick, convenient, personalized responsiveness at scale.”

Design/methodology/approach

The 10 major implementation challenges are addressed.

Findings

Agile offers a methodology that can improve the chances of building a new product or service that people will actually buy, use and like.

Practical implications

A key Agile principle – doing work in small iterative cycles with customer feedback at the end of each cycle – is a transformative idea.

Originality/value

The author has recently made on-site visits to leading corporations that have adopted Agile. The “Agile” managers he met recognize that the future of their firm depends on inspiring those doing the work to accelerate innovation and add genuine value to customer, that enhancing that capacity depends on giving autonomy to self-organizing teams within broad parameters of control.

Details

Strategy & Leadership, vol. 44 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1087-8572

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 December 2018

Stephen Denning

Soon leaders in many top-down managed organization may face the necessity of undertaking a company-wide Agile transformation.First adopted by digital innovation teams, the Agile

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Abstract

Purpose

Soon leaders in many top-down managed organization may face the necessity of undertaking a company-wide Agile transformation.First adopted by digital innovation teams, the Agile mindset is spreading to middle management operations and top level leadership initiatives in many established organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

A guide to the ten stages of implementing an Agile mindset and practices through out an organization are detailed.

Findings

For traditionally managed hierarchical organizations, the transformation will include radical shifts in power, attitudes, values, mindsets, ways of thinking and ways of interacting with stakeholders—customers, employee talent, shareholders and partners. The goal is to enable the organization to generate instant, frictionless, intimate, incremental, risk-free value at scale, and to gain the financial rewards that flow from that capability.In the race for such outcomes, rigidly hierarchical firms are at a disadvantage.

Practical implications

The idea of Agile itself will continue to evolve as it is adapted by the organization. The process is not a matter of crafting a plan and then rolling it out across the organization. It’s not a mechanical eight-step program. It requires continuously adapting the idea to the circumstances of the organization. As the organization and everyone in it adapts the Agile approach to their own context, each individual needs to own it.

Originality/value

This map of the Agile implementation process enables top management and Agile champions to envision how to prepare an organization to change to a customer-focused, business that operates with Strategic Agility.

Details

Strategy & Leadership, vol. 47 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1087-8572

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 July 2016

Stephen Denning

Agile is the umbrella term for a family of management practices, which include Scrum, Kanban, and Lean. To investigate Agile management as it was being practiced in large firms…

9401

Abstract

Purpose

Agile is the umbrella term for a family of management practices, which include Scrum, Kanban, and Lean. To investigate Agile management as it was being practiced in large firms, in 2015 Scrum Alliance, whose mission is “to transform the world of work,” launched a Learning Consortium for the Creative Economy (LC), composed of a group of firms that included Microsoft, Ericsson, Magna International, Riot Games and others.

Design/methodology/approach

The group conducted site visits to learn from each other’s experiences with Agile. The questions to be explored included: To what extent are Agile management practices in fact occurring at scale in old and new firms? How effective are these management practices? Is it possible for the whole firm, particularly older firms with entrenched bureaucratic cultures, to become Agile?

Findings

The LC found that Agile management is already taking hold in large-scale implementations in both new and old firms. The LC observed that some firms were implementing Agile for large-scale, complex business challenges in areas beyond software, including operations where reliability is an issue.

Practical implications

Agile was seen as a different way of understanding and acting in the world. The successful firms were “being Agile,” not merely “doing Agile” within their existing management framework.

Originality/value

In the world of Agile management, delivering value to customers is the goal of every individual in the organization. Profits are seen as the result, not the goal. The Learning consortium sites visit offer managers an opportunity to study this philosophy in practice.

Details

Strategy & Leadership, vol. 44 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1087-8572

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 August 2020

Stephen Denning

The authors reviews the leadership responsibilities involved in managing an organization that practices Agile management.

1093

Abstract

Purpose

The authors reviews the leadership responsibilities involved in managing an organization that practices Agile management.

Design/methodology/approach

Outlines the best practices of major corporations that have adopted Agile processes both for teams and C-suite leadership.

Findings

Agile leaders spend less time reviewing the work of subordinates. They add value by adapting corporate strategies, leading critical agile teams, spending time with customers, mentoring individuals and coaching teams.

Practical implications

It is the C-suite leadership’s responsibility to establish and maintain a hierarchy of competence rather than a bureaucratic hierarchy of authority.

Originality/value

Describes how top management at some of the world’s largest and most successful corporations are adopting Agile practices to spur innovation and promote continuously adding customer vale.

Details

Strategy & Leadership, vol. 48 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1087-8572

Article
Publication date: 21 November 2016

Stephen Denning

With Agile’s success in accelerating software products and services that customers valued and with the increasing importance of software in general business strategy, business…

5653

Abstract

Purpose

With Agile’s success in accelerating software products and services that customers valued and with the increasing importance of software in general business strategy, business leaders are increasingly turning to Agile for every aspect of their operations.

Design/methodology/approach

There are more than 70 different Agile practices. The author advises traditional managers on how to make sense of such a bewildering assortment of ideas.

Findings

His research found thatrganizations that have embraced Agile practice three core principles–The Law of the Small Team; The Law of the Customer; The Law of the Network.

Practical implications

The first and almost universal characteristic of Agile organizations is that practitioners share a mindset that work should be done in small autonomous cross-functional teams working in short cycles on relatively small tasks that deliver value to customers and getting continuous feedback from the ultimate customers or end users.

Originality/value

As a network, the organization becomes a growing, learning, adapting organism that is in constant flux to exploit new opportunities and add new value for customers. The future of Agile is ultimately about implementing the third principle: the whole organization operating as an interactive network. In the rapidly evolving “Connected Economy” the power of the network is increasing geometrically.

Details

Strategy & Leadership, vol. 44 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1087-8572

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 January 2018

Stephen Denning

Agile management” refers to a set of management goals, principles, values and practices that emerged to speed up software. Now its tools and culture are spreading to all kinds of…

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Abstract

Purpose

Agile management” refers to a set of management goals, principles, values and practices that emerged to speed up software. Now its tools and culture are spreading to all kinds of organizations throughout the world—from R&D to top management teams. As some corporations race to become “agile” they can lose sight of the essential ideas and practices of Agile methodology

Design/methodology/approach

In September 2016, a group of large firms came together in New York to see whether they could agree on what Agile stood for in their own organizations. They aspired to create workplaces that draw on everyone’s creative talents and kindle everyone’s potential in workplaces that respect individuals and are highly productive and profitable. The firms involved were members of the SD Learning Consortium (SDLC)—a non-profit corporation.

Findings

As it is being adopted in a wide variety of corporate settings since 2001, the core concept of Agile has evolved.

Practical implications

To be fully entrepreneurial, the whole organization needs to embrace the Agile mindset and function as an interactive network, not a top-down bureaucracy with just a few teams implementing Agile tools and processes.

Originality/value

As Agile is being increasingly adopted by all corporate functions and levels of management it is essential to focus the whole organization on creating value for the customer.

Details

Strategy & Leadership, vol. 46 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1087-8572

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 April 2012

Goran D. Putnik

This editorial aims to introduce the theme of the special issue: “Lean vs agile from an organizational sustainability, complexity and learning perspective”.

3529

Abstract

Purpose

This editorial aims to introduce the theme of the special issue: “Lean vs agile from an organizational sustainability, complexity and learning perspective”.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology of the editorial is that of a survey. In the first part it presents the relevance of the theme and in the second part it presents the papers included in the special issue, including their themes, findings and novel contributions.

Findings

The individual findings by the papers present significant new contributions in a deeper insight of the “lean” and “agile” philosophies, or approaches in, and to, organizations. It could be noticed that the controversies of the issue “lean vs. agile” still remain. However, it could be said that an eventual further investigation in the phenomenology of “lean” and “agile” will be more informed after consideration of the results presented in this special issue.

Research limitations/implications

Further investigation should be undertaken on a more abstract “level” of the theories of “lean” and “agile” and their mutual relationship, such as theories about the internal processes of “lean”/“agile” users, general “lean”/“agile” theories, epistemology of “lean”/“agile”, and ontology of “lean”/“agile”, and relationship with learning organization and chaordic organization.

Practical implications

Readers, both theoreticians and practitioners, will find in this editorial a “guide” to the issues of their interest concerning the valuable explanations, ideas and tools, presented in the special issue, for both concrete applications in enterprises and organizations, and for further research and development of learning, complex and sustainable organizations, and towards new ideas and insights generation.

Originality/value

This editorial presents an analysis of the special issue on “lean vs agile”, contributing to the higher levels of the theories of “lean” and “agile” and their mutual relationship, namely to the theories about the internal processes of “lean”/“agile” users, general “lean”/“agile” theories, and epistemology of “lean”/“agile”.

Details

The Learning Organization, vol. 19 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-6474

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 August 2020

Swaminathan Mani and Mridula Mishra

The purpose of this study is to provide a viewpoint on the characteristics and ingredients of what constitutes an agile team using the lens of progress made toward goals (with…

1155

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to provide a viewpoint on the characteristics and ingredients of what constitutes an agile team using the lens of progress made toward goals (with three sub-categories) and execution/a bias for action (with three sub-categories). Also, highlight the similarity of constructs between two different yet related concepts of employee engagement and agile workforce and how they can be a force multiplier for companies if leveraged right.

Design/methodology/approach

This study undertook literature review of key papers in the areas of building agile teams, its benefits and success stories largely popularized by the technology companies in the software development lifecycle and core constructs of employee engagement. The authors then build a framework of what constitutes an agile team, while briefly explaining the nine archetypes that emerge from the 3 × 3 matrix.

Findings

Employee engagement and agile teams, although different yet related concepts, have very similar underlying constructs. Companies can take advantage of the symbiotic and mutually reinforcing relationship between these two constructs to “futureproof” their business in these turbulent times. Adopting an agile mind-set to team development – experimentation, incremental, iterative progress, nimble and flexible to pivot as per changes in environment – has proven to be successful for many iconic companies. A 3 × 3 matrix plotted against progress toward goals and a bias for action (with three sub-categories each) has given nine team archetypes, with agile team occupying the aspirational, north-east corner of the matrix.

Originality/value

This paper provides insights into this important concept of building agile teams and offers a strategy model to be leveraged to build an agile mind-set in companies. HR managers now have a strategic framework to understand the characteristics and ingredients of agile team and understand the similarity of constructs between employee engagement and agile workforce. They can audit where their teams are at present and work on a clear road map to move them into agile mode.

Details

Strategic HR Review, vol. 19 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1475-4398

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 2013

Stephen Denning

Veteran managers trained to respect hierarchical systems are daunted by the fundamental changes in thinking and culture that are required to implement the Agile continuous

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Abstract

Purpose

Veteran managers trained to respect hierarchical systems are daunted by the fundamental changes in thinking and culture that are required to implement the Agile continuous innovation approach to manufacturing. Though widely hailed by software developers it has been slow to catch on in manufacturing. This paper aims to address this issue.

Design/methodology/approach

To assuage managers concerns, ten prevalent myths about Agile are addressed along with a description of how the approach really works in practice.

Findings

The paper reveals that the Agile outside‐in orientation that maximizes customer value requires a reinvention of management roles, practices, values and communications to implement it.

Research limitations/implications

If research is reported on in the paper this section must be completed and should include suggestions for future research and any identified limitations in the research process.

Practical implications

Agile is a way of forcing either high performance or change because results are apparent so quickly, not years later when the project runs out of money and the product flops in the marketplace.

Originality/value

The article dispels many myths about Agile and shows managers how to overcome resistance to adopting the Agile approach, which addresses the central problem at the very core of a hierarchical bureaucracy, namely, its limited ability to innovate.

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