Business Agility focuses on finding holistic solutions to complex business problems; linking innovation and transformation to outcomes the business cares about and creating a rich picture of the problem(s) to be solved, collaboratively.

1. Business Agility
accelerating Business Innovation and transformation

2. INTRODUCTION

3. We live in
the era of
Innovation
Ambition
n Rising Consumer Expectations:
75% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a
company that knows their name and purchase history and
recommends products based on their preferences - Accenture
Greater than 50% of consumers expect a response from
customer service within an hour, even on weekends - Edelman
Digital
n Growing Executive Hunger:
97% of executives see Innovation and Transformation as a key
priority for growth – PWC
66% of global CEOs will start focusing on digital strategies to
improve customer experience by the end of 2019 - Seagate
n Increasing Organizational Commitment:
86% of Fortune 500s have formalized Innovation or
Transformation programs and initiatives - Accenture
34% of companies have already undergone a digital
transformation - Smart Insights
44% of companies have already moved to a digital-first
approach for customer experience - IDG

4. The Harsh
Reality is
the Failure
rate has
never been
higher
79% of all Digital Transformation initiatives fail to
reach their goals. That’s roughly $900 billion in
losses against $1.3 Trillion spent in 2018 –
Harvard Business Review
84% of companies fail to achieve Digital
Transformation - Forbes
80% of companies’ Innovation and Digital
Transformation projects fail to achieve desired the
business outcomes or an produce an in-market
result – McKinsey
85% of new product launches fail to meet
revenue expectations – Harvard Business School
35% of executives cite the lack of a clear
Innovation or Digital Transformation strategy and
planning as their top roadblocks– CIO.com

5. What is
business
agility?
n A consultative engagement focused on finding holistic
solutions to complex business problems; linking innovation
and transformation to outcomes the business cares about and
creating a rich picture of the problem(s) to be solved,
collaboratively.
n Focuses on activities and outcomes rather than scope and
deliverables; Delivered business value is always the key top-
line outcome. Value for investment (or “ROI”) is realized by
operationalization of the fully-vetted solution produced by a
business agility engagement.
n Uses collaborative workshops and culture hacking to…
§ Discover every dimension of their business intent and desired
business outcomes - not tools and technology but process,
culture, organization/competencies/skills, business
architecture, program/portfolio management, service design,
governance, security, etc. Business enablers such as tools,
technologies and platforms to support the business outcomes
are identified later in the process.
§ Build shared understanding and engage people into a change
initiative, enabling organizational leaders to uncover more
sustainable innovations, foster an opportunity-focused
mindset, build a continuous improvement culture and an
organizational competence for innovation and agility.
n Creates deep, meaningful relationships with and between your
customers, stakeholders and partners that positions you as a
collaborator, co-creator and trusted strategic partner

6. What
business
agility
is not…
n A technology project, program or implementation
• Programs made up of ERP upgrades, website updates, cloud migrations,
or similar technology enhancement, etc. These type of projects are
typically operational and not focused on the customer experience.
• Technology projects that neglect to change the organization’s business
model. True transformations require breaking down legacy business
silos. The customer doesn’t care about internal business divisions. They
want a seamless experience. Give them one or they will go elsewhere.
• Technology projects that overlook the hearts and minds within the
organization. An organization that isn’t prepared to develop the skills
necessary to enable the vision or make the hard decisions about who to
hire, who to retain, and who to let go in order to build the right team for
success and growth will not be successful at either innovating or
transforming.
n A magic bullet
• Business agility is not designed to help your organization, program or
project “go faster.” Rather, it’s designed to help you gain a deeper and
more meaningful understanding of your “customers” – whether they be
internal or external – and develop better products, services and solutions
that meet those customers expected experiences, connect 1:1 with
business strategy (business intent and outcomes) and help you make
better decisions about where to make investments.
n A one-size-fits-all solution
• Each engagement’s activities and outcomes are unique to each dilemma or
opportunity, and so the approach must be too.
• The key is to use the right ingredients to create the right recipe
n A good fit for every dilemma or opportunity
• Programs, projects and initiatives that are BAU or operational in nature rather
than focused on breaking down legacy business silos and/or on the customer
experience should not be considered innovation or transformational and,
thus, business agility may not be a good fit.

7. Approach

8. 01
02
03
Empathize & Discover
Finally, we lead the team, stakeholders and sponsors through a
“read out” workshop where we share the work that led us to our
recommended solution and provide actionable artifacts such as
impact maps and product backlogs that teams can be immediately
formed around and operationalized.
Through collaborative workshops we help the team adopt the customer’s point of view and
work the problem from the outside in helping create a rich picture of the dilemma or
opportunity that ensures we understand and gain agreement on the business intent and
desired business outcomes, who the audience(s) for the solution is and that the solution(s)
are desirable, viable and feasible.
Once the problem is effectively framed, we lead the team in developing
several hypothesis solutions that we then validate through research and
rapid prototyping. Once prototyped solutions are validated the team
works together to distill them down into the solution that is the most
practical and measurable.
Research, Prototype & Refine
Recap, Recommend & Operationalize
Collaborative
Co-creation

9. Empathizing and discovering isn’t just limited to workshops. In many cases
performing “contextual inquiries” or employing other techniques and methods with
stakeholders, team members and customers (internal and external) are necessary
to understand context.
Empathize & Discover
There will certainly be no shortage of good ideas, but which ones are viable,
desirable and feasible? Through “rough and ready” prototyping, heuristic research
and validation testing (such as Impact Mapping) we can distill our ideas down to the
ones that we know will deliver practical and measurable business value.
Research, prototype & refine

10. Recap, recommend & operationalize
Articulate how the team landed on the
proposed solutions. Share the research,
hypothesis, prototyping and validation
performed that confirms the recommended
solution is viable, desirable and feasible.
Recap
The team shares its validated and vetted
solution recommendations as well as the
high-level details of what will be required to
deliver it end to end.
recommend
The team creates detailed operational
documentation such as a product backlog,
staff/organizational model, process models,
budget, etc. that quantifies necessary
investments and from which functional
delivery teams can be formed around.
Operationalize

11. Delivery

12. 01
02
0304
05
06
Introductory Discovery
• Business Strategy
• Business Intent and Outcomes
• Identify Collaboration Team
• Rich Picture Exercise
Customer Definition and JTBD
• Customer Identification – internal, external and partner
• Characterize customer challenges or expected
experiences
• Identify “Job to be done”
Stakeholder & Business Alignment
• Describe stakeholder journey within business
intent/outcome context
• Identify “business moments”; Blueprint experiences
Recommended Solution Hypothesis
• How will we get there
• What steps, options and investment needed
• Is the solution viable, desirable and feasible
• Is it practical and measurable
• Does it align to business strategy
Metrics and Governance
• Leading and Lagging KPI’s
• Defining the “real” success metrics
• Governance roles, responsibilities
and decision models
Ingredients & Recipes
• What business components will help
realize the strategic intent
• What resources, processes and systems
needed to support that
Workshop structure

13. Engagement process
Validated
Solution
Recommendation

14. THANK YOU!
Any Questions?
Cory Smith
Innovation Architect