This document discusses how organizations can build business agility to adapt to times of crisis. It argues that focusing on people first through understanding employee needs, promoting emotional agility and a culture of innovation is key. Factors like trust, customer centricity, networks of teams, and open communication also promote agility. Strategic agility in action includes identifying new opportunities, scaling existing products, and accelerating digital transformation. Examples are given of companies that adapted quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic through new product development and processes. Challenges of returning to work are also outlined. The conclusion emphasizes that organizations need sustained commitment to developing flexibility and resilience supported by people, processes and principles to adapt and thrive in times of crisis.

1. Adaptation
and Agility
in Times of
Crisis

2. Hello, I am ABHIGYA POKHAREL
• More than 13 years of industry experience.
• Speaker, mentor, trainer, coach.
• Agile Scout - Driving the Agile Transformation Program
• Agilist, passionate about driving change in the people, processes & technology domain
• Active member of Agile Nepal, AUG Nepal, Spiral Nepal

3. Disclaimer
I am not a legal expert, nor an economic expert or a business expert. However, I have
passion for agile and business agility, and I have been involved in this domain for the
past few years. The illustrations demonstrated in this presentation have been cited
from various sources as well as taken from my own personal experiences and might not
necessarily represent an optimal process architecture for any particular process.

4. We live in a VUCA World…..
Volatile
Uncertain
Complex
Ambiguous
we face challenges and RESPOND to them…

5. Covid is one of them…….
The impact:
• One of the toughest times for human race.
• Entire world order has been changed /
impacted.
• Economies on the verge of collapse.
• Business severely impacted – closed/ shutdown.
• Social distancing – the new norm.
• Virtual office / schools.
• Lockdowns

6. Source: McKinsey & Company, Dec 2021
Pandemic and inflation are considered to be the top risks for domestic growth
in all regions.

7. Question of
thought..
Awareness about the challenges faced
by SMEs ---
How would you prevent large industry
giants from becoming the inefficient
monopoly?
The pandemic likely to further
exacerbate the income inequality in
the economy, especially between the
rural and urban areas, and between the
highly educated and less educated??

8. What we are going
through now…
• The shock
• Crisis and leadership (responding to
the change)
• Best Practices
• A post crisis crisis

9. Organizations are looking for better ways to thrive their business in
times of uncertainty

10. Decision making
capabilities in times
of uncertainty is
the key..
behavioral scientist and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman

11. behavioral scientistand Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman
Emotional
Rational / Analytical
Our brain makes use of two decision making system
One is always preferred over other

12. Test yourself
• Coke and biscuit costs Rs.
110. Coke costs Rs 100
more than biscuit.
• How much does biscuit
cost?
• x + y = 110
• 100 + y + y = 110
• 2y = 110 -100
• y = 5

13. Habits to improve decision making
Practice Practice : put yourself in real situation with uncertainties and critically evaluate
your hypothesis.
Learn Learn few quick technique to eliminate uncertainties.
Decide Decide how you will make up your mind – decide. (what is the time window for
the decision; time window optimization)
Know Know your biases: understand and balance them

14. What decisions organizations made/ making
• Before the pandemic, digital disruption already required
enterprises to adapt to change and make decisions more
quickly than ever. COVID-19 vastly amplified these needs.
• Organizations felt tremendous pressure to make their business
models fit the physical constraints of the pandemic.
• In record time, companies launched new omnichannel
initiatives like buy online, pick up in store, ship from store,
curbside pick-up, same-day delivery, virtual professional
appointments, and more.
• Isinnova redirected its manufacturing processes and resources
in producing ventilator masks instead of snorkeling mask.
• Amazon- shifted its focus of distribution to essential items.
Since, Feb 2020, its sales & profit increased by 30%.
• Show great Agility by pivoting quickly with flexible mindset.

15. Massive acceleration in agile adoption
• Agile methods enabled IT and development teams to collaborate with the business and quickly
adapt.
• This allowed many companies to remain in business and some to even thrive.
• Reflected a massive acceleration in agile adoption, both in software development (37% to 84%)
and IT (26% to 60%), but also in non-IT departments, including finance, human resources, and
marketing, where agile adoption doubled.
• The need for speed will not be temporary — digitization, artificial intelligence and machine
learning, analytics, globalization, cyberattacks will continue to accelerate.

16. Change is inevitable..

17. Consumer Behavior is Changing
• Purchases are no longer using the traditional channels
• Mobile Apps, Online Shopping, more popular.
• More influenced by online Social Media, rather than
traditional advertising methods.
Online purchases have increased by 6 to 10
percentage points across most product
categories

18. World is Changing
• Global economics and demographics is changing
• Emerging markets are growing rapidly, with
different set of needs, are that are able to
respond quickly.
Business Model is Changing
Digital companies with completely new business models are gaining
advantage.
Innovation is being more important, and technology is accelerating
competition.

19. Adapt to Change and
Adopt It..
Importance of being able to deal with unexpected change

21. But in times of crisis, what is it that give
some companies the ability to adapt
quickly to ensure their survival?
BUSINESS AGILITY

22. Business
Agility
• Ability of an org to rapidly respond to change.
• Be it adapting products and services to changing customer
needs or adjusting to changes within the business
operating environment.
• X factor that empowers individuals, teams, and companies to
innovate, satisfy customers' changing needs and desires, and
swiftly adapt to market shifts
• Some companies are generally more agile than others.
However, Covid-19 has required even greater agility than
ever before.

23. Factors that Promotes Business Agility
Understanding
your employee
needs
Focusing on
emotional agility
Promoting a
culture of
innovation and fail
fast
Relook policies to promote health and
safety of employees.
Medical urgencies in the family.
Flexibility – WFH policies.
Encourage social distancing at office.
Org role to provide emotional stability.
Provide psychological safety.
Provide employees opportunities to
engage, share their fears and gain access
to advice and emotional support.
Allow employees to think out of the box.
Adopt a culture of learning and fail fast.
Build team with learning workers.
Centre of innovation.
Create a learning organization.

24. Source: McKinsey & Company
From organizations as machines to organizations as organisms…

25. TRUST
Customer
Centricity
Network
of
Teams
Innovation/
Fail
Fast
Agile Organization
Shared
Purpose
Open
Communication

26. Start with the People…
• Operational efficiency requires an approach that optimizes the
relationships between people, process & technology.
• By focusing on only one or two areas, an imbalance is created.
• Many companies believe that by installing a new tool, all of their
problems will go away. But what they’re not seeing is that technology
is only as good as the processes that are implemented around it, and
processes are only as good as the people who execute them.
• Technology can not be seen as the silver bullet.
Operational efficiency for building effective, stable backbone
Leadership
Talent Mgmt.
Culture
Comms
Foster Collaboration
Automation
Quick – (approvals)
IT Infrastructure
Delivery Pipeline
Dashboards, Apps

27. Strategic Agility in Action
1. Identifying opportunities leading to new blue ocean markets.
2. Scaling existing products or services to the new normal.
3. Accelerating digital transformation, upgrading it from a change management challenge to a vital
necessity.

28. Vodafone, Italy– Launched Thermo scanners,
Social-Distancing Bracelets (devices capable of
interacting with one another to
warn when the distance between two employees goes
below two meters).
Dyson Electronics – pioneers in Vacuum cleaners and
fans
Manufactured ventilators in 10 days and shipped
15000.

29. Ford Motor Company in the year 1908, had used a blue
ocean strategy by introducing a car named Model T
specifically to serve the masses. The car only came in
one color but was durable, affordable, and reliable. They
essentially created a new manufacturing process that
produced cars at a fraction of what their competitors
charged— so much that Model T officially replaced
horse-drawn carriages as the main mode of
transportation.
Apple found a blue ocean with its iTunes music
download service back in 2003. Back when music files
(in millions) were being downloaded illegally, they
decided to create the first legal platform for
downloading high-quality music for an extremely
reasonable price.

30. UVD Robotics – Danish Robotics company est. 2018
launched self driving disinfection robots for hospitals –
extended to malls and supermarkets –
now manufacturing and selling disinfection robots to
sterilize stores in Thailand
expanding internationally.
Houseparty – video chat app
Post Covid ; 50 million sign-ups just in the month of
March (2020)
managed to combine video chat with their gaming
expertise to offer multiplayer
games during video calls
premium games are only charged

31. Top
Challenges –
Returning to
work post
COVID
Commuting (time /
lunch prep)
Kids/ pets (virtual
classes / connection)
Safety protocols
(hygiene)
Flexible working
hours
Emotional safety Maintaining clear
and consistent
communication
(virtual and on-site)

32. Conclusion
Organizations in dire need to discover, and leverage
new ways to think about and implement speed
and agility.
Requires sustained commitment to developing higher
levels of organizational readiness, flexibility,
and resilience supported by the people,
processes, and principles that guide and support
the organization.
To successfully adapt to and achieve strong
performance in times of crisis, managers need to
effectively integrate speed and agility in all of
their operations.

33. Thank You..
abhigya1@gmail.com Abhigya Pokharel

34. Where does your organization stand in embracing Lean- Agile mindset?
Plan based delivery Value based delivery
Fear of speaking up Psychological safety to speak up
Silos culture
Engage and Align
Command & control
Collaboration & transparency
Status quo Innovation
Follow standard processes Relentless improvements

35. Where does your organization stand in embracing Lean- Agile mindset?
Plan based delivery Value based delivery
Fear of speaking up Psychological safety to speak up
Silos culture
Engage and Align
Command & control
Collaboration & transparency
Status quo Innovation
Follow standard processes Relentless improvements