Being agile of course doesn't mean the same as being inefficient, but it probably means you as an organization should think about effectiveness first and then only at being efficient in what you are doing. "It is more important to do the right things than doing things right", as Peter Drucker said it.

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Agility is
Inefficient
Klaus Bucka-Lassen
goto; meetup
Swiss Tech Updates
Trifork
February 2nd, 2021

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Goal
• «Fake Agility»
• Provoke Discussion

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DOING
THINGS
RIGHT
DOING
THE
RIGHT
THINGS
EFFECTIVENESS EFFICIENCY
*

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Where is the
Customer?
• = looking inwards, optimizing
existing processes, automate
• = looking outwards,
observe the market, pivot, innovate
EFFECTIVENESS
EFFICIENCY

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[ * ]
Success
«DOING THE
RIGHT
THINGS
RIGHT»
EFFECTIVENESS
EFFICIENCY
“It’s more important to
do the right thing than
to do things right”
— Peter Drucker

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Strategy
EFFECTIVENESS
EFFICIENCY
“There is nothing quite so useless as
doing with great efficiency something
that should not be done at all”
— Peter Drucker

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“If the ladder is not
leaning against the
right wall, every step
we take just gets us the
wrong place faster”
—Stephen R. Covey
“We're lost, but we're
making good time.”
—Yogi Berra

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Efficient?
Effective?
Faster! Plug the hole!

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THREE
EXAMPLES

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+ 9085 branches

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Bankrupt
Because of
Efficiency

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Blockbuster
“Neither RedBox nor Netflix
are even on the radar screen
in terms of competition”
“DVDs are a melting glacier…Yes,
it’s melting, but it’s a slow melt.”
Jim Keyes, CEO
2008
2010
“We’re strategically better
positioned than almost
anybody out there. Never in
my wildest dreams would I
have aimed this high.”
Kevin Lewis
Head of Digital Strategy

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Forbes, 2007

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“… Nokia's problem was that it had a
completely inflexible global platform and the
processes that went with it. Nokia was like a
very large ship that took forever to change
direction. Nokia could only do as well as they
could forecast trends and the market
environment 18 months out. This is
completely different than how Samsung
operates.
The iPhone and touch screen devices were a
big disruption in the market. Nokia was a
really efficient machine, but efficient at
producing the wrong type of product. Their
internal structure and way of operating made
it very hard to respond to the iPhone …”

“Who Killed Nokia? Nokia Did”
comment from a former employee

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Steve Balmer
on the iPhone
2007
*

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Matthias
Müller
on Tesla
2017
*
“The Future of the Automobile Industry”, Passau, 2017

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Volkswagen
vs. Tesla
… just saying

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A well-known big management consulting
company confirmed that this telco has a
problem and needs to save money true
to the motto “A penny saved is a penny
earned”.
Their recommendation is that the company
does this by “implementing agile”.
Our conversations with
them proved difficult!

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4
Warning
Signs

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Cost Cutting
(rather than continuous funding)

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Company
Run by
Economists
(rather than product people)

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High Degree of
Specialization
(I over T-shapedness)

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Utilization
Maximization
(not even being efficient)

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Summary
• Agility is also about efficiency, but effectiveness is
more important, and must come first
• The more complex your context, the more important
is effectiveness (and therefore agility)
• Be aware (!) when people in your vicinity primarily
speak to efficiency (or even worse to maximization of
utilization)
• Scrum is awesome. It will make you more efficient,
but even more so increase effectiveness (if you do it
right)!

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References
• «Great Companies Obsess Over
Productivity, Not Efficiency» [Harvard
Business Review, 2017]
• «Die Manager versuchen, an der
Effizienzschraube zu drehen»
[Tagesanzeiger, 26. August 2017]
• «The Phoenix Project» [Book, G.Kim, 2013]
• «The Goal» [Book, E.M.Goldrath, 1984]

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Agility is
Inefficient
Thank you for
your attention
Klaus Bucka-Lassen
aragost ag
Zürich, Switzerland
www.aragost.com
Agile Trainer, Coach & Consultant
Speaker at Agile Conferences
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