Agile methods are becoming norm as the new working paradigm in our VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world. Organizations and teams are redesigning how they work in response to change or disruption in their market, as well as the need to gain competitive advantage through digital innovation or an enriched customer experience. The implications of Agile for Human Resources (HR) are huge and without shifting our existing HR processes, adoptability of agile become challenge. It’s not about managing resources but rather managing people. Agile HR transforms the fundamental principles of HR to into People Operations leading Agile, digital and networked organizations. The aim is to build a shared value between your customers, business and people by: Adopting a Mindset and a Culture – Embracing the Agile mindset within HR and people practices to incrementally deliver value to your customer Co-create among the Organization – Applying Agile techniques, like Scrum and Kanban, to self-organize, experiment and co-create directly with your people. Structure an organisation for connection, not control to empower people to give and do their best.

1. SMBA HR Circle
What is business agility?
Tang Tze Chin
Head of Agile Delivery

2. What do these three have in common?

5. We live in a rapidly changing,
uncharted world.
Hic sunt dracones

6. V U C A
Volatility Uncertainty ` Complexity Ambiguity
Past problem solutions
often no longer work in
today’s disruptive
environment, and that it
is increasingly
impossible to factor in
all available information
in decision making.
https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you
Disruption renders
market environments
unfamiliar, in that the
rules of the game are
rewritten: what used to
be taken for granted
needs re-thinking.
Disruptive change is
path-breaking, meaning
that future market
conditions can no
longer be reliably
anticipated by
forecasting from data
about the past.
Increasing pace of
change and the ways in
which it invalidates
established business
practices.
Source: http://sbi.sydney.edu.au/answer-vuca-slac-businesses-individuals-cope-disruptive-environments/

7. Last Thoughts…
Page title
Source: Scrum@Scale; HBR May-June 2018

8. What is Business Agility?
Page title
"Business agility is the ability of an organization to sense changes
internally or externally and respond accordingly in order to deliver value to
its customers.”
- Agile Alliance

9. Agile is not just for
technology teams…
• Marketing
• HR
• Manufacturing (it started there…)
• Pharmaceutical
• Finance

10. Customers
How to serve the need of the candidate?
How to keep hirers engaged?
Competition
How to move faster?
How to compete against bigger competitors?
Talent
How to keep our employees engaged?
How to improve our skills and capabilities?
Challenges

11. Solution?

12. Shift to Network of Teams
Source: Steve Denning, Manu Cornet (Cartoon)
• Create an environment for
effective small teams.
• Maximize communication flow
between teams.
• Management enables, not
command & control.

13. Shift to a Product
Organisation
Source: Wikipedia, “Tree Swing Cartoon”
• Put the customer at the
center.
• Focus on meeting customer
needs, not internal
efficiencies.
• Pursue cross-functional
collaboration.

14. Shift to a Learning
Organisation
Source: The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge
• Focus on learning velocity, not
delivery velocity. That is,
better to deliver the RIGHT
thing and not the WRONG
thing right.
• Safe to FAIL environments.
• Deliver outcomes, not
outputs.
• Learn through quick, short
iterations with frequent
feedback.

15. Shift to Highly Aligned,
Autonomous Teams
Source: Henrik Kniberg
• Autonomous teams lead to
quicker, better solutions in the
long-term.
• Reduces overheads and
decision latency.
• Teams close to the customer
knows what’s best for the
customer.

16. Shift to Constrained
Governance
Source: Beyond Budgeting
• Governance exists to allow the
organization to operate safely.
• Promotes high transparency
and visibility to aid better
decision making across the
organization.
• Clear boundaries promote
autonomy at the team level.

18. Find us at “Agile Malaysia” on Facebook. Find us at “Agile Malaysia” on Peatix.

20. SMBA HR Circle
What is business agility?
Tang Tze Chin
Head of Agile Delivery
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tzetang/
www.agilemalaysia.org