The subject of business agility has been gaining increasing traction over the last few years.
Ever since the presentation of the agile manifesto, which was primarily related to computer programming, the word agile is appearing in ever greater number of contexts. As Bertrand Meyer, in his book, ‘Agile, the Good, the Hype and the Ugly’, asks, “Who wants to say they are not agile?” And as many consultants, trainers and authors can confirm, use of the ‘A’ word is great for driving sales.
Business agility goes beyond software development. It concerns, among other things, the ability of an organisation to continuously and safely adapt itself to changing environments and customer expectations and demands. However, as with agile itself, there are many opinions as to exactly what business agility is. And now we have the Business Agility Manifesto. It offers a checklist to see if your organisation has business agility.
Its authors are Roger Burlton, Ronald Ross and John Zachman. All very well known in their own spheres of business processes, business rules and business architecture respectively. Along with business data, these aspects are critical to achieving business agility. We focus on them, for instance in our Three+One approach.
The authors describe the manifesto as a pathway forward – Into the ‘Knowledge Age’.
Will it trend? See what you think.