Agility means Simple Things Done Well, Not Complex Things Done Fast

Creating agile organizations and teams are essential to keep pace with business today. Michael Hugos has a great post on agility where he makes the following point:

• “Experience shows me (again and again) that agility is not about working fast but about finding elegantly simple solutions to business problems. You’ll know you’ve found an elegantly simple solution when… it solves their most important and immediate problems… because people can’t find these simple solutions, they mistakenly claim that agility itself doesn’t work. They come to this conclusion because they attempt to be agile by cramming complex solutions into short development cycles through working harder, longer, and faster….

• An elegantly simple solution (a robust 80% solution) doesn’t do everything (there isn’t time for that), just the most important things….”

We spend too much time complicating our lives by trying to do too much, too fast! There seems to never be enough time to do something correctly, but always enough time to do it over again! Given to complexity of managing business, we’re prone to think that complex solutions, are better solutions. Instead we need to focus on implementing good enough solutions, solutions that bring about small wins. Small wins, if continually applied, in a thoughtful and strategic manner, quickly add up to significant results. Small wins are more manageable and have less of an impact if they fail. Seeking big wins are extremely difficult, prone to failure and require significant political will! Focus on the small wins…. simple things done well… repeatedly provide true competitive advantage.