What is Agile with Joanna Koprowicz?

Agile has traditionally been associated with IT, Software Development, and Project Management, but Agile is gaining traction in a number of industries and sectors.

We spoke to Joanna Koprowicz to discuss the impact Agile can have on an organization. Joanna is a Lean Consultant with expertise in business agility, Agile and Lean transformation, and the development of high performing Agile teams. Having experience working in very Agile organizations she has seen firsthand how Agile can change workplaces for the better.

Joanna, can you please explain to our readers what Agile is?

Agile has its roots in the IT Sector back in the 80s. The success of using Agile in the I.T. and software development sectors was so high that it started spreading across different industries leading to the development of the Agile manifesto in the early 2000s. Lots of people believe that Agile is a methodology or framework but it is a set of values that people share, values like trust. We trust our employees. We trust our customers, and we collaborate to deliver something awesome. Building trust in our relationships is important. What comes with it is transparency, the openness of communication, and honesty. There are lots of shared beliefs in Agile and that is why it’s very easily transferable to different industries.

Could you bring us through a couple of the key principles behind Agile?

In Agile we believe in collective intelligence, the power of many, so we tend to empower people. Agile is gaining popularity because it’s very accommodating where there is a huge level of uncertainty and volatility. The first difference being that leadership is distributed. In traditional management, one person decides on a course of action and the others follow. Agile leaders inspire people to experiment and go on the journey with them. Many factors impact every decision, and it is difficult in some cases to link a cause to a result. The traditional approach, ‘I’ll make a decision now and I’ll stick to it for the whole process’, doesn’t work that well. We make short-term decisions, seek evidence to back up that decision and we have the freedom to act on our data. That is one way we try and empower people in Agile.

To learn more about our new Agile Belt Programs (click here), or to explore the benefits Agile can offer your workforce and organization, please contact Leading Edge Group today.