Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom Agility Means Different Things to Different People

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom Agility Means Different Things to Different People According to Forrester analyst Craig Le Clair, business agility is the quality that allows an enterprise to embrace market and operational changes as a matter of routine. This is the attribute that enables companies to thrive amidst uncertainty. Unfortunately, most companies have apparently not accepted this broad view. When Forrester reviewed the elements of agility with its CIO and CMO clients, the firm found that while the issue of agile performance was critical, CIOs and CMOs did not agree on what it meant in practice. To clear up some of the confusion, over the last several years, Le Clair has refined his 10 dimensions of agility and divided them into three major categories: market (channel integration, market responsiveness), organization (knowledge dissemination, digital psychology, and change management, and process (business intelligence, infrastructure elasticity, process architecture, and sourcing and supply chain). Let’s look at each dimension a bit more closely. Market Channel Integration: Information sharing and cross-channel experiences Market Responsiveness: Customer knowledge and rapid access to resources Organization Knowledge Dissemination: Broader sharing, flatter organizations Digital Psychology: Trend awareness and digital skillsets Change Management: Embracing change and embedded change management Process Business Intelligence: Information management and distributed analytics Infrastructure Elasticity: Cloud awareness and embrace of cloud options Process Architecture: Process skills and core systems independence Software Innovation: Real-time experience and incremental development Sourcing and Supply Chain: Agile sourcing process and supply chain flexing skills For more of Le Clairs ideas, head over to the QuickBase Fast Track blog.