How agile is your business? The two-minute test

You can score your businesses level of agility according to a few key criteria:

• Short iterations
• Collaboration
• Self-organising teams
• Meaningful feedback
• Vision
• Delighting customers

Let’s take an example of a company changing their bonus structure.

There are two scores, one for the process (was the new system of bonuses arrived at in an agile way), and one for the outcome (do the actual bonuses promote agility or not).

Short iterations

Short iterations help problems/opportunities get identified and addressed more quickly.

• Process: The bonus system is only reviewed once a year. -1 point.
• Outcome: Annual bonuses. -1 point.

Collaboration

• Process: Was the bonus system a collaborative effort?
• Outcome: All teams have the same targets. This promotes cross-team collaboration. 1 point.

Self-organising teams

• Process: The bonus system is dictated by the exec team. It’s hard to form a successful strategy without input from people on the ground. -1 point.
• Outcome: Most people don’t have a say in whether a particular target is achievable or not. -1 point.

Meaningful feedback

• Outcome: KPI’s are regularly emailed: + 0.5 points. (To score +1, KPIs need to be constantly visible). KPI’s are highly inaccurate: -0.5 point.
• (We’ll skip process – it overlaps with self-organising teams).

Vision

• Process: The best way to get people to buy into the vision is to involve them in the process. -1 point.
• Outcome: Mobile is a good vision. +1 point.

Delight customers

• Outcome: KPIs include customers (e.g. daily mobile users), not just profit. +1 point.

Total (on a scale of -9 to 9): -3. Or, if you prefer school grades: D