Why growing agility matters for integrated management systems
“Agility” is one of those terms that has mutated from a fringe phenomenon into a genuine buzzword, particularly over recent years and months. Driven by the general shift in the world of work — already visible before the pandemic and only accelerated and amplified by its consequences — demand for “agile” business applications has risen sharply. But what does my business actually gain from an “agile” system? And what does “agile” even mean in this context? Let's take a closer look.
The basics: processes ≠ agile … or?
People speak of an “agile” system whenever a business application is designed to work driven by feedback and, above all, flexibly . An agile system can therefore react far faster to changes in the business environment. In that sense the system also renews itself continuously. By definition, “agility” therefore stands somewhat at odds with classic process management, which is built around prescribed processes with a clear goal and little room for adjustment.
That doesn't mean the two methods necessarily rule each other out, though — quite the opposite. The reality of BPM systems, and of integrated management systems generally, shows that combining the two is often what makes the difference. What is common today is therefore above all a hybrid of both, with classic and agile processes side by side depending on what the process in question requires. Logistics and production processes, for instance, tend to be represented in a classic way, while customer-facing processes tend to be agile, because they can be adjusted faster and in some cases can (or must) be considerably more individual. As so often, it is really the mix that matters — and it will look different for every company anyway.
Even so, it is equally a fact that even “more classic” processes, such as the logistics of goods, should not be untouchable these days — and above all cannot be. If only for the continuous improvement of your business processes, one of the most elementary reasons for introducing a process management system, even the most classic processes have to be at least a little bit agile.
The “best practice”: best of both worlds?
So does my ideal IMS (“integrated management system”) simply consist of a mix of variously agile processes? Well, yes and no, to be honest. Simply declaring “this process is this agile and that one that agile” isn't enough to set up a modern IMS; it isn't quite that easy. The subject is too complex for that: how do I best improve my processes? Who should be responsible for improving each business process? Where exactly do I get the knowledge of how or when a given process should be improved? The answer: from YOUR process experts. And by that we don't mean a single process manager or a small handful of them, but the entirety of your process owners, the people actually involved in carrying out the processes. This is where your company's well-founded process know-how sits, and all you have to do is reach it. After all, the process owner knows best how much variance and individualization takes place within “their” processes — which makes them the first authority on agility.
(A method for that? How about “crowd mining”, by far the most agile method for capturing processes.)
The implication: agility through inclusion
In short: “ask your people a lot and your company gets a lot more agile”, or words to that effect. Agility isn't accelerated by upper management layers, but by the know-how of the process owners involved in the real processes. They are, after all, the ones who know exactly what level of agility runs inside their processes.