Exponential Growth: The Key Is In Agility
The concepts “agile organization” and “exponential growth” feature almost always in the training programs of business schools worldwide, but is their importance being exaggerated? And, above all, does it make sense to conjugate them in the same sentence?
The agile methodologies are rooted in the most successful software companies. However, some arguments lead us to think that all companies, regardless of the sector, are increasingly similar to technology companies. Firstly, without exception, all companies carry out their activity in a VUCA environment (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous), forcing them to embrace uncertainty and face hitherto unknown risks.
Second, big technology companies have managed to destroy one of the dogmas of classic management, that of linear growth. Emulating software companies, any company can adopt methodologies to scale and achieve exponential growth.
Scrum Methodology As A Resource
The Scrum methodology emerges as a valuable and easy-to-implement resource to manage uncertainty intelligently and to ambition exponential growth for the organizations in which we work. This methodology focuses on delivering value and offering quality results to fulfill the business plan. E equipment Scrum is multifunctional and self-organized so that all members know what they have to do and when to deliver their respective tasks. As a result, the need for direct supervision by a “traditional boss” disappears since responsibility in Scrum teams is collective.
The Importance Of Introducing The “Sprint.”
Any organization, regardless of its activity, has in its hand the possibility of adopting some of the basic ideas of the Scrum methodology to prove its effectiveness through the facts. For this, it is essential to introduce the “sprint” in the company’s work dynamics: a sprint is a unit of time that fulfills two basic functions: reducing complexity and acting as an element of comparison.
Sprints should never be interrupted or lengthened. However, different durations can be defined, usually between 1 and 5 weeks. It is recommended that the sprint represents the minimum period in which it can deliver an increase in value.
The other foundational concept of the Scrum philosophy is that of “ceremony.” The ceremonies are the different meetings that the parents of the methodology suggest holding during a sprint. Three stand out:
- Sprint planning: It takes place at the beginning of the sprint and allows the team to know the tasks that will be executed in said sprint and estimate the effort they will require. The duration of the planning session can reach 8 hours for sprints of 4 weeks, although the most common is to fit it into slots of about 2 hours.
- Daily: Daily meeting of the whole team, preferably first thing in the morning and with the participants in a circle and standing, in which three questions have to be answered briefly:
- What did I do yesterday?
- What am I going to do today?
- Is there an impediment that prevents me from delivering value?
The daily function is to give visibility to everyone’s work and that problems are made public as soon as possible. Its duration should not exceed 15 minutes.
- Retrospective: Informal meeting of the Scrum team at the end of the sprint. It usually coincides in time with the planning of the subsequent sprint. In this session, all team members try to agree on what has gone wrong and how it could be improved for the next sprint.
For an advocate of agile thinking, the primary source of learning is precisely experimentation, that is, trial and error. Consequently, nothing prevents whoever reads these lines from starting to incorporate some of the tips mentioned in your company. Perhaps even the exponential growth achieved will end up confirming its usefulness.
