The Age of Agility – Where Agile Meets Scrum

In a world where change is the only constant, how can leaders help their organisations adapt, innovate and execute more effectively?

In this episode of Three Steps Ahead, Martin Gibbs, Richard Miller and Simon Cossey explore the growing importance of Agile thinking in business leadership and strategy execution.

Richard shares his experience as a qualified Scrum Master and explains how Agile evolved from software development into a practical approach that can help any organisation respond more quickly to changing customer needs, shifting priorities and increasing uncertainty.

The conversation explores why many organisations struggle not with strategy itself, but with implementation. The team discuss concepts such as Minimum Viable Products, rapid feedback loops, experimentation, customer value and the importance of learning through action rather than waiting for perfection.

Along the way they examine the role of culture, leadership, resilience and empowered teams in creating organisations that can thrive in an increasingly volatile business environment.

Key themes include:
• Agile versus Scrum – what's the difference?
• Why perfection can be the enemy of progress
• The power of experimentation and learning
• Building customer value into every decision
• Creating agile cultures and empowered teams
• Practical steps leaders can take today

If you're looking for practical ways to improve execution, adapt more quickly to change and build a more responsive organisation, this episode is for you.

Three Steps Ahead – Practical strategy for the next move.

Transcript

Martin 0:00

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Three Steps Ahead. This is a business strategy podcast for business leaders looking to make smarter decisions in 2026. My name's Martin Gibbs from Footsteps Advisory. And welcome back to the podcast, Mr. Miller.

Richard 0:26

Hello, Martin. How are you doing? All right.

Martin 0:28

And you're Richard Miller from Richard Miller, Eddystone Miller.

Richard 0:32

So we're a consultancy helping clients with strategic and practical change. And I also wear another hat acting as director of finance for a national conservation charity.

Martin 0:43

Brilliant. And uh, although you are somewhere down in the South Hams, you're not in a million-pound penthouse overlooking the Sulcombe estuary, which it might appear that you are.

Richard 0:53

No, but but compared with previous podcasts we've done when it's been raining outside, it actually does look a lot of lightness outside the window at the moment.

Martin 1:03

Simon Cossey.

Simon 1:05

Good afternoon to you both. Hope you're trust you're keeping well. Yep, Simon Cossey, part of Three Steps Ahead podcast, founder of uh the Yellow Growth Company, which is essentially a business development consultancy. So, yes, that's where I where I come into play.

Martin 1:21

Brilliant. So we are now on to episode seven. Well, really enjoying the podcast. We've had some great episodes and lots of ideas for future episodes coming up. But the subject today is agile, which is a phrase that we throw around, but we are joined by the agile nerd himself, which is Richard. So, Richard, what is agile?

Speaker 1:48

I suppose my definition of agile is the ability to quickly adapt to changing circumstances and changing customer needs whilst minimizing cost and minimizing risk. So rather than the old way of working whereby you had a sort of long-term plan that you would stick to, in a changing world, you need to be able to react quickly and have the sort of methodology and the framework to be able to do so. Okay.

Speaker 1 2:18

And did it what where did it start? What what's the what is the origin?

Speaker 2:24

Agile, I suppose, grew out of the software development and tech businesses. And so Agile, I suppose, came about in the sort of 1990s, because at that particular point in time, they were finding that a lot of IT infrastructure projects were massively behind and massively over cost using the sort of frameworks that they were using. And so the I think the the question was there must be a better way of doing things. It isn't just that people don't have the capability, it's just the way that they're doing things need to change. So they changed from a sort of long-term, what we call a waterfall project, into a series of smaller experimental sprints to actually deliver a project and it allows you to change direction very quickly and get positive feedback on a regular basis.

Speaker 1 3:13

And Simon, uh where have you come across agile then in your uh in your work?

Speaker 2 3:19

Uh I think it again, it's it's one of those things where you go, what does it really mean in practice? So there's that definition, and it's kind of that what does it really mean to that human thing? Yeah, what would most business leaders actually say? Would they dis a lot of people would probably describe themselves as agile, but may not necessarily be as agile as they think they are. I'm sure we'll come on to a a bit more about that later. Obviously, I've come across agile as a way of working with my workshop, with my MyShop workshops. I think in a business sense and making it that that personal piece, it's going to be around culture for me. Yeah, if you've got the right kind of culture base, then yes, you can think a bit quicker, yes, you can have a bit of a flatter structure. It is really around getting stuff done.

Speaker 1 4:16

So if we uh go back seven or eight years, Richard, when we were working together, I remember uh you got into Scrum. Yes. So what is Scrum and what and in what way is it different to Agile?

Speaker 4:34

It's not different to Agile. Agile, I suppose, is a sort of methodology or or a philosophy, whereas there are a number of different frameworks you can use to apply agile principles, and Scrum is just merely one of those, which which grew out of it was Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland who who sort of formed the the idea of Scrum as a framework. And I suppose my I first came across Scrum, as you said, about seven or eight years ago. We were advising clients, and we the the focus very much was on you know, business success is made up of three elements, which is you've got to have a strategy, you've got to have the capability, both people and organization, and then you need kind of implementation. And we were finding businesses that were fine on the first two, but they were struggling to bring about that change, is that implementation. So, from my point of view, I was looking for something that would be easy to implement. And I found myself seven years ago sitting in a training room with about 50 techie people learning how to do scrum and be and qualify as a professional scrum master. And I think they they they thought I was a bit odd at that particular point in time because it was only being used for internal software projects, but the principles easily translate into a normal commercial business environment. And so I've been using it ever since in terms of clients or the other agile philosophy and scrum as a sort of framework to implement.

Speaker 1 6:02

And there are there are other agile frameworks other than Scrum. So people may have heard of things like Kanban, for example.

Speaker 6:13

Yeah, I suppose they all tend to they all tend to come from sort of Toyota in some respects. So it sort of grew out of lean to a certain extent, which is a whole concept of how do you maximize value and minimize waste. And Scrum, I suppose, is or Agile is more focused in terms of how do we actually deliver in project management terms to provide that value whilst being flexible. And I suppose a key element of any any agile framework is how do we learn as we go. It's that whole whole idea of experimentation and and feedback, and how do we learn and make ourselves better? Twyman.

Speaker 2 6:52

Yeah, I I think it's just interesting to hear that because obviously, when you first come into this kind of topic, anyone listening, I'm sure, you mentioned Toyota, obviously, yeah, a lot came from from that shop floor, so to speak. And I suppose originally agile it feels like a manufacturing process. It was very orientated towards sort of the RD type world, the engineering world. I I think where we're different today is agile has got to be applied in a softer area that actually gonna be your leadership space. We're now looking for ways where that agile process, it's not quite as simple as plotting a route from A to B, because we're gonna have lots of humans involved, lots of variables, and and as a consequence, you'll have lots of things that can change very quickly. So, yeah, I mean, obviously, uh with with my yellow hat on from the yellow growth club, I'm always gonna steer towards, you know, I think Agile's moved on from that from its early roots, which were around that kind of business process part, into what does that really mean in today's workplace? Yeah, that that that that's the ongoing challenge of of making organizations more agile.

Speaker 1 8:09

So, Richard, going back to your scrum master accreditation, then how long did that take?

Speaker 8:17

Ultimately, it was some training over a couple of days, and then you you had to do an online accreditation, which you're only allowed to attempt once, and you get a you need to get a certain sort of certain pass level. But it's then a question like all these things, once you got the uh the qualification, it's how do you then apply that knowledge on a day-to-day basis to deliver value for your for your clients? So um, so it gives it gives a very strong framework, a very technical background, but then it's it's it's how do you then apply that?

Speaker 1 8:48

So initially then you were applying this with organizations who are looking to implement strategic plans, which they'd already drafted. So this is not this is not software, this is not manufacturing.

Speaker 9:02

Uh was this were these service organizations or yeah, I mean they have a spattering of clients in the sort of service sector, but also applying it to for not-for-profits.

Speaker 1 9:13

Yeah.

Speaker 9:13

And we use we use sort of agile concepts within within the charity I'm working for at the moment. Yeah, it's a lot to do with how do you change priorities, what we call dynamic reprioritization. So you've got a plan, but what if circumstances change? How do you dynamically change the priorities and change the organization to be able to focus quickly on those on those those areas? From a commercial point of view, it's a question of changing customer needs. How do we change the products and services we have to be better focused in delivering value to those particular customers?

Speaker 1 9:50

So, Richard, you remember back during lockdown, we presented a series of seminars. The first with, well, it was was it survive, pivot, adapt, thrive.

Speaker 10:01

Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah, I think uh the, I mean, one of the a lot of the sort of agile or lean concepts come out of the we were reading the book at the time by Eric Reese, which is the lean startup. Yeah, and that was the I suppose the main thing that came out of that was was the sort of the concept of pivoting. So you you you effectively try and test your hypotheses by actually building something very quickly, what we call a minimum viable product, yeah, which is the sort of smallest version of something that could actually deliver value, but is something you can learn from. So it moves away from this whole idea you need to build this all-singing, dancing product or system or service. What Eric Reese said effectively is that what you need to do is build something that is just good enough that will deliver some value, get it out there and get some real-world feedback on it. And that concept feeds into agile. And that's where you come into the idea of minimizing risk and minimizing cost. Because in the past, an old organization might say, I've got to build something that's gonna take me so many months to do, and I'll only test it when it's finished and perfect. The whole idea of agile is that you you have what we increments of done. So it isn't the final thing, you are you are you're releasing stuff as you go, testing it. So that helps minimize the the cost investment and also minimize the risk because you're getting real-world feedback at a very early stage. So if we're in if we're going the wrong direction, let's this is that's the whole idea of do we persevere or do we pivot to something different?

unknown 11:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1 11:33

So you you and I were working in a professional services organization at the time. There's always the balance, wasn't there, with providing high quality professional services. But I remember your your mantra really was well, it was it was not quite minimum viable product, because but but it but it certainly was don't wait until it's perfect.

Speaker 11:54

Yeah, and I think this is for clients, this is sometimes the most difficult concept because they they think if you a minimum viable product is somehow lower quality, it's not, it's just got probably less features. It doesn't mean you've got low quality, it's probably you've got relatively low specification that you can test. And then if if if if you're on the right track, you can then choose to build upon different elements of that. So but I think minimum viable product is is really, really important because you want to, if you've got a if things are changing within the within the marketplace, you need to test something to see whether it will work. And I think that's where we move away from the old sort of command and control idea of, you know, not quite like the communist five-year plan, you know, we know what we're going to be doing, but it it's it's you've got a sense of direction, but you are open to changing circumstances and how you need to adapt.

unknown 12:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2 12:50

Yeah, you mentioned uh obviously you've mentioned COVID there, and it's not that long ago, is it really? Five, six years ago. I think there's something that you could you could for for agile as another word, I think you could use, and perhaps the two things are very closely linked, certainly more so in today's work workplace. One thing that perhaps COVID made us think we needed to be, and we've perhaps worked with more resilient, and by virtue of perhaps being more resilient, we are perhaps more agile as a consequence of that, open to change. That was a I suppose what you'd call a black swan event, a big bang. Uh so you know, we had to respond accordingly. So that's probably a good example in my own head I can think of, where we're sort of using the agile element in in that very human workplace context, that well-being context. But yeah, I think resilience, high levels of resilience could well be associated with higher levels of agility.

Speaker 1 13:52

Yeah, yeah. It was about that time, six years ago, five years ago, five, six years ago, that we had a new website for the professional services firm we were with, and that was a fairly major exercise. And I do remember uh your words at the time, minimum viable product, minimum viable product. And it certainly launched as a slim version of what we ultimately wanted, but we got it up there, got it out exactly on time. So I wouldn't say that we use agile or or scrum methodology, but we certainly had had your wise words ringing in our ears, Richard.

Speaker 14:31

I think I think in some respects, don't worry so much about the framework. I was looking for a framework I could use to help clients implement, but the more most important thing is the actual mindset that goes with it. You know, it won't work unless the team within the organization and and most importantly the leadership team embrace the whole idea of curiosity and uncertainty. So the whole idea is we don't know what the end products might look like, but as long as we're focused on what brings value to the customer, let's build something, let's experiment. And if we get it right, is it enough? And do we build upon that? Or if we get it wrong, change direction. Don't worry, you haven't lost much in the way of time or or effort. I think one of the other things that comes out of it is the within urban organization embracing the idea of what we try first may fail. You know, failing is part of the experience, failing is part of the learning. It's what Eric Reese calls validated learning. You try something, you know, the feedback we get, we've now got some validated evidence that we can then build upon. And I think it's that, and I think that works very well for organizations that that and for people that have in the past felt that if they try something and they get it wrong, somehow that that is bad juju for them. It's all part of the learning process and and built into any kind of agile methodology is the whole idea of this, you know, what have we learnt? The idea of a retrospective. Once you've done something, you look back and say what worked, what didn't work. Probably more importantly, if we if we move on to the next cycle, what will we do differently that makes us more effective and more efficient?

Speaker 1 16:17

So the the taking a sorry, if I just make my bit, Simon, and then we and I'll come come to you. We've got six minutes fifty-three on this recording. So uh a big benefit there, Richard, I guess, is taking away the fear of failure.

Speaker 16:33

Yeah, very much so. And clients that I've been helping implement with, one of the one of the great benefits is that we often identify what we call rising stars within an organization. So they're they're the people that effectively are going to be key to your development and growth and delivering the strategy. And so an agile methodology like Scrum will have sort of small cross-functional teams, and it's a great way of actually getting those kind of people involved to allow them to experiment. Experimentation and learning from that experimentation is is is core to it. What do we learn? And I think that's if nothing else, if an organization embraces that uncertainty, then I think that they are going to be far better suited to a changing world that we are increasingly seeing.

Speaker 2 17:28

Yeah, I mean it gets it.

Speaker 1 17:30

It goes without saying, I think I've I've talked across you again. So I won't say anything, just you dive in, Simon.

Speaker 2 17:38

Yeah, I'm gonna say, Richard, you know, and you've used a number of key words for me there. Uh I can't believe it's taken me this long to get a statistic into this podcast, but uh I'm I'm thinking you you've talked about uncertainty and leadership, and I've sort of 71% of employees do not believe their leadership is capable of adequately responding to sudden change, which right at this minute in the world that we live in, given the only constant seems to be change, is a tad concerning. It then went on to say that only a third of leaders are roughly characterized as agile. So that's again slightly skewed the wrong way. And it was very firm to say that 28%, roughly a third again, more or less, are strictly non-agile. So there's a you know, okay, we've got a bit to play with in the middle, but when you're looking at that, things that you've said, you know, increased uncertainty, the volatility of change, it's the only thing that we can be certain will ever happen. Yeah, we've got to respond, not just in terms of how we deal with the market change, how our people respond to that. So agile, again, buzzword it may be, it is a representation of how we respond to uh an event. And obviously, obviously, listening to you from the Scrum perspective, it's good to have a framework which might help leaders and teams through that process, either in 24 hours or it could be a week or whatever.

Speaker 19:16

I think the framework's yeah, and I suppose I suppose threats threats are sort of dual-edged, aren't they? You know, a risk can be an opportunity. And so if we're looking about differentiation, if you're an organization that can respond quickly to changing circumstances in a way that actually provides enhanced value to your customers, then it it drives both customer loyalty, plus you're likely to be able to redirect your internal resources to something that's going to be profit-making if you're a commercial organization, or to deliver more impact if you're a not-for-profit.

Speaker 1 19:54

Going back to Scrum, then, Richard, there's lots of buzz phrases people will have heard to do with Scrum. Do you want to give us your top three or four and tell us what they are?

Speaker 20:03

Yeah, I think that the main thing is to not be frightened of them. They tend to, they've come out of software development and tech development. And when I first started using sort of scrum terms, they were quite frightening for clients. And so we've tended to adapt them as we go. But I'll give you, I'll give you the I'll give you the basics. So the the first one is what we call a sprint. And what is a sprint? A sprint is a fixed time box. So that is a sprint can normally be a week, two weeks, or four weeks. But once you've decided upon the level that the timing of the sprint, you don't change. And so the idea is that we have we start building a rhythm for delivery. And the what you do at the beginning of a sprint is you plan what work you're going to do with the intention that rather than just checking in to see how far you've got at the end of that time box, you've actually delivered something that is done and of value. It's what the scrum is is in its simplest terms is delivering increments of done. So we talk about definition of done, you know, what do we need to get done within our minimum viable product? So that's the idea of a sprint. And so you start building a regular rhythm, and we all like cadence within an organization. Um, so that's the sprint. The next thing is what we call a backlog. Clients don't like the idea of a backlog. I call it a list of tasks to prioritize and choose from. And the idea is that the backlog is all the component parts that you could possibly have within that product, that service, or that delivery mechanism. And the the whole idea is you have someone who's called a product owner, and the product owner works out what is the individual item that delivers greatest value. It's always focused on value to the customer, and the customer can be external buyer or it might be. An internal customer or a stakeholder. And so the the the the once you have this list of items, you then determine which do we pick first? Because what you're trying to do is you're trying to get something out there that is going to be of value that you can test quickly. And so that's the the intention. Yeah.

Speaker 1 22:18

So is this where people get the get the image of post-it notes on a whiteboard or something?

Speaker 22:23

Yeah, yeah, exactly right. So the the you'll often see people when you're walk talking about Scrum within a sprint, they'll have what we call to do, doing, done. So the intent the you start off with the the the to-do is everything within the backlog. And rather than just working from the top, you you spend all the time refining that backlog to say what is of greatest priority. Within the sprints, the team then decides what they're going to pull out from the backlog into doing with the intention that they get it done and delivered by the end of that sprint cycle. Were you using Trello as a way of exercising all that? Yeah, I tend to I tend to live in Trello. So and the beauty of Trello, one of the key things to do with a Scrum framework is the whole idea of transparency. So if you use Trello, not only can you have the team that's working on the project involved, you can also have any kind of stakeholder can be part of that process. And so they can see at any particular point in time where you're at, and probably more importantly, what are the blockages that we need to clear that are holding us back.

Speaker 1 23:32

And my my favorite note-taking app Notion lends itself to all sorts of things, but one of the things it does is this this sort of Trello board uh type layout, which is great, you know, for tracking for tracking the progress of multiple projects at once and what stage things are at. Okay. Is there another one you can chuck at us?

Speaker 23:59

Or uh well, I was just I I was I I'm just thinking that one of the sort of key concepts is the whole idea of delivery of delivery of done, definition of done. And so the intention is is that at the end of that sprint, you will share what you've done with stakeholders. And at that particular point in time, you can say, is it what we need? Is it on track? Can we test it with external stakeholders? So that it's that interaction with external stake uh stakeholders on a basis that allows it to be tested, and it also minimizes the the cost overspend and also the risk of getting something wrong.

Speaker 1 24:41

So to summarize all of that, then another little simple analogy um scrum, scrum might be wanting to become fitter. Forget that. Agile might be wanting to become fitter, scrum is about following a specific program that's gonna help you get there. Yeah, exactly right. Simon, you you've been uh wandering around charity shops, I understand.

Speaker 2 25:12

I have. I've just got to chuck a stat in before I get to that point. Right? No, no, you'll like this one. This is this is relevant, and it kind of really demonstrates why businesses do need to be agile. In the 1960s, the average life cycle of a company was 67 years. I looked it up a stat today. The average life cycle of a company is 15 years, so it says. So all that about having a sprint changing quicker has obviously got to happen a lot quicker because companies are changing significantly quicker. But but yes, Martin, I've been busy charity book uh shopping or charity shopping. I've got a a book here called The Age of Agile by Stephen Denning. And actually, I'm lucky enough to have purchased a signed copy.

Speaker 1 26:07

There we go. Age of Agile. There we are. Agile by Stephen Denning.

Speaker 2 26:11

Brilliant, yeah. And it caught my eye because I immediately thought of Richard because, as you've described him quite rightly, he's the agile nerd. But I haven't had time to read every chapter, but but flicking through this, there are sort of three bits he really focuses on that kicks off. One is the law of the small team, and it it's just quite logical, really. I mean, we've big organizations are ultimately made up of smaller teams, so small teams that are empowered have more autonomy, are generally going to be better at reacting at speed to things that are happening internally and externally. So you don't underestimate the power of creating some small teams that that can respond at speed. And it talks about customer value sitting at the centre of everything and and quote, not bureaucracy. Now, customer value. For me, this is this is an area where there could be some disagreement, because if you're the business, your version of what you give might not be the same as the version of the customer thinks they're getting. So you know that's a a huge area on its own. But interesting as I'd never seen this book before that that it's highlighted there. And and and lastly, of the of the three, again, another another sort of perhaps potential favourite, the law of the network. Organisations work best when as connected networks rather than less rigid hierarchy. Now, obviously, someone we've said this before, someone's got to be in control, someone's got to take responsibility and ownership for decision making and for people, but flatter, more authority, not necessarily being for a task, not necessarily being given to the person in charge of the area, for example, but more so being allocated to the best person to deliver the job. So a different way of thinking there. And there's a nice quote from the book. He says, as we've already said, agile is not a process change, it's a cultural change. So it comes back to my cultural comment a little bit earlier, and and I again I think we'll come on to this a little bit more. If you're trying to make a cultural change, firstly, you need to recognise you've got to make a cultural change, number one, but secondly, you've actually got to physically demonstrate the behaviours that you want to see. Yeah, we can talk about agile, we can talk about culture, we can talk about all these various bits, but when it's boots on the ground, you as a leader have got to set your stall out and say, follow me.

Speaker 29:03

Yeah, I I couldn't agree more on that, Simon, because you know what's the role of the leader? The role of the leader is particularly with regards to the culture, is to role model the ideas and behaviors effectively that are going to underpin the development of the business. And that sort of builds a culture. I think the the whole idea of sort of curiosity and and continuous learning really, really feeds into that idea of changing culture. Yeah. The other thing that I think is really, really important there is the emphasis on small self-organizing teams. And so, you know, within organizations, we talk about silos, in that you know, people stay within their teams. And you know, the the beauty of actually thinking on an agile in an agile way, and also the frameworks is that you get people from those cross-functional teams that are working together to solve something that is of value to the customer rather than just doing what they've always done within their particular areas within the organization.

Speaker 2 30:06

And and I think that for people who are going to probably think we're deep diving into some super management concept, which we're we're not, you know, it it how you think, you know, well, how do I make that real in my business? That's it. How do I make that real? We talk about culture being one of the most important things. Again, a little number I may have found uh on the on the World Wide Web. It says that uh you know, we talk about Agile, Agile is just making a change from one position to another position, perhaps doing something differently. Around 50% of projects, well, probably more than that, I would say, in practice, probably don't get through the first few stages, primarily because there's general resistance, there's a culture clash, and it comes back to it doesn't fit, and that's why another reason the small teams element is probably very effective in business, is that it's easier to work with the smaller group of people, perhaps, to bring them in the same direction rather than it is trying to bring an enormous amount of people in the same direction at one point. So it's like biting off the right size cherry to generate that cultural change, and that will become self-perpetuating. You then have a group of people who are going to then go out into your business, hopefully, and and make more more converts. So, yeah, that's that's a powerful messaging for me.

Speaker 1 31:36

So perhaps just wrapping this bit up, and in terms of the relevance in 2026 for business leadership of being agile, yeah, we're in a scenario really where leaders need to be more positioning themselves as coaches, facilitators, and enablers. And agile and scrum are great ways of starting to implement that.

Speaker 32:08

Yeah, I th I think that's right. And and it it's a change in attitude to leaders, and there's an element of trust in actually, yes, you you'll you'll you'll help build a sort of backlog of component parts that may help deliver value, but you're allowing that individual team the autonomy to choose what they do and when and how. And I think one of the things that I've found working with agile and working with Scrum with clients, not that it's an unintended consequence or a sort of byproducts, but the the the the the the working between individual teams and the culture within those teams really really does improve.

Speaker 1 32:52

So if we're looking to some practical takeaway points then, what would we suggest? Our top three practical ideas. I mean, I can I can chuck a couple in.

Speaker 2 33:04

Well, I I I think I could start there. There's obviously lots that we could you know uh talk about more on, but I think one of the key things, and I was trying to find some real life examples, which I've I've successfully done, to bring it to to the table. So you that people, yeah, what did people really find were their pain points that they could then apply this process to? And they're they're professional services firm. So for example, Boa Vista, again, big firm, talked about its pain point being the identification of improvement opportunities, which in itself doesn't sound overly complicated, but I'm pretty certain lots of businesses would like to identify improvement opportunities. In their case, very topical, it was around digital transformation. Another professional services firm, or it was a company called Vanguard, they came up with not understanding who the customer is. Probably a very frequent issue across businesses, certainly small businesses, I would suspect. And the final one was BBV8, which is an Italian bank, uh, I believe. And and their thing was about using agility to help you scale the business. And they were talking about a lack of synchronized synchronization across teams, and by simply bringing that together, they were able to scale their businesses better, quicker, and ultimately more profitable. Richard.

Speaker 34:42

In terms of takeaways, I think my first one is as an organization focusing on customer value. And when we're doing it, our sort of starting point internally with implementation is three questions. So who is the customer? So that you know, is that external buyer? Is that you know who are the stakeholders? The second one is what is the problem we're solving for them? And then the last one is how will we know whether this has created value? So it's all to do with understanding the value that we can deliver. And if in a commercial organization you can deliver value, that's going to give you a level of enhanced income and profitability. So focus on value, start conversations on value within your teams. That's that that is the that that's the starting point. Once you've identified the the question of value, it's a question, it's it's then of saying, what do we need to build as a minimum viable product that will actually meet those customer needs once we built it? Try it out, get some real world feedback. And if you can do those two things, you can then start implementing the idea of agile. So that's your starting point, I think.

Speaker 2 35:55

I'm gonna say I think it's important as well. Again, there's a slight differentiation we make there, Richard, around what is value in today's marketplace. Yeah, because people go, you know, again, typically you've said what is value, you'd have applied a monetary value to value. But that's not necessarily the case. That the the modern battlefield, as I've described it elsewhere, is going to be the EQ elements, those other elements of value that people get from interacting with one another, internally and externally at the organizations, how how we make people feel, how people perceive us on our podcast and our videos. Yeah, so value means very different things to different people, and I think again, probably still stuck a little bit in the value means cost.

Speaker 36:44

That's a really important point.

Speaker 2 36:46

A lot of thoughts around this piece, and obviously always like to close with a little bit of a statistic or two. But agile it does not equal a framework, it absolutely equals a mindset, and and all the research shows, and you know, anybody's free to go on the World Wide Web and look this stuff up. But nearly 70% of those businesses that were good at adopting an agile mindset were seeing a massive increase in collaboration across their businesses. 54%, quite simply, a better alignment of their business needs. Now, again, this all sounds like fluffy stuff, but it means you're doing more things in the business that are on the same road, going on the same journey, which has surely got to be good. And you know, near near 40% were were getting far better work outcomes. They were able to scale. And I saw one other stat on my scribbles here, which was a phenomenal number. When I find it, might have to come back to that. You're building this up. I am building this up. Oh, here we go. Yeah, strong agile cultures saw a staggering 277% increase in their commercial performance.

Speaker 1 37:59

A 200% increase in the traditional way of measuring 200%, not in the new American way of measuring 200%. It was a big number, you're doing a lot better. So, yeah, yeah. So just wrapping that up then, it doesn't have to be perfect. You just need to get on with it, get it out there, shorten the review cycles, run lots of small experiments, and build faster feedback loops. So you you get your minimum viable products out there, you test it, you improve it, and you move on in increments.

Speaker 38:37

Yeah, and I think I think the beauty of it is you don't have to worry if you get it wrong. The whole idea is is it the whole cycle is let's test something, does it work? If it doesn't work, that's a learning experience. So in some respects, don't don't wait until you've got perfect ideas, just start engaging with what is of value to your customers and how we might actually build something to to meet their requirements. And if you you know, if you get it wrong, change direction. That's the beauty of it.

Speaker 1 39:07

I think that sums it up absolutely perfectly. So with that, I think we'll uh we'll uh bring the episode to a close. Uh Richard, thank you very much.

Speaker 39:18

Cheers, Martin, cheers, Simon.

Speaker 1 39:20

And Simon, thank you. And uh we'll be back with another episode before too long. So uh please like, comment, and subscribe. And see you all soon. Cheers then.

Speaker 39:31

Cheers, okay.