You Can’t Have an Agile Business Without Agile Leadership

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Agile  

I have a tendency to be cynical, so perhaps that clouds my perspective at times. But in recent months, I have found myself shaking my head at the number of articles about the importance of agile. These pieces are frequently published on well-respected websites, sometimes associated with the consulting industry, sometimes geared to a specific industry vertical, or sometimes presented by suppliers to various industries (software for legal firms or some such business). And they all seem to be writing about the concept of agile as a new solution to a new problem.

These articles are undoubtedly well-meaning, but when I read things like how agile needs to be part of the “playbook for the next normal” or the importance of being “digitally agile,” it’s as much as I can do not to roll my eyes. Some of these writers seem to genuinely believe they are offering something profound, that they have discovered the secret treasure of business success and are now sharing it with the world.

I get it, I really do. The events of 2020 have forced businesses to rethink how they operate and to consider what has to change. Anyone who can offer a solution is going to sell more software, get more consulting contracts and help their own recovery.

But let’s not lose sight of reality. As we know it today, agile is almost 20 years old (the Agile Manifesto was …

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