PMI Global Insights

By Carmine Paragano

I recently presented at the PMI Virtual Experience Series event held on 2 June.  This was a great event with featured speakers, exhibits and networking activities.

My presentation was entitled “From Organizational Agility to Business Agility: A Real Experience of Digital Transformation” and focused on how business agility demonstrated from within the team brought about significant value to the company, while respecting the guidelines but focusing on value creation based on a unified culture. It was necessary to not only cultivate an agile mindset but tailor new ways of working. Agility has been evolving from the Lean and the Agile Manifesto and has been applied throughout the company. It was also important to understand methodologies and the context in which they can support a transformation.

During my presentation, several great questions were raised that we didn’t get a chance to cover. I am including some of them here along with my responses.

Q:  How relevant was the Agile mindset being multi-and-hetero-cultural?
A:  Agile mindset is the key for the success of an Agile adoption. Using tools and methodologies without understanding the value they bring is not useful and can create a lot of problems during the transformation. It’s recommended to spend a lot of time setting the mindset.

Q:  What about Agile methodologies?
A:  Methodologies can support the transformation. According to Disciplined Agile, context counts and different methodologies can be applied. It’s relevant to know the different methodologies to choose how to support the value creation.

Q:  What tool was used during continuous improvement?
A:  Continuous improvement is the key to applying the agility starting from the approaches like Guided Continuous Improvement or the relentless improvement. Some tools can be adopted in accordance with the context, especially in global projects.

Q:  How relevant was the role of glocalization?
A:  Glocalization means balancing global with local. It’s the key for maximizing the value that can be shared globally and customized locally. It’s very difficult to set the perfect balance, but the continuous improvement can support the right set.

Q:  What was the biggest problem you encountered during the project?
A:  The main problem related to this experience was how to spread the mindset to all the stakeholders, spending time sharing as well as leading by example.

I had a great time presenting, and the full presentation will be on demand through 31 January 2022.  Visit PMI Virtual Experience Series 2021 for more details.