Mastering Agile is Essential for HR Professionals

Long gone are the days when Scrum et al. was viewed as something only IT teams would do. The success of lean | agile approaches is beyond dispute and it impacts ever more companies at all levels. HR professionals will have to become knowledge experts in enterprise agility to lead their organization into a change-ready future.

Many business professionals, including those in Human Resources, are under the impression that agile approaches, such as Scrum and Kanban, are only used in software development projects. They may also see it as a passing craze with no long lasting effects.

The reality is far from it: lean | agile approaches are becoming more popular and successful than ever and they are increasingly applied outside of IT-projects, where Scrum – the most common agile approach – originated. And while many companies are just getting started, numerous others are already fully embracing enterprise agility, making their organizations more responsive, innovative, and engaging.

These enterprises are shifting because they realize that moving to a lean | agile framework gives them an invaluable competitive edge where they anticipate proactively. They are prepared to take on the challenges of highly demanding customers and markets, able to tailor products and services to emerging needs, drive innovation, and reduce time-to-market, while sharing knowledge and learning and adapting continuously.

In other words, they are change-ready. The future belongs to these responsive, resilient organizations and many companies are already on a journey towards enterprise agility.

The path of agile transformation itself is unique to each business, but always has far-reaching consequences – regardless of the degree of adoption. It is an immense challenge, but an enormous opportunity for HR to provide guidance and support. The key differential is a vibrant and dedicated leadership team with HR in a key position.

As transformation experts and lean | agile facilitators, HR will redefine the corporate identity, shape a responsive culture, and instill lean | agile behaviors in a lasting way. They will help identify critical change phases, develop a realistic transformation plan, and assess the organization’s capacity to absorb change.

HR will guide programs that create adaptability, innovation, collaboration and efficiency and be a champion of business agility. In that capacity, HR will not only drive initiatives but also alter its own level of responsiveness. An agile HR team will understand and translate the needs and values of a flexible organization into leading HR solutions.

HR professionals will not be viewed as administrators, policy makers and managers of “human resources”, but as proficient enablers, influencers and facilitators within a team that is renamed “Human Relations,” “Employee Relations,” or “People Operations”. They build a powerful agile workforce and engage in employee relations, that will undoubtedly impact the organization’s bottom line immensely, giving them a strong voice at the strategy table.

Are you ready to be an agility champion for your organization?