Drivers of business agility

Business agility is best achieved through effectiveness, predictability, efficiency, and adaptability

Let’s define these terms:

  • EFFECTIVENESS: successful in producing a desired or intended result.
  • PREDICTABILITY: behaving or occurring in an expected way.
  • EFFICIENCY: achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.
  • ADAPTABILITY: adjusting to new conditions (change)

Therefore to pave the way towards business agility we can start to:

seek quality value for EFFECTIVENESS – define value streams and involve the necessary teams

manage the workflow for PREDICTABILITY – attend to the smooth operations of teams within the value stream and install feedback loops

reduce waste for EFFICIENCY – through feedback loops and workflow attention seek and remove operations that are not providing added value

assimilate change for ADAPTABILITY – work and deliver small batches of value in order to pivot if unexpected change is required.

Conclusion

Business Agility allows to respond rapidly to changing market conditions and customer demands by improving the ability to manage changing priorities (adaptability), increasing productivity (efficiency), enhancing software quality (effectiveness), and improving delivery expectations (predictability).



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Author: Mario Aiello

Hi, I’m Mario – a retired agility warrior from a major Swiss bank, beyond agile explorer, lean thinker, former rugby player, and wishful golfer. What frustrates me most? Poor agile adoption, illusionary scaling, and the lack of true business agility. I believe agility should fit purpose, context, and practice – and continuously evolve. Active in the agile space since 2008, my consulting journey began in 2012, helping a digital identity unit adopt Scrum at team level. That work led to the design of an Agile Operating System for the entire organization. Today, as an independent consultant, I help organizations unlock sustainable agility – guided by adaptive intelligence: sensing challenges, learning fast, and adapting with purpose.