Agile vs. Business Agility: Lessons from Klaus Leopold’s Rethinking Agile

In Rethinking Agile, Klaus Leopold takes a bold and refreshing look at Agile methodologies, questioning their ability to truly deliver business agility. He argues that while Agile practices often aim to boost team efficiency and delivery, they frequently miss a key element: the broader organizational context required for real agility. As Leopold puts it, “Agility is not about frameworks or methodologies; it is about the ability to respond to change effectively.”

Leopold explains that simply implementing Agile practices at the team level isn’t enough for an organization to adapt to shifting market conditions or align strategic goals with daily operations. To achieve true agility, organizations need to embed Agile principles across every level—strategic, tactical, and operational.

Key Themes from the Book

Agile vs. Business Agility

One of the primary distinctions Leopold makes is between being Agile at the team level and achieving business agility. According to him, business agility reflects an organization’s overall capacity to adapt and respond to change, rather than just the efficiency of individual teams. It’s about aligning strategic objectives with the day-to-day work needed to meet evolving market demands. This alignment is a key aspect of business agility, as Leopold states, “It’s not enough to be efficient; we must also be effective in aligning our work with strategic priorities.” In other words, true agility requires the entire organization to work cohesively, not just isolated teams.

A Holistic Approach

Leopold advocates adopting a systems thinking mindset, which views the organization as interconnected. He emphasizes that changes in one part of the system often ripple across the entire organization. This interconnected perspective underscores the importance of cross-functional collaboration to ensure that changes benefit the organization as a unified entity. This insight is a powerful reminder for leaders to better understand their organizations’ dynamics.

Spotting Anti-Patterns

The book also digs into common pitfalls organizations face when adopting Agile practices. These include resistance to change, ineffective communication, and a fixation on short-term gains. Leopold provides practical advice on identifying these issues and addressing them. He stresses the importance of fostering open communication, maintaining a long-term perspective, and committing to continuous improvement. He notes, “Focusing on flow and limiting work in progress are key to achieving agility.” Open communication is a key factor in addressing these issues and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Practical Strategies

For leaders looking to create an Agile environment, Leopold offers actionable advice. He highlights the importance of clear communication, aligning goals across the organization, and staying committed to continuous improvement. His guidance provides leaders with practical steps to embed agility into their organizations. As Leopold explains, “The goal of agility is to deliver customer value frequently and predictably.”

How Kanban Zone Embraces These Concepts

At Kanban Zone, we fully embrace the ideas presented in Rethinking Agile. We work with our customers to create an environment that reflects the principles of business agility by ensuring that Agile practices are not isolated to teams but connected to broader organizational goals.

A Holistic Approach

We champion a systems thinking approach that allows organizations to visualize workflows and identify interdependencies. This approach helps teams understand how their work contributes to the organization’s overall success. As Leopold reminds us, “Teams don’t work in a vacuum; success comes from optimizing the whole organization, not just the individual team.”

In fact we collaborated with Klaus and Markus at Flight Levels Academy to create one of our productivity zone called Organization that provides a complete view of your organization by visualizing your team’s boards into Flight Levels.

Collaboration and Communication

Kanban Zone prioritizes open communication by offering visual management tools that ensure teams align their efforts with organizational strategy. This transparency fosters collaboration and keeps everyone focused on shared objectives.

Another feature we developed in coordination with Markus is iFrame Cards. At the strategic level (Flight Level 3) it’s important to provide all the information needed to leaders to make better decisions. To achieve this we provide the ability to embed data visualization from tools like Tableau and Domo. We are also experimenting with embedding AI bots from your organization or outside sources directly on your boards in Kanban Zone.

Continuous Improvement

We emphasize the importance of learning and adapting over time. Our platform facilitates feedback loops and iterative improvement, empowering organizations to refine their practices as market conditions change. This commitment to continuous improvement motivates organizations to strive for excellence in their agility journey.

Our team of Kanban experts helps you design your system or specific boards to engender Kaizen, the spirit of continuous improvement. We include complimentary coaching in all our plans to ensure that you unleash all the benefits of our platform and develop a culture of continuous improvement.

Addressing Anti-Patterns

Our platform also helps organizations identify and address common pitfalls in Agile implementation. By promoting a focus on long-term success rather than short-term fixes, we help create a culture of sustainable agility.

By leveraging our Productivity Zones and our Advanced Metrics, we inform you about your performance and responsiveness. Our Performance Tuning report precisely identifies your bottlenecks to help you focus your efforts where it matters most.

Conclusion

Rethinking Agile offers a compelling critique of traditional Agile practices, urging organizations to move beyond team-level approaches and adopt a more integrated strategy for achieving true business agility. At Kanban Zone, we are committed to helping organizations navigate this journey, providing tools and support to achieve authentic and sustainable agility.

This article only scratches the surface and insights available in the book Rethinking Agile: Why Agile Teams Have Nothing To Do With Business Agility Paperback by Klaus Leopold. I encourage you to pick up this book to dive deeper into Rethinking Agile for your organization.