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Agile: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review
Think agile is just for product and software development? Think again.
If you're a leader in an organization with agile teams, you might think you don't need to know the details as long as the work gets done. But agile is here to stay and is poised to move beyond IT and project management teams into other business units, even HR. If you’re still using top-down planning across your organization, your company will fall to competitors that are nimbler than you.
'AGILE' is an article which was written for (an part of) the 'Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review' series and will help you understand today's most essential thinking on the latest agile practices, so your company can develop offerings faster, react to fluctuations in the market, and ensure your strategy and people can adapt at a moment's notice.
Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues - blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more - each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The 'Insights You Need' series will help you grasp these critical ideas - and prepare you and your company for the future.
*PLEASE NOTE*:
When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
RUNNING TIME => 2hrs. and 40mins.
©2020 Harvard Business Publishing Corporation (P)2020 Gildan Media
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First published April 21, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 6, 2022
The book contains several articles about agile.
The first book was boring for me. In the book, there is no specific explanation about how to become agile, and the reader must already know Agile and even Scrum to understand the content.
At the end of each article, there is a summary section that summarizes the entire article, and those summaries are very good, but the articles and books themselves are boring for me.
The first book was boring for me. In the book, there is no specific explanation about how to become agile, and the reader must already know Agile and even Scrum to understand the content.
At the end of each article, there is a summary section that summarizes the entire article, and those summaries are very good, but the articles and books themselves are boring for me.
April 8, 2021
تفکر چابک موضوع جدیدی برامه. چند مواجهه باهاش داشتم و تقریبا می‌دونستم چه چیزهایی نیست و این کتاب وقتی تموم می‌شه تصویر خوبی از مفهوم چابک به دست می‌ده. مثال‌هایی از شرکت‌هایی میاره که در سال‌های اخیر دارن با این رویکرد اداره می‌شن. درواقع بزرگ‌ترین شرکت‌های دنیا مثل گوگل، آمازون، اسپاتیفای -به‌خاطر سرعت تغییرات زیاد همه چیز- از شیوه‌ی سنتی و مدیریت از بالا به پایین و آبشاریِ گذشته دست کشیدن و اداره‌ی شرکت توسط تیم‌های مختلفی انجام می‌شه که توی یه ساختار پویا و ذهنیت جدیدی آماده شدن. چابک که در کلمه‌ش مبهمه [حتی نه فقط در فارسی، شاید وقتی به یه انگلیسی‌زبان ناآشنا به مفهوم اجایل هم کلمه‌ش رو بگیم چیزی ازین رویکرد به ذهنش متبادر نشه]، توضیحش هم با مثال و نمونه و تقابلش با رویکرد سنتی شکل می‌گیره. و این‌که بخشی از ما شاید با اصطلاح چابک، کانبان و اسکرام و... آشنا نباشیم، اما توی زندگی رویکرد چابک رو داریم به کار می‌بریم. جدید بودنی که گفتم از لحاظ اسم و ساختاریه که بهش داده‌ن.
February 25, 2024
My work is all about productivity and efficiency of the processes, especially in supply chain management. One thing that is very popular about it is lean and agile concepts of supply chain. Then emerged the concept of agile process, especially in the IT environment and processes in software development. Since this was not my target niche, I didn't look into this kind of literature more.
Anyway, I stumbled upon this compilation of articles written by Harvard Business Review contributors. Among other topics, this topic caught my eye, and I read it. What I discovered was that this agile processes concept could definitely be applied to some complex supply chain processes such as product development & design
So this is my assessment of the book Agile by Harvard Business Review contributors, according to my 8 criteria:
1. Related to practice - 3 stars
2. It prevails important - 3 stars
3. I agree with the read - 5 stars
4. not difficult to read (as for non English native) - 4 stars (expert language is not that difficult since it is very specialized)
5. Too long (more than 500 pages) - short and concise (150-200 pages) - 5 stars
6. Boring - every sentence is interesting - 3 stars
7. Learning opportunity - 4 stars
8. Dry and uninspired style of writing - Smooth style with humouristic and fun parts - 3 stars
Total 3,125 stars
◆ Introduction. Agile: How to Get in the Game (and Not Get in the Way)
▪ What is agile? It’s a mindset and a method for improving innovation through deep customer collaboration and adaptive testing and learning. Here’s how it works.
▪ Agile teams are small, cross-functional, fully dedicated work groups focused on creating innovative improvements to customer products and services, the business processes that produce them, and the technologies that enable those processes.
▪ Each team has an “owner” who is ultimately responsible for delivering value to customers, and a “coach” who helps the team continuously improve its speed, effectiveness, and happiness. Team members break complex problems into small modules and then start building working versions of potential solutions in short cycles (less than a month) known as sprints.
▪ According to a 2018 survey by the website Stack Overflow, 85% of software developers use agile techniques in their work.
▪ Agile increases team productivity and employee satisfaction. It minimizes the waste inherent in redundant meetings, repetitive planning, excessive documentation, quality defects, and low-value product features.
▪ John Deere, the farm-equipment manufacturer, has used agile methods to develop new machinery.
▪ Agile is not a panacea. It is most effective and easiest to implement where the problem to be solved is complex; solutions are initially unknown, and product requirements will most likely change; the work can be modularized; and close collaboration with end users (and rapid feedback from them) is feasible.
▪ The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development, by Donald G. Reinertsen (Redondo Beach, CA: Celeritas Publishing, 2009).
◆ 1. Agile at Scale
▪ These small, entrepreneurial groups are designed to stay close to customers and adapt quickly to changing conditions.
▪ Agile teams are best suited to innovation—that is, the profitable application of creativity to improve products and services, processes, or business models.
▪ They are small and multidisciplinary. Confronted with a large, complex problem, they break it into modules, develop solutions to each component through rapid prototyping and tight feedback loops, and integrate the solutions into a coherent whole.
▪ They place more value on adapting to change than on sticking to a plan, and they hold themselves accountable for outcomes (such as growth, profitability, and customer loyalty), not outputs (such as lines of code or number of new products).
▪ Routine operations such as plant maintenance, purchasing, and accounting are less fertile ground.
▪ Strategy evolved from an annual project to a continuous process
▪ Create a taxonomy of teams
▪ break the taxonomy into three components—customer experience teams, business process teams, and technology systems teams—and then integrate them
▪ one of a retail customer’s major experiences is to buy and pay for a product
▪ which in turn can be divided into dozens of more-specific experiences (the customer may need to choose a payment method, use a coupon, redeem loyalty points, complete the checkout process, and get a receipt)
▪ The second component examines the relationships among these experiences and key business processes (improved checkout to reduce time in lines, for instance), aiming to reduce overlapping responsibilities and increase collaboration between process teams and customer experience teams.
▪ The third focuses on developing technology systems (such as better mobile-checkout apps) to improve the processes that will support customer experience teams.
▪ A few companies, facing urgent strategic threats and in need of radical change, have pursued big-bang, everything-at-once deployments in some units.
▪ rolling out agile in sequenced steps, with each unit matching the implementation of opportunities to its capabilities.
▪ Financial results may take a while—Jeff Bezos believes that most initiatives take five to seven years to pay dividends for Amazon—but positive changes in customer behavior and team problem solving provide early signs that initiatives are on the right track.
Anyway, I stumbled upon this compilation of articles written by Harvard Business Review contributors. Among other topics, this topic caught my eye, and I read it. What I discovered was that this agile processes concept could definitely be applied to some complex supply chain processes such as product development & design
So this is my assessment of the book Agile by Harvard Business Review contributors, according to my 8 criteria:
1. Related to practice - 3 stars
2. It prevails important - 3 stars
3. I agree with the read - 5 stars
4. not difficult to read (as for non English native) - 4 stars (expert language is not that difficult since it is very specialized)
5. Too long (more than 500 pages) - short and concise (150-200 pages) - 5 stars
6. Boring - every sentence is interesting - 3 stars
7. Learning opportunity - 4 stars
8. Dry and uninspired style of writing - Smooth style with humouristic and fun parts - 3 stars
Total 3,125 stars
◆ Introduction. Agile: How to Get in the Game (and Not Get in the Way)
▪ What is agile? It’s a mindset and a method for improving innovation through deep customer collaboration and adaptive testing and learning. Here’s how it works.
▪ Agile teams are small, cross-functional, fully dedicated work groups focused on creating innovative improvements to customer products and services, the business processes that produce them, and the technologies that enable those processes.
▪ Each team has an “owner” who is ultimately responsible for delivering value to customers, and a “coach” who helps the team continuously improve its speed, effectiveness, and happiness. Team members break complex problems into small modules and then start building working versions of potential solutions in short cycles (less than a month) known as sprints.
▪ According to a 2018 survey by the website Stack Overflow, 85% of software developers use agile techniques in their work.
▪ Agile increases team productivity and employee satisfaction. It minimizes the waste inherent in redundant meetings, repetitive planning, excessive documentation, quality defects, and low-value product features.
▪ John Deere, the farm-equipment manufacturer, has used agile methods to develop new machinery.
▪ Agile is not a panacea. It is most effective and easiest to implement where the problem to be solved is complex; solutions are initially unknown, and product requirements will most likely change; the work can be modularized; and close collaboration with end users (and rapid feedback from them) is feasible.
▪ The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development, by Donald G. Reinertsen (Redondo Beach, CA: Celeritas Publishing, 2009).
◆ 1. Agile at Scale
▪ These small, entrepreneurial groups are designed to stay close to customers and adapt quickly to changing conditions.
▪ Agile teams are best suited to innovation—that is, the profitable application of creativity to improve products and services, processes, or business models.
▪ They are small and multidisciplinary. Confronted with a large, complex problem, they break it into modules, develop solutions to each component through rapid prototyping and tight feedback loops, and integrate the solutions into a coherent whole.
▪ They place more value on adapting to change than on sticking to a plan, and they hold themselves accountable for outcomes (such as growth, profitability, and customer loyalty), not outputs (such as lines of code or number of new products).
▪ Routine operations such as plant maintenance, purchasing, and accounting are less fertile ground.
▪ Strategy evolved from an annual project to a continuous process
▪ Create a taxonomy of teams
▪ break the taxonomy into three components—customer experience teams, business process teams, and technology systems teams—and then integrate them
▪ one of a retail customer’s major experiences is to buy and pay for a product
▪ which in turn can be divided into dozens of more-specific experiences (the customer may need to choose a payment method, use a coupon, redeem loyalty points, complete the checkout process, and get a receipt)
▪ The second component examines the relationships among these experiences and key business processes (improved checkout to reduce time in lines, for instance), aiming to reduce overlapping responsibilities and increase collaboration between process teams and customer experience teams.
▪ The third focuses on developing technology systems (such as better mobile-checkout apps) to improve the processes that will support customer experience teams.
▪ A few companies, facing urgent strategic threats and in need of radical change, have pursued big-bang, everything-at-once deployments in some units.
▪ rolling out agile in sequenced steps, with each unit matching the implementation of opportunities to its capabilities.
▪ Financial results may take a while—Jeff Bezos believes that most initiatives take five to seven years to pay dividends for Amazon—but positive changes in customer behavior and team problem solving provide early signs that initiatives are on the right track.
August 12, 2020
This book is NOT about how to learn Agile. It IS about how Agile can be scaled up to help large companies. In order to read this brief book, you MUST already have a basic understanding of Agile.
I picked up this book thinking it would help me learn more about Agile. The introduction specifically states that this book will "give you the baseline understanding you need to join the the conversation. It will demystify the concept and build a strong foundation for future learning." So I was expecting a least a brief overview section on what Agile is and how it works. Instead, the book hit the ground running with the expectation that the reader already has a grasp of Agile. The intended audience is very clearly business leaders, but I can see how middle managers or lower-level staff can use this book to help make a case for adopting Agile into their work environment.
The book is arranged in sections that read like micro-studies of Agile adoption among numerous companies. The examples are almost staggering, but thoroughly explained and easily grasped as long as you have a basic understanding of Agile.
Aside from not making it abundantly clear in the introduction that the book is designed for higher level management who are looking for examples of how to effectively implement Agile, my biggest criticism with this book is how lists were arranged. For example, there would be a section outlining an issue a company might have in the process of Agile adoption. Then the book would say there were X number of ways to address the issue. Rather than listing out the solutions and then explaining each one, the book would go directly into explaining each solution in-depth. I found myself repeatedly flipping through the book at each subsequent solution to try to remember the issue it was addressing. It sounds like a finicky sticking point, but it was extremely disruptive to my preferred learning process.
I picked up this book thinking it would help me learn more about Agile. The introduction specifically states that this book will "give you the baseline understanding you need to join the the conversation. It will demystify the concept and build a strong foundation for future learning." So I was expecting a least a brief overview section on what Agile is and how it works. Instead, the book hit the ground running with the expectation that the reader already has a grasp of Agile. The intended audience is very clearly business leaders, but I can see how middle managers or lower-level staff can use this book to help make a case for adopting Agile into their work environment.
The book is arranged in sections that read like micro-studies of Agile adoption among numerous companies. The examples are almost staggering, but thoroughly explained and easily grasped as long as you have a basic understanding of Agile.
Aside from not making it abundantly clear in the introduction that the book is designed for higher level management who are looking for examples of how to effectively implement Agile, my biggest criticism with this book is how lists were arranged. For example, there would be a section outlining an issue a company might have in the process of Agile adoption. Then the book would say there were X number of ways to address the issue. Rather than listing out the solutions and then explaining each one, the book would go directly into explaining each solution in-depth. I found myself repeatedly flipping through the book at each subsequent solution to try to remember the issue it was addressing. It sounds like a finicky sticking point, but it was extremely disruptive to my preferred learning process.
March 13, 2021
As we celebrate #agilemanifesto20thanniversary, two things are for sure: the term #agile has gone mainstream in practically every sphere of business activities (and not only because of the agile software movement alone!), and so is the erosion of the depth of what it means and takes to be agile (and quite so because of the burgeoning cottage industry dealing in agile frameworks, training, certification and consulting). So, for a change, it was wonderful listening to this new book on Agile from HBR, for it was neither selling agile snake-oil nor making absurd claims like it was agile that invented fire and wheel, among others! Well, they didn't exactly use those very words, but then, you do get the drift, fight?
Agile is essentially the extant #commonsense bottled into different shapes at different stages of human evolution and survival. It neither comes with a manual, nor a prescription or a certificate. All it comes with is a powerful ironic hindsight - successful outcomes are seen as being agile in retrospect, while failed outcomes are seen as "obviously not agile". It's all about the ability to learn from the future and apply in the present based on the knowledge from the past!
https://store.hbr.org/product/agile-t...
Agile is essentially the extant #commonsense bottled into different shapes at different stages of human evolution and survival. It neither comes with a manual, nor a prescription or a certificate. All it comes with is a powerful ironic hindsight - successful outcomes are seen as being agile in retrospect, while failed outcomes are seen as "obviously not agile". It's all about the ability to learn from the future and apply in the present based on the knowledge from the past!
https://store.hbr.org/product/agile-t...
September 2, 2020
This typical HBR offering serves as a quick introduction to Agile concepts as applied at the enterprise level. This is not a particularly inspired work but it will serve as a suitable introduction to a complex and sometimes puzzling subject for many managers and executives.
This book is not a guide to how to be agile as much as an explanation of why executive management would want to be so. As such, it focuses on Agile within the enterprise and the difficulties, risks and benefits of transitioning to Agile practices. One minor peeve that I have is that the book does not do enough to distinguish between Agile and Scrum.
This book is not a guide to how to be agile as much as an explanation of why executive management would want to be so. As such, it focuses on Agile within the enterprise and the difficulties, risks and benefits of transitioning to Agile practices. One minor peeve that I have is that the book does not do enough to distinguish between Agile and Scrum.
August 14, 2020
HBR reads are one of my favorite things! This section about Agile did not disappoint. I learned many things about Agile to start implementing within my workplace and it also helped reiterate some things that I already knew. I recommend this for anyone who wants to get more familiar with Agile within the workplace.
Thanks to Harvard Business Review Press and NetGalley for a copy in exchange of an honest review!
Thanks to Harvard Business Review Press and NetGalley for a copy in exchange of an honest review!
September 7, 2020
This book is a compilation of a number of articles from previous HBR publications which deal with the topic of agile methods. Though one chapter is on software teams the rest are about application to business contexts. This compilation is a good reference book for managers thinking of joining the buzzword “agile” in their businesses. Each chapter ends with very concise takeaways in case one needs to quickly refer to what the learnings were;
October 23, 2022
One if the few HBR books that makes good sense. Well written with a collection of meaningful examples of how the agile implementations have really made an impact.
Would have been good to share good examples in the final section on “sustaining” initiatives.
Loved the agile example of NextDoor, highly relatable
Would have been good to share good examples in the final section on “sustaining” initiatives.
Loved the agile example of NextDoor, highly relatable
January 8, 2023
Świetne kompendium wiedzy na temat ailnych metod pracy. Kompendia HBR naprawdę są świetne. Zawierają krótsze, dłuższe artykuły wcześniej publikowane w czasopiśmie HBR. Co ciekawe, zawierają artukuły nie tylko napisane przez amerykańskich autorów, ale również europejskich.
November 2, 2020
A collection of articles on Agile, some more useful and interesting than others (at least as it relates to my job). Short bites made for easy reading.
January 12, 2021
Great introduction to agile with examples of company outcomes, indicators for success, and an estimate for ROI.
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February 9, 2023Great primer on Agile if you need a quick intro.
June 5, 2024
It was a straightforward overview of Agile. Nothing especially new or exciting, but still a useful book.
October 18, 2024
Solid summary of agile with independent chapters. Iblistened to this while studying for ACP Certification, and it presented some good additional content.
July 21, 2025
A few articles about Agile management. Decently good for HBR pieces.
December 27, 2023
Several good nuggets to take away.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews