How COVID-19 Made Companies More Agile. And How to Keep-Up that Momentum.

What companies could learn during lock-downs. And what they should preserve.

I suppose that probably everybody, including every organization worldwide was impacted (but luckily not necessarily infected) by COVID-19.

Under the catchphrase of the “New Normal” several routines had to be adopted off-the-cuff. That for instance drove the implementation of digitalization in many fields: Online Meetings, Virtual Teams, e-Learning, Cloud Computing etc were set-up without long-term planning — and with no further postponement. There were no excuses anymore.

Developing the Momentum

That kind of momentum that developed under the new normal should be kept-up as it can make companies more competitive, even after the pandemic gets under control (Whether that will then be called the “New Normal 2.0”? *gg*).

To keep up the momentum, companies may want to understand its anatomy. And learn how to maintain and implement it strategically within the respective organization.

To my mind, the momentum can be described and explained by referring to management approaches and methodologies. Some of them are very well known already and now experience some renaissance: For instance Change Management, Online Customer Relationship Management and Virtual Teams, just to name a few.

And there are methods and approaches that are quite new (for management approaches) and that now receive the necessary attention. In this blog posting, I will focus on that second group. Specifically, I will address Agile Management (not merely related to Software Projects), Design Thinking and Business Continuity Management. Taken together, this can make an organization to become more resilient. Hence, I will tackle Resilience as well.

As kind of a bonus track for readers that stay with me until the end of the posting, I will add a paragraph on the Digital Transformation Towards the Smart Enterprise, that now even glitters more in the light of the pandemic.

Agile Management

During the lock-downs companies had to adopt to the “new normal”. Often that comprised moving data to the cloud, conduct online meetings and working in virtual teams. All that was not inherent in many industries. In order to stay in business that had to be implemented off the cuff, without long-term planning.

That may sound like a hip-shot to you and to some extent it was. Agile Management however is a systematic approach to make an organization adoptable to new challenges. In fast-paced, complex markets that is an important ingredient to success.

So what is Agile Management about?-Originally, Agile Methodologies (a well-known example was and is “Scrum”) were proposed for Software Development Projects. Many of them failed before (up to 80%), due to a lack of communication, inabilities to deal with complexity and to adopt to necessary changes.

Let’s stay with Scrum, which is still very popular (not to say got recently very popular, although I was teaching those concepts in the early 2000s — but that’s another story).

To tackle the above issues, Scrum introduced sprints — those are timeframes of about 30 days with predefined goals that are not changed during that period. The team meets everyday for daily stand-up meetings that last about 10 minutes. They discuss obstacles that they face and how to overcome them. And they distribute tasks that are to be done to achieve the sprint goals. Taken together that allows the team to adopt quickly to current challenges. The goal is to create high value over short time by setting according priorities and by getting to a viable (both technically and commercially) as soon as possible.

Those and further techniques that make up Scrum can be implemented for whole organizations, or at least for those parts that need to be highly adoptive. As you can imagine, this demands a certain type of “talent”, i.e. people that are willing and eager to learn, mostly informal. This of course has an impact on Human Resources (HR), that must adopt their hiring processes accordingly.

Companies that managed to adopt to the “New Normal” and stay in business should consider to make their approach more systematic and hence more robust. They should consider to implement Agile Management within their organizations. As I wrote, disruption is out there in current markets — it does not need to be a pandemic, it can be an innovation that changes how we do business overnight.

Design Thinking

Facing the “New Normal” forced some companies to reinvent themselves. That capability might however be at high stakes even after the pandemic becomes manageable (i.e. once an effective treatment and/or a vaccine is available). This is due to the fact that consumer behavior is likely to change and that change is about to last. Think for instance of airlines that were shaken-up the most. This is not just about their altered routes and safety measures on board — it is not granted that their customers will accept to sit in tight tubes any longer. Some early market research indicated that.

It’s however not only on airlines. Companies in various industries may face the challenge to continuously adopt to new market conditions leading to new customer behavior.

Here “Design Thinking” can add a valuable contribution: Providing room and tools for creativity on the one hand, wrapping that in a manageable process on the other hand.

Design Thinking comprises the following phases:

• Empathize = Getting a grip for users’ situations and needs
• Define = Get to a definition of the problem that you want to tackle
• Ideate = Generate several ideas towards a solution
• Prototype = Get to a testable version realizing your idea (needs not to be the final product)
• Test = Use the prototype to see how it works

Those phases can be reiterated as long as it takes to get to a successful, viable solution.

And of course the whole process can be invoked anytime the organization needs to come-up with new ideas. Creative / research-intensive organizations might do so on a regular basis or even continuously.

Companies can start in areas with a huge demand for innovation and later on distribute the concept further within the organization. Actually, Design Thinking can be used for any kind of problem / product / service / process.

However “Design Thinking” must be embedded properly within the organizations. The solutions that are generated must be picked-up on the one hand. On the other hand, field experience must be reflected and make it into the Design Thinking Process loop. It’s definitely not an ivory tower.

Business Continuity Management

Business Continuity Management (BCM) aims to remain productive (and therefore stay in business) even during a crisis. Several types of crises can be imagined, with a pandemic being one of them. Other kinds of crises would be losing resources, for instance the building; losing people, for instance due to an accident; or further events (political, environmental, societal …) — you just need to read global news to get an idea of what can happen.

It is a managerial decision to immunize against which kind of crises. That decision needs quite comprehensive upfront business analysis (Business Model, Process Landscape…) but also Risk Analysis, i.e. what kind of risks can the organization be exposed to, what would be their impact and what are viable counter strategies.

Based on that analysis, a continuity strategy can be worked-out. It contains what crises are envisaged, i.e. which kind of crises the company must be able to cope with. Continuity plans are then worked out. Based on the above analysis, procedures are designed and responsibilities are assigned. A crisis then would invoke those procedures and keep the business going, instead of being surprised and dropping out of business.

Business Continuity Management must be well established within an organization. There must be awareness about its existence. Roles and responsibilities must be defined and they must be clear. There is a need for according manuals. Staff needs to be informed, critical routines need to be trained upfront.

For many organizations BCM is quite critical, not to say essential. Thus, there is a norm (ISO 22301) that businesses might consider. And there are institutional bodies related to BCM, such as the Business Continuity Institute.

Resilience — The ultimate goal.

Taken together, the above approaches make the organization more resilient. Resilience in this case means being robust towards critical events. As outlined, Business Continuity Management helps to envisage such events, assess their impact and set-up procedures to tackle them.

Unforeseen events, that need not be a crisis per se, can make it necessary to adopt quickly. Agile Management proposes ideas and concepts to do so. The organization does not just respond, but actively picks-up events and turn them into chances.

That needs a lot of creativity. Design Thinking provides a framework that fosters creativity and innovation within an organization. That framework becomes well integrated within the organization and remains manageable.

Nevertheless “Organizational Resilience” (not identical with individual resilience, as researched by Psychology) is a distinct topic. And it deserves a distinct story — please allow me some time.

Bonus Track: The Digital Transformation towards the SMART Enterprise

I am sure you have heard about SMART Enterprises. The term “smart” is used quite inflationary nowadays. So lets’s narrow it down:

SMART enterprises use digital technologies to connect with their customers and to analyze markets. They collect Big Data. Those enterprises know how to measure success. Machine Learning is used to optimize processes to maximize that success measure even when markets are changed or disrupted. Those organizations quickly adopt to newly “learned” parameters. Their platforms are typically built on cloud services. Where applicable, 3D printing and robotics are used to implement new products / provide new services. Drones can be used for data collection (e.g. taking video footage without human interaction) and/or deliver products.

As you can see in the above definition, various technologies are available to make an organization SMART. A list that I like, following Anup Maheshwari’s proposal, is the following:

• The Internet of Things
• Virtual Reality
• Big data and analytics
• Blockchain
• Cloud computing
• Design Thinking (!)
• Robotics
• DevOps
• Artificial Intelligence
• Machine learning
• Agile
• Drones
• 3D printing
• APIs

Of course not every organization needs to implement every technology; and of course not every organization can be considered to be SMART (although their marketing material might tell you differently). Note that the list also contains Design Thinking and Agile Management, as kind of link between the technology and the human organization (“staff”).

Applying digital technology proved to be resilient towards the pandemic (although fully relying on digital technology bears the risk of malfunction).

There is however a correlation between a resilient organization and a SMART organization. On the one hand, the digital technologies imply some resilience already. For instance:

• The Internet of Things is capable of collecting data — even while people adhere to social distancing
• Cloud computing makes IT infrastructure and procedures robust, even in times of working remotely (“Home Office”)
• Drones can be used to collect data and deliver products, even in regions not accessible to humans
• Design Thinking and Agile Management were already mentioned.
• etc.

On the other hand, the SMART organization continuously adopts to “new normals” (that are not just caused by crises but also by disruptive innovations in complex markets). That adoption does not take place in an ivory tower, it is based on machine learning and on other sophisticated analysis. And it ensures that creative processes are embedded well within the organization and lead to results.

A SMART organization that continuously improves or even reinvents itself can be assumed to be resilient, as it adopts quickly and turns challenges into chances and eventually gains from that as competitors fall behind.