The most substantial global power shift has been the world’s urbanization, which took its first significant strides during the 18th century’s industrial revolution. Since 1950, the number of urban dwellers has overtaken rural inhabitants, marking a significant turning point in human history.

Getting people to change what they do and how they do it on a frequent

basis is probably the most challenging of the three pillars. The irony is that

the people, as consumers, that are demanding innovative products and

services at an increasing rate to meet their needs are the same people, as

employees, that struggle with change – adapting to new

roles/responsibilities, learning new skills, performing new tasks – within the

companies where they work. However, tapping into what people do best –

engaging and collaborating with others, creatively solving problems, dealing

with business nuances – and giving them the latitude and responsibility to

manage their work can “grease the skids” of change.

Too much process and an organization’s agility will be diminished by rigidity

and a false sense of stability and control. Too little process and an

organization can’t scale effectively, run its operations efficiently and chaos

ensues. BPBA Consultant approach involves segregating processes into

those that are relatively static from those that are driven by a dynamic

marketplace. Static processes, by definition, likely only need major updates

every 2-3 years. These processes can be defined fairly rigorously and often

require a high level of conformance for regulatory purposes. However, the

closer a process is to the customer, the more frequently it will need to

change, sometimes as often as every 3-6 months. Entertainment and social

media companies have had to deal with this phenomenon for at least the last

decade.

Technology is the most straightforward of the three areas to address. The

classical waterfall approach, Agile Scrum or even continuous

integration/delivery are well-established practices for the gathering of

requirements, design, development, testing and delivery of software

solutions. So, how does an organization adapt its business in each of these

areas with the agility and responsiveness that it takes to compete effectively?

BPBA Consultant has identified three areas of competency and some of the

enabling technology platforms that address this question.

Sensing - providing timely and accurate business insights. This is

mostly about providing people with information on the external and

internal environments in which they and their company operate.

Understanding the past, managing the present and predicting the

future are all part of sensing

Responding – optimizing business processes through rationalization

and automation. Some processes are well-suited for automation –

those that are rules-based, relatively stable and manage a high

transactional volume.