POV:

The world is changing fast. And it’s only speeding up

You need an easier way to keep up with the change, or better yet, get ahead of it. Businesses are constantly under pressure to adapt and innovate, and start-ups rise in popularity because of their ability to move fast and break things. You don’t always have that luxury when you’re trying to adopt more agile ways of working. Maybe you feel like you’re too big of an organisation to change. Maybe you feel like you will hurt your core product if you try to innovate. Maybe you feel like changing too much will hurt the trust you've built with your consumer.

Date
By
Jake Carroll

While all these things can be true, there are ways to remain true to your current customers and consistently iterate to find and serve new ones. There is a world where you can achieve stability at a high level and agility on the ground. This is a world where you can balance the ambitions of your organisation with the needs of your end user.

Enter concentric agility.

What is Concentric Agility?

Concentric agile can utilise different feedback loops at different altitudes to better understand your customer and respond to their needs while not feeling like you have to pivot your entire business when you get new information.

What does it look like in practice?

At a high level, your organisation should be focused on what market and business opportunity you’re going after. You rely on larger, more systematic reviews of qualitative feedback, quantitative analysis, and market research to create a large feedback loop that informs bigger business changes.

This large feedback loop promotes stability.

At a medium level, your organisation should focus on the outcomes you’re looking to achieve and what strategy you have to get you there. You rely on smaller, more frequent quantitative feedback to build representative truths about your target audience.

This medium feedback loop encourages flexibility.

At the low level, you should focus on what output you are testing, your roadmap, products, and features. This, coupled with short cycles of qualitative feedback, uncovers underlying truths about your individual users.

This small feedback loop unlocks agility.

How to practice Concentric Agility

Here are some actions you can take right now to build more concentric agility.

Ensure you have stability at a high level.

How are you communicating the market opportunity, risks, and high-level direction to your teams? Do they have the resources, documentation, and communication to remind them of this direction?

Make sure you communicate your vision, mission, and direction to your team consistently.

Challenge whether you have flexibility at a medium level.

What data do you have to inform your strategic moves? How often are you reviewing and using this data to inform what you do next as a company?

Make sure you have a consistent review cycle to ensure you are setting the right outcomes for your teams.

Discover how you are encouraging or discouraging agility at a low level.

How often do you talk to real users? How often is their feedback disregarded in lieu of quantitative data? Do you have a research pipeline setup with consistent user interviews? How do these insights get surfaced and elevated to decision-makers?

The best way to understand your user is to listen to them. Ensure you have a strong connection to your customers and an even stronger connection to elevate their voice within your company.

The first step is always to audit, gather data, and take stock of how you’re doing. Once you’re able to see where your strengths and challenge areas are, you can begin to take more focused action to become more ethically agile.

Want to know more about Concentric Agility and how to apply it to your business? We’d love to chat.