Strategic Agility: using Agile teams to explore opportunities for market-creating innovation

Abstract

Purpose Describes how Agile teams can use strategic management tools and processes to discover market-creating innovations. Design/methodology/approach The related article “The next frontier for Agile: strategic management” in the previous issue of Strategy & Leadership explored the theory and possibilities of enterprise-wide Strategic Agility, a combination of Agile mindset and processes with strategic management theory to produce continuous market-creating innovation. This second installment offers insights from noted practitioners about implementing it. Findings The strategic concepts of Kim & Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy, Clayton Christensen’s Job to Be Done theory and Curt Carlson’s SRI Playbook – Need, Approach, Benefits per costs and Competition (NABC) can be adopted by Agile teams seeking innovations that create new customer value. Practical implications Identifying a well-defined Job to Be Done produces the start of an innovation blueprint which is unlike the traditional marketing concept of “needs” because of the much higher degree of specificity required to identify precisely what problem your potential solution would address. Originality/value Using strategic management concepts, Agile teams can redefine how needs are being met and in the process, discover value for customers from offering something or doing something that the company or the industry currently doesn’t provide.