To cope with market developments, prevent risks and preserve your company’s competitive advantage, the ability to anticipate changes and take the lead is essential today. It is also one of the key qualities of agile management.

What is agile management? Definition

Agile management first appeared in the United States in the 1990s. Traditionally adopted by IT companies and start-ups, this management method has now been widely democratized and extended to all sectors of activity.

This managerial style is intended to improve the operational efficiency of employees and the company’s ability to react quickly to future changes .

Agile management also comes with many dedicated project management tools and methods, such as Scrum; Kanban; the Lean method…

What are the criteria for agile and quality management?

Agile management is characterized by a large number of human and managerial qualities, such as:

organizational skills,
responsiveness,
flexibility,
adaptability,
Rapid decision-making,
collective intelligence,
leadership,
emotional intelligence,
relational intelligence,
stress management,
the ability to delegate,
humility,
…

Agile management is also based on 12 main key principles (listed in the Agile Manifesto). These include the following commitments:

Put customer satisfaction first;
Always welcome changes in a positive way;
Build projects on short and iterative cycles;
Encourage initiative and empower teams;
Prioritize face-to-face interactions;
…

Agile management is therefore characterized by a desire for operational excellence, responsiveness and adaptability in the face of change. This inevitably implies that managers and their teams must have a strong ability to anticipate future changes, crises and challenges.

How to develop anticipation in management?

Here are some best practices to strengthen the ability to anticipate changes within the company:

Identify the challenges related to the need for anticipation: improving the company’s competitiveness, boosting performance, promoting well-being at work, reducing financial risks, ensuring the sustainability of the organization, etc. It will also be necessary to ensure that all employees are aware of these issues;
Establish transparent and close communication between the different departments and hierarchical levels of the company to ensure that you have, at all times, a global and immediate knowledge of any risks and changes to come (operating in silos has no place in agile management!)
Identify the different types of changes to be anticipated and deploy appropriate means and resources to respond to them: decrease in employee engagement; external or internal crises; Departure of an employee or manager; emergence of new competitors on the market; decline in activity; financial risks… To anticipate these changes, it will be necessary to continuously monitor the evolution of the market, supply, demand, technological innovations, customer expectations and needs, etc.

Analyze, on a regular basis, the evolution of the company according to several performance indicators – KPIs (absenteeism rate, turnover, sales performance, marketing, etc.) and draw lessons from these results;
Identify the warning signs of change and quickly adopt proactive actions to control the risks associated with them and seize any opportunities that may arise.