Agile literally means flexibility, agility. When you work from the Agile methodology, you are aware that circumstances change, the methodology allows space for this and even encourages testing partial solutions. No large master plan that is implemented step by step but smaller projects that build toward a big goal of which you have only agreed on the outlines at the start of the journey.
To work truly successfully in an agile way, a shift in working methods and organizational culture is often needed. With a focus on flexibility within your team, collaboration, and placing the (future) audience at the center. It means building and maintaining a culture that fosters trust, continuous improvement, and experimentation. All success factors that are also important in digital projects, which is why DEN is happy to share some elements that are important for Agile working in a cultural organization:
Culture of ownership
Agile working requires a culture where everyone feels ownership of their work, teams are self-organizing, and open to change. Transparency in processes and decision-making is important, ensuring that everyone is aware of progress and results.
Collaboration
Agile working thrives on good cross-disciplinary collaboration: sharing knowledge between different departments and disciplines.
Audience at the center
Agile organizations are customer-focused, which means for the cultural sector: place the audience at the center. Strive to respond quickly and effectively to the needs of your audience. Ask your audience what works well for them, what their needs are, and how you can best address them.
Continuous improvement
You build an organizational culture in which regular evaluation and feedback are used to constantly seek ways to improve services and processes. Create space for experimentation and learning from the process itself. Experimentation also means being allowed to fail in an experiment. There is much to learn from that as well, and by keeping experiments small, you can quickly make improvements.
Successful agile working thus goes beyond doing an agile project with a select group of employees and an external (technical) party. It is an organizational change that can be immensely inspiring to take new paths and get closer to your audience.
Does this all sound like something you really want to do within your organization, but you’re wondering: what’s next? Also read this article about the different roles in an agile project. (opens in new tab) Or are you convinced but don’t know how to get the rest of your organization on board? Then consider our workshop change management. (opens in new tab)
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