Who should drive the agile charge? Should it fall on HR teams to take the lead and help organisations to adapt?

I think HR teams should be leading the charge. If we want to enable agility throughout an organisation, we need empowered and highly efficient teams, who have knowledge and competencies to take over different projects. 

As the people function in the business, HR teams are best placed to lead and help create more agile structures. It’s time for HR teams to change the way they work, because if we continue to work the way we have always worked, we can’t drive change in the rest of the organisation.

If you look at some of the key areas of a business - recruitment, change management, people development, learning, and mentorship - HR plays a crucial role. We’ve got the opportunity to make a big difference to the way businesses operate in the future.

For HR teams looking to adopt agile working, where do they start?

Agile working requires a change of mindset. It starts with reviewing and removing structures and practices that don’t work within your organisation and adopting an agile mindset, values and principles.

 To successfully start working in a more agile way, principles such as trust, transparency, empowerment, accountability, and increased diversity will be key. You then use different tools and practices to make them come alive.

Some first steps?

• Run a retrospective every week to gather feedback on what went well and what didn’t go well, so that you can make adjustments;
• Visualise work on the wall with a Kanban board or similar, to help keep projects on track;
• Hold morning meetings for your HR team;
• Create cross-functional teams;
• Focus on feedback, creating feedback loops and using things like Kudo cards to recognise and motivate employees.

And don’t forget to create an environment which is psychologically safe. We have to create an environment where everybody dares to be themselves, to express their opinions, to try new things, and to learn. We also need to understand that complex problems don’t have simple solutions, so we need to experiment, make mistakes and learn from them.

The key is to start making changes. It’s important to remember that making small changes will have a big impact, gradually changing the culture and increasing the agility of your team. Culture and mindset are key. Agile is a mindset, and mindset is a journey.