Flawless Execution (FLEX), Your Agile Surfboard for the 3rd Wave of the Internet

We are on the cusp of the third wave of the internet. A vast ocean of opportunity lies before us. The first wave of the internet was infrastructure, the second wave was connections, this third wave will leverage business services in conjunction with distributed cloud solutions that we are just beginning to imagine; and Flawless Execution (FLEX) is the way to navigate it.

As this future emerges attention is moving from internally based analytical view of planning and delivery to a more outward emphasis of unceasingly identifying and responding to threats and opportunities in short iterations.

Regardless of the process, Agile or not, decision-making is still relatively hierarchical and the result of this is often slow centralized decision making. This has led to the rise of ‘Water-Scrum-Fall’, where Agile practices are adopted mechanically, but culture, habits, and values of the organization have not changed, resulting in a lot of frustration of doing something new, but not seeing positive results.

Instead of taking a process-led approach to adopting Agile, organizations need to focus on creating a shift in culture. Processes and teams are transient, whereas culture becomes innate and creates the default habits that persist in an organization. Flawless Execution (FLEX), is the lightest, most minimally intrusive, agile method that can facilitate organizational shift in culture outside of just software engineering.

Predictability is no longer a competitive advantage. Adaptability is. The value of Agile is not in its practices or processes, but in the mindset shift that develops individual core competencies to be adaptive, transparent, collaborative and responsive. The flexibility in Flawless Execution (FLEX) gives you all of this and in doing so the associated competitive advantage.

By focusing on people through the Flawless Execution (FLEX) patterns and freeing your teams from a complex process and structure-led response to disruption, your organization can develop a culture that thrives in complex, unpredictable, and rapidly changing environments, and succeed at building high performance teams. Catch the wave and enjoy the ride. Surfs up!