Best of both worlds

Flexibility in workflow management, and how agile principles can improve maneuverability of your business.

Some expressions have been overused to a point where they have lost their meaning. “The best of both worlds” might be one of them, but the title to Robert Palmers 1978 song also seems to be a full-blown paradox in the world of process management.

Rigidity gives predictability but leads to mediocracy

As organizations grow, the demand for grip on business intelligence often grows with it. Thus, processes are put in place to help control quality and performance which feed dashboards. These dashboards, in turn, give organizations the ability to steer and adjust, if the data proves it is necessary. Generally, these processes are created by operational managers who have one primary goal; predictability, and even though rigid processes help them to achieve predictability, the possibility to adapt to new insights and external influences is often endangered or even killed off in its entirety. Frequently, this leads to an uninspired workforce who, as a result, fall behind compared to (smaller) competitors.

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Operating in Agile/SCRUM projects, it’s always unsettling to see that organizations focus on maximum flexibility in their IT projects, but go for total waterfall methodologies in the rest of their business. Approaching business processes, workflow management and business development in small iterations using proven techniques from Agile project management, not only shows that IT and business will start to synchronize, thus increasing added value of IT, but it also enables the organization to empower its workforce and adapt in a way it can stay relevant. So operational and process managers; Get lean! Need help? We’ll bring the Post-Its!

~SIENN helps organizations to create internal synergy and develops solutions to improve flexibility and empowerment without losing grip.

Tijs van der Velden
R&D Manager