Paper on Agile at Scale: Revolutionizing Leadership and Supply Chain Management for Business Excellence

Agile at Scale is a terminology arising from the word Agility. It refers to the application of the spirit of being agile towards the solution of problems, especially in a business environment. It is a concept of lean thinking and the placement of value on the employees, basic interactions, collaborations, and reduction of layers of passing messages. The concept and the methodology originate from a software firm, whose management was trying to find a new way of managing software development projects. There was a need to find a new innovative way to end the failing projects, especially in the 1990s(Partin, Np). The concept concerns the leadership of a firm and the awareness of the leadership about the formation of agile teams. The agile teams are designed to be closer to the consumers, detect any changes in the market, and adapt quickly to the changes and emerging needs. The ultimate results should be higher production from the team, improved morale of the employees, good quality products, and lower risks than the initial methodologies.

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The authors of the article are positive about the impacts of the methodology when applied in the leadership of a business. In a study by the authors, it is discovered that leaders had to remain realistic during the implementation because not all functions in an organization, needed to be arranged into agile teams (Rigby, Pp88-96). There should be a constant follow-up on the new teams to ensure that the frictions occurring due to the arising differences, do not affect the well-being of the firm. Agile at scale enables leaders to develop a taxonomy of opportunities and break down large goals for easy follow-up and accomplishment. The author has a view on the ways that the management of a firm can solve problems that are likely to arise from the implementation of the methodology (Rigby, Pp88-96). They advise that leaders should lead by example by being agile themselves when creating opportunities. They should always set modularized workstreams, that can seamlessly integrate. The functions within the organization, that cannot be organized into agile teams should incorporate the agility values. Finally, the VC–like approach to funding, should be utilized in the budgeting processes.

Supply chain management (SCM), is a wide area where agile at scale methodology is applicable.SCM is broad and entails the service industries, manufacturing services, and all other functions such as sourcing and logistics. Bosch Company is an example of a firm that has adopted the methodology in its supply chain management (Partin, Np). It is focused on innovation and excellence throughout the whole supply chain. The SCM is characterized by a very proactive process of making decisions, where the company can easily respond to the arising needs. There is innate flexibility in the sector, which enables sift functioning in production and supply (Partin, Np). The operations are not costly, and the productions are largely profitable. Bosch's supply chain management has taken an approach to a lean supply chain. The lean supply chain has focused on the reduction of costs through the production of a large volume of products, with little variability. It attains this aim by responding to the demands of the market, with a smaller number of items demanded.

Works Cited

Rigby, Darrell K., Jeff Sutherland, and Andy Noble. "Agile at scale." Harvard Business Review 96.3 (2018): 88-96. https://performancefrontiers.com/leadership/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Harvard-Business-Review-_-Article_-Agile-at-Scale.pdf

Partin, Patrik, and John Mörrby. "An improvement of the logistic performance for a supplier in a single echelon supply chain by implementing sales lead times in the safety stock policy.: A case study at Bosch Rexroth AB." (2016). https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:946085