Agile literally means agility, flexibility. When you work according to the Agile methodology, you are aware that circumstances change; the methodology makes room for this and encourages testing partial solutions. No large master plan implemented step by step, but smaller projects that build towards a big goal, the contours of which you only define at the start of the journey.
To truly work agile successfully, a shift in working methods and organizational culture is often needed. With a focus on flexibility within your team, collaboration, and putting 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 particularly 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 everyone is informed about 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: put 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, where their needs lie, and how you can best address them.
Continuous improvement
You build an organizational culture where regular evaluation and feedback continuously seek ways to improve services and processes. Make room for experimentation and learning from the process itself. Experimenting also means being allowed to fail in an experiment. There is much to learn from this as well, and by keeping experiments small, you can quickly make improvements.
Successful agile working therefore 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 incredibly inspiring, paving the way for new directions and bringing you closer to your audience.
Does this all sound like something you really want to do within your organization, but you’re thinking: 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 change management workshop. (opens in new tab)
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