Business Agility Foundations: A Framework

Explore an agile people-centric framework for business agility

How should organisations optimise for success in complex, uncertain environments?

On this three-week course, you’ll discover an agile, people-centric framework to understand the elements needed for business agility and the power of agile teams to improve performance and deliver better customer value.

Use business agility and agile teams to improve performance and customer value

You’ll learn about the characteristics of people-centric agile organisations using a business agility framework and consider some of the structures adopted by agile organisations, with a focus on agile teams.

As team working is the recognised work model for many organisations, you’ll learn about team relationships, dynamics and dysfunctions, and the conditions needed for high-performing teams. You’ll also find out how a network of collaborative teams with appropriate autonomy for decision-making can outperform more traditional organisational structures.

Learn what it takes to become an agile organisation alongside industry experts

By the end of the course, you will be able to consider the characteristics of an agile organisation and ways to build business agility through teamwork. Learning from the specialists at The Open University and the Agile Business Consortium, you’ll also be able to discuss elements of successful team-working and how empowered, collaborative teams can increase business agility and deliver more value.

This course is for anyone new to business agility or those with a basic understanding who want to know more. Some workplace and/or team-based experience will help you understand the content of the course in the context of a working organisation (of any size, sector, or industry). It’s particularly suitable for:

• Those who want to know how they can develop their own practical business agility for future roles.
• Those struggling to understand how to survive and thrive in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world.
• Those wishing to broaden their skillset and expand their Continuing Professional Development.

• The characteristics of agile organisations
• Welcome to the course
• A framework for business agility
• Agile people and teams
• Rounding up
• Creating successful teams
• Welcome to Week 2
• Teams and relationships
• Understanding group dynamics
• High-performing teams
• Rounding up
• Autonomy and collaboration
• Welcome to Week 3
• Autonomy and responsibility
• Collaboration and agility
• Rounding up