The Agile Company, a Hands-On Guide in Embedding Tech for a Competitive Edge

By Fredrik Bodin

I remember first time as a kid seeing the "World Wide Web". It was at a fair where my dad participated on behalf of his company. He said, come here and look, type your name and let's see what you find. I cannot recall what the search results told, but I was not amused at that more time, but more leaning towards "well I have that at the library already".

 

Nevertheless, this was in an era of when business and IT was completely separated. Just like my dad being a supplier, also IT within an organization was a separate silo, serving the business side with all the requests. Whilst this approach had its merits, it also created a division between technology and the core business functions.

This book aims to challenge the historical supplier-customer relationship between technology and business and advocate for a paradigm shift in how technology is perceived and integrated within organizations. Instead of viewing technology as an internal supplier, organizations should be encouraged to embrace technology as a strategic enabler.

 

Companies today are facing an increased competition driven by this technological shift and acceleration in Tech, such as AI and Machine Learning. The question is, what will a successful company look like - is adapting to agile teams practice enough, or is there another way to completely transform a company? This book will take a stab at that question and the future will tell us – what an agile company will look like.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fredrik Bodin
• Release date: Jan 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224053445

Book preview

The promise of artificial intelligence and computer science generally vastly outweighs the impact it could have on some jobs in the same way that, while the invention of the airplane negatively affected the railroad industry, it opened a much wider door to human progress.

- Paul Allen

Chapter 1

Introduction

Entrepreneur. It’s one word I truly hate. Not because of it what it means, but in terms of someone thriving in a fast-paced, dynamic environment with little or no resources, running around the office with their hair on fire, looking for funding and their first revenue. But in terms of how excessively it’s being used for pretty much anyone running their own business. I’ve many times got the question: Oh, so you’re an entrepreneur. And every time I’ve said no, even though I’ve run probably more startups than most people since being a toddler in school. To me, the use of the word entrepreneur is describing someone that successfully has started, built and exited several companies in sequence. But it seems like many draws other conclusions and expectations of that word. It seems to be connected to someone who is working efficiently, is being independent, launching new ideas and challenging the common ways of things. If that is the essence of being an entrepreneur, then I’m happily associated to that.

In the world of business there is in general a strive to mimic the agility and lean operations from a startup, managed by entrepreneurs. When looking at LinkedIn and titles, everyone seems to have titles related to this, even though they are effectively doing something completely different. Over the years, as the company grows, this agility tends to drown under the weight of bureaucracy and processes. The dream of being able to quickly adapt to a changing business environment is still a far-fetched dream.

My first successful venture (if you could call it that) was when I built a recipe cookbook for PCs mid-1990’s. I was around 14 years old and it was written on a stolen copy of Visual Basic snatched (and handed back) from the local library. It was the only feasible way for me to transition from text-based programming to Windows-based software. Imagine suddenly having access to a user interface with a mouse and buttons! After playing around with several attempts to create something sellable, this recipe software was my first. It was marketed through the one and only computer magazine at the time. As this was before the time of the world wide web, my customers sent me cash in an envelope and I happily returned them with a floppy disk of Recette, your digital cookbook 1.0. Later versions was sold on a web site and recipes could be shared among users. It was thrilling to see how ones creation came into play in reality with real and paying customers.

My curiosity of computers came from my mum and dad, both working in the IT industry since 1980’s. My dad, being a salesman working on selling ERP software, often brought home various new computers which I could play around with, although my first