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Agility is often seen as a process when it is really a mindset (supported by processes, of course). Yes, it's all about testing and learning and new ways of working, but at the heart of agility is the determination to give the customer something he or she wants or needs. That is the point. The company-wide anchoring of this principle offers a uniform reference point. While almost every company claims to be “customer first”, a closer look under the hood often reveals that internal efficiency or profit rather than customer needs are the real driving force.

An agile mindset assumes that everyone is responsible for the customer, be it the CEO setting the business strategy, the salesperson serving the customer directly, or the data scientist developing analytics platforms. You can only embed agile ways of working if it becomes a core value that creates cohesion and purpose. This is not about doing your job better. It's about serving the customer better.

The way a true customer-first ethos is brought to life is based on design – the process of integrating the customer perspective into all developments.

This is much more than just gaining insight or creating sleek websites. It's about building an adaptive learning process around the customer for everything the company does.

The right design is worth a lot. Top quartile companies on the McKinsey Design Index, which rates companies based on their design strength, outperformed their peers by up to two to one in terms of growth.

Here are two of the most important things the winning companies do:

1. You go to great lengths to know the customer

A design approach requires solid customer knowledge to understand the real needs of potential users. Still, only about half of the companies McKinsey surveyed did user research before generating their first design ideas or specifications.

An international pizza chain wanted to improve home delivery, a crowded market where consumers were already spoiled for choice. The data analysis revealed that one of the biggest factors in customer satisfaction was how hot the pizza they delivered was. That fact led the company to invest in “Intelligent Kitchen” technology, which uses the delivery address, driver availability and current location, and road conditions to determine when orders are baked to ensure the customer gets a hot pizza . This approach increased total sales by 7 percent in the first year and more in the years that followed.

The best results are achieved when both quantitative and qualitative research are constantly combined. A top team invites customers to a regular monthly meeting to discuss the benefits of their products and services.

And the CEO of one of the largest banks in the world spends one day a month with the bank's customers, encouraging all members of the C-suite to do the same.

2. You continuously improve with customer feedback

Continuous improvement is the key to the success of a digital transformation. This is the raw learning skill. You can see this in companies that promote a culture of sharing early prototypes with outsiders and discouraging excessive time spent on models or internal presentations. Despite the value of iteration, nearly 60 percent of companies in our survey said they only use prototypes for internal production testing and even then late in the development process.

New technologies enable companies to gain insights and test products in dramatically faster ways than traditional market research or focus groups. Digital marketing teams can use video chat to convene online customer panels and watch the panels test products and provide real-time feedback. An insurer created digital diaries to identify customer problems that would previously have gone undetected.

Likewise, digital companies can quickly A / B test new products and campaigns with thousands of customers in hours or days.

Agile defined

Agility is not just a process. It's a mindset that puts customer goals first. Team autonomy works best with guiding principles about what needs to be done and why.

Agile trainers are necessary to train people to learn new skills quickly – leaders included.

Agile budgeting helps scale agility by quickly allocating money to projects.

Agile working methods can only prevail if they are supported by stable processes.

Design thinking is the obligation to fully understand your customer.

Contribution to the BSI by: Arun Arora, Peter Dahlstrom, Klemens Hjartar and Floria Wunderlich. Excerpt from her book Fast Times: How Digital Winners Set Direction, Learn, and Adjust (Amazon Publishing)

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