Understanding How Business Transformation Processes Are Driven: A Business Agility Model

Agile transformation processes are of critical importance in the contemporary business environment, as companies invest a significant amount of resources, time, and attention into achieve a state of business agility. These processes are complex, and companies lack reference roadmaps, guides, and even a common language to successfully achieve their goals. To assist organizations in these transformations, several business agility models have been proposed to help understanding where the transformation effort must be applied and where its effects will be manifested. However, there are numerous such transformations, which may be partial, and which reflect the author’s beliefs and preferences, rather than necessarily aligning with the needs of organizations. Therefore, more comprehensive and general models are required. This paper addresses this challenge. Through a rigorous search and review process of the existing literature, 15 models were identified and used as a basis. After a process of analysis and refinement based on the completeness of business agility, the frequency with which their dimensions are mentioned in the models were analyzed, and the simplicity in the result was searched for, we propose a model based on nine dimensions. Each dimension describes where to focus the transformation process, plan the necessary actions, understand the results, and compare the process with other similar processes. The proposed model is comprehensive and highlights the dimensions most frequently mentioned in various cases and in the state of the art. It applies to the concept of completeness in business agility, covering the entire organization, instead of partial and biased views. This approach has been validated through a survey of participants in an ongoing study about agile transformations to increase the adaptability and sustainability of organizations. Our proposal has some known limitations, such as the criteria used in its elaboration, its granularity, and the equivalence of its dimensions with other models. As for its use, it is a tool, not a roadmap or a detailed transformation plan, and it has not yet been empirically validated.