If You Understand Agile, You Can Understand EOS

Have you ever visited a country where you don’t speak the language and tried to communicate? You look for common words and gestures to connect and make yourself understood. That’s sometimes how I feel trying to explain EOS®! But I promise you this: If you understand Agile, you can understand EOS.

As an Expert EOS Implementer™, I constantly am looking for new ways to describe the Entrepreneurial Operating System®. If I throw out terms like Level 10 Meeting™ or GWC™ to someone less familiar, I can see the panic in their eyes.

How Agile and EOS Are Similar

“Agile” refers to the ability to create and manage change within a project. These project management methods and practices make sure work keeps moving forward in an uncertain and constantly changing environment. All the while the focus stays on delivering business value.

EOS does exactly the same thing but on an organizational level. Rather than being project-specific, it serves as an operating structure for the entire business and everyone in it. It aligns and harnesses human energy with simple concepts and practical tools. More than 130,000 companies use EOS to stay on track and get what they want from their businesses.

Getting Down to Business

Agile has supporting tools and frameworks that serve as the foundation of a successful project, and so does EOS. The five Foundational Tools of EOS easily translate to Agile users, as shown below:

1. Vision/Traction Organizer™ (VTO™) – Your two-page strategic guide that aligns your entire business around core values, Core Focus™, a 10-Year Target™, a 3-Year Picture™, and a 1-Year Plan.
2. Accountability Chart – This defines the right structure for your organization and aligns the entire team on their roles and responsibilities.
3. Rocks – The top priorities for each person and the company, set each quarter and prioritized above all else!
4. Meeting Pulse™ – The framework for essential meetings that brings transparency and clarity.
5. Scorecard – Everyone in the organization knows their responsibilities and how they get measured each week.

As users of Agile will recognize, these tools easily correspond to Agile concepts such as Roadmaps, Backlogs, and Sprints. We’re speaking the same language now!

You’ll Never Look Back

Like Agile, EOS takes a little time and patience to get your company set up and speak the language together. EOS Implementers help speed up the process! We have significant experience helping companies make the transition and stick with it through any challenge. After facilitating more than 850 EOS sessions, I can confidently say I’ve helped every company work through any rollout challenges.

Most product teams operate Agile through a software platform for visibility into a team’s work and how quickly they complete it. Similarly, the new EOS One™ Software provides an all-in-one digital resource to make running your business on EOS simple and efficient.

Once you’ve run projects on Agile, you can’t imagine not running them on Agile. We feel the same way about EOS!

EOS aligns the entire company with the leader’s vision. Everyone understands exactly what needs to happen to move the business forward, even in an uncertain and changing environment.

Did that make sense? I probably can’t help you talk to a cab driver in another language, but hopefully, I’ve made EOS clearer!