Business Agility

What Scaled Agile Frameworks Don’t Want You to Know

The Secret to True Agility

What Scaled Agile Frameworks Don’t Want You to Know: The Secret to True Agility

Imagine taking a ship out to sea. At first, adding more sails seems like the key to speed. The more sails you add, the faster you move, right? But eventually, the extra sails become a burden: more ropes to manage, more coordination needed, and suddenly, instead of speeding up, you’re slowed down by complexity. The ship becomes harder to maneuver in changing winds, and the crew spends more time managing the rigging than charting a course. 
This is what happens to many organizations when they scale Agile. Initially, scaling Agile seems to promise greater efficiency, better coordination, and increased control. But over time, those additional layers of governance, processes, and roles can create drag, slowing down decision-making, hindering innovation, and reducing the very agility that the organization set out to achieve.

Netherlands

Organizational

Digital Strategy & Execution

Technology and Telecommunications

How do I know I’m safe enough?

A Safe IT Environment

How do I know I’m safe enough?  Anyone concerned with making their IT environment secure will at some point ask themselves, am I on the right track? Am I doing enough about information security? Is my most important information (crown jewels) secure? What is good enough? 
Implementing a security framework (such as the BIO or the ISO27001 and NEN7510, for example), combined with a risk assessment is often the most commonly followed path. Implementing a framework does not directly answer the questions above. The use of a structured approach will help. Also, in the future, with new threats, this approach can easily be gone through again, to efficiently determine where additional measures are needed. So that one always knows that they are safe enough.

Edward Matray

Data & AI

AI ethics for public organization: A introduction series

AI ethics for public organizations

AI ethics for public organizations: A primer series

In the public debate, artificial intelligence (AI) is seen as means to increase worker productivity and provide better and more health care. AI could also speed up and automate administrative processes, distribute energy and resources more efficiently, and better detect natural hazards. AI is simultaneously a technology and a social promise. Public organizations are raising questions about AI. Should they do something with AI? How does AI relate to the problems that they must solve?

Thomas Mollema

AI ethics for public organizations: A introduction series

Risk, Resilience & Compliance

Striking a balance between security and privacy

Ethics and Zero Trust

Ethics and Zero Trust: Striking a balance between security and privacy

In the modern digital world, organisations are increasingly dependent on technology to protect their data and systems from increasingly sophisticated threats. To deal with this threat, an approach has been developed that has received a lot of attention in recent years: Zero Trust. This approach to information security is based on the principle that organisations do not automatically trust any part of the network, or the user. While Zero Trust can be an effective way to protect organisations, it also raises ethical questions regarding privacy and trust. In this article, we will explore the ethical implications of Zero Trust and how to strike a balance between security and privacy.

Martijn Hunsche

Applying Agile and Lean practices to Semiconductor Development

Applying Agile and Lean practices

The semiconductor industry is the cornerstone of modern technology, powering everything from smartphones and home appliances to automobiles and medical devices. Historically, semiconductor development has adhered to the waterfall model, characterized by sequential phases, rigid processes, extensive documentation, and prolonged lead times. While effective in certain contexts, this approach often struggles to keep pace with rapid technological advancements and dynamic market demands inherent to the modern semiconductor landscape.
Applying Agile and Lean principles and working methods to semiconductor development promises to address many challenges faced by traditional models, offering a pathway to more efficient, responsive, and innovative design processes.

Ralph Hofman

Davar Azarmi

Whitepaper: FinOps - The Key to Cloud Cost Management

Whitepaper: FinOps

Aleks dahlberg p VATCBKLH8w unsplash 1

Organizations are struggling with rising cloud costs. FinOps* enables them to gain insight into costs and continuously optimize them, leading to more control and better decisions around cloud usage.
*The term FinOps has been around for a while, but in 2019 The FinOps Foundation set itself the goal of promoting best practices, training and standards around financial management of the cloud.

The Practice of Applying a Customer-Centric Mindset

Applying a Customer-Centric Mindset

In today's competitive business landscape, adopting a customer-centric mindset is paramount for the success of any organization, especially those that are, or aim to be, <a href="https://highberg.com/nl/insights/product-led-impact">product-led</a>. This article explores the practice of applying a customer-centric mindset within such organizations, emphasizing the unique advantages of a network organizational structure over traditional hierarchical models.

Diederik Adema

Sustainability

Whitepaper: Opportunities in Sustainability

Achieving the European Green Deal’s ambitious goal for the EU to become the world’s first climate-neutral bloc by 2050 hinges on the actions of businesses. Companies play a pivotal role in driving the sustainability transformation essential to tackling climate change, reducing waste, and promoting social responsibility. As sustainability becomes an integral part of modern business strategy, Highberg understands the importance of staying at the forefront of this shift. This research delves into the commercial opportunities for Highberg in sustainability consulting by exploring client needs, strategies, and challenges. Through a deeper understanding of the sustainability landscape, Highberg aims to strengthen its consulting services and support clients in embedding sustainability into their core operations.
This whitepaper presents research based on qualitative interviews with nine organisations across various industries. Using thematic and content analysis, the study identified key trends, drivers, and barriers in sustainability practices. The findings highlight the challenges companies face and reveal opportunities for Highberg to assist them in overcoming these hurdles. As one interviewee insightfully noted, “Currently, sustainability is still a competitive advantage; soon it will be a right to play.

Gijs Verkooijen

People, Leadership & Culture

HR & People Analytics

Understand the 82 Factors Behind Your Company’s absenteeism

Discover the 82 Key Factors of Absenteeism

Goodbye to Absenteeism: Understand the 82 Factors Behind Your Company’s absenteeism

In many companies, absenteeism is still a big and expensive problem. It lowers productivity, creates stress in teams, and hurts overall performance. Even though more employers are focusing on employee wellbeing, it is often still difficult to really understand why people call in sick. A survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (<a href="https://www.cipd.org/globalassets/media/knowledge/knowledge-hub/reports/2023-pdfs/8436-health-and-wellbeing-report-2023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CIPD, 2023</a>) found that organizations implementing a continuous improvement and feedback loop approach to their wellbeing programs were 2.58 times more likely to achieve lower sickness absence rates compared to those that did not. This underscores the importance of regularly reflecting on and addressing the root causes of absenteeism as a strategy for reducing sickness absence and improving overall employee wellbeing. 
The challenge lies not just in recognizing the symptoms of absenteeism—such as frequent sick leave or reduced employee engagement—but in systematically diagnosing the root causes and acting on it. Tools like the health check (PMO) are instrumental in identifying certain factors related to employee wellbeing. However, while the PMO is valuable for uncovering health-related issues, it often falls short in addressing critical HR policy or organizational factors that may be contributing to absenteeism. 
Without a data-driven approach, organizations risk applying broad solutions that don't fully address the real causes of absenteeism. Therefore, resulting in wasted resources, and no reduction in employee absenteeism. 
This article aims to inspire you to reflect on whether you truly understand the most important root causes of absenteeism in your organization. Are your decisions based on assumptions, or are they backed by data and a clear understanding of the complex factors at play?

Laurent Knook

Highberg podcasts

Employer NPS 27

Highberg has various podcasts about Sustainability, Digitalization, Transformation, Europe and the Government. Curious about these topics? Listen to the podcasts via the links down below.

Digital

An HR-Analytics perspective

Is a 50/50 Gender Ratio Smart Business?

Does a 50/50 gender ratio target make business sense? An HR-Analytics perspective

BHP Billiton recently announced they aim for a 50% female workforce by 2025. This target is one of the boldest gender targets any global company has set, especially since mining is often regarded as a men’s world. The driver behind this decision is value creation. The miner says that a better gender balance in the workplace will improve performance and ultimately improve shareholder value.
When I read this news, as a Data &amp; Analytics professional, a number of questions immediately popped up in my mind. Let me share the four most relevant ones. Does diversity indeed improve performance? Should there be a 50/50 ratio, or could a similar performance impact be achieved at a different ratio? Is this ambition realistic? Will this decision indeed create shareholder value? Let’s have a closer look at these questions. Can they already be answered and/or how could HR Analytics help in answering them?

Culture Development

The impact of a corporate culture without psychological safety: causes and consequences

The impact of a corporate culture

What happened at Boeing?

Over the last three weeks, I've talked about how a positive culture can help an organization succeed. However, a poor culture can have the opposite effect and harm the organization. In this article, I will explain how problems with Boeing's corporate culture led to their recent setbacks. 
In case you missed what happened: a Boeing-manufactured Alaska Airlines plane door panel blew out midair over Portland, Oregon, on January 5th, forcing an emergency landing. Now there are a lot of concerns about safety and quality at the airline, as this was not the first time something went wrong with a Boeing plane. So, what happened and what role did their organizational culture play?

Niek Klaver

Enhance your organizational culture with best practices from industry leaders

Enhance Your Organizational Culture

Joakim nadell K67s B Vq L Luw unsplash

<a href="https://highberg.com/insights/enhance-your-organizational-culture-with-best-practices-from-industry-leaders-decision-making-values-and-rituals-traditions">Last week</a>, we discussed best practices for the organizational from industry leaders, specifically focusing on decision-making, values, and rituals &amp; traditions. In this article, we show how some of the biggest companies improve their organizational culture, through psychological safety, leadership, and DEI.

Enhance your organizational culture with best practices from industry leaders: Psychological safety, leadership & DE&I

Enhance your organizational culture

<a href="https://highberg.com/insights/verbeter-je-organisatiecultuur-met-best-practices-van-marktleiders">Last week</a>, we discussed best practices for the organizational culture from industry leaders, specifically focusing on feedback, collaboration and learning &amp; development. In this article, we show how some of the biggest companies improve their organizational culture, through decision-making, organizational values, and rituals &amp; traditions.

Enhance your organizational culture with best practices from industry leaders: Decision-making, values, and rituals & traditions

Enhance your organizational

A strong cultural identity is essential for businesses success. It helps to keep employees happy, encourages new ideas, and leads to overall success. But what makes the best companies stand out? The secret lies in how they build and maintain their workplace culture. In this article, we explore some of the successful strategies used by top companies. You can apply these practical tips and examples to enhance your organization’s culture and achieve excellent results.

Enhance your organizational culture with best practices from industry leaders: feedback, collaboration and learning & development

Transforming Culture: The Key to Psychological Safety

Transforming Culture

Afbeelding6

Have you ever silently questioned your boss's decisions but chose to keep your thoughts to yourself? In many organizations, people feel unsafe to speak up due to the prevailing culture. Unfortunately, this can lead to serious consequences. What if your input could have prevented a mistake or inspired your boss to find a new solution? When employees don't feel safe to speak up or take risks, it can result in preventable errors, missed opportunities, and a lack of new and innovative ideas. This hesitance to share his concerns and ideas often comes from not feeling psychologically safe, which is really important for creating a productive and innovative work environment.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Gender Mobility

The gender balance in the inflow, through-flow and outflow of employees says something about the Diversity and Inclusiveness of an organization. Thus, a good understanding of the mobility patterns of men and women is crucial for any organization that is serious about Diversity and Inclusion. Indeed, understanding these patterns helps to formulate answers around the questions below.
<ul><li>Are enough women coming in to maintain diversity?</li><li>Do women have the same opportunities as men to be promoted?</li><li>Is there a glass ceiling?</li><li>Does the organization have more/less difficulty engaging women?</li><li>What is the likelihood that diversity goals will be met?</li></ul>

Henrieke van Bommel

People Analytics Transformation

Calculate employee turnover (Employee turnover analysis)

Calculate employee turnover

Structurally high employee turnover is problematic for organizations. Excessive employee turnover incurs significant costs and can even impact issues such as business continuity and customer satisfaction. An employee turnover analysis, through advanced statistical analysis, identifies risk groups, helps to understand the causes of turnover, predicts how employee turnover will develop and predicts where turnover will occur.

In short, deploying HR Analytics on the topic of employee turnover gives organizations the tools to prevent employee turnover!

Irma Doze

Employee Experience

Labor-market positioning

Having the right people in the right place at the right time is critical to an organization's success. To effectively bring in the right people, it is essential to understand how your organization is viewed from the job market.
Are potential employees familiar with the employer brand? What positive and lesser associations do they have with the employer brand? To what extent is there an employer brand preference?
Answers to these and other labor market positioning questions will help you reach the right target group with an appealing message.

Employee segmentation

Every employee is unique. Yet some employees have more in common than others. Employees who are more alike often want similar things in their work. So it is useful to distinguish such groups within your workforce. This can be done through employee segmentation.

Strategic Workforce Planning

The Intelligent Fleet Scowl

The Intelligent Fleet Watch

Often the immediate supervisor assesses the quality of employees by determining, on the one hand, the performance in the recent past (performance) and, on the other hand, the expected potential contribution in the near future (potential) on a scale and thus identifies the top talents. But when do you speak of moderate, sufficient or excellent potential? The intelligent fleet review offers a solution!

Recruiting bias check

Does everyone have an equal chance of being considered for a job? AnalitiQs' Recruitment bias check analyzes whether there are significant differences between groups of applicants and the ultimate probability of being hired for a job.
The job market is upside down and every organization does its utmost to attract good staff. Nevertheless, there is a large group of people in the Netherlands who want to work (more), but ultimately do not get this opportunity. CBS calls this unused labor potential.
In an organization, this can mean that certain groups of people, for example women or people with a different or bi-cultural background, have less chance of being hired. Alternatively, they may be hired but have to prove themselves first and are therefore lower graded. A direct cause of pay differences.

Workshop AI for HR

Do you recognize yourself in the following situation?
You're not sure if AI is just a hype, but you also feel like you should do something with it because if it’s not a hype, you don't want to miss the AI boat.
You've read a bit about AI, but it all remains very abstract. You need an explanation in simple, straightforward language.
You want to practice applying AI tools to HR topics such as employer branding, recruitment, diversity &amp; inclusion, engagement, and employment conditions in a playful and safe way.
In that case, the practical workshop "AI for HR" is something for you and your team!

From HR Business Partner to Transformation Consultant

Highberger Philippine den Brave

Philippine den Brave

Before Transformation Consultant Philippine den Brave joined Highberg, she gained extensive experience in the HR field at Danone and ING. Why did she decided to make this switch and how did Highberg supported her? Read about it in the interview down below.

Highberger Philippine den Brave: From HR to Transformation Consultant

Fueling Growth: The Power of a Strong Feedback Culture

The Power of a Strong Feedback Culture

Employees truly are the backbone of every company. How successful a company is, comes mostly down to how well employees are performing. And for employees to perform well, they require feedback. 
In an organization where receiving feedback and giving is the norm, individual and organizational performance as employees feel more engaged and valued when they receive constructive feedback. This helps them identify areas for improvement and grow. As a result - greater organizational success. 
But how can your organization build such a feedback culture? 
This article explains:
▫️ the benefits of a strong feedback culture ▫️ provides practical steps to achieve it 
Keep reading to discover how feedback can fuel your workplace success.

Becoming an Transformation Consultant at Highberg: Partner Niels Groen

Becoming an Transformation Consultant

Niels Groen profile picture

Due to the great variety of projects in which Highberg is involved, it can be somewhat challenging to come up with an unambiguous explanation of how Highberg consultants deliver value to their clients. This can be particularly challenging for future candidates. To be able to explain this better, our Highberg consultant Mika Ambrose speaks interviewed one of our partners, Niels Groen. The most important thing you should know as a potential consultant at Highberg is how we deliver value, and how we make sure that we create a long-lasting impact.

Mika Ambrose

Niels Groen

Logic, Design and Implementation

Organizing around Value Streams

organizing-around-value-streams-in-product-and-service-development

One of the key challenges for optimal competitive performance of organizations in the digital age is ensuring high speed of value delivery in product and service development. Faster delivery in development processes not only enables earlier return on investments, but also allows faster validation of the real value of product and service innovation so that investments in unsuccessful initiatives can be minimized. Organizing around ‘Value Streams’ is a key step to optimal value delivery in the shortest sustainable lead time.
In this Insight, the logic of organizing around Value Streams is explained, guidelines are given on how to design Value Streams, and a five-step implementation approach is provided.

Florian van Santen

Organizing around Value Streams in Product and Service Development

Strategy & Change

Government and Public Sector

Case study 'Redesign HR Operating Model' NS

Highberg collaborated in a transformation with the HR Department of Dutch railroads on improving the HR service delivery model. Subsequently the HR Target Operating Model was newly developed. Read below about the context, approach, and the results which were achieved.

Mariëlle van Tilburg

Heiko van Eldijk

Case study: Redesign HR Operating Model for NS

A Highberg Case study: Productization in Shell’s Cloud

Case study: Productization in Shell’s Cloud

A Highberg Case Study

Following Shell’s Enterprise Cloud Platform transformation journey from project to product.

Koen Harbers

Simon Atteveld

Would you like to change your organizational culture?

Change your organizational culture

Culture; a fairly vague concept, yet everyone manages to give it a description. You probably recall the observing attitude that arises when you enter another family's home, visit another country, or experience the dynamics of a group for the first time. (Un)consciously, you take note of what is or isn't customary. What is being discussed here? What is valued? Or what isn't? What behavior or story can you expect a positive reaction to? In addition to families, countries, and groups of people, organizations also have their own culture. (Un)written rules set boundaries for employees' behavior in the background. If you want to develop your organizational culture, you must bring these unwritten rules out of the shadows and make them explicit. Therefore, Highberg's approach is aimed at converting the versatility of culture into behavior and concrete roles, creating control over the desired cultural change and the implementation and support of this change.

Riet Smits

Lianne Swenne

Would you like to change your organizational culture? Make desired behavior explicit and bring unwritten rules out of the shadows!

Stop looking in the rearview mirror. A plea for actionable metrics

A plea for actionable metrics

Portfolio Performance Measurement #2: Stop looking in the rearview mirror. A plea for actionable metrics

There is nothing wrong with looking in the rearview mirror. It is necessary. The obvious nuance being it should not be the only thing you do as you drive your car down a busy road. In our previous blog ‘<a href="https://highberg.com/insights/are-project-metrics-dead-a-quick-guide-to-lean-portfolio-measurement" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Are Project Metrics Dead?’</a>, we introduced two insights aimed at broadening our view of metrics. If we want to continue the car analogy; it is not just the roads, or the other cars around, but also the speedometer plus a mindful eye on any blinking red lights trying to warn you of a future car failure. We hope these first two insights will lead you to a more holistic understanding of ‘portfolio performance’. 

With such a wide set of metrics to choose from comes the next challenge: what should we focus on? How to use them to effect? Building on our first 2 insights, with Insight 3 we introduce the distinction between leading and lagging indicators. Insight 4 takes us to goal setting and one of the more popular tools in strategy-execution today, Objectives Key Results.

Portfolio Performance Measurement Continued: A Plea for Actionable Metrics

Are project metrics dead? A quick guide to Lean Portfolio Measurement

Are project metrics dead? 

Are-project-metrics-dead?

Do on-time, on-scope and on-budget metrics really have no place in modern, product-led, and agile-embracing organizations?

We've selected five measures that you should take to enhance your cyber resilience.

Five Measures to Increase Cybersecurity

Five Essential Measures to Increase Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience

Companies and governments will need to pay much more attention to cyber resilience to prevent serious damage in the future.

Steven Debets

Many crisis plans or business continuity plans stated: teams should exercise annually.

Annual Drills: What a Nonsense!

In many crisis plans or business continuity plans, it is stated that teams should exercise annually. Some organizations do this diligently, either due to a strong intrinsic belief in the importance of regular practice or a good routine. However, there are instances when such exercises become an eccentric motivation, as they might be carried out because the regulator, safety authorities, or adherence to a framework mandates it.

Floris Baauw

Gamification is a scalable change approach to achieve sustained desired behavior

Gamification for behavioural change

whitepaper-gamification-for-behavioural-change

Gamification is a scalable change approach to achieve sustained desired behavior and improve performance in the workplace.

Whitepaper: Gamification for behavioural change

Challenges around organizational transformation within large, Dutch organizations

Organizational transformation challenges

whitepaper-five-challenges-around-organizational-transformation

Five challenges around organizational transformation according to leaders within large, Dutch organizations and our reflections on them.

Whitepaper: Five challenges around organizational transformation

Innovative compliance therefore creates more ethical behavior.

Research compliance and innovation

white-paper-research-compliance-and-innovation

An innovative compliance program makes for an effective compliance program. Innovative compliance therefore creates more ethical behavior.

White paper: Research compliance and innovation

Exemplary behavior of leaders is crucial with integrity issues.

Moral leadership – the theme of this time

whitepaper-moral-leadership-the-crucial-theme-of-this-time

The exemplary behavior of leaders is crucial to reduce the reputational risk of integrity issues within your organization.

Whitepaper: Moral leadership – the crucial theme of this time

In this whitepaper, we compare Lean and Agile side by side.

Whitepaper: Lean vs Agile

whitepaper-lean-vs-agile

When is Agile working a good idea? And when is Lean working a better idea? In this whitepaper, we compare Lean and Agile side by side.

For an effective game fulfilling the conditions is crucial.

The 6 ingredients of an effective game

whitepaper-the-6-ingredients-of-an-effecitve-game

To ensure that a game is truly effective and contributes to the organizational objectives, fulfilling the conditions is crucial.

Whitepaper: The 6 ingredients of an effective game

Media and entertainment

Effective growth strategies for media firms

Media growth: Organic or acquisitions?

organic-or-acquisitions-which-growth-is-more-effective-for-media-companies

"Anyone who does what they can already do, always remains what they already are." This quote from the American automotive pioneer Henry Ford is more relevant than ever. Today, innovation and investment are required. Growth is not just an option, but a necessity for media companies.

Hendrik Langen

Germany

Organic or acquisitions – which growth is more effective for media companies?

The culture scan Whitepaper

The culture scan whitepaper

Welcome to our comprehensive guide on the Culture Scan offered by Highberg. This whitepaper provides detailed insights into how our meticulously developed standard Culture Scan can be tailored to meet your organization's unique needs. We are eager to discuss your specific requirements and explore how our Culture Scan can support your cultural transformation goals.

The Next 5 years decide

Transformation endgame (part 1)

transformation-endgame-the-next-5-years-decide

Newspaper publishers are facing the biggest challenge they have ever faced in their history. The next few years demand radical action. Even if you only hear the wind rustling softly in the distance: the storm is coming, and it is brutal.

Performance Improvement

"Doing better today is not a question, but a principle for staying relevant"

Sjoerd Hogenbirk

From a holistic approach including hard and soft skills, sustainable change can be attained.

Performance Improvement

Operational excellence

Data driven change

Related insights