At the Amsterdam Business Forum 2026, I listened for the word “agile.” Agile is what I help implement, after all. I discovered not ONE speaker used the word. They did, however, have a lot to say about the hard part of agility: learning fast and making tough decisions based on facts. You would expect to hear about Agile on a conference about learning speed, change, and teams. Nonetheless, these leaders had a interesting things to say about business agility. I’m sharing them here.
Learn faster than your competitors
Steven Bartlett has just argued that growing businesses must reward trying, because you cannot know the output of an experiment in advance.
“The one metric that would determine how you’re going to scale over the next 10 years relative to your competitors is: did you or your competitors have a higher rate of experimentation? Did you acquire firsthand information fastest?”
Barlett is not asking whether you have sprints or stand-ups. He is asking whether you get usable information before the other side does. The speed of learning is only a strategy if that information is allowed to land. He says you cannot tell which experiment will work. “That is why it’s called an experiment.” If you’re looking to support a required answer, you do not have an experiment. You have a plan wearing a lab coat.
Beware of local optimization: reimagine.
Diana Kander names another trap: in the big planning meeting, we ask how to do last year a little better.
“The more innovative question is: How can we reimagine?”
“Reimagine” means a blank page. That is hard. Last year’s plan is already staffed, budgeted, and socially safe. Reimagining takes slowing down and collecting new evidence. It is great agility, however, if you can let go of the suboptimal.
I see this often in the Agile simulations I run. I nudge all teams to reimagine their initial ideas. Furthermore, I tell them I accept a dip in output. The teams that can reimagine typically triple their initial results and expectations.
Focus on clarity. Certainty is an illusion.
Seth Godin names the mindset by carefully considering the words people use. He asks: Are you looking for clarity or for certainty? More clarity is achievable this week: what we know, what we do not, and what we will try. Certainty is certainly not achievable, because it means demanding that the future stop moving. If you require certainty from teams, they will not bring insights; they will bring you theater.
Again, he doesn’t use the word, but the core idea of agility is that certainty is an illusion, but this should not keep us from starting the work and creating clarity. Instead of clarity, we usually talk about transparency. I do like clarity better: clarity, inspect, and adapt!
Risk is the price of the new
Dr. Eva de Mol gave an overview of her research into investing and innovation. “Without risk, there is not one success,” she quipped. “If you are doing something truly new, some work will fail—otherwise you probably have not been creative enough.” A portfolio in which every project succeeds is most likely last year’s plan plus a little extra. It’s just delivery. Which has its merits. But it is ultimately not enough.
Jacinda Ardern describes the same problem from society’s perspective. We celebrate curiosity in children, she says. Then, as people take on formal jobs, we replace it with a demand for almost absolute knowledge. Where Godin advises clarity, her approach takes it one step further. She advocates proximity, curiosity, and action: get close enough to see; admit what you do not know; then do something that can change the next decision.
Before the next expensive commitment
None of the speakers needed the word Agile. They still discussed the hard part of Agility: pay the risk, seek clarity, and let the evidence move the plan.
I like to make things practical. Here’s a tool I use for clarity and learning fast. Think of an ongoing project and fill out these lines.
- Risky unknown:
- Cheapest test that could reduce it:
- Decision that this test is allowed to change:
The third line is key. Without it, the test is moot. Don’t get stuck in the agile theater. Learn what matters, like your business depends on it. Because it does.