Are agile organisations really inclusive? Surely, given the fundamental principle of “individuals and interactions over processes and tools” and the fact that almost every agile approach embeds collaborative practices, the answer should be yes. And yet, the lived experience of many people contradicts this. Putting these assumptions and hypotheses to the test, the Business Agility Institute undertook an ambitious, year-long, research project and heard from 500 people globally.

What we found is that there is a lack of understanding about diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I). Many people shared their personal experiences about feeling excluded or knew of others who had been. In most cases, DE&I was not part of the agile transformation designs; for either employees or customers.

In 2025, we have the opportunity to rethink our approach to DE&I in agile organisations and learn from those organizations who, as we discovered in our research, are intentionally designing their new ways of working to be inclusive. As thought leaders and change makers, we want to share ways you can make a difference to people in your team and create an organisation where everyone can belong. Impacting not only your employee experience but your customers’ experience and how you serve your community.

Ashay is a Product Owner at IBM, where he leads the development of enterprise-wide CRM platform that has won multiple international awards for product management and customer engagement. He is a PMI certified associate in project management (CAPM) and an IBM enterprise design thinking practitioner, with skills in agile methodologies, product ownership, and software project management.

He holds a Doctorate in Information Systems from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, with a focus on agile practices in distributed software teams. He has conducted case studies at global MNCs, such as Intel, GE, Mindtree & Thoughtworks, and published several journal articles, book chapters as well as conference papers on the topic. He is passionate about sharing his knowledge and insights on agile leadership, transformation, and innovation at various industry and academic forums, such as Australasian Conference on Information Systems, ACM Computers & People Research Conference, Agile India, Agile Leadership Summit, Agility Today Unconference, Global Inclusion Online Forum, India Agile Week and Software Product Management Summit.