Executive Perspectives on Challenges to Enterprise Agility

  Agile   Strategy  

Part of the Enterprise Agility Executive Voices Series

Enterprise agility—the ability to change quickly and effectively to respond to risks and opportunities—is becoming a core organizational capability. Many organizations struggle to achieve it, however, because their operating structures, governance models and leadership behaviors were designed for a more predictable world. There is a strong tension between the aspiration to become more adaptive and the realities of how organizations today actually operate.

These tensions are what underly the PMI Agile Alliance Manifesto for Enterprise Agility: a set of values and principles designed to help organizations move beyond isolated agile practices toward truly adaptive, enterprise-wide ways of working. In developing the Manifesto, PMI interviewed executives across industries about the barriers organizations face in becoming more agile enterprises.

The quotes that follow provide a candid view into where enterprise agility meets resistance, why these challenges persist, and what organizations must tackle if they hope to become truly adaptive enterprises.

1. Challenge: Cultural Resistance

Jeff Leach, Co-founder & COO, Adaptivity: “There's the notion of the frozen middle of an organization. You have a lot of middle layer of management who may not understand their role as it moves forward. And so…

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