Want Organizational Agility? Focus on Adaptation and Resilience (Part 1)

Johanna Rothman, known as the "Pragmatic Manager," offers frank advice for your challenging problems. She consults with leaders and teams to help them learn about practical and possible options. They can then decide how to adapt their product development. Her most recent book is "Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility." See www.jrothman.com for all her books.

  Agile   Change Management   Product Management  

For years, we’ve heard about “agile transformations.” These transformations start with great fanfare. The teams learn some supposedly agile framework. Everyone starts in lock step.

And then, Something Happens. Sometimes, customers want something different. Or the market changes. Or, some other company releases something your company did not consider and you’re playing catch-up.

These are the circumstances in which we need organizational or business agility.

A Working Definition of Organizational Agility
Organizational—or business—agility allows an organization to adapt to new circumstances. Sometimes, those new circumstances occur when…

• the entire market changes
• when a specific competitor releases something that changes how you see your product
• when a team learns something from its customers that changes the product strategy

While team-based agility focuses on the team releasing increments of value, organizational agility must include strategy (both organizational and product strategy).

That means that organizational agility also includes the value of decisions, specifically the managers’ decisions at all levels. They need to be aware of change, and how those changes might require adaptability and resilience.

The Difference Between Adaptability and Resilience
Adaptability is about seeing changes …

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