How Agile Do You Feel Now?

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Agile   Change Management   Organizational Project Management  

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the world to make a lot of unplanned, disruptive changes in a remarkably short period of time. The speed with which the crisis spread resulted in changes to plans on an almost daily basis and significant shifts in direction at every level—from international communities to individuals.

For organizations, it resulted in almost continuous adjustments to how they operate, as leadership struggled to stay ahead of the impact the pandemic was having on everything from their supply chain to their capacity to their customers.

Of course, the level of disruption we are seeing at the moment is unlike anything anyone has ever experienced before, and we all hope that it is something that we never have to deal with again. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t learn from our experiences and try to improve things in the future. And for businesses, the big lesson is that they still aren’t very good at rapid and dramatic change.

Most businesses have seen significant confusion in their employee base as the situation has changed. There has been a lack of clarity around revised working methods, changes in policy or focus, messaging to clients and suppliers, and even whether a particular initiative is still going to continue. Adding to that confusion has been the mixed messaging that has resulted from decisions being adjusted before …

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