George FreemanThought Leader | Author | Architect| Florida, United States
The need for organizational agility is paramount amidst the turbulence of disruptive technologies, hypercompetition, market uncertainty, instability, and other similar factors. Hence, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to state that most C-level executives would pronounce that “agility is king.”
That said, anecdotal evidence suggests that agile and agile-based practices have reached their bell curve peak and are starting to slip down the backside of popularity. I concede there’s plenty of room to disagree with that statement, and maybe it finds its truth in certain types of industries, environments, cultures, and company sizes, but it begs a deeper dive.
If there is truth to this proposition, what are the reasons for this leveling out or decline? Here are some example thoughts in this regard that might have merit:
[1] Specific industries may find that agile-based practices don’t provide them with the level of documentation they desire to satisfy regulatory compliance needs.
[2] An organization’s portfolio performance of agile-stamped projects may collectively have budget-busting and quality-concerning characteristics compared to non-agile-stamped projects.
[3] Medium and large organizations may find agile principles lacking effectiveness or challenging to execute due to disparate systems and structures that create siloing and objective alignment issues.
[4] Literalist formulations of agile supersede pragmatic needs within an organization, creating contention and results that fall short of objective success.
[5] COVIDized ways-of-working adjustments impacted finely-tuned “agile balances,” which never returned to equilibrium post-covid.
Over time, our profession has recognized that principles should guide the formulation and execution of our projects versus rigid “here’s what you must do” processes. However, many practitioners (newbie or otherwise) prefer to have the rigidity as it can be “sold” on its merit of a perceived fact versus expert opinion, which may be necessary within their organization’s confines.
That said, here’s my question:
Is agile, the methodology, the way of thinking, still the way to unlock “business agility,” or do we need to revise or reset and create another paradigm?
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