Agility is the capability to be flexible, responsive, and adaptive to the changes happening around you. When a stakeholder asks you to deliver something you had not planned on, your response is a measure of your agility. But how much agility is enough?
I was once part of an organization that was extremely agile. Whenever anyone in the organization had an idea, it would send the developers off in a new direction – quite often before they were half done implementing the previous idea. It was like a rudderless sailboat. Although we had an intended course, we never followed it and were instead at the mercy of the wind to see where we were headed that day.
I have also been in an organization where they wanted detailed plans for two years ahead, and any deviation from the waterfall plan required an “act of God”. In this organization we generally knew exactly where we were going. Unfortunately, we also knew that if and when we eventually got there, we would be in the wrong place. The world never waits. A goal set to satisfy stakeholder needs today will rarely match stakeholder needs two years from now.
Obviously each of these extremes has its pros and cons. I often wonder why so many organizations seem to live at one extreme or the other. I think neither is the right answer for most organizations.
So how much agility is enough?
There is no absolute right answer. Each organization and project will have its own right answer, and even that is likely to change over time. But I believe for most organizations and projects, the answer should involve what I call Well Managed Agility.
Next time I’ll talk about what I mean by well managed agility and how you can achieve it. In the interim, I’d love to hear about your experiences with agility or lack of agility.
Dave Sturrock
VP Products – Simio LLC