Organisational Agility

The agility paradigm suggests that knowledge management is central to an organisations’ capability to proactively anticipate environmental changes and respond to them effectively. This book specifically explores how organisational identity impacts knowledge flows within an organisation, influencing and negotiating its responsiveness. By looking at agility through the identity lens the author takes a cross-disciplinary approach that aims at offering a new and important perspective towards our current understanding of change management and in particular, of the agility model, making this book a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners.

The agility paradigm suggests that knowledge management is central to an organisations’ capability to proactively anticipate environmental changes and respond to them effectively. This book specifically explores how organisational identity impacts knowledge flows within an organisation, influencing and negotiating its responsiveness. By looking at agility through the identity lens the author takes a cross-disciplinary approach that aims at offering a new and important perspective towards our current understanding of change management and in particular, of the agility model, making this book a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners.

Despite the astonishing technological developments in our times, it is surprising how little has changed in the way organizations are structured and managed. However, organizations are finally changing as they embark on agile transformations. Agility concepts emerged from the dynamics of project management and have evolved as they are being applied to organizational structure and operations. This phase of the agile evolution is known as enterprise agility. Filled with real-world scenarios and company case studies, Enterprise Agility: A Practical Guide to Agile Business Management covers the evolution of agility, including applied processes, lessons learned and realized outcomes. The book starts with the initial phase of the agile evolution, project agility and describes how waterfall project management is transformed into scrum, which can have positive effects on project timelines, scope and budget, as well as team motivation. The second phase of agility, organizational agility, is the evolution of the agile principles from temporary projects to permanent organizational structures. The book explains the main components of organizational agility, including structures, roles and ways of organizing work. It emphasizes the advantages of transitioning from traditional organizational management to agile. Finally, the latest phase, enterprise agility, transforms each function of the organization. The book acts as a guide and describes the change through the lens of each managerial domain (sales, marketing, HR, finance etc.) and by presenting the positive impact generated on the company’s overall performance based on case studies. The last chapter illustrates the enablers of this transformation and how they can help the change to be internalized so that the enterprises realize improvements. The book is based on the author’s over 15 years of experience of supporting more than 25 companies in varied sectors on their transformational journey, with the last 5 years concentrating on agility. By combining business management trends and principles of agile business development, it shows managers how to lead the transformation to enterprise agility by following the path from project agility to full enterprise agility.

The Holy Grail for most organisations is the successful attainment, and retention, of inimitable competitive advantage. This book addresses the question of how to leverage the unique intangible assets of an organisation: its explicit, implicit, acquired and derived knowledge. The refreshingly innovative concept of Intelligence-Based Competitive Advantage© is one which will eclipse the cost-driven and resource-reduction attitudes most prevalent in the first decade of this century. Tomorrow’s organisation will need to derive IBCA© through the expert execution of bespoke competitive intelligence practice, unique analytical processes, pioneering competitive strategy formulation, and timely execution of all three, if they are to succeed. This volume consists of insights from Competitive Intelligence practices at both country and organisational level, Competitive Analysis processes within the firm and within challenging sector and economic environments and Competitive Strategy formulation in profit, non-profit, real and virtual world contexts. It is essential reading for anybody wishing to gain a formal understanding of the practical and intellectual challenges which will face organisations in the future as they strive to achieve strategic foresight and Intelligence-Based Competitive Advantage. This book was originally published as two special issues of the Journal of Strategic Marketing.

As technology continues to be a ubiquitous force that propels businesses to success, it is imperative that updated studies are continuously undertaken to ensure that the most efficient tools and techniques are being utilized. In the current business environment, organizations that can improve their agility and business intelligence are able to become much more resilient and viable competitors in the global economy. Achieving Organizational Agility, Intelligence, and Resilience Through Information Systems is a critical reference book that provides the latest empirical studies, conceptual research, and methodologies that enable organizations to enhance and improve their agility, competitiveness, and sustainability in order to position them for paramount success in today’s economy. Covering topics that include knowledge management, human development, and sustainable development, this book is ideal for managers, executives, entrepreneurs, IT specialists and consultants, academicians, researchers, and students.

Many argue that all organisations should strive to be agile. Exploiting Agility for Advantage takes a radically different view. The author’s research shows that requisite agility is required, meaning ‘not too much, not too little, of the right type and delivering wanted agility deliverables’. This is a book for managers who want their enterprise to be intelligently agile but don’t know how to achieve this. Part One shows why agility is a strategic option for commercial and not-for-profit enterprises. Part Two describes, in detail, a seven-step agility-orientated development programme for work-groups or entire organisations. Part Three provides academic underpinning on organisational agility for researchers and students of management. "Agility isn’t easy and developing it is going to need much more than a simple slogan. This book offers very helpful insights into the detailed mechanisms that underpin this capability, and practical guidance around how to build and embed them." (Prof. John Bessant)

Many argue that all organisations should strive to be agile. Exploiting Agility for Advantage takes a radically different view. The author’s research shows that requisite agility is required, meaning ‘not too much, not too little, of the right type and delivering wanted agility deliverables’. This is a book for managers who want their enterprise to be intelligently agile but don’t know how to achieve this. Part One shows why agility is a strategic option for commercial and not-for-profit enterprises. Part Two describes, in detail, a seven-step agility-orientated development programme for work-groups or entire organisations. Part Three provides academic underpinning on organisational agility for researchers and students of management. "Agility isn’t easy and developing it is going to need much more than a simple slogan. This book offers very helpful insights into the detailed mechanisms that underpin this capability, and practical guidance around how to build and embed them." (Prof. John Bessant) Author videos: https://vimeo.com/449735611 https://vimeo.com/461491774

The Missing Link in the Evolution of Kanban -- From Its Roots in Agile David J. Anderson developed the Kanban Method over years spent managing and coaching Agile development teams, at companies such as Sprint and Microsoft, by integrating Lean thinking with Agile principles and practices. This compendium of anecdotes and epiphanies shares this journey on the road to Kanban, now a popular method for improving predictability while managing change and risk in organizations worldwide. Topics include: -Why people resist change -The role of the manager in Agile development -Flow and variability -Timeboxes and delivery cadence -Estimation and metrics