The Project Management Institute® (PMI) recently published its Pulse of the Profession report. One of the topics which receives key mention in it and resulted in its own detailed report is Organizational Agility.
Organizational Agility is the capability of a company to be flexible and rapidly change or adapt in response to market shifts. A company that has a high level of organizational agility will be able to react successfully to the emergence of new competitors, the development of new industry-changing technologies, and overall leads to better performance that will put them on the competitive edge.
Companies must make a concerted effort to make changes in three areas of agility. Over-reliance in one area can be hazardous, especially in turbulent times.
The first area is Strategic or Change Management practices. This means that companies must be skilled in spotting and capitalizing on game-changing opportunities
The second area is Mastering Risk Management. This involves the capacity to identify and mitigate factors that could prove detrimental to success. For example, management may need to shift resources quickly and effectively out of less promising business areas and into more desirable ones.
The final area of Organization Agility is to Standardize Project Management, Program Management, and Portfolio Management practices (OPM). A company needs to create a solid foundation in all three practices. This could include manipulating opportunities within a focused business model. When standardization occurs, the opportunity to measure, control and continuously improve is possible.
In a weak global economy, the benefits of a highly agile organization mean higher revenues, customer and employee satisfaction, improved operational efficiency, and faster time to market.
Cadence specializes in partnering with its clients to create organizational agility though increasing their expertise in project, program and portfolio management. These services include training to establish the disciplines and consulting to ensure that the organization adopts best practices quickly after training, creating the right organizational environment for continuous improvement, year after year.
- To view PMI’s Pulse of the Profession, visit PMI Pulse of the Profession Report
- To view PMI’s report on Organizational Agility, visit Organizational Agility