Geoff picks up on Neil Perkin’s post on Agile Planning.
Recently I have noticed the word ‘Agile’ showing up in the ‘Strategic Objectives’ of agency and corporate plans. Whilst it great to see that agility is being recognised in words, I see little evidence of agility being practiced. When we begin to talk about what organisations need to become to be agile in a complex environment, I notice a lot of push-back and fear. In fact recently, when I presented the features of High Reliability Organisations (HRO’s) the response was that they appeared ‘too risky’. In other words, many are fearful of letting go of control … and are not prepared to make (and learn from) mistakes.
He goes on to riff on a few qualities that contribute to agility.