Building an Agile and innovative Organization

 Building an Agile and innovative Organization

- By Kathy Harris

[Wall Street journal]

Operational excellence, an innovative spirit and persistent agility are three defining business strategies that will drive organizations during the coming decade.

 

- Surveys show that 80% to 90% of executives say innovation is important to their organizations, yet fewer than half take overt action to formalize an innovation program. Further, if a program is established, fewer that 10% are still active two years later.

 

- We at Gartner believe that innovation and agility are emerging management disciplines and are imperatives for business success between 2008 and 2012.

 

- Agility is an organization’s ability to sense environmental change and to respond efficiently and effectively to that change. Agile organizations are agile throughout, that is, their people, processes and technology are creative, flexible and adaptable to change.

 

- Agility doesn’t just “happen” in an organization; it is a management discipline that requires a clear process model, intentional design, careful development, and continual refinement.

 

- Agility shares manu traits with innovation. Like agile companies, innovative organizations are innovative throughout.Many organizations think of innovation as only the narrow domain

of disruptive changes that significantly alters markets, products and the rules of competition. In additiona to pursuing the “next big thing,” organizations should consider another dimension of innovation – that of operational excellence as the enabler of change.

 

- Operationally excellent systems and processes are by definition, agile and flexible. Therefore, the capacity for innovation is built in.

 

- Ultimately, it will be vital for organizations to rethink operational excellence as building in not only reliability, but also innovativeness and agility. The organizations aggressively pursuing these strategies will be well positioned in the coming decade.