Structural Agility, a next tree

The quest to find more trees for my agile forest continues. Structural Agility is again a way of working that fits in the culture targeted box of my The bird’s eye view on the agile forest overview and complements ‘frameworks’ like Scrum, SAFe, Less, disciplined Agile, et cetera.

Structural Agility (author Jardena London) supports business agility and rests on the core concept that structure enables flow; specifically, the flow of information, energy, and resources inside an organization. Understanding how Structural Agility enables flow begins with three key terms: structure, boundaries, and rules.

• Structure is anything that creates boundaries and rules to organize people and activity towards a shared purpose.
• Boundaries are the borders where things start and end, and help the human mind see complexity more clearly.
• Rules are a set of formal and informal directives that support the boundaries.

Structural Agility uses nine principles that are based upon three existing disciplines: Living Systems, Systems Thinking, and Dynamic Tensions (polarities or tensions between processes, practices, business outcomes, mindsets, emotions, and so on):

1. We view organizations as living, human ecosystems, inherently interconnected and able to flourish
2. Continuous design allows the organization to evolve
3. Agility only exists when we create conditions for it, instead of directing activity
4. We thrive by leveraging dynamic tensions
5. We enable flow through hierarchies which are naturally in service to each other
6. Adaptations for how we organize emerge from within the organization
7. At every level, the organization has a way to shed and spawn from within itself
8. Intentional development, both individual and collective, fosters organizational evolution
9. Shared identity allows for trust and self-organization.

More information and a download of the Structured Agility article can be found on https://businessagility.institute/learn/structural-agility-using-structure-to-enable-the-flow-of-value/

See the latest, updated version of my Bird’s eye view on the agile forest.