STRATEGIC PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION BEST

PRACTICES FOR ACHIEVING ORGANIZATIONAL

AGILITY: BEST PRACTICE REPORT
Executive Summary

INTRODUCTION
Organizational agility is the ability to quickly identify and execute initiatives to respond to
opportunities and risks that align with overall strategy. Organizations have to keep pace with the
opportunities and threats created by growing customer demands and disruptive changes such
as Big Data and the Internet of Things. This means that organizations must not only track
changes in their business environments but also nimbly change direction and implement new
initiatives in order to avoid risks or achieve competitive advantages.

In February 2016, APQC and its research partner Strategic

and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) conducted a survey to gauge organizations’
agility and discover which strategic planning practices (i.e., planning activities, internal and
external assessments, and implementation practices) affect that agility. There were 91
respondents to the survey.

WHAT DRIVES ORGANIZATIONAL AGILITY?

To get a better understanding of what drives organizational agility, APQC asked respondents to
rate their competency on two components of organizational agility: strategic responsiveness
and organizational flexibility.

STRATEGIC RESPONSIVE NESS

Strategic responsiveness is directly related to an organization’s strategic planning process and its
internal and external assessments. The drivers of effective strategic responsiveness are related
to the frequency of planning activities, planning methodologies, and the types of information
used to guide and support decision making.

Organizations that want to improve their strategic responsiveness should consider the following:
 Use planning methodologies such as scenario planning to anticipate future changes and
establish contingency plans.
 Move to a quarterly schedule for planning activities, be it corporate planning or internal and
external assessments. Quarterly planning activities keep plans flexible and allow
organizations to adapt to new opportunities and changes in their business environment.

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  Don’t focus only on lagging and financial measures. Organizations that include honest
assessments of core competencies combined with leading indicators such as customer
satisfaction, social trends, and brand perceptions can identify opportunities and risks earlier
and assess their fit quickly.

ORGANIZATIONAL FLEXI BILITY

Organizational flexibility is the ability to shift execution to a new initiative rapidly. It and
strategic responsiveness comprise the two components of organizational agility. Organizational
flexibility includes organizations’ ability to put in place or adjust processes and organizational
structures. Hence, organizational flexibility relates to organizations’ strategy implementation
practices.

Organizations that want to improve their organizational flexibility should consider the following
recommendations:

 Move to a monthly schedule for implementation reviews and quarterly reviews with senior
management. Monthly implementation reviews allow the implementation team to monitor
the performance of implementation activities and identify and develop responses to
roadblocks in a timely manner. Quarterly reviews with senior management keep plans
flexible and allow organizations to adapt to new opportunities and changes in their business
environment.
 Invest in incentives and communications with front-line and middle management.
Organizations that engage front-line and middle management employees create buy-in
throughout an organization. Include those who will execute the new behaviors on a daily
basis.

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES TO ORGANIZATIONAL AGILITY

To understand the common challenges associated with organizational agility, APQC asked
respondents to identify their top obstacles. The most frequently reported obstacles to
organizational agility were the following:

1. Operational silos.
2. Organizational resistance.
3. Speed of decision making.
4. Unaligned processes.
5. Poor knowledge management.

Although all five obstacles are important, the first two obstacles—operational silos and
organizational resistance—are common issues that organizations face during change activities.
The last three obstacles—slow decision making, poor knowledge management, and unaligned

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 business processes—statistically correlated to lower organizational agility. To address the last
three obstacles, organizations should consider:

 Addressing risk aversion. Encourage employees to take risks and fail fast in order to hasten
decision making.
 Developing a firm foundation of process and knowledge management practices. These two
disciplines help organizations overcome other challenges such as operational siloes. They
also incorporate the mechanisms organizations need to change how work is accomplished
and ensure the adoption of new practices throughout an organization.

CONCLUSION
Organizational agility is an important characteristic that helps organizations stay competitive
and take advantage of opportunities and risks. Although organizational agility is a two-part
concept, most organizations are more competent in strategic responsiveness than in
organizational flexibility. However, not all organizations need to optimize their strategic
responsiveness or organizational flexibility. The business environment that an organization
works in directly influences its required level of agility. Organizations that work in highly
malleable environments, such as shaping or visionary ones, tend to require a greater level of
agility. Organizations in these environments tend to gain competitive advantage through their
ability to react to changes in the market or identifying opportunities and bring those disruptive
concepts to market quicker than their peers. Regardless of the business environment, most
organizations can reap some benefits from improving their ability to plan and execute changes
quickly.

To learn more about how to achieve organizational agility, read APQC’s Best Practice Report.

ABOUT APQC
APQC helps organizations work smarter, faster, and with greater confidence. It is the world’s
foremost authority in benchmarking, best practices, process and performance improvement,
and knowledge management. APQC’s unique structure as a member-based nonprofit makes it a
differentiator in the marketplace. APQC partners with more than 500 member organizations
worldwide in all industries. With more than 40 years of experience, APQC remains the world’s
leader in transforming organizations. Visit us at www.apqc.org, and learn how you can make
best practices your practices.

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