Ability to adapt in a rapid and cost-effective manner
Introduction to the notion
Source: Enterprise Transformation Manifesto; § 5.4.
The Enterprise System seeks out agility. In order for the Enterprise to be able to adjust rapidly, its Enterprise System must be built with agility in mind (§ 6.4).
Agility is a general requirement that may impose itself on the Enterprise System. It is first part and parcel of the intentional aspect, as with all other requirements. There, it is analyzed more precisely: What type of agility is called for? What scope? How frequent are the variations? etc.
We look for the variation points, aspect by aspect. Then, we can determine the best way to deal with each of these variation points. For example, organizational agility is a common request; it affects the pragmatic aspect and calls for specific operations that can combine a rules engine with an organizational object model.
Comment
This type of ability can be demonstrated by an enterprise or a system. For example, we can speak of organizational agility, conceptual agility, technical agility… depending on which aspect this ability concerns: pragmatic, semantic, logistic respectively. Enterprise agility comes from identifying the variation points and dealing with them through agility measures.
The running of the enterprise is judged in terms of effectiveness (ability to reach a goal, produce results), efficiency (efficiency in consuming the minimum of resources) and productivity (level of production for equal resources). Its ability to react to events is another quality, and one that is attracting increasing attention, commensurate with the world economic and political instabilities. The organization’s ability to react and adapt is evaluated on two levels:
- The reactivity of the organization (first level)
- The agility of the organization (second level)
Agility facilitates fast organizational reconfigurations, as well as the balancing of resources and the adaptation to radical changes in the environment.
Related terms: reactivity, variation point.