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STRATEGIC AGILITY™

Elevating Organizations for High Adaptiveness

The Org Topology approach doesn't prescribe a direction. It simply allows scanning the landscape of organizational design choices and mapping the current status. We distinguish between three org topologies serving very different optimizing goals.

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The #1 Resource-Centered and #2 Delivery-Centered org topologies dominate org design choices. They prefer isolated individuals with limited capabilities and teams with narrow ownership. They optimize for resource utilization and lead time in delivery. If that's what your organization needs, those are the topologies for which to aim.

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But are they fit for purpose in product development? These two organizational topologies provoke the culture of excessive management and external coordination needed to ensure end-to-end customer value creation. Such organizational structures and operating models impede collaboration and limit human intelligence — by design. There are cases where this is desirable.​

In product development, solving adaptive complex problems requires cross-functional and cross-component work and authority for the boundaryless application of existing and learnable skills. This allows organizations to discover and unlock untapped human potential.

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The “Next-Level Wave” is the movement toward creating a #3 Customer-Centered org topology consisting of higher archetypes that learn and collaborate toward shared outcomes. The B2-C3 archetypes of the Org Topologies are gaining the best of both worlds by combining flow efficiency with outcome orientation. Often, this requires structural organizational change, followed by cultural adoption. This is Strategic Agility — a thoughtful org change aimed at elevating an organization to the top-right quadrant of the map. The target state is commonly known as Business Agility at Scale.

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Our mission is to collect, crystallize, and share principles and guides on making this possible. Embrace the growing collection of Elevating Katas as the practical source of these ideas.

Old Challenges Require Modern Solutions

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Erik, Director of Engineering

"Are fast-flow teams enough for an efficient organization?"

Erik, the Director of Engineering, is interested in creating fast, modern R&D.

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And now, as the majority of Erik's teams are mastering fast flow, he has started to wonder what the true north for his R&D is. Erik has observed that even though all the teams are working at full speed and doing their best, it is still challenging to deliver what truly matters from the business and customer viewpoint.

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His recent insight: there is more to creating an efficient organization than creating autonomous fast-flow teams.

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But how to capture today's successes and move on without losing the flow and hitting the limits of people's cognitive load?

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Paula, Head of Product

"Do we need another reorganization to stay relevant for our customers?"

Paula, the Head of Product, believes her mission is to build a great product organization that is capable of driving the business impact.

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The efforts in the recent organizational change initiatives paved the way to become more resilient in the ever-changing business landscape. However, Paula has realized that her organization has spent a tremendous amount of effort to sustain its performance, and it will struggle to live up to the constant flow of unforeseen challenges.

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Her recent insights: there must be a better way to get the organization in shape to keep delivering on the strategic initiatives without the need for constant reorganizations.

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But how to balance sustaining the current performance of teams with the constant need for change?

Elevating Katas™

Guides that stimulate organizational design to move toward higher-level archetypes (B2-C3 levels) as per Org Topologies™ Mapping.

Elevating an Organization in the context of Org Topologies™ refers to the ongoing process of improving the organizational ecosystem to close capability and value gaps. This involves adopting new mindsets and structures to enhance business agility and overall adaptability. The goal of elevating is continuous improvement and innovation across the organization. ​

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Elevating Katas are the guides (tools, templates, workshops, patterns, examples) developed and collected by Org Topologies™ to help organizations implement practices of higher archetypes, promoting systemic changes rather than local optimizations. This approach helps organizations become more adaptable, innovative, and resilient. ​

Towards a Collection of Elevating Katas

Organizations that elevate their value-creating ecosystems follow these guiding principles:

1. From managing dependencies to collaborative value creation

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2. From fast flow at the team level to being efficient globally

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3. From reducing the cognitive load to expanding on human potential

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4. From constant reorganization to adaptive org design

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5. From 'divide and conquer' to managing the whole

Industry Examples of Elevated Orgs

Stories from the Trenches

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