Comments on: Is Anyone Thinking About Managing Agility? http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/ A member of the Gartner Blog Network Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:33:28 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Why Isn’t Strategy a Bad Word in Down Times? http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/comment-page-1/#comment-1630 Why Isn’t Strategy a Bad Word in Down Times? Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:32:54 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/#comment-1630 [...] http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/ [...] [...] http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/ [...]

]]> By: BPM Leverages Agility http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/comment-page-1/#comment-1528 BPM Leverages Agility Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:30:37 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/#comment-1528 [...] http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/ [...] [...] http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/ [...]

]]> By: Jim Sinur http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/comment-page-1/#comment-28 Jim Sinur Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:17:11 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/#comment-28 Nick, Really sharp business folks manage agility in a couple of ways. One is to set constraints, so the agility is bounded. The other is practice scenario plannning, so that there are anticpated needs for agility with preprepared rules on the shelf, ready to go. These two approaches can help guide agility, so maybe the word is guide. Guiding is a form a management, certainly not manical in nature by any means. Jim Nick,

Really sharp business folks manage agility in a couple of ways. One is to set constraints, so the agility is bounded. The other is practice scenario plannning, so that there are anticpated needs for agility with preprepared rules on the shelf, ready to go. These two approaches can help guide agility, so maybe the word is guide. Guiding is a form a management, certainly not manical in nature by any means.

Jim

]]> By: Nick Jones http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/comment-page-1/#comment-27 Nick Jones Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:03:53 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/#comment-27 Isn't "managed agility" a bit of an oxymoron? If you knew what was going to happen in the future then you'd have a plan for it and could prepare processes, systems etc. The reason you need agility is because you're operating in territory where the future is unguessable or at best you have a very short term window into it. So maybe it's not classical "management" so much as riding the tiger and hoping it goes in roughly the right direction without eating you. Traditional metrics based management may be less useful, because you only know what you should have measured after it happened. Do BPM people have aterm for this style of management? Isn’t “managed agility” a bit of an oxymoron? If you knew what was going to happen in the future then you’d have a plan for it and could prepare processes, systems etc. The reason you need agility is because you’re operating in territory where the future is unguessable or at best you have a very short term window into it. So maybe it’s not classical “management” so much as riding the tiger and hoping it goes in roughly the right direction without eating you. Traditional metrics based management may be less useful, because you only know what you should have measured after it happened. Do BPM people have aterm for this style of management?

]]> By: James Taylor http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/comment-page-1/#comment-22 James Taylor Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:17:12 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/#comment-22 Jim I remember reading a number of pieces on agility that you and your colleagues posted some while ago and I tried to summarize what I saw as the differences between <a href="http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/decision_management/2006/07/achieving_agility_some_notes_a.php" rel="nofollow">process agility and decision agility</a>. Hope it helps JT Author, with Neil Raden, of Smart (Enough) Systems Jim
I remember reading a number of pieces on agility that you and your colleagues posted some while ago and I tried to summarize what I saw as the differences between process agility and decision agility.
Hope it helps
JT

Author, with Neil Raden, of Smart (Enough) Systems

]]> By: Dan Sholler http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/comment-page-1/#comment-21 Dan Sholler Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:02:37 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/#comment-21 Isn't there an old adage that says you cannot manage what you cannot measure? We have done some work around measuring agility (see <a href="http:.net//www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=491436" rel="nofollow"> Defining, Cultivating and Measuring Enterprise Agility </a>) To measure IT agility, I have not seen a precise metric, but I have spoken with a number of organizations that are looking at general heuristic measures to get trend indications. Simple things like measuring the time and cost to make changes of a certain scale (small, medium, large) will not give you precision, but over time you can get a clear indication of direction. Isn’t there an old adage that says you cannot manage what you cannot measure? We have done some work around measuring agility (see Defining, Cultivating and Measuring Enterprise Agility )

To measure IT agility, I have not seen a precise metric, but I have spoken with a number of organizations that are looking at general heuristic measures to get trend indications. Simple things like measuring the time and cost to make changes of a certain scale (small, medium, large) will not give you precision, but over time you can get a clear indication of direction.

]]> By: Jim Sinur http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/comment-page-1/#comment-20 Jim Sinur Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:52:23 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/#comment-20 Rashid, I agree about the font size issue, but thanks for the comments anyways. Agility is a topic that clients brought up before we may have added our brand behind it. From a personal experience perspective, my business partners at NML & AMEX were demanding faster response. Jim Rashid,

I agree about the font size issue, but thanks for the comments anyways. Agility is a topic that clients brought up before we may have added our brand behind it. From a personal experience perspective, my business partners at NML & AMEX were demanding faster response.

Jim

]]> By: Brian Hellauer http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/comment-page-1/#comment-19 Brian Hellauer Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:43:02 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/#comment-19 Thanks for the feedback re the comments field. We are looking into it. Thanks for the feedback re the comments field. We are looking into it.

]]> By: Rashid Khan http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/comment-page-1/#comment-18 Rashid Khan Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:52:34 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/#comment-18 Jim Please ask your Web master to increase the font size of the comments field and provide some more space so that people like me do not have to squint while typing comments. I think that will encourage more comments, Try writing a comment yourself.. Jim
Please ask your Web master to increase the font size of the comments field and provide some more space so that people like me do not have to squint while typing comments. I think that will encourage more comments, Try writing a comment yourself..

]]> By: Rashid Khan http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/comment-page-1/#comment-17 Rashid Khan Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:50:08 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2008/10/14/is-anyone-thinking-about-managing-agility/#comment-17 I think you hear a lot about agility only because it has beome a buzz word. It is so commonly used in analyst circles that people feel compelled to use it when talking to a Gartner analyst. On a macro scale, the economic mess we are in is a clear, big indication that the financial services industry is no where close to agility. The problem has been festering for years. This is the industry with supposedly the best IT infrastructure: BPM, BAM, BI, BRMS.. you name it. And yet it took years for it to fester and explode.. and no one saw it coming. Or if they it coming they did not know what to do about it. It goes to show that if the rules are crappy and the motivation is skewed, no amount of BPM, BI, BRMS will provide agility. I think you hear a lot about agility only because it has beome a buzz word. It is so commonly used in analyst circles that people feel compelled to use it when talking to a Gartner analyst.

On a macro scale, the economic mess we are in is a clear, big indication that the financial services industry is no where close to agility. The problem has been festering for years. This is the industry with supposedly the best IT infrastructure: BPM, BAM, BI, BRMS.. you name it. And yet it took years for it to fester and explode.. and no one saw it coming. Or if they it coming they did not know what to do about it. It goes to show that if the rules are crappy and the motivation is skewed, no amount of BPM, BI, BRMS will provide agility.

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