Seven Actions for the Adaptive Organization

In 2021, I looked at all the available research on how companies were thriving in spite of the pandemic--including our own,How We Thrived: Virtual Project Management Practices During the Pandemic and Beyond. The resulting white paper, Establishing the Adaptive Organization offered seven ways that organizations could use the learnings from a time of crisis to prepare for future challenges.

Now, we've updated that white paper with findings from our 2023 research into Project Management Skills for Value Delivery. The resulting new version, Establishing the Adaptive Organization: Seven Transformative Project Management Actions incorporates the crucial role played by developing advanced strategic and business skills in your project management personnel.

Among the revelations from research into organizations' 2020 responses, one stood out for me: that the most successful pivots and adaptive actions taken by companies were not in thier strategic plans, had not been previously thought of, and were often not suggested by people tasked with organizational transformation. Instead, groundbreaking innovations rose from the grassroots, crossed departmental boundaries, and were often completely new to the corporate culture.

How do we develop the kind of organization members who are capable of these flights of agility? It isn't by training for compliance with exisiting rules. And teams that generate creative responses to crisis are not those who merely check off the boxes, but those who are trusted to take on transformative roles.

Don't wait for the next pandemic, cyberattack, wildfire or stock market crash to get your organization's project management personnel prepped for quick response. Training in advanced skills, a culture of trust, and a focus on benefits and principles instead of policies and procedures can be developed now.