PMI: Enterprise agility crucial for disruption response
Enterprise agility is about building organisations that can adapt quickly without losing alignment, so leaders can respond to disruption while keeping their people and priorities focused on delivering value, the
- By Lucas Ajanaku
Enterprise agility is about building organisations that can adapt quickly without losing alignment, so leaders can respond to disruption while keeping their people and priorities focused on delivering value, the Managing Director, Project Management Institute (PMI), Sub-Saharan Africa, George Asamani, has said.
Speaking during the unveiling of the Manifesto for Enterprise Agility by PMI Agile Alliance a leadership guide for organisations facing frequent disruption and rising pressure to reinvent, he said: “Most organisations don’t struggle with strategy; they struggle with turning strategy into coordinated action. Enterprise agility is about building organisations that can adapt quickly without losing alignment, so leaders can respond to disruption while keeping their people and priorities focused on delivering value.”
PMI global C-suite research shows that reinvention is the norm: 93per cent of senior executives say they must rethink and challenge assumptions of their operating models or business approaches at least every five years, and nearly 65per cent say they are doing so every two years or faster.
The challenge is not recognising change and the need to adapt faster; it’s converting strategy into action.
That strategy-execution gap is where enterprise agility becomes essential – but where ambition still outpaces reality. While 85per cent of C-suite executives recognise enterprise agility as critical and very important, 65 per cent admit they implemented it to a limited extent or not at all.
Launched in the 25th anniversary year of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, the Manifesto for Enterprise Agility moves agility beyond teams and projects to the entire enterprise including leadership behaviour, operating models, governance, and culture.
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Rather than prescribing a framework, the Manifesto focuses on how leaders build and run the system for enterprise-level agility - governing with guardrails instead of gatekeepers, funding intent instead of activity, and moving authority closer to where value is created.
The Manifesto is anchored in four values which include clear purpose realised through adaptive plans: Guiding with purpose and adjusting along the way outweighs over-planning and the illusion of control; shared enterprise outcomes over functional optimisation: Prioritising long-term goals and cross-enterprise collaboration outweighs optimising for short-term, departmental key performance indicators (KPIs); continuous reinvention over preservation: Boldly challenging established operating models and innovation outweighs structural inertia and preservation of the status quo; and human-centricity amidst change: Continuous learning, developing resilience, enabling autonomy, and leading with empathy and trust outweigh leading change by process only.
The Manifesto for Enterprise Agility is for organisations that need to adapt faster, stay aligned, and keep strategy actionable. The principles guide executives and practitioners in operationalising the values and offer leaders the clarity to act on what really matters.
Endorsers of the Manifesto describe why that matters now.
Co-author of Superagency, Greg Beato, said: “Twenty-five years after the Manifesto for Agile Software Development presented a new way to think about software development, it’s time to apply similar thinking to enterprises as a whole, not just to projects or products. Just as the Agile Manifesto was a response to a major change in technological conditions driven by the internet, the growth in both physical and digital networks around the world compels enterprises to incorporate and deploy agility to their entire organisational systems, including leadership, operating models, execution governance, and culture.”
CEO of GE Appliances, Kevin Nolan, said: “Today’s business landscape demands rapid adaptation and greater agility. Agile organisations adapt faster and take the lead, while those not embracing agility risked falling behind as collaboration becomes essential in a dynamic environment.”
Also, former CEO and co-founder of Rebel Foods, Sagar Kochhar, said: “Enterprise agility is less about frameworks and more about leadership courage - the courage to reset the vision, dismantle legacy assumptions, and trust teams to execute within systems designed for speed. This Manifesto captures a critical truth: enterprise agility is not a transformation initiative, but a leadership mindset required to continuously reinvent vision, structure, and execution in a volatile world.”
The Manifesto is grounded in PMI research, including global C-suite surveys, executive interviews, and input from senior transformation practitioners, reflecting the realities leaders face across industries.
