Agile is dead, long live Adaptivity
In the vast landscape of organizational change, we are explorers. We come from diverse worlds—music and art, research and journalism, theater and literature—bringing fresh perspectives to the challenge of business transformation. Through our varied experiences in projects large and small, we’ve discovered a fundamental truth: the way we think about organizational change needs to change.
We are not aliens. We are astronauts. We navigate in uncertain worlds. We navigate on the edge of the present. We call ourselves Adaptomos, heroes of change.
As Adaptomos, we’ve observed a paradox: the processes designed to transform organizations have become rigid. Our mission emerges from this realization—we must rescue organizational transformation from its stagnation.
Consider Scrum and the “Manifesto for Agile Software Development,” cornerstones of modern organizational change since the 1990s and 2001 respectively. For years, these methodologies represented the promise of growth—like an eager child anticipating adulthood.
But that time of joy is over. Perhaps only management consultants and so-called change managers were looking forward to it. The employees in companies that were supposed to be transformed into agile organizations were probably never happy.
They were all of a sudden told:
“YOU can decide now”
“Organize YOURSELVES”
“CROSS-functional teams are the future”
If only getting there wasn’t so exhausting.
Recently, a friend of mine, who is an organizational developer with a consulting firm specializing in agile transformations, said that he didn’t know of a single case of a successful transformation. Every change he had accompanied had hit a snag at some point or failed entirely.
That is why my friend does not promise castles in the sky, when reality offers only a simple hut in the suburbs. He is ruthlessly honest. He says the things that others only think but wouldn’t say because they harm their own business.
My friend is right. And then again, he’s not.
He is right because so-called agile transformations are difficult in principle, while the associated expectations are extremely high. Hooray, self-organized teams deliver faster, deliver more, and also constantly ensure product improvement! And anyway, with Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, or LeSS, everyone is much happier and the company runs like clockwork!
These ideas have proven to be naive and that is the reason why agility is said to be dead.
Agile and Agility are now terms charged with frustration. We at Adaptomos have never liked these terms. Agile sounds like physical agility and has the connotation of physical training. Animals in the forest are agile. The connection with work processes seems far-fetched. To us, the word adaptivity sounds more businesslike and technical than agility. We like that and therefore use this term.
We are not saying that adaptive transformations are any easier than agile ones. This is just another generic term and, of course, the difficulties behind it remain the same
We use adaptive to clarify where we stand and what we are going for: in unstable and rapidly changing environments, increased adaptivity is necessary.
This is the founding stimulus for Adaptomos. We offer a seemingly lightweight concept that does not require therapeutic reworking:
The unconditional will to be relentlessly truthful, and a great deal of patience.
