Knowledge Futures Forum 2011: The Agility Imperative - March 18-19, 2011

The 21st Century is transformed by true globalization, almost ubiquitous connectivity, exponential increases in degree and speed of capture and access to data. This degree of access and connectivity has blurred lines of organization and social settings.

While content sourced by institutions is rapidly growing, content sourced by individuals is accelerating at a higher rate. Citizens of the new millennium – whether they are individuals, organizations, or societies – must be able to deal with the complex dynamics that are inherent in the post-industrial-age world. These challenges are real and place new demands on all endeavors, requiring us to rethink the way we structure and manage our activities and organizations. Decisions must be made more rapidly and more collaboratively. We must be able to continuously recognize the need for change and bring to bear knowledge and resources throughout our enterprises to determine the appropriate response to change and to foster change where needed. Pathways for success must be identified that do not require us to know the unknowable or predict the unpredictable. The ability of organizations to increase their responsiveness, robustness, resilience, flexibility, innovation and adaptivity is not simply an opportunity to be taken advantage of – it is an absolute requirement for survival. The agility imperative is causing us to re-imagine the ways that organizations must function in order to adapt to the complexity, volatility and uncertainty of 21st-century life.

To address global challenges like viral healthcare threats, social change, terrorism, sustainable development and climate change, infant mortality, or peak oil, as well as punctuated events like 9/11, the Katrina Hurricane or the Haiti Earthquake, Operation Moshtarak, or the Gulf Oil Spill, knowledge workers must use their knowledge in collaborative and integrative ways to adapt and deliver change, both within their organizations and across collectives, value-chains, and coalitions. Increasingly, this way of organizing occurs in the form of complex endeavors and networks that must be assembled quickly, produce something new or unique, and reassemble into new organization forms to fit changing conditions. Initiatives must be capable and adaptive; organizations disciplined and agile; success consistent and predictable.Facing an agility imperative, how can we develop the requisite capabilities within and across organizations? What are organizations in different communities doing today to evolve the capabilities needed in this changing environment (and what can our various communities learn from others’ approaches)? What are the roles of cross-community tools such as knowledge mobilization techniques and standards in addressing aspects of the agility imperative, and how might they need to grow into something different in order to be appropriate for this new problem environment?

These questions (and others) are being considered across the spectrum of enterprises throughout the world, regardless of domain: public/private, commercial/non-profit, product/service, military/non- military. Indeed, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish among the functions and domains across these categories. Corporations are important providers of necessary public services, while relying on and in many cases working hand-in-hand with government and military entities for security from both physical and logical (cyber) threats. Likewise, the mission spaces of militaries throughout the world have expanded to include a wide spectrum of operations, ranging from providing support to multi-agency disaster relief operations to complex Joint and international coalition efforts within a political-military environment involving a large variety of military and non-military actors. Even in so-called “traditional” military missions, non-military organizations and considerations are playing major roles. The internal complexity of organizations and agencies is increasing to cope with the broad range of challenges, and are building connections with others to grow their ability to share knowledge capably and achieve agility in ways that (attempt to) avoid needless bureaucracy.

This workshop will bring together thought leaders and senior decision makers from across the spectrum of sectors and organizations who are attempting to understand and deal with the agility imperative to discuss the nature ofthe problem, lessons learned from recent experience, and emerging work that has the potential to inform transformation efforts. Participants will discuss ongoing activities in their organizations and communities and will attempt to identify useful frameworks/standards for agility and best practices, as well as an agenda for future work that will address identified open questions and continue to grow the tools, techniques and methods that organizations can use for thinking about and responding to the agility imperative. 

For more information, see http://agilityimperative.com/event/knowledge-futures-agility-imperative