The Adaptive Organization in M&A
Mergers and acquisitions remain the most expensive way corporations learn that organizations are not machines. Global M&A deal value reached roughly $4.9 trillion in 2025, up…
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67 Years of Iterative Development
Most people trace agile back to a ski resort in Utah in February 2001. That's the wrong starting point. The first documented short-cycle iterative programs were…
Hoshin Kanri × AO Method: Integration Scorecard
Hoshin Kanri and the AO Method (Adaptive Organization) operate from complementary strategic instincts — yet their operational logics create real tension when merged in high-velocity, complex…
From Scientific Management to Sensemaking
This essay consolidates two complementary intellectual traditions — Dave Snowden's three-era model of management evolution and Karl Weick's seven properties of sensemaking — into a single…
Team Agility with the “Apple Tree” facilitation
Adaptive organizations rely on teams that can continuously realign their work with a changing environment while preserving coherence with the wider system. At the team level,…
Belonging without pretending we’re a family
From a systems perspective, belonging in AO is less about emotional closeness and more about clear identity and boundaries. People need to know: Who are we as…
Comparing Stern Steward NextGen Model with AO
don't hide that AO took a lot of NextGen. The initial AO-Method focused strictly on expending an agile way of working. It did not consider target…
Gamification in Complex Adaptive Systems:
Gamification, which involves applying game design elements in non-game contexts, has become influential. It is used across organizational development, education, digital platforms, and civic engagement.
Comparing VSM and AO: A Guide to Organizational Dynamics
VSM or Viable Systems are based on Ashby's law of Requisite variety, included in Cybernetics, and Stafford Beer's experiments. The concept is to analyze an organization…
The Dynamics of Agile Systems: Key Insights
Agile Systems Dynamic Model describes “agile” as the evolving behavior of a complex social system rather than a static framework. The key elements focus on agents,…
AO (Agile Organizations) — Core Elements & Structure
AO treats “Agile” as a dynamic in a system (i.e. the organization) rather than simply a set of practices. AO - Agile Organizations+3agilealliance.org+3InfoQ+3 The goal is…
Designing Adaptive Organizations
This document examines the use of the Agile Organization (AO) model. It serves as a structural and cultural transformation framework for a 200-person consulting startup. The…
Principles of the AO method
"From an AO perspective, "Agile" is the nature of the interactions of agents within a system." "we differentiate structure (the fail-safe container) from organization (fail-safe experiments).…
Clean Language: A Catalyst for Agile Teams
The author shares their journey with Clean Language in coaching, highlighting its effectiveness in improving communication within teams, especially in Agile contexts. Utilizing metaphorical exercises, such…
Experiences: UX, CX, SX, PX, OX, EX
While working with one of my customer on designing the vision of his organization as an agile enterprise, came the question, and how do measure it?
Portfolio Management
Making sense and value-driven are undoubtedly the most used two words in Agile. All the people aspects (PX), customer-centric issues (CX), and process optimizations (SX) are…
Transactional work
Understanding Transactional Work Transactional work involves activities that do not directly create value. They do not support value creation or enhance the nature of that value.…
Designing an agile Digital Enterprise
My Mission at the End of a Fascinating Project At the end of a compelling project, my client gave me a task. I needed to train…
AO Projects with Scrum X
Speaking about projects in an agile context is always funny. In January, I had a conversation with my friends Mike and Michael in Vienna, and when…
AO Programs
Programs are a collection of projects and support activities supporting a single significant initiative. In an agile and empirical manner, you never start a program as…
Apple trees
While working with my teams, I was looking for a simple solution visualising the amount of work. My idea was to move out of the traditional…
The AO process
Initially Hoshin Kanri has been influenced by Deming PDCA´s and Drucker´s management by objective. The Agile way of doing it is to assume that the first…
Roles in AO
In AO, the thesis is that the focus is given to the role and not function or job (Structure). You will have three principal characters: Purpose…
The AO (agile organizations) principle
The AO phases are simple achievalbe milestones for a coherent agile change.
Organization over structure
The purpose of “Structure” is different than for “Organization”. “Structure” is feeding itself by enforcing the robustness of the enterprise. That idea was valid from an…
Simples rules applied to scrum and agile
A decade ago, a Scrum Trainer called Krishan Mathis explained in a simple what agile means to him. Agile is “Inspect & Adapt”, treat people like…
Decoding systems with Cynefin
Cynefin was developed by D. Snowden and Mary E. Bone and was the subject of a 2007 HBR publication entitled “A leader’s framework for decision making”.…
Addressing new challenges
Changing paradigms
“One of the things which has plagued western society, particularly in terms of management, and that comes in the development, is an obsession with recipes people…
Understanding 21st century work
In the beginning, there was an idea; a simple design that might change the world and surely will delight all our customers. That idea, I shared…
What’s agile?
On my journey to try to define the meaning of agile, I came through Clean Language. “Clean” is a way to ask the question in a…
Agile is everyone’s mouth.
We are in 2019, and maybe I am wrong, but I have a strong feeling that the whole business world is putting the word agile everywhere.…
To understand agile “systems” LinkedIn debate
How to deal with distributed teams
why does this matter? On the tablet “work from everywhere” sounds a perfect fit for a global company, but the reality seems more trivial. Co-location or…
Bibliography
Agile Digital Enterprise Bibliography « A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making », D.Snowden and M. Boone, HBR « Five Dysfunction of a Team », P. Lencioni « An Agile Adoption and…
The agile Digital Enterprise Framework
In 2015 and 2016, I had the opportunity to work on two important Digital Transformation projects. The first was “Fab and Furious” for LaPoste Innovation in…
Scrum X, scrum from an agile organisational perspective
I’ve been a passionate Scrum practitioner since over a decade and I really value it. Scrum is the most used agile framework and it is well…
The agile transformation paths
When we say agile transformation, we all have some hidden expectations in mind (read this). In change management, a transformation is a milestone to reach your…
What’s agile?
Maybe you are not aware but “agile” is everyone mouth mostly when your activities have a huge IT part (like most) when you are in banking,…
Shifting paradigms
AO is a framework to help you to shift from one paradigm to the sense-making.