Agility: The act of basing actions on current reality, as opposed to being predictive or plan-driven.
Often, we see people make plans, very detailed plans and when those plans need to change they fault the planning effort. Managing effort by shifting precision and attention is key to an agile process and keeping things movi
ng through the system. A great leader manages to detail enough to get moving, learn from realities encountered and in a positive manner shift attention to ‘next steps’.
As we encounter information that informs or alters our expectations we manage that with planning. In this context planning becomes a continuum and our agility is an observable behavior of an adaptive system finding a way to build complex products. Complex problems require an adaptive approach to management.