Adaptive Approaches to Work Management

One-size-fits-all project management is a myth. Standardization may feel safe, but in reality, it stifles the delivery of value. The new PMBOK® Guide – Eighth Edition makes it clear: Context is key. Tailoring isn't just allowed; it is required to maximize value, manage constraints, and improve performance. Here is the 4-step framework to deliberately adapt your approach: 1️⃣ 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐈𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡: Predictive? Adaptive? Hybrid? Don't guess. Use criteria based on environment, team, complexity, goals, etc. to pick the right starting point. 2️⃣ 𝐓𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Modify your approach based on organizational governance and policies. This ensures you have the right oversight without unnecessary bureaucracy. 3️⃣ 𝐓𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭: Adjust for the deliverable, team size, and culture. 4️⃣ 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐎𝐧𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭: Tailoring is not a one-time event. Use retrospectives and phase gates to inspect and adapt your process throughout the project life cycle. Bring this framework to your next project kickoff or retrospective. Challenge your team to identify one specific way you can tailor your approach to better fit your reality.  #PMBOK #Tailoring #ProjectLeadership

I have been exploring how change is changing, how tried and true change methods need a refresh, a little zhuzh. More oomph. In an increasingly BANI world (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible), systems are fragile, people are stressed, events are disconnected, and information is overwhelming. Here are a few ways that change managers can adapt their approaches and build some anti-BANI bounce into their practice:  🏀 Shift Toward More Agile Experimentation: Ditch the linear change plan and embrace an iterative approach with smaller, more frequent changes and continuous feedback loops. This allows for adaptability in the face of brittleness. 🏀 Prioritize Empathy & Psychological Safety: Acknowledge the "Anxious" component of BANI by focusing on people. Foster safe environments to voice concerns, ask questions, and even fail. Open communication builds trust and mitigates anxiety.  🏀 Use Storytelling to Connect the Dots: In a nonlinear world, it's difficult to see cause and effect. Combat this by using powerful narratives to explain the "why" behind the change, providing clarity and meaning. Better yet? Invite others to co-create the narrative. 🏀 Simplify Information: The incomprehensibility of the BANI world means information can be overwhelming. Break down complex changes into simple, digestible steps using clear communication, visuals, and focused training.  🏀 Build Anti-Fragility Over Resilience: Focus on building individual and organizational capability that anticipates, manages, mitigates and integrates resistance as part of the change experience. Equip teams with skills and supports to help them thrive amidst constant change. Today, change muscle is required. 🏀 Foster a Learning Culture: Encourage a mindset where learning is continuous. This allows teams to quickly adapt to new information and unexpected events, turning challenges into opportunities. Moreover, embrace mistakes. Errors offer improvement and point us forward. 🏀 Empower Frontline Leaders: In a nonlinear environment, top-down info may not always be relevant. Empower frontline leaders to make decisions and act quickly as they are closest to the action and can respond to real-time changes. Team GOLD. 🏀 Promote Micro-Innovations: Large-scale changes can be risky and lack tangibility. Encouraging small, continuous improvements reduces the risk of costly failure, allowing for a more flexible and robust system of iterative actions that build on previous success. 🏀 Leverage Data for Anticipation, Not Just Analysis: Use data to identify weak signals and potential disruptions. This proactive approach helps in anticipating and preparing for a tricky future. 🏀 Focus on Purpose and Values: When everything feels incomprehensible, a strong sense of purpose and shared values can be a grounding force. Remind people of the organization's core mission to provide stability and direction in uncertain times.  Repeat. #changemanagement #BANI #futureofchange Changify

Open Invitation to Join the DVMS Institute new blog on Holistic and Adaptive Governance, Resilience and Assurance Kick Off Group Blog: https://lnkd.in/ggfwPQKY Traditional GRC often operates within a rigid, rule-based structure. It emphasizes adherence to predefined policies and procedures, focusing on retrospective analysis and reactive responses to identified risks. While this approach is valuable for maintaining a compliance baseline, it struggles to keep pace with the velocity and complexity of contemporary challenges. The modern digital business environment is characterized by constant change, which demands a governance framework that can evolve in real-time. Adaptable Governance, in contrast, prioritizes flexibility and agility. It recognizes that static policies and procedures can quickly become obsolete in the face of emerging threats and opportunities. This approach emphasizes the importance of: - Dynamic Risk Assessment: Moving beyond static risk registers to continuous monitoring and analysis, leveraging data analytics and AI to identify emerging threats and trends. - Flexible Policy Frameworks: Policies should be designed to be adaptable to changing circumstances, allowing for rapid adjustments and updates as needed. - Decentralized Decision-Making: Empowering individuals and teams at all levels of the organization to make informed decisions, fostering a culture of ownership and accountability. Resilience, perhaps the most critical component of this new paradigm, focuses on an organizational ability to withstand and recover from disruptions. This goes beyond traditional business continuity planning to encompass: - Anticipatory Resilience: Building capabilities to anticipate and prepare for potential disruptions rather than simply reacting to them. - Adaptive Resilience: Developing the capacity to adapt and evolve in response to changing circumstances, leveraging innovation and creativity to overcome challenges. - Systemic Resilience Involves Recognising the interconnectedness of organizational systems and building resilience at all levels, from individual employees to the entire enterprise. Assurance, within this evolved framework, transcends traditional audit and compliance checks. It becomes an ongoing process of validating the effectiveness of governance mechanisms and risk mitigation strategies. This involves: - Continuous Monitoring and Testing: Implementing real-time monitoring systems to track key performance indicators and identify potential deviations from established standards. - Proactive Assurance: Shifting from retrospective audits to forward-looking assessments that anticipate potential vulnerabilities and provide early warnings. - Integrated Assurance: Breaking down silos between different assurance functions (e.g., internal audit, risk management, compliance) to create a holistic view of organizational performance and risk.

The most resilient organizations don't discover adaptability during a crisis. They build it during times of stability. I recently observed a tech company struggle through a major market shift. Their CEO was baffled: "Why can't our managers pivot more quickly?" The painful answer: they had never been asked to adapt. For years, the company had rewarded execution of fairly established and incremental plans, not creative problem-solving in ambiguous situations. By the time they recognized the need for adaptability, it was already too late. What separates consistently adaptive organizations from the rigid ones? ▶️ They normalize productive discomfort. Leaders at adaptive companies regularly introduce manageable changes that stretch their teams without breaking them. At one industrial tech firm I advise, executives rotate team members across projects regularly. The initial resistance gave way to increased cognitive flexibility across the organization. ▶️ They reward intelligent risk-taking. When an employee takes a smart risk that doesn't pay off, adaptive organizations treat it as a learning opportunity. One healthcare executive I work with instituted "failure of the month" discussions where senior leaders share recent missteps and lessons learned, demonstrating vulnerability while destigmatizing necessary experimentation. Another CEO has added the "What didn't work with AI last week?" question to his weekly meetings. ▶️ They practice strategic scenario planning. Regular "what if" exercises build mental flexibility. You can do a full on war game scenario for a black swan even or just routinely run disruptive moments as part of your operating cadence. ▶️ They build diverse teams intentionally. Homogeneous teams operate smoothly when conditions are stable but lack the variety of perspectives needed for novel challenges. ▶️ They maintain psychological safety alongside accountability. Team members must feel safe to voice concerns and share unconventional ideas. This doesn't mean avoiding hard conversations; it means separating people's value from the quality of their ideas. A CEO I have worked with frequently begins challenging meetings by stating: "Remember, we're testing ideas today, not people." The paradox: building adaptive capacity requires stability in certain fundamental areas. Clear values, consistent leadership behavior, and transparent decision-making create the secure foundation from which organizational adaptability can flourish. Resilience isn't something you find during a crisis. It's something you build when you don't think you need it. We have found that CEOs who are resiliant and adaptable regualrly outperform those that are not. 💡 What practices have you found most effective in building adaptability before you need it?

Your 90-day business plan is already wrong. (And that's perfectly fine) Here's what 20+ years working with elite performers taught me about the fatal flaw in business planning: The old way: • Spend months creating detailed plans • Build everything based on assumptions • Stick to the plan no matter what (see my "tough guy"leader post) • Focus on delivering based on your assumptions • Hope that you still create the you want The truth? This approach is backwards. As my friend Rebecca Homkes (London Business School, elite strategy advisor, author of Survive Reset Thrive) says: "Stop planning, start preparing." I learned this truth from 3 unexpected places: • Team sports  • Jazz • Martial Arts In all 3 domains, elite performers don't "plan" - they PREPARE. The difference? Planning assumes you can predict the future. Preparing faces the truth: you'll need to adapt. 🔥 Here's what elite leaders do differently: 1. Track beliefs & assumptions AND take a stand - Document what you believe will work - Update these beliefs as you learn - Adapt immediately when new data comes in - Teach everyone around them to do the same 2. Focus on impact over delivery - Define clear outcomes - Measure what matters - Adjust based on the real results you need so that you deliver VALUE 3. Build adaptable systems - Create strong fundamentals - Bias toward decisions, actions and testing hypothesis - Develop efficient communication that supports rapid adaptation 4. Use operating rhythms that drive progress - Unstoppable rhythm of proactive updates  - Weekly detach and reflect - Continuous improvement becomes automatic My favorite example? Football teams spend 90% of their time preparing. A "game plan" is built on preparing for situations, not predicting them. Coaches watch every play and adapt instantly. Players learn decision-making through preparation. But most businesses? They do the exact opposite: endless planning, analysis paralysis, and beautiful slide decks that rarely survive contact with reality. 🎯 The key insight: Stop trying to predict every detail or perfect your plans.  Start evolving systems that help you adapt. The results? • 2x faster execution (true story) • 50% less operational overhead (also true story) • Teams that thrive through uncertainty. What do you think? Are you spending too much time planning and not enough time preparing? --- 🔍 I'm running a FREE workshop series where I break down these concepts in more detail and show exactly how elite teams implement them.  We've got 25 slots filled I am keeping a few more open. Let’s set you up for a great 2025. Want an invitation? DM me.

"There is a need to reconstruct how we use existing measurement tools, techniques, and methodologies so that they capture the complexity of the environment in which an intervention or change occurs." - Siddhant Gokhale and Michael Walton (2023) This superb and extensive guide by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) introduces adaptive evaluation - an approach designed for complexity. In increasingly turbulent, uncertain, novel, and ambiguous environments traditional evaluation methods often fall short. "In a complex system, we cannot predict what will happen. What will happen depends on the (evolving) interactions between actors and changing external conditions." This guide provides the tools and mindset needed to embrace complexity, foster learning, and adapt in real time. In this guide, you'll find: 1️⃣ Approaches, methods and techniques - What to do and how to do it 2️⃣ Attitudes, believes and values to make it work - The mindset At 105 pages, this resource offers a wealth of insight. The authors have categorised this insight to align with 6 key challenges: 1️⃣ Methods to foster evaluation use 2️⃣ Methods for learning and adaptation in real time 3️⃣ Methods to capture complexity 4️⃣ Methods to capture contribution in unpredictable environments 5️⃣ Leadership roles in adaptive evaluation 6️⃣ The adaptive evaluation mindset I can see myself coming back to this resource time and time again throughout 2025. "Evaluative thinking is not synonymous with evaluation. As IllumiLab says, “Evaluation is the doing, while evaluative thinking is the being”. Evaluation is a set of activities, while evaluative thinking is an approach and a way of thinking."

Sometimes I’m jealous of academics and their clean, tidy toy problems… But here’s how we can make their theories work in the messy real world. Decision science often involves translating theoretical concepts into actionable real-world strategies. This translation is crucial in environments where uncertainty and variability are the norms, such as in our Toyota supply chain management. Consider the theoretical frameworks that emphasize reinforcement learning and stochastic optimization. These theories provide strategies for adapting decisions dynamically as new information becomes available, similar to how a GPS recalculates routes in real-time based on traffic changes. 🎯 Practical Advice: 1️⃣ Start Small. Implement theoretical models on a small scale before rolling them out across the organization. This allows you to observe the model’s performance and make necessary adjustments. 2️⃣ Use Hybrid Models. Combine theoretical models with heuristic approaches. This can provide a balance between optimal and practical solutions, especially in complex and uncertain environments. 3️⃣ Frequent Re-evaluation. The real world is dynamic. Regularly revisit and update your models to align with new data and changing conditions. 4️⃣ Cross-functional Teams. Engage experts from various domains (data science, operations, IT) in the implementation process. Their diverse perspectives can help identify and mitigate practical challenges early. For instance, global supply chain disruptions challenge us to go beyond traditional models. Theoretical optimization might dictate certain stock levels and operational efficiencies, but real-world scenarios require us to adapt to unforeseen shortages and demand surges. The art lies in applying these adaptive, learning-based theories to continuously refine our strategies, ensuring they remain robust amidst volatility. The beauty of this approach is in its adaptability. It’s about learning from the environment and iteratively improving processes, mirroring the way algorithms learn and optimize based on new data. 💭 How do you balance the elegance of theory with the messy realities of practice in your field? #DataScience #Optimization #StochasticOptimization #ReinforcementLearning #SupplyChainManagement #OperationsResearch

70% of complex, large-scale projects fail to meet their goals, often due to lack of adaptability. Traditional project management, with its rigid structures, often struggles to keep up. That's where Adaptive Project Management comes in. What does it mean to be truly adaptive? It's about building flexibility into the very DNA of your projects. Adaptive project management strategies are essential for ensuring success amid uncertainty. 🔶 Here’s how to implement them effectively: 🟠 Adopt an Agile approach → Break projects into small, manageable sprints. → Engage stakeholders regularly to adjust deliverables. → Adapt plans based on real-time feedback and changing requirements. 🟠 Risk Management → Conduct thorough risk assessments at project inception. → Develop strategies to minimize potential impacts. → Keep a close eye on risk factors throughout the project lifecycle. 🟠 Stakeholder Engagement → Schedule consistent check-ins with stakeholders. → Share progress updates and challenges openly. → Incorporate stakeholder feedback into project plans promptly. 🟠 Resource Optimization → Assign resources based on priority and skill sets. → Use different ideas to solve tough problems. → Adjust resource allocation as project needs evolve. 🟠 Data-Driven Decision Making → Implement tools to gather and analyze project data. → Use historical data to forecast future trends and challenges. → Base choices on comprehensive data analysis to minimize risks. 🔶 Key Frameworks and Techniques: → Agile, Scrum, Kanban - Improve teamwork and responsiveness. → Risk Matrix - Evaluate the probability and impact of potential risks. → Earned Value Management (EVM) - Track project performance and progress. Adapting to uncertainty requires a proactive mindset and robust strategies. By adopting these flexible project management approaches, you can navigate challenges and deliver results consistently, even in uncertain environments. What strategies have you found effective in managing projects during uncertain times? Share your experiences and insights in the comments below. Visit Project Management Training Institute (PMTI) to explore our comprehensive certification courses. https://www.4pmti.com/

Too often, we encounter rigid “either/or” debates, like: “You’re either managing change with frameworks or relying on sensing and responding.” ;) But this is a bit shortsighted; reality is rarely so black-and-white. Successful approaches rarely operate in either/or isolation; they are a blend of methodologies and real-time adaptation. And the most successful practitioners artfully adapt the structure they brought to the table with their expertise, knowledge, and feedback from the system. In my experience, embracing this complexity - rather than the simpler either/or - leads to more thoughtful and impactful solutions. To illustrate this, I turned to one of the two most valuable things I picked up during my MBA - a trusty 2x2 matrix - and reframed the conversation. What emerged are four unique approaches to change management, each with its patterns and pitfalls. Extending beyond "either/or" paints a broader and richer representation of reality. Here are the quadrants: Haphazard Hustlers: No framework, no sensing and responding. High energy and improvisation characterize this group - but without a plan, outcomes can be wildly unpredictable. Reactive Renegades: No framework, sensing and responding. These individuals are agile and quick to adapt but may miss the broader strategy, focusing too much on immediate problems. Methodical Mechanics: Framework-driven, without sensing and responding. They excel in creating stable systems and processes but might falter when faced with unexpected challenges requiring flexibility. Adaptive Architects: Combining frameworks with sensing and responding. This is the ideal balance—structured yet flexible, allowing for adjustments without losing sight of long-term objectives. When we move past binary thinking (even if draws less click bait than the "down with the five step framework" content), we uncover the real potential to increase our impact. By blending structured approaches with adaptive strategies, we create the space for more resilient and innovative change. Where do you see yourself in this 2x2 (please share!)? What about your colleagues (don't share)? And how might you use this perspective to grow? Share your thoughts below! #ChangeManagement #Agility #InnovationInAction #ADKAR

How AI Will Reinvent Business Process Management and Workflow Management? Traditional workflows were built around “best practices.” But most best practices are static snapshots—frozen in time by consultants, often with no hands-on experience in the actual flow. They lack context. They lack generalization. They lack evolution. They don’t adapt. They assume the world is linear. But the real world isn’t. It bends, escalates, detours—and often requires human judgment. Trying to mimic it with linear flows is like tracing a single tangent line and pretending it’s the whole graph— missing the curve, the peaks, valleys, inflection points, and plateaus. That’s why workflows break. That’s why work gets stuck. AI changes that. Agents inside each step – adaptive, learning, context-aware Agents manage different flows – orchestrating, coordinating, optimizing and adapting This isn’t AI as an assistant. It’s AI as the intelligent nervous system of how work flows. But the most powerful and impactful workflows won’t be fully autonomous—or fully manual. They’ll be symbiotic, with AI and humans co-participating in the process. This isn’t just “human-in-the-loop” as a fail-safe override. It’s about workflows that evolve through human input, judgment, sophisticated reasoning, and intervention—then learn from it. Human mediation becomes part of the intelligence—not a workaround, but a feature. And that symbiosis is what makes workflows truly nuanced, adaptive— and capable of navigating a non-linear world. In this new model, every step becomes an agent—adaptive, self-aware, and capable of local decision-making. And each process flow becomes an agent too—observing, orchestrating, and continuously evolving. The result? The manager and the managed are no longer fixed roles. They adapt together, shaping the process in real time—based on feedback, context, and continuous learning. This is the end of static orchestration. And the beginning of living and self-adapting workflows. #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #WorkflowAutomation #BusinessProcessManagement #BPM #IntelligentAutomation #AdaptiveSystems #AgentBasedAI #CognitiveAutomation #DeepTech #EnterpriseAI #OperationalExcellence #ProcessInnovation #AutonomousSystems