Project Management Institute has published a new leadership framework urging companies to embed “enterprise agility” across their organisations, warning that many businesses recognise the need to adapt but struggle to turn strategy into action.
The Manifesto for Enterprise Agility, released by PMI’s Agile Alliance community, arrives as companies face mounting pressure to reinvent their business models more frequently. Research cited by PMI shows that 93 per cent of global C-suite executives believe they must rethink their operating models or strategic assumptions at least every five years, while nearly two-thirds say they are doing so every two years or faster.
Despite that urgency, implementation remains uneven. While 85 per cent of executives say enterprise agility is critical, 65 per cent admit they have introduced it only to a limited extent or not at all, highlighting a persistent gap between strategic ambition and operational delivery.
Pierre Le Manh, president and chief executive of PMI, said the concept was increasingly central to organisational resilience. “Enterprise agility is the capacity to adapt at scale without losing coherence — to decide quickly, redirect resources deliberately and keep strategy actionable under real-world pressure,” he said. “In today’s environment it is no longer optional for organisations that want to remain relevant.”
The manifesto marks the 25th anniversary of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development and seeks to extend agile thinking beyond software teams to the entire enterprise, including leadership behaviour, governance structures and corporate culture.
Rather than prescribing a single framework, the guide focuses on how leaders design systems that enable agility across organisations. It encourages companies to govern with “guardrails rather than gatekeepers”, allocate funding around strategic intent rather than specific activities and move decision-making authority closer to where value is created.
The manifesto outlines four core values intended to underpin enterprise agility: guiding organisations with clear purpose while adapting plans as conditions change; prioritising shared enterprise outcomes over departmental optimisation; embracing continuous reinvention rather than preserving existing structures; and maintaining a human-centred approach that emphasises learning, resilience and trust.
Industry leaders backing the initiative argue that organisational agility is becoming a prerequisite for competitiveness. Kevin Nolan, chief executive of GE Appliances, said companies that can adapt faster are increasingly able to shape markets, while those that fail to do so risk falling behind.
PMI said the manifesto draws on global executive surveys, interviews and contributions from transformation specialists across multiple industries, reflecting the growing recognition that agility must extend beyond project teams to the way entire organisations are run.
