As I noted in the first article in this series, organizational agility is becoming more important as organizations have to deal with more turbulence in their business environment than they did three years ago due to disruptive technologies, the internet of things, more demanding customers, and growing regulations—among many other developments.

This means that organizations have not only to stay aware of changes in their business environments (strategic responsiveness), but also to be flexible enough to change direction and implement new initiatives quickly (organizational flexibility). This is both in order to avoid risks and to achieve competitive advantages.

One of the big questions we sought to understand in this study was: what strategic planning practices improved organizations’ ability to identify, assess, and plan for the ever-emerging threats and opportunities on the horizon. In other words, what strategic planning and assessment practices improve strategic responsiveness?

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