A model-driven framework to support strategic agility: Value-added perspective

CONTEXT: The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the entire world that the habits of work, freedom, and consumption can change quickly and significantly for an undetermined amount of time. A dynamic environment as such, prompts organizations to move fast in order to leverage changing circumstances as sources of opportunity rather than deadly threats. Drastic changes in work organization, consumption habits, compliance, etc., may require firms to quickly adopt new technology delivering all sorts of added value. OBJECTIVE: The development and adoption of new technology – structurally impacting the way the organization conducts its activities – requires a considerable amount of effort in a short time frame, thus rendering it a governance decision where the alignment of the technology’s adoption and use to the long term strategy needs to be evaluated. The short time frame requiring fast response implies that agility should not remain a development or management/operational concept but should also be adopted onto the strategic layer. METHOD: Design Science Research (DSR) has been applied to build-up a framework supporting strategic agility in a model-driven fashion called Strategic Agile Model Driven IT Governance (StratAMoDrIGo). The relevance, rigor and design cycles of DSR have been applied and presented. RESULTS: StratAMoDrIGo is based on the identification of sources of value for the organization’s strategy, its stakeholders and the users of the implemented/adopted technology. Relevant concepts are consolidated in an ontology of which the application uses the NFR Model at strategic-level and the i* Strategic Rationale Model at management-level. The proposal is applied on the case of an hospital facing the Covid-19 pandemic. CONCLUSION: The value brought by strategic opportunities’ adoption to the organization, stakeholders and users can be evaluated ex ante through conceptual models.