To stay ahead of market movements and constantly changing stakeholder’s priorities, it is critical for industry moguls and employees to constantly scan for real-time insights into a highly volatile market. A profound shift towards digital transformation during the ongoing pandemic opened a new era of agility in the business sector and acted as an indispensable ingredient for redrafting plans and strategies in a new normal due to that the term “Agile” became a most popular buzzword in the corporate world. The turbulent market impacted every corner of the industry irrespective of size and type of business and compelled them to shift their focus from scale to pace. The pandemic forces us to expedite strategic plans according to the market change to be sustained and not being thrown out by subversive competitors. Therefore, it is recommended to develop tools and models to invigorate the organization from a volatile market through four steps from scratch continuous scanning, orienting the situation faced and finalizing strategy, and working on the action plan. Companies who are aligned with the time and their strategy will lead the market and get competitive advantages over the acute disruption and also be positioned at the top of the K-shaped recovery of the economy. This article is an attempt to provide an insight into agile practices and their managerial implications at the organizational level.

Agile business practice, COVID-19, K shaped recovery, digital transformation, agile strategy

Aghina, W., Ahlbäck, K., De Smet, A., Fahrbach, C., Handscomb, C., Lackey, G., Lurie, M., Murarka, M., Salo, O., Seem, E., & Woxholth, J. (2018). The five trademarks of agile organizations, Written collaboratively by McKinsey Agile Tribe, December 2017. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-five-trademarks-of-agile-organizations

Alzoubi, H. M., Elrehail, H., Hanaysha, J. R., Al-Gasaymeh, A., & Al-Adaileh, R. (2022). The role of supply chain integration and agile practices in improving lead time during the COVID-19 crisis. International Journal of Service Science, Management, Engineering, and Technology (IJSSMET), 13(1), 1–11.

Annual Agile Report. (July 2021). “15th State of Agile Report”. https://explore.digital.ai/state-of-agile/15th-state-of-agile-report.

Aragonés-Jericó, C., & Canales-Ronda, P. (2022). Agile learning in marketing: Scrum in higher education. Journal of Management and Business Education, 5(4), 345–360.

Arshad, N. I., Bosua, R., Milton, S., Mahmood, A. K., Zainal-Abidin, A. I., Ariffin, M. M., & Aszemi, N. M. (2022). A sustainable enterprise content management technologies use framework supporting agile business processes. Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 20(1), 123–140.

Benlian, A. (2022). Sprint zeal or sprint fatigue? The benefits and burdens of agile ISD practices use for developer well-being. Information Systems Research, 33(2), 557–578.

Deloitte Insights. (2020). Digital transformation. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/digital-transformation.html.

Dutton, G. (2018). Choosing the right agile strategy. Training Magazine. https://trainingmag.com/choosing-the-right-agile-strategy/

Flores-Cerna, F., Sanhueza-Salazar, V. M., Valdés-González, H. M., & Reyes-Bozo, L. (2022). Agile methodologies: An analysis of the organizational challenges for their implementation. Revista Científica. https://doi.org/10.14483/23448350.18332

Marnewick, C., & Marnewick, A. L. (2022). Benefits realisation in an agile environment. International Journal of Project Management, 40(4), 454–465.

Mueller, L., & Benlian, A. (2022). Too drained from being agile? The self-regulatory effects of agile ISD practices use and their consequences for turnover intention. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 23(6), 1420–1455.

Ndlela, M., & Tanner, M. (2022). Business analysts’ contributions to the dynamic capabilities of agile software development teams. Information Technology & People, 36(8). https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-08-2021-0656

Oladinrin, O. T., Jayantha, W. M., & Ojo, L. D. (2022). New work practices and their drivers in FIREB firms: Evidence from Hong Kong. Journal of Corporate Real Estate. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRE-04-2022-0008

Reich, B. H., & Peppard, J. (2022). Realizing value from digital transformation: Benefits management re-imagined. In 2022 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET) (pp. 1–8). IEEE.

Rigby, D. K., Sutherland, J., & Noble, A. (2018). Agile at scale. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2018/05/agile-at-scale

Röglinger, M., Plattfaut, R., Borghoff, V., Kerpedzhiev, G., Becker, J., Beverungen, D., vom Brocke, J., Van Looy, A., del-Río-Ortega, A., Rinderle-Ma, S., Rosemann, M., Maria Santoro, F., & Trkman, P. (2022). Exogenous shocks and business process management. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 64, 669–687.

Saarikallio, M., & Tyrväinen, P. (2022). Quality culture boosts agile transformation—Action research in a business-to-business software business. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 35(1), e2504.

Sharma, M., Luthra, S., Joshi, S., & Joshi, H. (2022). Challenges to agile project management during COVID-19 pandemic: An emerging economy perspective. Operations Management Research, 15, 461–474.

Stalk, G., & Stewart, S. (2019). Avoiding disruption required rapid decision making. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/04/avoiding-disruption-requires-rapid-decision-making

Wang, J., Xu, Y. P., & She, C. (2022). Effect of cloud-based information systems on the agile development of industrial business process management. Journal of Management & Organization. https://doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2022.49

Weichbroth, P. (2022). A case study on implementing agile techniques and practices: Rationale, benefits, barriers and business implications for hardware development. Applied Sciences, 12(17), 8457.