Sustained Adaptability for Organizational Resilience · Dec 31 2020
To most software organizations,Covid-19 represents a fundamental surprise- a
dramatic surprise that challenges basic assumptions and forces a revising of
one’s beliefs (Lanir, 1986).While many view this surprise as an outlier event to
be endured, this series uses the lens of Resilience Engineering to explore how
software companies adapted (and continue to adapt), enhancing their resilience.
By emphasizing strategies to sustain the capacity to adapt, this collection of
articles seeks to more broadly inform how organizations cope with unexpected
events. Drawing from the resilience literature and using case studies from their
own organizations, engineers and engineering managers from across the
industry will explore what resilience has meant to them and their organizations,
and share the lessons they’ve taken away. The first article starts by laying a
foundation for thinking about organizational resilience, followed by a second
article that looks at how to sustain resilience with a case study of how one
service provider operating at scale has introduced programs to support learning
and continual adaptation. Next, continuing with case examples, we will explore
how to support frontline adaptation through socio-technical systems analysis
before shifting gears to look more broadly at designing and resourcing for
resilience. The capstone article will reflect on the themes generated across the
series and provide guidance on lessons learned from sustained resilience
ResearchGate