1. INFONEX
2016
Practical Measures to
Increase Adaptive Capacity
Ron Andrews

2. INTRO  Organizational Resilience vs. Adaptive Capacity
 Why Adaptive Capacity
 Practical Measures to increase Adaptive Capacity
 Proving your case to Senior Leadership
 Interactive Exercise & Debrief

3. RESILIENCE
ADAPTATION
(+)
Preferred State
Appealing
Praiseworthy
Ideal
(+)
Realistic
Practical
Achievable
Cost Effective
(-)
Multi-Dimensional
Problematic Constructs
Unattainable End State
Unrealistic
(-)
Overlooked
Consequential Acceptance
Uncoordinated
Underfunded
Working at Cross-Purposes
Reliance on Outdated
Behaviours

4. ADAPTIVE
STABILIZING
 Traditional Command & Control
Structures
 Technical Competencies
 Rational Strategic Planning
 Multiple Staff Hierarchies
 Homogenous Orientation
 Segmented Enterprise
Orientation and Outlook
 Reactive and Risk Averse
 Fixed Capital
 Transformational Leadership
 Cross-functional & All Level
Work Teams
 Cross-functional Technical
Competencies
 Culture of Learning and
Diversity
 Incubation of Innovation
 Holistic Enterprise Orientation
& Outlook
 Proactive and Risk Tolerant
 Flexible Capital
Adaptive Capacities Stabilizing Capacities

5. PRACTICAL
MEASURES
Adopt an Organic & Holistic
Perspective
Aggressively Pursue Knowledge Gaps
Exploit Opportunities
Learn from Experience
Foster Innovation

6. PRACTICAL
MEASURES
Embrace Uncertainty
Do not Compartmentalize Issues
Maintain Continual Scenario Planning
Establish Hazard & Vulnerability
Assessments
Apply Cross-Competency Training
Initiate Cross-Discipline Fertilization

7. PROVING
YOUR
CASE
 Employee Engagement and Retention
 Cross-functional Competency Development
 Redundancy in the face of Adversity
 Improvement in Disruption Management
 Cost Efficiencies (Program, Staff)
 Process Efficiencies (Lean)
 Reproducible and Measureable
 Creation of Product and Service Value

8. EXERCISE Form 2 Discussion Groups
Review the Case Study
Discuss Possible Adaptive Strategies
Offer 3 Adaptive Capacity Choices
Explain your Choices

9. SOURCES
ThankYou!
 Adaptive Capability (2015) Maturity Model
 Branlat and Woods (2010), “How do Systems Manage their
Adaptive Capacity to Successfully Handle Disruptions? A
Resilience Engineering Perspective”, AAAI Fall Symposium
 Gajewski, Maria (2012) “ What is Adaptive Capacity?”,
Changing River Consulting
 GSDRC (2014) “Disaster Resilience Topic Guide”
 Myburgh, Webb and Seville (2012) “Adaptive Capacity and
Resilience”, Continuity Central (1) (4)
 Nyamwanza (2012) “Livelihood Resilience and Adaptive
Capacity: A Critical Conceptual Review”, Journal of Disaster
Risk Studies (4) (1)
 Zawada (2012) Organizational Resilience: What it Could, or
Should, Mean in the Standards Landscape, Continuity
Insights (digital version)