Fostering Agility Through Alignment of the Star Models 5 Elements

Many organizations set ambitious goals to “become Agile,” hoping to unlock adaptability, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive long-term value. However, Agile practices alone, like sprints and retrospectives, rarely deliver organizational agility. Agility emerges when every part of the organization is aligned to support adaptability, which is where Jay Galbraith's Star Model becomes an invaluable guide.

The Star Model suggests that for an organization to successfully implement any strategy, whether it’s becoming more adaptable, enhancing customer focus, or driving operational excellence, it requires alignment across five core elements: Strategy, People, Structures, Rewards, and Processes. When these components work together, they foster a culture that supports the desired outcomes. Here’s a closer look at each element and its role in building an adaptable, resilient organization:

Business Goal: Maximizing Long-Term Value and Customer Satisfaction

Many organizations focus heavily on short-term targets and quarterly gains, often sidelining customer-centric goals that drive long-term value. However, the ultimate aim of adopting an Agile approach should be to maximize sustainable value, with the customer at the center. Maintaining a focus on enduring value and customer satisfaction provides the guiding compass for aligning all elements in the Star Model and fostering agility.

Strategy: Driving Value through Adaptability and Continuous Improvement

Despite Agile aspirations, many organizations rely on rigid, top-down strategic planning, which restricts teams from adapting swiftly to market changes. An Agile strategy goes beyond fixed quarterly targets; it emphasizes flexibility and responsiveness, allowing the organization to pivot quickly and deliver continuous value. When strategy supports adaptability, it aligns naturally with Agile practices, enabling resilience and responsiveness across the organization.

People: Empowering Versatile Teams and Cross-Functional Collaboration

In many organizations, employees are confined to narrow, specialized roles, limiting their ability to collaborate across teams. Additionally, strict third-party contracts can further restrict flexibility by enforcing rigid scopes of work, timelines, and deliverables that contradict Agile principles. Agile organizations require teams that can pivot easily, working across disciplines to solve complex challenges. Empowering people with flexible roles, encouraging multi-skilled development, and building adaptable contracts fosters collaboration, innovation, and sustainable agility.

Structures: Enabling Quick, Decentralized Decision-Making

Traditional hierarchies often create bottlenecks, slowing down decision-making and making it difficult for teams to respond to customer needs in real-time. Agility demands a structure that supports speed and autonomy. By reducing hierarchical layers and fostering decentralized decision-making, organizations empower teams to act quickly, stay close to the customer, and respond swiftly to demand changes.

Rewards: Recognizing Team Success, Innovation, and Accountability

Many organizations emphasize individual performance in their reward systems, which can unintentionally undermine the collaboration and continuous learning essential for Agile success. Rewards focused on individual achievements often create competition rather than cooperation, leading to siloed efforts instead of team-driven outcomes. To foster a truly Agile culture, rewards should prioritize team achievements, customer value, and continuous innovation. Recognizing collective success and shared accountability not only supports Agile principles but also enhances collaboration, builds trust, and drives greater engagement and commitment among team members.

Processes: Implementing Adaptive Processes with Iteration and Feedback

Many organizations are hampered by rigid processes, like annual budgeting and lengthy reporting cycles, which make it difficult to respond quickly to new insights or changes in the market. Agile processes thrive on iteration and rapid learning, requiring flexible processes such as adaptive budgeting, responsive workflows, and continuous feedback loops. Moving away from rigid cycles enables genuine continuous improvement and adaptability in a fast-paced environment.

Why Many Agile Adoptions Don’t Succeed

In my experience the high failure rates in Agile adoption often result from Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters focusing primarily on the "Processes" part of the model. They frequently lack the authority, access, or skills needed to influence foundational areas such as People, Structures, Rewards, and Strategy. This limitation hinders the broader alignment that most Agile frameworks explicitly and implicitly require. Without alignment across these areas, Agile becomes more of a superficial layer on top of traditional structures.

While culture is frequently discussed in Agile circles, it’s important to recognize that culture is an emergent property resulting from the alignment of all these elements. Culture cannot be directly implemented or controlled; it evolves as People, Structures, Rewards, Strategy, and Processes align with shared goals and values. Attempting to 'implement' culture without addressing these foundational elements is unlikely to create lasting change.

Moving Towards Organizational Agility

For Agile to truly succeed, I believe organizations must embrace it as a holistic shift rather than a collection of practices. This requires:

1. Aligning Across All Dimensions of the Organization: Leaders responsible for Strategy, People, Structures, Rewards, and Processes, such as the CEO, CHRO, CFO, COO, and CSO, must collaborate to ensure that all elements support Agile principles, not just Processes. When these areas are aligned, agility becomes embedded within the organization rather than limited to isolated teams.
2. Allowing Culture to Emerge from Alignment: Culture cannot be imposed; it arises naturally when Strategy, People, Structures, Rewards, and Processes are synchronized. As alignment across these elements strengthens, a culture that supports agility, resilience, and adaptability will naturally develop.

Conclusion

I believe Agile frameworks have always emphasized that genuine agility depends on alignment across the entire organization. When Agile is confined to processes alone, the organization’s adaptability and capacity for innovation are limited. Organizational agility requires a comprehensive approach that integrates all elements of the Star Model, allowing culture to emerge from this alignment.

By expanding Agile adoption to include Strategy, People, Structures, Rewards, and Processes, organizations can unlock Agile’s full potential and achieve ambitious goals. Only then can Agile transform from a set of practices into a lasting organizational advantage.

Does this resonate with you? What are your thoughts?