Play what’s in front of you, always.
A Beyond Agile Approach to Awareness, Adaptation, and Action
Prologue
Rugby taught me this principle long before consulting did: Always play what’s in front of you.
It sounds simple, even obvious. Yet in organizations, we still script the playbook, rehearse the patterns, and cling to the plan long after the field has changed.
This paper explores what happens when we move beyond agile as a method, and embrace adaptive responsiveness as a discipline.
The Metaphor of the Gap
In rugby, no move survives first contact.
The space you rehearsed may be blocked; the opportunity is somewhere else.
Success comes not from forcing the play, but from seeing the gap and pivoting instantly.
In organizations, the “gap” is what emerges: market shifts, customer signals, competitive moves. It demands awareness, not allegiance to the plan.
The Limits of Methodology
Agile methods gave us powerful tools: sprints, ceremonies, backlogs.
But methods can trap us:
Over-ritualization replaces responsiveness.
Predictability is mistaken for adaptability.
Teams optimize for “process fitness,” not “value fitness.”
Like a rehearsed rugby move, methodology is useful—until the field changes.
Beyond Agile: Adaptive Responsiveness
A beyond agile stance is not about abandoning discipline but extending it.
Key traits:
Awareness before action. Constant scanning, sensing weak signals.
Optionality. Holding multiple paths open instead of committing too early.
Orchestration. Coordinating roles, not controlling moves.
Encapsulation. Teams with autonomy to respond in the moment.
Flow over form. Value streams, not rituals, shape rhythm.
This is playing what’s in front of you — not what’s in the manual.
The Clarity–Emergence Paradox
Leaders face the tension of providing direction while leaving space for emergence.
Too much clarity: rigidity, blindness to gaps.
Too much emergence: chaos, diffusion.
The art lies in holding both — setting a compass, not a map.
Practice: Translating the Field into Action
How to operationalize “playing what’s in front of you”:
Strategy as hypothesis. Treat plans as options, not certainties.
Feedback as architecture. Build sensing loops into every level.
Decision latency as a metric. Measure how fast signals turn into action.
Leadership as orchestration. Leaders create conditions where teams can see and act.
From Rugby to Boardroom
Rugby teaches:
Trust the system, but trust your eyes more.
Train patterns, but break them when reality demands.
Align as a team, adapt as individuals, and strike where the opportunity lies.
Organizations that master this don’t just “do agile.” They embody adaptive intelligence.
Epilogue
In the end, business agility is not about stand-ups, velocity charts, or frameworks.
It’s about presence. Awareness. The courage to pivot.
The best teams — on the pitch and in the boardroom — win not by forcing the plan, but by always playing what’s in front of them.