Resilience through Innovation. The promise and pitfalls of agility for innovation.

It is often claimed that in order to survive today’s highly complex, uncertain and volatile business environment, companies need to be agile and continuously innovate. To do so, organizations are required to shift their innovation process to a decentral organization using agile methods and management. However, this shift is not without its challenges especially for companies who are used to operate centrally. In this chapter, we take a closer look at the relationship between innovation and agile methods and try to understand the advantages but also challenges that teams might experience when adopting agility to heighten their innovation and ultimately, the resilience of their unit. Based on empirical research conducted at a Swiss telecom company, we examine the positive effects as well as the tensions caused by competing demands that agile methods place on the teams. We conclude by outlining the lessons learned from implementing agile methods.