Towards a framework for enterprise-wide operational agility in complex environments

Decision-making within a complex operating environment spanning multiple domains necessitates enterprise-level operational agility. In this case, operational agility involves ability to react to dynamic opponents and the orchestration of technical resources as well as alignment of managerial processes. A shift from the system level to the enterprise view is necessary. However, there is a lack of frameworks addressing how operational agility at the enterprise level can be obtained. The aim of this study was two-fold: (i) to understand the concept of operational agility in context of recent developments and their challenges, and (ii) to propose an innovative metric feeding into operational agility as the enterprise level. Our results indicate that current commonly used systems engineering metrics focus on system specific measures of merit. In this research, we suggest new metrics to enable system/capability evaluation with an enterprise or portfolio context-the enterprise readiness level. A research path forward is proposed.