Managing Time Complexity with Agility: How More Considered Thinking about Time Helped Fujitsu to Set a Guinness World Record

Abstract

In the globalized, turbulent, and rushed nature of contemporary work, organizations perceive an increasing pressure to master digital transformation. To do so, organizations are increasingly turning to ‘high speed’ methods such as agile and flow. We argue that the differentiating feature of these methods is how to address time complexity to increase time-to-delivery, epitomized by terms such as cycle time, lead-time, latency, real-time, and velocity. This emphasis on speed is often an oversimplification of many complex and multi-faceted time complexities in play, and such an obsession on speed alone often results in failure. We examine how Fujitsu succeeded in managing time complexity by keeping multiple temporal challenges imposed by different time conceptions, temporal interdependencies, and management styles in sync to set a Guinness World Record with the largest animated tablet PC mosaic. We compare our findings with four other Fortune 500 companies confirming that applying agile practices can help in managing time complexity.

Publication
MIS Quarterly Executive