34th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC 34) - Singapore, Singapore - 2026

https://doi.org/10.24928/2026/0263

Interpreting and operationalizing enterprise agility in construction: a safe-based case study

Chun-Ying Lee1, Bryan D. Tan2 & Jacob J. Lin3

1Vice President, Formosa Builders Inc., Master’s Student, Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, [email protected], orcid.org/0009-0004-1684-3915
2Master’s Student, Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, [email protected], orcid.org/0009-0003-7498-388X
3Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-3781-9402

Abstract

Despite its large economic scale, global construction productivity has stagnated over the past two decades, with fewer than 1% of mega-projects meeting cost, schedule, and benefit targets. These persistent performance challenges are a result of the high complexity, non-standard nature, and high multi-stakeholder coordination demand of construction projects, which strain rigid conventional management models. Enterprise agility has been widely adopted in other industries to address similar limitations in flexibility and coordination; however, there is a lack of empirically grounded interpretations of how agility transformation frameworks can be meaningfully adapted to the construction industry. This study examines how enterprise agility can be interpreted and operationalized within a construction organization. Using the Scaled Agile Framework for Enterprise (SAFe) as an analytical reference architecture, a qualitative case study is conducted of a large-scale general contractor in Taiwan, with analyses interpreted within the context of Lean Construction principles. An explicit competency mapping procedure is used to analyze observed lean-agile organizational practices against SAFe’s five core competencies. The results show that enterprise agility in construction emerges selectively across SAFe competencies, manifesting most strongly in leadership enablement, cross-functional coordination, and pre-construction value planning, while portfolio-level agility remains fundamentally constrained by contractual and financial commitments.

Keywords

Value stream, Transformation-Flow-Value, collaboration, agile transformation, lean construction.

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Reference in APA 7th edition format:

Lee, C., Tan, B. D. & Lin, J. J.. (2026). Interpreting and operationalizing enterprise agility in construction: a safe-based case study. In Hamzeh, F., Poshdar, M., & Garcia-Lopez,, N. P. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC 34) (pp. 1252–1264). https://doi.org/10.24928/2026/0263

Shortened reference for use in IGLC papers:

Lee, C., Tan, B. D. & Lin, J. J.. (2026). Interpreting and operationalizing enterprise agility in construction: a safe-based case study. IGLC34. https://doi.org/10.24928/2026/0263

 

Founded in 1993, the IGLC is an international network of researchers from practice and academia in architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) who feel that the practice, education, and research of the AEC industry have to be radically renewed in order to respond to the global challenges ahead.

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