@inproceedings{Lee2026_2553,
  author = {Lee, Chun-Ying and Tan, Bryan D. and Lin, Jacob J.},
  editor = {Hamzeh, Farook and Poshdar, Mani and Garcia-Lopez,, Nelly P. and Gan, Vincent},
  title = {Interpreting and operationalizing enterprise agility in construction: a safe-based case study},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC 34)},
  year = {2026},
  pages = {1252--1264},
  address = {Singapore, Singapore},
  issn = {2789-0015},
  doi = {10.24928/2026/0263},
  url = {https://www.iglc.net/papers/details/2553},
  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.},
}