Reconnecting Strategy and Delivery
in Modern Transformations
FEATURED PAPER
By Mehdi Kadaoui
Brussels, Belgium
1.0 Abstract
The most common way to deliver digital transformations these days is through agile, but the reality is many programs go off the rails from their strategic objectives long before the go-live. Fast iteration alone won’t stop (nor prevent) the silent erosion of logic, and value.
This article extends the governance framework proposed in Project SemantiX. It presents Structural Agile, a discipline layer that is folded with semantic alignment, traceability, and drift detection to Agile environments. Structural Agile doesn’t produce new ways of working, it reinforces the structural logic that Agile on its own cannot preserve. This allows teams to anchor in outcomes, defend intent under pressure and keep things consistent across decisions and pivots. The upshot is an Agile delivery model that protects strategic integrity and drives value realisation well beyond the point of go-live.
2.0 Introduction
Agile has transformed how companies build technology and navigate complexity. Despite the more flexible planning and faster iterations, large-scale transformations still veer off from their initial strategic intent. The symptoms are familiar: backlogs become disconnected from outcomes, Product Owners absorb stress rather than championing rationale, undocumented decisions accumulate when there’s no mechanism to capture them and teams lose sight of the “why” while working towards near-term output.
In Project SemantiX, I presented the approach of a semantic layer that governs transformations. This is a structural spine that upholds original meaning, both seeks and keeps drift in check, maintains strategy and execution in sync. In Agile environments, Structural Agile goes even more extreme along this line. It does not replace Agile, nor add to it another competitive set of frameworks. It will instead reinforce a disciplined approach to pursuing strategic goals and ensuring that delivery momentum doesn’t become an impediment to achieving them.
This paper demonstrates how SemantiX works in incremental delivery by using Structural Agile.
It brings a set of principles and mechanics that makes the Agile process and the transformation itself stronger, ensuring that value keeps existing by the whole lifecycle of transformation, not only by the sprint.
3.0 What does “Structural Agile” mean?
Structural Agile doesn’t introduce new ceremonies or redefine how teams plan and deliver. It strengthens the connective logic that Agile assumes but does not structurally protect. And because that logic sits inside the work rather than around it, the discipline is not tied to any specific Agile model. It can operate within Scrum, SAFe, Kanban, or any other variant without requiring the team to reconfigure its ways of working.
More…
To read entire paper, click here
How to cite this work: Kadaoui, M. (2026). Structural Agile: Reconnecting Strategy and Delivery in Modern Transformations, PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue II, February. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/pmwj161-Feb2026-Kadaoui-Structural-Agile-featured-paper.pdf
About the Author
Mehdi Kadaoui
Brussels, Belgium
Mehdi Kadaoui is a senior IT and transformation leader with more than 17 years of international experience delivering complex programs across Europe, the Middle East, and North America. He has led major initiatives in logistics, SaaS, telecom, and the public sector, consistently bridging the gap between strategy and execution.
Holding an Engineer’s Degree in Computer Science and a Master’s in Big Data & Systems Integration, Mehdi is PMP-certified, a CSPO, and has completed cybersecurity and digital transformation programs with ISC2 and Stanford University. A contributing writer for CIO.com, he publishes widely on structural drift, semantic governance, and post–go-live failure modes. He is the author of the “From Intent to Outcome” series, which includes Project SemantiX, Outcome Observability, and Structural Agile that help organizations preserve meaning, behavior, and value in complex transformations.
Mehdi is trilingual (French, English, Arabic), based in Brussels.
Contact at em.kadaoui@techevolve.be or From Intent to Outcome Canon
To view other works by Mr. Kadaoui, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/mehdi-kadaoui/.
