What is the Adjacent Possible How Does It Relate to Organizational Strategy?

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The adjacent possible refers to the set of actions that an entity, person, or organization can plausibly take in the short term after resolving surrounding constraints. It is often smaller than people expect. Once an action is chosen from the adjacent possible, it shifts, creating new available actions. Organizational strategy should focus on iterated adjacent possible, ensuring a smooth path towards the north star goal. Heroic leaps forward are generally not feasible, and directed incrementalism is crucial for significant progress in the real world.

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Why do organizations get slower as they grow? What can organizations learn from slime molds? What are the advantages of top-down organization versus bottom-up organization, and vice versa? How can organizations encourage serendipity? What use are doorbells in jungles? Why is it so hard for organizations to set a "north star" that is at once plausible, coherent, and good?

Alex Komoroske has over a decade of experience in the tech industry as a product manager focusing on platform- and ecosystem-shaped problems. While at Google, he worked on Chrome's Web Platform PM team, Augmented Reality in Google Maps, and Ambient Computing. He's fascinated by how to navigate the emergent complexity within organizations to achieve great results. You can find some of his public writing at komoroske.com.

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