A revolution is occurring in how organizations and teams accomplish their work. Entrepreneurs and visionary leaders are leading this change, and the new world which they are creating is dramatically different than the world most traditional firms are familiar with. These changes will have profound effects on our government policies, our educational systems, our employment patterns, and how we organize ourselves to get work done.

Work groups traditionally have operated on a number of paradigms which have become interwoven through the business rules of existing businesses. These standard modes of operation are difficult to change, and are thus creating opportunities for new entrants to achieve competitive advantages when they operate under different (and more efficient) paradigms. This article discusses these paradigms in detail, presents a series of case studies which highlight how different groups have utilized these new paradigms effectively, and offers recommendations about which of these strategies offer the greatest value in this time of accelerating change.

Examples of the paradigm shifts underway include:

• command and control structures for decision-making - evolving from highly centralized to broadly distributed *''information access'' - evolving from being limited to those with a need to know to being freely available on the Internet for all to use
• typical work group - site-based, stable, and closely-supervised product groups vs geographically-distributed, dynamically changing, self-managed action teams primarily comprised of individual contributors
• barriers to entry into markets - migrating from products requiring high financial investment with associated long lead times for funding vs 'grass roots'-driven, organic product development 'grown' from affordable 'seeds'
• supporting infrastructure - autocratic program management, supplier management, and stable production lines vs agile processes, dynamic partnerships and collaborations, and lean inventory systems
• approaches to generate, explore, exploit, and adapt to innovations - top-down, big-business, state-sponsored technology roadmaps vs bottom-up, low overhead, venture-capital-funded startups
• repositories of information - documents vs databases
• pace of change - decades or years vs months or weeks
• means of governing and regulating technology - state, national and international legislation vs Internet Requests For Comments (RFCs)
• context of learning - formalized education sequences of individuals through company education department or university degree program (usually leading to degrees), vs just-in-time, on-the-job education, or continuing education programs, especially in team settings (usually leading to certifications or certificates)

While each of these shifts may not be relevant in certain settings - broad information access is inappropriate when that access could represent a risk to an organization's stakeholders, for example - they all represent clear trends away from past practices and towards a future with more transparency and risk, less bureacracy and friction, and an emphasis on speed.

Additionally, the combination of these elements operate synergistically; for example, distributed decision-making depends on and motivates self-managed action teams, which themselves require ready access to accurate and timely information in order to do their work. Emerging business situations, political challenges, and new technology developments are accelerating the pace of this change in business, in international relations, and in social systems. The groups that can move first and fastest will thrive in this new world order.

Organizations, cultures, and nations which are unable to keep up with this quickening pace will be unable to consistently fulfil their mission, and will thus find themselves increasingly irrelevant. The unchanging element across both this 'old world' and 'new world' is the need for a disciplined approach to planning, execution, and risk management. However, in the new world, the timeframe and resources available for putting this discipline in place is substantially compressed, and the requirement to 'get it right the first time' is substantially increased. This article explores this pattern and associated trends, and reviews their implications for technology investments, strategic planning, governance, and new product developments.