How do you build flexibility into your software team’s structure? What can you do as a leader to help staff re-align to changing priorities in the org?

Adopting agile is the key, and until you adopt to full agile methodology, reducing dependency on specific individuals should help out. 

For changing priorities, you need to constantly keep communicating the strategy and always engage the team.

Adopt agile methodology that provides for flexibility in the structure of your software teams and form cross functional teams composed with a variety of skills which can accommodate changing tasks easily. Continuously communicate and keep everything as transparent as possible to stay in sync with changing priorities and have the flexibility through dynamic resource management and the use of collaborative tools to shift resources as needed when things change. And invest in continuous learning to make sure your team stays versatile and always on top of learning. As a leader, bring out a clear vision, facilitate your team to make their decisions, stick with them during transitions and encourage your team to develop the ability to adapt. Together these strategies enable a resilient team to adapt to the changing organizational priorities.

I find that actively and consistently engaging developers and analysts with users in structured standing meetings — regular, but not necessarily super frequent; topics can be as simple as updates or testing updates — is a great way to keep the software side attuned to the business or product.  That way when priorities shift, the dialogue has already begun and the shift can be inserted into this existing relationships.  I find these cultural channels more effective than top down changes of direction.  The ongoing habit of two-way alignment sets up more flexibility.