Autonomy in Alignment

Autonomy Without Alignment

In a change of direction, SAFe's Dean Leffingwell quotes Jim Collins:

The most innovative companies tend to push decisions as far down in the organization as possible, giving people at all levels the opportunity to move fast, utilize their creativity, apply their intellect, and assume responsibility.

Mission Command as Decentralization

The principle Leffingwell calls decentralization here is well known as Mission Command in military organizations. While it's been fundamental there since Von Moltke and Clausewitz, Leffingwell's appropriation of it neglects the essential complement to Autonomy: Alignment. Specifically, he misses the Balance of Powers pattern that's been essential to peaceful organizations since Hiawatha and the Peacemaker invented it in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

Without a balance of powers pattern, SAFe organizations remain dependent on top-down bureaucracy to make decisions. This shows up in Leffingwell's diagram as his "Escalate" arrow, which is code for "Report". This problem in SAFe is ingrained in its structure, so Leffingwell's lip service to autonomy and decentralization is newspeak. In reality SAFe missions persist unchanged in the face of changing constraints for months at a time and can only be changed in SAFe's centralized big-room of deciders using command and control.

The world's most Agile organizations, like the Musk companies, don't use SAFe. Instead they embody the values and principles of the descaling manifesto. In particular, Autonomy in Alignment over Command and Control.

The Balance of Powers pattern

Autonomy in alignment balances the needs of the many against the needs of the one by delegating responsibility to an individual decider unless they oppose the unanimous consensus of their team-mates.

This motivates the responsible individual to lead through influence rather than authority. When any individual in a team can break a consensus, team members focus on collaborating for mutual benefit rather than pushing political barrows. This results in healthy debate of decisions rather than competition for control of responsibilities.

Please note well, gentle reader, that we're not suggesting SAFe can't be modified to respect Autonomy in Alignment. Indeed, XSCALE often works within a SAFe organization to achieve this. It isn't an alternative to SAFe – it's a way to cure organizations of bureaucracy, including and especially an Agile bureaucracy.

If you're interested in aligning with the Descaling movement, please take a moment to check out the latest Descaling Manifesto. If you like it, you might even want to give it a signature! Or, if you'd like to discuss it with like-minded folks, come along to the XSCALE One conference this October. The world's first Descaling conference!