Ditch the Bureaucracy and Deliver Value by Embracing Lean Governance

How many times have you been in a status meeting where teams provide updates on their components of a joint cross-platform initiative, but you have no idea if the teams will deliver an MVP flow or experience by a certain target date? How many times have you encountered unforeseen dependencies that cause a delivery delay? This is the result of an ineffective and outdated governance process that teams use to manage complex initiatives within the company. I’ve dealt with many clients who consistently fail to effectively engage teams to deliver value, especially in complex initiatives involving multiple teams, platforms, and digital products with many dependencies.?

Many tech leads and product managers cringe at the mention of governance, and rightfully so, because historically governance has failed to enable the delivery of value. However, if done right, it can accelerate teams by empowering them to consistently collaborate and improve. In short, I urge teams to think of lean governance as the team norms at scale. It allows teams to align on expectations and ways for working to manage the complexity of their program.?

So what is Lean Governance?

Think of lean governance as a shift from?"command and control"?to?"enable and empower."?It focuses on creating a framework that supports, rather than dictates, delivery efforts. This framework rests on three key pillars:

• Transparency:?Information flows freely between teams, stakeholders, and leadership, fostering trust and shared understanding.
• Empowerment:?Teams are responsible for their decisions and outcomes, encouraging ownership and accountability.
• Continuous Improvement:?Processes are constantly evaluated and adapted based on data and feedback, ensuring agility and responsiveness.

In theory, this sounds good, but you might be asking yourself, how do you do this in practice? There are many tactics you could choose to use and in this article, I'm outlining the ones that I’ve tested in the field and have worked well for me in the past. The tactics are split into two groups, before the initiative starts and during the progress of your program.?

Before the initiative starts:

As part of your initiative inception or discovery, there are baseline activities that will help you drive effective lean governance throughout, including:?

• Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Definition:?Focus on delivering the core functionality first, gathering user feedback, and iterating based on learnings.
• Define clear roles and responsibilities:?Ensure everyone understands their specific role and how it contributes to the overall initiative goals. I usually run a stakeholder brainstorming session where teams involved identify all relevant stakeholders and align on high-level R&Rs. (Quick tip: don't forget about shared roles and services that will need to be involved throughout the initiative such as legal, marketing, and security teams, etc).?
• Establish key performance indicators (KPIs):?Choose metrics that align with the initiative goals and will provide visibility into progress and potential roadblocks.
• Interaction/Dependency Identification Exercise: Define the dependencies between the teams and their interaction modes to further understand additional collaboration requirements to ensure these dependencies are managed proactively?

During the initiative:

• Enable collaboration through scaled ceremonies:?applying SOS (Scrum of Scrum) best practices, I’d recommend focusing on the key ceremonies that can drive value if organized at the cross-team level. Some examples include:Weekly PM meeting to discuss delivery of value for each team and dependencies,?Bi-weekly tech lead meeting to review technical solutions and manage dependencies,Joint demo sessions,Monthly meeting focused on quality strategy and E2E testing between teams.?Scaled Retrospectives: Regular sessions to reflect on what's working well, and what needs improvement, and adapt processes based on learnings.
• Metrics dashboard:?Visualize progress against KPIs, team-specific metrics such as the DORA dashboard, etc, and identify risks, challenges, and issues.?
• Strategy talks:?This is not mandatory, but connecting the dots constantly between strategy and tactics for the teams brings clarity and meaning to their work. I’m a big proponent of doing monthly strategy sessions to discuss strategic insights related to the initiative and various improvement areas identified as part of the retrospectives. Such topics could include product thinking, platform thinking, engineering effectiveness, etc.?

I’ve tested these tactics in the field and the benefits and results were obvious and included:?

• Improved responsiveness by teams
• Improved ownership and team morale
• Enhanced quality and reduced rework
• Faster time to market.?

The most important thing to remember is that the key to successful lean governance is finding the right balance between guidance and autonomy, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, and focusing on delivering value at every step of the way.