Inherent Problems at Scale

This is a chapter from my upcoming online book Going Beyond Lean and Agile: Introducing FLEX – FLow for Enterprise Transformation. FLEX is Net Objectives' Lean-Agile approach to helping organizations improve at all levels. Feedback is requested either here on a user group I've set up for the purpose.

 The inherent problem

Before trying to fix a problem, it is important to understand what is causing it. In most modern organizations there is a disconnect between the way we manage work and the way work takes place.

Figure 1 represents a typical company hierarchy. People report to managers who are responsible for the work done by their teams.

Figure 1: A Common Organizational Structure

Figure 2 illustrates the value stream, the flow of work across the organization (the up and down arrows represent management approvals).

Figure 2: The Nature of Our Work

This sets up a challenge shown in Figure 3: we manage people with management hierarchies while our work goes across the organization.

Figure 3: We manage one way and our work flows another

Focusing on our people tends to have us take our eyes off the flow of work. But it also tends to have us implore our people to work harder instead of us focusing on creating a better eco-system within which they should work. This shift is a central tenet of Lean and is incorporated into SAFe. Another issue is that no one is managing the value stream well. In most companies it’s a combination of people with this responsibility. It needs to be called out explicitly.

I will be leading an online course on FLEX beginning in mid-January. It will cover all of FLEX, including the content regarding SAFe in this book. It's the equivalent of a 4-day course for only $795. Message me if interested.