The Two-Sided Organization

For many development teams and Agilists, it is difficult to think that their principles and approaches will not scale successfully into other areas of business as universal truths. This article shares part of my current understanding of where Lean and Agile fit into the broader modern organization.

The dichotomy of having both running and building an organization can often lead to problems like standardizing operating models, building consistent culture, measuring and rewarding success the same way.

As a conceptual model, you can think of this Left-Right Org Model similar to the creative and vs logical separation of the brain (just in reversed order). As with your brain, both are important and serve specific functions. Your teams will likely not fit into these two stereotypes cleanly, it is to help gauge the balance and apply principles accordingly.

As a rule of thumb Agile works well on the creative exploration on the unknown (LEFT) side of the business while Lean works well on the structured exploit of the known (RIGHT) side

Why is this important to know?

Your organizational operating model should be flexible enough that teams can tailor their methodology to better fit their context. A startup might focus exclusively on the LEFT while a large enterprise focuses on the RIGHT. That being said it is not just a life-cycle, Netflix is a large enterprise that due to its creative nature can still have a LEFT dominating culture. If a small part of your team does not fit into the rest it might be prudent to create a breakout subculture for them e.g. running a rogue R&D team inside a RIGHT cultured enterprise.

We are always looking at trying to improve the way we work, by understanding this model and our business composition we can better decern what type of advice to listen to or content to explore in more detail e.g. A mixed organization removes all policies to boost creativity resulting in inconsistent delivery in operations.

What success looks like for LEFT Teams 

How well are we solving problems/opportunities (target) and as countermeasure ensure it is within efficiency margins (balance) i.e. solving the problem the best way possible within the constraints provided e.g. time and resources.

Supporting Frameworks & Tools: Agile Manifesto, Scrum, SAFe, Progressive Estimation, Scrum of Scrums, etc.

Books: Doing Agile Right

What success looks like for RIGHT Teams

Maximizing final throughput (target) and as counterbalance ensure it is done within the expected quality margins (balance).

Supporting Frameworks & Tools: Lean, Theory of Constraints, Flow Principles, Value Stream Mapping, Jidoka, Poka-yoke

Main Book: The Goal

Model refinements

Although I have come across the basic idea of using Agile methodologies for creative parts in the business and Lean for operations the vast majority focus on one or the other without holistic guidance on where to use what. I have spent the last couple of years pondering and experimenting around this but with some collaborative refinement, I believe this model could offer even more guidance and insight.