1. What is the
management problem tackled by Agile & Lean in the office?
Work flows horizontally through any organization. As the work
flows from one activity to the next, each activity can:
- Require different skills and expertise
- Be performed at a different location
- Vary depending on the customer requirements for that
unit of work
Management of different skills and expertise, geography, and
customer segments or products is a top down or vertical process.
This places the vertical management of activities at 90 degrees
to the horizontal process of creating value. The two are
cross-purpose to each other.
Consider a company that is organized by functions such as sales,
marketing, engineering, production, and customer service. The
value stream to launch a new product is a horizontal flow
through each of these functional organizations. But the
management of a new product launch occurs vertically by separate
organizations depending on the current activity. Using
vertically centered management to coordinate the horizontal flow
of work causes no end of problems. Think silos.
Agile & Lean help to tackle the vertical management of
horizontal value streams by establishing a system-wide view of
how value is created by the organization. They add a discipline
of managing value to managing skills, location, and customer
requirements. Maintaining a value discipline helps guide
management decision making to optimize the horizontal flow of
work.
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2. Does Agile & Lean
require senior management commitment for it to succeed?
Agile & Lean can be implemented both from the top-down or
from the bottom-up. For an organization to reap the full
benefits of Agile & Lean eventually both top-down and bottom-up
approaches will be required. But Agile & Lean techniques are
easy to adopt. They do not require extensive training or "black
belt" certification to get started. Experience can be gained
with Agile & Lean prior to rolling them out across an entire
organization.
A single group can apply Agile & Lean concepts to a single value
stream within that group. For example, a sales organization
could apply Agile & Lean techniques to order processing. Most
organizations process multiple types of sales order. To get
started, Agile & Lean could be applied to just one type of sales
order. A value stream map can be created for that one order type
and analysis conducted to maximize the value and minimize the
waste.
The organization will benefit from applying Agile & Lean to any
value stream regardless of its size. The techniques to improve
performance are also tend to be independent of size. So in
addition to the immediate performance benefits the organization
will also learn Agile & Lean techniques that scale as the size
of projects scale. Then senior management can be engaged when
Agile & Lean techniques are well understood and the projects
start to cross interdepartmental boundaries and require
management involvement.
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3. How important is
leadership for Agile & Lean in the office?
Agile & Lean organizations rely more on leadership than
strict command and control structures. Leadership emphasizes
modeling the way, inspiring shared values, and enabling others
to act in concert - as opposed to giving orders. Leadership
involves skills such as inspiration, persuasion, and creativity,
so those without direct authority can still positively influence
others.
Agile & Lean techniques help to establish the value priorities
for each value stream of an organization. Once value priorities
are established, leadership is critical to maximize value
creation and minimize waste, by maintaining shared value
priorities across employee (functional), regional,
product/service, and customer domains.
Leadership requires permission of the group that is to be led.
It is not enough to set yourself or anyone else up as a heroic
figure leading the charge. In Agile & Lean organizations,
employees agree to be led in the pursuit of value creation and
waste reduction. Without this buy-in, change management becomes
a much greater effort. With this buy-in, leadership establishes
value priorities and identifies where each employee contributes;
while employees are empowered within that structure to
continuously knock down barriers and search for ways to add
value to every activity performed.
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4. How does the
concept of span-of-coordination benefit Agile & Lean in the
office?
The
Agile & Lean Glossary defines span-of-coordination as the
reach of an individual's or team's responsibilities; involving
both leadership and support responsibilities in addition to
authority (span-of-control). In the past management hierarchies
almost totally functioned under span-of-control. Coordination
involves the exchange of ideas, formally and informally, outside
of span-of-control boundaries.
In an office environment work can be thought of the flow of
ideas from one activity to the next. Sales, marketing,
engineering, and customer service all work with ideas;
capturing, enhancing, connecting, and promoting them. Lean
Office is an umbrella term for techniques to maximize the value
of ideas.
Establishing span-of-coordination concepts within an
organization helps to maximize the benefits of Agile & Lean by
increasing the breadth of individual and team responsibilities.
They will be encouraged to maintain a greater system-wide view
outside of their particular span-of-control and engage in
leading or supporting system-wide efforts to maximize
stakeholder value.
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5. Where is the best
place to start an Agile & Lean project?
There are four dimensions to customer value creation. The
four dimensions of performance are people, process, technology,
and time. To power an effective value stream these four
dimensions must be synchronized - none overpowering the others.
The best place to start an Agile & Lean project is with a value
stream where one of these four dimensions is obviously out of
alignment with the other three. The fact that the dimension is
obviously out of alignment will help its stakeholders realize
the need for change and create a clear target for improvement.
Under this scenario, Agile & Lean techniques can be applied to
bring the misaligned performance dimensions back in line without
having to make significant changes to the other three; greatly
simplifying an initial project.
The following are indicators of a good process candidate for a
Lean Office project:
- So ineffective it would make a good candidate for a
Dilbert cartoon
- Does not cross functional or organizational boundaries
- Has 8 to 16 separate roles, performed either sequential
or in parallel
- Is somewhat standardized and repeatable with a steady
flow of work
- The total work time to complete all of the activities is
significantly less than time from the start to finish
- Can be segmented so that the initial implementation
impacts less than 20 people.
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6. How are Agile & Lean
different from other process improvement techniques?
- Agile & Lean applies a system wide view of each of the
four dimensions of performance, people, process, technology,
and time. Process improvement, only focused on the process
performance dimension, tends to sub-optimize the
interactions of people and technologies without regard to
the mix of work that occurs over time.
- The objective of an Agile & Lean organization is not to
improve processes. It is to increase customer value and
reduce waste. How a project is named has an incredible
impact on the results of that project. Name a project
process improvement and the result will be improved
processes, but possibly with no benefit to the organization
or its customers. Agile & Lean may improve certain process
in order to increase customer value. However, if improving a
process improvement didn’t increase customer value or reduce
waste, then there'd be no reason to do so.
- Agile & Lean is not about finding one answer or optimum
result. Agile & Lean engages employees in continuous
improvement. Office systems are complex systems. Agile &
Lean assumes that for all but the most trivial environments
it's impossible to fully understand all of the upstream and
downstream dependencies on a single task. Agile &
Lean techniques are designed to enhance operational
performance a bit at a time, let things settle to understand
both the intended and unintended consequences, and then make
additional improvements.
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7. What is the
difference between Six Sigma and Lean in the office?
Both Six Sigma and Lean were originally developed for the
manufacturing shop floor and have found application in the
office environment. Both take a continuous improvement approach
to making operating performance better everyday. Both are
customer focused and have their roots in quality improvement;
though both have evolved to not only improve quality but also
increase responsiveness, throughput, and employee and customer
satisfaction.
Although their roots are similar, Six Sigma and Lean are two
different tools; just as a hammer and a saw are two different
tools. Each has sweet spots where they works the best, areas
where they are OK, and other areas where they are a waste of
time. Over time the two approaches are adopting the techniques
of the other, as organizations realize that there is no more
reason to build a house with just a hammer, as there is to build
a house with just a saw.
Six Sigma's primary focus is on the reduction of variation. Six
Sigma uses statistical mathematics to measure and predict
variation. Once identified, reducing variation reduces defects
and costs; thereby increasing performance. As an approach, Six
Sigma does not specify techniques for reducing variation once
discovered. Lean techniques can be one of the tools to reduce
the variation monitored by Six Sigma.
Lean's primary focus is on maximizing value creation and
minimizing waste. Lean assumes that the job of enhancing value
creation and waste reduction is never done. There are always
incremental improvements to be made. Lean relies on measurements
such as Six Sigma or balanced scorecards to establish the status
quo and evaluate the impact of change. But Lean is more of an
approach for defining how systems should operate to maximize
throughput while minimizing service times and waste.
Therefore, Six Sigma is more of a measurement tool to help
identify problems and establish when they are resolved. Lean is
more of an operations tool to help define from a system-wide
perspective the most effective way for work to be performed.
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8. What are the
differences between Agile and the following project management
approaches: PDCA, DMAIC, and the Five Ds?
Each of these continuous improvement approaches are defined
in the
Agile & Lean Glossary. As approaches for conducting
continuous improvement programs each represents a cycle of
implementation steps or stages; and all are typically
represented as wheels. Although each defines what is included in
each stage/step slightly differently, the overall contents of
each are roughly identical. Whether you use one of these
approaches or some other variation, it’s important that:
- It be done continuously
- There are sufficient measurements to insure progress is
made
- Nothing else is broken
The primary difference between each of these approaches and
Agile, is that Agile uses what is known as a time-boxed
approach. Any project has three variables: 1) scope, 2)
resources, and 3) time. PDCA, DMAIC, and the Five Ds fix
the scope and the resources assigned to a project and then
determines the time it will take. An Agile time-boxed
approach fixes the time and the resources, and then allows the
people assigned to the project to determine the scope they can
complete given the time.
An Agile time-boxed approach:
- Creates sustainable rhythm to continuous improvement
approaches
- Allows for powerful feedback loops for increased project
estimation accuracy
- Enables resource commitments to easily change at each
cycle
- Delivers value at the end of every cycle
- Increases the overall chance of project success
There is an interesting continuum where each of these
particular approaches exists when it comes to problem solving.
Consider a scale from one to five where one is "eliminate the
negative" and five is "accentuate the positive". On this scale
six sigma would rate a one, PDCA would rate a two, and Agile and
the Five D's would rate a five. Depending on the organizational
culture, one of these approaches or its derivatives may be more
appropriate than another.
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9. What are values?
Value is a popular term within the vocabulary of Agile &
Lean. Like many popular terms it means different things to
different people. The
Agile & Lean Glossary defines value as something of worth in
usefulness or importance to the possessor. To paraphrase another
saying: value is in the eye of the beholder. So there is nothing
simple about establishing the value of something. It depends on
the context and the individual or group assigning the value.
In Agile & Lean there are two primary uses of the word value:
- The value of culture or community
- The value of products or services
The value of culture or community represents the worth of
maintaining the organization to the individuals that comprise
the organization. These values establish a common sense of
purpose, direction, and execution; why the organization exists,
where it is going, and how is it going to get there.
The value of products or services represents the worth produced
by the activities of the organization. The customers of this
value can be both internal and external customers of the
organization. These values help to sustain the long term
viability of the organization.
There is a tendency to establish the overall value of an
organization solely by the value of its products or services.
Agile & Lean recognizes that both are important and that the two
must be closely aligned and continually enhanced to sustain
operational excellence.
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10. How do Agile &
Lean enhance value alignment?
High performance organizations are able to tightly align the
values of their culture or community with the values of their
products and services. As work is performed in high performance
organizations the worth of each value set is reinforced and
enhanced.
If cultural or community values are not aligned with product and
service values, or if the values of each are not commonly
shared, business friction increases and the organization will
literally be at cross purpose to itself. Decisions seem
difficult to make, customers believe you are hard to do business
with, employees are de-motivated bureaucratic barriers, etc.
Attempting to solve each of these symptoms individually doesn't
work. As soon as one symptom is pushed down, another pops up.
Agile & Lean techniques were developed to address both cultural
and community values as well as product and service values and:
- Establish shared values throughout the organization
- Enhance the activities performed by the organization to
maximize those values
- Minimize waste or non-value added activities
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