This is my story and my answer to the question what the core ingredients of a real agile organization are.
About 15 years ago I worked as a team leader in a huge corporation. In those days I wondered why most of my work was not covered by the ERP system the company used to produce its machines. And from time to time I was humiliated by bosses telling me to do things of which I thought they were stupid.
Back in those days I started my analytical work on organizational solutions in a physical environment when my task was to organize the complete logistics system of a production site. I (successfully) fought our multiple backlogs and read The Fifth Discipline of Peter M. Senge which introduced system thinking to my life.
Later I changed as the CFO to a machine building company with a build to-order business model and found things even more chaotic whenever a surprise or backlog occured. Some 9 years ago I came across Niels #Pflaegings 12 Gesetze which encouraged me to think beyond the well-known tayloristic approach. Later I met Wohland, read Drucker and Goldratt and we implemented Critical Chain Project Management to end up with significantly lower costs and lead-times.
Very comfortably being the CFO allowed me to experiment with all what I had read and heard. In those days Niels‘ peach orgnization model as well as self organization did not work for us for two reasons:
Everyone in the organization as well as its shareholders had been socialised in tayloristic cultures and therefore continued to behave accordingly (I still consider this the major obstacle to change an organization to an agile beta-style one). And the team members were afraid to take decisions themselves as some of the tasks had the potential to cause a damage of 5 to 10 m€ to the company, which caused tremendous stress to most of them involved.
Today I know you need a really agile organisation whenever you do something for the first time or create products which are at least partly new. Key for being successfully agile then, is not self-organization itself, but:
1. The absence of a boss who knows everything better and decides everything just because he is the boss. Which doesn’t mean not to have a boss at all or to leave people alone with a coach and a bunch of experiments. But having a boss who focusses on providing orientation for all as well as help in case it is needed. I call this a „flexible regime“.
2. Replacing „push“- by „pull“-task-assignment which enters the potential for individual growth and motivation to the team. To make it work, social density should be high and therefore the team size small or its activities and progress transparent for all.
3. As the task volume is volatile whenever you do things for the first time, flexible capacities are required. It’s the key to keep-up the work flow in such an environment. Flexibility does encourage people to collaborate and not to exclude tasks from their personal landscape. And therefore it prevents stocks of unsolved tasks to build up. It is fixed or limited ressources which make people behave autistic, multitask in case of personal overload and bosses intervene to decide about #priorities. Which will bring you straight back to the „push“-world.
The result of the three will be a #realagile organization. Aditionally you may take some or all of Niels‘ 700 flips but at the end the three will increase your productivity by around 90 percent. Having achieved this you will meet very relaxed CEOs who are happy their people are getting along without them. Guaranteed.
Garda, 21st May 2018
