Last week, I attended the 2013 Lean Systems Society “Reactor Conference”. This was an interesting non-talking heads conference with about 40 lean thought leaders from various industry domains, including a number of us focused almost exclusively on Lean principles that support building bigger and better software systems. (I’d say who the contributors all were on this thread, but I’m afraid I would miss someone; but names like Shalloway, Gat, Highsmith, Scotland, Sutton, Martens, Bell, Royce, Cottmeyer, Cantor, Hensley and many others would be on that list).
I can’t highlight the entire conference here, but there was one major thread focused on “what role a (middle) manager plays in a Lean software enterprise”. I’ve opined before on the critical role of management in the software enterprise, and also my concern that some agilistas see that differently, and in worst case, how this has created an even bigger divide between management and the teams that do all that critical work. That doesn’t scale.
In any case, the foundation of Lean, and therefore the foundation of SAFe, is leadership, captured in part in the role of the Lean Thinking Manager-Teacher. This isn’t a random or superfluous thought; we know from painful and direct experience that it is an absolutely critical factor in Lean|Agile transformation and ongoing success. However, SAFe hasn’t provided much real content for what the expectations are for these leaders, and what paths they can take to lead, rather than follow, this particular journey. We will be addressing that in future versions of SAFe.
Notes from the Conference: Some Raw, Unfiltered Ideas on Principles of the Lean Leader
At the conference, I participated in a number of “lightening round brainstorm sessions”, (facilitated by Richard Hensley; thanks Richard) on the values, beliefs and principals that could characterize this next generation of Lean leaders. The bullets below summarize that discussion. Note, since the notes were rough, I’ve elaborated and clarified meanings a bit, mostly in parenthetical comments; but I tried not to mischaracterize or filter the raw content. This is the groups work, not mine, it is rough and preliminary. But here you go:
The Lean Leader is a life-long learner who:
Understands the full enterprise value stream (within their scope of influence)
Takes an economic view
Takes a holistic, systems view, avoids optimizing only subsystems
Provides a safe environment for growth, (experimentation and risk taking)
Visualizes all work – provides transparency
Understands the power of slack (less than 100% utilization)
Honest, Integrity, Trust, fosters collaboration
Takes responsibility for change
Embraces and supports the Agile Manifesto, (exhibits it’s values and principles)
Bases decisions on facts
Allows decision making close to the source (understands value of decentralized decision making)
Understands it’s a marathon, not a sprint in human development
Understands and unlocks the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers
Doesn’t allow bad quality to move forward
Knows when to take a stand and when to get out of the way
Interacts/changes existing system(s) in a constructive way
Serves as a connector for lean principles
Sets the boundaries, not the content
Understands and manage work in process and capacity for work
Drives systemic change
Coaches and mentors (individuals and teams)
Develops people not things
Next Steps
The group decided to take on the topic at a future time when we could focus, refine the list and provide more descriptive guidance.
In the meantime, patience not being one of my primary virtues, I plan to forge ahead with my own opinions on the topic – just relative to SAFe – and share them here. My hope is that all this will converge someday into a shared, common perspective, one which can help shape this new breed of Software Systems-Building Lean Thinking Manager-Teachers (yikes, going to have to work on that label!) grow, prosper, and help drive better outcomes.