This article was written by Zack Scott, Transformational CIO and Lean Evangelist with more than 20 years successfully driving Agile transformations in start-ups, SMEs as well as in corporate organisations from the bottom up as technical leader and architect as well as from top down as senior manager and executive in Europe and Australia.
In this series, Zack will look at the evolution of organisational matrix structures and propose a 3rd dimension to create '3D Lean' - a powerful model to support your Agile Lean Transformation.
Part five has covered some obvious observations that might also be found in other organisational hierarchies models. Alignment and collaboration are the backbone of many a successful organisation.
However, 3D Lean is mostly about how to keep technical excellence and a healthy working culture in perfect balance.
The flow of information through an organisation is an indicator for the organisation's effectiveness. 3D Lean provides connections that will support an efficient information flow without unnecessary detours and dead-ends.
For that reason, the matrix as the pyramid's basis is crucial to an organisation's value stream: it models an efficient information flow and successfully combines cross-functional elements as it spawns the 3D Lean pyramid.
The Matrix demonstrates how technical excellence and a healthy working culture can be kept in balance - and how organisations can grow from there.
3D Lean relies on harmonious and stable structures. Wardley maps as well as value stream mapping can help to reveal and resolve structural and procedural dysfunctions on an organisational level.
With the proper tool support, applying 3D Lean to an organisation will see an generative, performance-oriented Westrum culture develop as its evolutionary result.
And, of course, to keep a state of technical excellence there are countless tools and frameworks that will support 3D Lean, from Extreme Programming XP and Agile practices to unconferences and code katas - with all of their principles also applicable to non-technical environments!
Naturally, 3D Lean is only a model: a simplified and abstracted version of reality. And, of course, there are many other models that deal with organisational structures. 3D Lean does not try to be better or "more right" than those other models. Rather, 3D Lean provides another angle to approach challenges organisations might face today.
Focus, 8 Lean principles, respect for Little's and Conway's laws, acting as ONE team - 3D Lean can be your guide for your organisation towards their 'awesome' ;-)
This pyramid certainly does not hold all the answers, yet, some treasures are hidden - sometimes it simply helps to change the perspective to see the next step. 3D Lean tries to provide this new perspective.
This model has been invaluable to my work for the last decade and I hope that it might also add some value for you.
Technical excellence and a healthy work culture in total balance!
Make sure you check out each of the previous chapters of Zack Scott’s 3D Lean series:
THE END. (or is it?)