Sub-Optimize Your Way To Failure

 

I've realized something lately.

Or rather, been reminded of it.

Sub-Optimization Sucks

The only way to acheive a truely lean organization or even a lean project is for the entire value stream to be bought into lean thinking.

Because of this fact, senior leadership in any organization must be fully supportive and invested in moving an organization to lean and agile thinking and process.

My teams are gaining clear benefits from the methods we've implemented with Kanban. However, because we are the only teams running this way, the benefits are also very limited.

Blocked

For example, in some cases my team members need external validation from other teams before we can move a particular feature forward in the value stream.

When those external parties are not bought into lean thinking (single-piece flow, limited WIP, continous deployment) they can very quickly become a block, causing a bottleneck in the value stream.

Pushing For Change

So, I am trying to develop interest from the other teams we interface with. Who knows, maybe I'll be successful in 'converting' them. Perhaps not.

Even better, I'm formulating plans for a method of convincing senior leadership that for our next program, a lean/agile approach is superior to our waterfall SDLC.

We'll see.  Wish me luck.