A fundamental principle in Lean, on which FLEX is partially based, is to improve collaboration via explicit workflow. Explicit workflow merely means that a team has stated, explicitly, how they are doing their work. It does not prescribe a set of rules and is not something to follow. Rather it is an explicit statement of how the team has agreed to work.
Many teams often work without any stated way of working other than their events and roles. This follows the sense of the "free-wheeling" Agilist - who does what is appropriate at the time. Often the attitude is rules are unnecessary and are a burden of waste.
But not having explicit workflows often leads to confusion and makes it difficult to improve because people are:
- not sure if there is an agreed upon approach
- not sure what it is even if there is one
- can’t be sure people are following it so when things go well or bad it’s hard to see what happened or how to improve things
Working agreements should include what the flow of our work is. This enables us to see how we are working on a continuous basis. This enables better collaboration and continuous learning. Our working agreements on the flow of our work makes how we are working explicit. This enables us to question if there are better ways because we have visibility on what we all are doing.
We can translate our working agreements into our team boards. Kanban boards are very useful for this since they show the steps which the team uses to get their work done. Not that it is important that the Kanban board be a reflection of our working agreements. We don't follow the board, there are no rules here to be servants to. By having our teams boards reflect our working agreements everyone can be on the same page. As we learn, we change our agreements.
Trust, respect and collaboration requires people work well together. It helps if they agree on what they think their best way of working is and discuss it amongst themselves. They also, of course must keep their agreements. Part of this is to agree to discuss agreements when someone doesn't feel they are appropriate. Onboard new team members is also easier when we have captured our working agreements.
QUESTION AND ANSWERS
Q: What if we can’t agree on what we should do?
A: Then agree to try different ways of working and see which works best. Or agree in those situations for which you can't reach agreements that people can do what they want. By having this be explicit you still are working together.
Q: Can there be exceptions to explicit workflow?
A: Of course. Working agreements must state where they apply. But these exceptions should also be stated. For example, if we state that in certain circumstances we don't have an agreement on what to do.
Q: What if there’s a situation where the explicit workflow is clearly wrong?
A: Then do what makes sense. But probably have a working agreement that you’ll tell people about it so your ways of working can be improved.
