Author: Cigdem Ozdikmen Sengul (source: LinkedIn)

It’s an arduous journey from being a startup to a big scaled-up company. Each stage has a different challenge and needs. Whatever happens in an organisation, as coaches, we are looking with agile/lean lenses.

The biggest question is where we should look with these lenses. Is it just implementing a framework?

This week, I attended an amazing two days #unfix workshop in Munich. We had so many challenging topics and conversations.

The headline is #unFIX. Questioning organisational models and understanding the design patterns.

I asked myself many questions, and I am still thinking over🙂. Please ask yourself these questions, and let’s discuss them together.

• Do we really know when, in which stage of the business lifecycle, a company needs to scale up? When should we start to prepare our company? Think value creation. Scaled value stream(s)

• Does the organisational design fit on value streams? Maybe we stuck with a different model. How about silos? Can we see the end-to-end flow from a signal to an experience?

• What kind of decision mechanism do we have? Are we able to provide equality? What if we have unequal power distribution and a centralized decision-making process? How are we dealing with these all?

• Have we ever thought about human needs? From curiosity to certainty, we have lots of motivations. When we suggest or use an agile framework, what motivations are we touching on?

• What type of teams and departments do we have? Maybe some of them offer shared services like legal services or architectural infrastructure. Or perhaps some teams have special skills. Is the organisational structure helping your purpose? Agility is not just a framework.

• Do we have an environment for alignment without line management? Like, while having end-to-end value stream crews, having a network mechanism for market segments

• How about parallel management? Trying to work between managers :) Maybe we have a functional manager + a project manager + a regional manager. Ahhh, so many different priorities, confusion, or maybe losing yourself while thinking about which manager we should listen to. How do we deal with all these challenges?

• Do we really need cadence? How about design thinking, lean startup, or lean thinking? Have we ever thought about real solutions without fixing processes? Think out of the box!!!

• Do we know the golden ratio for sustaining and disruptive innovations? How do you design your organisation based on maintenance, improvement, new products/services, and reinvention?

• Have you ever experienced flexible teams? If you have a chance, what kind of structure would you like to design for them? Just think big!

• Do we know the vision and strategy of the company? I mean in each level of the organisation. Who is responsible for execution?

Many thanks to Jurgen Appelo for this fantastic workshop and all the open-minded conversations.