Lean Portfolio Management : Rethinking Organisational Efficiency:
Beyond Legacy Approaches and Towards Continuous Value Creation
When we reflect on the history of organizational structures and business strategies, we find that they have deep roots in methodologies from two industrial revolutions ago. Our approaches have often focused on optimizing efficiency, saving time, and maximizing output – all hallmarks of a bygone era. We've built our systems around annual planning cycles, an arrangement that, while perfect for accountants, may not necessarily align with today's digital world's fast-paced, dynamic nature.
But we must ask ourselves: have we truly optimized for any of these things? Or have we merely applied an antiquated model to a modern context, hoping for the best?
The truth is that the legacy approach to organizing work has led to an intricate network of silos that create extensive external dependencies between teams. This structural inefficiency has often resulted in the opposite of what we initially aimed for – rather than fostering collaboration and rapid delivery, it has led to bottlenecks and slow decision-making. Our well-intentioned attempts to stuff more work into the system of delivery have only exacerbated these problems.
I recall one place I worked where a third (yes, a third) of the whole workforce was employed to manage coms and collaboration, and reporting between silos!!
What a waste !!!
Not only do we need to move to fresh silos, but we need to remove the whole structures that are all about people being employed to manage the disorganized chaos.
Check out my next post, which talks about what we should organize for instead