Using the A3 Management Process for Collaboration
In his interview, Jurgen Appelo mentions that managers are like gardeners who manage the system in which plants and other microorganisms grow, rather than directly managing the plants.
This makes me think of the A3 management process, which is used to implement lean thinking principles for problem solving and continuous improvement. In the book A3 Problem Solving, Jamie Flinchbaugh emphasizes using thinking instead of tools to drive solutions, and the fact that thinking determines behaviors, which in turn decide actions that lead to results
The collaborative approach of the A3 process encourages teams to self-organize in order to determine what works. When management mandates solutions, organizations are prevented from discovering innovations, which only originate from those who do the work.
Don Reinertsen, in a presentation during the Lean Software and Systems Conference 2012 (LSSC12), provided an analogy of centralized management as a chess game. A chess piece cannot take the initiative for moving. The piece is unable to collaborate with other pieces for the next move. It can only move based on the person's decision. Centralized management can work well in systems in which the players have no intelligence and only narrow specialized skills.
The deep craving for self-organization by knowledge workers invalidates the centralized management. On a daily basis, knowledge workers deal with the kinds of problems that require strong, autonomous teams who are trusted by management to find solution themselves.
The A3 process depends on collaboration by the people who actually do the work. This philosophy originates from lean thinking, which is built upon the respect of people. The A3 process allows a team to improve its own processes and systematically solve the issues related to the product, project, and technology
In his LSSC12 presentation, Claudio Perrone stressed helping people develop lasting solutions to complex issues. Claudio used the A3 process to help teams self-organize for problem solving while team members could grow as individuals.
For me, the problem is the corollary of the opportunity. For example, assume you have a new business opportunity that involves adding a new product feature. The product team can use the A3 process to shape the target condition of having a new feature based on facts and a validated hypothesis.
For proper implementation of A3, you need to have an articulated rationale for the decisions you make. This is only possible if the role of manager is repurposed. Although we cannot manage people, we should manage the system.
