Structure

No matter the size of the organization, we always have to deal with more than 1 team. This raises the need for any organization to know how to build, re-build, synchronize and support teams. We want to create high performing teams, like the ones that Google talks about, where everyone has a voice and every idea is considered. We also want to make sure that these teams work well together to support a product, a portfolio of products, functionality that cuts across features, products and portfolios. To have an agile structure, we need to keep all the Modern Agile elements in mind

Make People Awesome and Structure

Structure of teams, team of teams and portfolios need to be such that

• Can make customers awesome by having a clear focus on their client
• Can make team members awesome by allowing them to innovate, create and grow
• Can make colleagues from other teams in the organization feel supported and collaborative

Continuous Delivery and Structure

Just like products evolve for the benefit of the customer, the structure of the organization needs to also evolve dynamically. Reversing Conway’s law can help us with how and what when we take a Customer perspective on evolving our products. Look at the needs of the customer, decide how the product/features need to evolve, organize teams around that. Continuously deliver agile structures

Make Safety a Prerequisite and Structure

For teams to be able to succeed, they need some elements in place such as a clear goal, all the required skills, safety to bring their full selves at work and opportunities to learn by trying. Being a team member is a skill just like any other skill. To become a good team member you need to be in an organization that supports the culture of building strong teams, strong collaboration between different teams and strong support from leadership.

Experiment and Learn Rapidly and Structure

Just like with products and features where we experiment different approaches, A/B test ideas and go with the ones that give us better results, structure of an organization needs to experiment to rapidly learn what would be the best way for them to deliver with higher confidence and speed. We need to test different structures like Value Streams, Journeys, Practices, Services, etc to respond to the current needs of the clients and the product evolution. Depending on what we are doing, our structure needs to adjust to allow for value flow.