Organizations create governance that impacts productivity. The leaders of the company need to have insight into the decision making process, and provide guidance to align with strategic planning. One area that works is applying a decentralized stage gate process. This is a valuable asset that empowers self motivated teams to report success and resolve their own roadblocks. The group decides what should be handed off, and how to self-correct problems without having a command and control compliance officer setting timelines and milestones for them. 
Stage
Gate process were established to filter important ideas from strategic
leaders of the organization. This is similar to mining precious metals,
where you have lots of byproduct to process. The gates or cycfines
provide them the resource and financial backing required so they are
successful. In many cases, this has become a paperwork exercise, and at
worst a fiefdom where centralized organizations are making strategic
decisions and without the backing and support of the senior management
team.
Stage
Gate Processes should be Engines of Innovation, since this drives the discourse to align the strategic vision of the
company with the tactical implementation. The discussions for steering committee
should focus on prioritization and support as compared to compliance
and status.
Agile methodologies create a framework for accountability. Based on a inclusive strategic planning process, teams can be guided on what will have the largest benefit to the organization. Once you have the governance team as cheerleader and supporter, the results bread the success that make people want to come back to work every day.
I am always engaged in a waterfall vs. agile conversation when talking about stage gate milestones and timelines. My augment is agile allows you to learn and be lean in your approach. Waterfall is only required when you know exactly where you are going from the start. I imagine the architects of the railroad had many challenges, but the notion of where they were going to lay the tracks was not one of them. We are not building a railroad, we are building complex services that changes daily with customer input and feedback.
Agile methodologies create a framework for accountability. Based on a inclusive strategic planning process, teams can be guided on what will have the largest benefit to the organization. Once you have the governance team as cheerleader and supporter, the results bread the success that make people want to come back to work every day.
I am always engaged in a waterfall vs. agile conversation when talking about stage gate milestones and timelines. My augment is agile allows you to learn and be lean in your approach. Waterfall is only required when you know exactly where you are going from the start. I imagine the architects of the railroad had many challenges, but the notion of where they were going to lay the tracks was not one of them. We are not building a railroad, we are building complex services that changes daily with customer input and feedback.
They didn't actually have comprehensive knowledge of where they would lay tracks. They had a general plan for a route and sent surveyors to plan handling specific big problem areas:
ReplyDelete"The railroads you mention were the ones who constructed the Transcontinental Railroad, opened 1869, decades after railroads came to the US.
Railroads were initially built as ways to get goods to market, either collecting produce from a productive agricultural region for shipment from an ocean or river port, or shortcutting a longer water or wagon road route. Carriage of manufactured goods the other way, and passengers, were important but secondary parts of the calculus. Later, linking together territories for political reasons became an important rationale.
19th century railroad projects couldn't be as meticulously planned as they can today. The first step was determining a general route, constrained by terrain, available mountain passes, water sources, and to some extent, political considerations. The US Army conducted the Pacific Railroad Surveys in the 1850s, and Congress in 1862 chose a general route. The railroad companies then employed surveyors to determine specific routings to conquer steep grades, avoid long lines of fill, and bridge rivers and creeks economically. A talented surveyor able to envision the various tradeoffs of different lines of road could save the railroad millions of dollars and months of work. Once the line of road had been determined, the on-the-ground work of filling, blasting, and grading was supervised by others working on short stretches. There was no set of complete construction drawings as we would have today."
So apparently the general route was chosen by Congress (haha), and then they sent surveyors to deal with nuances of known "problem areas".