Principle 7 – Collaborate on Dependencies
Co-create and evolve a coherent system to deal with all dependencies, so that you deliver value fast when dependencies cannot be avoided.
Essential patterns to help you achieve this:
- Navigate via Tension – Everyone in the organization paying attention to dependencies maximizes the potential for unmanaged dependencies to be identified and responded to.
- Clarify and Develop Domains – When people understand their own areas of responsibility, and those of others too, they also understand where collaboration on dependencies will be necessary.
- Visualize Work – Visualizing work items and the dependencies between them, makes it easier to manage dependencies in cooperation with the relevant stakeholders.
- Respond to Organizational Drivers Understanding why a dependency exists in the first place, and ensuring it is taken care of, is essential for collaborating on managing or resolving dependencies.
- Involve Those Affected – To address dependencies in an effective way, it often helps to gather the perspectives of all (relevant) stakeholders and involve them in the decision-making process.
- Linking – Dependencies between two teams can often be addressed effectively by sending a Representative to the decision-making of the other team, to ensure all relevant perspectives are considered and ownership of decisions is shared.
- Delegate Circle – Delegating the power to make and evolve agreements for how to deal with specific dependencies between teams, to a circle of representatives, brings together relevant perspectives and generates ownership among stakeholders.
- Align Flow – Moving decision-making close to where value is created, brings together the people necessary for making decisions in response to specific dependencies and eliminates unnecessary decision-making bottlenecks.
- Create a Pull-System for Organizational Change – Inviting and enabling people to make changes to organizational structure, when doing so provides an effective way for dealing with dependencies they share responsibility for, facilitates the ongoing evolution of a coherent and effective organization.