What is the management problem tackled by Agile & Lean in the office?
Work flows horizontally through any organization. As the work flows from one activity to the next, each activity can: • Require different skills and expertise • Be performed at a different location • Vary depending on the customer requirements for that unit of work Management of different skills and expertise, geography, and customer segments or products is a top down or vertical process. This places the vertical management of activities at 90 degrees to the horizontal process of creating value. The two are cross-purpose to each other. Consider a company that is organized by functions such as sales, marketing, engineering, production, and customer service. The value stream to launch a new product is a horizontal flow through each of these functional organizations. But the management of a new product launch occurs vertically by separate organizations depending on the current activity. Using vertically centered management to coordinate the horizontal flow of work causes no end of problem
