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4 2024-01-01

Agile Lean Leadership

A Bird’s Eye View

A Sustainable, Resilient, Constitutional Organization, where there is

freedom under the rule of law and not the law of the ruler.
A place where freedom exists for people to contribute, create value,
engage, and flourish.
A place where people together can be sustainable and resilient.
A place where leadership is a service and not a privilege. A place with
stewardship and not a display of power.

舎AgileLeanHouse A/S | Fyrre Allé 3 | 6040 Egtved | Denmark

[email protected] | www.AgileLeanHouse.com | +45 3170 1346
Authors: Kurt B. Nielsen & Anne Due Broberg
 Agile Lean Leadership – A Bird’s Eye View

Copyright © 2017-24, AgileLeanHouse A/S. All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

Introduction 4 Circles in the Center 13

Background of Agile Lean Leadership 5 Supplier Circles 13
Mindset 6 Resolution Circles 13
Values 7 Tactical Resolution Circle 14
Purpose, clear, and worthwhile 7 Strategic Resolution Circle 14
Sustainability in all things 7 Operational Resolution Circle 14
Resilience in all things 7 Secondary Circles 14
Respect for people 7 Transient Circles 15
Principles 7 Relationships and more 16
A clear and worthwhile purpose 7 Relationships 16
Transparency and visibility 8 Delegations 16
Institutionalized learning 8 Feedback 17
Respecting and developing people Escalations 17
and relations 8 The Constitutional Organization 17
Using the Principles 9 Advanced topics 18
The Framework of Agile Lean Leadership 9 A Scaled-Up Circle 18
The Team or the Circle 9 A Scaled-Down Circle 19
Roles 10 Super Circles – Modeling a Large
Artifacts 10 Organization 19
Process Guidelines 11 Shared Leadership 20
A Network of Circles 11 The Really Big and Wicked 21
The Value Stream 12 Templates, tools, and practices 21
Customer Circles 12 Conclusion 22
Front Line Circles 12 Glossary 23

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Introduction
Agile Lean Leadership (ALL) is a Framework for implementing Agile and Lean practices
throughout an organization, scaling out; not just in special cases or departments as has been
common with agile frameworks such as Scrum. The result is a Constitutional Organization
based on mutual agreements and commitments. The all-important cornerstone is to enable the
freedom for the individual to choose to engage, commit, and constantly improve.
This whitepaper provides the readers with a solid framework with values, principles, and
practices that can be used to address the current situation and used as guardrails in the
process of achieving this organizational freedom. The goal is a transformation of the
organization, whether fast or incremental in nature.
Many people have addressed the issue of Scaling Up, moving Scrum, Agile, and Lean above the
concept of a single team. This is part of ALL, but ALL covers many more aspects of creating an
organization that can thrive in the modern complex environment.
Challenges today are abundant and multifaceted. We may embark on a journey that seems
simple to most of our advisors or superiors, “How hard can it be?” is often heard:

Reality is almost always different, and all sorts of unexpected challenges come our way:

The question is how can we prepare organizations to perform well, even in such unpredictable
and complex situations. The answer is both extremely simple and very complex, it represents a
paradigm shift from conventional organizational and management wisdom: People need to be
truly free and engaged contrary to what they are today1. We have to:
● Focus on creating customer value through transparency and collaboration.
● Replace central planning with engagement and commitment of individuals and teams.
● Replace power-based authority with trust, common values, and common goals.
● Replace extrinsic reward and punishment motivation with intrinsic motivation consisting
of purpose, relationships, autonomy, and mastery.

1
Gallups report https://bit.ly/GallupGW2017, 85% are not engaged at work, 15% actively disengaged.

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● Replace monitoring and control loops with constant learning and improvement loops.
People are only truly engaged if they have volunteered for the organization. They can only do
that if they effectively have the freedom to choose through consent. Follow us, as we tour the
territory of a Constitutional Organization based on Agile Lean Leadership.

Background of Agile Lean Leadership

A few years back a number of Scandinavian Scrum trainers and coaches2 discussed the future
of organizations and where to go next, now that Scrum and Agile had become mainstream in
many areas. We had all been in the game for 10 years or more, and we saw how many
competing frameworks tried to deal with “Scaling Scrum” up to large projects. We were more
concerned with moving the fundamental patterns found in Agile, Lean, and Scrum out into every
corner of the organization, reaping the benefits that we so clearly had seen in projects and
product development. We called this “Scaling Out”.
At the same time, this exercise of scaling out also led us to investigate the patterns’ applicability
in areas that are not pure knowledge work (which for example software development is) at a
deeper level. In the general organization, there are many physical boundaries and constraints, it
is not all in your head. There are legal and governance constraints, there are employment
constraints, and there are decisions affecting the whole organization, that need to be taken.
There have to be solutions for those real-life circumstances as well.
In our respective countries, it is considered bad taste to boast abrasively of your qualities,
however, we agreed that there was one thing our culture constructively brings to the table: The
concept of low power distance. Everybody has the right to be heard and taken seriously. This
proves to be one of the preconditions of achieving the benefits of an Agile Lean Organization. In
addition, we were taught and inspired by many very clever people:
● We all followed Dave Snowden and his Cynefin framework. It provides an excellent
explanation of why Agile and Lean are needed in our complex world and why it works.
● Amy Edmondson and her research on the importance of teams in complex learning
organizations, point to the concept of Psychological Safety as a vital enabler.
● Anders Dysvik and his colleagues from Oslo BI have highlighted the importance of
intrinsic motivation in their research.
● Tom Gilb has since the eighties hammered into our heads the importance of focusing on
value and impact estimation, not just effort.
● General Stanley McChrystal and submarine commander David Marquet have in similar
ways described how they had to depart from a traditional hierarchical command and
control culture to an engaging network of teams model
in order to achieve results in complex environments.
● However, we need to highlight the grand figure of W.
Edwards Deming, who served so well in the American
war production of WWII, later in Japan roughly from
1950 to 1970, and in his autumn years from about 1980
to 1993 trying to persuade American business leaders
to adopt a better way through the Lean principles.
We took our offset in Scrum which is a very elegant set of
simple, easy-to-remember enabling constraints. We learned
from all the people mentioned above and many more; we tried
to synthesize and fuse all these ideas into one coherent
concept and framework.

2
Arne Åhlander (SE), Geir Amsjø (NO), Christian Myrstad (NO) and Kurt Nielsen (DK)

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Gradually the definition of Agile Lean Leadership emerged, as a set of extra enabling constraints
and patterns for scaling Agile and Lean out in the organization and handling situations above
and beyond pure software or product development. We concluded that there is indeed a rather
simple set of extra constraints to add to those found in Scrum. They are easy to follow as a
good starting point when trying to build an organization suited to deal with complexity.

Mindset
At the deepest level, Agile Lean Leadership (ALL) is a mindset that governs how we confront
challenges, opportunities, and decision-making, particularly when working together with others
in organizations.
It begins with the realization that much of the work we deal with today is in the complex domain
where only fragmented knowledge is available, but we still have to act, we cannot just wait. In
this domain, we need to have multiple perspectives from several people, and for them to
contribute effectively, they need to be free agents, to volunteer their knowledge.
During the Industrial Age, much leadership was about getting people to “do” what was already
planned by their superiors or experts. Now it is all about getting people to “think” and create
novel solutions to challenges.
Today, we are much less in control than we would like and our customary process with big
upfront plans and fixed budgets is destined to fail.
It is often helpful to think in terms of Dave Snowden's
Cynefin model. Challenges are placed in the four domains
depending on what knowledge is available, this
determines how much we can plan outcomes and how
much we must experiment to get there.
Although “top-down” management has prevailed since the
Industrial Revolution, it has always been more natural for
people to solve complex problems by sharing ideas and
cooperating in small groups. Now that the Industrial Age
is drawing to a close, it is time for new (or rather
rediscovered old) ways to think about making
organizations work optimally.
The concept, values, principles, and patterns of Agile Lean
Leadership are a consolidation of many great
contributions rooted in Agile and Lean thinking in general.
We are especially indebted to Scrum for its Sprints, Roles,
Events, and Artifacts and the benefits they create. The question becomes how to foster an
organization where comparable benefits can be achieved across teams as well, hence our term
“Scaling Out”.
The result of introducing Agile Lean Leadership is a Constitutional Organization where work is
done mostly in decentral, self-organizing teams of committed participants, who are team
members by invitation and choice. Each member is a valued and respected contributor, using
their skills for the collective goals of the team. They have a certain autonomy, a sense of
purpose, and a license to develop their own intrinsic motivations on the path to mastering new
skills and meaningful accomplishments. Leadership and authority are not abolished but exist
through process and mutual agreements and honoring commitments.
The mindset of a Constitutional Organization exhibits some distinctive characteristics:
● Normally nobody uses coercion to make others comply.

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● Everybody honors their commitments.

● Everybody involves others through invitation.
● Everybody is willing to be transparent and accountable.
● Everybody signals intent to allow others corrective suggestions.
Fear should never be used as an instrument of management. In Amy Edmondson’s words the
organization should become “Fearless.”

Values
A set of four core values drives Agile Lean Leadership. The values represent
the deepest answers to the “why” question. These values should to a
reasonable extent be shared among those who work together in the
organization.

Purpose, clear, and worthwhile

An organization must have an aim to work towards. The aim should be bigger
than any single individual and be more than just making money. To be useful
in binding people together for the long term, its stakeholders must find its
purpose worthwhile. The purpose will reveal the organization’s own values.

Sustainability in all things

Sustainable organizations must have a long-term view of most things. They should strive to
remove waste, avoid draining scarce resources, and build up relationships and human
capabilities for the long haul.

Resilience in all things

An organization must expect change and unpredictability. The structures and communication
channels must be capable of responding quickly to new challenges and opportunities.
Everybody must be on the lookout for new knowledge and time should be made for disciplined
reflection in order to make sense of things.

Respect for people

An organization must serve its customers, employees, stakeholders, and society at large with
respect. That includes giving people psychological safety, and avoiding force and fear, thus
allowing them to grow, develop, and have joy and pride in their work.

Principles
The Values are supported by a set of 16 Principles that people in the Constitutional Organization
can refer to when making decisions and choosing actions. By choosing actions that support and
strengthen the principles, the organization and its people unite around its shared values.

A clear and worthwhile purpose

● At every level, be very clear about the purpose, values, and constraints. Most people
need to see a higher purpose than just making a living, they will only engage fully if the
true values of the organization resonate largely with their own.
● Balance the value created for customers, employees, society, and stakeholders. An
unbalanced focus will in the long run make the organization less sustainable, party
politics will erupt and create tension.

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● Hold and display the moral high ground with integrity and strive to build trust. An ALO
lives through trust and cannot be sustained without it, it reverts to an empty ceremony.
Trust can only be upheld with persistent and consistent demonstration of integrity.
● Remember that the final judge of the quality of a product or service is the customer. No
matter how it is phrased an ALO exists to serve a customer, it is the value that the
customer experiences that is the true indicator of quality.

Transparency and visibility

● Sustain an unrestricted flow of information up, down, and sideways. An ALO starts with
radical transparency. If people are to have a mandate to make informed decisions, they
need to see reality. Open communication requires psychological safety and willingness
to speak up.
● Be in dialog with the customers to fully understand how to benefit and serve them
persistently. Ongoing dialogue and continuous feed-forward and feedback loops
throughout the organization ensure the best possible understanding of the customers’
values and needs.
● Shorten the distance of understanding between the customers and the organization.
Short lines of communication keep the customer close. Delays and handovers through
many layers or departments obscure and distort messages and engagement.
● Create optimal visualization of models, goals, status, progress, and impediments.
Visual, and graphic displays engage people and retain their attention, lists do not. People
get the meaning and remember connections when communicating at least
two-dimensionally.

Institutionalized learning
● Strive to see and understand the facts in their full context as a system. Most situations
in organizations cannot be evaluated in isolation, they are interconnected. To make
qualified decisions, the main dependencies in the system must be understood.
● Build up and sustain a commitment to constant improvement and learning. At the heart
of everything Agile and Lean is constant improvement and learning. The organization
must radiate commitment to this, there must be visible time and money allocated to it.
● Strive for collegiate decisions, pushing responsibility as far out as there are people to
carry it. People closest to the action have the best information, allowing them to decide
what to do; of course, they must be qualified and have clarity of goals, and they may
need training to carry the responsibility.
● Balance the need for structure and standards with the need for adaptability and
innovation. Every working unit must evaluate its need for structure and standards. Too
much will dampen innovation and slow response down; too little will create confusion
and frustration.

Respecting and developing people and relations

● Allow people pride of workmanship and a certain autonomy, building them up to their
maximum potential. People get joy and satisfaction out of jobs well done, they need to
be in charge of their own life and they need to grow; let the organization support this.
● Be willing to serve colleagues, subordinates, customers, and suppliers; leadership is a
service. Leadership is not a privilege, a leadership role means doing what it takes to
make those around you successful, not exploiting them.

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● Keep a long perspective on people and relationships; create psychological safety. By

taking an investment view instead of a cost view of people, customers, and suppliers,
good prioritizations become clearer. Psychological safety is a prerequisite for high
performance.
● Be transparent and never use fear as a leadership instrument, as fear leads to
distortion of data or systems. There is no place for hidden agendas and manipulation.
Fear will invoke people’s survival instinct the strongest of all, and they will do anything to
protect themselves, including gaming the system and cooking the numbers.

Using the Principles

The principles serve as beacons that light the way for decisions and other courses of action.
The radar chart below, shows the principles, resting on the values. Potential decisions are
shown as a red dotted line; for each principle, it is estimated how strongly this particular
decision supports the principle. In this way, several options can be visually compared for
consistency with the principles. It goes without saying, that a decision should not be
implemented that contradicts the principles; people will lose trust immediately.

The Framework of Agile Lean Leadership

A number of basic concepts have been collected from various sources and worked into a
coherent and consistent set. In the following discussion, we assume the reader is familiar with
the core Scrum terminology.

The Team or the Circle

In Agile Lean Leadership we use teams as the operating unit where possible. Teams are
self-organizing, cross-functional, and able to deliver the products and services on their Main

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Backlog, an ordered list of Backlog Items, the most

important are at the top. The Teams are designed with
high internal coherence and low external coupling, so
they can operate largely on their own, like a small
independent business.
The Team concept is taken from the classic Scrum
Team, which we have generalized and called a Circle. A
circle is the fundamental operating unit, an
organizational building block with defined capabilities and serving a specific purpose.
● Circles have a few defined roles: Strategy Owner (aka Product Owner), Operations Owner
(aka Scrum Master), and Team.
● Circles have Process Guidelines, an agreed ceremony, or a set of events that govern their
work and create a flow. Some Circles may choose to work with Scrum, Kanban, a
combination thereof, or something else.
● Circles have Artifacts that provide visualization of important aspects of the work: The
Circle Manifest the Main Backlog, the Tactical Backlog, and the Improvement Backlog.
Under all circumstances, Circles are expected to operate with constant feedback, following the
practice of iterations (or cadences) in planning, review, and retrospective. Circles are also
expected to focus on making their work as transparent as possible.
Circles have Relationships with other Circles, defining how they interact. When a Circle has
Relationships with other Circles, they can Delegate Backlog Items to each other. These are the
channels along which value flows in the Value Stream. A Relationship also has a Manifest, that
documents the agreements and expectations between the two sides of the Delegation.
Circles can be “Scaled Up” with more than one Team working on the same Main Backlog, or they
can be “Scaled Down” with more than one input (effectively a separate Backlog) to the Main
Backlog.

Roles
● The Strategy Owner (SO, like a CEO) is equivalent to the Product Owner in
Scrum, responsible for value generation, and looking out for customers,
competitors, and society at large. Prioritizing the Main Backlog to achieve
the best possible Return on Investment.
● The Operations Owner (OO, like a COO) is equivalent to the
Scrum Master in Scrum. This person is responsible for the
collaboration and process in the Circle, its collaboration with
other Circles, and dealing with impediments and improvements.
At the center of the Operations Owner’s work is the relentless
focus on constant improvement and constant learning.
● The Team, is a cross-functional, self-organizing team that has the necessary
skills to deliver whatever is on the Circle’s Main Backlog with as little
dependency on other Circles as possible. The Team Members define their
own work: they analyze, design, implement, and verify the deliverables they
produce.

Artifacts
● Circle Manifest. Each Circle has a public Manifest that it
maintains. The Manifest shows why The Circle exists, what it
does, who its members are, who they serve (Customers) and
the rules for engaging with the Circle. Often the Manifest will
contain a Competency Matrix that shows what competencies
the Circle requires, which ones the individual Team Members

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bring to the table and how well covered the Circle is with respect to competencies. This
Manifest is transparent to the whole organization, helps everybody to understand what
to expect, and will be modified from time to time as circumstances change.
● Main Backlog. This is at a minimum an ordered list of
Backlog Items or deliverables for the Circle, it is equivalent to
the Product Backlog in Scrum. It is the job of the Strategy
Owner to prioritize the work on the Backlog to generate
maximum value and make sure that the specifications are
sufficiently robust to fulfill the customers' expectations and
provide the Team with a common understanding. The Circle
may choose to have additional Artifacts supporting the full
understanding of what to deliver, such as Story Maps, Road
Maps, Outlines, Design drawings, etc. The Items on the Main
Backlog may be specified using the User Story pattern.
● Tactical Backlog. In finely granular form, this shows each
Team’s specific short-term work, progress, impediments, and
typically task allocation. It serves as the focus point for the
Team during execution, but also as an information radiator to
the rest of the organization, providing radical transparency.
● Improvement Backlog. This is an ordered list of
improvements and impediments to the collaboration,
process, and general working conditions, typically derived
through retrospectives. The Operations Owner uses this as a
task list. It also provides visibility of the Circle’s ideas and
challenges for the rest of the organization, which then potentially can offer help.
● Relationship Manifest. This describes concretely how the Circle works together with
other Circles (could be Suppliers and Customers) and the commitments they bestow on
each other. Of course, the commitments described in a Relationship Manifest must be
within the range of the Circle Manifests.

Process Guidelines
The Circle can choose to work in different ways, depending on which Cynefin domain the bulk of
its work is in. It may be the Scrum way with its set of events, meetings, and ceremonies, some
may prefer Kanban or a combination of these two. A Circle may also choose a totally different
way of working where appropriate. A Circle’s process guidelines must comply with the
fundamental Values and Principles and are typically explained in the Circle Manifest.
However, a Circle’s process guidelines must be radically transparent, accept and provide
feedback, include people as volunteers, and abstain from using fear and coercion under normal
circumstances.
At a minimum, a Circle’s process guidelines must include a disciplined approach to feedback
and learning; a space for its people to reflect on how they could improve and learn. This is
typically called a Retrospective.

A Network of Circles
When combining Circles into an organization, a Network of Circles, the need for new
communication and workflow relationships arises. There are a few recommended principles to
follow.
An organization must have a consistent purpose, and it is good practice to have an
Organizational Manifest documenting this and other high-level principles:
● Principles for delegation and prioritization.

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● Principles for escalation of decisions on tactical, strategic, and operational matters.

● Principles for handling concerns cutting across the value stream, typically focused on
competence.
● Handling of crisis, transient teams, and crews.
● How internal accounting, employment, salaries, and more are handled.
A Network Circle architecture is best achieved in a collaborative process that often takes several
iterations before the final design is agreed upon. It requires the involvement of everyone, not just
senior managers. Everyone needs to be included by invitation. The following illustration helps
explain the details:

The Value Stream

In the middle of the diagram, horizontally, is the Value Stream, with products and services
flowing right to left to serve the Customers. It passes through a number of Circles – operational
units – each adding their particular value to the stream. The ones within the organization itself
are called the Primary Circles.
The Value Stream consists of the following Teams and segments displayed as Circles:

Customer Circles
Customer Circles represent the organization’s understanding of those they serve, and how they
are logically grouped and organized. Manifests for the Circles describe who this category of
customers is, their values and requirements, and what they need.

Front Line Circles

Front Line Circles (aka Agile Customer Circles) are at the front of the Primary Circles facing the
Customer Circles. They are designed and formed with the customer in mind; they have the skills
and competencies required to serve the customers' needs in the best way possible.
Ideally, the Customer should only have one entry to the organization, except where doing so
creates too many internal delegations.
Ideally, the Front Line Circles should be able to do everything needed to satisfy the customers;
however, it is also desirable to keep teams small to maintain the dynamics. Sometimes it is
better to get help from other Circles by delegating Backlog Items rather than expanding

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individual teams beyond their optimal size. It may also be helpful to scale a Circle up and have
multiple Teams working off the same Main Backlog.
When starting to design the Network of Circles comprising the organization, it is good practice
to start with one Front Line Circle on the inside of the organization matching each Customer
Circle, and then iterate from there.

Circles in the Center

Center Circles are in the middle of the map, they serve other Circles in the organization. They
perform services like marketing, admin, HR, and legal support, and build platforms or services
common to multiple products or deliverables. Their “customers” are internal to the organization.
When external suppliers are involved they may have Relations (dependencies or interactions)
with them too.
Circles in the center also have Manifests, which describe “Why” they exist, “Who” they serve, and
“What” they do. It should include information about the Circle’s activities, artifacts, and terms of
delivery.
A special kind of Circle is sometimes used, they are called Traveller Circles. The people in such
a Circle are mostly advisors, coaches, or teachers of special skills. They coach and help out
Primary Circles, occasionally taking on specific jobs.
When starting to design the Circles in the center it is advisable to start with one Center Circle
called “Admin Services” or similar and iterate from there. This is where the classic functions of
HR, Finance, Legal, Facility Management, and other service functions.

Supplier Circles
When strategic suppliers are involved in the Value Stream, it makes sense to include them in the
Network of Circles and display them as a Circle as well. The Supplier Circles are described like
any other Circle with a Manifest as well. The organization may not have complete control over
the operating agreements in the Manifest for the suppliers, but can often negotiate acceptable
conditions ensuring that the supplier is appropriately transparent with Circles that it has
Relationships with.

Resolution Circles
Resolution Circles exist to coordinate interaction between Primary Circles and to deal with
decisions, issues, conflicts, and opportunities that are either unexpected or beyond the scope of
individual Primary Circles. Circles and their modes of operation are designed to be optimal for
the organization and relevant external conditions, but the world sometimes behaves
unexpectedly, making it necessary on occasions to go beyond that which can be handled at the
Primary Circle level.
It is recommended to have a Tactical, Strategic, and Operational Resolution Circle. Each of these
has one person who serves as the Chair, mediating decisions and in case of deadlock, breaking
this by shifting to arbitrate.
The operative term here is “Escalation”. Any Circle can Escalate an issue or idea deemed
unresolvable in due time and have it resolved at this common (higher if you will) level in the
Organization. When something is Escalated, it goes on the appropriate Circle’s Main Backlog
and is dealt with according to that Circle’s rules of engagement (described in its Manifest). It
follows that in large organizations it may be possible to escalate to several layers of Circles. It is
good practice to have a defined Executive Committee to handle exceptions that require
immediate action, it is often composed of the Chairs of the SO and OO of the highest level.

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Tactical Resolution Circle

As the name suggests the Tactical Resolution Circle (TRC) is designed
to resolve tactical issues which cannot be addressed by individual
Circles or their bilateral negotiations. It is all about meeting relatively
short-term goals, such as Sprint Goals in Scrum (typically a few
weeks). The TRC will typically involve an Operational Owner and team
members representing the other teams. The TRC meets periodically to discuss cross-circle
issues such as dependencies, impediments, and planning matters. This does not always have to
be very often. If bilateral negotiation is sufficient to meet goals acceptably, then instituting a
TRC is not recommended. In classic Scrum, this is often informally known as the “Scrum of
Scrums”. The Chair of the TRC is chosen to represent the competence and skills side of the
organization.

Strategic Resolution Circle

The Strategic Resolution Circle (SRC) is designed to resolve
strategic issues, perhaps relating to customer requirements,
prioritization, product specifications, resource and money issues, or
other business matters that cannot be addressed by other Circles
and therefore need to be escalated.
The SRC also has strategic initiatives on its Main Backlog and typically a Strategic Roadmap to
guide all the circles. Work may be delegated to other Circles.
The SRC is recommended to be composed of Strategy Owners (Product Owners) from the
Primary Circles and includes one Operations Owner as well. One of the members is chosen to
serve as the Chair of the Circle, with the authority to break deadlocks.
This is not your ordinary hierarchy creeping back in. The SRC is composed of those people who
live in the Primary Circles and have responsibility for these. However they do get together to
address challenges together and choose courses of action for the common good, not just for
their own Circle.

Operational Resolution Circle

The Operational Resolution Circle (ORC) is designed to resolve
operational issues related to collaboration, process, team
composition, impediments, and improvements that for some
cannot be resolved by the Primary Circles directly. Decisions are
made with the interests of all the Primary Circles in mind and
therefore may have a bearing on more than one Circle.
The ORC also has its own initiatives for organizational improvement on its Main Backlog. Work
items may be delegated to other Circles.
The ORC is recommended to be composed of Operational Owners from the Primary Circles. As
with the SRC, one of the participants typically serves as the Chair, having the authority to be the
final arbiter.

Secondary Circles
In traditional hierarchical organizations those with similar skills or competencies were grouped
in the same departments, which gave some benefits. However, team-based organizations
designed to work in the complex domain are cross-functional, and instead of being focused on
functional grouping, they concentrate on the Value Stream and the delivery of goods and
services to customers.

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The downside can be the loss of focused work within an area of skill. The sense of comradery
and the sharing of ideas that sometimes happens when people with similar interests and
competencies get together is something we want to preserve.
The solution to this is the Secondary Circles (SC), where Team Members from Primary Circles
meet from time to time to discuss cross-cutting concerns within their special area of skill and
expertise. This is indicated in the figure above with the dashed purple line.
Examples of Secondary Circles could be QA and test people, designers, architects,
communication, or other subject matter specialists.
It is important to note that the people in Secondary Circles
have their “home” in the Primary Circles, in the Value
Stream. They are not pulled out of Value Stream, they do
not constitute staff functions, and they are always part of
that primary focus on value. They may spend anything
between an hour and a day per week on the Secondary
Circle activities. They participate in all regular activities in
their “Home” Primary Circle.
The work in an SC is also governed by a Manifest and a
Main Backlog. Work may be delegated to an SC for
example from the Strategic Resolution Circle. This could for
example concern a strategic need to choose a new
common test equipment or system, it is then delegated to
the appropriate SC, since these are the experts in this field.
People in an SC may take on a piece of work on the SC’s
Main Backlog. It is good practice to delegate this back to the person’s “Home” Primary Circle so
that the work is visible on the Tactical Backlog there.
This concept of Secondary Circles is well known in many agile implementations and has been
called Communities of Practice or Guilds. Sometimes these Circles start spontaneously
because of a need in the Primary Circles and sometimes they are formalized because they
provide valuable systemic input and work.

Transient Circles
Another important organizational concept is the Transient Circle, which is
formed when extraordinary situations occur. This is indicated in the figure
above with the dashed red line.
Organizations design their operating units and their Network of Circles to
handle the majority of normally occurring situations. However, there may be
outliers for which the organization is not prepared. Dave Snowden calls these
situations “sudden drops into chaos”, any praxis will be completely novel.
The organization reacts to such a sudden drop into chaos by forming a
so-called Transient Circle, which is typically composed of a few extremely
experienced people. Their task is to intervene and stabilize the situation before
it stabilizes itself, probably to the organization’s disadvantage. Sometimes
organizations have a hunch that such a thing could happen and have trained a
“crew” that knows exactly what they are expected to do in this emergency.
When the alarm bell sounds, a Transient Circle is quickly formed and springs into action,
typically commissioned by the three Chairs of the Resolution Circles. Normally a Transient Circle
is given extraordinary authority to commandeer and conscript resources and people to

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participate in the stabilization, while the rest of the organization tries to keep ordinary life going
as best they can.
This is a situation where the normal rule of involving people through invitation often is
suspended; there is no time for niceties, “Just put the fire out, then we will talk!”. The
Organization trusts that the few very experienced people in the Transient Circle are able to make
intuitive decisions based on their supreme experience for the common good and that they have
the character to really focus on the common good.
When the situation stabilizes, and the emergency work transitions into more normal operation,
the Transient Circle is decommissioned. This is a very important aspect and should be marked
clearly; otherwise, there is a tendency for some undesirable power structures to remain after
such a drop into chaos.
It is often a good idea to then commission a Secondary Circle tasked with exploiting the
knowledge gained through the recent activities of the Transient Circle. It could be to design
ways of avoiding similar drops into chaos or turning the situation into an opportunity.

Relationships and more

Relationships and Delegations are important concepts in Agile Lean Leadership as they
constitute the glue that binds the Circles together and defines the flow between Circles –
primarily in the Value Stream.

Relationships
Circles can have Relationships with other Circles. When there is a relationship between Circles,
work (Backlog Items) can be delegated. Relationships can be uni- or bidirectional and have their
own Manifests describing why the Relationship exists, what services are provided and what
each Circle has agreed and committed to, what to expect. This may be the case when
organizations are bigger and deliveries are larger, requiring many skills and many people’s
efforts. It is sometimes more effective and efficient that one circle requests a delivery from
another, with which it has a defined relationship.

Delegations
Delegations are the formal mechanism for exchanging
deliveries. It is of course best to avoid handovers where
possible, but sometimes this is the least of evils. The
delegation must include a set of operating agreements,
known to the parties and documented in the Manifests.
When a Circle needs another Circle to deliver something, a
Backlog Item is delegated to that Circle.
Borrowing resources is often the default mode in most
organizations, but this ruins the benefit of teams, to multiplex people between different teams.
Delegation substitutes borrowing resources (manpower) because the latter wastes time on task
switching and commonly creates confusion and causes mistakes. Operating agreements and
delivery conditions for Delegations are documented in the Manifests.
It must be clear what to expect when delegating something. How does the delegatee prioritize
and make everything visible? When accepting a Delegation the delegatee also accepts the
responsibility to inform the delegator about any state changes.3
Many real-life deliveries contain items that are Obvious, Complicated, and some that are
Complex, to use the Cynefin terminology. The primary candidates for delegation are the Obvious

3
A concrete pattern exists to help make the necessary agreements around delegations in praxis.

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items since they are the easiest to specify and understand. Complicated Items can also be
candidates, provided the delegator is convinced that the delegatee can find the necessary
knowledge, but Complex items should not be delegated, they simply require too much
interaction. It is precisely the strength of solving these items that rests with the small,
self-organizing Team.

Feedback
Involving the customer in the feedback loop is central to the idea of Lean Thinking and a means
to achieve constant learning and improvement. It is good practice for Circles that delegate work
to other Circles to provide disciplined feedback to each other to ensure that expectations are
met within the agreed parameters. The feedback loop should operate continuously but may take
various forms including inter-personal meetings, interviews, and other digital modes of
communication.

Escalations
When a situation occurs that does not seem to lend itself to a solution within a Circle or through
negotiations between Circles, it can be escalated to an appropriate Resolution Circle. Normally
the organization has formulated some strategy in the Organizational Manifest for what Circles
should do before escalating.
Escalation means that the case is formulated and presented to the Escalation Circle, which then
convenes to try to find the best solution for all of the Circles involved. Often an escalated case
will spawn a Backlog Item with the purpose of evaluating if the situation should result in some
permanent improvement to avoid or to handle such cases in the future. Another possibility is
that an escalation results in the formation of a Transient Circle because the case at hand is too
big to be handled immediately.
Everybody tends to think of escalated cases as issues and impediments to be tackled, however,
opportunities can also be escalated because the Circle does not know how to exploit them best.
It is good practice that the Resolution Circles commit a certain response time to the rest of the
Organization so that everybody knows what to expect. Such a Circle’s Backlog is also visible to
the whole organization so transparency is provided.

The Constitutional Organization

When an organization is based on the values, principles, and practices described, it is on the
way to a true Constitutional Organization, where there – in Timothy Snyder’s4 words – is “The
rule of law, not the law of the ruler!”. The foundation is a set of agreements that everybody
involved has consented to voluntarily as a free agent - A Constitution, or with an even more lofty
word, a Covenant.
This is a good starting point, but any real organization is organic and will have to develop as the
circumstances unfold.
Each circle has a self-declared Manifest, where they describe to the rest of the Organization who
they are, what they do, and how to collaborate with them. Each Relationship between two circles
also carries a Manifest where the bilateral agreements on delivery are documented.
Each Circle ideally has the authority for the Strategic, Operational, and Tactical areas split
among different actors. The Tactical area is usually handled by a cross-functional
self-organizing team. In this way, the organization provides a framework for getting multiple

4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_D._Snyder.

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perspectives on the table and it also creates checks and balances, so that any tendency for any
one person to start hoarding power can and will be countered.
The protocols and operating procedures in the Organization are the result of negotiated
agreements between semi-autonomous Circles and individuals. Key protocols are Delegations
where one circle requests another circle to deliver an item, and Escalations where a request is
issued to a resolution or a secondary circle for a decision about a challenge or opportunity. In
both of these cases, decisions are made through representative5 and consultative6
decision-making. Each individual Circle sends people that the Circle regards as competent,
having clarity about goals, and being of such character that they can be trusted to make
decisions for the common good.
In this way, the Organization becomes more self-documenting and transparent, easier to
understand, and therefore stands a much better chance of having common goals and achieving
alignment.
It also establishes true empowerment at the Circle level and true influence on the whole
organization, which leads to improved intrinsic motivation.
The Constitutional Organization can be maintained and protected against organizational
oligarchy or despotism if the owners back it up and allow the smaller units – the circles – true
autonomy including the local mandate to decide on detailed use of resources (including money),
hiring, firing, and compensation, within some agreed constraints of course.
If this autonomy is not strong and defended, sooner or later, typically in a crisis, some central
administrative body, will come in and force detailed procedures and reporting, laying off people
indiscriminately or detailed monetary control. Usually, it is people of the financial persuasion
that muscle in this way.

Advanced topics
A Scaled-Up Circle
Sometimes a Circle needs to deliver more than a small
Team (5-9) can handle. We have already discussed the
possibility of Scaling Out and delegating work to Circles
further upstream in the Value Stream. The Circle may
conclude that it is more helpful to be a Scaled-Up Circle,
that is, have multiple Teams working on the same Main
Backlog prioritized by one Strategy Owner.
● The Teams may have to be strengthened with
skills to support the SO/PO more in developing
requirements and liaising with stakeholders.
● There may be more than one Operations Owner.
If there are more than 2-3 Teams, one person
cannot be close enough to the Teams. They split
the work between each other and self-organize.
● Events are slightly different:

5
Representative decision-making: where a larger body of people choose someone to represent them in
a larger forum and make decisions on their behalf.
6
Consultative decision-making: where a person is given authority to make a decision because of his
competences, clarity, and character. His responsibility is however to hear out everybody that have
something to say or are affected by the decision.

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■ Backlog Refinement is preferably done by all Teams together pulling in from the
Main Backlog; alternatively, Items are preallocated by a smaller group.
■ Sprint Planning #1 follows the same pattern.
■ Sprint Review consists of a quick common presentation, then a so-called Turkish
Bazaar review with stakeholders visiting individual Teams, that they take special
interest in; the Teams present their accomplishments in detail.
■ Retrospective consists of Teams doing individual Retrospectives and then
aggregating a short Common Retrospective.
● An in-circle tactical resolution meeting (Scrum of Scrums) may be created and meetings
held between Team members if necessary.
● An in-circle operational resolution meeting may be created and meetings held by Scrum
Masters if necessary.

A Scaled-Down Circle
A Scaled-Down Circle is one with more than one
input backlog. This typically happens when there
are lots of smaller projects or work items from
different sources or customers.
Sometimes Items on the Main backlog appear
simply as delegations from other Circles.
Sometimes there is a need for a separate
backlog for each of the input streams, for
example, if the different customers should not
be able to see each others’ items. This situation
is common for Circles in the Center of the Value Stream.
● Prioritization between the different input streams is critical. Balancing the requirements
of the different input streams is a major job for the Strategy Owner.
● Rules of engagement are very important; it follows that Scaled-Down works better for
smaller, more ordered work items (Clear/Obvious domain).
● Escalation is required when the rules of engagement create conflict or undesirable side
effects.
● The Operations Owner often takes on following up externally with delegators. Team
members tend to lose focus in this setup otherwise.
● Events may become different:
■ Backlog Refinement, Planning, and Review sometimes have to be done by fewer
members than the whole Team to preserve valuable work time.
■ Kanban is sometimes preferable to Scrum here, as it becomes hard to
synchronize a Sprint across multiple external customers.

Super Circles – Modeling a Large Organization

The model for a Constitutional Organization described here applies to approximately 10 Circles
in the Value Stream and a few hundred people. When an organization is larger, another level
needs to be added. We call these Super Circles, they are like divisions in an organization, each
representing individual Value Streams. The principle is that there should be very little tactical
interaction between the individual Super Circles. If there is interaction, one Super Circle appears
as an external supplier to another.
Nevertheless, there is a need for coordination across Super Circles, allocation of financial
resources, and resolution of challenges or cross-cutting concerns that span multiple Super
Circles.

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The best-known way is therefore to have an extra level of Strategic and Operational Resolution
Circles above the Super Circles and an extra level of Secondary Circles handling cross-cutting
Organization-wide concerns such as graphic profiles or employment details.

Shared Leadership
A Circle has three leadership roles, the Strategy Owner (looking out to the surrounding world),
the Operations Owner (looking into the internal functioning of the Circle), and the Team (looking
at the practical competencies in the Circle). This is equivalent to the Product Owner, Scrum
Master, and Team in Scrum, or a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Operations Officer
(COO) and line organization in a traditional setup. This is not an entirely novel idea, research and
practical experience have demonstrated the value of such an approach of complementary
leadership:
● When there are two or more leadership roles, the risk of one person hoarding power is
reduced. There is a built-in balancing act going on – checks and balances.
● Dealing with increasingly complex challenges becomes too much for one individual; few
people span the gamut of the necessary competencies and experiences.
● Both looking out and looking in require the full attention of a person.
According to Harvard Business Review7, there are four pillars that shared leadership rests upon:
a common vision, common incentives, communication, and trust.
There are many different ways of complementing each other than the one described here. In
Agile Lean Leadership the simple rule of different focus areas is advocated: looking out and
looking in, external customer value, and internal effectiveness and resilience – and then keeping
the factual competencies sharpened at all times.

7
https://hbr.org/2007/04/the-leadership-team-complementary-strengths-or-conflicting-agendas

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The Really Big and Wicked

Sometimes an organization faces decisions that affect everybody, or have huge commercial or
personal consequences. Examples could be the closure of a value stream, dismissal of people,
mergers, or acquisitions. It is hard to come up with a definitive way of handling such decisions
and many organizations are also constrained by law or their own legal Articles of Incorporation
or by-laws.
In principle the top Resolution Circles should agree on such decisions and the “Chairs” will
facilitate, and in case of deadlock, make a decision. A few other things to consider:
● Sometimes it is helpful to have an agreed arrangement with a third party to act as an
arbitrator or mediator.
● Sometimes there are legal constraints on how to operate. A legal Board of Directors may
be in place, some shareholders may have special privileges that have to be
accommodated (although this generally is a bad idea), or certain public governance rules
apply.
● Sometimes there is an owner who in the end can pull rank and decide.
● Sometimes the top-resolution circles end up being combined into one. That of course
can open the door to traditional hierarchical thinking.
It is also worth mentioning that some decisions and the process leading up to these cannot
exist with full transparency as advocated. Mergers and acquisitions cannot be out in the public;
the process leading up to the potential dismissal of people can also not be public.
Finally, there are also constraints on organization from legislation, by-laws, contracts, etc. where
authority has to be associated with individuals. There will be authority and responsibility for
certain things; it cannot be a complete Utopia.

Templates, tools, and practices

Agile Lean Leadership also recommends a host of Artifacts, templates, workgroup methods,
and other practical things that can be used to support the practices, principles, and ultimately
the values. They are not necessarily unique to ALL, but help a lot when implementing it.

Some of the more important templates are

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● Vision Board or Lean Canvas.

● Strategic Road Map for a circle or aggregated for the whole organization.
● Story Map or Outline as an alternative two-dimensional representation of the Backlog.
● Burndown and burnup display for goals, progress, and impediments.
● Templates for Circle and Relationship Manifests.
● Templates for employment and compensation.
● Templates for customers and supplier contracts.
● Some good tools used:
■ The Future Backwards workshop method for achieving common understanding
and input to backlogs.
■ Ritual Dissent workshop method for quickly improving specifications and
narratives.
■ Open Space Technology for getting engagement and input to problem solutions.
■ Estimation cards, like planning poker, confidence estimation Kano estimation of
business value, and complexity estimation.
Some good practices used:
● Radical transparency, if people are supposed to be engaged and make intelligent and
informed decisions they need to accept reality, which requires radical transparency.
● Including people by invitation treating them as volunteers. Knowledge and learning
cannot be conscripted.
● Denouncing the use of fear, coercion, and force as management instruments in normal
situations.
● Being willing to commit to and honor the commitments made in Manifests and direct
interactions.
All these practices and templates are supported by AgileLeanHouse’s productivity tool Agemba,
learn more about it here https://agemba.com/#info

Conclusion
Agile Lean Leadership is a set of relatively few and easy-to-understand values and principles
coupled with an architecture starting point and good practices for an organization.
It is a theoretically sound but also deeply practical approach to establishing an organization on
engaging and rewarding principles instead of using the old hierarchical power model.
It can lead to a powerful sustainable and resilient organization, where people can engage and
experience growth and importance –much the same way we normally hail democracy over
oligarchy or tyranny in society.
Agile Lean Leadership is backed up by a comprehensive educational course catalog by
AgileLeanHouse and its network, coaching, and the online collaboration and productivity tools
Agemba and Cool Estimation. Read more here:
● Agile Lean Leadership course catalog.
● The online collaboration tool Agemba.
● The online Cool Estimation tool.

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Glossary
Acceptance Criteria Statements to highlight details of a Specification. Typically describing special
situations, conditions, or outliers. For example, using the following template:
"Given a-certain-context and some-more-context. When “this-event” happens.
Then “this-outcome” and “another-outcome” must result."
Acceptance Test Verifying the Specification and the Acceptance Criteria of a Deliverable or Backlog
Item are fulfilled.
Accomplishment A visible result that all stakeholders and/or Circle members can identify and
relate to.
Artifacts The tools used to visualize what to deliver, prioritization, tasks to do,
impediments, and progress. The term normally refers to the Main Backlog or the
Tactical Backlog, but can also refer to the Improvement Backlog, Product
Burndown, and Sprint Burndown, if these are used.
Backlog Item An item or entity of product or service with an identifiable result on a Backlog. In
Scrum this is called a Product Backlog Item, sometimes also referred to as
Stories, or for the larger ones Epics.
Business Value The quantified value that the Strategy Owner (on behalf of the Customer) expects
to reap from getting a particular Backlog Item done and delivered.
Cadence An interval in time set up for planning and review purposes. The term is often
used in Kanban; in Scrum the term is Sprint.
Circle An organizational unit with a certain mission and striking power, has defined
roles, manifest, backlogs, and process guidelines.
Commitments Definition of what the parties in a Relationship have promised each other. This
communicates what the parties honestly believe can be accomplished and
expresses that they will do their best to honor this.
Cross-functional Team A team where the members together possess all the necessary skills and
competencies to complete their Backlog Items.

Customer The person who pays for the Backlog Items. The Customer naturally wants
maximum value and return on investment.

Customer Circle A collection of Customers identified by the Organization with its manifest,
typically such a Circle can be served by one Frontline Circle

Definition of Done Specific criteria that a Team upholds in order to be as sure as possible that a
Backlog Item is of acceptable quality so that they do not have to go back to it.
Delegatee The CIrcle accepting a delivery of a Backlog Item to another
Delegation When one Circle asks another one to deliver one of its Backlog Items it is called
Delegation.
Delegator The Circle requesting a Backlog Item from another
Delivery-In A milestone on the Timeline, specifying that at this time the plan is to receive
certain deliveries into the circle, from other Circles or suppliers.

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Delivery-Out A milestone on the Timeline, specifying that at this time the plan is to deliver
certain deliverables OUT of the project, for example to other Circles or to
customers.
Epic An Epic is a large Story (or generally a Backlog Item), typically one that later on
will be broken down into appropriately sized Stories. Normally too big to execute
in a Sprint or in Kanban
ETA Estimated Time of Arrival. When is it expected that the Deliverable is handed
back in Done state to the one requesting it (the Delegator) from the one actually
doing the work (Delegatee)
Expectations Definition of what the parties in a Relationship expect from each other? This
communicates what the parties expect; there is normally some slack in how to
accomplish this.
Frontline Circle Aka Agile Customer Circle. A Circle in the Value Stream that has and serves
customers out in the wild.
Global Constraints Conditions for all the Circle's Backlog Items. Any solution that is delivered must
be within the definition of this collection of constraints. This often includes
performance, platforms, usability, documentation, etc.
Idea Feedback from a customer or (delegator) about how things could be improved
Impediment Anything preventing a Team from performing at their very best. Impediments
(sometimes called obstacles) are recorded on the Improvement Backlog and
dealt with by the Operations Owner.
Improvement Backlog An ordered list of the improvements and impediments currently being worked on,
typically by the Operations Owner
Issue Feedback from a customer (or delegator) about problems with Backlog Items
Kanban A way of managing work, by visualizing the workflow, applying the definition of
done criteria and Work in Progress limits
Main Backlog An ordered list of everything a Circle has to work on and deliver. In Scrum, this is
the Product Backlog
Manifest A short descriptive document, conveying what an Organization, a Circle, a Team,
or a Relationship is and does.
Milestone A general Milestone on the Timeline, typically specifying that certain conditions
must be met by this time.
Operations Owner OO. This role has the responsibility for the operational domain, how everybody
works together, and for the process guidelines. The OO owns the Improvement
Backlog. This role is called the Scrum Master in Scrum.
PDSA Plan-Do-Study-Act, W. Edwards Deming's quality improvement process, constant
learning
Phase Alternative word for Release, typically used in non-IT contexts
Primary Circles All the Circles participating in the Value Stream, they are also the home base of
all members
Radical Transparency The requirement to represent the truth, the full truth and nothing but the truth.
Refactoring Changing the internals of a solution for long-term sustainability with easier
maintenance, while keeping the external behavior the same
Relationship A defined connection between two Circles where delgations can be exchanged.

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Release A collection of Deliverables that together make up a portion of the total Product
or Deliverable in some well-defined form and completeness that makes it usable
to the User and Customer.
Release Milestone A Milestone on the Time-Line associated with a Release
Release Sprint The last Sprint before a Release, where certain different activities need to be
performed (such as special deployment, tests, etc.).
Resolution Resolved issues and ideas taken back to the Primary Circles after having been
handled in one of the Resolution Circles.
Resolution Circles Primary Circles have granted authority to these Circles to resolve escalated
issues and ideas. They deal with Tactical, Strategic, and Operational matters that
are escalated which Circles in the Value Stream cannot handle themselves.
Retrospective A meeting where the whole Circle discusses how the last Cadence of work went,
what were they happy with, and what could be improved. What are we going to
do? This is called Sprint Retrospective in Scrum.
Return on investment A measure of the rate at which the Project generates value. Earlier value rather
than later is of course preferable. This is a primary concern of the Strategy
Owner.
Rules of Engagement Operating agreement between two Circles defining how requests for help or
Backlog Items are handled. It includes form, response time, and mutual
responsibilities. It always covers the handling of exceptions.
Secondary Circle The Secondary Circles are where people spend some time from time to time on
cross-cutting concerns (typically focused on skillsets) not directly moving value
to customers in the Value Stream, hence Secondary.
Self-organized People in a Circle organize in a way they find most appropriate for the work they
do, their skill level, and their personality types.
Specification A description of a Backlog Item, that is precise enough (providing enough
common understanding) so that somebody can take up the job of delivering the
Backlog Item It often consists of a Sunshine Story (User Story) and a set of
Acceptance Criteria.
Story A common term used as an alternative to a Backlog Item.
Story Point A unitless measure of the size of a Backlog Item typically used in Scrum. It is
used to estimate the relative size of Backlog Items compared to each other. It is
customary to use the Fibonacci numbers for Stories (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and 13), and for
Epics (larger units of the project) it is customary to use 20, 40, and 100 as a
scale.
Strategy Owner SO. This role has the responsibility for the generation of value and the best
possible ROI. The SO owns the strategic domain in the form of the Main Backlog.
This role is called the Product Owner in Scrum.
Sunshine Story The positive side of a Specification, including an explanation of the desired
outcome. Why is this requested?
Supplier Circle An external organization that delivers components or services to a Circle in the
value Stream.
Tactical Backlog The list of work the Circle is working on to deliver right now. In Scrum, this is
Sprint Backlog. It can also be a Kanban Board or a combination of these.

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Tactical Meetup A Tactical Meetup is a gathering where a Team coordinates short-term plans and
follows up on goals, progress, and impediments. This constitutes the shortest
planning Cycle. This is called Daily Scrum in Scrum and in other Agile contexts
Daily Standup.
Task The smallest increment of work normally worked with. During Planning, Stories
are normally decomposed into Tasks
Team People in team roles are responsible for getting the actual work done, i.e. the
“what” of the solutions. They have the responsibility for the tactical domain, they
own the Tactical Backlog. They are currently called “Developers” in Scrum, which
can be confusing in non-IT environments.
Technical Dept Backlog Items delivered with known sub-standard implementation. The term is
mostly used in Software development, but another example could be fixing a
cooling pipe in a car with a bandaid while waiting for the real spare part.
Time boxing The concept of allocating a specific time to an activity. When the time has
elapsed, the activity is over, period.
Timeline The top-level view of time-based commitments in the Circle. Normally the
Time-Line consists of 1) Milestones, where certain achievements must be
reached, 2) Delivery In, where something is delivered to the Circle, 3) Delivery Out,
where the Team must deliver something to an outside party and "Release
Milestone", where the result of the Circle's work must exist in some well-defined
form having reached a completeness making it usable to the User and Customer.
Transient Circle A Circle that is rapidly formed when a sudden drop into chaos is experienced in
an Organization. It stabilizes the situation and then dissolves.
Traveler A person in a Circle who has as a substantial part of his job to support other
Circles. A traveler is typically called upon to give advice not to do the job.
Sometimes a Traveller Circle is formed. Seen from the receiving Circle the
Traveller is a supplier
User A person who uses the Backlog Items from the Circle. User acceptance tests are
performed by Users or their proxies.
Value Stream The collection of Primary Circles which deliver Backlog Items and hence value to
the customers

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