Transformation 2.0 Methodology
June 9, 2024

Lack Of Transparency

Navigating The Fog Of Complex Organizations

Do you know the situation where, shortly before the release date, a major initiative discusses postponing the release or whether one can dare to go live without an important feature?

The fog surrounding the information from the many sources within the company has lifted far too late. It is now too late for measures that could save the release date.

There are many reasons for this. Perhaps the information simply didn’t reach the right place, perhaps a team planned far too optimistically and hoped to the end that another team would have to admit before you that it couldn’t deliver. A change in the requirement that was not passed on to all teams can also be responsible.

And the situation is made even more challenging by the fact that a lack of transparency not only affects the delivery date, but also the range of functions and quality of building blocks.

Where Does The Fog Come From?

This fog around information on status, quality or delivery dates has always existed when many teams from different areas were involved.

However, the transformation has made the situation worse, as there are now many more teams and the teams involved can no longer evaluate what is causing a problem in their delivery.

Of course, the people involved first have to find their way around their new roles and the new processes. Perhaps the wrong role was simply given the right information.

The trend to demarcate one’s own area of responsibility from neighboring teams leads to a no-man’s land spreading between established building blocks, which it is nobody’s job to illuminate. In addition, it often takes extra effort to make an overall view transparent – e.g. how a process works end-to-end. No one will invest this effort if their own responsibility ends at the border of their own component.

Management Perspective

In a large initiative, it is difficult to maintain an overview of the functional and technical dependencies and interrelationships.

Traceability is often lost at the latest when topics are handed over to IT and each delivery team individually fleshes out its own contribution. In the event of a problem or a change, it is not possible to judge whether the effects are reallyfully understood.

As a result, it is often recognized too late that a decision would have been necessary or that not all required deliveries are available.

Team Perspective

An agile team often serves several initiatives so that they have to compete for capacity.

Due to the complex dependencies in an agile organization, delivery teams may still know which initiative a particular delivery is intended for but does not know the functional context and the technical dependencies.

Changes to requirements are also often not communicated to all teams. If a team then makes a change, the impact on the neighboring systems cannot be assessed due to the lack of context.