De-Scaling Metrics and Practice Patterns for autonomous teams in self-managing streams. Spotify Chapters, Iroquois Councils and Treaties, and Self-Organizing Transformation.

1. How To De-Scale Your Organization

2. Picture a system out of control.
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
– Von Moltke

3. -- Field Marshal Helmut Von Moltke, Chief
General of the Prussian Army 1857–1888
Mission Command
“No plan survives contact with the enemy.
Each officer acts on the basis of his own
view of the situation. Productive action is
controlled by the superior framework of intent.”

4. WW2 France had no understanding of Mission Command

5. So German Panzer tanks swarmed around its
super-trench like ants on a caterpillar

6. Britain used huge supply convoys to guard against lone submarines.
WW2 Britain had no understanding of Mission Command

7. So wolf-packs of U-Boats swarmed its
convoys at night, sinking 60% of them

8. What else is wrong with this picture?
1. Too many people in the room.
2. Terrible Collaboration Loop Limit.

9. Collaboration Loop Limit
“The maximum number of conversations that have to happen
for any two people in an organization to collaborate.”

10. Managed Team
Team Size: 7
Collaboration Loop Limit: 4

11. Managed Program
Team Size: 43
Collaboration Loop Limit:

12. Program/Portfolio Management Office (“PMO”)
Team Size: 259
Collaboration Loop Limit: 12

13. Enterprise Project Management Office (“EPMO”)
Team Size: 1,555
Collaboration Loop Limit: 16

14. US Military Collaboration Loop Limit: … um ... 44?

15. Getflow.com’s data says the most effective team size is 6.

27. Not “HolacracyTM“ … which just makes the hierarchies deeper.

28. Real holarchies look more like Spotify …

29. But that’s just a model. Caughnawaga was a real working village.
Clans instead of Chapters cut across the longhouses. Clans join in Councils.

32. Each bead is a
village of 500 –
1,000. Each
row is a tribe of
10 – 20,000
The Iroquois
Confederacy
Circa 1600

33. No centralized
decision-making.
Governance by
peer to peer treaties
Clans pick
representatives at
all levels.

35. Caughnwaga

36. Treaties negotiated by consensus councils.

46. Standardization is the
Opposite of learning

47. Learning doesn’t standardize understanding.
Learning obsoletes understanding.
Caesars Standardized
Everything
WESTERN

48. Lean Startup is single loop learning. Startups need
profitability, not productivity. They learn fast or die slow.
BUILDLEARN
MEASURE

52. How does an organization learn without
compromise, confusion and loss of control?
We can’t stop and change everything at once!
Learn Agile using Agile. Make a steel thread stream, a slender but
uncompromised capability. Then exponentially split and double.
Cross-Section of the first Transatlantic Cable

53. We can track delivery of transformation in the usual format …

54. Time
Technical Debt
Time
Autonomy
Big Transformation Up Front
Self-Organizing Transformation
Time
Throughput
Time
Disruption

55. How To De-Scale Your Organization