Recensie Onder druk wordt alles vloeibaar

Onder druk wordt alles vloeibaar – De bedoeling van een fluïde ecosysteem van Henk Venema en Hans van Leeuwen is alweer het derde deel in de reeks over fluïditeit. Ik had het voorrecht om twee voorlopige versies al grondig door te nemen en van stevige, eerlijke feedback te voorzien. Dat maakt het des te interessanter om nu te zien hoe deze inzichten hun weg hebben gevonden in de definitieve editie.

Het boek is opgebouwd rond twee grote kernhoofdstukken: de uitleg van het fluïde ecosysteem en de mogelijke oplossingsrichtingen, gescheiden door een centrale case rond een fictief uitkeringsorgaan. Daaromheen plaatsen de auteurs een introductie, een managementsamenvatting en diverse praktijkvoorbeelden. Voor mijn gevoel hadden de introductie en samenvatting krachtiger kunnen zijn wanneer ze waren samengevoegd.

Wat onmiddellijk opvalt, is de rijkdom aan concepten die Venema en Van Leeuwen inzetten. Het boek ademt ambitie en verbeeldingskracht, maar vraagt daardoor ook concentratie van de lezer.

Termen als fluïde ecosysteem, fluïditeit, liquiditeit, flux, fluïde, in flow, flow, fluïditeitsvorm, technologische, sociale en organisatorische fluïditeit, vloeiend, vloeiende organisaties, fluïditeitsvraagstukken passeren in hoog tempo de revue. Het maakt het boek inhoudelijk stevig, maar soms ook uitdagend om de essentie scherp in het vizier te houden.

De auteurs schetsen een wereld die zich in razend tempo ontwikkelt en waarin organisaties zich continu moeten aanpassen. Wendbaarheid alleen is volgens hen niet meer genoeg. Ze introduceren een nieuw paradigma: dat van Flow. Organisaties moeten fluïde worden, vormbaar zonder hun kern te verliezen, en samenwerken in fluïde ecosystemen. Denk aan tijdelijke rolwisselingen, adaptieve besluitvorming, en functies en waardeketens die in elkaar overvloeien. In zulke ecosystemen vervagen sector- en disciplinegrenzen en ontstaat ruimte om complexe, hardnekkige vraagstukken op nieuwe manieren te benaderen.

In het eerste kernhoofdstuk staat het waarom en wat van een fluïde ecosysteem centraal. De auteurs trekken daarvoor álle registers open, zó veel zelfs dat ik mij afvraag of ze allemaal nodig zijn om het fundament te verklaren. Alles wordt met alles verbonden.

Waarom fluïde ecosystemen

Ze starten bij technische schuld (technical debt) en de daarvan afgeleide varianten zoals organisatorische en functionele schuld. Daarna volgt een lange stoet aan begrippen: future literacy, hyper-novelty, adoptieratio’s, generaties Gen X tot en met Gen Z, corporate anthropology, liminaliteit en het boek Tricky tijden.

De vier continue liminale fasen die zij beschrijven, begrijp ik eerlijk gezegd niet. Voor mij is er slechts één relevante fase: de overgang van wendbaar naar fluïde waarin de andere vier aspecten een rol spelen en die is m.i. niet continu. Na een liminale fase krijg je een nieuwe status quo die vervolgens weer gevolgd kan worden door een volgende liminale fase. Aansluitend duiken de auteurs verder in onderwerpen als de diepte van verandering, aligned autonomy, de piramide van Lencioni, de terminale staat van serieusheid, fail fast, learn fast, antifragiliteit en autonomie.

Ik had de auteurs eerder al uitgedaagd om dit verhaal veel simpeler en compacter neer te zetten. In mijn ogen zijn ze daar nog niet in geslaagd. Door zoveel concepten tegelijk te introduceren en alles met elkaar te verweven, ontstaat een complex en moeilijk te volgen verhaal en daarmee loop je het risico de lezer te verliezen.

Wat is een fluïde ecosysteem

Een fluïde ecosysteem is een nieuw organisatieprincipe dat draait om samenwerking, flexibiliteit, waardecreatie en doelgerichtheid. In zo’n ecosysteem bundelen mensen uit verschillende disciplines, organisaties en sectoren hun krachten om snel en gezamenlijk oplossingen te realiseren omdat ze het alleen niet kunnen oplossen. Dat gebeurt zonder chaos of vrijblijvendheid, maar onder regie van een heldere missie, visie en strategie.

Samengevat ziet een fluïde ecosysteem er als volgt uit:

Het ecosysteem bestaat uit één of meerdere groepen die actief met elkaar interacteren.
Elke groep bestaat uit meerdere squads.
Een squad is een autonoom team van ongeveer acht fte.
De flow director leidt het fluïde ecosysteem, voert de regie en fungeert als opdrachtnemer richting de SRO, die namens het bestuur de opdrachtgever is (naar mijn mening is de flow director tegelijkertijd opdrachtgever richting de flow masters).
De flow master leidt één of meerdere groepen en faciliteert de operationele squads.
Een fluïde ecosysteem is een levend systeem, gedreven door een duidelijke bedoeling (purpose).
Het systeem functioneert alleen goed onder randvoorwaarden als diversiteit, inclusie en psychologische veiligheid.
Het ecosysteem kan uiteenlopende vormen aannemen, zoals een kennis-ecosysteem, netwerk-ecosysteem, platform-ecosysteem, waarde-ecosysteem, adaptief ecosysteem, hybride ecosysteem, community-gedreven ecosysteem, co-creatie-ecosysteem, zelforganiserend ecosysteem of regeneratief ecosysteem. In een bijlage lichten de auteurs deze varianten verder toe, inclusief bijbehorende risico’s.
De positionering ten opzichte van de moederorganisatie kan verschillen: van een oervorm (startup naar scale-up), volledig binnen de organisatie, hybride (deels binnen, deels buiten) tot volledig extern gepositioneerd.

Met de rollen van flow director en flow master introduceren de auteurs nieuwe functionele elementen. Tegelijkertijd valt op dat zij de SRO uit MSP als opdrachtgever handhaven. Daardoor begint de geschetste structuur sterk te lijken op een klassieke programmamanagementorganisatie met een SRO, een programmadirecteur en projectmanagers. Dat roept de vraag op hoe vernieuwend deze inrichting daadwerkelijk is, en in hoeverre de fluïditeit zich vooral in terminologie manifesteert.

De aanpak van een fluïde ecosysteem

De aanpak van een fluïde ecosysteem draait om een voortdurende cyclus van vier stappen: awareness, assessment, adjustment en action. In de fase van awareness creëren de betrokkenen bewustzijn over de kernproblematiek en mogelijke oplossingsrichtingen. Dat begint bij vragen als: wat verstaan we onder fluïditeit, welke impact heeft dit op onze waardeketen, welke waarde willen we creëren, welke talenten hebben we nodig, hoe stabiel is de omgeving waarin we opereren en wat is precies de purpose van het fluïde ecosysteem? In deze fase wordt ook benadrukt dat ordelijke besturing en governance onmisbaar zijn. De auteurs richten die besturing op drie dimensies: in control, in regie en in flow. De kern van de beoogde oplossingsrichting ligt in het samenspel van willen, kunnen en mogen: de waarden die richting geven, de competenties en middelen die het ecosysteem nodig heeft, en de verbindingen die samenwerking mogelijk maken.

In de tweede fase, assessment, onderzoeken de auteurs hoe organisatorisch, digitaal, menselijk en cultureel fit het ecosysteem is. Ze kijken naar de wendbaarheid en transparantie van de organisatie, de mate waarin IT-processen zijn gedigitaliseerd of geautomatiseerd, de digitale fitheid van medewerkers en de digitale capaciteiten van het ecosysteem, de producten en de diensten. Daarbij spelen kerncompetenties zoals samenwerken, communiceren, adaptief en flexibel denken, strategisch en systemisch inzicht en ethisch en duurzaam handelen een belangrijke rol. Ook de positionering van het fluïde ecosysteem komt aan bod: functioneert het als oervorm (startup), opereert het volledig binnen de organisatie, kiest het voor een hybride vorm of bevindt het zich helemaal buiten de moederorganisatie?

In de fase adjustment ontwikkelen de betrokkenen een visie, strategie en actieplan. Ze maken daarbij gebruik van instrumenten als obeya, doelenbomen, Team Topologies en interventies die voortkomen uit combinatorische innovatie. In de laatste fase, action, levert het fluïde ecosysteem daadwerkelijk waarde op een kortcyclische manier, bijvoorbeeld via de TOAH-aanpak (die verder niet wordt toegelicht). Bestaande schaalbare agile frameworks vormen hiervoor een prima basis. Wat telt, is het concreet uitvoeren van fluïde samenwerking, besluitvorming en leiderschap. De auteurs noemen verschillende interventies, maar lichten deze niet verder toe. In de volgende cyclus worden nieuwe inzichten verwerkt en worden waar nodig aanpassingen gedaan. Het denken en werken in fluïde ecosystemen zal voor veel organisaties voelen als een evolutionaire stap. Om daadwerkelijk in flow te komen, moeten zij hun digitale, menselijke en organisatorische wendbaarheid vergroten, waarbij proces, structuur en mindset allemaal aandacht vragen.

In de twee kernhoofdstukken laten de auteurs ook verschillende gastschrijvers aan het woord over thema’s zoals diversiteit en inclusie, purpose, strategie, het DNA van managementteams, de digitalisering van de IT-voorbrenging en obeya. Het blijft voor mij echter onduidelijk of deze bijdragen door de gastschrijvers zelf zijn geschreven of door de auteurs zijn geïnterpreteerd en verwerkt.

Centrale case: uitvoeringsorgaan STREB

De case rond STREB is stevig uitgewerkt en voelt opvallend realistisch aan. De dynamiek, de bestuurlijke drukte en de dagelijkse complexiteit van een uitvoeringsorganisatie worden geloofwaardig neergezet. Tegelijkertijd gebruiken de auteurs veel afkortingen die niet altijd worden toegelicht, zoals bv. CLDE.

De voorgestelde oplossingsrichting, een fluïde ecosysteem per regeling, blijft daarnaast wat simplistisch. In de praktijk vraagt zo’n construct niet alleen om organisatorische aanpassingen, maar ook om duidelijke governance, eigenaarschap, mandaat, architectuur, en een stabiele basis waarop tijdelijk gevormde ecosystemen kunnen steunen. Juist die complexiteit komt in de case beperkt aan bod. Daardoor ontstaat het risico dat de oplossing eenvoudiger lijkt dan zij in werkelijkheid is.

Practijkcases

Tenslotte worden er in een afzonderlijk hoofdstuk een aantal praktijkvoorbeelden beschreven. Dit zijn voorbeelden waarbij de auteurs met de bril van fluïde ecosystemen hebben gekeken om te zoeken naar overeenkomsten. Ik vind de getrokken links met de fluide ecosystemen soms wat gezocht. Waarom bij de laatste case staat dat die betrekking heeft op Achmea kan ik uit de tekst niet opmaken.

Tenslotte presenteren de auteurs in een afzonderlijk hoofdstuk een reeks praktijkvoorbeelden. Daarbij kijken zij door de bril van fluïde ecosystemen en zoeken zij naar overeenkomsten tussen uiteenlopende situaties. Die benadering is interessant, maar de verbanden die zij leggen voelen soms wat gezocht. Bij sommige cases blijft de koppeling met het concept fluïde ecosystemen namelijk dun en moeilijk te volgen. Bij de laatste case blijft onduidelijk waarom deze betrekking zou hebben op Achmea; uit de tekst zelf is dat nergens op te maken.

Conclusie

Met Onder druk wordt alles vloeibaar zetten Venema en Van Leeuwen een ambitieuze stap: zij willen een nieuw organisatieprincipe neerzetten en organisaties meenemen in de overgang van wendbaarheid naar fluïditeit en flow. Die ambitie verdient waardering, evenals de energie en overtuiging waarmee zij hun visie uitwerken. Tegelijkertijd laat deze editie zien dat het concept nog niet volledig is uitgekristalliseerd. De veelheid aan begrippen, theoretische lijntjes en nieuwe rollen maakt het boek omvangrijk en complex, maar niet altijd helderder. Regelmatig betrapte ik mijzelf op de vraag: hoe dan precies?

De rijkdom aan ideeën komt daardoor niet altijd tot zijn recht. Door te veel te willen verbinden, verliest de tekst aan scherpte en gaat een deel van de toegankelijkheid verloren. De risico’s die ik eerder al signaleerde, dat de lezer wordt overweldigd en de essentie uit het zicht raakt, blijken in deze definitieve versie nog niet volledig ondervangen.

Ook redactioneel laat het boek echt steken vallen. De inconsistenties, taalfouten, onduidelijke formuleringen, wisselende schrijfwijzen en dubbele teksten (>100) halen de professionaliteit van het werk naar beneden. Dat is jammer, zeker omdat een strakkere redactie het verhaal aanzienlijk sterker had kunnen maken en de leesbaarheid direct had vergroot.

Daarmee blijft de kernboodschap, potentieel interessant en relevant, te veel verborgen onder lagen complexiteit. De verwijzingen naar de (nog niet beschikbare) community-website wekken de indruk dat een deel van de explicatie buiten het boek komt te liggen. Misschien kan die omgeving het gedachtegoed in de toekomst scherper, toegankelijker en praktischer neerzetten.

Kortom: het concept fluïde ecosystemen heeft potentie, maar deze uitwerking overtuigt nog niet volledig. Met meer focus, betere redactie en een sterker uitgewerkt hoe, zou dit boek echt kunnen uitgroeien tot een richtinggevend werk. Voor nu blijft het vooral een rijk, maar onnodig zwaar en soms verwarrend verhaal, met de kiem van een boodschap die nog verder moet rijpen.

Review – The Strategy Implementation Gap

The Strategy Implementation Gap – A Guide for Executives to Successful Strategy Implementation through Project Delivery by James Bawtree and Michael Young offers a comprehensive exploration of what it takes to bridge the persistent gap between formulating strategy and delivering results.

The authors define the “strategy implementation gap” as the all-too-common disconnect between well-crafted strategic documents and the actual objectives and activities that should flow from them. Strategic plans are often written in ways that make it nearly impossible to connect daily initiatives to organizational goals. This gap is exacerbated by a series of obstacles: organizations struggle to manage change, face internal resistance, and often separate planning from delivery. Implementation typically takes far longer than formulation, and strategies frequently clash with existing power structures. Communication between individuals and business units is weak, accountability is lacking, ownership of the strategy is absent, and many managers lack the skills and models needed to support effective execution. At the same time, operations and change initiatives often compete for resources, while managers remain trained to plan rather than to execute.

To address these challenges, Bawtree and Young present five key principles that underpin successful strategy implementation: purpose, people, practice, platform, and performance. Long-term goals, they argue, must align directly with the organization’s overarching purpose, creating coherence between vision and delivery. Yet strategy does not exist in a vacuum. Megatrends such as globalization and deregulation, urbanization and migration, climate change and sustainability, population and lifespan growth, and the rise of localism and re-regulation present fundamental challenges. Organizations that fail to adapt to these disruptions risk being swept aside. For this reason, a strategic plan must be adaptable and developed with delivery in mind.

The book devotes careful attention to the limitations of Henry Mintzberg’s planning school. This prescriptive approach emphasized the formulation of long-range plans supported by formal controls. It assumed that careful forward planning could provide lasting guidance in an unpredictable environment. In practice, however, planners discovered that formal plans were neither implementable nor useful when circumstances shifted. The rigid assumption of predictability proved to be the school’s downfall. The authors argue that rather than taking a static, long-range approach, organizations must embrace adaptability and agility.

An agile approach is therefore critical. The authors highlight that agility is not just about methodology but about a philosophy that welcomes change. They recommend designing strategies with both fixed and variable elements. Over a five-year horizon, macro and short-term goals should remain stable, while medium-term goals should be adjustable. This enables organizations to adapt to a changing environment without losing sight of their long-term purpose. Quarterly reviews and updates of the strategic plan are essential to validate goals and prevent delivery systems from being bogged down by outdated objectives. A bi-modal approach—balancing stability with flexibility—can reduce bureaucracy fatigue, improve delivery speed, and ensure alignment with evolving needs.

Assigning business owners as navigators for each strategic objective is another vital practice. These owners act as the voices of their objectives, analyzing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment. With multiple business owners accountable for different objectives, organizations ensure that no goal is left without leadership or advocacy.

The authors also stress the importance of program logic. By structuring initiatives to deliver strategic goals, program logic provides a top-down mechanism that ensures all funded and resourced initiatives contribute to outcomes and benefits rather than aligning only superficially. Successful implementation requires breaking activities down into a series of initiatives or projects, each tied to one or more strategic objectives. This portfolio approach creates coherence and focus, turning strategy from a theoretical document into actionable steps.

Adaptive strategy goes a step further. It relies on a system of continuously identifying, approving, and reprioritizing initiatives based on emerging organizational needs. The process involves identifying initiatives, prioritizing them, analyzing and selecting the most valuable, balancing the portfolio, and then re-prioritizing as circumstances evolve. This cycle provides the vehicle for organizations to adapt and evolve their strategies, ensuring flexibility and responsiveness.

Business cases play an important role in this adaptive system. Too often, business cases are treated as one-off documents that justify an initiative at the start, only to be ignored later. The authors argue that business cases must remain living yardsticks against which ongoing investment, progress, and outcomes are measured. Many organizations fall into the trap of pursuing projects with unrealistic or even impossible benefits, wasting resources that could have been directed to viable initiatives. By continuously validating business cases, organizations maintain focus on results and accountability.

Ensuring successful implementation requires abandoning rigid, hierarchical, command-and-control approaches. Instead, the agile mindset must dominate. Appropriate governance is essential, not as a bureaucratic hurdle but as a mechanism for ensuring that the right people make the right decisions at the right time. Executives must be held accountable for achieving outcomes aligned to organizational or governmental goals, while sponsors must be accountable for delivering programs and projects that realize those outcomes.

To gain consistency across the organization, the authors recommend establishing a central strategy implementation office. This office monitors emerging trends and integrates them into delivery methodologies, ensuring that the organization stays ahead of external changes. Implementation also requires dedicated teams. Because strategic initiatives often involve temporary work, resource planning is critical, and temporary resources must be deployed with precision. Targets—whether individual, team-based, or organizational—are another sensitive but critical element. Setting the right targets is difficult, but without them strategic objectives drift without direction.

The book concludes with the DELIVER model: Discover, Examine, Learn, Implement, Validate, Evaluate, and Reinforce. This model encourages organizations to begin with the “why”—the fundamental purpose of the program—and to focus on where they can add the most value while also delivering immediate results. DELIVER offers both a mindset and a practical process for embedding adaptability, accountability, and effectiveness into the fabric of strategy implementation.

Conclusion
Bawtree and Young show that strategy implementation is not simply about designing plans or launching projects but about continuously aligning purpose with delivery. Success lies in embracing agility, validating goals and business cases, empowering accountable leaders, and structuring initiatives through program logic and adaptive portfolios. In an environment defined by volatility and disruption, organizations that adopt this flexible, learning-driven approach will be far better equipped to close the strategy implementation gap and achieve meaningful results.

To order The strategy implementation gap: amazon.com

Review – How the Fuck to Be Agile?

“How the Fuck to Be Agile? A Wakeup Call…” by Erwin Verweij shakes you awake and puts your feet back on the ground. Verweij doesn’t mince words: stop doing agile and start being agile. In about twenty short but punchy chapters, he dismantles the illusions, exposes the misunderstandings, and explains what it truly takes to embody agility.

He urges us to welcome change—but only with the right tools, the right intent, and a deep understanding of what must shift at the core to make it work. He draws a clear line between being self-directing and self-organizing. True autonomy, he argues, can’t exist without trust. It means freedom paired with full accountability. You don’t get there by installing rituals—you get there by believing in people and letting them own outcomes.

He pushes us to bring customers back into the center—not as a slogan, but as a living compass. Put real customer value above process. Bring empathy back into teams. Ask why. Focus on human experience, not mechanical service. And don’t forget the people inside your organization.

Verweij doesn’t shy away from myths. Waterfall, he says, isn’t evil—it’s just misunderstood. It’s not a rigid monster but a planning approach that can work if used with awareness, communication, and feedback. Scrum? It often fails not because of the framework itself, but because organizations force it into old structures instead of transforming around it. When you follow Scrum blindly, without adapting it to your context, it becomes a cargo cult – not a pathway to agility.

He goes further and calls out SAFe for what it often becomes: a box-checking exercise that drains agility of its soul. The freedom to experiment? Nowhere to be found. Spotify? Even Spotify stopped doing “the Spotify model.” He reminds us: copying someone else’s framework won’t make you agile. You have to discover your own fit – your own way of working that suits your culture and values.

Verweij challenges us to reflect on what it means to take ownership. True agility can’t be imposed. It emerges when teams choose what works, adapt, and even abandon frameworks when needed. That’s agility: not a set of rules, but a living mindset.

He takes a swipe at “transparency” that happens behind closed doors. If decisions are made in isolation – no matter how beautiful the slide deck – people won’t feel engaged. If you want real transformation, open the doors. Let people in. Even if it makes things messy. That’s where agility starts.

He mocks the blind faith in tools. Just because everyone uses the same tool doesn’t mean they’re working better. Tools should serve the team – not become a new form of bureaucracy.

He reminds us that calling yourself agile doesn’t make you agile. It’s not in your job title – It’s in how you think and act. It’s in your why. And that why must come from within. Intrinsic motivation, not external pressure, drives lasting agility.

Not all change needs to be disruptive. Sometimes it’s not about transformation but recharging – revitalizing what’s already there. New energy, not new processes.

He even finds a silver lining in the pandemic. COVID-19 forced us to act agile. We learned to collaborate, experiment, and adapt – without a framework telling us how. Suddenly, agility just happened.

His final warning? If you hear “agile” and it feels like just another process, then it probably is. Being agile isn’t a performance – it’s a mindset. It’s not something you switch on once a day. It’s how you show up – every day.

Conclusion
Verweij writes with the bluntness of a Dutchman, and I say that with appreciation. His voice is raw, direct, and unfiltered – but behind the strong words lies a deeply thoughtful and honest exploration of what agile really means. He peels away the layers of jargon, dogma, and frameworks to reveal the mindset at the core. How the Fuck to Be Agile? is not a manual. It’s a mirror. And if you’re brave enough to look into it, you’ll see where you stand – and what needs to change.

To order How the fuck to be agile? managementboek.nl, bol.

Summary and review Agile Kata

Kata is a universal pattern for driving any kind of improvement. Agile Kata builds on the foundation of Toyota Kata, expanding it to embrace and embody agile values and principles. In his book Agile Kata – Patterns and Practices for Transformative Organizational Agility, Joe Krebs presents a compelling approach that blends agile principles with the scientific thinking of Kata. The result is a powerful pattern for continuous improvement and lasting organizational agility.

The book is structured into three parts. Part I lays the groundwork, introducing Kata and scientific thinking while highlighting what makes Kata such a unique and effective approach. Part II shows how agile ways of working can enhance the basic Kata pattern, focusing on coaching, culture, collaboration, measuring value, and leadership. Part III presents a range of common use cases to illustrate practical application.

Each chapter includes hands-on activities for practice and ends with reflection questions that help deepen understanding and encourage continuous learning.

Kata

Kata has its roots in martial arts, where it involves breaking down complex skills—like those in karate—into smaller, manageable parts. Through deliberate practice, these parts become natural habits. This approach introduces a mindset for learning and developing new skills through repetition and refinement.

Kata are patterns that help form and establish new habits. They act as thinking models, not operating models. They are not a methodology, framework, or off-the-shelf solution. Instead, they serve as a starting point—a foundation that should evolve and adapt to specific contexts.

Practicing Kata means applying a scientific thinking pattern to break unhelpful habits and replace them with more effective ones. A Kata can shift our behavior by helping us identify blind spots and approach them more intentionally and systematically.

At the heart of Agile Kata are two foundational routines: the Improvement Kata and the Coaching Kata. These simple yet powerful patterns guide both personal and organizational transformation through structured practice and reflection.

Improvement Kata

The Improvement Kata follows a four-step pattern that guides individuals or teams through a structured approach to problem-solving and continuous improvement:

Understand the direction or challenge – Define a clear goal or challenge to pursue over the next 6 to 9 months.
Grasp the current situation – Analyze the present state to identify the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
Establish the next target condition – Set a specific, short-term goal that represents progress toward the overall direction.
Experiment toward the target condition – Conduct one or more experiments to bridge the gap between the current and target conditions.

To support this process, teams often use a storyboard—a visual tool that helps individuals stay oriented around the current state, target condition, and ongoing experiments. Storyboards promote visualization, transparency, collaboration, and iterative improvement throughout the journey.

Coaching Kata

The Coaching Kata complements the Improvement Kata by adding a deliberate coaching approach. It involves two main roles: the coach and the learner. The coach helps the learner stay on track and build scientific thinking skills by consistently asking five key questions:

What is the target condition?
What is the actual condition now?
What obstacles are you addressing now?
What is your next step, and what do you expect?
How soon can we go and see what you’ve learned?

To further enhance coaching quality, the process includes a second coach—an observer who provides feedback to the primary coach. This second coach helps the coach improve their own learning, reflection, and development, reinforcing a culture of continuous improvement at every level.

Agile Kata

Kata translates to “way of doing,” so Agile Kata means “the way of doing agile.” It offers a universal pattern for continuously improving agility within teams and organizations.

In Part II of the book, the author explores how Agile Kata supports key dimensions of agile work: values and principles, measuring value, agile coaching, collaboration, leadership, and culture.

Agile as Values and Principles

The Improvement Kata doesn’t focus on identifying the best agile practices and implementing them directly. Instead, it encourages you to define a vision — like the one expressed in the Agile Manifesto — and then identify the major challenges you must overcome to reach that vision. From there, you experiment and learn your way forward. Agile Kata embraces discovery through action rather than assuming you can control all variables to achieve a fixed outcome.

Measuring Value

So what is value? Ultimately, it’s defined by the customer. Teams can work hard to deliver high-quality solutions, but if recipients don’t find them useful, they hold no value.

When Agile Kata is used in place of traditional agile frameworks like Scrum, measuring value at the team level becomes crucial. Conventional metrics like velocity, story points, or burn-down charts often fail to reflect real value. Instead, more effective metrics include: number of increments delivered per sprint, number of defects found in production, lead time, wait time, and quality metrics.

Frameworks like Evidence-Based Management (focusing on time to market, ability to innovate, and value delivery) or OKRs (objectives and key results) provide strong foundations for measuring outcomes that matter.

Agile Coaching

Agile coaching goes far beyond enforcing frameworks and facilitating ceremonies. Great coaches adapt to various roles: teacher, mentor, advisor, change agent — and now, scientific thinker.

Agile Kata adds this scientific stance to the coach’s toolbox, encouraging coaches to guide teams through experimentation and discovery. Two widely used models help define and grow agile coaching capabilities: the Agile Coaching Competency Framework and the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel.

These frameworks become even more effective when applied in the context of Agile Kata, especially in helping teams develop a mindset of continuous improvement.

Collaboration

Effective collaboration requires both social and interpersonal skills. Agile Kata supports these by introducing practices and tools that foster a culture of self-organization, autonomy, and ownership. These include dynamic reteaming, pair programming, mob programming, hackathons, open Space Technology, liberating Structures and micro-facilitation techniques.

Such practices help teams embody agile values in their day-to-day work and interactions.

Leadership and Culture

Agile transformation starts with leadership. Leaders don’t just sponsor change — they model it. Agile leaders create the conditions for others to succeed by learning new skills, setting clear goals, and evolving their leadership style.

Agile leadership means embracing experimentation, resilience, and adaptability. As the Japanese proverb: “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”

Part III: Use Cases

In Part III, the book presents five use cases that illustrate how Agile Kata can address real-world challenges faced by agile practitioners:

Retrospective Kata – Useful for any agile team using iterative processes. Agile Kata runs in parallel (e.g., alongside Scrum), led by a dedicated improvement team.
Agile Kata as the Team Process – The team fully shapes and owns its way of working using the Agile Kata pattern.
Replacing Plan-Driven Transformations – Agile Kata replaces rigid transformation roadmaps with a pattern-based approach that fosters experimentation and continuous learning.
Business Agility – Agile Kata helps organizations respond more effectively to external change. It reinforces the idea that enterprise agility is not just the sum of agile teams but something greater that must be cultivated intentionally.
Product Management – Agile Kata serves as a lightweight framework for product management, enabling continuous discovery, delivery, and feedback.

Conclusion

Overall, Agile Kata presents a powerful mindset and way of working for organizations ready to move beyond simply adopting agile frameworks. It offers a practical, structured approach to living agile — embracing it as a way of thinking, working, and continuously evolving. By combining scientific thinking with agile values, Agile Kata empowers teams and leaders to navigate complexity, foster a culture of experimentation, and drive meaningful change from the inside out.

This book is a must-read for agile coaches, Scrum Masters, and change agents seeking a sustainable path to continuous improvement and true business agility. It not only broadens the understanding of agility but also provides concrete tools to practice it with intention, discipline, and impact.

To order Agile Kata: managementboek.nl, bol.

Summary and review: The lean-agile way

The book “The Lean-Agile Way – Unleash Business Results in the Digital Era with Value Stream Management” by Cecil ‘Gary’ Rupp, Richard Knaster, Steve Pereira, and Al Shalloway provides a comprehensive roadmap to optimize processes, improve products, and enhance service delivery.

By unlocking the principles of lean, agile, value stream management (VSM), and leveraging digital advancements, the book guides readers on how to effectively streamline workflows, boost efficiency, and drive business results in today’s digital landscape.

The book is organized into four parts: Building on lean-agile foundations – mastering the basics, attending to our value-streams – prioritize improvements by their value-added impact, achieving lean-agile and VSM mastery – for product-oriented business transformations and driving sustainable transformation – strategies to achieve lean-agile mastery.

The authors introduce a nine-step Value Stream Management (VSM) methodology aimed at helping organizations efficiently identify and prioritize improvements within their value streams. At the heart of this methodology is value stream mapping, a process to visualize and optimize the flow of value.

Additionally, the book presents the Basic Lean-Agile Solutions Teams (BLAST) framework, which is designed to align the work of multiple teams collaboratively by combining lean flow practices with agile’s iterative and incremental development.

The authors also introduce the Business Agility System for Enterprise (BASE) concepts. BASE integrates work across the entire enterprise, focusing on delivering customer-centric increments of product-oriented value consistently and on cadence. This holistic approach aims to ensure that value is continuously produced, and that organizational agility is maintained.

Building on lean-agile foundations – mastering the basics

To cover the basics, the authors begin by explaining key topics such as the landscape of the digital economy, lean thinking and principles, agile methodologies, and the integration of lean and agile approaches. They also delve into how Value Stream Management (VSM) can unlock value and how leveraging IT can drive a lean-agile transformation.

Next the authors explain organizational agility, agile frameworks for collaboration, team efficacy and collaboration with Scrum and the Scrum-of-Scrum or team-of-teams (ToT) approach. They elaborate on the differences and pros and cons between the waterfall and agile approach.

The authors then explore lean flows aimed at improving productivity. They cover the fundamentals of lean management, including identifying value, mapping the value stream, creating flow, establishing pull, and seeking perfection. Additionally, they delve into achieving operational efficiency by identifying and eliminating waste, such as defects, extra processing, excess inventory, unnecessary motion, overproduction, transportation, underutilized talent, and waiting. They also address managing constraints using the Theory of Constraints (ToC).

Next, the authors focus on streamlining value delivery by categorizing value streams into operational, development, support, and product. They discuss how to balance speed and cost while minimizing inefficiencies to enhance efficiency. They also present strategies for achieving a competitive edge, such as prioritizing value flows.

Finally, the book emphasizes driving continuous improvement by applying lean principles to foster ongoing enhancements and sustainable growth.

Attending to our value-streams prioritize improvements by their value-added impact

The second part of the book presents key insights and practical strategies for implementing lean-agile principles, focusing on value stream management (VSM). It covers the VSM implementation roadmap, value stream optimization, and how to integrate the value stream roadmap into your organization.

Organizing work around value streams is crucial for developing product-centric workflows. These streams aim to optimize operations by maximizing throughput, avoiding constraints, and eliminating waste. The goal of VSM is to identify and prioritize improvement opportunities, delivering maximum customer value with the highest quality in the shortest sustainable lead time. VSM provides a holistic method to visualize and improve operations.

The authors outline the nine steps of the VSM improvement method (E9): embark, educate, envision, examine, evaluate, engineer, execute, evolve, and end. Each step is explained in detail.

Additionally, the VSM implementation roadmap from the Value Stream Management Consortium (VSMC) includes these steps: start, assess, envision, identify, organize, map, connect, inspect, and adapt. This roadmap combines lean and agile practices and aligns with the authors’ lean-agile principles.

Together, the VSM improvement method (E9) and the VSM implementation roadmap complement each other, ensuring that value stream improvement teams address both broad organizational goals and IT-specific digital enhancements.

Value streams are continuously evolving, but two key shifts are fundamental for becoming a lean enterprise in today’s environment: transitioning from projects to products and leveraging digital enhancements. The shift from a project-based approach to a product-centric one is seldom a simple switch and can occur in varying degrees. It is useful to recognize the behavioral and operational differences that exist along the spectrum between project and product models.

In a project-centric model behaviors include a fixed scope, temporary teams, resistance to change, siloed workflows, and success metrics focused on delivery within time and budget constraints. As organizations transition, hybrid behaviors emerge, characterized by balanced priorities, flexible team structures, openness to change, evolving success metrics, and more integrated workflows. Finally, in a product-centric approach, the focus shifts to customer and market needs, with persistent, cross-functional teams, an embrace of change, value-based success metrics, and seamless collaboration across departments.

To ensure efficient flow of materials and information while creating and delivering a product or service, value stream mapping becomes an essential tool. This technique helps visualize the entire process, from the initial concept to final delivery, identifying areas for improvement and optimizing performance across the organization.

Value Stream Networks (VSNs) are interconnected pathways within an organization that align strategically to deliver value. They illustrate how work items flow through multiple value streams, while supporting a broader network designed to meet business objectives, stakeholder expectations, and customer needs. Although individual value streams may be optimized, their interconnected nature and constant evolution add complexity.

To manage these complexities, it is essential to optimize VSNs by defining customer journeys and linking them to value streams. This involves visualizing organizational workflows at different levels: using a top-level value stream network, team topologies at the middle level, and value chain capabilities at the bottom level. Tools like Wardley mapping can be employed to answer critical questions such as “Where should we invest?” and “How can we deliver?” by looking at the evolution of your product and your value chain (invisible-visible). This approach helps ensure that resources are effectively allocated, and that value delivery remains aligned with business and customer priorities.

Achieving lean-agile and VSM mastery – for product-oriented business transformations

To help organizations meet the dual challenge of maintaining lean and agile practices while consistently delivering value, you can implement the Basic Lean-Agile Solution Team (BLAST) and a Business Agility System for the Enterprise (BASE).

BLAST enables the development of targeted solutions by blending lean efficiency with agile adaptability. It organizes multiple small teams to collaborate on a specific problem, extending conventional methodologies like Scrum. BLAST facilitates continuous workflows while embracing agile’s iterative and incremental approach to develop new products and services. The 17 steps of BLAST cover the entire journey from concept to realization, promoting both agility and lean efficiency for future-proof organizations. These steps are categorized into four main areas: solution discovery, minimum viable increment (MVI) planning, workflow coordination, and customer feedback.

BLAST introduces the roles of a Value Manager and Value Coach. The value manager can be compared with a product wner. The value coach fosters team growth, supports continuous improvements, facilitates external communications, and encourages a lean-agile mindset using a servant leadership style. BLAST emphasizes the delivery of tangible value through three key artifacts: the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) as defined by Eric Ries, the Minimum Valuable Increment (MVI), and the Minimum Valuable Release (MVR).

The BASE conceptual model organizes, synchronizes, and integrates work across the enterprise to ensure the successful delivery of value-based products and services to external customers, focusing on developing MVPs (Minimum Viable Products), MVIs (Minimum Valuable Increments), and MVRs (Minimum Valuable Releases).

Drawing on systems thinking and first principles (such as satisfying customer needs, distributing work across teams, and leveraging digital technologies), the BASE model is structured around key pillars like strategy and execution, a lean-agile culture, hypothesis-driven development, and business agility. It uses eight core processes: portfolio management, planning increments, refining increments, integrated increments, integrated reviews, customer care, customer experience, and corporate strategy.

At its core, BASE prioritizes continuous improvement of the customer journey, ensuring that customer satisfaction is central to all enterprise activities. Together, BLAST and BASE provide a comprehensive framework that helps organizations stay agile, efficient, and innovative while delivering consistent value and staying aligned with customer needs.

Driving sustainable transformation – strategies to achieve lean-agile mastery.

The final section of the book provides a practical toolkit for translating the theoretical concepts discussed earlier into actionable implementation strategies. It introduces decision-making methodologies for lean-agile organizations, such as the Business Role Intelligence Analysis (BRIA) and Question, Information, Decision, Action (QIDA) concepts. The BRIA methodology helps organizations align their information needs with broader business objectives, while the QIDA framework empowers leaders to identify key questions, make informed decisions, and take purposeful actions.

Additionally, the book offers a pragmatic roadmap for implementing lean-agile and Value Stream Management (VSM) strategies. Key change management frameworks like Kotter’s 8-step process for leading changeand the ADKAR model (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement) are explored in detail.

The section concludes with three insightful case studies: the Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) at Amadeus, VSM implementation at Leonardo Worldwide, and the BLAST case study. These examples provide real-world applications of the principles discussed throughout the book, showcasing how different organizations have successfully applied lean-agile methodologies.

Conclusion

“The Lean-Agile Way” offers a wealth of practical frameworks, strategies, insights, and tools for organizations aiming to implement lean-agile methodologies. With over 350 pages, the book covers extensive theory, which at times can be challenging to digest. However, if you’re looking to deeply understand value streams and how to implement them effectively in your organization, this book is an essential read.

That said, while the book provides three case studies at the end, more practical examples throughout would enhance the reader’s ability to connect theory with real-world application. Additionally, the figures, which are mostly (except two) in black, white, and gray, lack the visual clarity that color could provide, reducing their overall informational value. Incorporating color into the visuals would significantly improve their effectiveness and make the content easier to interpret.

Overall, the book is a valuable resource.

To order The Lean-Agile Way: bol.