Lean from the Trenches

Foreword

We who give project advice are faced with a mighty temptation. The teams who engage us are looking for direction, hope, ideas, energy, and guidance (and sometimes someone to blame, but that’s a different topic). We are called in because we have been in a variety of situations, some more functional and some less. We try to help our clients move toward “more functional.” However, we are often as baffled as they about what to do next.

The temptation I am referring to is the temptation to begin speaking beyond our experience, to meet the client’s need for certainty by manufacturing a certainty we ourselves do not feel. Left untreated, this results in dogma, revealed by words like “must,” “always,” and “everybody.”

One beauty of this ...