Scenario 1
It’s in 2012, and it’s a Friday. I’m in Colorado Springs. My boss/manager calls. We need you in Tampa on Tuesday. Ok, what’s going on? Fred was consulting at our client there, and he will no longer be able to be there due to another unavoidable, overlapping, kinda-last-minute business commitment. Stuff happens. Well that’s fine, but I can’t leave the office here on Monday until 5pm due to my own previous business commitments. Do what you can, my boss says. Let me know if you find a flight and a way to be there.
I dialed up the corporate travel website. 5 minutes later, it had found me a nonstop flight, a room at a Hilton (I’m a #HiltonZealot), and a car. The airline roundtrip was expensive, “out of policy” even. Since there were no “in policy” options given me, I booked it. The software asked why I was out of policy, and I answered that. I sent an email to my boss: I’m “in”, it was “out of policy”, and mentioned the price. (Never blindside your boss if you can help it!) No reply, nor was one needed. I don’t know what happened to the “out of policy” issue after that. It could have been that he was “pinged”, or his supervisor was “pinged”. If so, they answered truthfully, and there was no further problem. I went to the client. I did my job. Client was happy.
Scenario 2
2016 now, a Thursday. Different company. I’m in Denver at one of their offices. My engagement supervisor and technical lead texts me. We’ll call him Fred. We need you in Charlotte. Ok, what’s going on? Fred needs to return to Denver Tuesday night for a meeting Wednesday in Denver. It’s unavoidable; the business wants him present due to his much longer/deeper experience with my current client. He asks if I can teach his training class that starts on Wednesday at lunch time and concludes Thursday mid-day? Yup, stuff happens. Fine except that I can’t leave the office here on Tuesday until 5pm. Do what you can, Fred says; let me know when you’ve made your travel request.
10 minutes later, the corporate travel website had my travel request. It showed me the required approvals lifecycle: first, my first line manager, then the second line, then a third manager at the VP level who resides in another country; her approval was needed because the travel date was within 7 days. And then, alas, we wait.
On Friday afternoon the lack of progress results in our engagement executive getting into the loop. He “pings” my first line manager by text message, asking that he immediately approve the travel request. He does so, but not until Saturday morning.
On Monday morning, the request is still not approved by the second line, so the engagement executive tries a different tack. He asks me to submit a second travel request on a different charge number because he has more immediate access to the first line manager and the second line manager who are on the second charge number. I do so. This time, I get very specific about what flight I will demand if the travel request is approved, because if the flight isn’t the one remaining nonstop available that leaves at 7:45pm, I will not get any sleep. My own leads, at least, understand completely that it won’t be very useful for me to show up to teach a class that I sleep through.
It’s Wednesday morning. The first and second lines approved the travel request, but the third approval never was accomplished. I have no idea what communications transpired behind the scenes. Obviously we abandoned the travel plans and went to a backup plan. That really important meeting for Fred on Wednesday started spot on time at Noon. One minute after it began it was postponed to another date by the client, a fortuitously good result given the process we engaged in to get to that point.
Thoughts
Two scenarios. What do Lean, Agile & SAFe(r) teach here? I quickly perceive two lessons at least. First, Reinertsen is screaming to review the cost of delay. As we waited for approvals, the travel cost was going up nonlinearly, the uncertainty in client success was going up unchecked, and employee morale was degrading – these all are costs. Then more time and money was spent trying to accomplish the approvals using a different tack.
Secondly, a corporate escalation culture leaves the employee who is looking at a strong business need no way to respond confidently to the business need. This is a great example of the value of distributed/decentralized decision making (i.e. SAFe Principle #9 – http://www.scaledagileframework.com/decentralize-decision-making/ ). SAFe even has a decision decentralization calculator:
Given the decision to make:
- Is it frequent? Yes=2, No=0
- Is it time-critical? Yes=2, No=0
- Does it have economies of scale? Yes=0, No=2
Sum these three numbers; if the sum >= 4 then decentralize it.
For this decision, remember we’re not looking at the individual case, we’re looking at the corporate travel policy. We have
- 2=frequent – surely many employees have similar situations, and often; often enough,
- 2=yes it’s clearly time-critical, and
- 0=yes, there are indeed economies of scale I’m sure.
Total 4=make it decentralized. Besides, what is the cost of someone’s poor behavior, booking a flight three days out for no good business reason? One’s first-line manager can easily be put into the loop by the automation. The result would be you’d get away with it once, be chastised, and likely wouldn’t get away with a poor decision a second time. Put this next to the cost savings of spending less on travel costs because employees immediately make travel reservations as soon as they become aware of the business need, not to mention being more confident and responsive for your customer, and it’s a no-brainer.