Colin O’ Neill is a renowned, pioneering Thought Leader with a remarkable degree of Global Esteem. He’s had an impeccable career, that involves exemplary service at the US Marine Corps, to working as a renowned force in Agile Transformations in corporate America with Fortune 500 companies. His record of achievement includes being the visionary Co-founder and CEO of Scaled Agile inc., as well as a continuous, innovative serial entrepreneur.
We were extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to interview him and ask some of our pertinent queries regarding Lean Culture, Lean Adoption, Agile and his perspectives on Leadership. Please Read:
Q1. You previously served in the United States Marine Corps as an Intelligence Officer. Elaborate how that experience reflected on your future career decisions, values, and ethos as an Agile coach and leader.
Colin: I was very fortunate to have served my country as part of the finest fighting force in the world; it was there I learned “servant leadership.” As a junior officer, I thought that rank was what Marines respected, but as I matured I realized that it’s the ability to lead through guidance, example, and logical persuasion that earns another’s respect. These are the same attributes of a successful Agile coach, so my military career was instrumental in preparing me to lead Agile teams, programs, portfolios, and companies.
Q2. What is “Lean”?
Colin: I define Lean as “the rapid creation and delivery of meaningful value in the simplest, most effective manner possible through empowerment and innovation. It is a way of thinking, organizing, operating, and being.” This definition may change over time, but for now it makes the most sense to me.
Q3. Tell us three characteristics of a “Lean Intelligent Enterprise?”
Colin: The successful Lean enterprises that I have encountered seem to consistently demonstrate four key characteristics:
- They take the time to train all their people in Lean and Agile ways, and managers lead by example.
- They are organized to empower their people through teamwork, cooperation, communication, and respect.
- They create value quickly via optimized “value stream” operations.
- They continuously look for opportunities to innovate and improve.
Q4. What is the difference between “Lean thinking” and “Lean behavior?”
Colin: Lean thinking is just one aspect of Lean behavior; the other threeaspects of Lean behavior are organizing in a way that facilitates the flow of value creation and delivery, operating cross-functionally rather than vertically, and demonstrating that people and values are important in our culture.
Regarding Lean thinking, a Lean Intelligent Enterprise applies multiple thought frameworks (such as systems thinking, critical thinking, and economic thinking) to gain a holistic view of the enterprise to include values, people, and culture; logical thinking for decision making; and comparative economic analysis as a regular practice. Lean behavior is achieved when organizations shift from functional structures to value streams, which is a prerequisite for optimizing operational flow. When organized in a lean manner, the operations necessary to create, sell, deliver, and support products and services encounter less resistance and consume significantly fewer resources than in non-lean companies.
Q5. You’ve compared Lean business principles to how fighting forces operate. We would love it if you could impart some wisdom and knowledge regarding your work on that, for our readers, in whatever aspect you feel appropriate.
Colin: A Lean organization derives much of its power by employing small, self-managing, cross-functional teams. These teams are then organized into larger collections of teams that deliver value while all striving toward a common goal. Being cross-functional at all levels of an organization allows it to quickly flex to rapidly changing market conditions and customer needs.
This is how the Marine Corps operates—the fundamental operating unit is a team of four individuals who are all trained to perform each other’s job so that in the ferocity of combat, they maximize their ability to rapidly adapt to continuously changing situations within the context of their mission. Multiple four-person teams are further organized into a squad, squads are grouped into a platoon, platoons into a company, and so on up the chain. Each layer of the holistic organization has the basic assets and skills to accomplish its mission, with assistance from supporting functions as the situation dictates.
Civilian organizations can achieve the same levels of effectiveness as crack military units when they create high-performing teams than can scale to deliver larger units of value using the Lean-Agile approach.
Q6. How can we foster “Lean culture?”
Colin: Having worked with dozens of large, multinational organizations over the past three decades, I have discovered that a Lean culture is first successfully created and subsequently maintained through the sustainable intentions of executive leadership. Without a grounded understanding of Lean thinking by an organization’s chief officers, it is very difficult to create a Lean culture. Lean behavior starts at the top—it is then modeled and fostered daily in myriad ways to create a pervasive climate of empowerment and innovation to deliver exceptional value.
An example that comes to mind is John Deere, a global manufacturer of farming and harvesting equipment. While consulting there in 2010, a key internal unit that developed software for many of the “smart” hardware components was about to be outsourced for lack of productivity and failure to deliver on time. Given this stark reality, senior leadership embraced Lean and Agile principles to turn that organization around. Within one year, the entire unit had been transformed and was delivering higher quality software twice as fast as they were before. Only with management’s buy-in and leadership was this organization able to change rapidly and achieve astonishing results.
Q7. As a person with an impeccable track record and distinguished achievements, what do you feel is the proudest moment of your career? Or do you feel it is yet to come.
Colin: One of my proudest accomplishments thus far is co-founding Scaled Agile Inc. with Dean Leffingwell in 2011. According to recent industry research, the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) has been adopted worldwide ten times more than the next competing Lean-Agile framework. Thousands of companies have successfully applied SAFe and have had tremendous success. While adopting SAFe, all the companies I have worked with have experienced shorter lead times, faster time to market, increased productivity, higher customer satisfaction scores, and improved employee engagement.
As proud as I am of co-founding Scaled Agile, I also believe that my greatest achievement is yet to come. I find myself thinking of the many global challenges faced by humanity, and I hope to contribute in some meaningful way to ease the burden of peoples’ fear of homelessness, disease, and hunger. As temporal Earth travelers, I believe we should all focus on being more inclusive rather than exclusive. This means creating better relationships and being more tolerant of one another. If I can assist even a few of my fellow humans through applying Lean and Agile principles in their daily lives, I feel I will have achieved my purpose.
Q8. Mention what prompted you to finally embark on the path to becoming a business owner, some of the challenges you faced during that period, and how you overcame them.
Colin: I’ve always felt the need to help others solve problems “outside-the-box.” I find myself thinking “there has to be a better way” to make more effective use of our human and natural resources in both business and society. The best way for me to do that was to become an independent consultant to achieve a farther reach and deliver greater impact. I want to see others succeed—that makes me happy and fulfilled.
But being on the leading edge of organizational improvements often meets stiff resistance, so one must be resilient and keep on trying even when the Lean-Agile message is not heeded. Whether one chooses their work as an employee or independent contractor, it’s not easy, but the main thing is to choose the best fit for you.
The scariest part of being a business owner is the unknown. You must take risks and have the confidence to keep moving forward. It’s tough, but the rewards are great. And, well, I’m a Leo, so that makes it a little easier.
Q9. Give us some of your thoughts, predictions, and forecasts regarding Agile for the future, and how it will impact the business landscape. As someone who successfully applied Agile in the Armed Forces, what are the other high-risk, important fields do you think can radically be improved by Agility?
Colin: Agile is here to stay, it’s not another fad. In fact, greater attention is now being paid to “business agility,” which is the application of Lean and Agile across an entire enterprise.
Probably one of the most important fields that can be significantly affected by agile and lean is disaster relief. Consider the tragic earthquake that occurred in Haiti in 2010. Over the last eight years, with support of over a thousand international aid agencies and billions of dollars spent, the relief and rebuilding results have been dismal. If basic Lean and Agile principles had been adopted, starting with small, cross-functional teams organized in a scaled, fractal-like manner to achieve a common set of goals, the country of Haiti and its people would rapidly rise out of the ruins into economic stability. I’ve seen such turnarounds in business, and it would warm my heart to see humans’ lives impacted in such a positive way.
Q10. Finally, tell us about some of your other hobbies and interests aside from your profession. Mention if you feel that they add value/ contribute to your profession and daily life in terms of learning.
Colin: I spend a lot of my free time thinking about the tenuous world-wide housing situation. There simply aren’t enough affordable dwellings to house the world’s population, causing a rise in homelessness and dragging more people into a level of poverty where home ownership is forever out of reach. Before I die, I’d like to apply Lean and Agile thinking and principles to find realistic, scalable solutions to this global housing crisis.
My other interests include the study of eastern spiritual modalities, how the brain works, conscious capitalism, and non-violent communication (a.k.a. compassionate communication). I like to solve New York Times crossword puzzles and restore automotive vehicles from the 1960s and 70s. And living in southern California allows me to spend time at the beach with my family, which is nice.
Colin O’ Neill is a Pioneering Thought Leader, Serial Entrepreneur and Organizational Change Agent with a peerless track record. Globally renowned for being the founder of Scaled Agile, the world’s leading enterprise Agile consulting, training and certification firm. A lifelong ‘Lean Thinker’, he’s also the founder of Value Stream Global, a Lean-focused value stream management consultancy and LeanIntent, the latter of which is a free, open, crowd-sourced Lean Enterprise database.
A celebrated veteran of the United States Naval service, he’s been also involved in developing Lean Methods for fighting forces and has used his peerless leadership skills in being a reputed problem-solver, and change agent for some of the most prominent Fortune 100 companies across the United States.