The Winning Lean™ transformation results in a structure that, perhaps, looks similar to your current Business Development organization. The key differences that lead to the evolution of your organization can be summarized in a few key ways. Importantly,
- The Product Executive is the operational business leader who will be responsible for the P&L of the resulting contract. The size and structure of your own organization will dictate the specific corporate title of the person in this role, but it is crucial to recognize that Winning Lean™ puts the operational leader as the driving force behind the pursuit. While not designed as a full-time role, the process is structured so that Product Executive can maintain current operational responsibilities while ensuring the Scrum Team is delivering the expected product, designed to both win the award and lead to successful contract performance.
- After adopting Winning Lean™, the Stakeholders for your pursuit are represented either by person or by proxy and each individual named as a Stakeholder consistently represents their role throughout the pursuit. While the precise Stakeholder roles you need will be determined by the target opportunity, common Stakeholder roles include: evaluator, customer, end user, finance, leadership, strategy, etc. Winning Lean™ replaces color reviews with a process to gather Stakeholder input, reconciled by the Product Executive.
- The Product Owner provides oversight of the entire business and proposal development team. In conventional approaches, this person is probably your Proposal Director or Proposal Manager. The Product Owner is responsible to ensure what is proposed is both awardable (compliant and compelling) and aligned with the Product Owner’s decisions and direction.
- The Scrum Master manages the process, leads the daily scrums and sprint retrospectives. In other words, makes sure the work keeps moving and the team is productive.
- A Winning Lean™ Development Team is a multi-disciplinary group of people whose exact members depend on the opportunity your pursuing, if it is a new opportunity or a re-compete of your existing business, and other environmental factors that impact your competitiveness. Depending on the size of the opportunity you’re pursing your Development Team will likely be comprised of multiple squads each comprised of 3 to 10 people.
Winning Lean™ Roles*
Winning Lean™ is a process evolution designed to deliver revolutionary improvements in the opportunities you decide to pursue, quality of the proposals your team submits and operational foundation of the work you will soon deliver. Winning a contract is easy. Winning the right contract, based on the right operational model, at the right price is where process becomes strategic craft.
* Role definitions adapted from training by David Bulkin, certified Scrum Trainer and Agile Coach.