Operations in self organising era?

There was an article in Yle News about sociologists. The recognised role of being the adviser in the 60’s and 70’s developing the Finnish society. During 80’s the economical liberalism took the role, and during 00’s populism is seen filling the space. In the article one sociologist ponders that back in the days it was believed in facts and enlightenment. They thought that if you lay scientific facts for the people and tell how the society works it drives into the transformation. They recognise now that it was faulty assumption. ”People don’t want freedom — they need something to submit to”, he claims.

I wouldn’t be that strict that people have a need to being submit to something or somebody. Yes, we are herd animals, we have a sense of belonging. We also look for authority in our communities, not by power and orders, but in leadership. How could such be arranged at work places in modern ways?

Doesn’t self organising teams address the issue?

Somewhat yes, but it does bring comfort if there is somebody to turn to and ask how things should go and how they are meant to be executed. However, this kind of thinking leads easily into the situation where there would be one particular person who holds the information.

Does operations management address the issue?

Yes — as a role (not necessary a person with a such title). Traditionally operations basically makes sure that things happens in right manner within company level. It’s the umbrella role of taking care of basically everything else than business development, sales & marketing activities and human resource activities. Operations management typically include overseeing manufacturing and product systems or project management operations, productivity analysis and cost control. It makes sure that the whole company, including projects, operates with same principles and practises to maximise the efficiency of personnel and know-how.

It has been noticed that even in agile development it’s more beneficial to have a project managerial role, especially in projects where customer is close. Agile methods may not in their most purist way need a project manager, but client projects tend to have some limitation set by time, budget or resources.

Similar way as the project is looking for the big picture over scrum teams, there should be a role for overseeing the bigger picture in the company level. Many times the role is fulfilled by CEO. Our natural tendencies defines part of the comfort zone we tend to work in, some of us are more pragmatic and others more visionary and sales oriented. If the CEO belongs in latter case I would set somebody else to take the more operational role.

Future

AI will change the way we work in the future. There will be less need to do the laborious and monotonic work, like work shift and resource planning, reporting, analysis and forecasting. AI will eventually take these activities and thus digitalisation eats off what used to belong to the middle management. But this is good new. It enables flat organisations to flourish and frees people to do more relevant work in customer interface or product development.

Modern Operations

Operations in self managing organisations will happen more as advisement role. People are looking for advices, second opinions, seniority and experienced point of views. Modern operations role does not manage, rule nor dictate.

• It makes sure that everybody has all necessary info, not just access to it.
• It makes sure everybody knows the ways of working.
• It makes sure that all relevant roles are fulfilled and that everybody knows each others roles.

And not just in theory, but in practise as well. In order to succeed in Modern operations, the organization needs to acknowledge the need and existence of modern operations role, and take full advantage of it.