In this final section, we'll look at where an Agile transformation might lead in the organization you work for; it might lead to a very different way of working compared to where you currently are. Of course, you might not be there yet in terms of your Agile journey, and so this section is merely food for thought. 

We've seen that by delegating some of the decision making and responsibility to cross-functional teams, we increase the chances of building a useful and successful product. 

This results in two things happening within our organization:

• Those that have direct contact with Agile teams become infected with their ideas. They recognize that some aspects of what our software teams are doing will work for them and create better opportunities for success. As software becomes an ever more pervasive part of what we do, this rubbing of shoulders and spreading of ideas will only increase. This is a grassroots, team-level upwards and sideways implementation of Agile.
• Eventually, the success of the software teams hits a ceiling. Once the teams have achieved local success, it's likely that the impediments to further success are actually in the organizational structure itself. 

Divisional organization structures have a tendency to create hierarchy, and hierarchies aren't responsive; they were designed for a time where we treated the people and teams in our organization like cogs in a machine. The work was directed and people were told what to do and when to do it. This worked well up to the point where the problems we were trying to solve became too complex to divide up in this way.

And while Agile teams are specifically designed to tackle complex problems, they will instigate change in organizational structure, which tends to follow the information flow. This then raises a question: If that's the case, do we need to rethink our organizational structure to capitalize on the benefits of cross-functional thinking?

For some newly established companies who know that a traditional organizational structure won't serve them, it has made complete sense to take a look at their organizational operating system. Take Valve Corporation, the makers of the Steam online gaming platform, for instance. They've opted for an approach that optimizes their creativity.

Founded by former Microsoft employees, they set out to create an organizational structure where their employees could go on "a fearless adventure in knowing what to do when no one's there telling you what to do." This unique philosophy has created an organization with higher profitability per employee than most big corporations, with a reported revenue of just under $3.5 billion, and approximately 360 employees in 2016.

The founder of Valve's aim was to hire the best people, and rather than stifling their creativity by telling them what to do, give them an environment in which they can unleash their creative talents.

As they put it in their handbook, they take an idea like Google's 20% time allocated to self-projects and turn it into 100% self-directed work. Their employee handbook is published online and makes for some inspiring reading.

Their principal aim is to make a direct connection between their customer and their creatives, so that their teams can create an experience that their customers want and need. 

It isn't just tech companies who are taking a self-managing approach. Another example is Dutch healthcare provider Buurtzorg, founded by healthcare professional Jos de Block in 2006 after he became disillusioned with the community healthcare system. Buurtzorg translates to "neighborhood care."

The main issues with the healthcare system in the Netherlands at the time were:

1. Economies of scale thinking had created a healthcare system that was numbers-driven, not people-driven. Each caregiver was given a detailed plan the night before their daily rounds which included timing down to the minute. 
2. It was seen as inefficient that there should be a one-to-one relationship between patient and healthcare professional. This led to patients being seen by multiple (up to 40) different nurses. No relationships were formed and there was a distinct lack of continuity between treatments.
3. A tiered healthcare system meant that the providers on the ground had to make decisions about what treatments were and weren't available. This led to professionals not always being able to give the care they thought was required.

Buurtzorg aimed to create a system which addressed all three of the issues by:

• Focusing on the outcome for the client, instead of providing healthcare by numbers
• Developing consistency and continuity in the relationship with the client, as well as a spirit of community within the local area 
• Providing the healthcare a client needed rather than the healthcare they could only afford

Buurtzorg achieved this by creating small autonomous teams of qualified nurses and carers. Each team looked after a specific geographic area and set out to create a network within their neighborhood of other healthcare professionals: doctors, physiotherapists, pharmacists, and so on.

The teams were responsible for finding new clients, managing their workload, caregiving, and hiring into their team. The teams linked with each other when they needed to and shared information and ideas via the Buurtzorg intranet, a computer system designed and built specifically for the company.

The shift in thinking that Buurtzorg made was to stop thinking of healthcare as an exercise in efficiency and instead as an opportunity to focus on client outcomes, returning people to long-term health and improving their quality of life.

Implementing these changes had a direct impact on just that, with less likelihood of a reccurrence of the health issue for the client. Also, a single-tier healthcare system meant that there was little to no need to police the system, which previously would have taken qualified carers from the frontline and put them in positions of management. Thus, this created significant savings in terms of overhead and gave qualified carers more time to attend to clients.

Buurtzorg's growth has been phenomenal, from 4 to 14,000 in 10 years, with only 50 back-office administrators, 18 coaches, and zero managers in support.

The small centralized administration group is responsible for handling the company accounts, including billing their clients. The coaches support the teams and help improve their dynamic or resolve issues.

It has spawned an approach that is spreading internationally, with nurses and care workers once again passionate about their work and spending more time doing what they genuinely care about—looking after people.

Neither Valve nor Buurtzorg deliberately set out to create the specific organizational structures that they grew into. Instead, they both laid the foundation for how they wanted to work. In particular, they focussed on the outcomes they wanted to achieve based on their company purpose. 

Their similarity is that they both wanted to connect with their customer at a much more profoundly human level than they'd previously done. As a result, both companies have organically grown into different organizations.

That's the thing to understand with the network of teams approach: organizational systems are highly complex. Trying to superimpose the template of another company such as Valve, Buurtzorg, Spotify, or Netflix just won't work.

As we discussed in Chapter 1, The Software Industry and the Agile Manifesto, it's not something that we can merely transplant into our organization; it first has to be built with solid foundations.

Ask any of the CEOs of companies who have taken this path how they did it and they'll either avoid answering the question or more than likely point out that you'll need to work it out for yourself.

Without a doubt, patterns will emerge that we can capitalize on, and there are experiments that we can use to encourage a network of teams to form.

Purpose is the driver that tips an organization into this state. When an organization shifts its focus from just making profits and starts to focus on outcomes for a higher cause, like Tesla and it's mission to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy, then it starts to develop a noble purpose. When Tesla released their patents for electric vehicles so as not to stifle innovation in the sector, Elon Musk made it clear he was truly committed to the cause. He realized that his company alone couldn't replace the 1.2 billion gasoline-powered vehicles currently on the roads without a little help from others.

Frederic Laloux, in his book Reinventing Organisations, discusses a concept which takes this one step further: evolutionary purpose. He describes it as a purpose that goes beyond noble, a purpose an organization listens to and dances with. At this point, when an organization reaches this state, Laloux says it has made it to the highest level of self-management.

The concept is similar to the planning-driven approach of an Agile team, except now it's our purpose that is no longer set in stone. It's constantly being redefined as we listen to our customers and shape it to match their needs. 

As Laloux points out, it's only when we let go and give up thoughts that we were ever in control in the first place that we can truly start to dance with our customer.