Office
Layer: Tactical | PDCA: Check & Act | Duration: 2–3 hours | Frequency: Monthly
Participants: Project Leader, Progress Leader, Sponsors, Financial Leaders
The Office collects all improvement opportunities with value-capture potential from across the organization and makes prioritization decisions. It is where the transformation portfolio is actively managed.
Inputs
- Improvement opportunities from all Team debriefings (T2.3)
- Current resource availability and constraints
- Value-capture estimates from Stories and Circles
Outputs
- Prioritized improvement portfolio
- Resource allocation decisions
- Adjusted priorities fed back to teams (T2.4)
Key Principles
- Prioritization is based on impact and strategic alignment, not on who shouts loudest
- Every opportunity must have an estimated value capture before it competes for resources
- The portfolio is a living document — reviewed monthly, not annually
PDCA Steps
| Step | PDCA | Description |
|---|---|---|
| S2.1 | Check | All improvement opportunities with value-capture potential are collected and tracked across teams |
| S2.2 | Act | Highest-impact improvements are prioritized and the transformation portfolio is adjusted |
Connections
- Debriefing to Office (T2.3 → S2.1) — Debriefing opportunities feed the Office
- Office to Debriefing (S2.2 → T2.4) — Prioritized improvements return to teams
Anti-pattern: The Graveyard of Good Ideas
The Office collects improvement opportunities but never prioritizes them decisively. Opportunities accumulate in the Funnel without movement. Teams submit ideas that disappear into a backlog. No one knows what was approved, deferred, or rejected.
How to detect: The Funnel has a growing number of opportunities stuck in "validated" or "planned" stages. Teams stop submitting opportunities because they never hear back. The Office spends most of its time reviewing the backlog instead of making decisions.
How to recover: Every Office must end with three clear outputs: what is approved (resources allocated), what is deferred (with a reason and a review date), and what is rejected (with feedback to the team). An opportunity without a decision is worse than a rejected opportunity — at least rejection frees the team to move on.