Progress Leader — The Synchronizer
Leads: Sync | Event: Network
The Progress Leader coordinates improvements across processes. They ensure that multiple teams working in parallel don't collide — that one team's improvement doesn't create a bottleneck for another, and that shared resources are allocated without conflict.
Key Responsibilities
- Facilitate the Network event with Team Leaders and HSEQ Leaders
- Collect all improvements by process and review for overlaps and dependencies
- Synchronize improvement timelines to avoid rework
- Validate that process-level improvements are coherent across the value stream
The Tension
The Progress Leader sees the horizontal view — across processes — while Team Leaders see the vertical view — within their teams. The challenge is to synchronize without slowing down, to coordinate without centralizing.
Anti-pattern: The Bottleneck
The Progress Leader centralizes all coordination decisions instead of facilitating them. Every improvement must pass through their approval. Teams wait for synchronization clearance before acting. The person who was supposed to accelerate flow becomes the constraint.
How to detect: Improvements stall between Circle completion and Network validation. Team Leaders complain about waiting for approval. The Progress Leader is overloaded and the Network event is always behind schedule.
How to recover: The Progress Leader facilitates synchronization — they do not own it. The Network should enable teams to coordinate directly, with the Progress Leader flagging conflicts and dependencies. If a team's improvement has no cross-process impact, it should not need Network approval to proceed.
PDCA Participation
| Step | PDCA | Event | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3.1 | Check | Network | Collects all improvements by process and reviews for overlaps and dependencies |
| S3.2 | Act | Network | Synchronizes improvements to avoid rework and optimize resources |