Most have probably heard about Marie Kondo and her miracle methods of transforming lives via de-cluttering. This article on The Drum took it a step further: by applying Agile in the mindset of a Marie Kondo disciple, one can even transform organizations.
What makes the article compelling, in my view, is the power of metaphors in generating insights. In this case, an organization is a “house”, a messy place with redundant objects with ill-defined purposes. To reorganize clothes in the drawer, allowing them to be recognize at a glance, is similar to reorganizing workflows, making each component visible. When Marie tells people to “gather all your clothes and dump them in a pile”, it is similar to mapping all processes, business rules, and resources in order to find bottlenecks and redundancies. Using Hikidashi (boxes within drawers) to set clear boundaries on what is enough parallels the Kanban method and the fundamental drive of agile to tackle manageable pieces before anything else.
The house as a metaphor is effective as it takes us out of our IT, corporate context to consider things in more mundane, and at the same time more evocative and visual, contexts. It is also internally focused by design, allowing for reflection but at the same time precluding more competitive analyses.
By Linh Dang
Source:
https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2019/01/21/sparking-joy-agile-konmari-marketers-and-businesses
Walter Hodge
Your blog and this article intrigued me, many of my friends have been talking about Marie Kondo and her methods for decluttering. I think it’s something I could gain value from and definitely am adding to my to watch list. I especially appreciate the analogy by Isman Tanuri on agile in the business, and the metaphors mentioned provide clarity to issues you see every day in the work place. The ideas and suggestions are simplistic to implement and in the long run make a business leaner and more efficient.
Thank you for sharing.
I really like this metaphor comparing Agile methodologies and the art of tidying. I have both Marie Kondo’s books and can definitely see the comparisons you make with recognizing workflows at a glance and dumping everything into a pile to get rid of what we don’t need (or doesn’t bring us joy) and to organize what is left. The concepts from Marie Kondo’s de-cluttering methods definitely will spill over from your home life and can easily be applied to IT organizations. Many IT organizations are looking for ways to become leaner and more efficient. They want to find ways to add value instead of being a cost center as we discussed from other course readings. Keeping Marie Kondo’s concepts in mind will help IT organizations drive value and cut unnecessary costs.
I really enjoyed this metaphor, it’s not often that business IT and home decorators collide. I also like the use of metaphors for an organization considering we just covered a part of “Images of an Organization” which talks about the different metaphors of business. In my corporate sustainability class, we have actually talked about redesigning business around Marie Kondo’s ideas of minimalism. By reducing the clutter of a business we can cut costs, create simpler aspects that help workers better understand things. IT has always been a power for efficiency so it only makes sense to look for ways to “cut out the fat”..
Thank you everyone for your kind words.