Author: Jurgen Appelo

"What are the values and principles behind unFIX?" people have asked me several times. To be honest, I am a bit reluctant to define yet another list of the Five Values of This or the Seven Principles of That. There are so many of those lists already, and I often find them too simplistic and dogmatic. However, I understand the usefulness of being able to explain the "Why?" behind the unFIX elements. Why are some patterns often good? Why are other practices usually bad? We may have to agree on a few shared principles after all.

As a compromise, trying not to be too reductionist in my approach, I intend to maintain a dynamic set of principles. I acknowledge that, now and then, there is a good reason to discuss a principle, modify an existing one, or maybe even retire one. With this post, I introduce the first of what may become an ever-changing collection.

Manage the System, Lead the People

What is the common theme across gardens, traffic, projects, public transport, office buildings, power plants, and social systems? All valuable systems need management. The goal of managing a system is to make and keep it valuable for all its users and stakeholders. It is no different with a Base, tribe, or business unit. We manage a system so that customers, employees, partners, and owners are all happy with it. This is a challenging job! Someone's got to do the dirty work, and that's why we suggest having a Governance Crew.

Leadership is something else. Leadership is not a job; it's a role: everyone can take up some leadership responsibilities. In unFIX, we have Captains and Chairs, and I'm sure we will add more leadership options in the future. We prefer informal leaders working on Crews, sometimes referred to as "the first among equals," but they are not the managers of their peers! For sure, they could be managing code, machines, data, events, or other Turfs together, but that does not make them people managers.

I find the distinction between management and leadership so vital that I believe it deserves to be an unFIX principle. Management of people (and the social system) belongs to the Governance Crew. The management of things and the leadership of people can and should happen anywhere.

Organization patterns are good when they promote leadership over management and prioritize the management of systems over the management of people.

Note: It is worth remarking that frameworks such as SAFe are less principled regarding the difference between management vs. leadership. In general, a SAFe implementation requires no mandatory changes to existing line management structures. For a SAFe rollout to be unfixed, any people management responsibilities need to be removed from all teams and other SAFe roles.