Transformation Partner

All agile methods are rooted in Lean philosophy, which predates them and originates from Toyota's Lean Production System.

The goal is to define value and determine how activities must align to deliver that value — while eliminating waste.

Avoiding waste is one thing, delivering value is another.

Lean is all about the Value Stream. But what is value? You have to see it through the eyes of the customer.

A personal example: my car dealer now uses an AI voicebot for phone calls. The voice sounds natural and friendly. In my case, though, it was just one more hoop to jump through. The end-to-end process lacked real value for the customer. There are many examples like this — here is my story:

My car was showing that the brake pads needed to be replaced. I had just been at the workshop for a partial recall, and the car had been inspected then.

The AI on the phone was really friendly, almost as natural as a real person. It found my license plate in the system.

What it could NOT do: figure out whether the alert was triggered by mileage or by an actual defect. The car had just been at the workshop. So it transferred me to a real person.

The employee did not know either.

What went wrong? The data was missing. The technician from last time hadn't entered it into the system. And the software in the car had not been synced with the service technician's inspection.

The proof: AI alone helps nothing at this point. The process was not completed any faster than without AI. The data was missing and the systems were not in sync.

So it is always about the entire end-to-end workflow — across all media.

Most AI and strategy consultants make the same mistake: they can't do the math. Here's the proof:

Too many projects are started at the same time and worked on in parallel. That costs you real money.

Little's Law makes it clear: if your team is working on 10 projects simultaneously (WIP = 10) and completes on average 2 projects per week (throughput), the average lead time per project is 5 weeks (Lead Time = WIP / Throughput = 10/2).

Reduce the WIP limit to 5, and lead time halves to 2.5 weeks — at the same throughput.

Assuming €10,000 in project costs per week, that saves you €25,000 per project (5 weeks vs. 2.5 weeks × €10,000).

Without WIP limits, unfinished work piles up: with 10 projects of 5 weeks each, you tie up €50,000 per week in incomplete tasks — money that generates no return!

And with the breakneck pace at which technology is improving, you might end up killing one of these projects anyway! That makes WIP limits even more critical.

At the portfolio level, these limits are necessary to avoid six-figure waste and to increase efficiency.

This is why you need Lean principles at multiple levels: team, portfolio and strategy.

Two-week sprints for everything and everyone, whether they fit or not, only create frustration.

A technical process is NOT a functional process, NOT a governance process and NOT a strategy.

Some tasks take seconds, others a day, a few workdays, two weeks or three months. The key is Cadence!

How do you harmonize these different processes and rhythms meaningfully? That is precisely the art.

A company offering Software as a Service (SaaS) for B2C customers needs different ways of working, methods and roles in a team building web app features than a company manufacturing physical products for B2B customers, where a team is rolling out a new ERP system.

A pharmaceutical company needs different approaches for teams supporting field sales reps than a public authority facing the task of migrating large monolithic legacy systems that must reliably serve citizens.

Implementing an AI chatbot for general use is a different AI initiative than building predictive maintenance for machinery.

Sure — you have to start somewhere. But the best starting point is not an off-the-shelf framework — it is mindset and culture.

Do I really believe that a consultant without a technical background can guide me through an AI transformation better than a team member who tinkers with Open Claw at home (which I know nothing about)?

Do I really believe that an AI consultant can tell me more about a new operating model than a domain expert who has been frustrated for years by unnecessary media breaks — but says nothing because no one asks?

Do I really believe that a strategy consultant can teach me more about leadership than all my experts who have suffered under cumbersome structures for years — but stay silent because anyone hinting at change gets punished?

External expertise gets you nowhere unless you simultaneously create an environment in which everyone can speak freely — without negative consequences.

The real knowledge always resides within the company. The problem is not the individuals — it's always the system, which has grown historically and often become overly complex and cumbersome.

That's why my offer is: start with mindset and establish a culture where the knowledge already present in your company gradually becomes visible and is translated into action through sensible first steps.

Transformation essentially means: you already know that your current ways of working and structures no longer fit. You recognize the need to act.

You don't YET know exactly what the target state looks like — and you definitely don't want a massive change project.

I have co-shaped several transformations and can say: it is a learning journey. Transformation begins in teams and in top management at the same time — and then converges meaningfully.

During the agile transformations, many organizations distributed these dimensions across multiple leaders. With the AI transformation, in my view the time has come to sharpen this further — or, for those who haven't yet done so, to finally start.

The art lies in setting the right boundaries — and drawing them as tightly as possible, so that teams can decide, develop and deliver as freely as possible, without constantly depending on the leadership team.

I have accompanied and built this up several times already.