Core Principles

The LeSS rules define the LeSS organizational design system. But the rules are minimalistic and do not give answers as to how best to apply LeSS in your specific context. The LeSS principles provide the basis for making those decisions.

Principles like systems thinking and whole-product focus are also what AI-era org design turns on: using AI well is a question of how the whole organization is structured around its product, not of any single tool, and these principles are how you reason about that structure.

Other Principles?

The ten LeSS Principles guided us in creating LeSS and they should guide you when you are implementing LeSS. Other useful principles you might want to explore:

• Agile Manifesto
• Avoiding False Dichotomies (explored in Scaling Agile and Lean Development)
• Be Agile Rather than Do Agile (explored in Scaling Agile and Lean Development)
• Total Quality Management/Control (an early and excellent book on this is What is Total Quality Control: The Japanese Way)
• Deming’s 14 points (from Out of the Crisis)