The LeSS connection is the idea of organisational habits that survive long after their original reason has disappeared.
In organisations, the “ladder” might be:
“Architecture must approve this first.”
“Only analysts talk to users.”
“Teams cannot change components they do not own.”
“We need a project manager to coordinate dependencies.”
“Performance targets are set per department.”
“That decision belongs to management.”
Nobody may remember why these rules exist. Yet people still defend them, because “this is how we do things here.”
LeSS challenges exactly that. It makes these inherited policies, roles, structures, and control mechanisms visible, then asks whether they still help teams learn and deliver customer value. Very often, they do not. They protect the old organisation from discomfort.
