In the agile and lean communities, we talk a lot about transparency. I see the most product and program success when the various teams create transparency between them, the middle of the continuum. That's the full-product transparency. I see many organizations succeed better when the less the manager knows, the better the team works. And, when there's too little manager-to-team transparency, the efforts become much more difficult or fail. That's because the managers don't explain:
- Why this product
- Why focus on these customers
- Why this product now, as opposed to any of the other work we could do.
The managers don't explain the purpose. So, the managers request transparency about the teams' work. And, the managers don't offer transparency about the purpose. That's not reciprocal transparency.