The purposes of the LSS have expanded well beyond those of the LeanSSC, so the LSS leadership structure is evolving to support the larger vision.

The structure now includes two complementary leadership groups: An organizational-management Board, and a Community Council. These two bodies complement each other to amplify the strengths of the LSS community both organizationally and technically.

The Board will oversee organizational issues such as broad strategy for relating to other organizations; marketing; and administrative tasks. The Board will have up to seven voting members, and a variable number of non-voting advisory positions (generally one to three). It is otherwise much the same as for the LeanSSC.

The Community Council (CC) will facilitate the whole community and its subcommunities (like the Limited WIP Society) in growing closer to its tremendous potential. This is intentionally a broad definition: The CC will evolve what this means and how it works. Some ideas that have already been considered include:

• Connecting people (e.g., who have related interests or concerns, but might not otherwise find each other)

• Engaging people (e.g., inviting people to tasks in which they have interest and to which they are well suited)
• Facilitating communication (e.g., creating mechanisms by which people in the community can connect themselves)
• Scanning the work going on in the whole community, as well as outside of it, to detect opportunities to improve Lean systems theory and practice. Then identifying ways to catalyze and amplify these opportunities (i.e., applied Complex Adaptive Systems theory). The CALM (Cynefin, Agile and Lean Mashups) activities are an great example of this kind of activity.

There are many additional opportunities for you to exercise your leadership abilities and vision. You can build on existing community initiatives, for instance by anything from organizing a Lean Coffee to setting up a chapter of the Limited WIP Society. You can also plug into immediate needs like these at the Limited WIP Society:

• Starting a Google Group or Yahoo Group for local group organizers. The organizers are telling us they need it for things like coordinating materials, financial support, and speaker visits. The list of current organizers is on the Local Groups page on the website, at http://limitedwipsociety.ning.com/page/local-groups
• Assisting with the LWS website, from helping keep it current to adding new capabilities

Let us know what you’d like to do, or about other opportunities to help. The CC will be the main point of contact on these (we will let you know how to reach them when it is up and running). In the meantime, and at any time in the future, you can also contact me, Jim Sutton, using the Contact form.

We will be announcing the Board and Community Council members shortly.

For a better future,

Jim