Water striders skim the surface; water spiders dive into the water.

In Lean Manufacturing, there is a role called mizusumashi or “water spider”. If you imagine operators working on an assembly line, instead of the operators running back and forth to retrieve materials, the “water spider” is someone who fetches material for operators on a line so that they can operate more smoothly. Jon Miller highlighted a common misconception about this role:

“The Water Spider position is often confused with a simple material handler or an entry level “go fetch” person. Far from it, the Water Spider needs to be thoroughly familiar with the materials, tools and methods of the process they are supporting.”

In other words, the “water spider” cannot be effective in supporting a process, without being thoroughly familiar with the process. The metaphor Jon uses is comparing water strider insects that only skim the surface versus water spiders that dive into the water, that is, can go deep into a process if necessary.

The essence of Lean (and Agile) is working on the work.

John Shook wrote about his annoyance with people downplaying focus on working on the work in order to focus on changing culture (aka “ways of thinking”):

“You may be able to create wealth through a variety of business models or ways of thinking. But if you want to create real value, and jobs that value people, you must think hard about how your people are working every day. That’s because the essence of lean thinking is about the WORK. Lean means working on the work: the value-creating work that occurs on the frontlines of your enterprise.”

An effective Agile Coach should be like a water spider, not a water strider.

I see a similar problem with Agile Coaches overemphasising “culture” and “management behaviour” independent of insight on the actual work that needs to be done. That is, water strider Agile Coaches.

To be effective, I believe an Agile Coach should be like a water spider, able to go deep if necessary to support how people work.

Of course, we must acknowledge the breadth and depth of knowledge and practices involved in modern software development. It takes a lot of time and effort to become a water spider, but I see this as the right True North to set.