Pattern 2.4
Find the Gatekeeper
Map the people and functions who can block, delay, or reshape the work without funding it, and keep them in a separate column from the patrons.
In This Context
Some of the most powerful influences on an organization fail the patron test: they supply nothing, and the business would lose no funding or permission to operate if they disappeared. They can still stop or slow the work. Your own procurement team sets the rules by which money leaves the business, and those rules shape architecture. Other gatekeepers include a dominant supplier such as a cloud provider, and works councils or unions with legal rights over how the business is run. Gatekeepers often appear late in a program, after a tool has been chosen or a proof of concept built. If they are ranked with the patrons, a group can end up putting a gatekeeper above the people who fund the organization.
- A gatekeeper is often judged on its own measure (for procurement, the discount it negotiates), not on how long the work waits.
- The cost of waiting usually sits on a different budget line from the gate.
Therefore
During patron mapping, ask of each name what input it supplies or could withhold. Move those that fail the test into a gatekeepers column and leave them out of the influence ranking. In the value stream workshop, ask who owns each gate, and whether that owner is on the patron map as a patron or a gatekeeper.
Consequently
- Decisions that the patrons can’t explain often turn out to be explained by gatekeepers.
- Gates whose demands can’t be traced back to any patron are exposed.
- If a group can’t move a gatekeeper out of the patron column, the organization may be built around satisfying its own controls rather than its patrons, which is a harder finding to deliver.
Seen In
Chapter 11, “Gatekeepers”. Also: Chapter 13, sidebar “War Story: The Best Price Nobody Used” (the procurement gate), and Chapter 13 “What to Look For” (gates whose owner isn’t on the patron map).