Some context first  : I am a project manager in a software development company, in a Kanban environment. In the team I am managing there is no such thing as people reporting their work to me, or people telling one after the other what they did yesterday, etc. During standup meetings we focus on the flow, almost never on a particular piece of work.

The other day I was having a (tiny) argument with my boss around a sentence from Jurgen Appelo's Management 3.0 book:

Whether employees need managers is irrelevant. It is the shareholders who need managers of their business. Self-organization is devoid of value. It takes someone with an interest in its outcomes to decide whether the results of self-organization are "good" or "bad."

Then the boss asked this question:

Considering a self-organized team where no individual work is ever reported, how do you spot the lazy team member?

Some context first: I am a project manager in a software development company with a Kanban environment. In the team I am managing there is no such thing as people reporting their work to me, or people telling one after the other what they did yesterday, etc. During stand-up meetings we focus on the flow, almost never on a particular piece of work.

The other day I was having a (tiny) argument with my boss around a sentence from Jurgen Appelo's Management 3.0 book:

Whether employees need managers is irrelevant. It is the shareholders who need managers of their business. Self-organization is devoid of value. It takes someone with an interest in its outcomes to decide whether the results of self-organization are "good" or "bad."

Then the boss asked this question:

Considering a self-organized team where no individual work is ever reported, how do you spot the lazy team member?