This is a topic that often comes up the first time someone hears about organizational SCRAP without spending some time reading or talking about it with someone with experience with it.
What is organizational SCRAP?
Organizational SCRAP, or SCRAP for short (all caps) is any structure, culture, rule, assumption or process that no longer serves our purpose, or gets in the way.
How do I tell which structures, culture, rules, assumptions and processes are SCRAP?
A structure, aspect of culture, rule, assumption or process is not SCRAP unless it doesn’t serve purpose purpose or it gets in the way.
@Mnhoang shared a great way to think about it. I have clothes. When those clothes cease to be useful to me (they get worn out, go out of style, I outgrow them, etc), they become junk. Not all my clothes are junk.
It’s just like this with SCRAP. We have structures, culture, rules, assumptions and processes in every organization of any size. They hopefully all help us in some way. When things change over time, some of those structures, culture, rules, assumptions and processes lose their importance and value. They no longer help, and they may even get in the way, inhibiting our success.
This analogy will become even more useful when we dive a bit more into people working on what they believe to be SCRAP.
Structures, culture, rules, assumptions and processes- Isn’t just about everything in an organization SCRAP by this definition?
No- just the structures, culture, rules, assumptions and processes that no longer serve the organization’s purpose or that get in the way.