What is the meaning of a Howie?

Definition:   Howie is the person that does the work and therefore says ‘How’ they will meet the customer’s needs.  A Howie is a role in an organisation’s operations using Kanban Accelerated Delivery (https://LeanKAD) ways of working.

Like players on a sporting team, people have a role on the team to be in the right place at the right time to fulfil the obligations of that position.  Similarly, a Howie is like a virtual baseball cap to show who’s accountable for deciding ‘How’ work will be done in the enterprise operations.

A Howie May Work on Multiple Cards ..
One or more Howies may work on a card.  It is preferable to show all the Howies working on a card to enable conversation and empower collaboration.

Can a Howie also be a Whattie?
Yes.  It is not uncommon for self-organising teams to delegate one person as ‘Whattie’ to triage and prioritise the incoming requests given as a card on their Kanban Board.  This can be per type of work.

 For example, it’s common for IT software development teams to work on fixing the bugs or defects raised from software after it has been released into production.   These defects arrive sporadically and need to be immediately triaged with a priority based on the impact to the users.  Some teams rotate this role of Whattie for production defects to ensure they are immediately triaged.

Which Functions and Departments have Howies?
All functions, units and departments have this role in operations regardless of their funding.  All portfolios, programs and projects have them too.

Is a Project Manager a Howie?
They could be, particularly if they have technical expertise.

A Howie is Not a Job Title ..
A Howie is not intended as a job title, but an operational role that denotes explicit accountability for doing the work and continuously improving the ways of working.

History and Origin of Howie
Becci Watson of Australia began using the terms ‘Whattie’ and ‘Howie’ when coaching Information Technology (IT) teams to accelerate delivery.  At the time, it was popular for many software development teams to use the Scrum framework. 

In 2016 Becci published a blog post Howies and Howies: Informal Metaphors for Scrum Roles (source: https://BecciWatson.com.au/Whatties-and-Howies/).

In this post she explains,
Both roles are expected to make suggestions and collaborate, but the Whattie has the final say as being the accountable for ‘What’ is done and the Howies get the final say on ‘How’ they’re going to do it.