GROOVE X

Kaname Hayashi, “Manager-less Cave-like Organization,” AgileJapan 2019. Program | Peter Beck, “From idea to mass production”, DasScrumTeam Blog, 2020.

GROOVE X is a Tokyo-based robotics startup founded in 2015 by Kaname Hayashi (formerly Pepper project lead at SoftBank). Their sole product is LOVOT, a companion robot.

The company operates without managers: only C-suite and everyone else. Area Product Owners handle product management as a function, not a hierarchy position. Approximately 120 people in 20 teams use LeSS with a unified backlog spanning hardware, software, and business. One of Japan’s most documented examples of a flat, self-organizing hardware-software organization.