Pawel Brodzinski on Leadership in Technology

Whatever it takes to lead a team, build a product, and run a business

Month: November 2014

  • Happiness Index as Team Sustainability Metric

    One of the discussions that happened during Don Reinertsen’s product development workshop was the one about absorbing turbulence. Absorbing turbulence is a metaphor for how well a team deals with unplanned variability of the process. These would be situations like arrival of a bigger batch of features to build, or especially complex work items, etc.

    Normally, every team is suitable to absorb some turbulence. Beyond that point this capability will not be sufficient and the situation would quickly escalate. A good example may be that the team would gracefully deal with some additional features but above certain threshold we’ll quickly the situation escalating to a high queue state. This would result in long lead times, long feedback loops and generally decreased responsiveness of a team.

    These all result in lower efficiency too.

    If such a situation persists over longer period of time it can take a heavy toll on people as we are running at risk of burning people out.

    I really like the analogy that Don uses in his work: when a human body is losing blood, interestingly enough, blood pressure doesn’t go down. What our body is designed for is to pump enough blood to the brain so it can operate normally.

    To compensate for losing blood the heart rate keeps going up. It goes up to the point where this mechanism is no longer sufficient and the organism crashes over a very short period of time.

    A similar thing happens when we overload our teams. For some time they deal with the overload just fine introducing their own coping mechanism. They’d likely work overtime, introduce additional multitasking, etc. A problem is that, similarly to the situation when a human body loses blood, there’s a price to be paid for that.

    Eventually people end up burned out and leave an organization. From that perspective a good question would be: what kind of early signals we get so that we can address the problem early.

    One answer would be careful monitoring of work. How much work in progress we have. How our queues in backlog change. This kind of stuff. While obviously that would provide us some signal, that wouldn’t really be a proxy measure if we want to consider people first, not the process first.

    What strikes me is that we at Lunar Logic already use a nice signaling mechanism that would give us an early warning. The mechanism is a happiness chart. Despite the fact that a happiness chart is a super simple, super low-tech tool it works on a few levels.

    On one level we have individuals. When I see a deviation from the norm in the chart of one person it likely means that something’s going wrong. It may be related to the work, it may be related to a personal life. Whatever the case is it does affect the work.

    If the case is individual it will unlikely be related to the whole project.

    Another context is the one of the whole company. If things were going generally wrong I’d expect to see a strong signal across the whole board. “Generally wrong” may mean either mediocre business results, or a cultural problem, or a strong source of frustration, or a bunch of different things.

    In such situation the signal would be broader than just a single project or product team.

    There’s another scenario, which would be a bunch of people recording worse than typical mood and the correlation would be around a common project. Process-related parameters of that project may look OK: a backlog queue wouldn’t grow, throughput would go up, etc. Is there anything wrong then?

    In this case happiness chart would serve as blood pressure – it would be a countermeasure pointing that something is going not exactly OK and if we keep doing that we may end up crashing.

    The rule for our happiness chart is that the color translates to the mood. Green means happy, blue means so-so, and red means not happy. Once the chart for a project team gets more bluish or even reddish that’s a very strong indicator that we are not absorbing turbulence in that team gracefully.

    The interesting part is that a happiness chart would provide such an information no matter whether a root cause is overloading a team with tasks, interpersonal conflicts that affect collaboration or anything else. The alarm would go off in either case. That’s actually perfect as we want to react to dangerous turbulence early in any situation.

    From that perspective the outcome of happiness chart isn’t a leading indicator per se – when the change is triggered it means that there’s already something happening. It isn’t a lagging one either. We can correlate it with other parameters or even check with people to figure out what is happening. We would know that we’re not coping with turbulence well enough much earlier than when we are on the verge of crashing.

    The reason why I think this strategy is so valuable is because it allows to merge the data from two different universes. On one hand we have all the process metrics that tell us how we are doing from efficiency perspective. On the other we get a social metric that tell a lot whether the current state is sustainable.

    It is exactly like a combination of a blood pressure and a heart rate. The former translate to efficient work of our steering center – the brain. The latter tells a little bit how sustainable current conditions are.

  • Two Rules of Autonomy

    One thing that we are doing at Lunar Logic is we evolve toward no management model of leadership. This means a lot of small changes that all happen with the same attitude at heart: to distribute more and more decision-making power across the whole company. This by the way also means systematically stripping down the management from that power.

    The latter is easy in our case as the management is limited to me and I kind of launched the whole process. I would have to be either a hypocrite or a schizophrenic to resist the changes. Luckily enough I believe I’m neither. (Unless that other me has something else to say, that is.)

    I don’t say it’s easy. One challenge in each step toward participatory leadership is that we, humans, don’t like to give up on power. I’m no different. I like that warm feeling that I can make a call and it shall be as I say. It’s not only that. Sometimes I simply know which option is good and the temptation to intervene and tell people what’s the best choice is strong. It would mean, however, taking a step back on a path toward democratizing leadership. So I keep my mouth shut.

    On other occasions I just feel like we are going too far from my comfort zone and I slow down the process.

    Giving up on power is a prerequisite to go further. While I don’t say it will go as easy in every case it isn’t enough to get that part working. In fact, despite being vocal how much I don’t want to make all sorts of decisions and how much I appreciate autonomy I still get loads of the questions that start with “Can I…”

    If I’m lucky enough to suppress my System 1 reaction that would be either of: yes, yes but, no, no but answers I’d reply with “Can you?” The ball is back in your court and as long as you take responsibility for the call you make I’m OK with that.

    The interesting thing is why these questions are popping up over and over again though. Despite the fact that on a conscious level we promote autonomy our natural behaviors means retreating back to the old pattern of asking for permission.

    We simply don’t claim autonomy even if it slaps us in the face.

    Besides years of programming our brains by education and work system that make it hard to act differently there’s another reason for that. Most of us want to be good citizens and we don’t want to use our autonomy to do stuff other wouldn’t like or even would be against. So we back up to the ultimate decision-making authority who is supposed to know what everyone in an organization likes or approves or more likely who doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks – a manager.

    The interesting thing is that the fear sometimes is well-grounded. We have different sensitivity toward different things. Behaviors that we consider positive or neutral may have negative connotation for others. If I’m a manager and I use my ultimate decision-making power and I don’t give a damn then, well, I don’t give a damn. But what if I’m just a team member who cares?

    The idea we came up with is a set of two very simple rules.

    1. The Nike Way
    If you want to do something just do it.

    2. Speak Up
    If you don’t like what someone else is doing speak up.

    Yes, that’s it. There’s one underlying principle, which is mutual respect. We don’t need to love each other. We need to respect our autonomy and our right to have different views on stuff.

    The nice thing about this setup is that it is a self-balancing mechanism. It takes only one person try something new. It doesn’t require permission or even extensive up-front discussion. Pretty much the opposite, as a default we assume that every initiative would be awesome and everyone would love it or at least have nothing against.

    The Nike Way is verbalizing the attitude described by famous Grace Hopper’s words: It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.

    What we do know is that despite best intentions it won’t be true all the time. Occasionally, OK more often than occasionally, someone would do something that somebody else is not OK with. Then we have Speak Up rule that triggers a conscious and meaningful discussion (sometimes dubbed a shit storm) that provides additional insight for both sides and most likely some sort of consensus.

    Speak Up rule was designed with a positive scenario in mind, i.e. someone unintentionally stepped on someone else’s toe. It works however in malicious cases as well. When someone intentionally crosses the line or pulls an organization in an unwanted direction someone else will speak up too.

    The best part is that the same way it takes only one person to just do it, you need only one person to speak up.

    One might point that there’s a risk that it would end up in indecisiveness. So far I don’t see that happening. First, speaking up doesn’t mean the ultimate veto power. It simply triggers a discussion. Second, the respect bit that is a hard prerequisite keeps the discussion civilized.

    There’s a little more sophistication to balance that. Naturally extroverts would have an upper hand in unstructured discussion. That’s where empathy plays its role as helps to facilitate these weaker signals. On a basic level there are just these two simple rules: The Nike Way and Speak Up rule.

  • Portfolio Kanban and Doing the Right Thing

    There’s an ongoing discussion that I occasionally refresh with Markus Andrezak on usefulness of applying Kanban to manage portfolio and generally to the process of figuring out which products should be built.

    What is Portfolio

    One obvious thing that we can start with is focusing on a specific context. After all portfolio is a pretty loaded word and it is used in all sorts of situations. While my goal isn’t to boil down portfolio discussion to only few available options I see at least three distinctively different cases.

    There are organizations that ore focused on project work. A typical gig they run would be a distinct initiative that is different form all the other initiatives they run. What’s even more important the revenue from that work would be connected to delivering work. This would be a project portfolio case. A classic example would be an offshore web software shop.

    Then we have organizations that, similarly to the previous example, focus on building multiple concurrent and independent initiatives yet they would operate them as products by themselves. In other words they earn money by directly selling their software, or services provided by that software, to the end users. There’s no simple definition when the work is done. This would be a product portfolio case. A classic example would be a game development studio.

    Then there is an alternative version of product portfolio where the whole company is focused on building a single product. In such a case the overarching initiative that everyone contributes to is obvious as there is only a single one. The discussion would happen between either specific goals to achieve or specific big scale functionalities to build. This would frequently be labeled a product portfolio too although for the sake of this discussion I’d go with a feature portfolio label, even if it isn’t precise especially for big organizations. A classic example would be a startup building what they believe is the next world-changing product.

    Of course we can think of a mix of any of these scenarios and rarely only one of them will be pursued by an organization exclusively. What’s more we could go further with a differentiation within these scenarios. We’d see a completely different dynamics of project portfolio in a company that works under time and material terms than from one that build fixed price projects. A very different feature portfolio will be in a startup at an early phase which is still figuring out product-market fit that in an established company focusing on leveraging their user base or staying ahead of competition.

    Where is the Problem

    The discussion about applicability of Portfolio Kanban boils down to defining what is the most painful problem on a portfolio level in a given context. From that perspective there is a clear distinction between project portfolios and the other two scenarios. The difference is in the way revenues are generated.

    In project work the more projects we finish the more revenues we can expect. With product or feature portfolio building software is only an intermediate step in order to generate revenues. In other words we know much more up front about return on investment in project portfolio scenario than we do in other two.

    That doesn’t completely change the bottom line. In each case the choice on endeavors an organization works on is crucial for its long-term health. In each case overcommitment and too much work in progress on portfolio level can decimate the value of any ongoing work, no matter how carefully chosen. There are commonly mentioned reasons for that: long lead times mean long feedback loops and a lot of work in progress results in inefficient work.

    There’s one more dimension that from my experience is at least equally, if not more, important. The constraints provided by work in progress limits change the dynamics of the discussion about starting new stuff, be it projects, products or major features.

    Typically the discussion about economic feasibility of starting a new product or a project happens in isolation. If the ultimate problem that we are trying to solve is choosing the right initiatives to work on it should never happen in isolation. After all most of ideas we come up with make sense… in some context. An interesting question would be whether we are in such a context.

    We may have a bunch of projects that we expect to be profitable. But which of them provide us most monetary and non-monetary value? How starting another one affects the ones that are already ongoing? Given a business hypothesis which we want to validate, which out of all possible experiments would generate most valuable information? Would starting another concurrent experiment obfuscate the outcomes of ongoing ones?

    Of course we can say that each project will provide some value and each experiment will provide some learning opportunities. We don’t have infinite capabilities thus we need to choose.

    Role of Portfolio Kanban

    The way I look at Portfolio Kanban is that is addresses a very common issue of overburden at portfolio level and as a result it drives the discussion about what are the right endeavors to pursue. The latter starts happening when, thanks to WIP limits, we start saying no to new initiatives. What WIP limits create is they underscore available capabilities as a scarce resource. The next step typically is more careful consideration how these capabilities are put in the best use, which ultimately means a discussion about what is the right thing to build.

    Obviously this dynamics is not true in all environments. Startups, especially at the early stages, will likely focus on figuring out what is the right thing to build without any external incentive. Organizations built around a single product, at least to a certain size, will naturally maintain discipline in strategy planning that will provide an answer what are the crucial product goals for them.

    Beyond that it all gets fuzzy. If an organization gets big enough it has capacity to build multiple initiatives concurrently. Each product that grew far enough has a number of potential development paths it can follow and each of them can be promising on its own. If we talk about multiple product organization a temptation to follow a bunch of new goals at the same time is even stronger. And with projects it’s like an everyday issue.

    Of course I don’t say that it’s not possible to start the other way around: nailing down the ultimate purpose, which may mean answering the Spice Girls question, and following up with defining what are the right features, products or projects that serve the purpose. This would likely mean that the number of concurrent initiatives will be limited as majority of activities would be optimized toward pursuing the purpose.

    The problem is few organizations are ready to make this step just like that. And even when they are, there are still a lot of risks along the way. First, depending on how the ultimate goal is defined it doesn’t have to limit the options for what constitutes an attractive endeavor and we’re back to the square one. Second, even if the purpose provides enough focus there’s typically still plenty of options how to pursue the goal and thus overburdening portfolio is still a viable option. Third, and most importantly, in bigger organizations defining a single purpose may be impossible because office politics kicks in or there isn’t enough strategic leadership present.

    In either of these cases as well as in the most common situation where there isn’t enough awareness to even start the discussion about the purpose Portfolio Kanban may serve as a facilitation tool. On the top of efficiency gains, similar to those seen in other applications of Kanban, it would catalyze the discussion about what is the right thing.

    This is, in fact, the most important outcome of introducing Portfolio Kanban that I’ve seen.

    What Portfolio Kanban Is Not

    An argument I’ve heard a couple of times is that Portfolio Kanban doesn’t help to define what is the right thing to build or what is the ultimate purpose. I completely agree with this one. That answer simply isn’t there. Portfolio Kanban, pretty much alike any Kanban application, is a meta method. One shouldn’t expect to get context-specific answers.

    If an organization is ready to look for these answers that’s great. Depending on specific context Lean Startup, Lean UX or other modern product management approaches may be relevant. That’s where awesome guys like Will Evans or Markus Andrezak kicks in with their expertise. That’s where Stephen Bungay’s work will prove invaluable, which Jimdo guys will happily confirm. That’s where Don Reinertsen would provide outstanding guidance for decision making.

    In such cases, usefulness of Portfolio Kanban will indeed be limited. It will be mostly process improvement and efficiency stuff.

    A common case wouldn’t be even remotely as rosy though. That’s why value provided by Portfolio Kanban typically go beyond the process stuff. It would still stop at introducing pressure to start important and difficult discussions. It wouldn’t provide guidance for that conversation. A good thing is that there would be more pressure the more screwed up the situation is. We can expect this catalyzing mechanism to exist continuously till we either solve the problem or give up on limiting work in progress on portfolio level.

    If someone claims that Portfolio Kanban is supposed to provide more than that in terms of defining what is the right thing, well, we may be talking about different things.