Flexibile working means choosing the places and times of your working as meets folks’ needs – each and every single day. Needs change, sometimes daily. And it’s not just about you and your needs.
And while we’re at it, how about we swap out the idea of “working” for “playing”? #DoNothingThatIsNotPlay #SeriousPlay #Schrage
How many folks in the Agile community are at all interested in learning? From my experience: next to none.
We could describe my whole career as one of building things.
Early on, these things included software, hardware and tech products such as fax servers, compute clusters, compilers, interpreters, network systems, operating systems, development languages, applications, databases, and so on.
Later, things morphed to building teams, communities, software development and delivery groups, business units and tech companies.
Most recently, the things I build have morphed again, into techniques, approaches, tools and know-how applicable to building things.
This post is mainly concerned with sharing some of the insights I’ve gleaned over the years. Insights into effective ways of building things:
When embarking on building a new thing, I choose to dwell for a while on the purpose of the thing I’m building: Who’s it for? What will they use it for? How will they use it? What needs do they have that this thing willl address?
What does the Needsscape look like? How can we anticipate it changing over time? And how will we monitor and respond to those changes?
Doing things with a clear understnading of where those things fit in the scheme of things. Rather than just spinning the wheels for the sake of feeling busy.
Answer the question: “How will we ensure that what we’re building manifests the quality/qualities needed by all the Folks That Matter?
Manage all key risks facing us in bulding the thing (and in deploying, using it too). See Tom Gilb’s “All Holes In The Boat” principle (any one key risk can sink the whole effort).
Build things in small increments. Get regular feedback from all the Folks That Matter, early and often. Whilst continually remaining open to the system-wide impact of what’s being built.
One can never have too much communication. One can never have too much clarity of communication. I prefer to use Quanitification as the means to improving clarity of communication.
Particularly with the kinds of things I’ve been building over the years, things nebuluous and more or less invisible most of the time, it helps to find ways to make e.g. progress visible and clearly understandable to all the Folks That Matter.
Often called the Shewhart Cycle or Deming Cycle. PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) offers a conceptual framework for building things:
Deming banged on about the necessity for people to have pride in what they do. I find pride is enhanced through people feeling they own what they’re building.
Build as little a possible. With the lowest tech possible. Commensurate with meeting folks’ needs. Remember YAGNI.
I don’t expect the above list to be of much use to anyone. Because, normative learning. C’est la vie.
– Bob
Are you curious about how software will get written and delivered in the future? When all the Agile malarkey has faded away?
About your career and what skills and abilities will be in demand in a few years’ time?
Take a look at my book “Quintessence“ for a detailed road map of what the future of software delivery looks like.
My book “Memeology” describes in detail how organisations can make this future theirs, starting today.
And “Hearts Over DIamonds” sets out the foundations for Organisational Psychotherapy – the core principles for our Quintessential future.
Or read the whole series, and get a deep understanding of the role of Organisational Psychotherapy in businesses of the future.
– Bob
Marshall, R.W. (2021). Quintessence: An Acme for Software Development Organisations. [online] leanpub.com. Falling Blossoms (LeanPub). Available at: https://leanpub.com/quintessence/ [Accessed 12 Jun 2022].
Marshall, R.W. (2021). Memeology: Surfacing And Reflecting On The Organisation’s Collective Assumptions And Beliefs. [online] leanpub.com. Falling Blossoms (LeanPub). Available at: https://leanpub.com/memeology/ [Accessed 12 Jun 2022].
Marshall, R.W. (2018). Hearts over Diamonds: Serving Business and Society Through Organisational Psychotherapy. [online] leanpub.com. Falling Blossoms (LeanPub). Available at: https://leanpub.com/heartsoverdiamonds/ [Accessed 12 Jun 2022].
System One thinking (cf. Kahneman) is alive and thriving in it’s natural home: the hiring process.
When you have your HR people fronting your hiring efforts, you’ve already lost the war for talent.
There seems to be a vast ignorance amongst developers, other technical staff, and managers about the effect of “the system” (i.e. how the work works) on productivity. And on other dimensions of work, too (such as fun, employee engagement, quality, customer satisfaction,…).
I make this observation given the paltry attention given to how the work works in most organisations. Oh yes, many pay obsessive attention to processes – how the work should work. But never to how the work actually works, on the front line, at the gemba. It’s a bit like Argyris’ distinction between espoused theory (processes) and theory-in-action (the way the work is done).
There are folks (those in HR, Sales, Marketing, etc. stand out) that seem to never have realised that the way the work works is a thing.
Talking about the ins and out of the way the works works, let alone reifying it, marks one out as at least as wacko as those freaky systems thinkers.
Take a tour through all the blog posts I’ve written over the years on Rightshifting. Listed in ascending date order (i.e. oldest first)
– Bob
The whole species are utter newbies when it comes to human behaviour, psychology, and talk therapies.
Which is dead inconvenient when it comes to cooperation, peace and love, and business success.
How many managers seek and drive clarity? And how many need and revel in obfuscation?
When you understand what the right thing is, it’s incredibly hard to buckle down to doing the wrong thing.
No human being has ever done anything for anybody else. Everything we do is to make life as wonderful as we can for our self. What makes life more wonderful than anything else is contributing to the well-being of other people. We talk about self-fullness. Doing things out of the natural joy that comes when our only motivation is to enrich lives and it’s free from any taint of fear of punishment if we don’t, hope for reward if we do—including hoping people will like you—guilt, shame, duty, obligation.
~ Marshall Rosenberg
Thare’s a few key reasons why I’ve been consistently and regularly blogging for the best part of fifteen years now:
– Bob
Quantification enhances clarity of communication. Increased clarity of communication enhances interpersonal relationships. Are enhanced interpersonal relationships something you need?
It’s the obdurate, blythe ignorance of decision-makers and influencers that gets me.
In WW1 the phrase “Lions led by donkeys” was a popular criticism of the General Staffs.
In the software industry it’s more like “Donkeys led by donkeys”.
And the more senior you are, the less you understand. Even if you were once a developer, given that most developers don’t understand software development / software delivery, a developer background is not going to help you much.
Who does understand software delivery? Folks who have studied it as a discipline. And that’s precious few indeed. Of all the “development” folks I’ve met over the years – and that’s thousands – wayyy less than one percent actually have an effective understanding of the field.
Yes, there’s thousands upon thousands of folks who understand coding (programming). But that’s not much help at all in forming a broader and effective understanding of the wider software delivery discipline.
The upshot? The software industry is stacked to the gills with folks who have no clue what they’re doing, except in the narrowest of specialism. And worse, no ability to recognise the one percent. Result? The blind leading the blind. And the hegemony of the one-eyed man.
– Bob
Do you need to see a Sea Change in the software industry, or does the status quo suit you and your needs just fine and dandy, thank you very much?
As the inventor of Agile software development circa 1994, I feel uniquely placed to suggest the need for such a sea change,and what that sea change might look like.
It’s all laid out in my most excellent book “Quintessence“, along with its companion volumes “Hearts Over Diamonds” and “Memeology“.
How often have you discussed the subject with your peers, friends, colleagues, higher-ups, etc.?
Without your active support and involvement, a sea change ain’t never likely to happen. Until then, status quo FTW.
– Bob
Marshall, R.W. (2021). Quintessence: An Acme for Software Development Organisations. [online] leanpub.com. Falling Blossoms (LeanPub). Available at: https://leanpub.com/quintessence/[Accessed 08 Jun 2022].
Marshall, R.W. (2021). Memeology: Surfacing And Reflecting On The Organisation’s Collective Assumptions And Beliefs. [online] leanpub.com. Falling Blossoms (LeanPub). Available at: https://leanpub.com/memeology/ [Accessed 08 Jun 2022].
Marshall, R.W. (2018). Hearts over Diamonds: Serving Business and Society Through Organisational Psychotherapy. [online] leanpub.com. Falling Blossoms (LeanPub). Available at: https://leanpub.com/heartsovediamonds/ [Accessed08 Jun 2022].
Organisational transformation starts with the individual but as they change they can run into organisational barriers and resistance to change. Similarly if the organisation institutes changes without helping people change their own understanding and views those people resist the changes in the organisation.
~ Barbara Lawton
Deming emphasised that organisational tranformation and change must start with individuals changing their own personal assumptions and beliefs. And in doing so, these individuals will likely fall foul of the organisation’s collective assumptions and beliefs (the collective psyche).
What better argument could there be for the benefits of Organisational Psychotherapy?
And what better explanation for why it’s soooo hard?
– Bob
Marshall, R.W. (2018). Hearts over Diamonds: Serving Business and Society Through Organisational Psychotherapy. [online] leanpub.com. Falling Blossoms (LeanPub). Available at: https://leanpub.com/heartsoverdiamonds/ [Accessed 08 Jun 2022].
Lawton, B. http://www.youtube.com. (n.d.). 1993-03 Leading The Transformation Process. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/MKq_SA8QnYI [Accessed 8 Jun. 2022].
Stop hiring managers. They’re all dead wood now.
How often do people follow “leaders” and how often do they follow purpose (causes)?
Think Different