All decisions are a form of power. We exercise our personal power (power within) in many ways: when we decide where to live, what to wear, and what to eat. Not only that, we also choose our jobs, who we vote for, and where to go on vacation. We have a ton of personal power. […]
Many organizations ask teams to forecast when the team can deliver a feature. (Or finish a project.) That request often means the teams spend a ton of time forecasting, not delivering. Instead, what if managers told the team when the managers want to make a decision? The team could deliver enough to help the managers
You need a senior person at a meeting. The meeting is supposed to start at 2 pm. The leader strolls in at 2:15. When leaders act this way, they show their power. When I’ve asked why the person is late, they often say, “I had another meeting that ran long.” While that’s what occurred, people
You’re a leader in the organization. And you’re supposed to be at another meeting, that started 15 minutes ago. Your previous meeting ran long, so now you’re late. But the conversation you just had? That conversation prevented a bad product decision. (Or, it prevented a customer meltdown. Or something equally important.) At least, the decisions
When I sent my newsletter last month, Modern Management: Want Valuable Outcomes? Create Overarching Goals, several readers asked me questions. Why did I differentiate between outputs, outcomes, and benefits? I decided that was worth a blog post. Here’s how I define and use the terms. Outputs By themselves, a customer can’t use an output. We
Some managers wanted to prevent Bad Things from happening in the organization, so they added policies or procedures. Now, these same managers want business agility. However, the policies and procedures increase friction and make it harder to get the Right Things done. It’s time to start removing some of those policies and procedures. The more
Many of us focus on how efficient we can be. Many of our organizations want to maximize our output for every minute and hour of work. However, if we focus on effectiveness first, we create better outcomes for everyone. We don’t waste time working on things that don’t matter. An Example of Moving from Efficiency
Several of my clients have internal struggles about how to internally see the future of the product. The teams want to use an agile approach so they can incorporate learning. The managers want rigid roadmaps. Why? Because the managers want to “know” the teams will deliver it all. However, the managers create a roadmap similar
I’m struggling to write several posts and I realized I need to define my terms. I keep seeing managers confuse the strategic and tactical. That leads to large and unchangeable roadmaps and a lot of emphasis on predictability. I don’t know how to offer the level of predictability they want for large and unchanging work.
We talk a lot about empowered or self-organizing teams in the agile community. However, I don’t see too many self-organizing or empowered teams at my clients. Not because my clients are stupid—far from it. Everyone does the best job they know how to do. However, every manager’s micromanagement pervades all levels. Instead of talking about