Stan, a prospective client, had trouble making time for our discovery call. (That's the call where the client and I discuss the boundaries of a consulting engagement.) After he canceled three scheduled calls, I suspected we would not work together.
But then he asked me for an evening conversation, after his day's “craziness.” (His words, not mine.)
When we spoke after our regular work hours, I learned several important facts about his organization:
- Everyone was overloaded. The teams had too many projects and support work. The managers had too many decisions to make.
- As a result, their throughput was quite low. That meant their feedback loops were too long. (They suffered from the effects of Little's Law with high WIP, long aging, and low throughput.)
- He was sure he was going to lose people if he didn't change anything. And he had no idea where to start.
As we spoke, he agreed with me that he needed to lead the changes. Those changes were more resilience in everyone's system, more slack in the system, and everyone would do whatever they could to create faster feedback loops.
Let's start with what I mean by more resilience in the system.
Tip 1: System Resilience
Many people think resilience allows them to bounce back from difficult times. Instead, consider resilience as a way to bounce forward. If so, you can free yourself to make different—and possibly better—decisions.
When Stan rethought his ideas about resilience, he realized that the organization had created a brittle system, unlikely to bounce at all, never mind forward.
Stan identified what made the system brittle:
- Long and detailed roadmaps for most of the products.
- Specific promises that Sales had made to several customers, which kept those roadmaps in place. Because the roadmaps were so long, people continued to add more features to them.
- As a result of all these promises, everyone looked backward, not forward.
That perspective, of always looking backward made it difficult, if not impossible, to reconsider any decision. After discussing the issues, Stan decided to rethink all the various customer promises. As he said, “We already broke the delivery date promises. We might as well negotiate everything.”
Slowly, by removing the anchors around everyone's commitments, Stan was able to reduce the number of active projects and create a little slack in the system.
Tip 2: Build Slack into the System
Stan and I spoke again in the evening. Even though the teams were able to build a little slack, Stan still felt as if the work overwhelmed him. But now, he needed some information to keep the slack in the system. For so long, people had been so busy, they didn't know what to do with their “extra” time.
I asked, “Are you coaching people to make some of your decisions? Or do you still have to make all the decisions?”
He paused and said, “I guess it's time for me to delegate some decisions, isn't it?”
“You won't get the shorter feedback loops until you build some slack into your system,” I said. “Just look at our consulting relationship. You're paying me a premium to work with me outside our normal work hours. That's similar to a decision tax. I bet you have many more decision taxes every single day than just our discussions.”
I knew he understood when he groaned. But that insight allowed him to shorten many of the feedback loops.
Tip 3: Shorten Feedback Loops
When I first spoke with Stan, his and all of his senior management's decision-making time dwarfed all the work time on the projects. (See Why Minimize Management Decision Time.)
Because the teams worked on fewer projects and then fewer features, they shortened their internal feedback loops. That allowed them to show demos and release more often, which allowed the product leaders to reduce the content of the backlog and roadmaps. That, in turn, allowed the product leaders to be much more responsive to customer needs and to finish projects faster. The faster the teams finished projects, the easier it was to change the project portfolio. (See Multiple Short Feedback Loops Support Innovation.)
Now, with rethinking their approach to resilience and more slack in the system, Stan could see the organization was more effective. He still had work to do with his senior leadership team, but they were headed on the right track.
Effectiveness Leads to Business Agility
In a recent conversation, (during the day!) Stan said that he finally felt as if the organization was more effective. And that he had more options, which was the point of business agility.
We're now meeting during our workdays, not in the evenings. Stan looks more relaxed. He said that he's making decisions faster and better, which was the point of our engagement.
You might not want or need “true” business agility. However, I suspect that you want to be more effective. Consider these ideas:
- Use resilience to bounce forward.
- Build slack in the system so you're not frantic.
- Shorten feedback loops, especially management feedback loops.
If you experiment with these tips, let me know how it goes.
This newsletter touches on topics in Successful Independent Consulting, and all three of the Modern Management Made Easy books.
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Pragmatic Manager: Vol 20, #6, ISSN: 2164-1196