Thank you for your note.  I can appreciate the practical reality you outline, such as managers doing ‘bad math.’

I did like your point about constraining projects as well.  Sometimes you do need to simply limit the amount of resource you’re prepared to invest in a given effort.  Failure to realize the importance has led to way too many never-ending projects.

Thank you for your note.  Reading it, you helped underscore another observation many seem to miss: Agile’s principles in many ways can be applied to disciplines beyond software development.

Glad it had some take-aways for you.

From my org. development systems side, dealing with traditional management efficiency thinking can be one of the big wrenches in the works, with some rigidity that can lead to disaster. In fact, managers can create their own silos of “being managerial” when what is needed is leadership.

A built in culture of flex (like Michigan Steelcase focused on an idea culture), that is respectful of those who do the work, two way feedback, and experience with what works (no phone ringing on software problem, via our local Menlo Innovations) – is one take away from mulling over your post. I like that I’ve heard Rich Sheridan rattle off the typical problems of new specs, changing expectations and THEN how Menlo has become so very clear about the boundaries and guidelines to deal with such project buster behaviors. Such behaviors are also legion within large organizations who are internal customers of each other. Boundaries and guidelines, mutually agreed upon, are still important, even more so.

I like that smart teams DO create checklists. Pilots use them. They ARE useful to check our ego and blind spos. They help create better boundaries and guidelines conversations = communication = which can evolve to thinking systemically & just being team smart. In a VUCA* world, that means agility with good communication to me. Thanks again for getting me thinking about agility and what it really means.

*VUCA = volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, a term coined by the US Army War College in the weeks before September 11, 2001.

I have certainly seen my share of managers who seem to forget basic math: that you can’t, for example, take a team with the capacity to handle two projects at once and ask them to handle another without either eliminating one or slowing them all down. As you say, this usually stems from a lack of communication.

Corporate management is typically bad at communicating so it’s up to us as leaders in product development to keep telling them what we’re doing, why, and when we expect to be done. Then we’ve provided all the necessary facts for a conversation where they want something more or sooner. We can always respond with some variation of “ok, to provide that, what do you NOT want to do?”

Separately, I think it’s worth noting that there is nothing wrong with an arbitrary deadline. Sometimes they are just a business reality. We have to ship for a public event or a customer deadline. It can also be useful to set a deadline to avoid over-engineered solutions. Sometimes it just makes sense to allocate some specific number of person-weeks to a project and no more.

It’s not arbitrary deadlines per se that lead to disaster. It’s setting them without acknowledging that the other parts of the triangle have to adjust in concert. You can pick a deadline, you just can’t also dictate the budget and the scope.

Bear Claw Chris Lapp: You’ve come far pilgrim.
Jeremiah Johnson: Feels like far.
Bear Claw Chris Lapp: Were it worth the trouble?
Jeremiah Johnson: What trouble?

Bear Claw Chris Lapp: Can you skin Griz?
Jeremiah Johnson: I can skin’ em as fast as you can catch’ em.
[Bear Claw runs through the cabin with a huge grizzly bear close behind and jumps out the back window]
Bear Claw Chris Lapp: Skin that one, pilgrim, and I’ll get you another!

Andrew: JT, rule number one…, go west, and never look back! avoid the “griz.”

I appreciate your both sharing your insights.  Your comments help expand the base premise in productive directions.  Andrew, your comment on the Leader being stable externally, the guidepost for those around them regardless their internal turmoil, is important.  It becomes easier as one becomes more experienced dealing with uncertainty.

Alan, the need to see beyond ourselves is important.  Reflecting on your comment, I have to agree.  I think one’s ego is definitely an impediment. Viewing one’s self as a pinnacle of achievement, precludes the desire, the necessity to go beyond.

Thank you both,

JT…

I appreciate your both sharing your insights.  Your comments help expand the base premise in productive directions.  Andrew, your comment on thee Leader being stable externally, the guidepost for those around them regardless their internal turmoil, is important.  It becomes easier as one becomes more experienced dealing with uncertainty.

Alan, the need to see beyond ourselves is important.  Reflecting on your comment, I have to agree.  I think one’s ego is definitely an impediment. Viewing one’s self as a pinnacle of achievement, precludes the desire, the necessity to go beyond.

Thank you both,

JT…

And this is where Andrew Stein hits it on the head. Great leaders are confident. Not just in their content knowledge, but in their ability to stand in the unknown and lead with that vulnerability fully embraced. So on the inside they are indeed uncomfortable, but much like all who charge into the unknown they actually have been there before.

The second factor is confidence, and this is key. The difference between an average leader and a great leader is the confidence they have in their direction, the trust around them that builds from that confidence, and the willingness to course-correct as soon as necessary – and fully accepting the responsibility for the course correction. Average is to be tentative, make excuses and pretend that failure didn’t/doesn’t ever happen.

Great leaders and people are always confident and never tentative. They appear to others as being comfortable, with being wrong, unsure, or uncomfortable. Inside, they may be deeply uncomfortable, but on the outside, they know that people are looking at them for leadership. Their confidence is what sets them apart when in an uncomfortable situation.