scaling lean: principles over process
TRANSCRIPT
GOTHELF.CO / @JBOOGIE
WHY DOES LEAN SEEM TO BREAK AT SCALE?Established corporations are too concerned about tarnishing their brand with an MVP
— David Baldie (@DavidBaldie)
Process. Everything has a process and 85 approvals and a mysterious “they” blocking anything that’s not the old way.— Emily Tate (@thedailyem)
"Good enough" doesn't get respected as viable option to SHIP IT! — Jeremy Caverly (@JeremyCee)
Silo'ed managers unwilling to release team members — Dan Weingrod (@dweingrod)
Valuing business need over user need (not realizing they are the same thing) — Simeon Poulin (@simeon_P)
"To approve that we need to see a detailed plan and cost benefit analysis, and you must commit to specific deadlines and targets." — John Waterworth (@jwaterworth)
"We already know what we need to do. Why do we need to waste time 'learning'?"— John Waterworth (@jwaterworth)
GOTHELF.CO / @JBOOGIE
SEVERAL WAYS TO THINK ABOUT SCALING
PROJECTHow do we incorporate more learning into each initiative?
PROGRAMHow do we coordinate multiple discovery/delivery efforts focused on the same goal?
PORTFOLIOHow do we coordinate multiple programs, enforce governance and meet shareholder expectations?
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SCALING CHALLENGES AT EACH LEVEL
PROJECT•Optimizing for throughput (velocity)
•Parallel path discovery & delivery
•No autonomy to make decisions
•Incremental, not iterative
•Perceived risk to brand/current customers
PROGRAM PORTFOLIO•Cross-team coordination
•Knowledge management
•Legacy systems
•Offshoring
•Distributed teams
•Discipline & business unit silos
•IT as a service provider
•Business value > customer value
•Annual planning
•Incentive structure
•Governance
•Conway’s Law but in reverse
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SCALING PRINCIPLES, NOT PROCESSES
“Process brings seductively strong near-term outcomes.”
- Netflix culture presentation (2009)
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TACTIC: MANAGE TO OKR’S
OBJECTIVE• Qualitative
• Inspirational
• Time bound
• Actionable by the team independently (particularly relevant in the enterprise)
KEY RESULTS• Quantifiable
• How will we know we’ve met our objective?
• Difficult, not impossible
• Cascade down
• Rhythmic
@CWODTKE
EXAMPLE OF OBJECTIVE: BE THE DOMINANT PLATFORM FOR CAR DEALER INVENTORY MANAGEMENT BY Q4 2016
EXAMPLE OF KEY RESULT: 50% OF ALL INDEPENDENT DEALERS ARE OUR USERSEXAMPLE OF KEY RESULT: 6 OF THE TOP 10 CARMAKERS MANDATE OUR PLATFORM FOR THEIR DEALERSHIPSEXAMPLE OF KEY RESULT: 40% OF AUTO AUCTION HOUSES USING OUR INVENTORY API
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TACTIC: EVIDENCE-BASED QUARTERLY PLANNING
SHIP
SENSERESPOND Q1: OKR’S
STAKEHOLDERS
EVERY QUARTER
$/€/£$/€/£
NEW OKR
GOTHELF.CO / @JBOOGIE
TACTIC: HORIZON PLANNING
Source: McKinsey, Intuit, et al
THREE TIME HORIZONS TO MEASURE PROGRESS
• Customer-related questions to answer: Is there a need? Can we find a solution that meets that need?HORIZON 3: SHORT TERM
• Sustainability-related questions to answer: Is the market large enough/sustainable? Can we support growth?HORIZON 2: MID TERM
• Growth-related questions to answer: How do we scale? How do we continuously improve? How do we stay competitive?HORIZON 1: LONG TERM
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TACTIC: ENCOURAGE CREATIVE EXPERIMENTS
Source: @evolvable, @tyro
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TACTIC: ACCESS TO CUSTOMERS
The second hardest thing about Minimum Viable Products is that while
you decide what’s Minimum, the customer determines if it is Viable.
- @davidjbland
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TACTIC: “ORBITAL MODEL” FOR SUPPORT OUTSIDE OF PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
CORE TEAM
LEGAL
BRAND
MARKETING
FINANCE
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TACTIC: MODERNIZE TECH STACK
DevOps is a culture, movement or practice that emphasizes the collaboration and communication of both software developers and other information-technology (IT) professionals while automating the process of software delivery and infrastructure changes. - Wikipedia
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TACTIC: MODERNIZE TECH STACK
Source: @billwscott (slideshare)
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THIS IS A TOP-DOWN EFFORT
“Successful leaders embrace the reality that their models may be wrong or incomplete. Only when we admit what we don’t know can we ever hope to learn it.”
- Ed Catmull, CEO, Pixar
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LEAN PRINCIPLES THAT WORK AT ANY SCALE
PRINCIPLE #1: CUSTOMER VALUE = BUSINESS VALUEPRINCIPLE #2: VALUE LEARNING OVER DELIVERYPRINCIPLE #3: RADICAL TRANSPARENCYPRINCIPLE #4: HUMILITY IN ALL THINGS
