It is Always About Resilence

Much of my misspent youth was part of the cultural landscape of the late 1970s and 1980s. Before you get too nostalgic, it was a strange time to grow up because parenting was much more permissive, and the technology we take for granted today was non-existent. One of my favorite memories of that time was when I would visit with a relative, and they would allow me to stay up late and watch Saturday Night Live. Before I fell asleep on the couch for a few magical minutes, I witnessed John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and Bill Murray create comedic gold. Still, my favorite cast member was Gilda Raner, who played the no-nonsense New York Purdo Rican pundant Rosanne Rosannadanna. The character colored my view of New Yorkers for years. During the character's appearance on Saturday Night Live, she often repeated, "It's always something," pointing out that our expectations of the world are always challenging or corrupted. As scrum masters or coaches, we always deal with "something" and should discuss that. 

The current business world is in a weird place. Inflation is starting to fall, profits are substantial, and business leaders are panicking about a possible recession. The strain begins to show as CEOs remove their masks and show off their frustrations to employees. The layoffs in technology and the desire to flatten organizations must be helping. Fear and anxiety are the leading emotions of the contemporary knowledge worker. 

I suspect that the reason why this is happening is that business leaders are more concerned with efficiency rather than resilience. When earning my Master's in Management, I learned many tricks to improve the company's bottom line. I became good at learning how to amortize software licenses and change the brand of toilet paper a company uses to save thousands of dollars over a year. It generated less revenue or helped our customers but made accountants happy. These people get promoted in organizations because they are good with accounting shell games rather than delivering value to customers. 

Since the 1970s, business people have increasingly made the office and factories more efficient, but to accomplish this goal, they have squeezed employees and customers to the breaking point. These systems are so efficient that a hiccup in supply chains or a thunderstorm over Denver can throw an entire business into spasms. 

Engineers and scientists understand that there are limits in nature. A liter of water is not going to fit into a smaller container. Business people raised on "The Power of Positive Thinking" believe otherwise. If you want it badly enough, that liter of water will fit into the smaller bottle and, if appropriately marketed, can sell for more margin. As you can see, this kind of magical thinking is ludicrous, but it permeates business environments. Thus, plenty of skilled people are attempting to make the hallucinations of others a reality. 

When that happens, I keep thinking about Gilda and her phrase, "It's Always Something." We live in a natural world that has limitations. A person can only work so many hours or be productive before they collapse into exhaustion. You cannot manipulate people like a cell in a spreadsheet; they have lives, families, and emotions. It is why I always correct business leadership when they refer to the people doing the work as resources. 

Because people are NOT resources and have limits, making systems super efficient creates the problem of the business needing help to handle surges in business or changes in the marketplace. Edward Demming points out it was a recipe for corporate extinction. Thus, it is up to people like scrum masters and agile coaches to point out that a business should be efficient and resilient to changing market conditions. It will always be something in the industry, but it will be less awful with some resilience.

Until next time. 

Turning the Ship Around Requires Trust

Software development is a grown-up activity. It requires intelligence, focus, and the ability to overcome massive frustration. Despite the hype surrounding Artificial Intelligence, only humans can write scalable software that delivers real-world value. It is why developers, in their idle moments, often lapse into childhood playfulness. The focus and mental energy it takes to write software requires a release, manifested in Nerf gun fights or an activity that business people might consider childish. It creates the illusion that knowledge workers are overgrown children. In truth, knowledge workers are the most adult people in the organization, and it is time for business leaders to treat the professionals who generate profit like adults. 

We can see this behavior within the business community as CEOs demand that workers return to the office. Most of the requests are tone-deaf and focused more on power than the benefit to the business. I have written about this tug-of-war between the workers who produce the wealth and those who oversee them. I will side with the workers in this case because the COVID-19 pandemic proved that remote work is not only possible but profitable. 

Old habits die hard in the business world, and micro-management of employees is the hardest to extinguish. For decades, businesses trained managers to ensure people followed policies and procedures. To ensure employees were productive throughout the day, managers scrutinized them to ensure they weren't wasting company time in a factory or traditional office. Instead of fostering teamwork or innovation, middle managers enforced compliance. It worked briefly but was deficient as the global economy became more competitive. Customers demanded value and innovation, so mindlessly stamping out parts or filling out forms would no longer work. As software and technology began to eat the world, it was evident that some other approach was necessary.

My mission throughout my career has been to ensure that work delivers value to customers and employees. This week Fortune magazine pointed out that old-fashioned management styles hurt productivity and treat workers like children. My experience in the business world confirms this theory. The new approach was the birth of lean manufacturing, Agile, Kanban, and digital transformation. 

Treating employees like children boils down to a lack of trust. Managers do not trust the people doing the work correctly, and employees often feel they cannot trust their leadership to treat them respectfully. It is in this situation of mutual distrust where many of us work. We can do better. 

I am a big fan of L. David Marquet's book "Turn the Ship Around." In the book, he talks about his experience as a United States nuclear submarine captain. When he joined the USS Santa Fe was the place where sailors had their careers go to die. Morale was low, the Navy rated the submarine at the bottom of the fleet, and senior enlisted people were retiring or quitting at an alarming rate. Over a year, Marquet helped transform the crew from people afraid to make mistakes to leaders who chased excellence. It wasn't an easy journey, and it had plenty of false starts, but the Santa Fe began practicing something called "intention-based leadership," and I am a convert. 

With the help of senior enlisted people and buy-in from the crew, Marquet transformed a low-performing submarine into an example of the Pacific fleet by treating its sailors with respect and providing them with a sense of pride and responsibility for their work. Since a nuclear submarine costs an average of two billion dollars and has the firepower to extinguish an entire civilization, it is an impressive accomplishment. 

Changing a global company is a difficult task, but if Marquet can do it on a nuclear submarine, then as  Agile coaches or scrum masters, we can lead change in our organizations. The first step is changing the behavior of managers who would instead treat the people doing the work like children instead of the grown professionals they are.

It is a small ask, but the road to psychological safety and intentional leadership begins with one step. 

Until next time. 

Going with the Flow of SAFe 6.0

Working as a technology professional is a mixed bag. Some days you feel like the most competent person in the world. Others, you are brutally humbled in ways that threaten to question your self-worth. The key to survival in this industry is ensuring the highs are not too disorienting and the lows do not undermine your self-worth. Since it is the Christian season of Easter in the United States, I had time to concentrate on professional development. With time to study and prepare, I upgraded my SAFe credentials to 6.0. I was also fortunate to earn my Leading SAFe certification. I skeptically endorsed SAFe 6.0 in a previous blog, and something has occurred to me now that I have upgraded. SAFe 6.0 is all about flow, and we need to discuss it. 

I posted a rather jokey video online about SAFe 6.0. The good folks at Scaled Agile revamped many of their training materials and revised a SAFe principle to emphasize the importance of flow. The critical takeaway from the upgrade is the concentration on improving how work flows through the organization. So what is flow? According to this great article from the BBC, flow is a unique state of concentration where we can focus, time distorts passing quickly, and you feel part of something bigger than yourself. When I program or write and am in a flow state, I liken it to my creator placing their hand on my shoulder and nudging me to do better work. I get lost in the act of building something new and different. It is an intoxicating feeling. While in a flow state, I can write hundreds of words in one sitting. Otherwise, putting together a well-formed paragraph is a significant accomplishment.

Fortunately, the folks at scaled agile have provided some good resources for measuring and managing flow. These practices seem commonsensical to people working in Agile for a while, but it is still nice of them to spell it out clearly and concisely. I am particularly impressed with the metrics section of SAFe when they talk about flow. I also appreciate that the folks at Scaled Agile point out that metrics measure progress instead of acting as guidelines or quotas. Goodhart's law looms large over SAFe 6.0, and it is encouraging to see other agile professionals embrace that understanding. 

Is SAFe 6.0 perfect? No, but it is improved, and that is enough. It isn't straightforward, and the 5.1 and 6.0 materials talk about achieving perfection in the organization. No organization is going to be perfect. We should strive for excellence in word and deed rather than perfection because the standards of excellence will continually improve, but perfection is a mythical and unattainable state. It is easier to be in a flow state when striving for excellence rather than attempting perfection.

So SAFe 6.0 is about flow and achieving it as a leader. It's an excellent addition to the agile canon and a helpful concept to understand when helping organizations achieve excellence. So go with the flow and SAFe 6.0.

Until next time. 

 

Agile Provides both Cash and Control

The business world is going through some strange times. First, we are experiencing full employment in this economy for the first time since the 1960s. Meanwhile, inflation is the highest it has been since the Regan administration. These two factors combined make business people nervous and shareholders restless. Even bankers struggle to understand how to be profitable in an environment of full employment and high-interest rates.

Furthermore, this environment of uncertainty is being made worse by layoffs in the technology industry and the media exposure of advances in Artificial Intelligence. What is a professional to do in this chaos? It is necessary to discuss it. 

The last time the economy was such a tangled mess was during the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Banks loaned money to people who had no intention of repaying them. Using sophisticated investment tools like credit-default swaps and collateralized debt obligations concealed recklessness like this. Everything was going well until people began to default on home loans, and the entire house of cards fell, triggering the Great Recession, which would linger in the economy for over eight years. 

During the panic and with the credit markets beginning to petrify, I read a book by William H. Janeway entitled “Capitalism in the Innovation Economy.” Janeway points out that during times of economic stress, venture capitalists demand two things: cash and control. When markets go sideways, shareholders want to hoard cash to lock in profits and avoid losses. For the business, the money supply from investors will slow down. For the investor, control means ensuring the business generates the profits necessary to justify the initial investment of money. Investors will allow a company to operate with little interference when things are going well. All is well as the share price increases or the dividend checks keep coming. When situations change, investors will micro-manage the money flow through the business. Executives will get fired, projects will get canceled, and ordinary workers might face layoffs. 

With interest rates increasing and tight labor markets, it is no surprise that investors want more cash and control of the businesses they are financing. The good news is that agile gives you the tools to provide the money and power that investors demand. It begs the question of what an agile professional should do when this situation arises at your office. 

First, the agile process allows for rapid iterations and inspection cycles. It is what people who desire control want. Every two or three weeks, you can show venture capitalists and investors what their hard-earned money is purchasing. If changes or corrections are necessary, the agile team can pivot to respond to those changes. It also allows people seeking control to have intimate knowledge of how the business is operating. At first blush, it looks like micromanagement, but it is close collaboration with the customers who are paying the bills for the organization. 

Next, investors and venture capitalists demand cash during uncertain times. As a professional, you must prove value for each technology decision and show how money flows into the organization from the first mouse click until the customer provides a credit card. Show skeptical investors how quickly a customer pays their invoices. Another good metric is showing how revenue improves with each technological improvement. Net Present Value is one of the most fundamental calculations an investor can make. So, calculate the figure and show the investors that the people and technology will pay for themselves quickly. The approach will calm the nerves of jittery investors. 

In these strange times for business, each professional plays an essential role in building wealth. So agile development and management are uniquely designed to provide cash and control to nervous investors. If we collaborate closely with shareholders and investors using agile methods, we will survive these strange days more robust and innovative. 

Until next time.