Today, for the first time in 16 years, I started a new job at a new company. Feels weird, but good.
“You can’t manage something if you can’t measure it.”
I’d add:
“Just because you can measure something doesn’t mean you should manage it.”
I find the argument that “You can’t build a high-performing team if they didn’t get to choose work they are passionate about” to be a poor excuse for poor leadership. Is it harder? Sure. But not impossible.
In the US anyhow, I believe it likely employment continues to bifurcates into a handful of massive firms and a massive number of small firms. I think a next frontier of lean/agile is therefore figuring out how to effectively bring this knowledge to small firms.
If we accept that lean/agile are primarily learning systems, then a key question to ask is, “What is it trying to help us learn?” The double-loop learning followup question should then be, “What is it that we need to learn?”
If lean/agile are thought of first as learning systems, Respect for People moves from good and necessary to critical. This changes how you frame everything, including discussions around what to change. It also brings an interesting perspective to the term “organizational learning.”
I can’t stop thinking about this notion I had that lean and agile could be viewed primarily as learning systems, and how that transforms how you think about them.
It doesn’t help that The Lean Strategy has been published since and makes a similar argument.
Am I the only one that thinks the scene with Data in the Picard trailer is on a holodeck? 🖖🏻
Did you know there are at least 50, and possibly 200, galaxies that orbit the Milky Way? Yes, orbit as in the Moon orbits the Earth. I did not.
This is the darkest timeline. #WWDC
The point of Lean/Agile/etc. is to teach people how to learn so they can deliver value better. If your only goal is to teach others how to rote follow a framework, and actively resist opportunities to incorporate new learnings, how have you grown their ability to learn?
“[W]e’re not going to make people work better (after having decided what they should do differently). We’re going to seek and explore with them what working better means.”
Brilliant.
Such an excellent point: Lean focuses on operational excellence to enable product design excellence. Too many ignore the latter, which I think is why Lean is often seen to apply only for repetitive work.
As someone who is new to lean, is there something I’m not being told?
“From blame comes shame. And then hurt, denial, anger, and retaliation.”
- Daring Greatly - Brené Brown
Unfortunately, in many organizations, “accountability” is code for “blame.” With disastrous consequences.
“The perception that vulnerability is weakness is the most widely accepted myth about vulnerability and the most dangerous.”
- Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
“Any time you see [x], just stop reading. You will only make yourself dumber by reading to the end.”
I love this formulation so much.
After 16 years with my employer, today was my last day. It was also the last day for my colleagues. It was a good run, but I’m excited to see what the future holds!
I’ve been very quiet of late, preparing for something I expect will finally happen around the end of this month.
Shortly after, I intend to be back in force. As I prepare, if there are any topic areas I’ve touched on that are particularly interesting to you, please let me know.
I co-taught SAFe PO-PM training with a colleague the last two days, the first training I’ve done in a long time. It was such a great time! We had a very engaged class that was asking really good questions. It reminded me of the parts of my job I really love. I’m still exhausted (as an extreme introvert, training really wipes me out), but it’s completely worth it. 👍🏻
There has to be some way to disable the Caps Lock key on my Smart Keyboard Folio. I can’t imagine a single scenario where I want it active and yet I hit it nearly daily.
“We, … in knowledge management and strategy work, hire experts and consultants to tell us how the world works instead of figuring it out ourselves. We outsource the legwork.”
Boy does that hit home.
Excellent thread by @andy_matuschak on measures and ideas. Make sure to read the blog post at the end as well. He covered what I was about to write, only much better.
New iPad ordered, but this was by far the hardest time I’ve had hitting buy. The prices have really crept up.
“Agile” does not simply mean “doing a project faster.” If that’s what you take away from prior experiences, I’d suggest you either didn’t experience true agile, or didn’t really understand what you saw.