Almost every discussion I have that starts with “we need to go faster” ends with me asking the team to “define value”, and then do less once and work in smaller batches.
... the reality is that the current system is optimized for:
-saying “yes we’re on it”
-keeping people busy
-brokering resource capacity
-keeping track of all the work in progress
-providing plausible reasons why nothing is shipping
...and probably hardest of all ... in a pull system that is transparent, there’s no way to avoid having the hard conversations. You either face your issues, or you don’t.
- What you say, and how often you say it
- What, when, and how you celebrate
- The losses and missteps you acknowledge, and how you respond
- How you behave when the chips are down
- What you fight for at all costs
- The corners you cut
- Who you hire, promote, and compensate, and who you fire
- Who you “smoke out” until they leave the organization
- The worst behavior you accept and the best behavior you reject
- The voices you amplify, and the voices you suppress
- When you encourage conformity, and when you promote diversity
- How you handle disagreements and differences in opinion
- How and where you spend your time and money
- What gets discussed out in the open, and behind closed doors
Here’s something you see often w/ teams and #kanban
Team: “Can we move cards backwards?” (1/11)
When this happens, we’re in a pickle. In true pull-system fashion, the developer has pulled another card. Test finds an issue that demands developer’s attention. What to do? (2/11)
One solution is to say “hey dev, you can only be on two things at once...one of which is developing”. Seems reasonable...and keeps their bandwidth open to fix issues. (3/11)
Some #prodmgmt Qs for interviewer... (1/4)
- technical debt
- recent prod issues / reactive work
- direct access to customers
- attrition rate for PMs
- typical calendar / mix of activities
- last 5-10 prod decisions and outcomes
- details of decision making process
- metric you must drive to be successful
- psych safety on teams
- dedicated #ux ?
- how team missions are crafted
- autonomy over roadmap ?
- deployment pipeline, ease of collaboration
- access to product usage data (tools?)
- current “big bet” and key unknowns
- career development (conferences, training)
- incentive structure for team members
- amount of pre-committed work
- examples of PMs being reward for specific behavior
- details of approvals, sign-offs, roadmap reviews
- overall product “culture” (role of product)
Model the work, not the “workers”. With team member magnets, checklists, and markers...the bottom design can more than adequately model the work
If work ever “moves left” (e.g. QA/demo passes an item “back to dev”), then the top dsgn breaks. It is all doing.
Another classic anti-pattern is team/individual lanes and “splitting” the work. The bottom option will probably catalyze the right conversations....though the top option with string can also do the trick. (2/4) #kanban
A compromise if teams want their own card for some reason... is a hybrid board with “epics” (larger chunks of work), and all of their related cards.(3/4) #Kanban