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Nemesis follows hubris
When you think you’ve got it right, something will come along to show you how wrong you are.
More on principles
I believe in being principle driven, but have often struggled to explain why it works. Now I have some direction for that explanation. It comes out of the mathematics of chaos and the idea that simple rules can create complex patterns. So, good principles are simple rules that set out how a pattern will develop but don’t define or constrain it. John Cutler’s “Start together” is a good example. It sets a pattern of working collaboratively, involving different perspectives, creating shared understanding, but it doesn’t say who should be involved, how they should work, etc.
Team history
Do team’s remember what they’ve done? Do they ever think about what wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t done it? Maybe ‘lifetime shipped value’ should be remembered more. Maybe it shouldn’t always be about the next big win, but accumulated small wins over time.
The end of classical statistics
I was reading some articles on how LLM’s are doing things that classical statistics says they shouldn’t be able to. The articles didn’t go into the implications for the field of statistics but it made me think, wouldn’t it be cool if AI led to a new understanding, a new paradigm for statistics. Classical statistics would be history, just like classical geometry, and whatever comes next would be part of a new way of seeing the world. That’s the kind of unintended consequence that AI could lead to that isn’t really about AI but about the world it creates.
Psychological Safety Grows-up
Although I’m not really a fan of maturity models, this is post from Paul Byrne is interesting for helping to show how much further there is for teams to go.
Investment
Investment in teams and work is about more than time and money. Mostly, it’s about people’s attention that you need to get them to invest.
Zero-to-one problems
Ha! Zero-to-one problems are easy. You should try minus-ten-to-one problems.
Weeknotes 399
This week I did:
A little knowledge goes a long way
I attended a fantastic playback of some user research. The insights it revealed were pretty powerful. If there are any arguments against speaking to users, or things like ‘were the right questions asked’, ‘was it with the right people’, etc., they all go away when you realise that you didn’t really know anything before you spoke to some users, so at least now you know something.
Daynotes
I did much better writing daynotes this week. Daynotes are much more raw than weeknotes. There’s less reflection and more collection. Less refinement and more brain dump.
Psychological safety stickers
Ten years in charity product management
I wrote a bit more on my reflections on my ten years as a product manager in charities. Some of the themes include ‘no one knows what product managers do’ (good and bad), ‘product management is too inwardly focused’ (probably bad), and ‘no one (not even product managers) know how to build products to tackle wicked problems’ (good, because that’s the future). Hopefully I can actually finish it soon.
I read:
What Makes People Act on Climate Change
Copying others, basically. Behavioural science says that conforming to social norms is the biggest driver of change. I’ve said a few times that product managers need to know more about behaviour change techniques than they do about technology. Understanding social norms around using products helps product managers create products that tap into norms.
Process-expert continuum
I think Matt Ballantine’s process-expert continuum, which describes the spectrum of approaches consultants take, could be applied to lots of other things. Being a manager of someone springs to mind. It also spans from ambiguity and supporting the person to figure their way through problems to providing specific answers and completing known tasks. In this case, the manager slides back and forth along the continuum depends on the needs of the person they are managing.
What’s holding us back? Why not-for-profits are struggling to be fit for purpose in the digital age
How 12 charity digital thinkers and leaders, surfaced the big problems stifling non-profits ability to thrive in the internet era. But didn’t include the biggest reason why charities are so far behind in digital transformation; there just isn’t a big enough threat to their existence for which digital is the solution. Back in the pandemic, digital was the solution. For many charities, it was the only solution for how to carry on delivering services. But now, there’s nothing that makes digital the solution, so there’s no reason to transform.
I thought about:
Principles
Principle are so easy to write and never put into practice. That’s not surprising when most principles seem to be written to look good rather than drive good behaviours. I believe in principles, but have also struggled to explain how they are actually useful. But the mathematics of chaos provided the answer. It shows that in nature, simple rules can produce complex behaviour. Rather than principles being aspirational but a bit meaningless, like “Design for inclusion”, principles should be treated as simple rules that can create complex behaviour. One of my favourites is “Talk to each other”. As a rule, it suggests defaulting to communication, to working collaboratively, to asking for help. It tells you what to do without telling you what to do.
Ratchets
“A ratchet is any mechanism that allows progressive movement in one direction and prevents slippage backwards.” That is the secret to designed organisational change; progress that can’t slip backwards. So many attempts to change fail because they they don’t build in ratchet mechanisms. There are many such mechanisms, some obvious, some more subtle. Staff retention is one, because when someone leaves a new person joins and wants to change things to do them their way, and that takes time and creates change. There are lots of ratchets in organisations, and if we want change to stick we have to use them well.
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Ask the people they worked with
Why do reference requests go to line managers? They should go to peers.
Shifting what product managers do
From managing production to managing risk.
UK tech for good
There are quite a few websites:
- https://www.techforgoodalliance.org.uk/
- https://www.techuk.org/who-we-are/tech-for-good.html
- https://www.techforgoodorganisers.uk/
- https://squires.kumu.io/tech-for-good-uk?token=cFbBVVcxkN9lnXCq
- https://www.techforgood.net/about
More on ratchets
“A ratchet is any mechanism that allows progressive movement in one direction and prevents slippage backwards.”
https://www.profit.co/blog/behavioral-economics/what-is-the-ratchet-effect-explained-with-examples/
“…tend to self-perpetuate. This occurs because the process involved also changes the underlying conditions that drive the process itself. In turn, this creates or reinforces the incentives and expectations of the decision-makers involved in such a way that sustain or further escalate the process.”
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/ratchet-effect.asp
Ratchets explain why organisational design can’t be treated like product or service design. Products and services have in-built ratchets, changes only happen if they are consciously made, including changing back to a previous state. Organisational change needs to incorporate ratchet mechanisms into the changes, there needs to be more reinforcement of the change than there is drag back to a previous or undesigned state.
Stigmergic priorities
Behaviour communicates actual priorities, regardless of ‘strategic priorities’.
What’s holding us back? Why not-for-profits are struggling to be fit for purpose in the digital age.
Still no real need though…
As above, so below
Wherever you draw the line of symmetry in an org structure, the same patterns reflect.
Effectiveness over efficiency
I remembered that someone on Twitter once told me that it’s much easier to become efficient if you’re effective, much harder to become effective if you’ve focused on efficiency.
Volunteering vs Assigning
When a person assigns a task to another person, the assigner becomes responsible for ensuring the task is completed by the assignee. By removing agency and ownership from the assignee, we strip them of responsibility – “I didn’t really have the time, knowledge, interest, skill, etc. to do this. The ‘boss’ made me.”
We also rob them of the subtle learning about what they’re capable of, what gives them confidence to take things on, and the joy that comes with commitment and success.
When team members volunteer for tasks themselves, they do so with a greater sense of clarity around what they’re taking on, increased ownership of the decision to do it and how to do it and ultimately more pleasure in the work itself.
This shift leads to better outcomes, greater learning about skills and capacity, and even greater desire to do more.
https://www.peterkappus.com/blog/volunteering-vs-assigning/
Tools
We shape our tools and then our tools shape us
Marshall McLuhan
You know when you’ve crossed the line to being shaped by your tools when you have to hire into a role that is specifically for administering a tool.
Strategising
Strategising is more interesting than strategy.