Weeknotes #262

Admin on 07/08/2021

What I did this week:

Bootstrap problems

My focus this week has been around shaping up plans for the rest of the year to ensure we’re able to develop and deliver the changes to the products that we want. There are all the practicalities budgets, availability, timelines, etc., to consider and coordinate with the ideas that are shaping up for what the products should achieve. How these two intertwine and affect each other as they move towards having the people and time to deliver the scope of work is an interesting [bootstrap problem](https://jonathanweisberg.org/publication/2012 The Bootstrapping Problem/#:~:text=Bootstrapping is a suspicious form,problem and surveys potential solutions.) where all assumptions are based on assumptions. The idea of fixed product teams removes the need for figuring out the complexities of logistics and gives a more solid grounding to base assumptions about the work that can be done. But where product teams are project based, none of that grounding exists. This problem is as old as software, and yet is still very much a real problem for the majority of charities that rely on funding for specific projects.

Change of theory

I took part in a user research workshop on a tool for working with Theory of Change. I found it a really interesting idea and have been thinking about it ever since. Being able to validate some of the assumptions in a Theory of Change to figure out what impact the activities and mechanisms are having and then make decision about whether to change the activities to achieve the intended impact or accept the activities and change the impact to be achieved would be really useful. It could introduce a level of rigor as the data that informs the model builds up over time rather than remaining a hypothesis. The challenge for many social good organisations will be whether they really want to get to that depth of understanding.

Innovation in charities

I’ve pretty much finished the research phase of my dissertation so am moving onto analysis. I’ve already got lots of interesting insights about innovation in charities and I’m intrigued to see what theory I can build as the case studies develop.

Notes

I’ve been experimenting with using my website as a notebook to add some of my thoughts more regularly and try to see if it helps me build and develop ideas. I’ve occasionally used Twitter, Notion and paper for this but never with any real usefulness.

What I read this week:

Digital maturity in the not for profit sector

This report is full of insight about “the organisational journey towards improvement and increased capability in using data” and includes findings like “The cost of data is huge, hidden, and often wasted. Most leaders don’t see the value of data. There’s lots of counting but not enough meaningful analysis.”. I wonder how the not for profit sector compares to other sectors.

Talent is evenly distributed, opportunity isn’t

Rand Fishkin, talking on the One Knight In Product podcast about alternative ways to build software startups, says “talent is evenly distributed, opportunity isn’t”. How companies recruit, organise work, incentivise, etc., makes a big difference in how opportunity becomes more evenly distributed.

What I thought about this week:

The future of digital nomadism and off-grid developers

At the extreme of remote working are people who earn their living on the internet and live their lives away from the conventions of mainstream society. Kevin Kelly talks about the right to mobility and how that affects our notion of what a digital nomad is (not just twenty-somethings living in Thailand and setting up drop-shipping websites and affiliate marketing). Alex Standiford is a good example. He’s an off-grid developer, living in a RV in New Mexico. In my thinking about the 21st century Outsider, for the book I’ll never write, the off-grid developer looks like one of the archetypes of a digital nomad, where it isn’t so much about ‘nomad’ meaning ‘always moving’ but more about not being tied to a particular location and being able to make the choice about where to live and work because the internet has decoupled those two.

Contracts and covenants

I had an interesting chat with Ross that started out about type 1 and 2 decisions but moved onto the more interesting topic of contracts and covenants. In trying to understand the difference between the two, I think we’d say that the logic of a contract is , ‘you agree to do what I want and I agree to do what you want, and we both have recourse if either of us doesn’t’, whereas a covenant is more, ‘this is what I’ll do for you regardless of what you do for me’. So many of our interactions with people and organisations are based on contracts, either implicit or explicit, but this seems based on zero sum thinking where one person is only willing to give if they get something in return. The relationship between natural and legal rights and responsibilities that are expressed in contracts are, obviously, very complex, but maybe the idea of covenants, which consider giving as non-zero sum game, where you don’t always need to get something in return, adds another perspective.

Perhaps we are all myth-makers

Ashley tweeted, “perhaps we are all myth-makers rather than truth-seekers, and our real quest is not to figure out what is Real but to steer ourselves towards Good“. Perhaps in a post-truth world we can be more open to Heraclitus’ ontological position that reality is ever-changing rather than Parmenides notion that all being is fixed and static. Arguably, without the notion of the world around us having some underlying static structure to it humans would never have made the scientific breakthroughs that we have, it’s really hard to study something unless you believe it to be the same as when you observed it yesterday, but without adopting that stance we could never have reached our definition of truth, and therefore become truth-seekers.

Of course, it isn’t one or the other, both notions about the nature of reality have existed together for a very long time, and allow us to see the world in complex ways, but we do have a tendency to think that there is an objective ‘truth’ about things for which there really isn’t. The example of this that’s on my mind this week is conversations with colleagues that were full of discussions about misunderstandings around language and how we and others were interpreting what had been said. I wonder if the misunderstanding of misunderstanding is that there is a single truth to be understood. When people discuss things they are making meaning as they go, not explaining a scientific fact, and yet we attempt to understand what they said as if it was.

The Futures Cone helps think about possible, probable, plausible futures. Perhaps we need a Meanings Cone that helps us think of our interpretations as possible, likely, unlikely, impossible to help us understand each other better because we consciously don’t base our understanding on the assumption that there is a single truth in what someone says.

What I’m grateful for this week

Feedback begets feedback

The more feedback I give the more I seem to get. Or may I just notice it more. Either way I’m grateful for being able to give feedback and for receiving it.

Weeknotes #261

Admin on 30/07/2021

What I did this week:

Wider learning

Our team did presentations of our work to others across the organisation. It’s an important part of communicating and embedding the changes that we’re introducing but the really interesting part was all the comments that hinted at questions we haven’t answered and questions we didn’t even know to ask. There’s so much experience and expertise for us to absorb into our work and I hope that if we get that right it will help us create a better product that doesn’t repeat old mistakes our ignore old learning. If continuous discovery is a mindset was well as a practice, then looking out for these opportunities to uncover more unknowns is exactly what we should be doing.

I’ve been thinking about the complexity of the situations that the product we’re building interacts with across the organisation. My conclusion so far is that it’s important not to down play the complexity and try to create a simplified (and probably false) view. That would risk creating simplified solutions that don’t really solve problems. Some of the questions I’ve been asking myself is, ‘where is the right point to intersect with existing systems and processes without causing disruption or unintended consequences?’ and ‘how can we help other teams improve how they do things in ways that don’t cause downstream problems for others?’.

Innovation interviews

My interviewees have started returning their answers to my research questions. I’m still hoping for more but I can begin collating the answers I have so far ready for analysis next weekend. Those that I read so far have been really interesting and make me wish I could have long chats with people about their understanding and approach to innovation in charities.

20,000 views

My website hit 20,000 views this week. That’s not many in the grand (or even not so grand) scheme of things but it still amazes me that people visit the site. I’m sure most of it is by accident or when looking for something that isn’t there, but it’s interesting how the traffic has increased over the last five years from averaging 1 view a day in 2016 to 8 in 2019, 26 a day in 2020, and so far in 2021 32 a day.

What I thought about this week:

Causal chain

I’ve been thinking about and trying to learn more about Theory of Change. The part that interests me at the moment is the how the causal logic of ‘c’ will lead to ‘b’ and ‘b’ will lead to ‘a’ is built up. If ‘a’ is the ultimate change, the larger impact on society, then ‘b’ is what needs to be true in order for that change to be realised, and ‘c’ needs to be true in order for ‘b’ to happen. So, the thing I’m struggling with in this backwards logic is how it can be anything other than a pyramid of hypotheses which could all just as likely be untrue and true. I guess that’s why it’s a theory of change rather than a plan for change, but I wonder how clearly that aspect of ToC’s are communicated. They basically say, ‘here’s lots of guesses that may or may not lead to the change we’d like to see, and those guesses are based on lots of assumptions and biases, any of which could prevent the causal chain logic from having the desired or expected effect’, but they are often presented as a more certain plan for achieving change.

Bottlenecks

Bottlenecks are designed to be just that. They are designed to reduce flow, or to put it another way, to control flow. It wouldn’t be quite so easy to pour the wine into your glass if all of the wine bottle was the same width all the way up. So why do we refer to bottlenecks in systems and processes as a negative thing? Perhaps we’re better off accepting and understanding bottlenecks as essential and necessary to any system design. Maybe constant and continuous flow at the maximum rate in the wrong places causes floods.

Product Octagon

If you believe everything you read on the internet then most products are driven by the triad of Product Manager, Engineering Manager and Design Manager. The product I work on is driven by the octagon of programme, project, product, technical, content, design, delivery and impact. I’ve only just started to think about how these eight roles interact, where each of their responsibilities lay, and how they can all be aligned to work effectively together, but as part of my ‘charities need good product management‘ thing I’m keen to explore other models of developing products and what effective product management looks like in different contexts.

And what I read this week:

Digital exclusion

Digital exclusion: a growing threat to your charitable impact, strategic objectives and funding, looks at digital transformation in the voluntary sector and what impact it might have on the digital exclusion of those the voluntary sector organisations are trying to help. The article suggests three ways that can contribute to tackling digital exclusion, which is really just social exclusion; grassroots action, funding, and campaigning. Including people in society, which is very much digital, requires a far bigger approach. So whilst tackling digital exclusion is undoubtedly a good thing, it seems to me like an impossible problem to solve. The use of digital in society is going to increase and it won’t be long until all cars are computers on wheels, money is a virtual number on our phones, and accessing any service will require digital literacy. As these changes, which are predicated on a certain level of wealth accelerate, more people will become digitally excluded than can be caught up. The argument that as digital technologies become more ubiquitous and every one alive has grown up with them is like assuming that everyone knows how to fix an internal combustion engine because they’ve been around for a while, or that everyone knows how to drive because there is an infrastructure in place to teach (some) people. I don’t know what the solution is, but it’s good that more organisations are recognising digital exclusion as an issue and looking for ways to contribute.

14 habits

I really liked this Twitter thread, 14 habits of highly effective Product Managers, from Lenny Rachitsky. My top three are ‘quality of thinking’, ‘hunting for misalignment;, and ‘sending good vibes’. Lenny says that quality of thinking shows in the quality of documentation PMs produce. I think high quality documents are essential for good asynchronous working but they depend on having the time (among other things like practicing writing well) to do the thinking. Hunting for misalignment and getting things into alignment is so important for effective working, but is so hard to achieve. There are so many contextual and points-of-view barriers that we don’t even recognise well enough as misalignments, as well as the obvious and known misalignments. Good vibes make all the difference. Anything that can be approached with a negative, defeatist attitude and can be approached with a positive attitude.