Weeknotes 444

In numerology, the number 444 represents clarity, stability and progress. So, we’ll go with that.

This week I did:

Horizons

It’s been a week of thinking in horizons, some near, many farther away, but doing the do included…

  • Worked on some market research and business model options for a potential new product.
  • Ran a workshop to help a team focus in on some measurable work.
  • Went to a workshop about mapping capabilities and matching investment to where the competitive advantage is.
  • Presented to our engineering director.
  • Reviewed a theory of change so it’s ready to build an evaluation plan for a series of changes to a product.
  • Chatted about show and tells, and shared boring magic’s post.

This week’s numbers

Number of minutes in meetings: 685.

Number of tasks completed: 35.

My new work tracking system is working pretty well. I still struggle with planning my week but that’s probably more to do with the uncertainty and pace of the environment rather than the system (although I guess you could say it’s not a very good system if it can’t handle the environment it operates in).

I read:

How to create a Real (Strategic) Roadmap

Saeed Khan published two articles on how to create a Real (Strategic) Roadmap:

Part 1 & Part 2

As always, I’m a bit torn. On one hand I agree with the product profession developing it’s practice and coming up with standard ways of doing great product work. But on the other hand, I’m not keen on the idea that there is only one way to do things like using a roadmap. I think organisations have such diverse situations and needs that flexibility in practices is a good thing. As I’ve said before: experiment → optimise → standardise.

Does the service standard work for local government

Phil’s answer is no. And he goes on to suggest some really useful improvements that could make it work. I think there’s a lot there for universities to learn from in using “a” service standard to assess products and services.

Architecture Modernization: Aligning Software, Strategy & Structure

Impact of Facilitation on Performance & Innovation

This looks like a cool site, especially for delivery manager.

I thought about:

Governance systems

I thought about governance and the system needed to govern well (because I’m cool like that).

ISO 37000, the standard for governance, is a good place to start to get a shared understanding of what governance systems need to do, things like accountability, value model, and viability and performance over time. It helps keep governance groups focused on their key outcomes of effective performance, responsible stewardship and ethical behaviour.

And on the systems side, I was thinking about Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety and how it states that a system must be as complex or more complex than its environment to function effectively.

So, if a governance system “is to be able to deal successfully with the diversity of challenges that its environment produces, then it needs to have a repertoire of responses which is (at least) as nuanced as the problems thrown up by the environment. Or, to put it another way, a viable governance system is one that can handle the variability of its environment.” The more complex the environment, the more a governance system needs ways to monitor the environment, spot changes quickly, and have responses.

Given that most governance systems in organisations are slow, bureaucratic and generally have information flowing one way, I’m pretty sure they don’t adhere to Ashby’s Law. And that’s a problem.

Alignment practices

Thought about what we product people actually do to keep things aligned with teams and stakeholders, including:

  • Using easy to remember and repeat statements and slogans.
  • Writing follow-up notes after meetings and drop them into chat or email.
  • Listening out for misunderstanding.
  • Arranging and offering check-ins to create space for people to uncover misunderstandings they might not have realised they have (and so you aren’t telling all the time).

The medium is the message

The format we use to share information matters. In my head, its more important if it’s in an email rather than a chat message, a slide deck tells me you want me to listen to what you want to tell me, and a document suggests you want comments and to work on something together.