Mindset over Framework
A broken wheel can’t get any faster
There is not much that is more challenging than managing a team, a business or a company. There are a lot of factors, that have a high influence on your success. But in modern and most of the time digital environments, there are three key measures you have to consider:
Lean and agile mindset AND a product centered Strategy
Even if your product is a service that has to be highly adapted to a specific customer need, bear in mind: “The solutions you sell, with your own idea of the value you create for your customers, is still a product!”
We see organisations applying so many measures to get agile, more productive or to create more outcome:
- Apply agile frameworks
- Missionize at any cost with the agile Manifesto
- Try to scale by increasing the company size
- Do plannings in extended meetings
- Try to estimate all and everything
- Implementing lean self management
- Workshops like Event Storming, etc.
- Break down standardised processes for all and everything
Well, there’s nothing wrong about a framework, if you know how to handle and adapt it. Also, there’s nothing wrong with the agile manifesto of course. But you will end up with an unstable construct of agilised teams but an overall conventional organisation. Why? Because thinking and acting agile and lean is mainly a mindset and nothing you implement like a new time booking system. Workshops for the sake of workshops on an operative level are not the big thing.
So agile and lean are two major keys. There’s one left that’s even harder to reach: You have to know your target, your strategy and your business. Otherwise you will lag behind your possibilities — in quality as well as in value. It’s like trying to accelerate with a broken wheel.
Real responsibility vs. hoarding of decision-making power
Some Examples:
- Do you think you’ll win the thing by estimating relatively in Story Points instead of days, or do you think a truly agile team could estimate in days as well and still be successful?
- Do you think shielding a team in two-week iterations makes you more agile or maybe thinking lean and in value even on an operational level will lead you to more outcome?
- Do you think motivation and identification with the topic is more essential than playing table soccer in the breaks?
If your answers are yes, you might share my opinion…
So what is to achieve to get better, more profitable and maybe happier
- Get the right people into position
- Apply an agile and product focused mindset
- Put everything into motivating your fellows
- Be as transparent as possible about your targets
- Live talent management
- Get lean in meetings but communicate even more about the targets
- Stop pushing everywhere and everybody. Instead enable people to pull effectively based on a clear priority.
- The measurement of the term success should be based on product success and not on turnover. Turnover does not mean that value has been created for the team and the customer.
Don’t get the base out
Hot to do this?
Build your culture on the basis to reduce the jenga-effect!
Nothing creates more trust into the story than a management that knows how to handle interdependencies and that deeply understands the business, although these executives don’t know how to get everything done in detail. The management is still something to look at, an orientation for the culture and the expectations of all the fellows. You don’t have to command to be able to lead, but you have to know the impact of what you’re saying and of what you’re doing.
Set an example for being agile, lean and product centric and you will get the same behaviour as responce from your team. This will lead to an completely agilised organisation and this is your biggest chance to succeed. So in the end it’s about leadership and creating general conditions under which employees can shine.
Product Management as a Discipline
“The bigger the company, the less the C-Level knows about the product”. This is what typically leads to a lack of transparency. Numbers are not the only indication for product success and are not the only factor of your success! Or do you think Elon Musk doesn’t know how a Tesla Model S is working? Do you believe Steve Jobs did not feel deeply connected to his products? Not everybody is an Elon Musk or a Steve Jobs and not everybody is selling a car or a smartphone, but still this might be the true key to their success!
Once again, exemplifying these values will ensure that the whole team identifies more strongly with the product. In my opinion Product Management is not a single role. If it would be this would mean that the Product Manager is telling many people what to do. But he/she isn’t. In a Product Centered Company with an agile and product oriented mindset everybody will apprechiate the Product Managers input in a Pull-manner.
Change vs. disorder
In order to reach this, you don’t need to adapt a complete holacratic structure for your company with work in meshes and withholding of planning, an idea that holds the chance for an even higher increase in outcomes. Rather focus on soft skills and the value you create for your target group. To measure your success use methods such as OKRs that could help frame your communication and monitoring.
Transparency and knowledge management
One of the most awkward things in daily business is the search for knowledge. Most of the knowledge is spread throughout various heads of your employees. How do you figure out whom to talk to? How do you ensure that the structure of information is understood rather than every single documentation is fully completed? Applying an easy to use and intuitive knowledge management for transparency over the goals on each level will help you a lot. As a result, the amount and length of meetings and communication you need is decreased.
Socialised teams and small structures are more important than getting every opinion into every decision
Lean meetings & fast decisions
I once read in an article: “A meeting in Germany does not end until every participant has repeated the same thing in their own words”. So believe me, as a german I know what I’m talking about and maybe sometimes this is something even I have to remind myself again and again.
Getting leaner is a good overall approach, especially when it comes to meetings. Inefficient meeting culture is a widespread problem and can cause huge damage. The content marketing service Visual.ly revealed the following data:
- Every manager spends between 30 and 50% of the time in meetings
- 67% of the meetings are unsuccessful
- A quarter of those involved cannot contribute anything
- And everybody has plenty of experience with unprepared or boring, unnecessary long meetings.
- For more details go to Visual.ly -
This could be prevented if discussions on details and decision making would be done in small, effective rounds. Put the responsibility where the knowledge is - a frequently made statement that is rarely lived.
The prerequisite is to set the right expectations for meetings. In most cases, the goal should not be self-portrayal or a detailed presentation, but the dissemination of information relevant to the target group. In this way, meetings are no longer boring and tedious. This begins with the expectations that the management communicates to the rest of the company in its meetings. Additionally you can use E.L.M.O, like described by The Persimmon Group or something similar.
Also sometimes an early and imperfect decision is better than retarding all over again. Fast decision making helps you to solve issues while giving you the opportunity to adjust them over time. I once heard the testimony: “Analysis should not lead to paralysis”. In complex cases, go the agile way: Try out, analyse again and adjust!
Adjusting decisions does not mean to change your mind over and over again! You need to know what you don`t know!
Take care of your remote participants! There are many ways to include them better, like video conferencing, online whiteboarding, etc. Apply basics like a Camera-on-policy, etc.
Resumption
Still there are possibilities to think further. Especially working in meshes is a great opportunity. But you might recognize that changing a company and its structures is much harder than starting a topic up from the green field. Change management just gives the answer on how to handle the change from an organisational perspective. Nothing is worth more than a clear idea of the target. Also one detail mentioned: Co-determination and relying on one’s employees does not mean letting them find a way without guidance.
