Thread by @swardley

X : Our product managers say the engineers won't listen.
Me : Do they listen?
X : Some do, some groups say they don't know what they're talking about.
Me : Which groups have strong local leaders?
X : The one's fighting.
Me : So a bit of gang mentality?
X : Yes.
Me : The execs?

X : They're fighting.
Me : Is the industry going through rapid change?
X : It's about to. Well, according to our maps. That's what the fighting is about.
Me : Does everyone use maps?
X : No.
Me : Do the people fighting use maps?
X : A few do but most agree with the change.

Me : Most agree?
X : Amongst those that are fighting.
Me : Do you have long meetings with long powerpoint presentations?
X : Yes. Why?
Me : Lots of story telling. Are those story tellers mostly fighting for things to stay the same?
X : Yes.

Me : So, a highly charged political environment run on stories with strong story tellers in an environment that's going to undergo radical change that some people can see but the strong story tellers can't leading to a fractured gang type culture?
X : Hmmm ... that's about it.

Me : This is pretty normal. How big is the company.
X : Several thousand. Any thought?
Me : Was it always so fractured?
X : No.
Me : Ok, culture shift normally happens or becomes required when leadership isn't performing or there has been a major change in the market ...

... in this case, there are issues over market shift, inertia to market change and communication. It's telling that teams with strong local leaders are fighting. Long powerpoint presentations are normally a tool for beating people into submission and not challenging some idea.

So, your issues are lack of communication, lack of challenge, a changing market and this is all spilling over into creating a defensive culture in the organisation. I suspect there's growing problems of safety & belonging on top of the scraps over the visions in the boardroom.

X : Is this bad?
Me : It's fairly normal but it can stop a company adapting to a change and that can create real problems.
X : Solutions?
Me : On what you've given me? Hmmm. I'd start by banning long powerpoint presentations in all meetings ...

.. you need to get the politics out of the stories and get people used to challenging. You can use maps for this but some people aren't going to like being challenged.
X : How do you deal with that.
Me : That depends upon how much time you have. It's better to educate.

X : How?
Me : Do you use pre-mortems?
X : No.
Me : Ok. Introduce pre-mortems for every project. Get someone in the room to create a map for the project and use the map to challenge it. At that point you can safely throw in the radical market change observations ... NB ...

... in pre-mortems, the people challenging must not give solutions. Use maps to highlight the problems but let the teams including the product managers work through it together to find solutions. Everyone has to feel safe to challenge but you need to remove the politics in it.

X : How do I go about doing this?
Me : Create a small team with a few experienced people across many fields. Let's call them the "pre mortemers" for now.
X : That's a lousy name.
Me : We will fix that later. Any product manager that presents to a pre mortem needs a document.

X : What sort of document.
Me : No more that 5 or so pages. It needs to spell out the main user needs that we're trying to solve (and hence the journey they will go on), the users, other users involved, their needs, the capabilities we will require and what success looks like.

X : Anything else?
Me : Sure, a rough idea of cost and a map.
X : What if they can't map.
Me : They send the document to the "pre-mortemers" before the meeting so someone can have a bash at creating the map. It'll be a lousy map but that's fine.

X : Then want.
Me : You have the pre-mortem. Everyone invited sits in silence reading the document for the first 30 minutes. Give them time to think. Then they challenge. It's really important not to give solutions to the product manager and the team. Let them own the problems.

... use the map where possible, especially when you're highlighting missing users, missing needs, changes in markets, potential conflicts of methods etc. Then the "pre-mortemers" write it up.
X : So can the product managers ignore them?

Me : Sure. It's their product. But when it comes to post-mortem then remember the pre-mortem exists. There could be questions. Over time, the "pre-mortemers" can also point out where we're duplicating, what worked well etc.
X : Should every product go through this?

Me : Anything which costs more than $100k. You can tighten or loosen it up as we go along.
X : "Pre mortemers" is a lousy term.
Me : Call it Spend Control instead. It's your main point of challenge and that's what you need. Over time, you can call it the Intelligence Function.

X : Should this be used for projects as well?
Me : Anything which costs more than $100k. What you're trying to do is to inject a bit of challenge into the organisation but in a way that minimises politics hence use the maps. Over time, try to get to one map and one page of notes.

... remember, challenge the map not the person and don't provide solutions, let the team do that, just show them where the problems exists.
X : What do you do with all these maps.
Me : Collect them, share them and build up situational awareness in your organisation.