Change agent tips:

1/n - There is so much you can do IF you accept that you have to do the old thing AND your new idea. People might look confused, but you will not get fired. Here's what I mean...
2/n - Say you work in a feature factory and features get thrown over the wall for you to "deliver". That doesn't stop you listing the various risks with that bet. It doesn't stop you describing the higher level bet/rationale.
3/n - Nothing is stopping you setting up a decision review a couple weeks after the thing has been "delivered", and your team has moved on to the next project. "We expected this ... but this is what happened.." (tip @Amplitude_HQ helps with this)
4/n - Take something as crappy as story points. Nothing is stopping you measuring actual lead and/or cycle time *for the actual bet, not the little disconnected stories* and putting that alongside your story point "velocity".
5/n - Or take NPS or whatever weird vanity metric you have going on (like sessions or page-views or short-term revenue). Nothing is stopping you continuing to measure that AND something more meaningful (tip, again, my day job @Amplitude_HQ helps with this)
6/n - On some level you need to walk the walk and talk the talk ... even if your org isn't ready. The trick is not being a jerk, not being dismissive, and not assuming people are idiots. They aren't... they probably haven't seen what you are suggesting actually work.
7/n - Avoid words like "vanity metric" or "feature factory" or "projects to products" or "outputs to outcomes". You'll either lose people and/or threaten them. Keep it all firmly rooted in your concern for the business, business outcomes, and customer outcomes.
8/n - Don't be the Way person. Be the Why person. If you become the Way person -- OKRs, product teams, design sprints, whatever -- you will be far easier to dismiss.
9/n - accept that for some period of time you will need to just go through the motions wrt the better way. Calm and collected. You can't win this by telling and proselytizing. You can win this by showing, guiding, and listening.
10/n - finally, don't believe for one second that [insert companies who project having figured this out] or [people who project mastery] have it all figured out. I've talked to their companies. They are just like your company...but sometimes with a bit more positive inertia.

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More from @johncutlefish

4 Apr
anti-pattern: using one process/tool to do too many jobs

1/n teams "hire" processes and frameworks to do certain things. the trouble is that we humans get greedy. when someone says "well that does A,B, and C" we get excited. 3 for the price of 1!

The problem? ...
2/n First, it is hard to do lots of things well. The process rarely delivers across all of those jobs. It might do one thing well, but be kind of crappy at the other things...
3/n Second, communicating the Why can be very difficult. Say you have a process that is meant to promote learning/experimentation AND can be used to manage people and promote accountability.

Those two Whys can be in opposition at times.

"Wait, why are we doing this again?"
Read 5 tweets
3 Apr
Book recommendations that underscore that very little is “new” in terms of frameworks, advice, approaches, etc .... ?

(Think published >10 years ago)
of course ...@mpoppendieck
Read 9 tweets
27 Mar
🧵a huge challenge with scaling B2B SaaS is the exploding complexity problem.

through heroics and brute force you can try to contain the problem...until you can't. At which point it consumes everything.

Why does it happen? ... (1/n)
first is the general non-linear nature of the problem

innocently we imagine that adding a new product (or person, segment, etc.), for example, is like going from 10 to 12. Instead, it is like going from 10 to 20.

you quickly overwhelm systems designed for linear things...(2/n)
second, is that the exact efforts to contain the problem at first -- the heroics, the longer hours, the more complex meetings, the project plans, the dependency wrangling -- HIDE THE PROBLEM.

It just gets soaked up into our brains and our processes (3/n)
Read 8 tweets
13 Mar
Critical thing to monitor

the distance between those adding complexity to the business and those having to deal with the increased complexity in day-to-day decision making

without healthy feedback loops, you can get a massive increase in complexity before the alarm bells go off
in addition to pure distance (hops between people), you also get some interesting effects.

experienced ppl tend to notice the early signals, bc they are able to juggle the ramifications.

e.g "for *that* persona we'd do this a bit differently..."
...less experienced team members may not notice as quickly. They will artificially reduce added complexity and/or just not do anything with the extra cognitive load.

Their work will suffer, but they may not notice
Read 16 tweets
20 Feb
A quick 🧵on saying no.

While external forces definitely play a role here and may limit your options, this is an area where a lot of pain is self-inflicted.

managers: "why aren't they pushing back?"
team members: "I never have a second..."

How can you turn the tide? ➡️
1/

You can almost never agree to something w/o something else suffering. A good habit here is to identify the thing that will get less attention, and say it out loud.

To focus on _____, we’ll probably need to de-prioritize _______. Have that answer ready.
2/

It is important to visualize *all* of your work, not just the work in work tracking tools.

Whenever I see ppl brain-dump *all* of their promises, it is far more (like 3-4x) than they immediately acknowledge.
Read 10 tweets
15 Feb
product principles are underutilized, and often phoned in.

key symptoms. they:
* aren't opinionated enough
* don't get the cognitive gears turning
* don't help guide decision making
* reveal nothing about the strategy
* are generic and yawn inducing

how do you fix them? (1/n)
Start with a simple prompt:

When faced with a decision between ____ and ____, we tend to favor ____ because ____

Ideally this is coherent with your actions and past decisions. If not...now would be a good time to start 🙂

The best principles...(2/n)
...cause a bit of friction/tension.

You pay attention. They are forcing functions.

e.g. at @Amplitude_HQ we aren't focused on analysts working in isolation, so we might say "we are biased to scaling data literacy over enabling lone hero analysts"

that gets you thinking (3/n)
Read 4 tweets

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