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John Cutler Profile picture
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9 Apr, 8 tweets, 4 min read
not sure this anyone would find this interesting...but this is how I go about doing my "loops" diagrams

1. first I use write simple things like this to get connections out of my head. at this point it is very rough...
2. I get a little more detailed/structured. All the while I validate these along the way and try to involve other people (hence my initials here vs. other contributors).
3. I do a lot of these ... it gets a bit out of control. I might end up with with hundreds of hypothesis connections
4. Then ... I go VERY broad. I dump all the connections into stickies and start de-duping and grouping.

Things look crazy at this point. And that is OK.
4. At this point, i realize I've maybe done this exercise before ... so I cross reference it with other crazy diagrams to see if it makes sense. Do a little tweaking
5. Finally...realizing people will think I've gone off the deep end ... I will try to simplify:
6. And realizing THAT is too complex, I'll simplify further...
7. I actually enjoy this process and find it calming and therapeutic.

And @MiroHQ is my tool of choice...both for collaboration and doing solo work.

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More from @johncutlefish

John Cutler Profile picture
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
John Cutler Profile picture
3 Apr
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)
Read 10 tweets
John Cutler Profile picture
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
and @DReinertsen
Read 9 tweets
John Cutler Profile picture
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
John Cutler Profile picture
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
John Cutler Profile picture
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

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