X : Have you ever mapped mapping itself?
Me : Yes, long ago ...
X : So, mapping is evolving?
Me : My form of mapping is. I'm constantly looking for better ways to represent the landscape. Some experiments succeed, most fail.
Me : It's a constant trade-off between consistency, communication and usefulness. It's quite easy in these early stages to formalise the system to a point that it isn't useful to many.
X : Isn't FinOps or best coding practice a choice?
Me : Sure, but that's not the point. We could take the map and represent like this ...
.. or like this ...
... or like this ...
There is a constant trade-off between consistency, communication and usefulness.
X : So, what's the ideal trade-off?
Me : I've no idea, that's why I'm constantly exploring to find other ways of representing the landscape,
X : How do you do that?
Me : By asking the question - "Is this more useful than that?"
X : I like the one without the axis.
Me : Hmmm, some do, most don't. The axes provides scaffolding and less "noise".
X : But things aren't as explicit.
Me : True but that's the whole point. It's a trade-off. Take the two extremes, one requires a deeper level of understanding, the other has many hidden concepts but is easier to explain relying more on additional story telling.
X : Which one do you prefer?
Me : Irrelevant as this is a community. I prefer to make the implicit more explicit where possible. Hence, this version. But it scares off most people (and with good reason because it's exposing a lot) and so I tend to stick with simple.
Me : A lot of value can be gained from simple maps, hence as much as the beast of standardisation raises its head within me and argues for repeatability / reproducibility ... I beat it down with the argument that the ideal is the enemy of inclusion.
Imperfection is your friend.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
It amazes me that the most important metrics (lines of code, story points, cycle time, devex satisfaction) in development are the two that are never discussed, let alone measured ... mean time to answer (mttA) and mean time to question (mttQ).
Whenever we start with building a system or managing a legacy environment, we need to ask questions and get answers. Those are skills which can be hindered or supported by the toolset around you ...
... in the very worst cases, engineers are forced into reading code to try and understand a system. Upto 50% of development time can be spent on reading code ... a process we never question or optimise. That is madness.
X : Thoughts on a return to office policy?
Me : It happens for two basic reasons:- 1) loss of status symbols (top floor office etc). Many execs need these to say "I'm the boss" 2) headcount reduction (i.e. people will leave) due to a weakness in the finances.
Why?
X : What about productivity and innovation?
Me : Those are "reasons" given but they're all bogus and don't stand up to scrutiny. However, there is a third.
X : Colloboration?
Me : Stranded assets - offices etc. No exec likes looking at an empty building they spent £300M on.
X : Basically - status symbols, weaknesses of finances and political capital?
Me : Sounds about right.
X : Did you see Amazon has a return to office policy -
Me : Oh. That's concerning.geekwire.com/2024/survey-by…
X : Our strategy doesn't align with our business.
Me : How do you mean?
X : We create these strategy documents but they never really get implemented as the day to day business takes over.
Me : That's common. Can I ask a question?
X : Sure
Me : ...
Me : Do you map?
X : I've heard of your technique but we don't use it.
Me : Ok, so your business operations is not based upon a map of the landscape?
X : No
Me : And your strategy is not based upon a map of the landscape?
X : No
Me : What made you think they would align?
X : They are supposed to align and we wrote our strategy on our understanding of the business.
Me : Your wrote your strategy based upon stories. There's no means to create a consensus of your landscape, to challenge what your are doing. There is no mechanism for alignment.
X : Why do you continue to use twitter / X?
Me : Because I like the tool and the crowd.
X : Do you support @elonmusk
Me : No. I disagree on many of his views.
X : He is far right.
Me : Perspective matters. US is generally more right wing & Silicon Valley especially so.
X : What do you mean by "Perspective matters"?
Me : Elon's views are not that unusual for Silicon Valley - . There's a lot of support based upon a different view of economics and government.
X : Different?
Me : Different from Europe. cbsnews.com/news/trump-jd-…
X : People should just accept it?
Me : No. They should argue against it. The "left" did itself no favours by diluting its voice across multiple platforms.
X : Are you left?
Me : I view the market as tool to be used in the common interest of society. I'm a socialist.
X : What do you need to do in order to map a business?
Me : Ask ... 1) "Who are the users?" (at the least, include consumers and the business) 2) "What are their needs?" 3) "What is the chain of components required to meet those needs?" 4) "How evolved are those components?"
...
Me : Once you have done that, allow others to challenge it. Even better, build the map with others. It really is that simple.
X : But creating a map is difficult.
Me : Only to those used to making decisions without understanding users, needs, the supply chain etc.
X : How common is that?
Me : In business? The majority of decisions tend to be made with no understanding of users, needs, supply chain and how evolved those components are. We tend to rely on gut feel and stories with little to no effective challenge.
dX: How do you deal with strategy?
Me: First, we need to answer the Where question, which depends a lot on the what and why.
dX: And?
Me: Ok, some very simple steps ...
Step 1: Visualise your environment. That means getting people to discuss, collaborate & challenge in order to create a "good enough" map of your environment. Should be a couple of hours.
Step 2: Look at what's changing which is competitor moves, your moves & economic patterns.
Step 3: Using the map, determine where you could invest/focus on. You're not making a decision yet, you just want the options. By now, you could have spent four hours on the exercise.
Step 4: Decide where you should invest i.e. look at the options using why & what