1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,900 all right well we have this little internal newsletter that ostensibly is supposed to keep 2 00:00:04,900 --> 00:00:09,400 us informed on things which is nice i really like it because we have the the editor he's got such a 3 00:00:09,400 --> 00:00:14,400 nice smiling face you get to see his face every now and then steven there i always think like 4 00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:20,120 like the job of an airline newsletter an airline magazine editor must be nice it's fun right like 5 00:00:20,120 --> 00:00:24,400 you get to be in the back seat pocket it's kind of the equivalent of that anyways so i emailed you 6 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:27,780 guest because uh you had one of the little featurettes in there that i thought was interesting 7 00:00:27,780 --> 00:00:32,680 aligned with a lot of stuff that comes up why don't you introduce yourself sure thanks so my 8 00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:40,240 name is joanna beltowska i'm based out of the new york office and what i do at labs is that i head up 9 00:00:40,240 --> 00:00:49,020 the product management practice and i wrote this thing about planning uh in in agile environments 10 00:00:49,020 --> 00:00:57,080 right and how that's uh often something that people have a misimpression around that these two things 11 00:00:57,080 --> 00:01:02,940 don't go together but i'm making the case that they indeed do um and they do so terrifically 12 00:01:02,940 --> 00:01:08,660 if you do it the right way yeah i i was i was just uh uh doing sort of a practice run of a talk i've 13 00:01:08,660 --> 00:01:13,120 been putting together about like uh what what's the deal with devops and enterprise architects 14 00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:21,240 um which i'm probably something you've encountered and and the uh in doing that uh you know and and 15 00:01:21,240 --> 00:01:25,980 also like looking over your stuff you kind of realize that the i don't know the early wizards of 16 00:01:25,980 --> 00:01:32,780 agile we're sort of like i don't ever want you to say the word planning again like like and and of 17 00:01:32,780 --> 00:01:38,020 course there's some inherent new way of doing it but the idea of uh having a long-term anything 18 00:01:38,020 --> 00:01:45,440 that uh might restrict you has never really been uh i don't know a very well-supported notion in 19 00:01:45,440 --> 00:01:50,980 doing agile oriented things which which you know tell me tell me if you experience this but like based on 20 00:01:50,980 --> 00:01:58,660 on the uh i don't know you might call it the world doesn't seem very helpful right like like i always 21 00:01:58,660 --> 00:02:03,100 figure i always figure it's like it's fine if what you're trying to do is try to figure out like what 22 00:02:03,100 --> 00:02:07,080 color your hot dog and your augmented reality thing should be like you know you're just surviving 23 00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:11,660 quarter to quarter and trying to make sure facebook doesn't crush you uh which is a lot more reactive 24 00:02:11,660 --> 00:02:17,300 but i don't know if you're like selling insurance you probably have some long-term plans but um i mean 25 00:02:17,300 --> 00:02:23,820 what's been your experience of like working at someone who's uh at a in an organization that says 26 00:02:23,820 --> 00:02:29,500 like crazy agile is pivotal labs and then you're like hey i have the word strategy and vision on a 27 00:02:29,500 --> 00:02:34,860 slide that decomposes down to a backlog like how did you come to caring about road mapping 28 00:02:34,860 --> 00:02:44,340 yeah so i guess um there are two two things i i've i've heard the most often when it comes to 29 00:02:44,340 --> 00:02:51,140 planning one is um we need to have a plan where's the plan right uh all this agile stuff seems so 30 00:02:51,140 --> 00:02:56,140 uncertain and and we can't take it seriously because we're a serious business doing serious work and you 31 00:02:56,140 --> 00:03:01,060 need to have a plan for that so that's one side and that's often what we hear from our clients who 32 00:03:01,060 --> 00:03:06,620 come from these environments or plans are super important for a number of really good reasons 33 00:03:06,620 --> 00:03:15,980 um and that's often where they struggle the most um when it comes to adopting agile methodologies how 34 00:03:15,980 --> 00:03:25,500 how how how do we uh take this thing seriously when um no one can tell us when this feature is going to be 35 00:03:25,500 --> 00:03:29,260 ready for us when this app is going to be ready to launch yeah that's one side the other side is 36 00:03:29,260 --> 00:03:36,220 you know we are the agile team we um understand how important it is to have flexibility to be able to 37 00:03:36,220 --> 00:03:43,060 learn about and respond to change and we don't want to be bogged down by these plans that um you know 38 00:03:43,060 --> 00:03:51,140 truly these these contracts um forcing us to to deliver against a specific scope by a certain time 39 00:03:51,140 --> 00:03:56,360 by a certain budget right there's no flexibility in that so you have these two two sides that are 40 00:03:56,360 --> 00:04:02,240 are in true opposition with with one another yeah you know that second one well well to to as as i like 41 00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:07,700 to do to reword everything you just said to agree emphatically with you like i think uh you know the 42 00:04:07,700 --> 00:04:12,800 first one is like oh we're enterprise we wear big boy pants so like don't bring your little short 43 00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:17,080 pants to us and like things like that which which is fine i mean that's a good reaction to change 44 00:04:17,080 --> 00:04:22,460 right like i remember uh i remember when i was i was i i use food analogies too much but i remember 45 00:04:22,460 --> 00:04:28,980 when i was aging becoming more mature it was like oh being a vegan that sounds terrible but i'll 46 00:04:28,980 --> 00:04:34,440 consider it right like like it's just this crazy idea you've never considered that is contrary to 47 00:04:34,440 --> 00:04:39,020 how you think that uh i don't know that you encounter and and then there you go right and then 48 00:04:39,020 --> 00:04:43,220 you're like tempeh how do you how do you actually cook tofu like they do in a restaurant so it tastes 49 00:04:43,220 --> 00:04:47,660 good this is a difficult challenge i don't think anyone challenges your entire world view exactly i 50 00:04:47,660 --> 00:04:52,240 don't think anyone's ever solved that in the home kitchen but whatever um but then the second thing 51 00:04:52,240 --> 00:04:57,140 i think as as um you know in the past few years and as as i was like reading over some of your stuff 52 00:04:57,140 --> 00:05:02,100 i think that's one of the more intriguing notions because it is i think i think i think implicit in 53 00:05:02,100 --> 00:05:08,200 that is this this idea this sort of like judoing of stuff of like well sometimes a long-term plan 54 00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:14,820 is a not only a barrier that you need to get over as an agile oriented team but often it's an actual 55 00:05:14,820 --> 00:05:20,520 deliverable like you actually have stakeholders and it should be treated i lose track of functional 56 00:05:20,520 --> 00:05:26,460 versus quality features versus like stick figures and all that stuff but like it's actually a requirement 57 00:05:26,460 --> 00:05:32,080 for you or a story it's a feature of that needs to be delivered on and so like if you think about it 58 00:05:32,080 --> 00:05:37,540 like that and then equally budget and planning and timing and everything that it's sort of not that 59 00:05:37,540 --> 00:05:44,160 big of a deal unless the deliverable purely becomes as as as you call it output instead of an outcome 60 00:05:44,160 --> 00:05:49,320 but um yeah it's a good it's a very comforting reframing of all of that that that you and other 61 00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:54,100 people are doing in it of like what what if we went back to the agile manifesto and we were like 62 00:05:54,100 --> 00:05:59,460 well we value long-term planning if that's the deliverable or whatever 63 00:05:59,460 --> 00:06:06,980 and yeah yeah yeah i guess i i don't know i i don't agree that that should be the deliverable 64 00:06:06,980 --> 00:06:14,060 right um and that is one of those mind shifts that can be so difficult for uh any organization to make 65 00:06:14,060 --> 00:06:18,820 as they try to become more more agile right so yep uh if we just step away from that buzzword for a 66 00:06:18,820 --> 00:06:24,280 second what does that mean well it it means being able to to um learn about things as they change 67 00:06:24,280 --> 00:06:31,580 which they always do right um the environment in which most companies operate today is is changing 68 00:06:31,580 --> 00:06:37,560 so quickly um but it doesn't make sense to try to plan ahead for a very long time because those plans 69 00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:42,880 are going to change and so when you're putting too much emphasis on the plans that deliverable 70 00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:48,160 you're missing that bigger picture of you know who are we trying to serve here what are their needs 71 00:06:48,160 --> 00:06:52,500 uh what is our competition up to what new technologies are out there that we could leverage 72 00:06:52,500 --> 00:06:57,500 that is the really important stuff it's the focus should be on the results that you're trying to 73 00:06:57,500 --> 00:07:02,360 create the change that you're trying to make in the world um and not you know on on creating that 74 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:09,120 perfect plan which is any which is going to be um irrelevant pretty quickly anyway right unless you keep 75 00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:14,020 updating it so that it actually matches uh the current state of the world and what you know about it today 76 00:07:14,020 --> 00:07:18,880 so uh you know it's always dangerous to speak outside of an industry uh i understand but 77 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:25,940 i would assume in in other industries it's sort of like um long-term planning is sometimes good and 78 00:07:25,940 --> 00:07:29,840 sometimes bad but there would be situation the reason you would have long-term planning i would 79 00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:35,740 assume or that it's possible to be more bottoms up is you have sort of a standardized process of 80 00:07:35,740 --> 00:07:41,400 things that you're doing and you're looking to optimize it right like like we we build a widget 81 00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:46,620 let's safely hide it under an ambiguously named three-dimensional object but we build a widget 82 00:07:46,620 --> 00:07:52,500 and we don't really vary the widget very much and so we optimize the construction of it and to some 83 00:07:52,500 --> 00:07:57,780 extent never minding drones and the threat of amazon and stuff which kind of proves the the point that 84 00:07:57,780 --> 00:08:02,900 we'll get to like then we also have to get the widget from the factory to the person we're selling 85 00:08:02,900 --> 00:08:07,520 it to whose hands so we've got the logistics of doing it and we can optimize that like don't ever make 86 00:08:07,520 --> 00:08:13,080 left turns or whatever other fantasy of delivery you encounter right uh and and so you're optimizing 87 00:08:13,080 --> 00:08:17,020 these things and they stay static and i would imagine your long-term planning for like marketing and 88 00:08:17,020 --> 00:08:22,780 sales that's a lot more agile because that changes all the time um but we in the software world 89 00:08:22,780 --> 00:08:27,400 we're always like uh slightly precocious about it and we're like well software is very different 90 00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:33,340 right like these rules don't apply and so you know i don't always hear this very much so i'm curious what 91 00:08:33,340 --> 00:08:37,600 your answer is but like and you alluding to it but how is software different like what is what is the 92 00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:43,320 nature of software that that thus that like an epiphany isn't just like don't make left turns and then do 93 00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:49,620 that for five years like what what's the nature of software that you you can you can not only worry 94 00:08:49,620 --> 00:08:56,080 about long-term planning you can get the benefits of short-term planning yeah well so that's um 95 00:08:56,080 --> 00:09:02,060 that's exactly it right i think you alluded to it it's it's the cost of change and speed of change 96 00:09:02,060 --> 00:09:10,600 right so um the planning models that most enterprises um have adopted and and are utilizing today are based 97 00:09:10,600 --> 00:09:15,080 on traditional manufacturing right so you had your factory you were building your physical things you 98 00:09:15,080 --> 00:09:20,340 had an assembly line right so you were you were building machines or cars or you were making it 99 00:09:20,340 --> 00:09:26,420 and packaging i don't know soup right physical things um which are by nature very very different 100 00:09:26,420 --> 00:09:34,580 from anything that's virtual like an ios app right so um when we work on a physical thing as soon as it 101 00:09:34,580 --> 00:09:39,780 goes down that assembly line as soon as it's in the distribution chain it's very difficult if not 102 00:09:39,780 --> 00:09:47,880 possible to make any changes to it right so um if there's anything that you miss to think about 103 00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:56,440 or account for before that assembly line gets started you are taking on potentially tremendous risk 104 00:09:56,440 --> 00:10:02,660 and tremendous cost and and uh brand damage and you might upset customers and all the people that you 105 00:10:02,660 --> 00:10:10,080 have to work with to to get your um physical goods out there and into customers hands but software is 106 00:10:10,080 --> 00:10:15,200 you know if if you set it up right if you put the right processes in place it's actually easy to 107 00:10:15,200 --> 00:10:22,520 change it's easy to distribute and that's that's the assumption that we make around planning that we 108 00:10:22,520 --> 00:10:30,620 often don't realize to to to question right that uh virtual things are very different in terms of how 109 00:10:30,620 --> 00:10:36,640 they're distributed how they're changed the costs involved yeah so we can take very different types of 110 00:10:36,640 --> 00:10:41,700 risks when you build software exactly and that that's another like fun uh you know i i get i'm always 111 00:10:41,700 --> 00:10:46,920 leery of too many turns out sort of like malcolm gladwell types of revelations but it's sort of like 112 00:10:46,920 --> 00:10:52,740 it turns out this long-term planning was a constraint you had imposed on yourself right and and so if you 113 00:10:52,740 --> 00:10:57,560 look at the as you say like the agility of software you can remove that constraint and so it's not so 114 00:10:57,560 --> 00:11:04,580 much that like needing to have a gantt chart is the only way to live through life and these agile people 115 00:11:04,580 --> 00:11:09,620 are subversive it's just like that was a tool that you were forced to use because of all these problems 116 00:11:09,620 --> 00:11:13,880 because of all this risk yeah so there's no reason to saddle yourself with that when when you're 117 00:11:13,880 --> 00:11:21,360 dealing with as you say a uh a sort of virtual thing yeah and another important difference is that when 118 00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:29,940 you plan uh when you plan for for software virtual things um you you you want to optimize for learning 119 00:11:29,940 --> 00:11:33,980 you want to optimize for that change right you're assuming that change is inevitable it's going to 120 00:11:33,980 --> 00:11:40,120 happen so let's make the best of it let's let's you know try to let's accept it right it's going to be 121 00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:47,140 part of of our reality uh whereas that's that's not possible with physical things again because change 122 00:11:47,140 --> 00:11:52,760 is not always possible if it is it's extremely expensive um and time consuming and it can be 123 00:11:52,760 --> 00:11:57,620 really damaging to your company so when we work with physical things we plan for physical things we have 124 00:11:57,620 --> 00:12:04,180 to optimize for predictability and so we plan um in different ways right so physical things are often 125 00:12:04,180 --> 00:12:12,660 planned um in a phased way so someone initiates the the creation of the thing conceives of it 126 00:12:12,660 --> 00:12:19,660 um there's another phase of analysis of design of planning of building it of testing it of distributing 127 00:12:19,660 --> 00:12:25,160 it right so you have these very very long feedback loops and it's all about extracting uncertainty 128 00:12:25,160 --> 00:12:33,500 out of the process so you know exactly what is going to go down that assembly line but um with software 129 00:12:33,500 --> 00:12:40,940 because we do need to have that flexibility we can't we can't plan around outputs right around 130 00:12:40,940 --> 00:12:48,180 the actual manifestation of the thing that we're going to push out um we do want to plan around 131 00:12:48,180 --> 00:12:53,820 outcomes in this case so the actual goals that we want the piece of software to to to accomplish 132 00:12:53,820 --> 00:13:00,920 the results that we want to create and the way in which we get to those things is much more malleable 133 00:13:00,920 --> 00:13:06,660 meaning the actual features while important are not as important as why we're building the thing 134 00:13:06,660 --> 00:13:12,980 and again because of that cost of change being lower uh the feedback loops being shorter in terms of 135 00:13:12,980 --> 00:13:19,120 building the thing and distributing it when it's a virtual thing um software lends itself much much 136 00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:25,920 better to planning around outcomes and goals um whereas physical goods don't and and so so what are 137 00:13:25,920 --> 00:13:30,160 what are like some uh you know a handful of examples of what these outcomes are to distinguish them 138 00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:39,740 between outputs yep so outcomes can be things like um making our customers happier uh by making it easier for 139 00:13:39,740 --> 00:13:49,140 them to complete some sort of task um it could be things like um increasing productivity reducing cost 140 00:13:49,140 --> 00:13:57,660 increasing revenue so these are results consequences they're not they're not stuff like number of features 141 00:13:57,660 --> 00:14:06,400 that you ship uh or the size of the scope that you that you ship right so it all depends on who you're building the application for 142 00:14:06,400 --> 00:14:13,120 and what problems you're trying to solve for them and in their life or what desires you're trying to to satisfy for them 143 00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:18,960 right not every app is going to be solving for some some deep human problem like you know an instagram 144 00:14:18,960 --> 00:14:25,140 that's that's more of a uh you know a fun thing right it's not a not necessarily life-changing 145 00:14:25,140 --> 00:14:31,700 that's right um thing right um at least for you and me it sounds like maybe there's some people 146 00:14:31,700 --> 00:14:39,220 who uh have you come across this word called uh uh a planneded photo that that that's like it's it's a 147 00:14:39,220 --> 00:14:43,360 it's not i guess it's not a portman too but whatever you call that kind of word it's it's a it's a mixture 148 00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:49,540 of planned and candid and so it's the idea of like you're an instagram and you're like uh i think the 149 00:14:49,540 --> 00:14:54,820 associated thing is the uh husbands of instagram if you've ever seen that video where the husband 150 00:14:54,820 --> 00:15:00,040 always has to go way up on the catwalk to take a picture of out of a wide angle but uh i don't know 151 00:15:00,040 --> 00:15:06,320 anyhow uh yes i'm just putting in a joke there it's true the the hot dogs are only meaningful to a 152 00:15:06,320 --> 00:15:13,680 subset of people not the enterprises of the world so um uh since i interrupted you and broke up your 153 00:15:13,680 --> 00:15:19,600 train of thought i mean so like like like can you like like that well to be more direct there's there's 154 00:15:19,600 --> 00:15:23,600 there's one slide in some of your presentations or i've only seen one i guess so the one i've seen 155 00:15:23,600 --> 00:15:28,000 that i like which i kind of alluded to earlier which is the kind of four-part walk down from uh 156 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:34,180 everyone's first favorite vision that's that's good stuff from uh vision to strategy to uh i actually 157 00:15:34,180 --> 00:15:38,840 forget what the third one is to backlog i guess it's planned or something yeah yeah the roadmap and so 158 00:15:38,840 --> 00:15:43,180 like yeah what is like like let's sort of take it for granted well i don't know maybe we shouldn't 159 00:15:43,180 --> 00:15:49,360 but like what are those four columns and and what i'm especially interested in is like how how something 160 00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:55,900 like increased customer satisfaction gets decomposed to for example uh we should have a reactive web 161 00:15:55,900 --> 00:16:00,780 page that as a user scrolls they don't have to click on a button to go to the next page like i don't 162 00:16:00,780 --> 00:16:06,480 know maybe that's a bad example but like how how is that process managed right like how like what's 163 00:16:06,480 --> 00:16:11,120 the the human interaction of like getting down to that point and realizing that you need to do that 164 00:16:11,120 --> 00:16:16,420 cool all right that's a lot of questions let's see if we can tackle them one at a time yeah you know i 165 00:16:16,420 --> 00:16:25,300 don't ask short questions uh yes that framework of vision strategy roadmap and backlog is is exactly 166 00:16:25,300 --> 00:16:34,000 that it's it's it's a framework for um thinking about planning um and defining um products right or 167 00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:40,540 really it doesn't just have to be products it can be services right anything really that you do 168 00:16:40,540 --> 00:16:47,140 as a company as an organization as a team um to create value for for for some group of people 169 00:16:47,140 --> 00:16:56,240 let's say right so it is it is a widely applicable um framework so the vision is is the starting point 170 00:16:56,240 --> 00:17:03,920 it's it should be a short inspirational ambitious uh motivational statement about the change that you 171 00:17:03,920 --> 00:17:11,980 want to create in the world right it's it's it's the idea um that's going to drive all of your decisions 172 00:17:11,980 --> 00:17:17,840 ultimately as a company as a product team as an ic on a team inside of a company 173 00:17:17,840 --> 00:17:25,940 um it's it is that shared focus and it is that motivation for for everything that you're doing 174 00:17:25,940 --> 00:17:32,400 so that that's that's really important starting points without that you know you're not going to 175 00:17:32,400 --> 00:17:41,300 have um necessarily the right focus as an organization um and it's going to cost you in terms of um you 176 00:17:41,300 --> 00:17:48,780 know miscommunication um waste um just people running around doing different things yeah having 177 00:17:48,780 --> 00:17:54,340 ideas about what matters being unaligned and and and hopefully won't won't like break your uh your 178 00:17:54,340 --> 00:17:59,940 your train of thought here but like first of all like who who sets that like what you know there there's 179 00:17:59,940 --> 00:18:04,120 this there's this metaphor i've been trying to use which is like you know we've all well anyone who's 180 00:18:04,120 --> 00:18:08,580 listening this we've all read like uppercase l lean manufacturing and it's like toyota figured 181 00:18:08,580 --> 00:18:12,700 out how to optimize this but like i always want to know like who decided to make looms 182 00:18:12,700 --> 00:18:18,080 and then who decided to make cars like who sets that initial who's the prime mover of all of this 183 00:18:18,080 --> 00:18:23,000 stuff that you know the strategy and everything yeah 184 00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:29,680 i mean it's gonna depend right a lot of times it's the person who starts the company or the people who 185 00:18:29,680 --> 00:18:35,760 start the company right they see an opportunity in the world um whether it's to to uh create something 186 00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:41,700 awesome that is gonna create a lot of benefits a lot of people or whether it's to um you know go out 187 00:18:41,700 --> 00:18:47,100 and make money there's those folks too right right so they come up with the idea of let's build a car 188 00:18:47,100 --> 00:18:55,080 let's build a loom um and hopefully that that does come with with some sense of purpose some sort of 189 00:18:55,080 --> 00:19:01,780 vision for for why this is going to be an amazing loom the best loom possible right uh and not just 190 00:19:01,780 --> 00:19:07,820 you know your run of the mill loom yeah no pun intended yeah you know i i i always think if there's 191 00:19:07,820 --> 00:19:13,220 some magical uh chart of starting a business the first question in the chart the decision tree is 192 00:19:13,220 --> 00:19:19,660 do you want to be in the check cashing business yep if yes easy money if no all right now the real 193 00:19:19,660 --> 00:19:27,080 questions begin uh but yeah no that i i think i mean that lines up with with uh the the helpful 194 00:19:27,080 --> 00:19:31,740 non-answer that you get is like i don't know you got to just decide on something right like someone 195 00:19:31,740 --> 00:19:35,940 someone has to figure out what it is you want to do or what you can do and if you're lucky 196 00:19:35,940 --> 00:19:40,940 you've already inherited what it is you're doing and your job is just to uh to optimize it so 197 00:19:40,940 --> 00:19:46,520 so then if you have that strong vision just just to to add a you know a couple more things that are 198 00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:50,780 really important if you don't have you have that vision that is what's going to motivate you through 199 00:19:50,780 --> 00:19:54,860 those long rolling nights of trying to start a new business right get something off of the ground 200 00:19:54,860 --> 00:20:00,280 it's going to help you find people that want to work with you and make this thing a real thing 201 00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:08,600 right so um it's it's it has all these other additional benefits it's you know it's people like 202 00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:14,380 to come together um around a shared goal around something that is going to create impact in the 203 00:20:14,380 --> 00:20:19,720 world and that is what the vision accomplish help can help you accomplish right and and then so the 204 00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:24,400 next step in your your magic slide is like the strategy step so what does that start to look 205 00:20:24,400 --> 00:20:30,560 like and who messes around with that and what's going on there so this is a master plan this is how 206 00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:37,840 you're going to uh make your vision real so it's a high level plan um if your vision spans you know 207 00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:44,680 say five plus years decades your vision your strategy takes that down now to a couple of years 208 00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:50,980 months or maybe even a few months depending right so um it might actually be good to share an example 209 00:20:50,980 --> 00:20:59,000 here so one of my favorite examples is tesla so tesla is a car company right but it's actually not so 210 00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:05,200 you know their their vision is not to to build uh necessarily the world's most amazing car their vision 211 00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:12,500 is to um help make energy sustainable right to to create sustainable energy sources in the world that's 212 00:21:12,500 --> 00:21:18,420 a vision and the car that they're building is a means of getting there so um elon musk actually 213 00:21:18,420 --> 00:21:23,440 does have this thing that he calls his master plan which is create a low volume car which is going to 214 00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:29,340 be expensive then use that money that we make off of selling that expensive car to develop a medium 215 00:21:29,340 --> 00:21:35,020 volume car at a lower price use that money to create a more affordable high volume car and then 216 00:21:35,020 --> 00:21:40,880 ultimately provide solar power power by developing these amazing batteries that these cars run off of 217 00:21:40,880 --> 00:21:46,800 yeah no that that's that's i'm always suspicious of like you know tech companies like uh that their walk 218 00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:50,640 down from that but that's a good one because usually ends up being the old mythical pants gnome thing 219 00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:57,360 but that one has a good a good progression of uh you've got this kind of somewhat audacious goal i mean 220 00:21:57,360 --> 00:22:03,920 sort of like practically audacious if you will and uh yeah that seems like a good bet of how you would 221 00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:09,720 practically in big gigantic picture ways get to that point right like yep like if you work backwards from 222 00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:14,800 there what are the how do we fuel this how do we fund it and then also what are the innovations that 223 00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:19,740 will be required to get to that point and then how can we mix those together so yeah no that that that 224 00:22:19,740 --> 00:22:25,900 makes sense and and i guess you can kind of imagine out in more uh uh pedestrian examples of like 225 00:22:25,900 --> 00:22:31,740 retailing and and maybe like even even when you know for whatever reason i use this example too much even 226 00:22:31,740 --> 00:22:35,980 like various types of insurance you could figure out similar strategies of how to get to some point 227 00:22:35,980 --> 00:22:41,680 right like maybe in the insurance business i mean this would sound crazy for insurance people but it's 228 00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:46,480 sort of like what if i just wanted to buy insurance for 10 minutes like maybe there's a way to work back 229 00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:51,360 to how you would get to that point of like this spot insurance stuff which um i don't know that would 230 00:22:51,360 --> 00:22:56,560 seem to like make actuaries heads blow up if you mess with like a annual or a longer term for for the 231 00:22:56,560 --> 00:23:01,060 gamble of insurance but there must be some way of getting there yeah and it would make you stand out 232 00:23:01,060 --> 00:23:06,680 right and you'll be able to build a business around that so so then so then you get to well first of 233 00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:12,500 all so so vision you know you can represent that uh you know verbally or in a really a really wordy 234 00:23:12,500 --> 00:23:17,600 plaque on a wall somewhere right like so that that's fine but like how do you how do you both see 235 00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:23,760 in in good ways and maybe bad ways how do you see and sort of recommend people like uh document their 236 00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:30,400 strategy like what uh do they need one of these six page bezosian memos with 20 pages of appendix to 237 00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:38,140 it or like is it good in a powerpoint or like how do you how do you set that down in stone so to speak 238 00:23:38,140 --> 00:23:46,220 yeah i would say you know try to keep it try to keep it simple because it's not if it's not simple 239 00:23:46,220 --> 00:23:50,300 people are not going to get it and people are not going to care and people are not going to know that 240 00:23:50,300 --> 00:23:56,560 it exists right so these things do typically live in these very very long powerpoints um that not 241 00:23:56,560 --> 00:24:03,600 everyone has access to but just write it up on a wall keep it close to a team right um 242 00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:09,460 when you have town halls and and get together to talk about what different teams are up to and where 243 00:24:09,460 --> 00:24:14,180 the company's headed share those vision statements and strategies out and just keep them really simple 244 00:24:14,180 --> 00:24:19,120 and short right a vision statement shouldn't be more than two or three sentences long um a strategy 245 00:24:19,120 --> 00:24:23,560 statement can just be a list of bullet points yes it can also be you know a very long document 246 00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:31,360 a lot of detail and analysis and that context is sometimes uh necessary um but 247 00:24:31,360 --> 00:24:39,300 yeah i guess i would say try to try to at least get to one version of these things that is so 248 00:24:39,300 --> 00:24:44,840 simple and easy to understand that anyone can access it and get it and internalize it and understand why 249 00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:49,320 these things matter right and feel inspired by them right like your tesla one's a good example of that 250 00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:54,540 right and and and so like also also at the strategy stage and and i have like way too much interest in 251 00:24:54,540 --> 00:24:59,840 this because for a couple years i worked in the corporate strategy group and stuff so uh there 252 00:24:59,840 --> 00:25:05,440 were many overly educated uh overly driven people who had theories about how you do strategy 253 00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:11,860 in the same way that a bunch of developers will like uh entertain themselves in off time discussing 254 00:25:11,860 --> 00:25:17,320 like different ways to do pagination like all the mbas will talk about how you determine strategy 255 00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:26,380 which is can be fun maybe anyways uh so so so like how i don't know how long do you think that phase 256 00:25:26,380 --> 00:25:31,460 takes and like what do you do do you just like call up bain and or i guess maybe labs and have them 257 00:25:31,460 --> 00:25:36,800 come in and use their summer interns to pump out like a 30 page document with the one pager for you or 258 00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:41,960 like what what are you seeing people are doing when they're figuring out that strategy or or to ask it 259 00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:47,100 another way what are they doing that's helpful downstream when it comes to making software 260 00:25:47,100 --> 00:25:59,120 around it yeah i mean i would say um these things need to be tested and validated um they aren't always 261 00:25:59,120 --> 00:26:03,600 right sometimes if you take the traditional approach you're gonna call up your favorite consultancy 262 00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:10,560 they're gonna spend months and months working on this thing wordsmithing it um and then hand it over to you 263 00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:17,940 i don't know if that it really is is the best way to spend your time and money right um you can come up 264 00:26:17,940 --> 00:26:24,360 with something that is much more um scrappy in a couple of days for a couple of weeks by talking to 265 00:26:24,360 --> 00:26:31,060 people by watching them interact with the world around them uh by seeing what else is out there and 266 00:26:31,060 --> 00:26:37,700 formulating a hypothesis about what the opportunity is to create something better whether it's you know a car 267 00:26:37,700 --> 00:26:44,700 or um a battery or or whatever else it might be um you know and put together some some simple 268 00:26:44,700 --> 00:26:50,020 essentially prototype of that write down your vision statement on a piece of paper and put it in front 269 00:26:50,020 --> 00:26:56,220 of people and see how they respond to it um same thing with with a strategy right identify your master 270 00:26:56,220 --> 00:27:04,040 plan um and try to start to implement it and see how it goes um i think you can make much more progress 271 00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:11,800 that way um in many cases than spending tons and tons of money and time um coming up with these things 272 00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:19,440 that feel incredibly robust and sound and look beautiful but haven't actually been tested um in a 273 00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:25,840 real sense yeah yeah yeah what one of the um back when i was doing strategy one of the uh what would you 274 00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:33,520 call him more firebrand and thus more unemployable persons that uh i worked with like he he was uh this 275 00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:39,360 was this was like at the apex of lean startup stuff and uh every single presentation he did it was just 276 00:27:39,360 --> 00:27:45,020 a reason to get to a slide that talked about lean startup stuff but but it does it does get to the 277 00:27:45,020 --> 00:27:51,440 point that you're saying is to to tell me if this seems right to summarize like your strategy should be 278 00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:57,660 testable and and by testable we also mean that if the test comes up negative that doesn't mean that 279 00:27:57,660 --> 00:28:01,620 you don't make your bonus that means that you go back and you get the chance to get it right and 280 00:28:01,620 --> 00:28:06,360 reformulate it again right and and so that would be a good smell if you will for the people who are 281 00:28:06,360 --> 00:28:12,120 overseeing strategy generation is like well how would i test this and then we don't need to know 282 00:28:12,120 --> 00:28:17,180 exactly what we would do next but like if it's successful then what and if the test isn't successful 283 00:28:17,180 --> 00:28:22,000 then what do we do and like yeah like i don't want to spend three months figuring out you know 284 00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:27,780 monte carloing out all the different simulations but like let's maybe spend a few hours on it 285 00:28:27,780 --> 00:28:33,780 just to like just like think out what the testable things are in it yep and this this goes back to 286 00:28:33,780 --> 00:28:38,760 something that we talked about earlier on earlier on in our conversation about predictability versus 287 00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:45,100 learning right um if you come up with a with a master plan and you start to test it and it's not 288 00:28:45,100 --> 00:28:51,080 working out that's not failure that's learning right it means that you have learned sooner and 289 00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:54,940 later that this thing is not working out this was not the right idea so let's try something different 290 00:28:54,940 --> 00:28:58,100 and it's not something that you should be punished for it's something that you should be rewarded for 291 00:28:58,100 --> 00:29:03,960 if anything right all right so we got this we got this good testable strategy we've all uh we've got 292 00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:07,760 we've been reading our lean startup book so much that the spines cracked and we're missing a few pages 293 00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:14,000 we set some coffee on it or kombucha or whatever and uh and then we're gonna make kind of like the uh 294 00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:18,240 i i think the crown jewel of the sort of theory you've you've worked on in this body of work the 295 00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:25,260 the roadmap right yes so what is this roadmap so now we're getting down to the actual timeline and 296 00:29:25,260 --> 00:29:33,140 tactics of how we're going to make our plan real right so um one one way that i try to explain this 297 00:29:33,140 --> 00:29:40,520 um in in the slides that you refer to is through this visualization of um you know imagine that you're 298 00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:45,820 standing in front of a mountain and your vision is to get beyond that mountain is to reach something 299 00:29:45,820 --> 00:29:51,620 that is at the other end of that mountain so how you intend to get over the mountain is your strategy 300 00:29:51,620 --> 00:29:56,800 you could climb it you could dig a hole under it you could walk around it you could drill a hole 301 00:29:56,800 --> 00:30:00,760 through it but that's your strategy that's the plan for how do you intend to to get across that 302 00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:08,020 mountain um and everything um what the mountain represents is everything that's in between 303 00:30:08,020 --> 00:30:14,020 all the barriers that are in your way so when we think about the roadmap it's the actual map that 304 00:30:14,020 --> 00:30:17,980 you're holding in your hands as you're standing at the foot of that mountain and you're looking up it 305 00:30:17,980 --> 00:30:24,240 and you're trying to to get a sense of what would it mean to to begin to climb this thing what do i 306 00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:29,120 have to pack we have to bring with me how many people are going to need to have with me what sort 307 00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:33,160 of skills and experiences do these people need how much food should we pack how should we get dressed 308 00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:38,780 for for this expedition so all that stuff is going to go into your roadmap and you're going to have a 309 00:30:38,780 --> 00:30:43,240 pretty good sense of what you need to do immediately because you've done a lot of research you have 310 00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:49,060 pretty good visibility into that initial phase of your journey but then after that things get a little 311 00:30:49,060 --> 00:30:54,260 bit more fuzzy right so again looking up the mountain you might see that there's a peak coming up but 312 00:30:54,260 --> 00:31:01,960 it's covered by clouds so you can make some guesses about what um the the the landscape is going to be 313 00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:06,660 like at that point of your journey but you still have to do a lot more research and you're just not 314 00:31:06,660 --> 00:31:13,120 going to know until you get closer to it so you have some initial ideas but you know that you can't 315 00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:18,420 create a good plan for for dealing with that part of your journey quite yet and then beyond that 316 00:31:18,420 --> 00:31:22,560 first peak you just have no visibility at all so you don't know what's coming up again you can make 317 00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:26,820 some initial guesses some high level guesses but you don't know exactly you need to do much more 318 00:31:26,820 --> 00:31:35,400 research and so um the idea behind an outcome oriented roadmap is the same we have a lot of visibility 319 00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:41,920 into the first leg of our work and after that things get fuzzier and fuzzier and we're not going to try 320 00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:47,880 to plan um too far into the future because things are going to change we're going to learn about new things 321 00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:53,080 the landscape is going to change so we're just going to plan as much as we have to um for now 322 00:31:53,080 --> 00:32:01,420 so so in the in the in the roadmap thing you're you're you're paying a lot of attention to uh what's 323 00:32:01,420 --> 00:32:05,380 going to be happening like week to week i guess sort of like challenges that you might encounter 324 00:32:05,380 --> 00:32:10,700 problems you're going to need to solve constraints that you'll have and as you say like coming up with 325 00:32:10,700 --> 00:32:16,820 tactics that that you would do i and and and i guess not only to like solve those problems but 326 00:32:16,820 --> 00:32:21,740 to like keep moving forward as it were right like what what how are we going to set things up so that 327 00:32:21,740 --> 00:32:27,700 we don't end up dead in the water like what are we what are we going to do so you know we we get lost 328 00:32:27,700 --> 00:32:32,060 in and i think in the software world down a hole of metaphors because our trade is like so new that 329 00:32:32,060 --> 00:32:36,500 we can't whatever the opposite of a metaphor literals like we can't speak literally about 330 00:32:36,500 --> 00:32:40,760 stuff very much but like it's sort of like if you're going to be on a old sailing ship thing 331 00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:45,060 your roadmap kind of might be like well we're probably going to have to spend two weeks going 332 00:32:45,060 --> 00:32:52,680 nowhere so we should bring some food right like like like we're going to need some plans and tactics 333 00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:58,880 to deal with the bumps and the stuff that we have and and you know what exactly we cook on day eight 334 00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:04,180 of being dead in the water we'll leave that up to the backlog but but as far as like knowing that we 335 00:33:04,180 --> 00:33:08,580 need to be ready and have a process for that like we need to roadmap this up to match our strategy of 336 00:33:08,580 --> 00:33:14,600 like i guess this is all like sometimes historically morally bankrupt but our strategy of expanding our 337 00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:20,980 empire so we can get more cheap resources to like fuel uh you know our 13 course edwardian meal but 338 00:33:20,980 --> 00:33:26,040 like you know and then then our vision of just living the life for the uh for the king but anyways it 339 00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:31,100 kind of maps all the way down to like one day the uh the gaunt chef is like cooking up some some fish 340 00:33:31,100 --> 00:33:38,960 in the galley there i guess but no no that makes it and then so i'm um i'm curious uh to try to 341 00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:44,100 retrieve myself from weird historic analogies uh like so what are some examples of what these 342 00:33:44,140 --> 00:33:49,020 roadmaps not only look like but like folks you've worked with like what are the roadmaps end up 343 00:33:49,020 --> 00:33:54,680 being like what are they oh you mean like what's the manifestation of the roadmap yeah like example 344 00:33:54,680 --> 00:34:01,680 examples of them um so i'm not sure if this is what you're looking for but typically the shapes that 345 00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:08,160 they take are stickies on a wall they can be a trello board they can be an excel sheet they can be a 346 00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:15,260 google doc they can be a powerpoint um and then there's tons and tons of different um apps out there 347 00:34:15,260 --> 00:34:22,360 that just help you put together a roadmap so just web apps that you sign into and you build a roadmap 348 00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:26,680 and then you can share with other people so that's what these things often end up looking like 349 00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:32,060 um then in terms of what you stick into them um there's a number of different ways of doing this 350 00:34:32,060 --> 00:34:40,120 um but i would say the most important components to account for are your time horizons so 351 00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:44,420 so what i was alluding to when i was talking about standing at the bottom of 352 00:34:44,420 --> 00:34:49,780 the mountain and looking at your roadmap or your actual piece of paper that helps you navigate this 353 00:34:49,780 --> 00:35:00,520 this this mountain um you want to split it up into different chunks of time so that can be um what 354 00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,560 we're going to do right now what we're going to do next what we're going to do in the future 355 00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:12,120 and you can assign to each of those time horizons you know a month a quarter i would say probably not 356 00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:20,640 longer than a quarter because you do need to have um decently short feedback loops to to um account 357 00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:26,040 for those changes that are going to happen right so you've got your time horizons um those are going 358 00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:33,120 to be your uh columns just to help folks visualize what this might look like and then um looking at 359 00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:41,060 the rows going down you want to have your desired outcomes or your goals right so um this is the 360 00:35:41,060 --> 00:35:45,480 equivalent of identifying milestones essentially how far up the mountain do you want to go 361 00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:53,040 during uh you know this first quarter or you know this first leg of our journey so you've got your 362 00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:57,880 you've got your goals your desired outcomes the results that you want to get to then you've got 363 00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:03,560 your barriers or problems to solve so why is this desired outcome that we're trying to get to not real 364 00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:10,980 yet what what do we have to work through to make it a real thing after that comes 365 00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:15,140 metrics super important because you need to close that feedback loop right how do we know that we've 366 00:36:15,140 --> 00:36:19,300 actually realized our goal how do we know that we are where we want to be and where we need to be 367 00:36:19,300 --> 00:36:24,560 you need some sort of um metric to to track your progress against that 368 00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:30,320 and then after that you've got your actual tactics so these are your features and your scope 369 00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:32,660 the actual stuff that you're going to do and the stuff that you're going to build 370 00:36:32,660 --> 00:36:38,320 and i would say those are the most important pieces and you can also expand your roadmap with 371 00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:44,840 other things that might be important to to your organization things like um which customer are we 372 00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:52,580 focused on now which persona are we focused on right now um what critical assumptions we have to test 373 00:36:52,580 --> 00:36:59,500 right what what do we still have to learn before uh we can assume all this other stuff in our current 374 00:36:59,500 --> 00:37:07,380 column to be um doing things that we have confidence in that we can act on yeah yeah yeah i mean that's 375 00:37:07,380 --> 00:37:14,160 that's sort of uh marveled with more of the uh the testability tactic which which which i think 376 00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:21,040 and and and and as with so much of this stuff right like like it also gives a um a more comforting 377 00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:27,320 bent to metrics right like kpis and metrics are always not very friendly 378 00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:34,980 from an individual standpoint but but it's almost like if you think of metrics as as the way that 379 00:37:34,980 --> 00:37:38,980 you're testing something and validating that something's happening and figuring out 380 00:37:38,980 --> 00:37:44,480 how well or poorly i mean the poorly parts the problem but you know figure out how things are going like 381 00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:48,660 it does it does make it more interesting also from the standpoint of just like producing this stuff of 382 00:37:48,660 --> 00:37:55,080 like you're uh you're architecting out a model like almost this uh sort of organism 383 00:37:55,080 --> 00:38:01,140 of like your ongoing work and like i don't know that's a lot more exciting than like a meko chart or 384 00:38:01,140 --> 00:38:06,380 something right like so so much so much like strategy stuff that i encounter and and you know planning and 385 00:38:06,380 --> 00:38:15,460 things like that um and i'm sure it's not all like this but it almost has this like uh boring sort of 386 00:38:15,460 --> 00:38:22,680 like uh this this boring arrogance which is sort of like if we do this profits will rise end of story 387 00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:27,160 yeah right it's it's not like it's not like the it's not like the question mark of the pants gnomes 388 00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:32,520 of like and so like how are we going to make sure this all works out well but so it seems a lot more 389 00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:38,240 entertaining yep yep yeah and you've got all these things together working as a system right they have 390 00:38:38,240 --> 00:38:43,660 to align with one another and they all help you um they all help you see how things are going 391 00:38:43,660 --> 00:38:48,280 anything to change anything right so it takes a lot of the guesswork out of building good products 392 00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:55,380 and solving real problems for real people hopefully so so then so then tactically one area i think that 393 00:38:55,380 --> 00:39:00,140 uh you know you have a paper on is or a little write-up whatever you want to call it uh is um 394 00:39:00,140 --> 00:39:04,900 is basically like so how do you run the the whiteboarding sessions where you kind of come up with this 395 00:39:04,900 --> 00:39:09,680 stuff and and like what what's always interesting about that is like i mean we've all actually 396 00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:15,620 you know we've all read uh the lean startup thing or like the five dysfunctions of teams and then we 397 00:39:15,620 --> 00:39:18,260 have a nice weekend and we go back to work and you're sort of in the room and you're 398 00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:23,840 like holy crap i actually have no idea what i should do right and and so like so like stuff 399 00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:27,680 like this is like good because it's tactically like all right you're in the room everyone's 400 00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:33,080 talked about what they did on the weekend they've got fresh coffee here's a marker go right so like 401 00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:36,820 like what uh how do you kind of bootstrap into that and what do you do in these sessions where 402 00:39:36,820 --> 00:39:42,380 you're trying to get to those swim lanes of things that you're going to be doing yep so it's probably 403 00:39:42,380 --> 00:39:48,500 going to be really hard and how it how it actually might happen is going to depend a lot on on your 404 00:39:48,500 --> 00:39:53,860 company right because as we again as we talked about before different people different layers of 405 00:39:53,860 --> 00:39:59,280 the organization might own these different pieces of that framework right the vision the strategy the 406 00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:07,120 roadmap and the backlog it's not always the product team owning all these things so um i would say a good 407 00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:14,720 starting point is get your team all together in a room and you want to make sure that you have people 408 00:40:14,720 --> 00:40:19,080 representing products that's your product manager product owner whatever that role is in your 409 00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:26,300 organization you also want to have people representing um the um the customer and the product design 410 00:40:26,300 --> 00:40:30,880 sometimes that can be the product manager product owner sometimes that is a product designer 411 00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:38,340 or your ux researcher and then you also need to have um engineering in the room right because these 412 00:40:38,340 --> 00:40:45,200 people together um tasked with making sure that the product is something that people want something 413 00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:51,460 that we can build and maintain and it's something that is going to help us um have a viable business 414 00:40:51,460 --> 00:40:57,540 around the product so those perspectives are all important and they have to come together to to inform 415 00:40:57,540 --> 00:41:05,680 the roadmap so you want to have those people in the room at a minimum and then you start by trying to 416 00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:12,740 articulate what the vision is and so what is this thing why should anyone care how is it helping our 417 00:41:12,740 --> 00:41:20,180 customers um solve whatever pain point that you might have how is it helping our company uh be more 418 00:41:20,180 --> 00:41:28,000 successful so you want to capture that then you want to capture your strategy again um it's about 419 00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:33,580 identifying that master plan and just going a little bit deeper into what that means it's about making 420 00:41:33,580 --> 00:41:38,000 a lot of different choices you want to think about who is our customer here right who do we want to 421 00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:42,380 potentially start with right we might have several people that want to serve through this product 422 00:41:42,380 --> 00:41:47,420 but maybe not at the same time are there specific markets that we care about whether it's a geography 423 00:41:47,420 --> 00:41:53,580 or a vertical um how do we think about pricing um what is going to make us different why should anyone 424 00:41:53,580 --> 00:41:58,860 pay attention to this thing that we want to create why would they pay for it and use it so you're trying 425 00:41:58,860 --> 00:42:08,160 to make all these choices about um how you're going to navigate the world um assuming that the team owns 426 00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:12,840 these pieces you know you're you're pretty much done with them and you want to go out and start testing 427 00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:19,620 them and implementing them and see see um how how they do when they meet uh when they contact with 428 00:42:19,620 --> 00:42:24,260 the real world um if these are things that are owned by someone else in the organization say 429 00:42:24,260 --> 00:42:30,660 a chief product officer or um someone at the director level you want to take them back 430 00:42:30,660 --> 00:42:34,180 to that person and just make sure that you've understood them correctly 431 00:42:34,180 --> 00:42:40,740 now you need to get that validation at least internally um in case someone else owns these pieces and is 432 00:42:40,740 --> 00:42:48,420 thinking about them and and so so yeah it's and and and just to like kind of uh bullet point it out it 433 00:42:48,420 --> 00:42:54,600 seems like uh like you know so you got you got this matrix well maybe we'll find a uh a version we can 434 00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:58,540 put in the show notes but you've got like your the outcomes that you want and then as you're saying 435 00:42:58,540 --> 00:43:03,920 the metrics that you're going to use to measure it by and then and then essentially like the features 436 00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:08,780 the thing right and i and i think i think i think you know in the document i've been looking at like 437 00:43:08,780 --> 00:43:13,800 retail on e-commerce as we used to call it is always a good example because yeah everyone's a user of 438 00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:18,580 e-commerce so you can understand it and you know there's there's the typical i guess there's there's 439 00:43:18,580 --> 00:43:23,760 a couple things at least represented in the example you have right there's uh uh are in order to 440 00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:28,340 well ultimately i don't know if this is vision or strategy but it's like we would like people to give 441 00:43:28,340 --> 00:43:32,480 us more money in exchange for things that are they're buying for it from us right like that would 442 00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:39,160 be cool right yeah yeah i mean i guess you could have optimization things like profit of like we 443 00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:44,500 would we would like to uh we need to have robots who pack things because then we can eliminate the 444 00:43:44,500 --> 00:43:49,720 cost of humans so but anyways let's put that aside uh the internal operation stuff but like you know 445 00:43:49,720 --> 00:43:55,000 you could say so like uh we have a we think that if people like saw more reviews of stuff and got 446 00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:59,960 more material on our site they would buy stuff from us so like let's have videos and reviews or 447 00:43:59,960 --> 00:44:07,240 whatever so there's like that category of like you could almost call it like uh juicing the the retail 448 00:44:07,240 --> 00:44:12,400 experience of deciding to buy something and then there's the other one the other annual favorite is 449 00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:17,820 you know too many abandoned shopping carts whether that's like opportunities or whatever and and i think 450 00:44:17,820 --> 00:44:23,180 you know in in the in the um the process that you have like it makes a lot of sense that you 451 00:44:23,180 --> 00:44:28,200 would these are the things we want to get to and so like like how would we measure that and how 452 00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:32,080 would we do that and and like it seems like the other thing about lean like the way you're going 453 00:44:32,080 --> 00:44:37,460 over it that i think is a lot different than how most organizations go about this is like 454 00:44:37,460 --> 00:44:41,760 to put it in snarky terms like it's probably a good idea to have the people who are going to be 455 00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:46,840 implementing this in the room too to tell you if you're if you're full of crap or not right 456 00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:52,060 so that is the product team right that i mentioned that's the pm or po the engineers designers 457 00:44:52,060 --> 00:44:57,760 um and if we just talk about this specific piece and a specific example with the desired outcomes and 458 00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:03,960 what we're actually going to build to make those things real um that collaboration um 459 00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:09,080 that might be a collaboration with some leadership in your organization right where they say 460 00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:17,640 our business goals this year are to increase revenue right to to um you know decrease whatever it is 461 00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:23,060 uh important metric that used to be decreased and then it's up it should be up to the product team 462 00:45:23,060 --> 00:45:26,880 to say okay let us go and do some research and try to understand what's going on here 463 00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:33,660 um how might we sell more right um is it that people are abandoning their carts too much is it that they 464 00:45:33,660 --> 00:45:40,340 can't find the checkout button is it that our product photos are so crappy that no one feels compelled to 465 00:45:40,340 --> 00:45:47,000 buy our stuff right um and once the product team has identified what is going on what's what are the 466 00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:53,340 potential problems here um they should be the ones who come up with the solutions and test the solutions 467 00:45:53,340 --> 00:46:00,000 yeah yeah no i mean and there's also like to use like a nasim talabian thing right it's sort of like 468 00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:07,980 you want as many people of those to have skin in the game right to to yes to benefit and not that we 469 00:46:07,980 --> 00:46:13,500 pivotal people would like this but to benefit and suffer to have all the great human motivations 470 00:46:13,500 --> 00:46:18,260 to make sure they're doing things well versus the kind of throw it over the wall long-term planning 471 00:46:18,260 --> 00:46:23,200 that you would see where someone's just like we should enter latvia as a market see you later 472 00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:30,160 right and and not really have the uh the consequences of if that was a good idea that thus drives doing 473 00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:36,080 all of the work needed to uh ongoing make sure it's panning out absolutely and when you empower your 474 00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:42,260 product team to do that work um you're going to move faster because you have these people you have 475 00:46:42,260 --> 00:46:48,860 you know at the very least um the designers but also typically the product managers often also the 476 00:46:48,860 --> 00:46:53,900 engineers talking to the actual end users and customers right so you have those conversations 477 00:46:53,900 --> 00:47:01,620 happening much more often at a much bigger volume than if you um have you know really senior people 478 00:47:01,620 --> 00:47:06,540 in your company dictating what the features should be right so you have much shorter feedback loops 479 00:47:06,540 --> 00:47:10,280 between the people building the product and the people that the product is intended for 480 00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:15,200 and you also have um so you're going to have many more data points you're going to have many more 481 00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:18,800 conversations many more observations of these people that you're building for which means they're going 482 00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:23,300 to understand them better you're going to empathize with their problems much better and you're going 483 00:47:23,300 --> 00:47:28,160 to come up with much better solutions yeah well well before we wrap up is there any uh vital thing 484 00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:32,700 we're leaving out i mean we left out the whole backlog thing but that's probably a whole other discussion 485 00:47:32,700 --> 00:47:38,520 but but like in in getting to that point uh you know from everything we've talked about where you 486 00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:44,220 actually do have a backlog and you're like all right let's open up the crazy you know roboto slab 487 00:47:44,220 --> 00:47:48,500 green on black screen and start coding this thing right like is there anything like we that 488 00:47:48,740 --> 00:47:55,700 that we're missing i think so one of the things that i uh feel the most passionate about in terms of 489 00:47:55,700 --> 00:48:02,140 shifting the way that we plan from outputs to to outcomes right or from having these long feature 490 00:48:02,140 --> 00:48:07,580 lists that someone has come up with to to actually empowering the team to solve their problems and 491 00:48:07,580 --> 00:48:15,040 come up with their own solutions is the idea of employee happiness right so i think anyone who works in 492 00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:20,960 software is really motivated by having an impact and when you're given a thing to build with very little 493 00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:26,620 context without understanding the big picture that's not super exciting it's not super motivating it's not 494 00:48:26,620 --> 00:48:32,260 super engaging you sort of just churn out these features but you don't really know to what end 495 00:48:32,260 --> 00:48:44,960 right um and if you actually share that context with teams if you get if you if you allow um engineers even 496 00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:52,400 to think about who is the user what how can we how can we do something for them that makes them happy or 497 00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:58,500 makes their life easier you're gonna get so much more out of out of your people uh you're gonna build much 498 00:48:58,500 --> 00:49:04,440 better products and you're gonna have much more motivated teams right people who stay with you 499 00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:10,880 longer who do better work um and who much who are much happier yeah i think that's that's something 500 00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:18,780 that um a lot of companies sometimes forget about um that you have all this pent-up creativity um 501 00:49:18,780 --> 00:49:24,380 in your people uh that you can let loose if you just give them a little bit more trust and empower 502 00:49:24,380 --> 00:49:30,280 them a little bit more yeah this is another one of those areas of like uh corporate mysticism 503 00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:36,740 that i that i think recently is being demystified and and i mean just that in in in the sense of it's 504 00:49:36,740 --> 00:49:42,960 sort of like uh without without as you as you went through the supporting facts for it sort of like 505 00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:47,800 you should have your people be happy it's sort of like yes and i i should also eat a low calorie diet 506 00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:52,440 right like i mean also all sorts of things i can shit all over the place and see what happens but like 507 00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:59,680 uh it is like like trying to be empathetic towards the uh or you know you know hack hack something out 508 00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:04,880 with sort of an empathetic sort of thing with the senior managers it's like well even the most 509 00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:10,340 devilish of y'all is motivated by money right and so your happiness is derived by increasing the share 510 00:50:10,340 --> 00:50:15,180 price and so that's what motivates you right like and if you weren't motivated by that you kind of 511 00:50:15,180 --> 00:50:20,140 intuitively know that you would do a crappy job right so that's that's what you're motivated by 512 00:50:20,140 --> 00:50:25,720 so think about like your staff all the way down the chain like they need some motivation to be happy 513 00:50:25,720 --> 00:50:30,300 and do what they want or you get like a new me plant situation right and so like yep you should 514 00:50:30,300 --> 00:50:36,540 figure out like like and it couples with another thing that i think uh i don't know us wacky agile 515 00:50:36,540 --> 00:50:41,620 people are kind of always going on about is like uh you know humans are pretty expensive valuable 516 00:50:41,620 --> 00:50:47,560 resources and you probably manage your paperclip supply more closely than you manage your humans 517 00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:53,440 so like maybe you should think about how you're managing and optimizing the humans because there's much 518 00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:57,960 they're much more confusing and difficult things to manage than paperclips but like 519 00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:03,500 the rewards and the risks are a lot huger than just like making sure you're optimizing the amount 520 00:51:03,500 --> 00:51:09,560 of paper that you have in your printers and in the building yeah and and a lot of times big organizations 521 00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:15,540 um manage your people closer but not necessarily better than they manage their paperclips right 522 00:51:15,540 --> 00:51:20,520 right because they have a lot of oversight yeah you have all these management chains uh you have like 523 00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:24,260 you'll have a line manager just that is sitting and sort of watching you over your shoulder right 524 00:51:24,260 --> 00:51:30,820 um and that is not the best way to go about it yeah yeah well great well thanks for coming on this 525 00:51:30,820 --> 00:51:35,240 this is good it's uh it's good to you know normally we cover just sort of like the straight up like more 526 00:51:35,240 --> 00:51:39,780 locky and infrastructure software stuff but it's good every now and then to resurface and see what 527 00:51:39,780 --> 00:51:45,220 the eloys are up to in in the uh the more the top of the stack so that's that's helpful and like i was 528 00:51:45,220 --> 00:51:50,560 saying at the beginning like uh yeah i think i think i think at least you know not only in my work 529 00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:56,260 at pivotal but my ongoing sort of like figuring out how to do software better like uh this is the thing 530 00:51:56,260 --> 00:52:00,760 that hasn't really been figured out is like so then if we go back up to whatever it is those business 531 00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:07,080 strategy people do that seems to always become a buzzsaw that we get severely cut on like like it 532 00:52:07,080 --> 00:52:12,440 kind of it's limiting our ability to like make the world better with software uh because people as as 533 00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:16,140 you were talking about at the earlier people just like they sort of like brain fart on it it doesn't 534 00:52:16,140 --> 00:52:21,740 really make sense for them so and it doesn't have to be that way yeah yeah yeah no it turns out i mean 535 00:52:21,740 --> 00:52:27,020 this is a little bit of whichever bias this is but like you can engineer this like you can engineer 536 00:52:27,020 --> 00:52:33,400 anything else yep yeah yep which uh it would be fun to like figure out one day things you can't 537 00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:38,980 engineer but i don't know maybe there isn't anything you can't engineer so if people want to uh i don't 538 00:52:38,980 --> 00:52:43,460 know follow up with you like online or whatever you got a you got a twitter account or uh anything you 539 00:52:43,460 --> 00:52:49,180 want to throw out there i do uh i am on the twitter uh my handle is j biltauska 540 00:52:49,180 --> 00:52:54,380 all right well i'll put that in the show notes uh you know you can probably search around for it and 541 00:52:54,380 --> 00:52:58,400 find it but uh but thanks again and with that this has been another episode of Pivotal Conversations 542 00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:03,360 if you want to get the most recent episodes the most quickly with the fancy little flash player and 543 00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:07,400 everything and see past ones and things like that you can go to soundcloud.com slash pivotal 544 00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:13,100 conversations and unlike this week when i've been too busy usually every thursday we formally post 545 00:53:13,100 --> 00:53:18,400 some show notes over at pivotal.io slash podcast and with that we'll see everyone next time bye 546 00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:18,680 Bye-bye.