Speedback and The Recommit with Bryon Kroger

Episode 128 · 22:50 · SRT · archive.org · all Tanzu Talk

Hey, listeners, thanks for tuning in to another episode of Pivotal Conversations. This week, we talked to Brian Kroger, founder of Kessel Run, an effort inside the U.S. Air Force to revolutionize the way the Air Force builds software. Now, the thing that was really the theme of this episode was the recommit. We often hear about how folks on their digital transformation journeys, or whatever you want to call it, how getting that buy-in is so important up front and how they get started. But we don't always hear about what happens when the project has already started and a recommit is required. All right, here we are at CF Summit, Philadelphia. I'm with Captain Brian Kroger of Kessel Run fame. And so one of the questions that, you know, some of my observations from the event here have been some interesting kind of tactics that I'm seeing emerge. A couple of years ago, we had this sort of notion of the frozen middle start to kind of come out in some of our conversations. And just to unpack that quickly, that's where, okay, senior leadership is sort of bought in at a high level of like, we need to do things differently. We need to digitally transform, whatever you want to call it. At the ground level, developers are basically in revolt because they can't get the systems that they want to use, and they can't deploy fast enough, and everything is very painful for them. But then you have this group that's sort of between them, that's where things tend to get stuck. And I have a lot of empathy for those people because I'm in the middle of management myself. So I know what it's like where you're sort of, you're a player coach, you're, you still have to get work done, but you also have to manage teams and deal with reports and all that fun stuff. So that frozen middle is in a tough, tough spot. But here at this conference, there were some interesting things that, you know, the West

Corp talk highlighted this notion of recommitting and like making sure to empower those senior leaders with the evidence that they need to recommit. So this is something that as a, as someone who's kind of like in a similar role, I thought that you might have some interesting perspectives on to continue to unpack and maybe some other tactics to share that you found in terms of, you know, navigating that, the, that middle layer between, you know, the ground level execution and the senior leadership who's, you know, come to sometimes sort of, you know, seagulling in and out of the, of the situation. Yeah. So I think the first thing I like to do here is I want to change the narrative a little bit. I don't love calling it the frozen middle. And we, we, we have very hierarchical organizations, none more so than mine. And oftentimes those people, the resistors exist in the middle of that hierarchy. And I think, you know, that's where the term comes from, but in reality, I found that those people exist all over. They exist lateral to me. They exist below me. And even in some of the senior leadership. And so I really like, I reread the book recently. I hadn't read it in a long time, Crossing the Chasm. And I like to think of that, you know, we think about that in terms of technology adoption, but there's also a way to think about that in terms of cultural adoption. And that what you're seeing, that resistance that you're seeing to this new culture that we're trying to bring about in digital transformation is you're getting to the point of the chasm and you've got these early and late majority adopters that are just across the chasm. They have a different level. In fact, more in the book, he talks about you shouldn't try to market to more than one group at once and that you should only market to that next group, that next set of adopters when you've met their expectations. And it's really important to understand what their expectations are, right?

So for them to press the I believe button requires a very different set of expectations than some of your pioneers and your early adopters. And I think it's really important to remember that and not try to thaw the frozen middle so much as understand what expectations they have before they're going to push the I believe button and go meet those expectations and don't bother them or have them bother you while you're going about that process. I think it's unfair to both the change agent to expect them to thaw that person without having proven the things that need to be proven for that person to believe, nor is it fair for that person to press the I believe button before their expectations have been met. And I think we set up this whole weird dynamic where we force one side or the other to do unrealistic things. And like an example of that is, you know, like I can take a pioneering individual and put them on one product team and they can believe that, you know, after being on one product team and building one app that you can build a whole system of systems this way. We haven't even done our first app integration, but they believe, right? Okay. But then some of these people that we might refer to as the frozen middle, they want to see four or five, six applications integrated in prod, like doing some like system level workflow before they can really press the I believe button that we can now turn that into a system of systems. And then there's some really late adopters that until the whole thing's built, they're just not going to believe. And we waste a lot of time, effort, resources, I believe, trying to convince people too early. How does that play out in terms of, you know, maybe can you map this a little bit to the experience that you've had? But if you were to go back and look at your efforts, you know, where did you actually do that well in terms of, hey, you know, not waste the resources trying to convince the people who just really weren't going to be convinced at that time? And where did maybe you kind of like looking back and like, oh yeah, we probably shouldn't

have done it that way. Yeah. One area where we nailed this is, and this was a senior leader that we found, but I would say among her peers, not everybody was in agreement. Lauren Knausenberger, who signed our continuous authority to operate. She saw the early work that we did. Some people think that we just magically jumped to this continuous authority to operate. We started out, you know, the first time around, it took us two months, which was a huge change, right? It used to take 13 months. We got it down to four weeks. We got it down to two weeks. We got it down to one week. And that's when she came on board and she saw what we had done, saw that progress and really believed that we had met all of the conditions to be able to have continuous authority to operate. And so that's one area where we got it right. I think I could name a bunch where we got it wrong. Very early on, the budgets one comes up. There were a lot of conversations about budgets and how do you prove that you're producing, you're giving the ROI to go back and ask for more money. It's a theme at every one of these conferences. We get our budgets from Congress. That's quite a bureaucratic process at times. And I think very early on, we were trying to convince them not only of a whole new way of doing software development, but a whole new way of doing budgeting and cost estimating. And we still hadn't really proved anything. At least that's of note to them, right? They deal with billions and billions of dollars. And, you know, even the tanker planner story, as great as that was, it didn't really sell the message we needed to sell. And so it wasn't until very recently that we started to make a lot more headway. And, hey, there's a new way to contract, to think about the way that we cost model these efforts. So two very different scenarios. We've gotten it wrong more often than right, unfortunately.

I think that until recently, it wasn't something that I really realized. And something else that you mentioned that I think is really important, you talk about getting the senior leader buy-in, but I think sometimes the story gets recast. So as soon as these things get successful, all the people that were detractors are all of a sudden like the heroes of the story, which is OK. I love to let those people take credit if it means they're going to be our champions. But it does this unfortunate thing for all of the other innovators and change agents that are out there in that the story gets retold as, you know, a senior leader comes down and like they're the change agent. They start this thing. They sponsor it. You know, they get all the barriers out of the way, some of which is true. But the real truth is almost all these efforts that I've seen that are successful are truly grassroots with leadership sponsors and servant leaders. Usually they have really great champions that are truly servant leaders. And when we tell the story otherwise, everybody else is sitting around waiting for their sponsor to tell them, yes, you can go do this. Here's all the resources. And I'm going to get the barriers out of the way instead of just, you know, like seizing the day and going and doing the thing yourself. Yeah. Yeah, I think that that's, that is another theme that I've seen where both from a leadership message of like, you need to get out of the way of your people and empower them to come to you with the ideas that they're, they're ready to go do, not just go off into a cave or wherever you do your strategic planning. Cave seems like a really, like maybe with a, you know, like an evil layer in it or something. Anyways, you go in your cave for like, you know, two weeks or three months or whatever, however long it takes to come up with this big plan while everyone is sort of like eagerly waiting outside for you to drop this amazing PowerPoint on them. And how it's like, you know, that, that whole model needs to change just, you know, almost

anywhere as like, well, the ideas should be bubbling up and, you know, to your point, the servant leaders, uh, have figured that out and are really more just like making sure that those ideas happen and that they have the air cover to course correct, uh, when things don't go exactly according to the initial plan. Yeah. And your, your senior leadership is going to be on that bell curve of adoption as well. So if you're really fortunate, you get the one that's like the pioneer on the far left side of that, um, that's willing to take on any crazy idea. But if you think that you need the leader to start the effort and then that leader is somebody that's like a, like early majority adopter, uh, you're going to have a really hard time getting your project sponsored to get kicked off. So I think, um, it's really important to understand where everybody in your organization falls on that adoption cycle in terms of culture and what you're going to have to prove because it might be the case. Cause this was the case with Kessel Run, right? We didn't get, um, it wasn't a go do. It wasn't, uh, there wasn't even a lot of buy-in in the early days and that didn't come until we proved some things, right? So it might be the case that you have to go out on your own completely grassroots, you know, side hustle project, uh, prove some things and then you'll get your leadership buy-in. The leadership buy-in has to come at some point. There's no doubt about it, but you, you shouldn't expect that it's going to come at the start of your project or before you start. Um, you might have to bootstrap it. So like, what about, what do you think about that notion of the kind of the recommit that needs to happen, right? Where we have intentions and we're constantly sort of setting these intentions, uh, but we're not like, that's different from a real commitment. Commitment is what you're actually doing, um, as opposed to what you plan to do.

So, uh, you know, once you get an initial commitment and that initial, like you've got the buy-in and you've been side hustling to get to even just that point, how often, like, do you see that where it's like, then things drift and you've, you've got to kind of, you know, you're not, you're not starting from the same position you were before, like when it was a complete side hustle, but you still have to be prepared to sort of get that recommitment. What are the things that trigger those moments for recommitment and, um, you know, what do you see in terms of when they happen or when they don't, like, you know, what, what sort of things help that process? Yeah, we, we have extensive reporting requirements and, uh, we have quarterly reporting that we have to do up to senior leadership and we use that as a forum for, um, also saying what we learned this quarter and, uh, what we still need to move forward in the next quarter to meet our goals. So I think the first thing is really having buy-in on what the shared outcomes are that the senior, senior leadership wants. I think sometimes I've seen it happen one way or the other, where it's either what senior leadership wants or what the innovation team wants, uh, versus mutual, uh, mutually agreed two objectives, but once you have those objectives, you can't be scared to lay out, hey, we, we tried to do all of these things last quarter. Uh, here's our learnings. Sometimes we did the wrong things. Sometimes things got in our way. Here's our blockers. Uh, and here's what we need to move forward. And, uh, or like, hey, we need to pivot entirely. Um, so we internally, we, we don't do this with senior leadership yet. At least we don't call the forum this and I don't know if we ever will, but we use growth boards internally as a means to do this, uh, where it's not just the, necessarily the product team coming and reporting, uh, what they've done in the last quarter or it's not an accountability

mechanism. It's a two way conversation, uh, for how we're meeting our objectives for the, for the year. So recommitting has to happen there. And I have seen, um, like one issue that we really struggled with was hiring and talent management. So we can't just go hire people. Right. Um, we have tons and tons of restrictions on that. And we were, we were having trouble getting the billets in place and then getting people to fill those. And, uh, we brought that up to very, very senior leadership, Dr. Rober. So he is like the senior acquisition executive for all air force. Um, and he was, uh, very frequently, I would say monthly, maybe even more often than that checking in, uh, to see if there was movement. Right. So you talk about that frozen middle, everybody between us and him, uh, is, he just asked the question, like, Hey, how's the, how's the hiring coming? Right. And it just forced a complete shift. Um, but that was something we had to ask. And it was, uh, I think sometimes people are scared to ask those things. And I found that people like Dr. Roper, like more than willing, all too willing to, to jump in and get their hands dirty with some of those things. So that kind of asking for like, you know, this, Hey, keep us honest. Like we're, we're, we're raising this as a concern and an area that we're challenged with, not like I'm raising this to you cause I want you to go fix it. I'm raising it to you to put it on your radar. And now I want you to kind of keep me honest by checking in on it. But the process of doing that effectively maybe helps, uh, unblock some things. Absolutely. Okay. That's, um, yeah, I think that that's kind of an interesting, uh, model to be like asked to be kept honest in a way. Um, so, and the, the growth boards, like how often you may be mentioned and I would just catch it in my notes, but how often is that happening?

Uh, quarterly. Okay. And we do them at various levels. And I will say we weren't as disciplined about doing them at the higher levels. These things like growth boards and OKRs, uh, they sound really nice. They're easy to put into PowerPoint decks, the discipline around them and making them good and making them work for you is really hard. Yeah. So I would say our first two quarters of OKRs were abysmal. Our growth boards, uh, were haphazard at best. Um, and I would say last quarter, um, is when we really got into the swing of things and started using them effectively where we have all of the product teams meeting with their, uh, portfolio managers on a quarterly basis. And then now we have this quarter coming up, we're getting ready to have all of the portfolio managers meet at that higher level, uh, to report up to the line of business. And so that process, again, that, that is a perfect, perfect forum. It's kind of like feedback, you know, we say like, oh yeah, feedback culture, but instead you actually, until you get into the habit of doing it and you have a forum for it, it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen magically. There's all sorts of barriers to it. Um, so I always like to use things like speed back where you can get high volume and high frequency, uh, with these, it's really difficult. Um, so just being super disciplined, even the first, I would say the first quarter, they won't seem valuable to you. You'll have meetings and they seem like they're going nowhere. The OKRs, you look at them and you kind of groan. You're like, I don't know. Those don't seem actionable. And all I can say is stick it out. Um, every, everything I've read about OKRs, whole books written about how you'll get it wrong your first three or four times. Um, I feel pretty good cause we got it on our third try. So, uh, that's pretty good, but sticking those things out and being disciplined about them gives you the forum, right? You don't want it to be that when you have a problem, then you go ask, you always want

to have a forum where that's just a normal thing. It's the, it's the normal you ask for a recommit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it, it sounds like a retro, right. In a lot of ways where, you know, teams might be having a retro on a weekly basis and you normalize the process of getting, airing out the kind of the, the not so good stuff. Um, and so, you know, this seems like kind of a similar equivalent at just like a different sort of level of, uh, the organization, different sort of, um, objective, but yeah, you're normalizing the process of keeping each other honest and making sure that you're checking in on what you've learned. Um, I like this kind of tree of like, you know, what you, what you've learned, what you need and do you need to pivot? And like, if you can answer those three questions collectively, um, you know, or be able to share that with that group, then you've got something to kind of have those conversations around. So, okay. Well, this has been enlightening and a very fun discussion. Um, any, any other thoughts you want to share on the topic or, or, you know, just learnings and observations from the conference? No, I, the biggest theme that I saw come out over and over again, and it's something we're still struggling with is the, the platform as a product discussion. And it's interesting that I, this, the conversation has been the same for two years and it seems like, uh, it's a battle everybody's still struggling through. Um, I had a really interesting speaker come to Kessel Run. Uh, he's, uh, he was the Amazon Black Friday guru, right? So like Amazon was always crashing on Black Friday and after he showed up and it didn't crash again. So that's his claim to fame. But he, uh, he said this thing that really struck me. He said, there was an in-house service that Amazon offered. Um, but I used Akamai instead and it was big scandal, right? Like everybody's like, how can you do that? How are you not using the Amazon service? And he said, Akamai is better.

Like, it's just a fact. If you want my business, you have to earn it. You don't get just to have my business because you have an Amazon label. And I think that all of these teams, um, it's, it's really hard. It's easy to say that it's hard. I think for the platform teams, uh, the, there's so much technical work that has to be done. What I'm seeing missing is a lot of the product management role that would typically be involved in, in the product design roles that would help market the platform to the customer. So not, not a pivotal per se, but, uh, like at all, with all the clients as they're building out their platforms is there's not really a service offering. That's like, Hey, how do you make your platform a product and market it to your business? It's just kind of assumed that since the business is investing in this thing, that people are going to use it. And that's not the case with any customer I've seen to date. So it's a, it's something that we're still struggling through. And, um, you run into these weird things where people, if they don't start to think about the platform as a product, they start to build platform for platform sake. Right. And it becomes very technology driven discussion instead of a user driven discussion. And, uh, yeah. So that was just interesting to me that, um, it's a theme that keeps popping up. I don't know if I have a solution. I'm just admiring the problem at this point, but, uh, I like to throw it out there as it's something we struggle with too. And I feel like people should be more open and honest about it. And, um, as of, as in doing that, hopefully people come out of the woodwork with solutions to, to this problem. Yeah. I, and I think there's, you know, the, that notion that you touched on of basically even as an internal, um, consumer, you like your message to these teams is like, you got to earn my business, right. Or I'm going to take my business somewhere else. Cause that's the visceral when you are actually in say the software business or you're, you're

just in the business world, you have to live that day in and day out. And like every day you're getting tested for like, you know, is the cash register ringing or not. Um, and so, yeah, but if you're offering this kind of internal service, but you don't necessarily think of it that way, you, um, yeah, you can get relaxed in your incumbency. Um, okay, well, great. That's, uh, that's a very fun topic. Um, near and dear to my heart as well. So thank you for joining us and, uh, look forward to talking to you more and captain and beyond. Thank you.

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