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Productivity

The Key

January 20, 2022
Article, Culture change, Organisational effectiveness, Productivity, Quintessence, Systems thinking
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The Key

The key to quintessential effectiveness resides in looking at organisations as systems. I.e. systems thinking. And nobody is up for that.

Put another way, improving the performance of silos in isolation only makes the overall performance of the organisation worse.

Not Up For Systems Thinking

Owners and proxy owners (executives) aren’t up for it because of the effort they assume will be required to convert all those not up for it, to being up for it.

Managers aren’t up for it (in those rare cases when they’re actually aware of the idea) because they assume it threatens their wellbeing and their control over their local fiefdoms (silos).

Consultants aren’t up for it because:

  • a) They assume their customers (i.e. managers, see above) won’t like it.
  • b) They don’t understand it.

Coaches aren’t up for it because their remit does not extent to the organisation, being rooted in the performance of individuals (and vey occasionally, teams).

And employees aren’t up for it because:

  • a) They don’t give a damn (disengaged).
  • b) They don’t see the success of the organisation as having anything to do with them.

What Does It Mean to Look At Organisations As Systems?

[I’ll complete this section if there’s any demand]

Where Do The Benefits Come From?

[I’ll complete this section if there’s any demand]

– Bob

Quickie: Am I the Only One?

January 19, 2022
Business, Capability development, Improvement, Learning, Organisational effectiveness, Productivity, Quintessence, Rightshifting
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Am I the only person in the world interested in improving the effectiveness of organisations? In making organisations better places to work, better places to play, better places to learn? Is it just me? Most days it seems like it is.

The Way Forward

January 16, 2022
Antimatter principle, Article, Business, Capability development, Culture change, Dialogue, Improvement, Listening, Management, Memeology, Needs, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Productivity, Quintessence
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The Way Forward

By way of a counterpoint to my previous post “What’s Holding Us Back“, I’m interested in the way forward for the software industry, businesses, and society in general.

It’s become delightfully obvious to me that a whole raft of helpful assumptions and beliefs constitute that way forward.

In my most recent books (Memeology, Quintessence) I detail these helpful assumptions and beliefs at length, and again in keeping with my preference for short blog posts, I’ll just summarise, here…

Here’s some of the major assumptions and beliefs helpful to enabling organisations better achieve success:

  • Generalising specialists form the core of quintessential organisations (see e.g. Paint Drip People).
  • Continual small changes in assumptions and beliefs (kaizen), with occasional larger step changes (Kaikaku) are the way to effect improvements.
  • Change is desirable, best left to serendipity, and better seen in small daily increments.
  • Dialogue is at the core of improvements, in relationships and the way the work works, both.
  • Everyone’s needs matter (at least for all the Folks That Matter). See also: the Antimatter Principle.
  • Clarity and honesty on what constitutes “success” is the only way to align folks and see everyone’s real needs are being attended to.
  • Culture is the visible by-product of the invisible set of prevailing assumptions and beliefs, and is amenable to intentional change through eg Organisational Psychotherapy (be that facilitated or via self-help).
  • There are many possible organisational structures other than hierarchy. They have all be tried at one time or another. Most have proven more successful that hierarchy.
  • Change always requires revisions to existing policies and rules. See: Innovation ALWAYS Demands We Change the Rules.
  • Talent is unnecessary when we have thriving relationships, and a focus on the way the work works.
  • Interpersonal relationships are core to success.
  • Interesting work and the prospect of community, meaning, and other “soft” elements trumps high pay as a motivator and attractant, every time.
  • Productivity ensues from optimising the way the work works, which in turn requires a focus on collective assumptions and beliefs.
  • Efficiency is a distracting red herring, effectiveness is the path to productivity and success.
  • Business problems are almost never the fault of certain individuals.
  • Breaking the organisation into parts and managing these parts separately is a recipe for significant sub-optimisation and shortfalls in success.
  • In collaborative knowledge work, intrinsic motivation is much more powerful than extrinsic motivation. The latter serves as a demotivator.
  • The social dynamic and listening are the only means to effect changes in people’s behaviours.

…and so on, and so on. 

All the above assumptions have been proven time and again through decades of research. By listening, experimenting and being interested in the science and outliers, our ignorance can be assuaged and enlightened.

– Bob

Quickie: Inconvenient Truth

January 10, 2022
Culture change, Flow•gnosis, Improvement, Management, Memeology, Product development, Productivity, Quickies, Quintessence, Software development
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It’s the system (the way the work works) that determines circa 95% of an individual’s performance in their job.

Are you still “managing the 5%” (through training, coaching, motivation, appraisals, etc.)?

#Deming

We Can All Be Doing So Much Better

January 2, 2022
Capability development, Collaboration, Culture change, Improvement, Management, Marshall Model, Memeology, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Productivity, Quintessence, Rightshifting
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We Can All Be Doing So Much Better

Looking on the bright side for 2022, there’s no real blockers to us and our organisations doing so much better in 2022.

And all it takes is reflecting upon, and surfacing, our collective and individual assumptions and beliefs.

Rightshifting

The Rightshifting chart illustrates the awesome scope for “better” in our organisations:

Most organisations cluster around an effectiveness of “1”, whereas a simple shift in our assumptions and beliefs about the world of collaborative knowledge work could take us to becoming “3”, “4” or even “5” times more effective. That sounds like “better”, to me.

Quintessential Organisations

In my recent book “Quintessence“, I describe what organisations to the right of “4”, on the above chart, look like, feel like and work like.

– Bob

Fun Times at Familiar

November 23, 2021
Article, Community, Culture change, Familiar, Fellowship, Learning, Organisational effectiveness, Product development, Productivity, Quality, Software development, Teambuilding
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Fun Times at Familiar

I’m minded to write something positive for a change (!) so I thought I might share how much fun a quintessential development organisation can be to work with. (I say work with, because we had almost no power structures, no managers, no bosses, and everyone was a colleague, a fellow.)

Familiar was a software house and consultancy, based near Reading UK (some forty miles west of London), which I started and led circa 1996-2000.

The years at Familiar was, for many of us, enormous fun. We were doing great things for our clients, bonding as a group, and learning loads about how to become a Quintessential organisation. The social side was just as much fun as the business side. Indistinguishable, really. We placed a lot of emphasis on the social aspects of the organisation:

  • Company-funded weekends away in plush country hotels – for the folks in the company along with their significant others.
  • Regular dIning out as a group, on the company’s expenses. 
  • Collaborative sessions (sprint planning and the like) in each others’ homes.
  • Other group social events (e.g. exhibitions).
  • An office configured for socialising – and learning – as much as for work (lounge, sofas, library, books, kitchen, etc.).

This was all made possible by the success we had commercially – a virtuous circle where fun led to great work for clients led to high margins led to funds for more fun… 

It was the kind of win-win-win (clients, us, suppliers) that quintessential organisations regard as normal.

If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them.

– Bob

The Organisational Psychotherapy Standup

November 15, 2021
Agile, Article, Coaching, Dialogue, Feedback, Memeology, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Productivity, Quintessence, Software development, Teambuilding
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The Organisational Psychotherapy Standup

Daily stand-ups rapidly become tedious to the point of irrelevance. They rarely address core issues, participants generally preferring to gloss over issues so they can get back to “the real work”, e.g. coding, as soon as possible each morning.

Here’s how the Scrum Institute describes the Daily Scrum (Standup):

The Daily Scrum Meeting is a maximum of 15 minutes. These meetings take place every working day at the same time in the same place.

It’s best to conduct Daily Scrum Meetings with direct access to the Sprint Backlog and Sprint Burndown Chart. So the Scrum Team can direct the Daily Scrum Meeting based on the facts and progress which are visible to everyone in the team.

Daily Scrum Meeting aims to support the self-organization of the Scrum Team and identify impediments systematically.

All members of the Scrum Team, the Scrum Master and the Scrum Product Owner need to join Daily Scrums. Other stakeholders can also join these meetings, but only as a view-only audience.

Daily Scrum Meetings are structured in the following way. Every member of the Scrum Team answers three questions.

Question #1: What activities have I performed since the last Daily Scrum Meeting?

Question #2: What activities am I planning to perform until the next Daily Scrum Meeting? What is my action plan?

Question #3: Did I encounter or am I expecting any impediment which may slow down or block the progress of my work?

Impediments

Q: What are the biggest impediments to a team’s progress?

A: The collective assumptions and beliefs of the organisation as a whole (and, marginally, of the team itself).

How often are these impediments discussed or even surfaced at the Daily Scrum/standup? Almost never. Or never.

How much do they impact the progress of the team? Lots. Really, lots.

So, for Question #3 (above), who’s going to raise the organisation’s – and team’s – collective assumptions and beliefs impeding or blocking the team’s progress? And who’s going to address these impediments/blockers on behalf of the team?

– Bob

Further Reading

Marshall, R. W. (2018). Hearts over Diamonds: Serving Business and Society Through Organisational Psychotherapy. Falling Blossoms (LeanPub)

Marshall, R. W. (2021). Memeology: Surfacing and Reflecting On The Organisation’s Collective Assumptions And Beliefs. Falling Blossoms (LeanPub)

Marshall, R. W. (2021). Quintessence: An Acme for Highly Effective Software Development Organisations. Falling Blossoms (LeanPub)

The Organisational Psychotherapy Retrospective

November 12, 2021
Article, Culture change, Dialogue, Improvement, Memeology, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Product development, Productivity, Software development
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The Organisational Psychotherapy Retrospective

Are you bored with mundane retrospectives? I know I am. And so are the teams I work with.

Scrum Retrospectives

By way of example, let’s take a quick look at the Scrum version of retrospectives.

Scrum describes Sprint Retrospectives thusly:

The purpose of the Sprint Retrospective is to plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness.

The Scrum Team inspects how the last Sprint went with regards to individuals, interactions, processes, tools, and their Definition of Done. Inspected elements often vary with the domain of work. Assumptions that led them astray are identified and their origins explored. The Scrum Team discusses what went well during the Sprint, what problems it encountered, and how those problems were (or were not) solved.

The Scrum Team identifies the most helpful changes to improve its effectiveness. The most impactful improvements are addressed as soon as possible. They may even be added to the Sprint Backlog for the next Sprint.

…

During the Sprint Retrospective, the team discusses:

      • What went well in the Sprint?
      • What could be improved?
      • What will we commit to improve in the next Sprint?

Even thought the above description mentions assumptions, the bullet list makes no such provision. And I’ve never seen an IRL retrospective that raised the question of assumptions.

A New Hope

So here’s a new kind of retrospective you might like to experiment with – the OP Retrospective.

The OP Retrospective

The concept – and existence – of the Collective Mindset (a.k.a. Organisational Psyche) is foundational to Organisational Psychotherapy. It is the thing with which every OP therapist interacts.

Organisation Psychotherapy asserts that culture is no more, and no less, than a read-only manifestation of an organisation’s collective mindset – of its collective assumptions and beliefs. Read-only because culture cannot be manipulated directed, but only via changes to those underlying collective assumptions and beliefs.

Are development teams affected by the organisation’s culture? By their own team culture? By the organisation’s collective assumptions and beliefs? By their own team-local assumptions and beliefs? Are they in a position to shift either?

I’’d say “Yes”.

Benefits

Given the influence of collective assumptions and beliefs on communication, productivity, teamwork, joy in work, and a host of other individual, team, and organisational concerns, shifting assumptions can lead the team to a more effective place.

Means

But by what means? There’s no specific ceremony in e.g. Scrum to surface and reflect on collective assumptions and beliefs (culture). Maybe our retrospectives can, from time to time, serve this purpose?

If we wanted to use a retrospective (or a part of one) to explore cultural issues, how might we go about that?

I’d suggest my self-help Organisational Psychotherapy book “Memeology” might be one place to start. It’s stuffed full of questions that a team or group can ask themselves to explore cultural assumptions.

Here’s one example meme (meme #15, “Who Matters” – excerpted from the free sample version of the book:

15. Who Matters

Suggested Preamble

Senior managers, stakeholders, team members, the Big Team, customers, users – call them what you will, they’re the people that we’re doing the work for. They’re the people to whom we deliver the fruits of our efforts. They’re the people whose reactions – and emotional responses – decide the success or failure of our endeavours. They’re the people whose needs matter to us.

By way of example, here’s a partial list of the groups and individuals that are candidates for inclusion on a list of who matters:

  • Your organisation’s senior managers and executives (“the higher-ups”).
  • Your organisation’s Core Group.
  • Your immediate manager a.k.a. “boss”.
  • Your project manager (for folks working in project teams or on a project).
  • Your product owner or manager (for folks working in product teams or on a product).
  • Your development team (the team in which you are a member).
  • Other development teams.
  • Operations people (the folks that keep your organisation’s websites, production servers, etc., up and running).
  • The Programme Management Office (PMO – if your organisation has such a thing).
  • Testers (when separate from the development teams).
  • The Process Group (the folks who stipulate how the work should work, or who support teams in their ownership of the way the work work – when separate from the development teams).
  • Quality Assurance (QA) folks (when present).
  • Your business sponsor(s) (internal budget holder, etc.)
  • Other people across your organisation.
  • Your (end) customer(s) (and their purchasing or procurement departments).
  • Commercial partners.
  • Regulators.
  • Wider society.
  • The planet (Gaia).
Suggested Opening Question

Who matters?

Suggested Follow-on Questions

How do we presently go about deciding who matters (and who doesn’t)?

How well (or poorly) does our approach to deciding who matters serve us?

How often do we fail to focus on key groups?

Can we safely exclude some people and / or groups from consideration?

Suggested Wrapping Up

What have we learned or come to realise, maybe for the first time, in our conversation here today on “who matters”?

How far apart or together are we now on the subject of who matters? Has airing the subject eased our concerns?

Is it time for action on who matters? And if so, how might we go about setting some action(s) in train?

Further Reading

Kleiner, A. (2003). Who Really Matters. Currency.

– Bob

 

 

Quickie: Dave

November 6, 2021
Community, Productivity, Quickies, Software development
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Dave the VP of Sales strolled into the development department. 

“Wow. It’s as quiet as the grave in here!” He announced to the room in his loudest look-at-me-I’m-a-salesman voice. 

“Don’t you people ever let your hair down and get chatty?”

All the developers looked at him with quiet contempt.

He laughed, blithely oblivious to their stink eyes.

He strolled across the floor and guffawed again before flouncing out of the room and into the research VP’s office. The door closed behind him. The room sighed, and got back to the important work, having lost 400 minutes of work between them in under one.

“Jerk” was their considered opinion.