After spending the last couple of days in a minor existential crisis around the status quo of what I do (“Agile is a curse word now!”) I’m spending my Saturday morning while my wife trains for the marathon having coffee and trying to figure out a change roadmap for my $employer.
How might you become a product-driven organization in a world where SAFe is seen as sometimes too radical?
There’s a lot to unpack in that, and I’m going to unpack it here. Sorry for the early-morning braindump, but it’s what happens when I’m a pot of coffee into the morning and left to myself.
When I’m talking about “product-driven” I’m talking much closer to the SVPG model of strong product leadership and management, and figuring out how to help coach people into creating a product vision and strategy over managing projects.
1/🧵
When I say that SAFe is sometimes seen as too radical, I mean that there are large parts of an organization where product centricity is not just unsupported, but working at odds with what’s seen as necessary project accounting for $government stakeholders.
2/🧵
And when I’m thinking of how to help, it’s as a change agent and coach for an organization that’s still building up its internal System of Work ownership competencies.
Which brings up one of my core beliefs about organizational change and the work I do, whether as an external consultant or internal consultant.
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There are volumes written about the skills and competencies needed to be a Product Leader; I’ve been re-reading Marty Cagan’s EMPOWERED, because it’s such a well-defined set for aspiring Product Leaders in a Product organization.
Similarly, there are lots of works around how to be a strong Engineering leader. I’ve been a fan of Michael Lopp ( @rands ) for years and years, and his practical experience is something I share weekly with people I’m trying to help.
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I feel like my role when coaching an organization is twofold: first, to help define a better set of system of work outcomes, and work with leaders to move their organization in that direction.
Second and probably more importantly is to help the organization build the core competencies of System of Work Product Leadership, so that the organization doesn’t need me any more.
5/🧵
I firmly believe that regardless of what you call it - a System of Work, the other OS in a “Dual Operating System” model - there exists a Product metaphor for the ways people work together in Teams, that Teams work together as systems of delivery, and that those systems deliver solutions to delight customers.
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If there’s a Product, and that Product doesn’t have strong vision and leadership, and that Product team doesn’t have strong skills and competencies to understand their customers (the people in the system of work), to identify customer pain points, and then bring together people to solve them, then none of the work I do survives when I’m gone.
Here, when I say “I’m gone” I mean the people brought in to help with the immediate problem, and get to a temporarily better state of work.
7/🧵
There aren’t deep competencies in most organizations, I’ve found, around understanding how companies work - organizational design, systems thinking, leading and growing people, supporting and maintaining high-performing teams with psychological safety.
So much of the work that others in the role of “Agile Coach” has been around implementing a set of tactical changes - we’ve been an organizational operating system feature factory, not a Product Team.
8/🧵
Maybe someday this might turn into a book, all of these thoughts in my head.
For now, I’m focusing on how to implement an idea, learn from doing, and get better daily. And also, juggling that with six kids - four in college - and going back to college myself.
But there’s something important here, I think, right on the edge of my vision. I just want to capture some of it now, and appreciate you reading along.
/Fin.
A closing 🪡 thought:
I fully realize that there are a lot of the pieces and parts of Systems Thinking and organizational systems of work, change leadership and Product mindset out there in the world. And, also realize that there’s quite possibly exactly what I’m looking for out there, and could even refute my thoughts as crazy.
I’m hoping my next few years of learning and knowledge will either uncover it, or afford me the language to synthesize all of it into something practical. 🤞🎓
Braz