The Discomfort of Agility

Change is about getting out of your comfort zone

Today’s Crafting Tech Teams issue is about Comfort Zones. I had a conversation with other tech writers this morning on why we write? Why do we invest so much effort into creating content?

Sure, it’s good marketing and authority building. But ultimately–why? It turns out it’s about that discomfort of having our ideas out in the open. To be challenged. To be chiseled away at. And at the end of the frustration tunnel—to learn from the whole experience.

The Team Always Survives—It’s not personal

I had the good fortune of being part of a tech team that survived—and remained together—after several startup failures. Our roles shifted, industries changed. But we retained our experience and the knowledge that we created together.

This isn’t a rare phenomenon. Learning goes hand in hand with flow and frustration. And there’s no better way to grow than to surround yourself with a group of people that you can learn from and grow with. A group of individuals who guarantee a certain level of safety for you to be frustrated without severely interrupting your flow or micro-managing you.

This is what builds trust.

You want the same in your team?

Follow Asfand’s advice

Enabling the team to explore and refine bad ideas and course correct is what turns them into Great ones!

Bad Ideas, when challenged, become Great

Ideas will be challenged. Good ones. Bad ones. Silly ones. Estimates will be challenged. Roadmaps. Architecture diagrams. Testing decisions. Naming.

Yesterday we had a glimpse into the tactical side of Continuous Refactoring:

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Today, we are exploring the product side. This is at the core of Tactical Agility: refine and slice the features of your product.

You don’t have as much time as you think.

You don’t have as much money as you think.

You don’t have as much knowledge as you think.

The purpose of setting deadlines isn’t to push people to work harder. Deadlines are to ensure we are committed towards what this milestone Is and What It Isn’t. A commitment towards aggressive scope-cutting. No cruft. No wish lists. Necessary, revenue-generated features. Features that make a mark on the value streams your company provides.

Bad ideas remain bad ideas if you follow the original plan. Enabling the team to explore it, refine it and course correct is what turns Bad ideas into Great ones! I’m using the word enable deliberately here. Often we have leaders try to setup goals, incentives, measurements, KPIs, trainings. Only for us to get in the way in the end.

Ideas that Survive Signal Knowledge

A great idea isn’t what defines a great team. Anyone could have built an iPhone or the first microwave. We see these things become commoditised in under a decade of their initial launches.

Great Tech Teams are crafted by their accumulated, gathered Knowledge derived from exploring bad ideas. This is why everyone hates spoilers of books and movies. They want to experience the learning and knowledge-gathering. That’s where the satisfaction and deep understanding comes from. Not from the plot and rolling credits.

When you are tempted to solve a problem for your team.

Pause.

Let them figure it out. Give them a chance to learn and create knowledge rather than stealing their problem.

If you know the answer, encourage them to explore towards it.

But above else, do not punish the discovery of a bad idea that failed. An idea invested into. Deployed to production. And sunset. The person, the people, the team have nothing to do with the outcome of the idea itself. Their actions predate the knowledge, including yours.

The outcome was not knowable at the beginning of the journey which is why it was important for them to take it. But be wary of repeat offenders! Knowledge gained should be shared by making sure everyone is pairing and paying attention during discovery and initial exploration.

This can be as simple as being involved in building an MVP or prototype and collaborating often in small increments.