Book: The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management by Stephen Denning
Path to Discovery: A mentor suggested I read this book when he heard that I was consulting with a software startup.
In brief: What did I take to heart?
(A few things I want to remember - not a summary of the whole book)
(A few things I want to remember - not a summary of the whole book)
According to Denning, customer delight is the #1 goal for a company - and for all functions. He advises that we frame all goals in terms of customer delight.
What's the visioning and goal-setting process?
Look at where we want to be in 3 years; 1 year; and smaller increments down to 1-2 weeks. For each timeframe, write a user “Story” that describes how the customer will use the product and the benefit they will get. Break each story into smaller stories. Then, perform work in iterations. The team determines the stories together and posts them visibly in the workspace. The stories are on cards or post-its. Clearly indicate which stories are done, in progress and not done.
Look at where we want to be in 3 years; 1 year; and smaller increments down to 1-2 weeks. For each timeframe, write a user “Story” that describes how the customer will use the product and the benefit they will get. Break each story into smaller stories. Then, perform work in iterations. The team determines the stories together and posts them visibly in the workspace. The stories are on cards or post-its. Clearly indicate which stories are done, in progress and not done.
The team becomes intimately acquainted with the context: the customer’s story, the customer’s needs and challenges. The team may assign a “product owner” or representative of the customer, who will represent customer information back to the team. The team involves the customer in getting feedback iteratively as the product develops.
Every day the team has a stand-up meeting where EVERYONE on the team answers 3 questions: 1) what did I accomplish yesterday? 2) what will I accomplish today? 3) what impediments have I faced? This meeting lasts about 15 minutes. The team is radically transparent in this meeting. When you introduce a problem you are celebrated not punished. You don’t have to have a solution when you identify a problem.
At the end of each iteration, have a retrospective. This is essentially an after-action review. You look dispassionately at what went well and what went wrong. You seek to get to root cause vs. cover-up. You apply learnings to the next iteration.
In order for this to work, the whole organization needs to be committed to this. If one group is doing it and others are not, then the team can fail. If the senior management is not doing it, the team can fail. This approach will showcase problems that were previously able to be hidden.
What questions am I left pondering?
- How does this approach change the role of management? What are the most helpful roles and responsibilities of a manager in scrum?
- What reward practices would most clearly align with this philosophy?
© 2014-2015 Kristen Lee. All rights reserved
