Organizational Homeostasis

The human body is at homeostasis if our body temp is at 37C, blood sugar is between 80 and 120 and blood pressure is between 90/60 and 120/80mmHg. Our bodies maintain homeostasis through a series of feedback loops that get triggered when we are outside of this range and are managed by control centers. This is all managed by the hypothalamus, the CEO of the control systems.

Staying chronically outside these ranges results in diseases and eventually death. 

This got me thinking. Do complex organizations also have homeostasis? If so, what are the healthy markers: Low attrition(<10 percent), Positive cash flow and NPS > 70. 

For your organization, division, team, or family:

• What are the homeostatic measures

• Are you currently at homeostasis?

• What are the feedback systems in place to ensure you are in homeostasis?

Managing the invisible

“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” — Loren Eiseley

Fish tanks are living pieces of art.

They mesmerize adults and children with their colors, movement, and majesty. But behind the beauty is endless hours spent managing the tank. The success of the fish tank depends on your ability to control the one thing you can’t see: the water. 

The water dictates whether the sensitive Orange Spotted Filefish will thrive in your tank, or die within days. 

It’s all about the water.

Culture, like water to a fish, is invisible and generally goes unnoticed. Yet it's the most important factor for everything and everyone in it.

Culture, not money, is the reason that organizations can’t retain certain talent. 

Culture, is the reason organizations don't take risks.

Culture is the collective behaviors of organizations, both good and bad.

It’s all about the culture.

Why do strategic projects die and tactical projects live forever

In 2010, TinySpeck had a big idea for a game. A massively multiplayer game, similar to WarCraft, without the war, named Glitch. TinySpeck lived up to its name and only a handful of employees in different locations. The founder was hugely influenced by 90’s technology and used IRC as the primary mechanism for communication across the company. As they developed their groundbreaking game, TinySpeck continued to enhance, upgrade and replace IRC to cope with the demand of their growing company.

A screen capture of the game Glitch

After 3 years of building the game, launching, and subsequently unlaunching the game, the founder, Stewart informed the investors that the game wasn’t viable. But he had, what he thought was a viable product that could be commercially successful, their IRC clone that named linefeed.

Linefeed was later rebranded as Slack. It was recently sold to Salesforce for 27.7 billion dollars.

This story is not unique and I have seen it play it in my career. I have seen so many strategic projects fail and have seen tactical projects succeed and refuse to die beyond their original expiry dates.

Looking at the characteristics of a strategic vs tactical project can shed some light:

---

Strategic

• Strategy and governance structure prepared by a reputable consultancy

• Lots of senior oversight and governance

• Long requirements gathering process with sign-off which leads to even longer sign-off processes because people know they only get one chance before the dreaded change control process

• With the large budget, come lots of new hiring and onboarding

• A strong change control process

• Big expectations and promises

• Distributed and siloed teams with some matrix management thrown in for good measure

• Politics between technology and change management

• Architecture oversight

• Strong project manager/program manager to hold it all together

• A three-year deadline

Tactical

• They start with a well-understood problem

• Sense of urgency

• Well understood problem

• They use existing infrastructure or buy something out of the box

• Built by a small team with a limited budget

• Because it’s tactical, companies don’t spend a year building a future-proof architecture or gathering requirements. Both are done on a JBGE (Just barely good enough) basis

• They fly under the radar

• Three-to-six-month deadline

---

You could just as easly relable the left as Waterfall and the right as Agile and most bullet points will still be correct. The reality is that many “Agile” projects resemble the left more than the right these days. Perhaps we should stop doing Agile and only do Tactical :)

Crossing the chasm of Zoom

As I'm writing this, the vaccine is currently being distributed and it seems like life should start going back to normal by the summer. But for some companies, like Twitter, working from home will become the new normal. This post is for those companies that have embraced distributed work as the new normal. 

The current way most companies are working is anything but normal.

Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, created “Distributed Work: Five Stages of Autonomy”

I have simplified and modified it to:

0 Not possible. E.g. Fire fighting

1 Co-located first, with a distributed capability 

2 Distributed but synchronous (The chasm) 

3 From co-located first to distributed-first

4 Fully Asynchronous 

5 Outperforming

Most companies are stuck in the second stage, what I referred to as remote purgatory. Covid has forced us to stay at home, contending for space, and quiet with our family. We are still experiencing Zoom fatigue from all day calls. We have basically ported what we do in the office at home. We are constantly yelling, “Shushhh, I’m on an important call."  Companies are measuring the wrong thing(code commits) in the hopes of measuring productivity. 

Rather than adopt what we did at work to how we need to rethink how work is done at home from first principles. Here are some ideas Ideas for going from level 2 to 3 and start reaping the benefits of distributed work:

1. Create space for long periods of deep work

2. Meetings are the exception rather than the rule

3. Replace output measures and oversight with trust and transparency

4. Invest in the work from home experience

5. Increase empathy and compassion

Create space for long periods of deep work.

Cal Newport describes deep work as:

“Professional activity performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”

The goal should be that 50 to 80 percent of your time should be reserved for deep work and the rest should be meetings. It should give you pause if you find yourself questing what you will do with the free time?

Meetings are the exception rather than the rule

Meetings are on the default communication mechanism. Consider the opposite and create rules:

• The Automattic rule: Meetings are only held if a similar outcome cannot be achieved over call, message, or email. 

• Formal agenda must be posted ahead of time.

• Meetings recorded to avoid FOMO.

• Real-time documentation so that people can read the output.

Replace output measure and oversight with trust and transparency

Measure what matters: Outcomes(e.g. Features delivered to customers)  over output measures(number of commits). Many companies are tracking code commits to ensure the productivity of their workforces or hours logged into the system. 

People should not have to start at 9 am and 5. They should own their time so long as they are achieving the desired outcomes. 

Invest in the work from home experience

Companies are viewing allowing their staff to work from home as a cost-savings exercise. While there will be significant costs savings, be prepared to spend some of those savings on: 

• Increase our travel budget so teams can get together twice at least twice a year

• Better setup: tools, desk, seat, audio, and video

Increase empathy and compassion

It's hard to separate work and personal life when the home is also the office. Consider employees holistically, not just in their work roles. Avoid sending communications outside “official business hours”. If your new working time happens to be later, consider scheduling your emails to send during normal business hours to remove the expectation of working all the time

Write at the right time. Simply ‘getting it off your chest’ can seriously affect someone else’s schedule. There may not be a perfect time, but there's always a wrong time.

The goal of goals

“Embrace each challenge in your life as an opportunity for self-transformation.” Bernie S. Siegel

12 years ago, I wrote goals for the first time. I wrote a career, fitness, family, and self-development goals. A year later, when I reviewed the goals, to my amazement I had achieved the majority of them. Encouraged by the success, I set even more difficult goals for the following year. 12 years later I still follow a similar process.

Setting goals became a big part of my personal and professional life. I even developed my own goal setting framework that I use with my clients. 

After years of setting bigger and bigger goals, I stumbled on a realization.

The goal of the goals is not the goals at all.

The reality is that goals are just the means to something greater. What could be greater than doing an Ironman, publishing a book, or learning Mandarin?

Simply, the person/organization you become when on the journey to becoming an Ironman, publish a book, or learn Mandarin. 

What does it take to achieve a goal that you can’t do right now? It usually involves starting to do new things and stopping habits that deter you from your end goal. In other words, you adopt good behaviors and put a stop to toxic ones.

One of my primary drivers in my personal and professional life is identifying and systemically removing what I deem as  “toxic” behaviors and fostering “good” ones. That is what I consider growth. 

Newton’s first law of motion states that an object at rest will remain at rest unless there is an external force. I believe that the same applies to behaviors. A person will remain at rest unless there is an external force. For me, external forces are goals.

Big goals give me the impetus I need to change my behavior. 

When I leave this world, the goals I have accomplished are not what matters to me; it’s who I have become in the process.

Going down the purpose rabbit hole

 “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” – Viktor Frankl

I found myself in a long slack dialogue today that resulted in a zoom call with a friend and colleague Viktor. I relish the opportunity to explore ideas with him as I tend to think and learn more than usual and ultimately challenge my cognitive biases and the stories I tell myself.

The dialogue centered around the idea of purpose. 

One of his assertions was that investment banking and trading don't have an inherent purpose. He based that assertion on the sampling of friends who are traders all of which can't wait to retire to do what is more purposeful and meaningful. I contend that this holds for most people, not just investment bankers and points to a bigger issue: a lack of dialogue on the idea or purpose.

After going down multiple rabbit holes, we landed on some common ground. Firstly, we are encoded to search for purpose. We either get it from religion, tribe, or society. If not, we continue our search. Second, most people tell themselves a story about how they define their purpose at work. Stories that usually go unchecked and are fiercely protected:

• “My purpose is to end suffering in product development”

• “My purpose is to earn a paycheck so I can do the things I like to do”

• “My purpose is to ignite some passion with those I work with”

• “My purpose is to heal the sick”

Why does purpose even matter?

According to Dan Pink’s popular thesis, purpose is a key component for people to do their best work. Along with autonomy and mastery, purpose is a required ingredient to achieve intrinsic motivation.

Most leaders think about how they can create an environment that creates purpose. While necessary, it's not sufficient. Purpose needs to be top-down and bottom-up as beautifully illustrated in Christopher Wren’s story of the three bricklayers.

It’s your job

Purpose (noun): why you do something or why something exists

Finding purpose starts with asking the hard questions: What is my higher purpose? How do I align with my higher purpose? Does my job align with my purpose? How can I find purpose in what I do?

Tim Born, a coach, and a mentor recently told me that he finds purpose in teaching. Whether it's Unix command line or teaching youngsters about compound interest, he is always teaching. If you meet him, his passion comes through whether he is talking about Kubernetes or grouse hunting. He is not waiting for management to manufacture a purpose for himself.  

“To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

But it all starts with having a dialogue with your inner Viktor.

Measuring happiness is good...but not good enough

I recently learned that Finland is the happiest country in the world; while my country, the United States, is number 18. Ironic, considering the US is the richest country in the world and happiness is mentioned in its constitution as an inalienable right.

As I read this, one central question emerged, how do you measure something as qualitative as happiness? 

The creators of the World Happiness Report rely on the Cantril Ladder (See photo on the right):

“It asks respondents to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.”

Is that all? No fancy differential equations?

It is eerily similar to other popular metrics from the business world: the Net Promoter Score which asks a different question: How likely is it that you would recommend [brand] to a friend or colleague. The respondents are asked to rate from 1-10. 

Why I like this approach

I am often asked to gather metrics to test whether or not the change is effective. The gut reaction of managers is to measure productivity by way of code commits or story points or some variation. All of which are subject to both Goodhart’s and Campbell’s laws:

• Goodhart's Law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure

• Campbell’s Law: "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."

I then engage them in a series of 5-whys about what they are trying to achieve. As we go down the rabbit hole, we usually end up with what we want to see if the customer or internal stakeholders are getting value. 

“Why don’t you just ask them if they are happy or not with the last release?”

This is usually met with a quizzical look, trying to decide if I’m an idiot or if it's a good idea. 

“If you want to find out if they are happy with what they got, why don’t you just ask them?” This approach seems to be the go-to approach for the PhD.’s that are trying to find out the happiest counties in the world, why can't we use it to find out if our customers/product owners/ internal stakeholders are happy?

What is missing

This is a useful approach, but it’s not sufficient because they are all lagging indicators. Lagging indicators tell us something after it is too late. What we also need are leading indicators that point us to the true north.

The world happiness index suggests 6 key leading indicators for happiness: income, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on in times of trouble, generosity, freedom, and trust (measured by the absence of corruption in business and government).

The question for those who choose a happiness metric as a lagging indicator is: what are the key leading indicators that need to be measured? Here are mine:

• Happy/fulfilled team members

• Quality (Post-production)

• Product Owners that own the product

• Low lead time

What pickles can teach us about OKRs

What are OKRs?

“Good ideas with great execution are how you make magic. That’s where OKRs come in.” Larry Page

OKR (Objectives and Key Results) is a framework for large organizations to execute company-wide strategies. It was created by Andy Grove, CEO of Intel and popularized by John Doerr, who introduced the framework at Google and later wrote the popular book: Measure what Matters. OKRs are very fashionable right now.

What goes into an OKR:

Objective	•Directional •No constraints •Idealistic •Inspirational •Even if you fail, you still succeed	•Go to the moon and come back safely in a decade •Eradicate malaria by 2040 •Win the Superbowl in the next 5 years •End mother to child Aids transmission by 2020
Key Results: What pickles can teach us about OKRs	•Measurable •3-5 only •Measure quality and quantity •Binary. You either do them or don’t	• Our new web browser has 100 million users • lose 10 pounds • Submit 10 conference proposals
Color coding check-ins	• Regular check-ins for key results • Green: 70-100% (Continue) • Yellow 30-70% (Recover) • Red 0-30% (Recover or replace) • Always green is bad. Means sights are set too low

Why OKRs will not work

OKRs will most likely suffer the same fate as most other management fads - they will be introduced into an organization with good intentions, but will follow the same predictable path as other frameworks and methodologies. They will be implemented in name only, but the underlying dynamic will remain the same.

“Did you meet your objectives?” will be replaced with “Did you fulfil your OKRs?”

This can be explained by Prescott’s Pickle Principle:

“Cucumbers get more pickled than brine gets cucumbered.”

While this principle is in reference to people, I believe it also applies to the introduction of any new management system, framework, or methodology.

A brine where OKRs flourish :

1.       Radical transparency. Sundar Pichai reviews his OKRs with the whole company every three months

2.       The ability to set audacious goals without being a slave to stock price. Founder-led companies, such as Google, Tesla and Amazon set audacious objectives. Most publicly traded companies are slaves to whims of their stock price, which drive short-term earnings and cost savings. And that is the real objective of most companies, keep the shareholders happy. This is exactly what Elon is not.

3.       Driven by the CEO. The rollout of the OKRs will be driven by HR, but owned by the CEO. Andy Grove taught the class on OKRs in Intel.

4.       Amber and red are good. Red/Amber/Green means different things in large organizations. If OKRs are constantly green, it means something is wrong - it is not a reflection of success, but rather a suggestion that the objectives are set too low. Amber is good - it highlights that objectives are only being partially met, but a significant drive is required for greater success. Red could either mean that objectives are set too high, or the process by which the objective is met is in need of serious improvement. Most organizations reward green, which will result in weak Key Results.

5.       No annual performance reviews.

6.       Compensation is not tied to Key Results.

Compare your current company’s’ brine with a flourishing brine.

So what?

The focus of leadership should not be to introduce OKRs which will follow a predictable path. Rather, It should be to slowly change the brine. Choose one of step 1-6 and change it.

Another option is the experimentation route. Take a pickle and create an entirely new brine (e.g. Skunkworks).

Are we experimenting in name only?

As a coach, I use the word experiment a lot. I use it to reduce resistance from a client in trying a new idea. I find the barrier to entry is lowered greatly when I suggest that we try an experiment with a fixed group and a fixed time frame over a major change.

The use of the phrase experiment has been hugely valuable in my practice. When I suggest to a team or an organization that we experiment with “mob programming as a way to increase productivity and learning” or “Automation as a way to decrease lead time” are these actually experiments in name only?

After nearly three hours “researching” on the internet and going down the rabbit hole of the scientific method, field experiments, variables, laboratory experiments, quasi-experiments, and behavioral economics, left me with a resounding feeling that the types of experiments I am conducting with my clients are not scientific in the least, but do they have to be. If yes, what is the minimum level of rigor I need to apply to conduct a useful experiment?

The types of scientific experiments are largely divided by the context in which they are run: lab or real world and how the variables are controlled.

The types of experiments I run with my clients are all in the “real-world”. Where they largely fall short is (3-6) in the scientific method.

1. Make observations.

2. Formulate a hypothesis.

3. Design and conduct an experiment to test the hypothesis.

4. Evaluate the results of the experiment.

5. Accept or reject the hypothesis.

6. If necessary, make and test a new hypothesis.

How we can elevate our organizational experiments to something that resembles the scientific method?

“Teams seem to approach this aspect of continuous learning rather sloppily. Even when I try to institute an improvement experiment into the retrospective, rarely do they remember to be explicit about exactly what problem they are addressing, and (especially) what measure they use to observe an effect.” -Tim Born

Elevating our experiments

Harvard professors John Beshears and Francesca Gino suggest a simple framework for organizational experiments that I find useful as a starting point.

1. Identify the target measurable outcome

2. Articulate what exactly your proposed change will involve

3. Introduce the change in some places in the organization (the “treatment group”) but not in others (the “control group”)

More on this in future posts.

Go with which flow?

Writers, artists, inventors, or anyone who has undertaken a creative enterprise describe a seemingly otherworldly experience. A dimension of consciousness where they seem to transcend time and space and access to something greater than themselves. 

This phenomenon was coined flow state in 1975 by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. This state has existed since time immemorial and has many names. In sports, it's referred to as the Zone, in martial arts as Budo, even runners describe a euphoric state at some point during a run.

Any creative professional strives to create the environment and the discipline that enables them to enter a Flow state.

Do a group of people who seek to create a product need to enter Flow State, or is the other Flow they need to think about?

Lean Flow

The concept of flow also exists in manufacturing. 

“Flow is how work progresses through a system.”

In this case, it refers to the flow of value to the customer. The goal of Lean is to maximize value to the customer in the shortest amount of time.

Lean calls anything that obstructs the flow of value to the customers as waste. Much work has been done on waste. The 7 lean wastes are well documented. Tools and techniques such as Gemba walk, Value Stream Mapping, and 5s have been created to identify waste. 

“All we are doing is looking at the timeline from the moment a customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing that timeline by removing the non-value-added wastes.” Taiichi Ohno

Querying theory and Theory of constraints also have lots to say on the subject by addressing bottlenecks in the process.

Flow in product development

Many of the ideas from manufacturing have been adopted to the world of product development, specifically software product development. May and Tom Poppendeck have created the 7 wastes in product development, a reinterpretation of the lean wastes applied to software product development

The work of Donald Reinertsen, The Principles of Product development flow provides principles and patterns for increasing flow in product development which draws heavily from queuing theory. 

The Agile software community has also adopted many of the techniques from the lean world: value stream mapping, 5-whys, Gemba sprints. These are meant to surface and eliminate unnecessary waste from software product development. 

Is product development Creative Flow or Lean Flow?

Is the creation of a product a creative endeavor or a manufacturing problem?

My believe is that it’s both.

The introduction of a new product involves a research and development phase and generally consists of a small group of people working together, lots of uncertainty to solve a difficult problem. 

The original Model T and the iPhone were developed by a small group of people with a high degree of unknowns. 

These were creative enterprises. Like writing a book or a poem, but made more difficult by virtue of the fact that more than one person is involved. At a certain point, the problem set changes to that of manufacturing. 

"We had to figure out how to build iPhones in mass quantity. Anyone can make one hundred of something. Making a million of them is something else altogether”. Bob Borchers, Apple's then head of iPhone product marketing.

Henry Ford’s process for inventing the Model T looks more like Agile development than Scientific Management. He only Turned to Taylor for help when he needed to mass-produce the Model T.

Which Flow is it?

“The ultimate problem is that (in my view) most organisations need both Flows and the art/skill is knowing when and how to enter both.“ Lee Nicholls (CIO Tegra118)

For the introduction of a new product, when the unknowns are highest and uncertainty is the greatest, we should turn to the creative world rather than the manufacturing world. Bringing a new thing into the world is art and the best art is created when the artist is in a Flow state. 

According to the Flow Theory, to achieve flow, you need:

• intrinsically rewarding.

• clears goal and a sense of progress

• clear and immediate feedback

• match the challenge and skill.

• intense focus on the present.

We should be looking at Flow theory and the ideas, principles, and practices adopted by high performing sports teams rather than Lean manufacturing for the introduction of a product.

This begs the question(s):

• How do you create an environment where a group of people can enter group flow and how do you protect them from resistance. 

• Is it possible for a group of creative people to enter into Group Flow?

The war on waste

“Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”

— Sun Tzu

During my classes and workshops, when introducing the term waste, I often hear: “are you saying my job is waste?” or “I think what I do is important, why do you feel it’s waste.” These are strawmen. The discussion of waste should trigger a re-examination of value. Then the waste part is easy.

To fight waste, we first need to define it. We need to know and understand the enemy.

I define waste as

any activity that does not contribute to why the thing exists

This definition results in existential questions. Why do I exist? Why do families exist and why do companies exist? Let us try the easiest one: Why do companies exist?

Most companies exist to make its’ shareholder money. Therefore, waste can be defined as: Anything that does not contribute directly to making shareholders money. Money is what shareholders value and why they invest in companies. But that sounds greedy, so we call it shareholder value instead. Sounds better

Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not about making the customer happy, it’s about making the shareholder money. If a company can make the maximum amount of money without a single customer, they would.

Does it then follow that customers are waste? No. Customers pay money for a product or service; therefore, they are valuable. However, anything that takes away the shareholders money is waste: Employees, Buildings, even the CEO.

If Amazon can design an AI that eliminated all employees including the CEO, they would. Because human “resources” are the biggest expense and takes away from the shareholders “value”.

If this all seems ruthless, it is after all, war. But the culprit is not waste, it is how we define value.

According to Mike Rother, author of Toyota Kata, Toyota values above all else “Making good products for its Customers.” It follows that Toyota defines any activity that is not directly contributing to the creation of good products for its customers as waste. Many companies who have been trying to imitate Toyota’s processes and procedures for eliminating waste should start with seeing if they value the same thing as Toyota.

Richard and Mourice valued above all else giving their customers A delicious product in the shortest amount of time possible. In 1948, they were the original lean experts before lean had a name. They could give you a delicious burger, fries, and drink in 30 seconds while their competition would take 20 minutes. Their new partner, Ray, values something else: Growth and Capital. The difference in values was the source of their tension and ultimate separation. One viewed using powdered ice cream as waste and sacrilegious while the other viewed not using it as waste.

The value shift is already happening

As a thought experiment, rather than companies existing to maximize profit, imagine a world where companies existed to further exploration. Then waste would be any activity that does not contribute to bold exploration.

Companies that value furthering humanity of the environment are not new and are not limited to SpaceX. The Impact Investing industry is nearly a trillion dollars a year.

“Impacting investing aims to generate specific beneficial social or environmental effects in addition to financial gains.”

— -Investopedia

A beautiful example

The shift is not limited to companies. I have been lucky over the years to work and meet with some amazing people. One of them is a founder and CIO named Andrea. At the height of his career and power, he decided to shift gears entirely to work with organizations that want to solve difficult problems that impact humanity.

Andrea, and those like him personify the following quote:

“To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be”

— Stepen Pressfield

Organizational Refactoring

Charles Duhigg describes the habit loop as

1. Triger

2. Routine

3. Reward

This loop that turns behaviors into habits. He asserts that the key to changing a habit is not changing either the trigger or the reward but the routine.

For example, the trigger could be work-related stress, the routine undeserved (etc. a cigarette, snacking), and the reward: a dopamine hit. Duhigg suggests only changing the routine, not the trigger or reward. Over time, that new routine will become a habit. For example, walking 1k steps.

There is a similar idea in programming. Refactoring modifies the code of a function or subroutine without changing the inputs or outputs, to avoid regression impact on the larger system. This is a laborious process, often overlooked due to the fact the eliminated technical debt is very difficult and is easier left ignored.

Can organizations be refactored?

Where the inputs and outputs remain the same but the undesired routines are changed.

1. Trigger: Client escalation or production outage
2. Routine: Assert pressure on staff
3. Reward: Temporary spike in productivity

Can this be refactored to:

1. Trigger: Input client escalation
2. Routine: Remove waste from the systems
3. Output: Increase in productivity

What is the major difference? The difference is felt over time. The former’s quick fix provides an immediate improvement with long term degradation, while the latter is the opposite.

(un)manager

“(un)manager: someone who helps organizations meet/exceeds its goals through elevating people as opposed to elevating themselves. ”

— Me

My work over the past couple of years has largely focused on the manager class. This is due to the following two questions:

1. What do managers do when teams are self-managing?

2. Where do we source masters of scrum? Individuals who are capable of coaching teams, product owners, and the organization.

It has become increasingly clear that these two questions are interlinked. For this to work managers need to unlearn some of the very behaviors that have made them successful in the past. I propose managers and management become re-framed and a new set of behaviors adopted.

Say no to Zoom | How does Linux and the OpenSource community do it?

• Part 1: What do all day Zoom meetings and CDROMs have in common?

• Part 2: How does Basecamp do it?

• Part 3: How does Automattic do it?

• Part 4: How does Linux do it?

It might seem odd to derive lessons for formal organisations from a self-organising volunteer activity, yet, the practices and skills found in Linux and open source workflows are invaluable when it comes to remote work, especially in times like these.

The open source system advocates trust, compassion and empathy as means for motivation and improved productivity. In its case, people have always been motivated, due to the system’s careful attention to initiative and incentive structures. What lessons can we take from these structures for use in our formal organisations today? 

Work/Life

“As much as we want to retain work/life balance, we have to acknowledge that our work and home lives are being forced together in sometimes uncomfortable ways. The current situation isn't normal, and expecting normal productivity and complete focus isn't reasonable.” Stefanie Chiras, VP of the Business Unit at Red Hat Linux.

For many people, it's hard to separate work and personal life when their home is also the office. In these abnormal times, it’s important to consider employees holistically, not just in their work roles. They may be dealing with a great deal of stress that they can't just put down during work hours - this should be respected and understood. For example, avoid sending communications outside “official business hours”. If your new working time happens to be later, consider scheduling your emails to send during normal business hours to remove the expectation of working all the time. Go further, and encourage the team to take breaks during the day, not to eat lunch sitting at their desk, and, if possible, to go outside and get some fresh air.

Trust/ Tracking

“The very essence of open source teams is built upon trust.”

Everyone is accountable for what they need to deliver. Teams need to trust each other to get things done instead of dictating what the next task will be. Through trust, people are empowered, motivated to produce high-quality work.

This snaps the phenomenon of the “all-day Zoom meeting” into sharp focus; feeling secure over monitoring employees’ actions over the last 8 hours, opposed to their level of output over unmonitored hours of the day should raise some concerns.

Allow employees to work flexible hours so they have the chance to perform at their optimal moments. Early risers and night owls should each get their personal opportunities to operate when they work best. This flexibility on how, when, and where employees work, would likely improve their productivity and their loyalty to the company. Forcing everyone into all-day meetings would greatly inhibit this. 

Output/Time

“The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organising teams.” 11th principle of the Agile Manifesto

Focusing on results. Output over time. Something we hear a lot, but hardly internalize. An entire day spent at a desk, in an office, or on a Zoom call, would not - by any means - reflect the amount of expected output. Rather, employees must know and understand what they are responsible for (as opposed to how many hours they should work) and know when they've done enough. A system like this, where priorities are communicated and clarified, and employees have the freedom to work through those priorities over a sensibly set time period, would eradicate issues of trust and lack of productivity. 

This is how the open source community operates. Developers are not spoon-fed tasks, but simply communicate amongst each other what must be done, and what can be done. Their work is then left in their control, to refocus and prioritize.

So, What?

“The point of all this is to learn from those companies who have been working in a distributed modality for decades, and have not simply ported the pre-COVID method using online tools.”

Ultimately, the rules of remote work discussed in the previous two articles aren’t solely advocated by Basecamp and Automattic, respectively - they are widely accepted in the distributed world. We have all been forced to become distributed companies. The point of all this is to learn from those companies who have been working in a distributed modality for decades, and have not simply ported the pre-COVID method using online tools.

Further Reading

https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/btc-remote-open-source

https://opensource.com/article/18/9/connected-on-distributed-team

https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/software-security/tips-working-remotely-open-source-community/

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/remote-leadership-how-provide-support-distributed-teams

The Linux and open source community are, arguably, the oldest examples of distributed workflows in existence - they can be traced back almost 30 years. Linux runs every Android phone and tablet on the planet. It is working behind the scenes on almost every device, and across the Internet. Over 30% of all web servers run Linux - Facebook, Google, Pinterest and Wikipedia all run on Linux. Yet, in most cases, developers haven’t met, and are likely in different parts of the country, or more commonly, in different parts of the world - often not even speaking the same language. Despite this, they collaborate with incredible efficiency, and produce with exceptional quality. They don’t do all-day Zoom meetings.

The Fish Discipline | Teaching kids Systems thinking | What is a system

The world system evokes mystery and complexity. An amorphous thing that is not easily understood that has some nefarious agenda. A political system that keeps the rich richer and the poor poorer. “The system is keeping us down.” Or a machine that is seem too complicated for us to comprehend. “I am not good with computer systems.” Systems seem unapproachable or unchangeable. “What’s the point in voting, the system is broken?”

The reality is that these intuitions are partially right:

Systems can be complex but can be understood. Systems can be changed, they just inherently don’t want to change

But what is a system?

My favorite definition is that a System has a purpose and is made of up two or more connected parts, each of the parts affect each other.

Example 1: A car is a system that is made of many connected parts (Engine, Transmission, body, etc.) and the purpose of the car is to get you from point a to b. What makes a car a car is not only the parts, but the parts fitting together. You can have all the parts but if the parts do not fit together you do not have a car.

We are inherently reductionist. To understand a thing, we take it apart and look at the parts but overlook how the parts are connected.

Key idea: the connections are as important as the parts.

Example 2: A human is a system that is made of many connected parts (heart, lung, veins) and the primary purpose is life.

“None of the parts live, only you live. That is easily provable, cut off your hand and see what it does” Russ Ackoff.

Key idea: none of the parts have can fulfill the purpose the system.

Example 3: A planet is a system containing many systems the purpose of which is to maintain life.

Key Idea: Systems are usually contained within systems.

Systems are complex yet predictable.

Local optimization hurt the whole

If you focus on a part of the system and ignore the whole system, bad things tend to happen. A body builder optimizes accelerates muscle growth and negatively impacting the other organs ultimately impacting the systems very purpose.

A young gamer over clocks their new computer so it can go faster which will raise the temperature of the computer which can impact the other components.

Other predictable behaviors of a system:

• Quick fixes are usually bad

• The harder you push a system the harder it pushes back

• When changing a system, things will get worse before it gets better

• The smallest changes in a system produce the biggest results, the hard part is to know where to make the change.

• The pain in the system is usually causes some where else in the system.

Changing a system is very difficult.

It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things; for the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order; this lukewarmness arising partly from the incredulity of mankind who does not truly believe in anything new until they actually have experience of it. Nicolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527)

If you plan on changing a system the first thing you need to learn is how to see a system. That is what we will explore next.

Say no to Zoom | How does Automattic do it?

• Part 1: What do all day Zoom meetings and CDROMs have in common?

• Part 2: How does Basecamp do it?

• Part 3: How does Automattic do it?

• Part 4: How does Linux do it?

The power of asynchronous communication

“You may still want to say it right now, but they can almost certainly hear it later.”

Automattic does not use meetings as a primary form of communication - after all, people should be occupied with their work. If everyone is working on different things, the only way to get them all to break at the same time, is to force them to stop what they’re doing! This is why asynchronous communication is so powerful - it encourages focus. Is forcing people to stop, or postponing their start, really worth what they’re about to hear?

However, Automattic won’t shun meetings altogether. Undeniably, there are situations where meetings are simply unavoidable, and sometimes, even productive.

Two tips to boost meeting productivity

A meeting should only be held in the case that the same outcomes can’t be reached via a phone call, email, or instant message.

1. Set the meeting to 15 minutes by default, and only make it longer if absolutely necessary (the shorter the meeting, the less time there will be for pointless small talk).

2. Set a specific agenda and desired outcome before going into the meeting, and only include those whose involvement is absolutely necessary.

Two Automattic-specific habits

“For the high flyers”

1. Post the agenda ahead of time, so that those who need more time to prepare, or don’t speak English as their first language, get the opportunity to prepare. 

2. Rotate the call host and note takers so that each member of the team gets a go at it. And, when the host is someone in a different timezone, shift the call to accommodate their workday.

These are some ways to maximise meeting productivity in the case that they can’t be avoided. But ultimately, real-time communication encourages distraction, asynchronous communication encourages focus.

“Don’t take people’s attention, give people back their attention so they can spend it in much more profitable ways.”

Further Reading

https://medium.com/swlh/the-five-levels-of-remote-work-and-why-youre-probably-at-level-2-ccaf05a25b9c

https://stephyiu.com/2019/02/17/behind-the-scenes-culture-and-tools-of-remote-work-at-automattic/

https://medium.com/swlh/the-five-levels-of-remote-work-and-why-youre-probably-at-level-2-ccaf05a25b9c

https://stephyiu.com/2019/02/17/behind-the-scenes-culture-and-tools-of-remote-work-at-automattic/

Automattic are the people behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Simplenote and Tumblr, among others. WordPress powers over 35% of all the world’s websites (450 million+ ), Tumblr, a blogging and social networking platform, is currently being used by almost 500 million people, just to give an idea of the extent of the successes of the company. They have barely been affected by the dramatic series of events following the past five months, and are a company that (in these extraordinary times) are thriving, not just surviving.  Like Basecamp, Automattic doesn’t like meetings.

The Fish Discipline | Teaching Kids Systems Thinking | Introduction

Fish are consuming micro plastics to the extent that they are getting brain damage.

We are eating sushi containing plastics.

We are now pooping plastic which is filling the sewage with even more micro plastic… This has created a reinforcing loop that has unforseen consequences on our planet and our bodies.

Yet we continue this cycle. This notion is concisely captured by renowned systems thinker Peter Senge:

“Reality is made up of circles but we see straight lines.”

This can be explained because we are intuitively not trained to see the connections, and how parts impact each other. In other words, we have not been trained as systems thinkers. Children are intuitively reductionist. To understand something, children take it apart to see its parts or elements. That is only part of the story.

Every system consists of three things: the parts, the interconnections, and it’s primary purpose. For example, a person is more than just a collection of limbs and organs. A dead human is no longer a system, although the parts remain.

Over the next four weeks, I will explain how I trained my children to start becoming systems thinkers and what I learned in the process.

Part 1: What is a system?

Part 2: What is systems thinking?

Part 3: How to learn systems thinking?

Say no to Zoom | How does Basecamp do it?

• Part 1: What do all day Zoom meetings and CDROMs have in common?

• Part 2: How does Basecamp do it?

• Part 3: How does Automattic do it?

• Part 4: How does Linux do it?

There is no “Now”

“Now" is often the wrong time to say what just popped into your head. It's better to let it filter it through the sieve of time. What's left is the part worth saying.”

Basecamp abolishes the notion of 'Now', ‘Immediate’ and 'ASAP'. We need to understand that the immediate is often the worst time to share thoughts, as our mental processes are underdeveloped. Letting what popped into our heads ‘Now’ "filter through the sieve of time", would help greatly in communicating the point more concisely, articulately, and with the least risk of error or offence. The second thing we need to clarify, is the superiority of asynchronous over real-time communication. "Chat dissolves, while writing solidifies". Zoom meetings are classic examples of chat sessions, where important points and actions are lost through chatter and catch-up. Writing takes longer, feels more distant, and has become almost a last-resort for many, but it brings to the table much more than it takes away, and is the method Basecamp uses and recommends. In with the old, out with the new.

Long form writing over Meetings

“Eight people in a room for an hour doesn’t cost one hour; it costs eight hours.”

Basecamp prefers long-form writing as a method of communication allows for better quality relations where things are thought through far more carefully than if they were verbally transmitted. It also happens to be far more inclusive and benefits everyone - especially those who cannot make a meeting due to time or internet restrictions. Communication shouldn’t require schedule synchronization. Writing instead of meeting is more direct, and is independent of any kind of schedule. Furthermore, this kind of communication allows deeper discussions and conversations to develop and ‘sink in’, prior to judgement being made. Real-time meetings where calls to action are expected to be resolved immediately often result in rushed decisions.

Centralized communication

“There may not be a perfect time, but there's certainly a wrong time.”

Basecamp also has a solution for company-wide announcements; they don’t send emails or have fragmented meetings, instead, they use a centralised ‘message board’ where all employees can see and hear the same thing. This is crucial in upholding consistency, as no information is altered via different communication channels; nothing is lost and nobody is left out. Replacing live meetings with public written updates saves dozens of hours a week and affords people larger blocks of uninterrupted time, affording them good stretches of time to immerse themselves in work - which is crucial in order to allow employees to complete a ‘proper’ job. If this is not achieved, people are left scrounging for focused time, and are forced to squeeze project work in between all the other nonessential, yet mandated, things they’re expected to do. Meetings break time into “before” and “after.”

Further Reading

https://basecamp.com/remote-resources

https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-structure-our-work-and-teams-at-basecamp/

https://m.signalvnoise.com/status-meetings-are-the-scourge/

Basecamp has always been open-source, starting off as a web design company, developing into a web application development firm, before finally specialising in project management and team communication. Their team management software is extensively used by remote teams, with clients including NASA, 3M and Zendesk. But ultimately, members of the open source world have always been the masters of remote team management, and Basecamp is one of them.