First of all, an apology – this newsletter hasn’t had this big of a gap before, this is the first time in two years I’ve slacked. I’m very grateful to all the readers who asked how I was and if everything was alright. It definitely is, more than alright, I’ve just been on the road from Central Europe to West US to Central America onboarding new clients, speaking and (since personal bits are now fashionable on LinkedIn) height of all efficiency, I also managed to move the “Get married in Vegas” ticket on one of these trips so missing two editions is not that shocking:)
Over these past few weeks, I’ve spoken about Agile, DevOps, culture and of course Psychological Safety and high performance to tens of teams and they each left me re-examining some things or pondering others. And of course, you can’t speak about teams and their high performance without coming back to what is at the centre of it all – the “why”. Purpose. Ideally, not only “purpose” but “impact” as well.
I’m always surprised how far this topic is from the minds of most tech teams. Yes they may have the yearly “hey ho, we are doing this for the diffuse and distant good of the country” stakeholders mission re-affirmation but God forbid you mention it on a Wedensday standup or ask when you meet the product owner how is it that they keep it front of mind – you’ll be met with glares galore. As if that’s yet another topic designed to just slow the team down and make them fall behind on the sprint alongside other “fluffy” ones to do with the human work.
One of the things I’ve learned, is that I need to check and attempt to shake my privilege and my bias on the topic. The privilege stems from how we are supremely lucky at PeopleNotTech as I keep telling my teams, that we make something so immediately life-altering to our users. Most everyone else works in industries where their contribution never has as clear and monumental of effects on the wellbeing of their users, so we are indeed spoiled to be able to have our impact so immediately evident that it powers our purpose. The bias is even harder to shake as it comes from a conceptual difference.
You see, to me, discussing and restating the “why” ad-nausea is a hygienic and mandatory part of both leadership and product ownership and not actually part of the “human work” as we define the work that we always insist the team does.
To my mind,
“the human work” is intentional work that individuals and teams engage in with regularity for the purpose of understanding and analysing their actions, reactions and emotions and bettering the behaviours they need in order to be high performing”
so from that perspective, the work to discuss and reaffirm one’s purpose so that their product can get to where it needs to be, seems to fall under the same definition but to me, conceptually it simply doesn’t fit, because the human work is by default either solo work done by individuals in isolation for the sake of their own wellbeing -i.e. the work we have to put into self-care or the boundaries we need to uphold to prevent burnout- or, for the most part of it, it is work that is done collaboratively, together, by the group, by the team for the sake of the team wellbeing-i.e. the team actions in our Playbook or other team exercises where the team collectively learns and grows together – whereas the work around “purpose” is done individually, typically by the product owner, but for the wellbeing of the product and ultimately of the company.
In other words, human work is that which makes our lives as employees better, whereas the work to evidence and underline purpose so we can therefore be more efficient at making extraordinary products is work that benefits not the individual or the team but the bottom line itself!
So when I meet teams that never talk about their purpose (on a regular basis and in innovative and ever-present ways as those of us who are trying to keep the religion of the product alive have to offer at all times), and when we even meet those who never have done so even once and are supremely unaware what the point is, or what it is that they are really making, and who is it that they make it for, I try to remember I am fortunate to both know why that needs doing and to live and breathe that knowledge when we make our own product.
I am also mindful that, we live in a world where becoming a product owner (of all denominations, irrespective of job title) is often a hard and accidental path that already requires inhuman graft and self-sacrifice to even walk so layering a need for “purpose re-demonstration” because in its absence you can not uphold the first and most important principle of Agile and the Google-stated conditions of high performing teams and therefore can never win as a company, is probably asking for too much.
But if the product owner won’t do it, they won’t firstly state the purpose of the product with crystal clarity then repeat that continuously and won’t paint a vivid picture of the customer, won’t encourage the team to also overlay personal goals and individual purpose and won’t show how their work impacts anything, how would those teams ever have a chance to succeed?
To me, a product owner is there to only remove blockers, hold customer and stakeholder hands as they download or ask for more -or different-, and then translate that to how it all fits in the purpose to then bring -what matters- to the team while protecting the space on the WIP for all the human work, if they only ever do that, they would have already done a brilliant job and due to the effect this has on the team performance they would have probably done more for the integrity and speed of technology creation of their team, than any other action they could have taken from adding resources to upholding process.
So my best piece of advice? Get you a product owner. Let’s start there, let’s face it, many products simply don’t really have one even if looks like the position is filled. Get you a real product owner who has their heart into it. And don’t look for one that has no PRINCE qualifications as a couple of CTOs mentioned of late, or some that are scrum masters too, or some that are rigorous with Agile ceremonies or who go to many client meetings. None of that matters. Strong product owners are sense makers, independent thinkers, story-tellers, journey sherpas. They are the keepers and reinforcers of meaning and the protectors of WIP-space-for-thinking-and-feeling. Get you one who cares about the product and the people enough to obsess with purpose and find ways to weave it into the everyday in a way that is genuinely empowering and motivating because everyone deserves to see the impact their hard work has, and everyone fundamentally, does want to do a good job that makes the end customer happy, we all simply need to help them see they are doing that.
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At PeopleNotTech we make software that measures and improves Psychological Safety in teams, come see a DEMO.
To order the “People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age” book go to this Amazon link