Shipulski On Design

Archive for the ‘Clarity’ Category

If you can’t imagine it, it’s impossible.

But if you can imagine it, at worst it can only be almost impossible.

Who controls your imagination?

What you think about something affects you like it’s true, even when it isn’t.

And what you think is true often isn’t.

Are you responsible for what you think?

If you have two things to do, that’s doable.  So, do them.

And if you have twenty things to do, chose two and do them.

What if getting ten things done in a week is enough?

If the work is good, it’s likely you’re doing it with people you enjoy.

And if you work with people you enjoy, the work gets better.

Which comes first, the good work or the people you enjoy?

If you tell someone what to do and how to do it, they can do it.

But if you’re not there to tell them, they cannot.

Will you always be there?

If you show you care, people know you care.

And if you tell people you care, they’re not sure.

Why not show them so they can be sure?

If you tell the truth, people can work with you even if they don’t share your truth.

But if you sometimes tell the truth, it means sometimes you don’t.

And how does that work?

image credit — Miranda Granche

There are natural limits to the amount of work that any one person or group can do.  And once that limit is reached, saying yes to more work does not increase the amount of work that gets done.  Sure, you kick the can down the road when you say yes to work that you know you can’t get done, but that’s not helpful.  Expectations are set inappropriately which secures future disappointment and more importantly binds or blocks other resources. When preparatory work is done for something that was never going to happen, that prep work is pure waste.  And when resources are allocated to a future project that was never going to happen, the results are misalignment, mistiming, and replanning, and opportunity cost carries the day.

But how to know if you the team has what it takes to get the work done?  The answer is a capacity model.  There are many types of capacity models, but they all require a list of the available resources (people, tools, machines), the list of work to be done (projects), and the amount of time (in hours, weeks, months) each project requires for each resource.  The best place to start is to create a simple spreadsheet where the leftmost column lists the names of the people and the resources (e.g., labs, machines, computers, tools).  Across the top row of the spreadsheet enter the names of the projects.  For the first project, go down the list of people and resources,  and for each person/resource required for the project, type an X in the column.  Repeat the process for the remainder of the projects.

While this spreadsheet is not a formal capacity model, as it does not capture the number of hours each project requires from the resources, it’s plenty good enough to help you understand if you have a problem.  If a person has only one X in their row, only one project requires their time and they can work full-time on that project for the whole year.  If another person has sixteen Xs in their row, that’s a big problem. If a machine has no Xs in its row, no projects require that machine, and its capacity can be allocated to other projects across the company. And if a machine has twenty Xs in its row, that’s a big problem.

This simple spreadsheet gives a one-page, visual description of the team’s capacity.  Held at arm’s length, the patterns made by the Xs tell the whole story.

To take this spreadsheet to the next level, the Xs can be replaced with numbers that represent the number of weeks each project requires from the people and resources.  Sit down with each person and for each X in their row, ask them how many weeks each project will consume.  For example, if they are supposed to support three projects, X1 is replaced with 15 (weeks), X2 is replaced with 5, and X3 is replaced with 5 for a total of 25 weeks (15 + 5 + 5).  This means the person’s capacity is about 50% consumed (25 weeks / 50 weeks per year) by the three projects.  For each resource, ask the resource owner how much time each project requires from the resource.  For a machine that is needed for ten projects where each project requires twenty weeks, the machine does not have enough capacity to support the projects.  The calculation says the project load requires 200 machine-weeks (10*20 = 200 weeks) and four machines (200 machine-weeks / 50 weeks per year = 4 machines) are required.

Creating a spreadsheet that lists all the projects is helpful in its own right.  And you’ll probably learn that there are far more projects than anyone realizes.  (Helpful hint: make sure you ask three times if all the projects are listed on the spreadsheet.)  And asking people how much time is required for each project is respectful of their knowledge and skillful because they know best how long the work will take. They’ll feel good about all that.  And quantifying the number of weeks (or hours) each project requires elevates the discussion from argument to analysis.

With this simple capacity model, the team can communicate clearly which projects can be supported and which cannot.  And, where there’s a shortfall, the team can make a list of the additional resources that would be needed to support the full project load.

Fight the natural urge to overcomplicate the first version of the capacity model.  Start with a simple project-people/resource spreadsheet and use the Xs.  And use the conversations to figure out how to improve it for next time.

If you know the right answer, you’re working on an old problem or you’re misapplying your experience.

If you are 100% sure how things will turn out, let someone else do it.

If there’s no uncertainty, there can be no learning.

If there’s no learning, your upstart competitors are gaining on you.

If you don’t know what to do, you’ve started the learning cycle.

If you add energy to your business model and it delivers less output, it’s time for a new business model.

If you wait until you’re sure you need a new business model, you waited too long.

Successful business models outlast their usefulness because they’ve been so profitable.

When there’s a project with a 95% chance to increase sales by 3%, there’s no place for a project with a 50% chance to increase sales by 100%.

When progress has slowed, maybe the informal networks have decided slower is faster.

If there’s something in the way, but you cannot figure out what it is, it might be you.

“A bouquet of wilting adapters” by rexhammock is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Since resources are expensive, it can be helpful to see the environment around your product as a source of inexpensive resources that can be modified to perform useful functions.  Here are some examples.

Gravity is a force you can use to do your bidding. Since gravity is always oriented toward the center of the earth, if you change the orientation of an object, you change the direction gravity exerts itself relative to the object. If you flip the object upside down, gravity will push instead of pull.

And it’s the same for buoyancy but in reverse.  If you submerge an object of interest in water and add air (bubbles) from below, the bubbles will rise and push in areas where the bubbles collect.  If you flip over the object, the bubbles will collect in different areas and push in the opposite direction relative to the object.

And if you have water and bubbles, you have a delivery system.  Add a special substance to the air which will collect at the interface between the water and air and the bubbles will deliver it northward.

If you have motion, you also have wind resistance or drag force (but not in deep space).  To create more force, increase speed or increase the area that interacts with the moving air. To change the direction of the force relative to the object, change the orientation of the object relative to the direction of motion.

If you have water, you can also have ice.  If you need a solid substance look to the water.  Flow water over the surface of interest and pull out heat (cool) where you want the ice to form. With this method, you can create a protective coating that can regrow as it gets worn off.

If you have water, you can make ice to create force.  Drill a blind hole in a piece of a brittle material (granite), fill the hole with water, and freeze the water by cooling the granite (or leave it outside in the winter).  When the water freezes it will expand, push on the granite and break it.

These are some contrived examples, but I hope they help you see a whole new set of free resources you can use to make your magic.

Thank you, VF.

Image credit – audi_insperation

Clearing a logjam is not about increasing the force of the water.  It’s about moving one log out of the way, watching what happens, and choosing the next log to move.

Crossing a raging river is not about pushing against the current.  It’s about seeing what’s missing and using logs to build a raft.

Trekking across the tundra after crossing the raging river is not about holding onto the logs that helped you cross. It’s about seeing what’s not needed and leaving the raft by the river.

The trick is to know when to move the logs, when to use them to build a raft, and when to leave them behind.

Image credit: “Log Jam Mural _ Stillwater MN” by Kathleen Tyler Conklin is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

One of the best problems to solve for your customers is the problem they don’t know they have.  If you can pull it off, you will create an entirely new value proposition for them and enable them to do things they cannot do today. But the problem is they can’t ask you to solve it because they don’t know they have it.

To identify problems customs can’t see, you’ve got to watch them go about their business.  You’ve got to watch all aspects of their work and understand what they do and why they do it that way.  And it’s their why that helps you find the transparent problems.  When they tell you their why, they tell you the things they think cannot change and the things they consider fundamental constraints.  Their whys tell you what they think is unchangeable.  And from their perspective, they’re right.  These things are unchangeable because they don’t know what’s possible with new technologies.

Once you know their unchangeable constraints, choose one to work on and turn it into a tight problem statement.  Then use your best tools and methods to solve it.  Once solved, you’ve got to make a functional prototype and show them in person.  Without going back to them with a demonstration of a functional prototype, they won’t believe you.  Remember, you did something they didn’t think was possible and changed the unchangeable.

When demonstrating the prototype to the customer, just show it in action.  Don’t describe it, just show them and let them ask questions.  Listen to their questions so you can see the prototype through their eyes.  And to avoid leading the witness, limit yourself to questions that help you understand why they see the prototype as they do.  The way they see the prototype will be different than your expectations, and that difference is called learning.  And if you find yourself disagreeing with them, you’re doing it wrong.

This first prototype won’t hit the mark exactly, but it will impress the customer and it will build trust with them.  And because they watched the prototype in action, they will be able to tell you how to improve it.  Or better yet, with their newfound understanding of what’s possible, they might be able to see a more meaningful transparent problem that, once solved, could revolutionize their industry.

Customers know their work and you know what’s possible.  And prototypes are a great way to create the future together.

“Transparent” by Rene Mensen is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

If you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, you can try to remember why you started the whole thing or you can do something else.  Either can remedy things, but how do you choose between them? If you’ve forgotten your “why”, maybe it’s worth forgetting or maybe something else temporarily came up that pushed your still-important why underground for a short time.  If it’s worth forgetting, maybe it’s time for something else.  And if it’s worth remembering, maybe it’s time to double down.  Only you can choose.

If you still remember why you’re doing what you’re doing, you can ask yourself if your why is still worth its salt or if something changed, either inside you or in your circumstances, that has twisted your why to something beyond salvage. If your why is still as salty as ever, maybe it’s right to stay the course.  But if it’s still as salty as ever but you now think it’s distasteful, maybe it’s time for a change.

When you do what you did last time, are you more efficient or more dissatisfied, or both?  And if you imagine yourself doing it again, do you look forward to more efficiency or predict more dissatisfaction? These questions can help you decide whether to keep things as they are or change them.

What have you learned over the last year?  Whether your list is long or if it’s short, it’s a good barometer to inform your next chapter.

What new skills have you mastered over the last year? Is the list long or short? If you don’t want to grow your mastery, keep things as they are.

Do the people you work with inspire you or bring you down? Are you energized or depleted by them? If you’re into depletion, there’s no need to change anything.

Do you have more autonomy than last year? And how do you feel about that? Let your answers guide your future.

What is the purpose behind what you do? Is it aligned with your internal compass? These two questions can bring clarity.

You’re the only one who can ask yourself these questions; you’re the only one who can decide if you like the answers; and you’re the only one who is responsible for what you do next.  What you do next is up to you.

“Fork in the road” by Kai Hendry is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

If there’s one superpower to develop, it’s to learn how to assess a project and get a good feel for when it will launch.

When you want to know how long a project will take, ask this simple question: ‘What must the project team learn before the project can launch?”  By starting with this single question, you will start the discussion that will lead you to an understanding of what hasn’t been done before and where the uncertainty is hiding.  And if there’s one thing that can accelerate a project, it’s defining where the uncertainty is hiding. And knowing this doubly powerful, like a pure two-for-one, because if you know where uncertainty is, by definition, you know where it isn’t. Where the uncertainty isn’t, you can do what you did last time, and because you’ve done it before, you know how long it will take.  No new tools, no new methods, no new analyses, no new machines, no new skillsets, no new anything. And for the remaining elements of the project, well, that’s where the uncertainty is hiding and that’s where you will focus on the learning needed to secure the launch.

But it can be difficult to understand the specific learning that must be done for a project to launch.  One trick I like to use is the Same-But-Different method. It goes like this.  Identify a project that launched (Project A) that’s most similar to the one that will launch next (Project B) and perform a subtraction of sorts.  Declare that Project B (the one you want to launch) is the same as Project A (the one you already launched) but different in specific ways and then define those differences as clearly and tightly as possible.  And where it’s different, that’s where the learning energy must be concentrated.

Same-But-Different sounds simplistic and trivial, but it isn’t.  More than anything, it’s powerful.  For the elements that are the same, you do what you did last time, which is freeing.  And for the small subset if things that are different, you dig in!

Same-But-Different drives deep clarity and extreme focus, which result in blistering progress and blinding effectiveness.

And for some reason unknown to me, asking a team to define the novel elements of a project is at least fifty times more difficult than asking them how Project B is different than Project A.  So, it feels good to the team when they can use Same-But-Different to quickly easily define what’s different and then point directly to the uncertainty.  And once the team knows where the uncertainty is hiding, it’s no longer hiding.

And if there’s one thing a project team likes, it’s knowing where the uncertainty is hiding.

“The same, but different by the Paris Photographic Co. (c.1880)” by pellethepoet is marked with CC BY 2.0.

Clean-sheet designs are fun, right up until they don’t launch.

When you feel the urge to do a clean-sheet design, go home early.

When you don’t know how to make it better, make it worse and do the opposite.

Without trying, there is no way to know if it will work.

Trying sometimes feels like dying.

But without trying, nothing changes.

Agreement is important, but only after the critical decision has been made.

When there’s 100% agreement, you waited too long to make the decision.

When it’s unclear who the customer is, ask “Whose problem will be solved?”

When the value proposition is unclear, ask ‘What problem will be solved?”

When your technology becomes mature, no one wants to believe it.

When everyone believes the technology is mature, you should have started working on the new technology four years ago.

If your projects are slow, blame your decision-making processes.

Two of the most important decisions: which projects to start and which to stop.

All the action happens at the interfaces, but that’s also where two spans of control come together and chafe.

If you want to understand your silos and why they don’t play nicely together, look at the organizational chart.

When a company starts up, the product sets the organizational structure.

Then, once a company is mature, the organizational structure constrains the product.

At the early stages of a project, there’s a lot of uncertainty.

And once the project is complete, there’s a lot of uncertainty.

“Toys Never Forget” by Alyssa L. Miller is marked with CC BY 2.0.

When you design something, you create a solution to a collection of problems.  But it goes far beyond creating the solution.  You also must create objective evidence that demonstrates that the solution does, in fact, solve the problems.  And the reason to generate this evidence is to help the organization believe that the solution solves the problem, which is an additional requirement that comes with designing something.  Without this belief, the organization won’t go out to the customer base and convince them that the solution will solve their problems.  If the sales team doesn’t believe, the customers won’t believe.

In school, we are taught to create the solution, and that’s it.  Here are the drawings, here are the materials to make it, here is the process documentation to build it, and my work here is done. But that’s not enough.

Before designing the solution, you’ve got to design the tests that create objective evidence that the solution actually works, that it provides the right goodness and it solves the right problems.  This is an easy thing to say, but for a number of reasons, it’s difficult to do.  To start, before you can design the right tests, you’ve got to decide on the right problems and the right goodness.  And if there’s disagreement and the wrong tests are defined, the design community will work in the wrong areas to generate the wrong value.  Yes, there will be objective evidence, and, yes, the evidence will create a belief within the organization that problems are solved and goodness is achieved.  But when the sales team takes it to the customer, the value proposition won’t resonate and it won’t sell.

Some questions to ask about testing. When you create improvements to an existing product, what is the family of tests you use to characterize the incremental goodness?  And a tougher question: When you develop a new offering that provides new lines of goodness and solves new problems, how do you define the right tests? And a tougher question: When there’s disagreement about which tests are the most important, how do you converge on the right tests?

Image credit — rjacklin1975

This seems like a repeat of the last time we set a project launch date without regard for the work content.  Do you see it that way?

This person certainly looks the part and went to the right school, but they have not done this work before.  Why do you think we should hire them even though they don’t have the experience?

The last time we ran a project like this it took two years to complete.  Why do you think this one will take six months?

If it didn’t work last time, why do you think it will work this time?

Why do you think we can do twice the work we did last year while reducing our headcount?

The work content, timeline, and budget are intimately linked. Why do you think it’s possible to increase the work content, pull in the timeline, and reduce the budget?

Seven out of thirteen people have left the team. How many people have to leave before you think we have a problem?

Yes, we’ve had great success with that approach over the last decade, but our most recent effort demonstrated that our returns are diminishing.  Why do you want to do that again?

If you think it’s such a good idea, why don’t you do it?

Why do you think it’s okay to add another project when we’re behind on all our existing projects?

Customers are buying the competitive technology.  Why don’t you believe that they’re now better than we are?

This work is critical to our success, yet we don’t have the skills sets, capacity, or budget to hire it out.  Why are you telling us you will get it done?

This problem seems to fit squarely within your span of responsibility. Why do you expect other teams to fix it for you?

I know a resource gap of this magnitude seems unbelievable but is what the capacity model shows.  Why don’t you believe the capacity model?

We have no one to do that work. Why do you think it’s okay to ask the team to sign up for something they can’t pull off?

Based on the survey results, the culture is declining.  Why don’t you want to acknowledge that?

“I have a question” by The U.S. Army is licensed under CC BY 2.0