The Test
A short work week last week. The majority of the week was spent on an intensive driving course followed by a practical driving test on Friday. Unfortunately I didn’t pass, so I’ve got to book another one – and that’ll probably be in 3–6 months’ time. I wish DVSA would sort their shit out.
Work
Spent most of Monday finalising preparation for an away day on Tuesday, plus some other odds and ends, like asking the product managers to have their OKRs and initiatives ready for a roadmap review next week.
Tuesday was the away day. psd talked about the service being operational, how everything needed to go faster, and generally setting aspirations high. I spoke about Lean principles, and how you don’t need to aim to be fast – just make operations easier, lighter and smoother and you’ll go fast as a result.
Lean principles
I reviewed the principles from four books on Lean software development:
- Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit by Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck
- The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
- Lean UX by Jeff Gothelf and Joshua Seiden
- The Lean Product Playbook by Dan Olsen
They’re all super similar, so I munged them together, using titles from the first book as headings. These are principles, not rules. Principles guide your thinking and doing. Rules say what’s right and wrong.
It can be good to score your team against these principles from time to time: see where you’re strongest, where you’re weakest, and which you should be exploiting most to achieve your goals now.
1. Eliminate waste
Reduce anything which does not help deliver value to the user. So: partially done work; scope creep; re-learning; task-switching; waiting; hand-offs; defects; management activities. Outcomes, not outputs.
2. Amplify learning
Build, measure, learn. Create feedback loops. Build scrappy prototypes, run spikes. Write tests first. Think in iterations.
3. Decide as late as possible
Call out the assumptions or uncertainties, try out different options, and make decisions based on facts or evidence.
4. Deliver as fast as possible
Shorter cycles improve learning and communication, and helps us meet users’ needs as soon as possible. Reduce work in progress, get one thing done, and iterate.
5. Empower the team
Figure it out together. Managers provide goals, encourage progress, spot issues and remove impediments. Designers, developers and data engineers suggest how to achieve a goal and feed in to continuous improvement.
6. Build integrity in
Agility needs quality. Automated tests and proven design patterns allow you to focus on smaller parts of the system. A regular flow of insights to act on aids agility.
7. Optimise the whole
Focus on the entire value stream, not just individual tasks. Align strategy with development. Consider the entire user experience in the design process.
Production plus knowledge work
Lean principles come from manufacturing cars, but they talk a lot about information flow too. That’s important because product/service design and development is knowledge work as well as production work. It’s not just about your skills as a digital specialist but also the flows of information into and through your organisation, team, squad, processes and the outside world.
Production suffers when the flow of information is hampered.
Running
The hip injury is almost gone. I can feel it some times but it doesn’t linger long, and it’s not painful. A dull hum. For the last three weeks I’ve been doing a light marathon training schedule. Three runs a week: one easy, one speed-work, one long run. This gives the hip plenty of rest between sessions.
It’s been wonderful to get outside again, to get my ‘Me-time’ back, and succeed in something where I don’t rely on anyone else. It boosts my Tuesdays and Thursdays, and always rounds the week off with a win. The after-run high.
Product leadership
The product leadership course moved on from the history and styles of leadership through to how to build a great team. There were lots of aspects I felt I knew, so it was good to get some practical experience backed up by theory.
I also started the module on working with stakeholders, which is mostly about presenting to a C-suite how a product strategy will achieve business objectives. Visions, roadmaps, strategy, and OKRs.
It’s all helping me spot things that could be different in my current space. Made lots of notes.
The Fall
We’re on series 3 of The Fall now. It’s a pretty good show! Up until series 3, anyway, where it is starting to drag ever so slightly. Either the writers or directors or producers – maybe all of them – are angling for a job in a hospital drama, given how much time is spent on an operation and bed-side care.
It hasn’t ruined the previous two series anyway, and we’re still intrigued to see the story conclude.
Japan trip
Thank-you to everyone who’s sent me tips so far! We’ve got a loose plan now. We’re going to work backwards adding more detail, including defining where we’ll stay and for how long.
I know why students in our General Assembly classes pitched holiday-planning apps now. There’s a fair bit of work to do, but I still don’t think an app is the right way to solve the problem. Some things do and should take a lot of effort, like planning a trip. If you don’t want to plan it, buy a tour or follow a plan from a guidebook.