Guest Blog by Timm J.
Esque
The Language of
Planning
Think for a moment about the types of statements that get
made during the planning of an upcoming project:
-
This project will need more resources than the
last one
-
That task will probably take 4 people about 5
weeks to complete
-
We should be able to get that done by the end of
the month
-
Meeting that goal is going to be a stretch
These are all examples of a certain type of statement called an assertion. Assertions extrapolate from our past experience. We make assertions because we learn from the past, and those learnings are valuable for planning the future. But those learnings can also hold us back.
Assertions are an important part of the planning process,
but they are only the beginning. If the
conversation of assertions and estimates becomes our schedule, we remain
chained to the past throughout the project.
In our modern project environment, full of uncertainty, lots of things
don’t go as planned. And when they don’t
we want to revisit and rationalize our assertions - “We said we could do it in
5 weeks because based on what happened last time we expected…” So our progress reviews tend to get mired in
“what ifs” and “shoulda’s” and blame.
What we really should be talking about in our regular
project meetings is the future we are going to create. This requires a different type of statement
called commitments. At a certain point
in the planning process, we need to shift the conversation from assertions to
commitments. Commitments are not tied to
the past; they are only and always a declaration about what is going to happen
in the future. When we use commitment
language on projects, we are not basing our statements on possibilities, we are
declaring that something will get done by a certain time. Further, when we make commitments, we are
putting our personal reputation on the line.
These language distinctions derive from “Speech Act Theory” as posited
by John Austin, his student John Searle and his student Fernando Flores.
Commitment, Trust and
Reputation
Putting our reputations on the line (operating from
commitments) greatly increases the chances that we will create the future we
have declared. It brings the whole issue
of trust to the fore. But it is not as
scary as it sounds. Trust is not black
and white, all or nothing. You can miss
a commitment and still build trust with your team mates. This is a concept we call “early warning”. When someone realizes a commitment they made
is in jeopardy, they need to speak up immediately. Often times another teammate can help, or the
commitment can be re-negotiated so that the team remains on track (maybe the
whole committed outcome wasn’t needed to stay on track and the key parts of the
deliverables get clarified). On teams,
personal commitments are made in the context of a shared goal, so the issue at
hand is not did someone miss a commitment, but what commitments will keep us on
track now. There is no faster or more
effective way for teams to build trust than to make , manage and meet
commitments to each other on a regular basis.
Where Do We Start?
When my company Ensemble works with teams, we begin the
whole planning process with a technique called map day that sets the stage for managing
the network of commitments between team members. But a great place to begin experimenting is
with your most immediate team. Follow
these steps:
1.
Using your existing plan/schedule pull off the
tasks representing roughly next 6-8 weeks of work
2.
With your small team, identify the outcomes
(deliverables) from those schedule items.
3.
Have some discussion about how you’d know each
deliverable was complete and done well.
4.
Now have each team member identify their
individual deliverables for the next
several weeks (we often have team members write their
items on post notes and put them on a timeline).
5.
Scrub this plan for dependencies and take into
account vacations, etc.
6.
Now moving from left to right on the plan, for
each deliverable, ask the owner if they can commit to deliver that deliverable
on that day. (Making this a deliberate step is key)
For Agile teams operating from a backlog of stories, simply
identify the personal commitments required to support each story. It is important to remind people at step 6
that these are not estimates, you are asking for their personal
commitment. Most likely, before you get
through the 6-8 week horizon, people will start balking – there is too much
uncertainty. That is no problem. Start tracking the commitments you have
together as a team each week. Every
week, you can see if team members can turn some of those future deliverables
into commitments. Over time, when done right,
teams will build “commitment muscle”, meaning individuals will be willing to
commit further into the future, in spite of uncertainty.
For 17 years now we’ve been helping teams large and small
operate from commitments. We recommend
teams track team performance against commitment with a simple tool we call a
PAC chart. Not only does the chart
predict which teams will meet their commits in the future, but productivity
measurably increases almost immediately. What is stopping your team from
operating from commitments?
