3 ms·

> So however great you are as a team, you’re delivery cadence is constrained to a local maxima based on your external dependencies, which are (effectively) non-

> So however great you are as a team, you’re delivery cadence is constrained to a local maxima based on your external dependencies, which are (effectively) non-negotiable. Precisely this. Which is why strong enterprise leadership needs to map out the value streams of their teams, understand where their bottlenecks are, and work at improving the bottlenecks. When the bottleneck is no longer affecting work throughput, find the next bottleneck, and improve it. Rinse and repeat. Doing so requires senior leadership's direct intervention, not just because only senior leadership has the full picture, but also because the main way of motivating enterprise employees is by directing the attention of senior leadership at them. > it helps if people get fired for not constructively working with the changes It doesn't just help, it's a non-negotiable necessity. Enterprise bottlenecks are not literal/physical/PVC-pipe bottlenecks, they're people. Organizations which cannot fire (literally or effectively, by moving them to non-bottlenecked projects) their non-compliant bottlenecks are organizations which cannot fix their bottlenecks.

lostapathy 8y ago
It is also important to realize this very problem isn’t just a matter of headcount, and can happen in a very small “enterprise.” At my last job (~40 employees total) the dev team was absolutely crippled by other teams blocking us simply because they could, and the “leadership” would still take it out on the dev team because our work was ultimately the deliverable to the customer. I got out, they sufferred a major data breach, and from all accounts it is the same old story to this day.
jimmy1 8y ago
I disagree that senior leadership is required, maybe indirectly, but not as direct as you suppose. The hard part is firing the right people. If you are going to fire someone, you better be absolutely right it's the cause of the bottleneck, and it really wasn't something else (If I had a dollar for every time some new or existing senior leader thought they could just come in and fire a few people to shake up a place and turn the ship around, boy I would be rich) My experience, everyone is always pointing the finger to something else -- sometimes they are right, sometimes it is a case of simple finger pointing. It becomes difficult to distinguish the finger pointers from the ones that are genuinely trying to overcome the bottleneck. And once senior leadership gets involved, the finger pointing gets exacerbated because now people feel like they might be threatened. You are right that the problem is people, but it is also cultural -- what is the culture like in your organization? Do you have a culture of problem solvers and people willing to set aside their own selfish goals to achieve the goal of removing the bottleneck? Hire people that will instill this culture into your organization -- grassroots style, and watch it spread like wildfire. To that -- I look to my HR department. How are we hiring people? Are we assessing not just on talent but also the type of personality traits we want to see exemplified in our organization? This becomes difficult but it must be done, because top down intervention can only last so long, but if you want lasting change, it has to start at the local level and spread up. That also means senior leadership empowering those at the bottom. To me its not a fire / senior leadership issue, it's culture, nurturing that culture. If you are a director or senior leader in a tech team, you need to really take a hard look at the culture you want, and P.S. this means that you yourself must exhibit these qualities as well because people always look up for role models.
- solatic 8y ago
  > It becomes difficult to distinguish the finger pointers from the ones that are genuinely trying to overcome the bottleneck. Which is precisely why senior leadership needs to map out the value streams in their org first, identify bottlenecks second, get a sense of vision about what the area should look like without a bottleneck, and lead people in that direction. The question about who to fire has nothing to do with who's at "fault" for the bottleneck, because generally, nobody's at fault, it's just the way things organically got to that point. Firing is not a response to fault for the current situation, it's a response to a failure to respond to leadership's direction, so finger-pointing has little to do with it. > Are we assessing not just on talent but also the type of personality traits we want to see exemplified in our organization? This is nigh impossible to do without incurring prejudicial bias, not to mention that the devils of our nature (sloth, toxicity, etc.) are never revealed during interviews. Furthermore, this kind of perspective assumes that people cannot adapt to their environment, i.e. companies that hire players instead of problem solvers cannot turn them into problem solvers. Whatever the situation is at an enterprise, if it sucks, it's not because people are "evil". The situation is the sum of the current incentives - how people's roles are defined, how people are rewarded, etc. If the situation sucks, it's because the current incentives at the enterprise have led the enterprise to that situation. A big part of changing the culture is changing the incentives. Do you want people to focus on problem solving? Then reward problem solving. Do you want people to focus on helping each other? Then reward people who look beyond the narrow confines of their job description. The "players" will take note. But rethinking incentives very much requires senior leadership - not just to approve but to drive - and still, requires a willingness to fire those who allow the devils of their nature to get the better of them.

lostapathy 8y ago

It is also important to realize this very problem isn’t just a matter of headcount, and can happen in a very small “enterprise.” At my last job (~40 employees total) the dev team was absolutely crippled by other teams blocking us simply because they could, and the “leadership” would still take it out on the dev team because our work was ultimately the deliverable to the customer. I got out, they sufferred a major data breach, and from all accounts it is the same old story to this day.

jimmy1 8y ago

I disagree that senior leadership is required, maybe indirectly, but not as direct as you suppose. The hard part is firing the right people. If you are going to fire someone, you better be absolutely right it's the cause of the bottleneck, and it really wasn't something else (If I had a dollar for every time some new or existing senior leader thought they could just come in and fire a few people to shake up a place and turn the ship around, boy I would be rich) My experience, everyone is always pointing the finger to something else -- sometimes they are right, sometimes it is a case of simple finger pointing. It becomes difficult to distinguish the finger pointers from the ones that are genuinely trying to overcome the bottleneck. And once senior leadership gets involved, the finger pointing gets exacerbated because now people feel like they might be threatened. You are right that the problem is people, but it is also cultural -- what is the culture like in your organization? Do you have a culture of problem solvers and people willing to set aside their own selfish goals to achieve the goal of removing the bottleneck? Hire people that will instill this culture into your organization -- grassroots style, and watch it spread like wildfire. To that -- I look to my HR department. How are we hiring people? Are we assessing not just on talent but also the type of personality traits we want to see exemplified in our organization? This becomes difficult but it must be done, because top down intervention can only last so long, but if you want lasting change, it has to start at the local level and spread up. That also means senior leadership empowering those at the bottom. To me its not a fire / senior leadership issue, it's culture, nurturing that culture. If you are a director or senior leader in a tech team, you need to really take a hard look at the culture you want, and P.S. this means that you yourself must exhibit these qualities as well because people always look up for role models.

solatic 8y ago
> It becomes difficult to distinguish the finger pointers from the ones that are genuinely trying to overcome the bottleneck. Which is precisely why senior leadership needs to map out the value streams in their org first, identify bottlenecks second, get a sense of vision about what the area should look like without a bottleneck, and lead people in that direction. The question about who to fire has nothing to do with who's at "fault" for the bottleneck, because generally, nobody's at fault, it's just the way things organically got to that point. Firing is not a response to fault for the current situation, it's a response to a failure to respond to leadership's direction, so finger-pointing has little to do with it. > Are we assessing not just on talent but also the type of personality traits we want to see exemplified in our organization? This is nigh impossible to do without incurring prejudicial bias, not to mention that the devils of our nature (sloth, toxicity, etc.) are never revealed during interviews. Furthermore, this kind of perspective assumes that people cannot adapt to their environment, i.e. companies that hire players instead of problem solvers cannot turn them into problem solvers. Whatever the situation is at an enterprise, if it sucks, it's not because people are "evil". The situation is the sum of the current incentives - how people's roles are defined, how people are rewarded, etc. If the situation sucks, it's because the current incentives at the enterprise have led the enterprise to that situation. A big part of changing the culture is changing the incentives. Do you want people to focus on problem solving? Then reward problem solving. Do you want people to focus on helping each other? Then reward people who look beyond the narrow confines of their job description. The "players" will take note. But rethinking incentives very much requires senior leadership - not just to approve but to drive - and still, requires a willingness to fire those who allow the devils of their nature to get the better of them.