Hey Reader

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Sometimes it gets annoying how people polarize agility so much. But it’s also an easy way out to just say “it depends” or “the answer is in the middle”.

I think one particularly unhelpful polarization in agile has been the output vs outcome one. And I must admit I was there advocating for outcomes for some time, as an early scrum master some 12 years ago and many more years after that.

That being said, we should all learn. The world adapts, we adapt. And today I’m here to tell you the outcome is not the focus if you are pursuing agility for your teams and departments.

You will need the outcome as a target, and the output as the means to it.

Not only having the experience of running 2 companies in two different countries in two different decades, but after having coached so many leaders from different industries and coached dozens of teams, I’m here to share with you this:

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Ideas, outcomes, targets, are ideas. They paint a possible future and that is great.

But the EXECUTION is what can lead you anywhere. From the sales department to the development teams ideas are just ideals if the execution is not up to par. Focusing on increasing sales or reducing the number of defects will not automatically reduce them.

What you need instead is to focus on the execution, because that’s the land where improvement lives. Improvement is what slowly closes the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, the outcome. The better (getting there), not best (arrived there).

The shift in thinking is bigger than it might seem at first.

Shifting to the improvement land makes you look at leading measures instead of the lagging one. If you want to increase sales and keep looking at the result, your lagging measure may show you sold 10 thousand units since you last checked. But that tells you nothing about how that number came to be. It just shows you the gap that you wish it was at 50 thousand units.

Measuring the execution and really discovering what your leading indicators are is what truly helps you make decisions and improve.

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Sales team

In the example above, you should pay attention to:

• How many potential customer relationships did you acquire?
• What is your closing ratio ("talk to" versus "buying" ratio)?
• How many units per client are you selling?

And if you pick one of those to improve, you observe their impact on the outcome. If that brought more sales, keep tweaking until it’s exhausted. Then pick another leading indicator.

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Dev team

Focusing on a goal of Zero Defects? Great! That’s your outcome, your ideal, so when you measure it, it’s already in the past.

Now you will decide what can be measured and tweaked to get you there.

• Is it better test coverage (not number, but quality of coverage)?
• Is it having a cleaner code? And if so, using some static analysis tool to address that properly or pairing or reviews?
• Is it number of features accepted? Maybe the less features at once the better your quality?
• Maybe it’s the time it takes to complete features (and you notice the less it lingers, the more you deliver with quality)?

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And then you look at improvement over time and their relationship with the outcome.

Are you noticing something here?

Deep understanding of the business AND the technology are required for finding and tweaking those leading indicators.

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If you are finding it hard to wrap your head around this concept, consider simple things, like controlling your weight or running faster times. You only know how fast you run or your weight by measuring them and by then it’s too late. But can you have indication that things will improve?

You can. A runner will consider how many times or how many kilometers she’s been logging in a week. A person controlling his weight might check macros or his total calorie intake.

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Once you define your outcome, let it be a north star for the execution, but stop obsessing about it.

You can’t’ MAKE the outcome happen.

You can only control and measure execution.

Even if a cheetah misses her shot and goes hungry for now, she’s still agile and able to catch the next prey. She can't make the pray fall into her hands, but she can strive for better leaps!

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From the Blog

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Did you miss the mini class live last Wednesday? Sweat not, you can catch it here:

​https://allthingsagile.co/post/why-agile-frameworks-dont-work/​

The blog post is a bit more concise, but it's a great way for you to make sure you didn't miss the main point: there are limitations with agile frameworks. I didn't list an extensive list,s o the mini-class was a toe-dipping in the topic.

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We have a next mini-class on April 3rd and the theme is still open. Feel free to send suggestions!

Stay curious, stay agile!

Cheers,

P

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