(2019-04-18) Cutler The Messy Shift To Starting Together

John Cutler: The (Messy) Shift to Starting Together. The transition to more mission driven, autonomous product teams is often characterized by an awkward period. Whereas before, teams were used to a prescriptive backlog of “things to do”, now it is very common to feel like you are in limbo.

In my days as a UX researcher, it was my job to coordinate two-week long kickoff and discovery “sprints”.

Much of the work was done away from keyboards and in conference rooms with the whole team (not a subset).

There is another type of autonomy. And that type of autonomy involves being free to tackle a really challenging problem as a cross-functional team. Working as a team is messy. It means constantly revisiting what you understand together, and vacillating between “things are awesome” and “I’m not really sure what we are doing!”

It worked. But it is hard.

Starting together is messy and involves a lot of ambiguity. It also takes TIME.

Kickoffs and discovery often follow the typical “double diamond” structure. They involve divergent exploration, convergent exploration, divergent “exploitation” (solutioning), and then convergent solutioning. There is a tendency to want to “just get started” but if you are framing the problem at the right resolution, you will typically notice some level of divergence. You know you are “doing it right” when there are three (or more) ways you could “solve the problem” (or capture the opportunity).