Appreciation – the Key to Change

When I quit smoking for good 5 years ago I did it through deep appreciation for cigarettes and all they’d done for me. I’d quit several times before, sometimes for years at a time, by punishing myself and hating cigarettes – but the smoke had always returned.

As I was being particularly hard on myself one day a friend asked me what I enjoyed about smoking and suggested I connect with that, and see if I could quit from a place of gratitude.

He was right. I found I deeply enjoyed many things about cigarettes. Socially they kept my hands busy and gave me reasons to connect with others – sometimes attractive others. Professionally they gave me a reason to take a break and let my non-rational mind take over. And they also were enjoyable sensory experiences in their own right – the taste and smell (and nicotine hit) had become deeply enjoyable to me over the years, especially with coffee involved.

Over the course of the next two weeks I let myself smoke as often as I liked and each time pushed myself to be consciously and specifically grateful to cigarettes. I turned off the critical mind and allowed myself to fully enjoy and appreciate smoking. I found I liked it, a lot but not enough to compensate for some things I didn’t like – smelly clothes, financial expense and impeded health.

When I opened the last pack I added “and I think I can get along without you from now on” to my gratitude. I explained to the smoke that it wasn’t that I hated it I just felt we’d learned as much as we could from each other and it would be best if we parted ways from here on out. And I knew it was true. I could get the good things cigarettes gave me in ways that didn’t cost so much.

The smoke tries to pull me back in occasionally but I’m clear I’m done and it gives up quickly. I guess I’m not an enticing mark anymore.

My friend, fellow coach (and personal hero) Bryan Franklin often says that appreciation is the key to change. That is that you cannot change until you fully appreciate where you are. I’ve found this to be true in many areas of my life, but nowhere was this more present than with cigarettes.

I think there are several reasons for this but the most important is that appreciation helps you see exactly where you are – the plusses and the deltas. If you are fighting the current state of affairs, you are probably not fully seeing things as they are. This means you are missing the options you have and therefore are feeling forced into change. And, whether internally or externally imposed, the use of force never bodes well for building true, sustainable change.

Agile adoption is about changing how we view our jobs, our organizations and ourselves. What can you appreciate about your team today – especially the deltas? How can you help your team appreciate (e.g. fully see) where they are?

Velocity is Not Speed

“What’s our velocity going to be?” a product management team asked during release planning last week. It’s a simple question and one you’d think would be logical to ask.

But the answer will always, always, always (did I say always?) be “We don’t know.” Even if you have accurate, historical data for the team, the best you’ll ever do is “it will probably be X.”

Most organizations I spend time in (including my own brain) have an almost reflexive orientation towards the predictive – that is we want every variable to be controllable (except the three that actually are, more on this later).

I’ve recently found that agrarian metaphors for business are the most useful (as opposed to our usual war, sports and mechanical metaphors) and I’ve come to view Velocity the way a farmer might think of soil fertility – I think they call it tilth.

Tilth is great to have and the farmer can influence it, but only with a very long lead time. If done hastily and chemically (e.g. command and control) you end up sacrificing the long-term health of the team for short-term, and short-lived gains.

Check out Daniel Pink’s work for more on how to motivate a team.

The truth is that it’s the wrong question to ask in release planning (or anywhere for that matter). The right questions are what’s our velocity been? What are our priorities? And, given these two pieces of information when are we likely to have something valuable ready for market?

Oh and those short-term variables I mentioned before? They are Time, Scope and of course Quality!

Do you measure Velocity? How does your organization treat it?

Agile is Not Pretty

I recently took pictures of myself in my underwear. I also weighed myself, measured the circumference of several parts of my body and had a trainer measure my body fat. I then recorded the results in a spread sheet – I’ve never done this before and, until I did, I thought I was in pretty good shape. It was a humbling experience.

I did all this because I’m reading The 4-Hour Body and I am generating a before picture of myself that I’m hoping will contrast nicely with the picture I create after a couple of months of focused exercise and dietary change. [And no, you cannot see the pictures, not yet anyway.]

Some of my favorite coaching tools help teams take “pictures” like these. We estimate capacity, measure velocity and work to get a clear picture of the throughput we can anticipate for a team. We do this in an effort to get a realistic idea of where a team is and what they can actually accomplish in the time they have.

I’ve posted my pictures in a place where I see them every day and I encourage teams to do the same. “What gets measured gets managed” as Senge says of course but – there is also Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle that the act of simply observing something can change it. I’ve seen this time and again.

Agile is a way for your organization to get real with itself. The mechanism is simple but the results of such truth telling can be astounding. And, just like those painful pictures I look at every day, you may not like what you see.

The “Harujuku Moment” — the will to change

The only person who likes change is a wet baby.” Observes eco-activist extraordinaire Hunter Lovins. As a coach I’m in the business of change and time and again I’ve seen Agile transitions stall or fail because the team resisted change and slid back into comfortable old patterns and processes. This has happened even when everyone on the team wanted the change and management was supportive. Change is hard or, as my grandma used to say, “everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die.”

So where does the will to change come from? How do we turn a “should do” to a “must do” and overcome inertia? I recently found the key in a surprising place and I’ve been exploring the question with colleagues ever since. It’s what Tim Ferris (in his new book The 4-Hour Body) he calls the Harujuku Moment. The name comes from a story of how Ruby guru Chad Fowler transformed his body and his health in a single year.

Chad was in Tokyo on business and out with a group of colleagues who were shopping for stylish clothes in the Harujuku section of the city. He was standing around waiting because he had no interest in shopping and while explaining his reluctance to shop to colleague he said “For me, it doesn’t even matter what I wear; I’m not going to look good anyway.”

The words hung in the air and at that moment Chad realized he needed to change. Less than 12 months later he’d lost more than 70lbs – extra weight he’d been carrying for years. It wasn’t until that moment on the street corner in Tokyo that he found the will to go through what it took to actually change.

How many times have we seen this with teams? There is change that is needed, desired and the steps well understood yet the teams stay stuck and bloated with requirements documents, process and hierarchical management. What I’m working with now is how do we create these moments for our teams or can we actually create them. While discussing this with colleagues it seems that all such moments are surprising* and the result of actions they could not predict the outcome of. As coaches I believe the best we can often do is keep showing up, keep teams honest with themselves and let the Harujuku Moments come as they may.

What do you think? What are your (and your teams’) Harujuku Moments? Do they just happen or do you consciously create them? And where in your life do you most need one?

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*My colleague Jean Tabaka describes how she accidently created a Harujuku Moment a few years ago. She was out to dinner with a delivery team she’d been working with – a team that was stuck and receiving no clear instruction or support from the business. She asked quite seriously “Why are you building anything? If you have no support, no clear requirements and no engagement from the business then why build any software at all?” It was a provocative question that the team later told her was the moment they decided to change.

Agile Meetings: building collaborative culture

What does Product-Market Fit mean?

“When a product shows strong demand by passionate users representing a sizable market.”

This is part of an ongoing series of concept definitions from “The Entrepreneur’s Guide 
to Customer Development” by Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits. This book is an awesome extension of the work Steve Blank started in “Four Steps to the Epiphany.” You can get a copy of the book today at http://custdev.com. I highly recommend it.

What does Getting Out of the Building mean?

“Steve Blank’s short hand for not accepting your business assumptions as true. Go speak (in person, if possible) with living, breathing customers to determine the validity of your assumptions.”

This is part of an ongoing series of concept definitions from “The Entrepreneur’s Guide 
to Customer Development” by Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits. This book is an awesome extension of the work Steve Blank started in “Four Steps to the Epiphany.” You can get a copy of the book today at http://custdev.com. I highly recommend it.

What are Early Adopters/Earlyvangelists?

“Passionate, early users of new technology or products who understand its value before mainstream markets. Acquiring early adopters is important to jumpstart product adoption.”

This is part of an ongoing series of concept definitions from “The Entrepreneur’s Guide 
to Customer Development” by Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits. This book is an awesome extension of the work Steve Blank started in “Four Steps to the Epiphany.” You can get a copy of the book today at http://custdev.com. I highly recommend it.

What is a Lean Startup?

“A startup which combines fast, iterative development methodologies with customer development principles.”

This is part of an ongoing series of concept definitions from “The Entrepreneur’s Guide 
to Customer Development” by Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits. This book is an awesome extension of the work Steve Blank started in “Four Steps to the Epiphany.” You can get a copy of the book today at http://custdev.com. I highly recommend it.

What is Market Type?

“A concept coined by Steve Blank to describe different types of market conditions confronting new products, comprised of existing market, re-segmented market, and new market.”

This is part of an ongoing series of concept definitions from “The Entrepreneur’s Guide 
to Customer Development” by Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits. This book is an awesome extension of the work Steve Blank started in “Four Steps to the Epiphany.” You can get a copy of the book today at http://custdev.com. I highly recommend it.