Easy in theory, difficult in practice

COVID-19 is like that car accident just up ahead which you know you shouldn't be focusing on while driving, but which draws the attention of all around it. After doing a number of articles related to the pandemic, I'd planned to write about something completely different, but as my weekly blogging time drew near I realized that there was (at least) one more topic I needed to write about.

I've often said that one of the bigger challenges with agile transformations is the costs of doing nothing (different) today is cheaper than those of changing things so that they will be much better a year or two down the line. This is especially true when you look at companies which operate in markets which are near monopolies or oligopolies as they might still succeed in spite of themselves. Implementing transformations such companies can be orders of magnitude more difficult than in those companies who need to always be more efficient and effective than their competitors in order to survive.

But all that has changed.

Operating budgets have been slashed, companies have frozen hiring, supply chains are under such heavy demand that materials may be unavailable when needed and staff availability is even more unpredictable. Regulations are being introduced at lightning speed, fast-tracking public policy changes in hours or days which normally would take months to push through.

And worse, don't expect a quick resolution.

Under such conditions, it is not enough to just deliver business value from your projects as early and regularly as possible, avoiding non-value add efforts and inspecting and adapting based on changes within and without.

Portfolio investment decisions will also need to be made in a similar manner. Funding plans might need to focus on shorter time horizons and provide Plan B (and C and D) options of what could be delivered with progressively greater constraints on investment.

Defining right-sized MVPs, MBIs and MMRs will be critical.

Product and solution viability risks will have to be explored much earlier than they might have been previously.

Understanding our cross-functional value streams and finding ways to reduce the cost of delay across them will be that much more critical.

And teams will have to take an enterprise-level view, making sure they are engaging delivery and control stakeholders appropriately so that business and control objectives are both being met.

And above all, we need to double-down on putting people first. 

For most of us, the last time there was this much media attention given to a single event was 9/11. The difference between the two situations is that the emotional and physical impact of 9/11 was vastly more severe in the days immediately following the attacks but subsided relatively quickly compared to what we are seeing with the pandemic which started as a slow burning fire but now looks like a long term conflagration.

Unless you are able to isolate yourself in a remote location with no access to others, social media and the news, it will be extremely difficult to avoid receiving high volumes of both accurate and false information.

The impact of this goes beyond wasted time.

Excessive amounts of negative information increases stress levels, and, unless we are careful about where we are procuring our updates, may just further harden the bias bubbles we are already living in. The spread of misinformation itself is a virus.

Don't get me wrong. The current situation is serious and each of us has the potential to be impacted to a greater extent than we already have been so it is responsible for us to want to remain informed but how do we avoid going down the rabbit hole of pursuing too much information?

I wrote last week about the importance of establishing at least one positive daily routine and sticking with it. Do the same for updates about the pandemic.

I won't call it simple, but here's a four-step process to regaining control over information overload.

1. Identify the sources of trusted information you will follow to understand what is going on. Given travel restrictions, for most of us, the real impacts will be limited to the country and city we live in so focus there. If you come up with more than three, ask yourself if there is really that much incremental value to justify more.
2. Determine a time each day when you will get your updates and time-box how much time you will spend.
3. Every time someone sends you a link on social media, before you click, check yourself. Do you REALLY need to follow that link? What is the probability that there will be something of value beyond what you are already getting from your trusted sources of information.
4. Resist the temptation to share pandemic updates with those in your social network. Trust that they have the ability to locate what is important to them.

Physical distancing has become a proven method for protecting the physical health of us and those around us.

Be mindful about COVID-19 information updates to do the same for your mental health.

For those of us who are forced to be at home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, adjusting to our new reality has not been easy. The loss of control we feel over what is happening around us and to us can sometimes result in negative behaviors such as panic buying. This reaction is less about worrying that common household products will no longer be available in stores and much more about feeling that we are in control of something, no matter how small that is. This becomes even more important when the situation we are in feels like it has shifted from being complex to becoming chaotic.

FDR said the "Only thing we have to fear is fear itself". It's one thing if you have a fear of a transitory event such as fear of a spider. Once the threat is eliminated, adrenaline subsides and things return to normal. This pandemic will linger for weeks or even months and if we allow our fears to cause us to behave in irrational or obsessive ways, we very likely could do greater long term damage to ourselves.

Panic buying is just one of many possibly unwholesome outlets for these fears. Binge eating, drinking, watching TV or obsessively cleaning surfaces are other possibilities. Worse still, some people might resort to spending excessive amounts of time watching videos, listening to podcasts and following social media updates about the disease. While it is understandable for us to want to remain informed as to what's going on, we need to remember that the Internet and popular media provide a distorted, imbalanced lens into what the world is really like. It can be easy for us to fall into the vicious cycle where the more negative updates we receive, the worse we feel and the worse we feel, the more we seek updates that reinforce our views about how bad things are.

Under normal conditions we establish daily routines to reduce decision-making effort. During these challenging times, whether we are working from home or are in the unfortunate situation of not being able to work, identifying and implementing healthy routines will help us feel that we have regained some control and can be something that we look forward to each day.

I've been a gym rat since my early twenties hence I took the closing of all public gyms in my area particularly hard. Spring hasn't fully sprung yet, so there are limited opportunities for me to exercise outdoors. I also happen to have a sweet tooth so it would have been very easy for me to suffer the double whammy of not exercising and binge-eating desserts to deal with the frustration of not being able to exercise! While this might make me feel temporarily better, it would take me months to get back into my daily workout routine (and shape!) once things improve. I've adapted my daily routine by waking up early and exercising in my basement for at least a half hour each day. I've also reduced how much baking I'm doing in the hopes that easier access does not translate to greater consumption. And even though these daily workouts represent only a fraction of my waking hours, the comfort and regularity of this routine gives me the mental strength I need to get through the rest of my day.

Discover one or two positive activities that you can perform each and every day and stick with them.

Control your fears before they control you.

The product owner role is extremely challenging for most organizations to fill. It is also the role which has the greatest impact on achieving expected delivery outcomes. An average delivery team might still be able to successfully launch a product or service even if it is late, over budget or not at the highest level of quality. But if the product or service itself is lacking key requirements which stakeholders need, it will never succeed.

Sufficient capacity, knowledge and empowerment are needed to succeed in this role, but every time I teach an agile foundations class and ask the participants whether their companies are able to meet all three of these requirements for assigning product owners to their most important value streams, very rarely do I get an unqualified "Yes!".

As such, it is of limited value to insist that all of these prerequisites must be met for companies wishing to move to adaptive delivery approaches, otherwise they are unlikely to gain momentum for their transformations.

So if compromises have to be made, where should we stand firm?

With limited capacity, a product owner is unlikely to have sufficient time to engage with stakeholders in a timely manner to understand their needs and wants. They might not be able to give the delivery team sufficient time to help them understand what needs to be built and why. While this can result in delivery delays and might generate some stakeholder and team dissatisfaction, if expectations are managed well and if the product owner prioritizes the stakeholders they meet with, the risks can be managed.

A lack of empowerment isn't ideal as it could demoralize a product owner and might reduce the respect which delivery team members have for the role. However, this is again a case of expectation management. At the start of the project, if the product owner and team members know that key product content decisions will have to be made by senior management, then they might plan accordingly by having regularly scheduled reviews with senior leaders to build a cadence for decision making.

But what if the product owner has insufficient domain or organizational knowledge? Lacking organizational awareness, they won't know which stakeholders need to be engaged regularly, nor would they have well established relationships with them to effectively negotiate product content. Lacking domain awareness, they will lose credibility with the delivery team members and with other stakeholders. While it might be possible to pair them up with a domain subject matter expert, how do we make up for the lack of organizational awareness?

This is why it is usually not a good idea to bring in an external consultant as a product owner. They might have ample capacity and be legitimately empowered by their leaders to make decisions, but if they don't know what they don't know, their product decisions won't be effective. If the company is in a capacity crunch, it is better to free up the best possible employee to fill the product owner role and back fill their other responsibilities using an external consultant.

Building the right product in the right way requires the right people.

I've written a few articles over the past weeks which have touched on the current COVID-19 global outbreak. Things are likely to get worse before they start getting better, so I felt this week's article would serve as a keystone for the series.

The media are well known for sensationalizing threats and artificially elevating fear levels among the public. The 2001 "Summer of the Shark" was just one example of this phenomenon which subsided only when the 9/11 attacks occurred later that year. However, putting media hyperbole aside, the progressive global spread of this disease is a valid cause for concern.

While many project managers might not have direct reporting responsibilities over their team members, we are still in a leadership role and likely have more daily interactions with these folks than their people managers. As such, we have a responsibility to understand their fears and doubts and help them cope with those in a productive manner.

So what are some of the things we should be doing when such prolonged crises occur?

• Help to control the spread of misinformation. Most of us are not experts on global threats, but we should take the time to identify legitimate sources of knowledge and share those with our team members.
• Create a safe space for team members to express their concerns. While psychological safety within teams is important at all times, it is that much more important during a crisis. We want our team members to share their fears with each other without bottling them up because they are feeling ashamed or embarrassed to do so. Recognize that just as each of us has a different risk appetite, we will have varying perceptions of the severity of this situation. But watch out for team members spending excessive time discussing or obsessing over the crisis as negativity begets negativity.
• Encourage safe behaviors. Frequent hand disinfecting or washing and avoiding the unnecessary touching of one's face appear to be the best current defenses against this disease. Make sure that cleaning supplies are readily available to address the former and work with the team to find creative, fun ways of addressing the latter. For example, a "face touching" penalty jar could be setup in which team members are asked to deposit some small change whenever they unnecessarily touch their faces. Have the team discover their own special way of greeting one another - elbow bumps, bowing or saying "Namaste" are just a few examples.
• Look after ourselves. We are of no use to our team members if we are stressed, overly tired, or suppressing our fears. The phrase "Physician, heal thyself" is especially apropos.

We also need to consider the resilience of our plans from a people perspective.

Consider what would happen if one or more of your team members were to get sick and be quarantined for a period of time. Could you still meet the success criteria for the project, and if not, what steps could you take to protect at least the primary objectives? Could work be done effectively in a virtual manner if your company mandates this? While your organization probably has a business continuity plan, how will you apply that to your project?

"In the eye of the storm, You remain in control" - Ryan Stevenson