It’s 2018
We’re almost a month into 2018 now… The first month of a new year... A year full of possibilities!
If you’re like many people, the year often starts with a New Year’s Resolution… A chance to think about something you’d like to improve, or change, in your personal or professional life. For those of you who know me well, you know I’m always about continually learning and improving myself. I don’t always succeed, but I’m always trying. I’m not trying to be perfect, but rather just better than I was yesterday.
A new year seems like a great time to set some new goals. But I don’t think it is.
In fact, I think the entire premise is flawed.
First of all, it forces me to wait until an arbitrary date on a calendar. Why should I wait? When I see something that I want to change about myself, the best time to do it would be a year ago. Or maybe two years ago. But the second best time is right now. There’s no reason to put it off when I know what I need to do.
Secondly, when I plan in years, I set goals with long time horizons. This means they tend to be large goals. I need to keep track of my progress. I need to ensure they’re realistic. In fact, the most common reason for participants failing their New Years’ Resolutions was setting themselves unrealistic goals (35%), while 33% didn’t keep track of their progress and a further 23% forgot about it. In a survey that came out at the end of 2014, about one in 10 respondents claimed they made too many resolutions.
Finally, neuroscience research suggests spreading resolutions out over time is the best approach. A 2007 study by Richard Wiseman from the University of Bristol involving 3,000 people showed that 88% of those who set New Year resolutions fail, despite the fact that 52% of the study’s participants were confident of success at the beginning.
Now, why do I mention this? Well, it’s because it’s the same thinking that an agile, or learning, organization exhibits.
Instead of waiting to make improvements, Scrum offers multiple times to reflect and make improvements. We call these the Daily Standup. Think that’s just for reporting on the status of your work? Nope. That’s a time to reflect on what you’re doing and identifying things that are slowing you down, so you can remove them so they don’t slow you down in the future. The Sprint Review is another opportunity to look at what you’re doing, and make sure you’re still on the right track. Hopefully, you’ve learnt something about your product and your customers as you’ve been working, so this is a perfect time to pivot, as the data becomes available. No need to just wait for the Retrospective.
How about setting long time horizons? The longer things take, the less pressure and importance they tend to have. What about setting small milestones, or breaking my improvements down, so I can see progress? And, more importantly, I can learn and pivot as shorter cycles provide me with better feedback, and better data. The same study I referenced above found that men achieved their goal 22% more often when they engaged in goal setting, (a system where small measurable goals are being set; such as, a pound a week, instead of saying “lose weight”).
And, consider focusing on, and setting the most important goal (or two) to right now, instead of trying to predict a year, or two, or five, into the future. Once I’ve achieved the most important goal, or arrived at a point of diminishing returns, or realized it’s not the most important priority, I can move on to the next highest priority. That way, I’m getting things done, as opposed to getting things started.
I’m certainly in favour improvements, and resolutions, and I’ll support anyone trying to make a positive change in their personal or professional life. Just as we’re trying to do with our work, I’d encourage you to thin-slice your resolutions, and be willing to pivot as you start on your journey in this wonderfully exciting new year, full of possibilities.
Customer Satisfaction Isn’t Enough
Recently, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Bill Bellows from the Deming Institute. He spoke on a number of topics, and I thought I’d write about one that he made me think about. I may write about some of the others. But we’ll start with this one.
I often hear about customer satisfaction. I hear that it’s important. Maybe you also feel it’s important.
In fact, if I asked the question: “Is customer satisfaction important to you?”, I expect the only answer I’d get would be “Yes”. Or “Of course”. Maybe “Duh! Obviously”.
I have a bit of a different answer, and a different perspective I’d like you to consider.
On the level of customer satisfaction, let me propose that there are three feelings a customer can have.
Think of your own experiences with any company or organization you interact with.
Customers can be disappointed with a company, product, or service. In this state, the customer doesn’t feel they got value from the products, services, or experience provided. That’s really all there is to it. It’s a mismatch of the level of service, the quality of the product, the time it took to get that product, compared with the cost (and yes, time is a cost). More and more, especially in the age of social media, when we’re disappointed, we’ll tell people. There was a study I read a whole bunch of years ago which claimed that when you’re disappointed, you’ll tell 10-12 people. I’m not sure that’s true. I think it’s likely higher. This study came out long before social media existed, so I’m pretty sure my data is way out of date! But whatever. The point is just that you’ll make a point of telling people. There’s one store that I actively dissuade people from shopping at because of my experience with them in 2004. Not that I’m holding a grudge. But what about you? How often do you share your negative experiences with family and friends? About that rude person. About the product that broke, or didn’t work as expected?
On the other side of the scale, when the product, service, or experience exceeds our expectations – when we get more value for our money or time than we expect – there’s a word used commonly to describe this; that word is delighted. And when I’m delighted, I’m also likely to tell my family and friends about it. After all, I got more than I expected, and I want to share my good fortune with others, so they might also be delighted. The study I read which said you’ll tell 10-12 people when you’re disappointed also said that you’re likely to tell 3-5 people when you’re delighted (if you can believe a study I read something like 20 years ago). So while delighting customers is good, I’ve got to do it three times as often to get the same reach as number of people. Not an easy task. And think about yourself for a moment. How often do you share experiences that delighted you?
So let me come to the third experience. This is when the time & cost of the product, service, and experience met expectations. I was promised something, and it was delivered as expected. How many people do you typically tell when the value you received aligns with the cost? I don’t think I’ve ever been in a gathering and had someone tell me how a product, service, or experience met their expectations. And this is customer satisfaction.
Please, don’t for a second think I’m saying that customer satisfaction is bad. It’s not. But how much value do we put on satisfying our customers? Really, another way to look at it is that customer satisfaction is the same as not disappointing a customer. There are lots of companies (including many I’ve worked for), where the entire objective was not to disappoint customers. Customer disappointment is so common, that not doing it is often viewed as an achievement.
So let me go back to my initial question, “Is customer satisfaction important?”
How Agile Are You?
I often get asked to assess how agile a team or organization is.
I hate the question, because I have no way of really doing this, and think it misses the point. The goal should never be to be agile. It should be about better meeting the needs of your customers, improving the quality of work, improving time to market, improving economics, and improving ourselves.
Nevertheless, I’m going to take a stab at creating a “How Agile Are You” model which you can score yourself against, or use to start a conversation in a retrospective.
Survey Part 1:
Does your team uncover and implement better ways of delivering value?
Do you help others uncover and implement better ways of delivering value?
Can you demonstrate that you value individuals and interactions over processes and tools?
Can you demonstrate that you value delivered work over comprehensive documentation?
Can you demonstrate that you value customer collaboration over contract negotiation?
Can you demonstrate that you value responding to change over following a plan?
Survey Part 2:
Is your highest priority to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery?
Do you welcome changing requirements, even late in your process?
Do you harness change for your customer’s competitive advantage?
Do you deliver production value frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale?
Does everyone involved in creating intent, delivering intent, and servicing intent, work together throughout the project?
Do you build projects around motivated individuals?
Do you work in the type of environment you need, with the support you need?
Are you trusted to get the job done?
Do you use the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to, and within, your team, through face-to-face conversations?
Is the value you deliver the primary measure of progress?
Does your process promote sustainable pace of work?
Can everyone involved with your work sustain a constant pace indefinitely?
Is continuous attention to technical excellence and good design a consideration for your team?
Is simplicity — the art of maximizing the amount of work not done — an essential approach you take with your work?
Do you allow and encourage your structures, requirements, and designs to emerge from self-organizing teams?
At regular intervals, does the team reflect on how to become more effective?
Does the team tune and adjust its behaviour accordingly?
If you can answer “yes” to the majority of these, in my opinion, you’re well on your way. What do you need to get to being able to answer “yes” to all of these questions?
If you’re not answering “yes” to the majority of these questions, consider starting with question twelve: how can you make time to pause and reflect as a team to become more effective, and more importantly, does your team tune and adjust its behaviour accordingly.
There are other surveys out there, and lots and lots of opinions on this topic. This is just my offering as something to consider as you’re on your journey. Let me know if you find it useful!