Shipulski On Design

Archive for the ‘Fundementals’ Category

The need to grow revenue and profit is ever-present.  And as the pace of change accelerates and competitors elevate their game, it’s getting more difficult.

Growth must be built on top of your best work.  To grow, you must develop new products and services that make your customers swap out the old offering they just bought from you for the new one you just launched.  And you must develop the new product with the team that developed the old one.  This is difficult.  You need to create the conditions for the team to see their best work as crap and prevent them from seeing themselves as crap.

For customers to replace an existing product with a new one, the new product must help customers make more progress than the old one.  In a word, the new one must be better, or customers won’t buy it.  And if they don’t buy the new one, there can be no growth.  But here’s the difficult part – when the team built the old one, they designed in as much goodness as possible, yet your task is to help the team design a better one.  Hey Team, congratulations on the wonderful success of the existing product.  You did new work in new ways; you stretched; you hustled; you sprinted.  Now, you must outdo yourselves, even though you just did that.  This is quite the balancing act for the engineering leader.

Growth comes when the team designs a product that works better than the one they designed last time.

Designing a new product that works better is only half of the profitability recipe.  It must also cost less.  Yes, it must work better AND cost less.  Yes, I said AND.  Most teams don’t believe they can design a new product that costs less, and they think you’re crazy when you tell them the new one must work better and cost less.  But this type of double-barreled profitability improvement is possible and proven.  But only if the engineering leader believes it.  And most don’t.

Growth is realized when the team designs a new product that works better AND costs less.

You can radically improve profitability with this double-barreled approach.  I’ve used it to more than double the profit per square foot of the assembly area.  And that makes the CFO smile and gets you lunch with the CEO.  It’s good for profitability and better for your career.

Radical growth comes from obsoleting your best work, but only if you think it’s possible.

Image credit — Don Miller – double rainbow

AI may be wonderful in some contexts, but AI makes it more difficult to be an effective engineering leader.  Using AI in engineering elevates the training, development, and mentorship requirements that companies must address to make their engineering leaders successful.

When asked questions, AI gives answers.  The answers may be correct or not.  In day-to-day life, that’s not such a big deal.  But in engineering, that’s not good enough.  In engineering, the answers must be right.  Not almost right.  Not maybe right. Not kinda right. The answers must be right. When engineering leaders design products, those products must work, function as advertised, satisfy customers’ needs, meet the cost target, and not hurt people.  If an engineering leader follows AI blindly, there’s no guarantee the product will be successful, profitable, or safe.

When asked the wrong question, AI gives an incorrect answer to the question that should have been asked.  If an engineering leader misunderstands the context, there’s a good chance they’ll ask the wrong question.  And they won’t know it. At best, this will create rework and project delays. And in the worst case, the company could launch a product that hurts people.

And there’s an even more troubling situation: when the engineering team presents solutions to the engineering leader without informing the leader that AI was used to generate the solutions.  To protect against this failure mode, the engineering leader must recognize when AI has been used and dig into the questions/prompts the AI was given.  From there, the engineering leader must use their knowledge of the design context to decide whether the prompts were valid and whether the answer is useful or viable.  This is a heavy lift and requires highly capable engineering leaders who have been trained to recognize AI use and verify the validity of its solutions.

Can your engineering leaders use their knowledge of the design context to provide the right prompts to an AI?

Can your engineering leaders challenge the applicability of an AI’s answer even when they think they’ve provided good prompts to the AI?

Can your engineering leaders detect when their teams have used AI to generate solutions?

Can your engineering leaders challenge the engineering teams when they suspect AI has misled the engineering team?

I hope the answer to those four questions is yes.

Image credit — Richard

Go faster. Do it better. Do more with less.  Meet the growth objective.  All good ideas, but how? In two words: Engineering Leadership.

Going forward, competition will be fiercer. Engineering organizations will be asked to do better engineering work, even though they did that on the previous project.  And to do that, engineering leaders will have to up their game.  They will have to improve the engineers’ performance on the job and their own performance.

I think engineering leadership development is a singular challenge for companies that want to thrive and grow. And for mature companies, I think it will become more difficult as these companies reduce headcount.  The burden on engineering leaders will grow as there are fewer leaders, more projects to complete, more work to elevate, and each leader will have more direct reports.   It’s already difficult for engineering leaders to make time to grow engineers and to do it without guidance and support, but I think it will become more difficult.

And developing engineering leaders is difficult for younger companies that want to grow.  These companies have engineering leaders with less experience and are new to the company and the industry.  The organizational design is still forming and fluid, the work processes are still under development, and there are far more projects to deliver.  Engineering leaders must create the organizational structure, identify engineering talent to develop, fill organizational holes, and increase design productivity to meet the company’s growth targets.  These are big challenges for new-to-role engineering leaders who must get it done without mentorship and guidance.

Often, companies try to use standard leadership development programs to grow engineering leaders, but in my experience, these generic leadership programs don’t cut it.  Every aspect of engineering leadership work has a technical bias that shapes the work, the processes, and the approaches.  Generic leadership development programs are not built on a technical backplane and don’t provide the specialized guidance and support for the work.

Engineering leadership development is different.

Engineering leadership development comes with unique challenges.  And to further complicate things, those challenges differ between mature companies and younger companies.

Your products and technologies are different.

Your processes are different.

Your business models are different.

And your engineering leadership development program should be different.

Image credit — Bennilover

To help your team members communicate more effectively, teach them to put their argument on one page.  Teach them what to leave off the page and explain why those things should be omitted. Teach them what’s at the top of the page and explain why.  Help them identify the central element and show them how to make it fill the center of the page.

Teach them that the professionals distill.

They will have difficulty stripping away the clutter.  They will have difficulty shedding the details. They will have difficulty raising the level of abstraction.  Their fear is typically that people (the leadership team) will think they don’t know what they’re doing because their one-pager doesn’t contain all the details.  It’s your job to help them think otherwise.  You have to help them understand that capable people know how to distill their argument to its essence and answer questions about the details when asked.

To help your team members get the tone right, teach them about snarl words and no purr words.  Snarling and purring create a manipulative tone that devalues the argument.  Teach them to use the fewest, clearest, non-judgmental words.  And no blaming words.  Explain that “they” and “them” signal that there are competing factions that aren’t working well together.

Teach them that words matter.

To help your team communicate a complicated process, system, or approach, teach them to create a hand sketch that represents the complicated idea.  The hand sketch method is like the verbal decluttering described above, but teaching them to create a hand sketch takes the distillation to the next level. The hand sketch is not the process itself; it represents the process.  The sketch doesn’t describe the system in full; it focuses on the main pillars. And it doesn’t describe the approach in a flow chart way; it elevates the novel elements.  And to further raise the bar, limit the number of words to an unreasonable number like six or twelve.

Teach them that a sketch demonstrates understanding.

This one-page approach can also be used for problems, planning, and prioritization, but that’s for another time.

Image credit — Tambaco The Jaguar

Coach? Mentor? Consultant? What’s the right word?

Subject matter expertise.  However they categorize themselves, they must have subject matter expertise.  If you work in the hardware space, they should have experience in hardware.  If you work in the software space, they must have software experience. Ask if they have solved a similar problem in a similar space.

People and Teams.  Whatever they call themselves, they must know how to create the conditions for effective team performance to emerge.  Yes, there is a need to help individual leaders elevate their game.  That’s the minimum entry criterion.  But it’s not enough to guide one person.  Big growth objectives require engaged teams that work together and pull in the same direction.  Have they pushed a team in a skillful way to elevate the work and have the team stand taller because of it?  Ask them for objective evidence.  Have they helped an engineering team obsolete their best work?  This is a high bar because the team must see their best work as something that can be made irrelevant, see themselves as a team that can elevate their work, and be fully engaged in the go-forward challenge.

Systems, not point solutions. Regardless of how they identify, it’s not enough to create a solution for today’s problem.  Anyone can create a narrow solution for today’s specific problem. Have they created the systems, processes, tools, and built out the roles/responsibilities to prevent a broader, more global class of problems?

In the trenches.  Bottom line, no matter their label, they must have done similar work in a hands-on way.  Not in an advisory way, not in an oblique way, not in a thought-leader way, but in an in-the-trenches way.  In a I-did-it-myself way.  Ask them what their role was.  Ask them what they did.  And if they can’t be specific with you, don’t hire them.

It doesn’t matter what they call themselves.  But they must have subject matter expertise, they must have helped teams elevate their game and stand tall, put preventive systems in place, and worked in a hands-on way.

Image credit — Paul VanDerWerf

When you have more projects than people, you have far more activity but far less progress.

Pro Tip: Activity doesn’t pay the bills. Progress does.

Would you rather make lightning progress on two projects or tortoise progress on four?  I prefer lightning.

But isn’t four projects better than two?  It is, if you get compensated for the number of active projects. But it’s not, if you get compensated for finishing projects.

Pro tip: There’s no partial credit for a project that’s less than 100% done.

But how to protect your resources from four projects when you have the resources to deliver on two? This is not a complicated answer: block the extra project from entering the pipeline until you finish one.

Pro Tip: Finish one before you start one, not the other way around.

But what about the efficiency that comes from shared resources that can be spread over four projects?  Don Reintertsen would say “Shared resources create waiting and waiting is the enemy.”  I agree with Don, but I think his language is too reserved.  I say “If you’re focused on the efficiency that comes from shared resources, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Pro Tip:  Waiting kills progress.  Don’t do it.

Here’s a process to consider.

1. Define the resources you have on hand to work on projects.
2. Choose the most important project and fully staff the project. If the project is fully staffed, start the project.
3. Define the remaining unallocated resources.
4. Choose the next most important project and fully staff the project. If the project is fully staffed, start the project.  If the project is not fully staffed, don’t start a project until you finish one, or you can hire the incremental resources to fully staff a project.
5. Repeat.

Image credit – KIUKO (Elephant Tortoise)

When the cost of the experiment is small, the downside of its potential failure is also small.

Small improvements cost little and can be implemented quickly.

Small improvements make a difference.

If the transformational improvement never sees the light of day because it costs too much to implement, its realized value is less than the smallest improvement that was implemented.

When a small experiment does not go as planned, the learning can be significant (and fast).

Small experiments are funded by small investments that don’t require approval.  Don’t seek approval. Run the experiment.

The second small improvement stands on the shoulders of the first one

If the improvement is never implemented, it’s not an improvement.

Small improvements can be tested under the radar.  When they work well, give the credit to someone who deserves it. When they go poorly, try something else.

Like ants, small improvements gang up to make a real difference.

Once a small improvement is implemented, it stays implemented.  Like a one-way ratchet, there’s no backsliding.

Small improvements add up over time, but only if you bring them to life.

When it comes to improvements, small is beautiful.

Image credit — Jim Roberts – Papa I’m only a little sparrow

Companies make progress through projects.

Projects have objectives that are defined by the company’s growth or improvement objectives.

Projects have quantifiable goals that are, hopefully, time-bound.

Projects require resources, and those resources limit the number of projects that are completed.

Projects are run with the resources allocated, not with the resources we want to allocate.

Projects have timelines that are governed by the work content, novelty, and resources.

Project timelines cannot violate the governing constraints of work content, novelty, and resources.

Projects have project managers, or they’re not projects.

Projects can be accelerated by eliminating waiting.  To find the waiting, look for the work queued up in front of the bottleneck resources.  Those resources are usually resources that support multiple projects (shared resources).  When it comes to waiting, shared resources are almost always the culprit.

Projects have a critical path.  A one-day delay (waiting) on the critical path delays project completion by a day.  That’s how you know it’s the critical path.

If you don’t know the project’s critical path, you don’t know much.

When it comes to projects, effectiveness is far more important than efficiency, yet we fixate on efficiency.  Would you rather run the wrong project efficiently (ineffective) or run the right project inefficiently (effective)?

Regardless of the business you’re in, it’s all about the projects.

Image credit — State Library of South Australia

When you start something, by definition, you will end it.

All good things come to an end.  So do all bad things. That’s how it goes with things.

All new things start with the end of old things. That’s how things are.

What does it say when a phase of your life comes to an end?

Doesn’t the start of a new phase demand the end of an existing one?

When something ends, do you curse it or celebrate it, do both, or neither?  And how do you decide?

If you stay with the old thing too long, what does that say?  And how do you know it was too long?

Can you know it will be too long before you stay too long?

If you leave too soon, can you know that before you leave?

The follow-on results of a decision do not determine the quality of a decision.

There is no right decision to make.

Make the decision and then make it right.

Image credit — Karissa Burnett

When the ocean gets tired from holding its water up to make high tide, it lets go and relaxes into low tide.  The ocean takes direction from the moon who knows it can’t always be high tide.  This is The Way.

When the earth gets tired from heating up the northern hemisphere it wobbles on its axis and relaxes its northern territories into cooler weather.  And the reduced energy demand in the north frees up energy for the earth to focus on heating up its southern hemisphere.  Taking direction from the  sun, the earth knows it cannot always be hot in the north or the south.  And it know it doesn’t have enough energy to make it hot in the north and south at the same time. And it knows it can’t be lazy all year and let it be cold in both hemisheres year round. It’s natural for winter to follow summer and for the hemispheres to be out of phase.  The earth and sun know this.  It’s natural for them.

Bears have their fun in spring summer and fall.  They are all-in on eating, taking care of young bears, and making new ones.  After three seasons of fun and games, bears know they need to hunker down and rest for the winter.  That is how it is with bears and how it will always be. It is natural bear behavior. And it works.

When you work out hard, your body knows it needs to rest the next day.  It knows it needs to recover from the elevated stress of the workout so it gives you feedback that it’s important to do less the following day. There’s nothing wrong with that.  In fact, there’s everything right with that.   It’s natural and it works.

And there are natural rest cycles at work,  After a full week of planning meetings, people need to downshift into work that is less taxing and gives their bodies time to process the plans.  This is not weakness, it’s natural.

And there are even natural hibernation cycles at work in the form of vacations and holidays.  Like with bears, our bodies need (and deserve) deep rest.  And just bears don’t check their email when hibernating, neither should we.  Taking time for deep rest is not irresponsible or wasteful, it’s natural

Without a trough there can be no crest.  And without rest there can be no high performance.  This, too, is natural.

Image credit — Geoff Henson

Good new product development projects deliver value to customers.  Bad ones create value for your company, not for customers.  Can you discern between custom value and company value?  What do you do when there’s an abundance of company value and a shortfall of customer value?  Do you run the project anyway or pull the emergency brake as soon as possible?

Customers decide if the new product has value.  That’s a rule. No one likes that rule, but it’s still a rule. The loudest voice doesn’t decide; it only drowns out the customer’s voice.

Having too many projects is worse than having too few.  With too few, you finish projects quickly because shared resources are not overutilized.  With too many, shared resources are overbooked, their service times blossom, and projects are late.   Would you rather start two projects and finish two or start seven and finish none? That’s how it goes with projects.

Three enemies of new product development: waiting, waiting, waiting.  Waiting that extends the critical path is the worst flavor of all.   Can you tell when the waiting is on the critical path?  If you calculate the cost of delay, it’s possible to spend money to eliminate waiting that’s on the critical path and make more money for your company.  H/T to Don Rienertsen.

For projects, effectiveness is more important than efficiency.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Would you rather efficiently run the wrong project (low effectiveness) or run the right project inefficiently?  Do you spend more mental energy on efficiency or effectiveness? (You don’t have to say your answer out loud.)

I think post-mortems of projects have no value.  The next project will be different, and the learning will not be applicable or forgotten altogether.  However, I think pre-mortems are powerful and can improve the effectiveness of a project BEFORE it is started.  I suggest you try it on your next project.

Strategy is realized through projects. Projects generate growth.  Cost savings come to life through projects.  I think building a deeper understanding of your projects is the most important thing you can do.

Image credit — Mike Keeling (one too many head on collisions)