Experimentation and Struggles in Agility with Kieran Neeson
- Sydney Lego
- Aug 8, 2024
- 4 min read
April 12th, 2022
Q: It seems to be the approach you are taking now fits in with your mindset then. So, what was it in the five years up until the last year and a half that had prevented you from making progress?
A: If I was to pick out an anti-pattern it’s that predeterministic mindset, the notion that we can predeterministic a solution and we just go linear and implement a design plan. That's never been the case and we have a history of long-running projects that could just continue to burn up cash and then fail to deliver and meet expectations. Something new was needed and that was suddenly the shift from those outputs and t faster and shorter outcomes was a better way to go.
Q: What was it that you needed? It sounded like you had great autonomy to pull apply and experiment. Was there any impediment to start and where did you get the green light that yes, you can do this?
A: I suppose it was because of the role I had that came with a level of autonomy that I was able to cash in on. It led to some conflict because it conflicted with traditional opinions and ways of working for others who had been successful without that way of working.; But, I was in a position where I felt I didn't have a choice. Like David Marquis on the Santa Fe, he was in charge of a submarine that he didn’t know anything about, and in his context, people could die. I was pretty sure I couldn’t kill anyone, but I was also certain that if I were the decision maker in everything I would make a very poor decision and I thought that was not going to benefit anyone. Certainly, it does not benefit the teams, me, or my career, or the business. So I took the decision to turn it around and go with the intent model. Some embraced it straight away, as in peers and other people in the organisation, and some took a little bit longer to appreciate it.
Q: Does it feel like you're suddenly taking off now?
A: It definitely feels like a momentum shift now and like I said we are starting to see things we experimented with pop up somewhere. We’re now starting to see social proof of learning other parts of the organisation. The appetite for some of that learning has been driven because there is an imminent delivery threat or goal that needs to be hit. When people look at what they need to do, they know it's not going to happen. Now it's starting to be heard in other parts of the organisation and things have gone viral internally and if we combine that all together, we will see what happens.
Q: Could you explain Jeremy England’s opinion on creating an environment and getting things aligned?
A: They call it the second Darwin because it talks about matter based on the right conditions, the star's self-organising, and how life actually begins. It’s lots of about ways of working, it’s a good analogy.
Q: Why have you chosen the book that measures what matters or the framework more than the book instead of other kinds of framework with OKRs? Do you feel that the measure was a matter of some deficits not doing software when it comes to a tactical point?
A: To be clear we are only really getting started with OKRs, maybe 18 months behind us and started in terms of my group and our collaborators, Maybe, because that’s really all we have been exposed to so far. We were introduced to the measure of what matters in the book and we thought we would take a stab at it, give it a go. We thought we didn't know if there’s better and we thought the best way is to try and navigate it and have a go and learn. Likewise, with the North Star framework, we were aware of this 12 months prior. It was too much, we couldn’t understand it. It wasn't until we saw a LinkedIn post-Christmas morning, that I was ready for it at a coffee shop and it was like a Christmas present. I read it and was like oh my god, I understand it. I understand what the links are now, and we are going to start that in January. We are still experimenting with that now and I'm absolutely certain we won't get it right and there will be bits that don’t align with the directions in the book or the playbook. For us, it is more important for the conversation happening around it rather than being textbook lane for a lane with what the book says.
If we look back at the time we spent together, we will probably remember it differently. I think this little difference brings out more in the story because of my recollection of why OKRs is what I started, it is a tool and I can understand what people want to achieve and how they’ll know they’re achieving them and all that. Like anything done well, it can be helpful. So I started to lead it with some colleagues and they were really dissatisfied with them. So I started to then say well why don’t we look at how other people are doing and how they chose it? And it wasn’t an element of being chosen because it allowed people to pick a buzzword up and change something without really understanding what they wanted to change. We started to dig a little deeper into it and added some more viewpoints as to why I should measure what matters and jn was a north star in our playbook and said to play around with it to get more reactions. It seems to have worked in that you’ve made a recipe from these cookbooks and have seasoned to taste and enjoy those meals.
While OKRs were the term being used, they were definitely a new label on old behaviours and they were still just objectives and pointing out measuring things that were business as usual. Not really focused on the delivery of value but more on behaviour and discipline. We saw and through what we learned that we had an opportunity to focus on outcomes and that discipline wasn’t the problem.
