Quick POLL
Reply in Comments - How aligned is your work to goals common to your group or enterprise?
- No idea of common goals
- Some alignment
- Mostly aligned
- Completely aligned
This is my third post in the series on the Nine Principles of Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) from ICAgile. Here I delve into nuances behind these principles. Please join us at the Kintsugi Training Institute (KTI) in our LPM course, where we use these principles in training on the whole Lean Portfolio Management system.
This blog is based on the seven reporter questions: what, why, who, when, where, how, and which. You can read more about this question strategy on my blog: Simpler Agile.
What is the topic?
#3 - Align around common goals, and how they might change
The ICAgile article defines the third principle as follows. Typically, the “true north” guiding organizational strategy is conveyed as a set of desired business outcomes across multiple time horizons. These outcomes, should be expressed and communicated as clear, measurable "goals", which would make the strategy implementable. Every area of the organization should understand where and how to contribute to the overall mosaic that delivers on these outcomes. Feedback loops need to be established to ensure these goals and outcomes can adapt to meet the evolving needs of the organization and these changes also should be communicated to the entire organization transparently and clearly.
Why is this important?
Alignment! This is the driving force in this principle. When people are aligned with their work towards a common goal both the progress on the work is smoother and the achievement of the goal is easier. For a blatant example compare a group of people sitting in a raft randomly paddling, versus the same group synchronously paddling towards the shore. No contest. All it really takes is for someone to say: "Let's paddle to the shore!" People will automatically take a spot on the raft and start paddling in the same direction. Yes, it make take a few stroke to get into synchronization and smooth out the movements, yet with little coaching quick progress can be achieved. If however some people are paddling towards one shore while others towards the other, little if any progress will be made. Plus everyone will get frustrated.
The second part is confirming everyone understands and buys-in to how these common goals may change. This is critical to be arranged before the first change occurs, so that when it does everyone is already familiar with the change approach and can easily realign to the change goal. Using our raft example, if we get everybody to agree how we turn, then when the need for a turn comes we can enact it smoothly.
Who is involved?
Setting goals and aligning to them could be performed at multiple levels in the organization. For example, at the top enterprise level, along with the overall business, needs a set of goals which are derived from the overall strategy and lead to its fulfilment; each organization segment, such as business units or departments, should define their strategy and goals; each product should have its strategy and goals; and organization-wide strategic initiatives may have their strategies and goals. All these strategies and goals must be aligned to each other to foster synergy and cohesion and to avoid friction among people and work.
At each goal setting event, there are two main groups involved with the setting goals. The people who define and maintain the goals, and the people who work to achieve the goals. Ideally, these should be the same people. The people working to achieve a goal, should also be the people defining and maintaining that goal. That personal connection strengthens the alignment, because the workers feel more connected to those goals. If having all involved people attend a goal setting session, at least representatives should be present from each involved area; e.g. sales, marketing, devops, etc.
How is this to be performed?
In enacting this principle, there are at least 5 elements to expand with some common guidelines.
- The goals need to be defined
- How the goals might change (flexibility) needs to be outlined
- The goals need to be maintained, i.e. changed when the need arises
- The people working towards those goals need to be aligned to them
- Progress to those goals needs to be tracked
Here are some typical suggestions for well-defined goals. First, desired business outcomes need to be the precursors to the goals. The resulting goals need to be stepwise approximations to the outcomes. Second, make the goals S.M.A.R.T. That means: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timeboxed; although some use other expansions for this acronym. SMART, is just one of those rules-of-thumb that helps us remember the elements of good goals. You can also use the OKR system - Objectives and Key Results; or any other structure that leads to well-defined goals. Third, it is highly valuable to involve the workers (people who will work on the goals) in their definition so that they feel a sense of ownership and accountability for them.
Build in flexibility into the goals. This may seem counterintuitive to the SMART criteria. However, in this context all we need is an outline of the approach for how we will change the goals and under what circumstances. For a short example: we set a goal to increase mobile app customer base by 5% in next quarter. We agree to track that at weekly checkpoints with the Sales & Marketing team who collaborated with us on defining this goal. We also agree on only changing the goal if a drastic change in the market or in the company takes place; e.g. drastic meaning: destroying our goal's SMART-ness. We will change the goal with all the original participants involved.
The goal needs to be recorded in a commonly accessible location, e.g. internal Mobile Products Page. It needs to be tracked, e.g. in the Kanban system we all use for work. The goal needs to be reviewed; e.g. at weekly checkpoint, or at least at sprint reviews. Progress to goal needs to be visible; e.g. our Product Dashboard will include delivered BVP (Business Value Points) and actual current to baseline mobile app customer growth.
The people working to achieve a goal from all departments (sales, marketing, devops, etc.) need to be involved in the definition, maintenance, and revision when needed. To avoid unneeded overhead, goal setting and maintenance should be part of normal business flow, e.g. part of PI Planning. This direct involvement will lead to work alignment and accountability.
At the end of a cycle, e.g. PI, the goals need to be reconciled and considered done, changed, or terminated, depending on progress and criteria. They also need to be included in the retrospective.
When is it best to do?
The timing for goalsetting is dependent at which level of the organization it is performed, and for what purpose. If the goals are associated with a specific event or deliverable, then goalsetting should be started during the earliest conceptualizations for that event/deliverable and evolved as the other elements evolve, e.g. vision, strategy, etc. If the goalsetting is for a group (team, department, etc.) the goalsetting should fallow the pre-establish cadence for that group, e.g. maybe monthly or quarterly for the team, and quarterly or yearly for the department. The most important factor is to fit the goalsetting and maintenance into normal business activities.
Where do we track progress?
As mentioned previously, there should be a single common repository (single source of truth) for maintaining and tracking the goals, so that only the latest version and progress are viewable, not a copy or derivative. Also, as with any important document, proper configuration and change management needs to be established and maintained for the goals and progress information. That includes: change tracking, versioning, editor access controls, etc. Along with theses, it is critical that these practices be fully automated and easy to use. For example, for change control use continuous integration.
Which items are critical?
The key reminders are: set the goals with the workers; outline the goal parameters at the outset (how they can change, what the triggers are, etc.); update goal progress frequently, and review with all stakeholders; confirm everyone's alignment to the goals at every opportunity; celebrate goal achievements!
And remember … you processes will vary.
References
For further learning and training on the intricacies of LPM please follow these links.
No comments:
Post a Comment