Why is it so tough to move an organization from a project orientation and way of being to that of a product orientation?
Many efforts go after the changes in in processes and tools. Some even go after the organizational design. But – we all know that we often see changes in these things that are put in place and, in the end, don’t really change much.
Changes to a funding model – that’s a good idea. Let’s fund products! But – are we really investing in or funding products? That is a key difference.
Funding: a sum of money or other resources whose principal or interest is set apart for a specific objective.
Investing: to commit (money) in order to earn a financial return
I find that most organizations just change the funding model and really don’t take an investment mindset in the product that have adopted. That is the key word: adopting. Most product owners really don’t have an ownership mindset, they are just caring for or adopting this product for the time they are with that product. That sounds pretty time bound, etc. Much like, dare I say, a project.
This is about a value system orientation. If you just move money around – instead of a project request, you have a product request – is this really any different? We all have seen “projects” that go on for some time (years,) likely as long as a “product” may last in the market these days. This is about intent. It’s about commitment. It’s about owning and not renting.
When you rent an apartment and the water faucet has an annoyingly loud drip, you’re quick to call the apartment manager and demand that it is fixed. If you own a home with a dripping faucet, you may live with it for a bit until the value of fixing that faucet is more than the hassle and expense of a plumber (or the 3 trips to your home supply store it will take to fix it yourself) and the cost to the environment.
We have in many parts of our lives a product mindset. Our families, our friends, our hobbies, our passions and interests, and many more things. However, we can easily adopt a different mindset (a project mindset) if we don’t have the feeling that we own it. If we feel we’re renting it we often make the wrong decisions and don’t realize the value we wanted.
When I was growing up in my teen years, I worked in a grocery store in the small town close to the family farm. There was this one cart to bring stock out to the floor to restock shelves that just didn’t roll right. It would slightly veer to the left. It was frustrating. I avoided that cart as much as I could. One day I was stuck with that beast and struggling with it. The store manager saw me and just shouted out in the noisy back stock room “treat it like it’s yours and it will work much better!” You know what? That cart never performed better.
The Hill Leading to Starbuck MN and Lake Minnewaska
If we feel ownership in something we will look for and expect results – expect value. When we don’t have that feeling, we just either complain about it or just deal with it.
So – we can do all this work on funding models, organizational design, delivery models, operating models, talent models, and more. All of those changes can be orchestrated by the best plans and have alignment across the organization. And still yet, there isn’t a change. In fact, there often becomes frustration from the people who had high hopes for these changes but in the end, realize that effectively, nothing has changed.
Now may be the right time to say “we have come to value individuals and interactions over process and tools.” All those models are processes or tools. Yes, these things are helpful. Just as the Agile Manifesto said that those process and tools had value, we should be focusing more on the individuals and interactions within our teams, within our organizations. We keep hiring tools or processes to do our work for us and things get lost in translation and things go awry. If we take the time to value those individuals we are impacting and respect the interactions we have – we’ll save time over the re-translation we have to do because of processes and tools.
On your journey to become a product organization it’s an easy decision to find the processes and tools and think that will help. As a culture and society we believe that pills alone can “cure” mental health; we believe that a specific diet will cause weight loss; we believe that hair growth products give us more hair on our scalp. We keep buying these quick fix remedies even when the prior remedy did absolutely nothing for us. We keep getting tricked. It’s a rollercoaster – and not a fun one! There is no easy answer or path for this change. It’s hard work and we’ll get it wrong as we do it. We’ll have to inspect how we’re doing and adapt things as needed. We have to be honest with ourselves and others about what’s going on so that we can make the right choices. This sound familiar to anyone? This is what we ask of scrum teams day in and day out. You may have noticed that some of these teams are doing an amazing job. Maybe hire them to move your organization towards a product orientation.
