The Awesomeness Manifesto: Beyond Innovation

Beyond “The Generation M Manifesto”, Umair Haque explicates “The Awesomeness Manifesto” and further engages the community with “Wanted: Your Thoughts on Awesomeness”.

He claims  that “awesomeness is the new innovation”.

He explains that innovation as “the ultimate source of advantage”  is a “relic of the industrial era” because:

• “Innovation relies on obsolescence” where “creative destruction” “makes yesterday’s goods and services obsolete”.
• “Innovation dries up our seedcorn” where “entrepreneurial aspects of commerce” focus on “selling the same old toxic, industrial era junk in slightly better ways”.
• “Innovation often isn’t” where “innovation means, naively, what is commercially novel” but “is often value destructive and socially harmful”.

He explains that there is a “better concept, one built for a radically interdependent 21st century”, awesomeness, which has four pillars:

• * “Ethical production” where “awesome stuff is produced ethically”.
• “Insanely great stuff” where “awesomeness puts creativity front and center” and “awesome stuff evokes an emotive reaction because it’s fundamentally new, unexpected, and 1000x better”.
• “Love” because ”love for what we do is the basis of all real value creation”.
• “Thick value” since “adding value” is the “most hackneyed phrase in the corporate lexicon” as “most value is an illusion”.

He summarizes:

What is awesomeness? Awesomeness happens when thick — real, meaningful – value is created by people who love what they do, added to insanely great stuff, and multiplied by communities who are delighted and inspired because they are authentically better off.

Furthermore, “Gen M knows ‘awesomeness’ when we see it — that’s why its part of our vernacular” and “it’s a precise concept, with meaning, depth, and resonance”. “In the 21st century, if you’re merely innovative, prepare to be disrupted by awesomeness”.

Umair’s description of the “industrial era” involves an ecosystem where organizations (enterprises as collectives of individuals) innovate to create advantage and deliver added value that other individuals and organizations in turn use to innovate to create advantage and deliver added value that other individuals and organizations in turn use to propagate this producer-consumer value-chain model where value is extrinsic.

Umair’s description of a “radically interdependent 21st century” involves an ecosystem where organizations (enterprises as collectives of individuals) innovate to be “authentically better off” and deliver “thick — real, meaningful — value” that other individuals and organizations in turn use to innovate to be “authentically better off” and deliver “thick — real, meaningful – value” that other individuals and organizations in turn use to propagate this authentic-meaning value-chain model where value is intrinsic. Organizations in this model are indeed Purposeful Enterprises!

Awesomely Simple “Six Principles of Business Success” & Agility Distilled

Since posting Agility Distilled, many have inquired: How do we put this into Action? Well, rather than elaborate too much, I’ll just offer a great place to start!

John Spence has just written a really great book (as a tool) on how to make it “Awesomely Simple” to run a highly successful business. He distills his vast experience into a foundation for lasting business success, which involves the consistent and disciplined application of six principles.

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The Vivid Vision principle focuses on effectively communicating a clear, vivid, compelling and inspiring vision as well as creating a successful enterprise by giving people the comfort, safety, and confidence to succeed. This principle relates to the Context-aware pattern.

The Best People principle focuses on effectively creating a corporate culture that attracts, grows, and keeps the best people as well as fostering the attitude, passion, creativity, innovation, and driving desire for success and excellence. This principle relates to the People/Team-centric pattern.

The Robust Communication principle focuses on open, honest, robust, and courageous communication that leverages talent, innovation, and extreme customer focus. This principle relates to the Results/value-oriented pattern.

The Sense of Urgency principle focuses on speed and proactivity, which are necessary for survival and success, but can’t be pursued at the expense of disciplined execution and consistent quality. This principle relates to the Results/value-oriented pattern.

The Disciplined Execution principle focuses on building a performance-oriented culture that demands flawless execution and high standards of performance while not tolerating mediocrity but establishing clear, ambitious, yet realistic goals and holding people accountable for meeting those standards and delivering on their commitments. This principle relates to the Results/value-oriented pattern.

The Extreme Customer Focus principle focuses on owning the voice of the customer by creating a strong and trusting bond with customers and listening to what they want while delivering consistent superior customer service, the only differentiator left for fostering loyal and engaged customers. This principle relates to the Results/value-oriented pattern.

If high-quality products and services, strong financial management, and the willingness to embrace change are part of your organizational DNA, you won’t want to miss John’s “Awesomely Simple”!

Agility Distilled: The Essence of Agility

Inspired by “Agility Schmagility … What are we really talking about here?”, consider Agility!

The roots of Agility are in John Boyd’s OODA loop (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Agility is about Responsiveness and the ability to continuously Re-orient as we Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. Agility is not merely about Speed and focusing on being expeditious! Agility is not merely about Reactiveness and focusing on acting relative to change from the perspective of the moment rather than a longer timeframe! Agility is about Responsiveness and focusing on acting relative to change from the perspective of the moment balanced with a longer timeframe! That is, Agile maturity!

Applying the many aspects of Agility gives us the Agile Alliance’s & Scrum Alliance’s Manifesto for Agile Software Development & the Principles behind the Agile Manifesto as well as Scrum & eXtreme Programming (XP).

Applying the many aspects of Agility also gives us Agile Product Management (or whatever else).

What is the essence of Agility? Responsiveness and Re-orientation! What are the aspects of this essence?

Consider a Team or Enterprise…

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Results/Value-oriented

To increase a Team’s or Enterprise’s Velocity and Throughput (relative to Demand) and deliver Value — Focus, leverage Feedback or Iterate, and Balance.

This is the Results/Value-oriented pattern: Focus on results, which can only be achieved by iterating and leveraging feedback within context such that people balance competing forces. The essence of Agility involves goals that provide focus on intent, objectives that provide a mission or leadership through commitment, and intuitiveness that fosters self-organization and that fosters decisions based more on implicit guidance and less on explicit guidance. Do you have Goals? Do you have Objectives? How intuitive is your Team or Enterprise?

Context-aware

To increase a Team’s or Enterprise’s Focus — Leverage Leadership through Collaboration (Contribution and Confirmation) with the members of the Team or Enterprise.

This is the Context-aware pattern: Lead within context, which can only be achieved by collaborating with people such that they contribute to and confirm results; leadership is essential for focusing on results. The essence of Agility involves a Vision that provides direction or intent. Do you have a Vision?

People/Team-centric

To increase a Team’s or Enterprise’s ability to Balance — Support, Enable, and Empower the members of the Team or Enterprise.

This is the People/Team-centric pattern: Empower people who are able to achieve results within context; empowerment is essential for balancing competing forces. The essence of Agility involves mutual-trust, unity, and cohesion, thus, oneness. Do you have such a Community and Culture?

These patterns are interdependent. Without Leadership through Collaboration, we jeopardize Focus; without Empowerment, we jeopardize the ability to Balance; without Iterating, we jeopardize the degree of Feedback; and ultimately we jeopardize Velocity and Value!

Shuhari and the Kata of Agility

Closely related to Shuhari, these are the Kata of Agility. See Mike Rother’s Toyota Kata, Defining Kata, Which Kata?, and Teaching a Kata for more.

Do you have a Vision, Goals, Objectives, and a Community & Culture that is Intuitively Responsive and can Re-orient?

Scrum and XP

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Visualizing Lean (or the Principles of Lean)

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Lean: From Principles to Transformation and the Toyota Way

Lean is simply doing more with less or “creating more value for customers with less resources”. Lean focuses on optimizing the creation of products & services and it applies to every business and every process. While Lean’s roots are in the Toyota Production System (TPS), “a popular misconception is that lean is suited only for manufacturing”.

The Principles of Lean may be summarized and mapped to a Transformation perspective (which involves three fundamental business issues) and mapped to the Toyota Way.

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The Principles of Lean focus on Value (between a Customer and Enterprise), the Value Creation process, the Flow of Value toward the Customer (and throughout the Value Creation process), the Pull of Value by the Customer (and throughout the Value Creation process), and further Perfection of that Value and Value Creation process.

The Transformation perspective focuses on a Purpose that joins a Customer’s problem and Enterprise’s prosperity, the Process of achieving that Purpose, and the People engaged in the Process of of achieving that Purpose.

The Toyota Way offers insight into the Culture/DNA of Toyota (The Toyota Way 2001; also see here, here, and here), with its two main pillars of Continuous Improvement and Respect for People:

Continuous Improvement

• Challenge: We form a long-term vision, meeting challenges with courage and creativity to realize our dreams.
• Kaizen: We improve our business operations continuously, always driving for innovation and evolution.
• Genchi Genbutsu: We practice Genchi Genbutsu… go to the source to find the facts to make correct decisions, build consensus and achieve goals at our best speed.

Respect for People

• Respect: We respect others, make every effort to understand each other, take responsibility and do our best to build mutual trust.
• Teamwork: We stimulate personal and professional growth, share the opportunities of development and maximize individual and team performance.

The mapping across the Principles of Lean, a Transformation perspective, and the Toyota Way offers insight into the Purposeful Enterprise.

Scrum and Kanban are Means to an End, but not the End!

Scrum is indeed being challenged by Kanban (or Kanban Software Development)!

The Lean Software and Systems Consortium and the Limited WIP Society are not so much aggressively confronting the Scrum Alliance but more so aggressively moving beyond.

As noted, this is not about trashing Scrum but more so about reflecting reality.

Generally:

Scrum is designed at the practice level to eliminate a lot of external variability that affects the performance of most development teams. As such, this recipe of practices, or prescription will have a quick positive effect on performance, but without a true focus on organization level continuous improvement and cultural change, it will fail to generate further improvements.

The next notable observation regarding Scrum:

While the leaders in the Scrum community like to promote the concept of a culture of continuous improvement, Scrum does not appear to have enough depth in its guidance, literature, training and coaching to get teams there.

It’s only recently that, as a community, we’ve started to have an open debate about absolute performance of agile teams and look at what truly affects performance. What’s driving this is enterprise scale adoption.

And the next notable observation regarding the Scrum community:

My observation from the outside is that the Scrum community reflects the antithesis of our agile values. It is run from the top. The message is strictly controlled. Dissent is not permitted. It resembles a cult of personality and appears to be the very definition of command’n'control in its execution.

While many teams and organizations are now asking “Agile is Failing! Is Lean Next?” and “Is ‘Kanban’ the ‘New Scrum’ or the ‘New Lean’?”, we must respectfully remind ourselves that Scrum and Kanban are Means to an End, but not the End! The end is Transformation — Sustainable Culture/DNA Change of an Enterprise at every Scale.

If Scrum was not Enough, is Kanban really Enough?

Mutual Authentic & Appreciative Engagement

Note: This blog entry was initially titled “Why does Lean/Kanban/Agile/Scrum or ‘Whatever’ Work (versus Lean/Kanban/Agile/Scrum or ‘Whatever-Else’)?”, however, due to extensive feedback and numerous suggestions, it has been retitled to better reflect its contents.

In the context of any Organization (Business and Technology as well as Management and Teams), rather than consider “what is” or “how to”, consider “why”! Why does it work? The Organization? The People? The Coach!

Most people with Lean, Kanban, Agile, or Scrum leanings will answer: People!

While many Lean folks will initially approach the question by discuss Value, Value Streams, Flow & Pull, and Pursing Perfection, they ultimately emphasize Teams/Development and “respecting people”, but don’t readily acknowledge Management/Business and “respecting” all people. When confronted with this, the common reply is that its Management/Business who is doing the disrespecting!

While many Scrum folks will initially approach the question by discuss Transparency and Inspecting & Adapting, they ultimately emphasize the Scrum (development) Team role and “protecting the Scrum Team”, but don’t readily acknowledge the Product (business) Owner role and “protecting” all people. When confronted with this, the common reply is that it’s the Scrum (development) Team who needs protecting!

While many Kanban folks will initially approach the question by discussing Lean, they ultimately emphasize Transparency with a Kanban System as well as Kaizen. The emphasis on Transparency focuses on the process and work. The emphasis on a Kanban System focuses on limiting work-in-process with pull-flow and balancing demand-against-throughput. And the emphasis on Kaizen Workshops/Events/Culture focuses on continuous improvement. However Transparency, a Kanban “synchronization/integration” System, and Kaizen (as continuous improvement has been around practically “forever” under many names including, CMMI, Six-Sigma, etc.) don’t necessitate success! When confronted with this, they commonly fallback on Lean’s “respecting people”!

What about Agility? Consider: Agility is not the Point and Why Agility doesn’t Sell!

Undoubtedly, people are essential to any human endeavor, but the “simple” answer (“people”) to the question (“why does ‘whatever’ work versus ‘whatever-else’?”) is not representative of the richness of the answer and thus not fulfilling! The answer is far richer than the mere “word” that tries to express/represent it!

Why does “whatever” work versus “whatever-else”? Engagement! Engagement involves purposeful participation and creation. Each individual purposely (passionately) participates and contributes.

Why does “whatever” work versus “whatever-else”? Not merely Engagement, but Mutual Engagement! Mutuality involves reciprocity. Everyone co-participates and co-creates. Each individual contributes and confirms other individual’s contributions.

Why does “whatever” work versus “whatever-else”? Not merely Mutual Engagement, but Mutual Authentic Engagement! Authenticity involves genuineness. Everyone participates genuinely. Each individual’s contributions and confirmations genuinely represent them and who they are, their identity. Authenticity is commonly labeled Transparency and Trust.

Why does “whatever” work versus “whatever-else”? Not merely Mutual Authentic Engagement, but Mutual Authentic & Appreciative Engagement! Appreciation involves valuing. Everyone is valued for their participation. Each individual’s contributions and confirmations are genuinely valued, their identity is valued. Appreciation is commonly labeled Respect.

And if we are truly and sincerely authentic & appreciative, we will be shaped by one another as much as we will shape each other, which fosters a culture of mutual authentic & appreciative engagement. This is not merely Servant Leadership (or as discussed here) where Managers are servants to Teams, but more so, Managers and Teams may be servants to each other’s needs at different times and Managers and Teams being servants to their shared purpose. See here for a critique of Servant Leadership. Ultimately, this is the nature of “real transformation” or win-win, not a focus on who is right-or-wrong or what is worst-or-best but a focus on what is worse-or-better in any given situation and context. I only believe in win-win, every win-lose is ultimately a lose-lose!

Mere Engagement does not work! Mere Mutual Engagement does not work! Mere Mutual Authentic Engagement or Mutual Appreciative Engagement do not work!

Why does “whatever” work versus “whatever-else”? Mutual Authentic & Appreciative Engagement (in any purposeful human endeavor involving multiple people), independent of Lean, Kanban, Agile, Scrum or “whatever”. That is, co-participation and co-creation that is genuine and valued! This is not easy but requires discipline, endurance, etc. Likeiwse, Lean, Kanban, Agile, Scrum or “whatever” are (respectfully) merely adornments and “tools”.

Consider any “successful” or “less-than successful” endeavor around Lean/Kanban/Agile/Scrum or “whatever”. Was there Engagement? Was it Mutual? Was is Authentic? Was it Appreciative?

Note:  Respectfully, Lean, Kanban, Agile, or Scrum are mere adornments to “whatever”!

The Generation M Manifesto: Movement & Meaningful Stuff that Matters the Most

Beyond “The Smart Growth Manifesto”, Umair Haque explicates “The Generation M Manifesto” and further engages the community with “Your Thoughts About Generation M”.

The Generation M Manifesto

He emphasizes four Ms: Movement, Meaningful, Matters, and Most.

He explains that it is about Passion, Responsibility, Authenticity, and Challenging yesterday’s way of Everything.

He stresses that the crisis (“a widening gap in how you and we understand the world”) isn’t going away but growing and is “in our institutions: the rules by which our economy is organized”.

He concludes that “every generation has a challenge” and this is Gen M’s: to create an “authentically, sustainably, shared prosperity”.

Your Thoughts about Generation M

He explains that the Manifesto is addressed to the leaders of the G8 and that challenges (“a broken economy, aging populations with inadequate support, failing governance, an eviscerated financial sector — all these and more are the challenges of the 21st century”) have been caused by an “epic failure of leadership“.

He emphasizes that “M” can be best understood as a “new set of values” “powering a new set of organizations that are rising to today’s challenges, by doing radically meaningful stuff”.

Generation M and the Purposeful Enterprise

Perhaps, Umair is describing the notion of the Purposeful Enterprise!

Scrum for Product Management & Product Development and Project Management

Scrum is a simple team-based “inspect and adapt” framework to organize work around “complex” systems and products.

Scrum embodies problem-solving and the scientific-method.

Scrum has been applied to product management and product development as well as project management.

Scrum for Product Management & Product Development

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Scrum for Project Management

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