A clear line of sight from work to value
I’ve interviewed hundreds of employees across various areas and levels of their organizations. Each person sees their role as contributing value to their customers benefiting the business. Yet, their organizations are not always wholly supportive in this mission.
But I’ve also seen what happens when organizations are. When they include the customer, influencing their:
- why = why are we doing what we are doing (purpose)
- what = what the work is (ways-of-working)
- how = how we do it (culture, capabilities etc.)
Seeing this line of sight from the why to the value changes everything in between.
Teams able to make the shift leap from a simplified output driven factory floor model (1) where they only control the levers leading to the output:
“the old model was created to keep consumers out. Those are extrinsic factors that we keep on the outside so they don’t mess up our ability to be efficient and standardized and so on so forth” —Shoshana Zuboff (2)
To an outcomes focused model (7) where most of the success is based on what we cannot control: customers, environment, competitors etc..
most of our success is based on what we cannot control, but can take advantage of
With an outcomes focused model both the What and the How changes from a position of confidence and selective reality, to a humble responsive model where feedback loops and continuous improvement at speed and scale takes center stage:
“[Architect Cedric] Price was designing not for the uses he wished to see, but for all the uses he couldn’t imagine. This demands the ability to engage with the people in the building as participants, to see their desires and fears, and then to build contexts to address them.” — Kevin Slavin (3)
What is a line of sight?
Having a line of sight from the work to the value is needed to see how our efforts are meaningful and valued.
In a product-centric organzation the line of sight starts with it’s enablers (e.g. capabilities and culture) and ends with its own output. What is valued is standardization and efficiency (2) and the work becomes spending less time and resources to offer customers the same value.
When I’ve interviewed people in product-centric organizations they describe their work mostly as a hamster wheel where the only thing they think about when they finish one project is the next project (4).
Compare this to organizations with line of sight to the customer where the work becomes outcomes focused.
There is clear and immediate feedback from the customer (NB! differentiate between customer insights and channel performance, 5), there is an outcome driven goal and the team can measure their progress towards this goal (8).
I’ve seen how creating a line of sight immediately makes work more positive and meaningful, and I’ve seen how an outcome driven process gives work purpose and long term dedication.
“In truly Agile organizations, everyone is passionately obsessed with delivering more value to customers. Everyone in the organization has a clear line of sight to the ultimate customer and can see how their work is adding value to that customer — or not.” — Steve Denning, Explaining Agile (6)
An organization is much healthier if its able to see its influence on its customers and the customers influence on itself.
Creating a line of sight can help make sure the team is solving problems that are important and valued by its customers, leading to meanginful work for its members and an internal culture and capabilities that match.
It’s time to connect the dots.
Sources:
(1). The Factory floor model, https://everythingnewisdangerous.medium.com/the-factory-floor-model-d220fce08346
(2). Shoshana Zubuff, New logics, new business models, new commercial frameworks, https://everythingnewisdangerous.medium.com/new-logics-new-business-models-new-commercial-frameworks-e133f67db035
(3). Kevin Slavin, Design as participation, https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/design-as-participation/release/1
(4). Outcome driven teams using Customer Value Propositions, https://medium.com/everything-new-is-dangerous/a-quick-introduction-to-outcome-driven-teams-using-customer-value-propositions-ad468bf24c11
(5). You can’t measure customers the same way you measure channels, https://uxdesign.cc/you-cant-measure-customers-the-same-way-you-measure-channels-225bcdf609f6
(6). Steve Denning, Explaining, https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2016/09/08/explaining-agile/
(7). The outcome economy, https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/the-outcome-economy-17431e5e2991
(8). Measuring end-2-end from customer to business value, https://everythingnewisdangerous.medium.com/measuring-end-2-end-from-customer-to-business-value-2aedb7d0a252
