A term I’ve been using a lot with teams lately is “minimally viable consistency,” or MVC.| The Beautiful Mess
This is a post about strategy and prioritization, and how reframing urgency can help you be more strategic AND prioritize more effectively.| The Beautiful Mess
It might sound like a leader saying, “We can work out the details later. For now it helps to keep options open. We know the big goal, and we are committed to it. The exact path can come later.” That ability to hold off until the last responsible moment—that is the powerful part.| The Beautiful Mess
I see two broad categories of company attempting to “transform” to a product operating model:| cutlefish.substack.com
In this post, I want to give you a way to diagnose what is going on. Too many people default to a simplistic explanation like, "We just need a strategy." Well, yes, that helps, but it is critical to diagnose why the strategy you're satisfied with isn't emerging.| The Beautiful Mess
Thought experiment.| cutlefish.substack.com
Most 'source of truth' problems in product development aren't really about the source of truth at all.| The Beautiful Mess
Once or twice a week, I run into teams struggling with OKRs. To me, OKRs are goals. And you know what? Goals are hard. Setting good goals and reflecting/pivoting based on your progress is a mix of skill and environment. What seems odd to me is that companies somehow believe that OKRs, alone, will magically solve the problem of goal setting.| cutlefish.substack.com
But a nagging doubt builds. The team is moving slowly. The views never change. Doubt grows. Or maybe a new strategy is emerging. Execs stop paying attention to these views. Meetings missed, etc. You learn that there's back-channeling, and other meetings set up to get the "real story." OKR cycles get missed or are rushed. Suddenly, you learn about new views emerging like the "just the tier 1 launches," or "the engineering roadmap," or ___________.| cutlefish.substack.com
There's an emphasis on team independence and autonomy, but also fairly traditional ideas about the role of the manager (as gatekeeper, filter, escalation resolver, etc.). In many ways, these ideas are complementary to one another. After all, how else do you achieve empowerment and independence without holding someone accountable for keeping things "clean" at the edges?| cutlefish.substack.com
I would like to write a respectful critique of a recent Marty Cagan article on the SVPG site.| cutlefish.substack.com
Lately, I've been spending more time talking with product leaders about exactly how they operate.| cutlefish.substack.com
I’m experimenting with Substack’s Video feature.| The Beautiful Mess
I was reflecting recently on how stark the differences between teams can be and how often you can pick up on those differences within seconds just by asking someone how things are going. You can feel it. The words they use are different. The way they describe their work tells you almost everything.| The Beautiful Mess
It was far easier to rationalize a layer of inexperienced managers than to face the fact that the strategy was scattered and shifts in the technology landscape threatened the core business model. "It isn't our job to raise the flag that teams are overloaded! That's middle management's job. We want to do ambitious things here at Acme!"| The Beautiful Mess
While it's easy to dismiss the standard consulting approach as formulaic or unlikely to spark deep systemic change, I believe it is also what makes it politically viable, repeatable, and relatively low-risk. It's the selling point. The dominant consulting model "works" because it aligns with how many senior executives think and their political environments.| The Beautiful Mess
I spoke with a company recently that discovered that 20 teams had built business cases around moving the same metric. If ALL of those teams realized their "case," the metric would have increased by 500% (which was impossible, governed by physics). This was a failure in context, capturing Intent, a theory around investment, and likely a mismatch between reality and how the company perceived collaboration.| The Beautiful Mess
It can go around in circles like this for a long time. The leader gets more and more confused. What's real? Every time they leave the door open for more focus, no one wants to walk through it. Meanwhile, other channels (like engagement surveys, informal discussions, etc.) tell a different story.| The Beautiful Mess
I admit it. I’m a process person, in that I’ve intentionally designed processes throughout my career. Some of those have been baked into external products, and others have been internal.| The Beautiful Mess
Between 60-80% of all large enterprises I speak to have brought in Marty Cagan and/or SVPG at one point in the last couple of years. That is an outstanding achievement for the SVPG mission. The positive impact is undeniable, even just based on my (admittedly biased) sample.| The Beautiful Mess
John, many of your posts are about taking a thoughtful and intentional post when designing your company's operating system. I very much appreciated TBM 336: Product OS Design Tips and Principles. But at my company, no one thinks this way. It is all seen as a process, and everyone hates it unless they can benefit directly. Why is this the case? Is what you are talking about only possible in rare cases? How can I get my company, particularly the leaders, to take a more intentional approach? Or ...| cutlefish.substack.com
Recent feedback:| cutlefish.substack.com
How can the dependency challenge get so bad before companies do something about it? Why does it creep up as a problem? Let's explore this question by discussing four archetypes: Human Load Balancers. Renegades, Insiders, and Platform Saviors.| cutlefish.substack.com
A lot of teams approach dependencies like this:| cutlefish.substack.com
One of the big challenges of offering a customizable tool in the product space is that you risk reinforcing unhelpful practices.| cutlefish.substack.com
In product, we're bombarded by high-level concepts like empowerment, data-driven, product-led, customer-focused, accountability, getting into the details, and high agency. But teams have trouble putting these ideas into practice. Why? And what can you do about it?| cutlefish.substack.com
Recently, I have been thinking deeply about what it would take to "dampen" some of the harsh pendulum swings we are experiencing in the industry.| cutlefish.substack.com
"Be customer-obsessed."| cutlefish.substack.com
(I’m doing a new 3hr workshop on prioritization if anyone is interested)| cutlefish.substack.com
If these points sound familiar, here's a fun way to structure a quarter. It's a nice change of pace and helps a team go through the "full cycle" of learning, building, measuring, learning, etc.| cutlefish.substack.com
What do leaders who are skilled at navigating complexity know how to do?| cutlefish.substack.com
Here’s an activity ANY team can do to stay more aligned.| cutlefish.substack.com
What you tend to find is one of two problems: A: Teams that ideally could work more closely together that are forced to work more transactionally, B: Situations where the relationship could be more transactional, but teams are forced to collaborate more closely| cutlefish.substack.com
This post is Part 2 of my Dependencies In Fast(er) Growing Companies series.| cutlefish.substack.com
I recently shared this Tweet:| cutlefish.substack.com
Catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 if you are new to this series.| cutlefish.substack.com
Imagine a framework or a way of working as a game.| cutlefish.substack.com
“Are all companies messed up?”| cutlefish.substack.com
How do you deal with the tension between your go-to-market and product teams as you scale? In this post, I will explore one of the central mechanisms behind that tension.| cutlefish.substack.com
We have ten companies.| cutlefish.substack.com
