Showing posts with label Agile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Agile. Show all posts

Wednesday 7 June 2023

Product Plan visuals - concepts & examples from real-world programs

I recently wrote about my role as project leader for the original DStv Explora consumer device launched in 50 territories across the African continent from 2012-2014. In this post, I will share some visual tools I used to communicate the planning and release strategy. Suffice it to say, I am a big fan of visual planning tools over detailed text narratives any day. There is power in visualizing the plan, on a single piece of paper that beats reading pages of text.

The launch is when the work actually starts

Here's a sample of a post-launch plan that mashes big-picture milestones for executives whilst providing enough detail to software delivery and integration owners. With this single piece of paper, managers can use this schedule as their primary map to navigate their work plans.


Visualizing an end-to-end technology program on one page

Building a new consumer device such as a digital TV set-top-box, from the ground up, end-to-end is a large-scale program with many moving parts. The challenge is how to show as much high-level and low-level detail as possible, starting with output milestones and cascading to detailed team expectations like agile sprints. I can't claim to have authored this view from scratch since I borrowed concepts from my previous projects and other program managers I looked up to, when I worked with Sky/NDS in the UK. 

The timeline below is a snapshot from the early days of Explora planning, where I was the primary plan owner and designer.


Below is a view with extra commentary showing business leaders the hotspots with the plan and calling to action for workstream owners:


For CEOs, I created much-simplified views since they weren't interested in the agile sprints:

Friday 10 March 2023

A neat tool to bridge the gap between Product & Engineering: Combined Backlog

I came across this picture as I was browsing my consulting data archives. In one of my engagements, there was growing tension and trust issues between product and engineering teams. This is not unusual when these disciplines sit across different lines of business, or do not fall under a single leader. Often there is not enough transparency and sharing, or not enough mutual cooperation going on. 

Engineering/IT generally are not great at sharing the true nature of their technical challenges, architectural issues or simply, the state of technical debt. Even if there isn't much technical debt, engineering leaders and CTOs are responsible for owning a technology roadmap, usually the platform strategy roadmap which creates enough runway for future innovation. The situation is that the work needed to service both the Technology as well as the Product roadmaps, usually needs to be done by the same group of people - "same resources" - running into capacity conflicts, that drives escalation problems. Focus too much on technical streams, you starve the business / product / customer delivery. Focus on too much product features, you run the risk of crippling the technology stack through lack of innovation, foundational architecture thus creating too much technical debt. Healthy tension should exist - but - hope is not a good strategy. More often than not, introducing a simple mechanism of co-operative planning is a good way of building trust through disciplined execution.

As way to bridge this gap, a common solution is to meet half-way, creating a single backlog that combines both Product & Technical backlog items into a single shared Combined Master Backlog. Along with this, create simple mechanisms for managing the backlog with a regular cadence, and as a team, agree on some common terminology, e.g. understanding the status of a backlog item. 

Sunday 1 July 2018

Experiments with XL: Extreme Leadership (Paired Management)

I recently (in early June) took some time off from life and work, decided to be completely unplugged for ten full days, with no access to any electronics whatsoever. This break from work coincided with the last 10 days of Ramadan, a practice called Itikaf, which is about secluding (surrendering) one's self to God by living day/night within the precincts of the Masjid boundaries, where one is engaged in various acts of worship, including self reflection, self-awareness & meditation. Itikaf is about leaving it all behind, including your own family.  I had actually made my decision sometime in April, a feeling that suddenly inspired me as something I just needed to do, without too much thought or planning. I immediately fired off an email at 5AM informing by boss (the CEO) of my upcoming intent, not really seeking his approval - I merely informed him that I'll be away from the office, completely unreachable for 10 full days, a personal life quest I needed to fulfil...thankfully, the boss didn't get in my way ;-)

When people, both friends and colleagues included, found out about my leave plans, they immediately enquired how I was going to manage the work topic. I lead a technology team responsible for an online video platform for DStv (providing live/linear streaming channels as well as video-on-demand Catch Up services, we also support a major part of the business with a full digital/web platform infrastructure). Around that time, my teams were working flat out to stabilise & scale the platform for increased load, in preparation for the FIFA world cup. We will only be ready to "freeze" a week before world cup - how could I possibly leave the team at such a critical period??  On top of that, my division was part of an ongoing group-wide organisational restructure, in those two weeks, there was much HR work to do, including rationalising job roles across various technology divisions, job grading, role & people profiling, as well as one-on-one consultations. How could I leave the team leaderless through this period?? And to add a cherry on the top, whilst I would be on leave, the group's yearly Ops Review would've taken place, I would need to input into this stream as well.  As if this wasn't enough, there were concerns that my leadership team was fairly new, people had some doubts...

I wasn't really concerned by these, instead I saw it as the perfect opportunity to test my leadership team. Whilst a fairly new team that's been only recently formally announced, they are still in between the storming/norming phase (even though it's been over a year since they're under my leadership transformation). I wanted to test out a few things:

Thursday 3 August 2017

On Managing Change: Damped Sine Wave

I recently read a piece from the June edition of ACM, Q&A with Erik Meijer, which I found quite apt as it speaks to my current situation at work. Whilst Meijer talks specifically to software projects, we can apply this to any kind of topic, be it personal or professional, work & life - everything we encounter when it comes to dealing with change & uncertainty (career, new teams, family, new projects, etc.).

This is especially relevant to the period I'm in now, a leader driving change - i.e. changes to the way we working, kicking-off a focused management war room, and the recent announcements around delivery priorities for the next three months. This is a large corporate, multi-million dollar industry, the amazing part is that things are so fast-paced and always changing that one can argue that the only constant in this company is one that of Change!

So we need to deal with this reality, it's not going to go away anytime soon. My experience is pretty much aligned to Meijer: try to manage the level of uncertainty (balanced by one's appetite for risk) as quickly as possible through communication & stakeholder engagement, converge on well-bounded known-knowns based on the information we receive, agree to execute & deliver within the binding time constraints. Add to this is a sense of measured calm and patience, start practising ways to control your default responses too...

Courtesy: ACM

Below is the excerpt of the Q&A:
<quote>
What is your team process? How does work get done? How do you communicate status? 
A lot of what you read about process and agile has very little evidence behind it. I don't believe a lot of process is scientific. Instead, I define general guidelines about what I want to see happen, and within those I don't care how things happen.
My thinking has two main sources of inspiration: the military and the hacker way.
Over thousands of years, armies have figured out how to get things done and achieve their goals in an environment that is really chaotic and unpredictable. That is the environment we live in as developers as well. If you read the U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting manual, and replace the word war with software, everything in there holds true.
So how do you deal with uncertainty? When people attempt to solve with process, they are trying to fight or control uncertainty. For example, someone can say just adopt zero inbox and your life will be awesome. In reality though, that isn't really the case.
One of the things I like about Facebook is "the hacker way". It is an approach to creating software that involves continuous improvement and feedback. It is about computational thinking: how do you program the system, and how do you make the system do things that no one thought possible?
Being agile is about communication.
The process needs to change with the situation. You have a big picture of where you want to go, but any plan or process will shatter immediately when you hit your first bug or something happens out of your control.
In most projects there are two phases: an exploratory phase and an execution phase. Your project should progress like a damped sine wave, where the amplitude gets smaller over time (see picture above). You have to figure out what to build, and figure out what question you are trying to answer. In the beginning you want to increase the vertical velocity to get the uncertainty under control, and then you want horizontal velocity to increase when you get into execution.
With prescriptive processes. people are looking for a silver bullet to solve problems, but it doesn't exist...the world is super-confusing, and you have to embrace it and work with it.
</quote>

Sunday 18 June 2017

On driving change: Kotter's Model


I've not only been studying organisational change management for a while now but also been part of some of the process in my recent engagements with clients. The subject has started to fascinate me, which has created a deeper sense of appreciation for system dynamics in the workplace.

I've decided to capture some frameworks on my blog for note keeping, since it will become a likely go-to place for me to reference. I'll start with Kotter's model and build from there. 

The source of my information in this post, is cited & referenced from Leach's Critical Chain Project Management book, Chapter 11, Pages 283-286.

1. Create urgency

The first step is to get a sense of urgency building within the organisation that something must be done. Most people in most organisations feel overwhelmed by keeping up with the daily workload so suggesting doing something more to change the way the organisation works looks at best to be just more work and at worst to be something that is going to make things worse than they presently are. People need something to motivate them.  Kotter suggested some things that work:

  • Show others the need for change with a compelling object that they can actually see, touch, and feel.
  • Show people valid and dramatic evidence from outside the organisation that demonstrates that change is required.
  • Look constantly for cheap and easy ways to reduce complacency.
  • Do not underestimate how much complacency, fear, and anger exists in your organisation.

2. Build team

One person can only succeed to cause change in a very small organisation. Many people are not even able to cause changed behaviour in one person: themselves. Think of how many people succeed at losing wait or stopping smoking? Planning real change at an organisation level needs help, you can't do it alone. You need to enlist the leaders of the organisation who have bought into the sense of urgency. Kotter suggested the following that could work:
  • Show enthusiasm and commitment to help draw the right people into the group.
  • Model the trust and teamwork needed in the group.
  • Structure meetings for the guiding team to minimise the frustration and increase trust.
  • Put your energy into step 1 (raising energy / urgency) if you feel you cannot move on to step 2.

3. See vision

People need to be able to see the proposed change because that is what can begin to create an emotional feeling that will motivate them to change. A vision should be a picture of the end result. If you describe it in words, the words need to evoke an image. Kotter suggested:
  • Try to see - literally - possible futures.
  • Make the vision so clear that you can articulate in one minute or write, or better yet draw, it on one page.
  • Supply a moving (emotional) vision such as serving people.
  • Put forth bold strategies to make the vision real.
  • Focus on how to quickly make the change.

4. Communicate

So people can feel the change, you need to communicate:
  • The vision in terms of the benefits people will see when they change their behaviour.
  • What has to be done to make the vision a reality.
  • Reinforcements when people exhibit the right new behaviours.
  • "Wins" by people and groups who do the new behaviours.
  • Anything and everything else about the change that will keep at the top of people's agenda.
Kotter suggests some ideas on communicating:
  • Keep communication simple and heartfelt.
  • Do your homework before communicating, especially to understand what people are feeling.
  • Speak to anxieties, confusion, anger, and distrust.
  • Rid the communication channels of junk so that important messages get through above the noise.
  • Use current technologies to help people see the vision.

5. Empower action

You need to empower action: make sure people know that they are expected to take action now and that they are free to do it as the see fit. Empowering action is as much about removing obstacles to action (pulling) as it is about causing people to act. Kotter's suggestions:
  • Find individuals with change experience to bolster people's self-confidence with "we-won-you-can-too" stories.
  • Recognise and reward in ways that inspire, promote optimism, and build self-confidence.
  • Deal with disempowering managers through coaching or move them out of the way.

6. Create wins

Your team needs to coach people to create successes: wins. Then you need to reinforce the behaviour of those who created the wins and communicate their wins and reinforcements to the rest of the organisation. Pilots are a powerful tool to create short term wins but you need to ensure that people who live those wins with the pilots do not immediately go back to prior behaviours. Kotter's suggestions:
  • Early wins that come fast.
  • Wins that are as visible as possible to as many people as possible.
  • Wins that go through emotional defences.
  • Wins that are meaningful.
  • Early wins that speak to powerful players whom you need to engage.
  • Wins that are cheap and easy even if small.

7. Do not let up

The leadership team has to keep the desired change at the top of agenda through and well beyond the planned-for successes. There will be obstacles and there will be some failures along the way but the winning teams take failure as a learning and motivating experience to add vigour to the change process. Kotter's ideas:
  • Rid yourself of work that wears you down - tasks that mattered in past but may not matter now or tasks that you can delegate.
  • Constantly look for ways to keep up the urgency.
  • Use new situations opportunistically to launch the next waves of change.
  • Show 'em, Show 'em, Show 'em...

8. Make it stick

Once you have completed the first round of getting the organisation to exhibit the desired new behaviours, you need to continue right on to improve what you have accomplished. If you do not continue to improve, the organisation will revert to the previous behaviours in a surprising short period of time. Kotter's ideas that work:
  • Never, never, never give up on step 7.
  • Use new employee orientation to demonstrate what matters most in the organisation.
  • Use the promotion process to place people who exhibit the new behaviours into influential positions.
  • Tell vivid stories over and over about how things now work.
  • Ensure continuity of behaviour and results that help sustain and grow the new culture.

Saturday 20 May 2017

The Golden Circle

In this post I share a snippet of information referenced from the book Start with Why by Simon Sinek. The ideas and concepts provided in the book talk mostly about how some companies are more successful than others (using Apple as a major theme). It advocates that most companies often don't take time to appreciate the WHY they in business in the first place, and more often focus on WHAT they do. By focusing on the WHAT they tend to lose a captive customer audience, failing to address to the core beliefs of customers, which is one of the main reasons customers choose to go a brand, or become an ardent follower of the company.

I found this pretty interesting, with a wider relevance outside of just corporate strategic management. The golden circle can be applied to both personal and professional topics, and links nicely to my RAGE model. It can also be applied to team structures as well. In fact, in the organisational sense, the golden circle flows from top-to-bottom: starting with the company vision and flowing down to each person in the company.

What follows is the core explanation from the book, chapter 3, The Golden Circle. Simon Sinek's TED talk is also one of the highest ranking talks on TED, video is embedded at the end of this post. Although Sinek makes reference to many stories and cases that appear as old news in today's time, they are still nevertheless relevant, at the very least a useful reminder...

The Golden Circle


According to Sinek, the golden circle can be used as a guide to vastly improving leadership, corporate culture, hiring, product development, sales and marketing. It even explains loyalty and how to create enough momentum to turn an idea into a social movement. And it all starts from the inside out. It all starts with Why.

Starting from the outside in, Sinek describes the terns:

WHAT: Every single company and organisation on the planet knows WHAT they do. This is true no matter or big or small, not matter what the industry. Everyone is able to describe the products or services a company sells or the job function they have within that system. WHATs are easy to identify.

HOW: Some companies and people know HOW they do WHAT they do. Whether you call them a "differentiating value proposition", "proprietary process" or "unique selling proposition," HOWs are often given to explain how something is different or better. Not as obvious as WHATs, many think these are the differentiating or motivating factors in a decision. It would be false to assume that's all that is required. There is one missing detail:

WHY: Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. When I say WHY, I don't mean to make money - that's a result. By WHY I mean what is your purpose, cause or belief? WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care?

When most organisations or people think, act or communicate they do so from the outside in, from WHAT to WHY. And for good reason - they go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing. We say WHAT we do, we sometimes say HOW we do it, but we rarely say WHY we do WHAT we do.

But not the inspired companies. No the inspired leaders. Every single one of them, regardless of their size or their industry, thinks, acts and communicates from the inside out. They start with WHY...

Get the book, watch the video!


Monday 17 April 2017

On E2E architect role in projects

I have shared my thoughts in the past on the subject of architects in the domain of digital TV software systems which can be found here. In this post I will share further thoughts about the specific role of an E2E (End-to-End) architect from a program/project management perspective, including my expectations of the role as well as the associated challenges I've faced with this concept, especially where the role either does not exist, or is not clearly defined in cases where companies don't have a clear enough understanding or have not yet set up a formal architecture competency.

My Background & My possible Anchor Bias

In my first decade of working experience with software and systems engineering projects, I was fortunate to work with world class technology service providers (S3 in Ireland & NDS/Cisco in UK). This experience helped shaped the way I would view future technology projects, including product & project management, software engineering, integration and delivery functions. It's the kind of experience that never leaves you, especially when you've witnessed first hand, one successful delivery after another both as an engineer and manager. So I'd come to see the world in a particular light, taking with me the style of project execution where ever I went, and assumed that all companies naturally followed similar concepts. And the cool thing about this experience was a well grounded appreciation for software & systems engineering design principles - principles which should not be confused with implementation methods, as what is a hot topic of debate these days, that of Agile V Waterfall, that has been the bulk of my recent challenges in projects in the last six years.

On returning back home to South Africa* still working in Digital Media TV domain, I soon realised that things are a little different to say the least (absence of architect roles, working with business analysts where I'd been used to analysis being a function of architecture, no defined role of systems integration, no method of continuous delivery & lack of solid post-launch monitoring & operations support systems). My first major program, involved a large-scale overhaul of the end-to-end broadcast system, including a video-on-demand component and a new set top box software stack. In order for the program to have a decent chance of success, I not only had to restructure & reshape the program, but also had to introduce functional roles that for me, were always obvious: an architecture team with a specific role of E2E architect, E2E systems integration, test and delivery teams. With a lot of hard work of convincing senior management these roles were necessary for project delivery, we managed to implement the structures I proposed that ultimately helped in the successful delivery of the project.

Strangely enough, as I took on other engagements in large programs in the same group of companies, I found myself repeating the same. It could be because I have a bias that is so strong and deep that does not allow me to see any other way, even though I always try to adapt my style to the culture and teams currently at my disposal, yet I still find myself coming back to these principles because its been proven and tested, that I can't really find any real fault in - possibly it is because these are indeed engineering principles that have stood the test of time, especially this concept of an End-to-End Solution Architect role. As the saying goes, never leave home without it, if I'm running a large program of work, that involves many systems & component suppliers, I never run a program without having an E2E architect attached to my programs, as step one. Once that is established (often as a result of canvassing support which takes up some time and energy), I move on to structuring the role of E2E systems integration, which in turn drives the processes and behaviours expected from component engineering and test teams. The program timeline then shows a simple picture of the high-level milestones involved, where the bulk of the program management and execution is a function of coordinating delivery plans with respective project delivery teams (who maintain the detailed project plans) as well as managing stakeholder engagement (which is a vital component of running large programs). This hasn't been smooth sailing all the time, as I'll try to share some of the challenges that frequently come up, later on in this post.

*Disclaimer: Although my writing is about an experience with primarily one industry domain in South Africa (Digital PayTV), I'm mindful about not passing a broad value judgement against all large corporates with a software competency. At first I thought these challenges of projects and roles like BAs for example was limited to just this environment, but the more I researched by skimming through job specs, attending networking events, technical conferences, meetups, training courses and meeting people from other corporates, I later realised the patterns run across all the major corporates like financial services, banking and the big telcos, that more often than not, the structures in place mirror more traditional-IT governance than hardcore technical software development structures that I was used to, in working in a pure technology services environment. So I'm reasonably confident there is no broad value judgement being applied here, that these experiences are likely to resonate with large companies operating outside PayTV.

Typical Landscape

The picture below aims to illustrate a typical landscape of this ecosystem. This could be separate entities run independently, or even group under a technology division, with different functional expertise, that in reality are still perceived as separate silos of responsibility:


This picture speaks to a typical reality of technology service providers in a digital TV value chain. Each silo represents a set of core technology expertise that exist in separate functional lines either under a technology division, or could exist as separate lines of business altogether. 

Each silo may have its own set of speciality with architects and development teams. Each unit may also likely to have a very unique culture: people, skill-set and ways of working. Each silo may also have its own operating model: how work gets prioritised and injected, build, test and release procedures. These units might also have their own terminology, a lexicon / vocabulary for their specific domains. They may also not be entirely self-sufficient, relying on external third-party component suppliers that form part of their system. These third-party suppliers are just like another silo, each with their own operating model, from architects to development teams, to ways of working as stipulated by their underlying contractual agreements.

These systems & teams usually come together in delivering a product or service that directly impacts a customer (end user). Typically launching a major new product (or platform, say for example a new internet product like a streaming app for video on demand) will impact at least all these systems. To do so, a project is set up as a program delivery initiative that will call for the co-ordination of all systems coming together in delivering the new product or feature to market. So a program team would usually be setup to manage this execution and delivery. Typically a program manager would be appointed to manage the full end-to-end delivery, which is not only the technology arm, but also the wider business streams for delivering product to market (marketing, customer care, sales, training, retention, communications, legal & regulatory). Sometimes, the overall program manager is supported by an end-to-end technical program manager, but this is not always the case. More often than not, the overall program manager assumes co-ordination of the technology ecosystem as well. For now though, I use program manager to either mean end-to-end technical program manager or overall program manager interchangeably.

The need for an End-to-End Solutions Architect

The picture below illustrates the positioning for a dedicated role of E2E Solution Architect to a project or program of work:


Just as you would appoint an end-to-end project / program manager to the role of maintaining the coherency of the overall delivery project, so too should you assign an end-to-end solution architect role, to maintain the integrity and coherency of the overall technical solution design. This is the crux of my proposition. Related to architecture is a close relative called end-to-end systems integrator role, I've touched on systems integration topic on a previous post called Worlds of System Integration, so will not discuss integration in this post. Related to end-to-end integration is testing, in my past experience, integration implied testing or QA, but as I later learnt on coming to back to South Africa, most companies still see QA as a separate activity, so I have another post that talks to the Worlds of QA testing.

Why?

Because it makes running a project so much simpler! 

When I work with an E2E architect, I use it as a vital supporting pillar of the project. The E2E architect will take care to understand the business or product requirements from the business owner, works with all the respective technology domain experts (usually the assigned system architects) on mapping out a solution architecture, defining the new technology dictionary and model (if needed), highlights the system building blocks and supporting components that would be impacted, agrees on high level technical requirements from such systems, as well as important integration points, technology risk assessment, along with unearthing required non-functional requirements (performance, stability, redundancy, etc.) that would be needed for a complete solution. All of this is kept high-level, with just enough information to allow the project team to shape and scope the project, as well as prepare the technical teams of design constraints to think about. All of this is done in the early stages of shaping and scoping a project, has proven in my experience to be absolutely vital in a successful project outcome.

To be assigned an E2E Solution Architect to a project is no small feat. The expectations are quite high indeed. The role not only requires a sound grasp of technical concepts, but also mandates a personality that is comfortable with extreme forms of collaboration, managing and dealing with diverse stakeholders, personalities and egos (don't forget egos - tech guys can be a difficult bunch of people with huge egos), a strong suite of leadership skills, self-discipline, self motivation and the ability to work with ambiguity, a responsible attitude to self-management of tasks (without depending on a project manager to co-ordinate every meeting for example). Added to that, the E2E Architect must have excellent communication skills, demonstrating both in written and verbal form, the ability not only to handle technical communications, but also be the person to translate to business stakeholders in a simple, non-technical manner.

I rely on this architect to also grasp technical and architectural issues that might come up in delivery, and be able to provide solutions and advise on ideas and proposals to manage any impediments on the overall solution provisioning.

Why can't you just feed the business requirements to each division?

The short answer is the risk of lack of coherency of an overarching, end-to-end solution design. The absence of an E2E architect acting as the gatekeeper for maintaining overall integrity and coherency of the business requirements and related solution design, runs the risk of each division designing and implementing fairly independent solutions, leading to fragmentation, increased integration and last-minute rework to get a coherent solution delivered. This also leads to a system implemented without foresight, lacking the vision or with the end in mind. An E2E architect would fill this void, save a lot of time and energy in putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. 

Though not impossible to complete a project without the E2E architect, it is often through a lot of last minute co-ordination efforts of a project management team, or some efforts of a few technical heroes coming together, taking collective ownership of the problem. Generally these units have other work and projects going on concurrently, where focus on a single project is difficult to achieve. If the environment of very open collaboration and team work, where there aren't really any silo-mentality, then yeah, it's possible. But the reality is that in most organisations, silos exist, collaboration is not the norm, and the overhead of a project management team coordinating these activities is too high, let alone the implied technical knowledge of these project managers to make this a worthwhile activity.

This reminds me of the story about Christopher Wren, the architect responsible for rebuilding St. Paul's Cathedral after the Great Fire of London. Wren was walking the length of the partially rebuilt cathedral when he asked three bricklayers what they were doing. The first bricklayer responded, "I'm working." The second said, "I'm building a wall.". The third paused, looked up, and then said, "I'm building a cathedral to the Almighty."**

How many teams fully appreciate the work they do in the context of the end-to-end ecosystem? It is not expected every team have this kind of vision, it would be great if they could all see the big picture and be visionary, but in reality they're not - and there's nothing wrong with that. The instructive part of Wren's story is that he didn't come up with a sense of purpose himself and pound the vision into everyone's head. Each bricklayer cared about something different, even though all three were working on the same thing. Wren's role was to listen, to recognise the significance of what he heard, and to create working conditions that allowed everyone to find meaning in their own way.

In the same way that Wren appreciated the vision, the E2E architect plays the same, working with, collaborating, listening and negotiating with individual teams. Feeding a business requirements spec to each technical division independently, without a golden thread joining everything together, is not the most effective way of maintaining coherency.

[Next section: Why a solution architect and not a technical project manager instead?...]

Tuesday 28 February 2017

Ship of State Metaphor


I recently completed Jim Benson's book "Why Limit WIP: We are Drowning in Work". It's a simple, straightforward read, in the form of a story around typical life pressures in a corporate running multiple projects, all with the same sense of urgency, but teams not actually shipping any product (that is, completing any work product and releasing to market).

Jim introduces a metaphor called the Ship of State, as a way to help the team's product and project managers navigate through the uncertainty, thus allowing the team freedom to decide (empowered) what is safe and within their control to make decisions and others where the team still need to act, but still keep the stakeholders informed of their thinking. The scene is around product features for roadmap, which I thought quite powerful and useful - with a much wider application than just roadmapping features.

So I created this little poster that captures the essence of the metaphor. Does it makes sense?
Think about what your ship of state would look like (personal or professional)....
Ship of State

Monday 7 November 2016

Enterprise Agility Workshop

I recently held a workshop with senior management (general managers and executives) of a large enterprise company on agile methods. In this post I share the framework that helped me execute the workshop, sharing the experience and points for reflection. 

The situation with this client is a typical enterprise organisation structure, divided into broad areas of "Business" and "Technology". Divisions within the "Business" include Customer Care Operations, Marketing, Finance and a PMO. Divisions within "Technology" included IT Business Systems, Digital Media Product Development & Consumer Technology. Strategy is a separate division altogether. Added to this mix is the Technology Division supports multiple business units, with each business unit sharing similar (but unique) operational entities. The tech divisions were also unique in that each applied their own flavours of delivery: two were agile (but had different implementations of methods like scrum / kanban), whilst the third implements a hybrid waterfall / iterative life-cycle. And lastly, these three tech divisions had their own flavour of delivery PMOs (so count that as four PMOs in total, plus another PMO for BI/Analytics group - so that's five PMOs!).

The business people's request was basically:
We work with technology teams that are using this thing called Agile. What is it? Can we have a workshop to review agile methods, to decide whether / what / if the full enterprise needs to do / change to become more agile? How can we deliver faster? How can we get technology teams to respond faster, given that we in business operations can't move as fast as technology?

I was doubtful to say the least, because to me, timing was everything. The dust hadn't settled yet due to recent (and ongoing) organisational re-structures within both business and technology divisions, so I was hesitant this workshop would not add much value. Anyway, the client insisted the workshop happen, so I had to make it happen.

Was the workshop a success? Well, my client would argue yes, it was a success and it's great that we made a start.
Did the workshop run as I expected? No, what I had in mind (see mind map), what I planned for and what actually transpired did not fully meet my expectations, still there were some lessons learnt, and validation of my ideas & experiments are useful, hence I decided to share the framework publicly.

How to frame the workshop?

My mindmap design for the workshop

This picture is the mind map I used as a guide to planning the workshop. I applied my RAGE model as a guide, looking at:
  • Reality - I needed to understand the current reality of the stakeholders, in terms of their knowledge and experiences with agile methods?
  • Aspirations - Wanted to understand what problems they wanted to solve?
  • Goals - How could I run the workshop to address some of the stakeholders goals?
  • Expectations - What were these guys expecting as an output from the workshop?

Thursday 12 May 2016

Consulting, Star Trek Prime Directive & My Simple Rules

DISCLAIMER: This is another idea or concept that just might not work, or people might find it a bit edgy...but it's been on my mind of late, and so I needed an outlet, hence this post, likely to need a few iterations :-)

In Star Trek, there is this philosophy called the Prime Directive, where an advanced civilisation, when either coming into contact with, or observing from afar, a culture or civilisation that is less advanced, or, the culture is at an early stage of growth / innovation / expansion, the rule is one of non-interference. Interfering or exposing advanced technology (or a culture) to a somewhat less-advanced civilisation might end up causing more harm-than-good, so it's better to stay away (as a right of non-imposition / interference).

Can this concept be applied to consulting, or even your workspace in general?
Star Trek
As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Star Fleet personnel may interfere with the normal and healthy development of alien life and culture. Such interference includes introducing superior knowledge, strength, or technology to a world whose society is incapable of handling such advantages wisely. Star Fleet personnel may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship, unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral obligation



My Own Prime Directive (Simple Rules)

I believe some parts of this philosophy can be applied to the subject of consulting, coaching or projects that touch on change & transformation, for example: agile-transformation, or even the reverse, going back from "wrong agile" to a structured, predictable waterfall, classic command-control-central-planning methods...the situation in my context: coming from a world of advanced software engineering into a world just starting out, without having an actual mandate for intervening on changing process & methods (even though you know there is a better way)...or in the project world, how to work with people still entrenched in methodology dogma, instead of seeing projects as a people leadership activity, run by conversations & commitments and less so on Gantt-chart-style, date-status-checker-are-you-done-yet project management...

Being a consultant, at least in my experience, you need to have one or more prime directives of your own, some simple rules to guide you along a path that not only protects you as a professional (as well as a person / individual), but more importantly protects the clients (civilisations) you encounter during your formal engagements, including adhoc interactions & connections.

You could say I've been a consultant for the last five years, even though from a job title front, it is going on for 150 weeks and counting, nearing the three year mark. Before returning to South Africa, I had worked for international companies that specialised in Software & Systems Design & Engineering. I had the privilege to work with a few great teams, engineers, managers and leaders where I learnt the arts and secrets to some fairly sound, tried-and-tested Software Development & Project Management methods, including large-scale agile frameworks (which I've written about previously). Leaving the UK I'd just come off one of the largest, and most intense projects in my career to date (read here) - it is the kind of project that essentially kick-starts your career into consulting, it was my Everest where I knew instinctively that that project was as good-as-it-gets, and the probability of experiencing another similar monumental project in my future was going to be pretty low...

So when I started with my next project going back five-years ago, the landscape of the company, the product roadmap & projects portfolio was almost a copy-and-paste of my last project but tuned down by a factor of say 20 notches or so. I saw that as an opportunity to leverage the wins (and learn from the pain-points) of my Everest project, looking forward to create something similar but evolved...

It turned out it wasn't going to be that straightforward in reality...this particular civilisation was only just starting out, so I had to be mindful of the state & maturity level (new team, new to agile, new everything) just as when our Star Trek Explorers come into contact with less advanced civilisations and need to reference the Prime Directive. And the role I played wasn't grand divisional manager, but a role limited to program delivery (leaving the technical & rest of development processes in the hands of the respective managers). Even though I had come from a world of great industry, here I was faced with the challenge of working in a world just starting out...the choices:

I could go in all gung-ho guns-blazing (I'm the professional, I'm experienced, I've got years of experience, what you're doing is so minor in comparison to my last project, just listen to me, I'm the Expert, You listen-and-follow-me, I'll fix your entire division up even if it's outside my world of Project Management, I'm a generalist, I've seen it all...), heavily & dogmatically prescribe a blue-print, cookie cutter process, and do what-it-takes to enforce (bulldoze-through) the adoption;

OR

I could pick and choose the core concepts to focus on (in-line with the organisation's state of development i.e. similar to how a civilisation has advanced technically/socially/culturally), that would incrementally lead to the organisation's goal (deliver product), but at the same time forge the road ahead on which their teams would grow, learn, develop & empowered to own the problem-space (allowing them to make mistakes along the way).

Monday 1 February 2016

My RAGE Model for Personal Development Planning


Over the last few months, I've been working on a concept I've come to coin as the "R.A.G.E model", which stands for:
  • R Reality
  • A Aspirations
  • G Goals
  • E Expectations
I am using this model to map out a plan for my own self, as part of my own personal planning. I am sharing this experience because it maybe useful to others, since the topic of finding a work-life-balance affects us all. The years come-and-go so fast, that we're so busy being busy, just living, surviving, making ends meet, meeting your current commitments, heads-down in work, rush-rush-rush, that we really don't take the time out, to pause, reflect, look deeply within ourselves, to map out what really makes us, us!! There's a lot of material on this subject of work-life balance, and stress - I opted for finding my own path, which I'd like to share...

I came across the concept of defining Aspirations vs Expectations vs Reality from another coach, colleague and friend. I mulled over it for a while, and then later coined up RAGE, to go further than just highlighting Aspirations vs Expectations vs Reality, but also include Goals to help make sense of the Aspirations & Expectations, keeping it real.

In this post I share an exercise of how I was able to identify the different streams of my life, prioritise them using rough quantitative formulae borrowed from agile product management like weightings to balance priorities, culminating in a future plan for tracking my goals going forward. This exercise required a lot of self-reflection, introspection, deep searching...it's about making sense of all the noise, including understanding my circles of control / influence, being self-critical and at sometimes a little harsh (with priorities) on myself, example: Is being a husband more or less important than being a Father, Is being an Individual (self) more important than being a Sibling?? and so on.

The end result is a tangible personal plan that I can use to track my progress from 2016 onwards. It is far from complete though, the next phase is actually implementing my plan, and monitoring my progress throughout the year. I intend doing so using a personal-kanban-style Trello board, culminating in time-tracking to measure the distribution of my time across my different personas (topic for another post).

I believe this tool is useful to both life and work. At the end of the post I share some of my ideas where I think this tool can add value to different work/life scenarios.

Please have a read, let me know what you think!! And if you're interested in a template to get you going, let me know.

How does RAGE work?

It's about understanding your situational context - YOU as a person, currently, are being pulled in many directions, how do you juggle all the things interesting to you as a person, plus give enough time to your work, family, friends, etc. What is this thing called "work-life balance"?? How do you know if you allocating enough time to the things that are important?? What if you're wasting (or spending too much time) on something that is essentially of little value or consequence to you?? What matters most to you as an individual?? 

Often this comes down slicing your life into two major categories: (a) Personal & (b)Professional. For each category, there could be further sub-categories, or topics. I call these Personas, and for each persona, I define Top-Level Subject as a sub-category.

In my case, my current reality, consists of 22 high level personas split between my personal life, and my professional life. I am being sliced in 22 different ways, only in 2016, and I've not included any higher level aspirations, like big dreams like travelling the world, owning a porsche, meet Bill Gates, get invited to the World Economic Forum, work in Silicon Valley or Run a StartUp in New York City :-)

I will explain the personas breakdown in the next section. This section talks about what RAGE actually is. It essentially means, take a particular situation or topic from your persona, and analyse the following areas:

  • Reality - What is the current status of the situation? What is currently preventing you from reaching the aspiration / goal / expectation?
  • Aspiration - What is your ultimate wish to accomplish? How does it look like? What does it mean to you and why?
  • Goals - How / What would you need to do to get to the Aspiration? How would you break it down? What milestones do you set yourself that will eventually reach your aspiration? Techniques like using specific measurable goals, something with a tangible outcome helps here, or it can be a story - the future vision.
  • Expectations - Based on the goals you've set, what expectations do you have (can it be quantified like a level of confidence, or percentage completion by a certain date, etc). Is the expectation too high?
In addition to the RAGE criteria, an Action Plan for each topic helps in cementing a plan that you can use to track progress against meeting your goals. It is also useful to keep track of how your expectations will change over time, taking snapshots of progress and re-evaluating yourself through your own personal retrospectives.

Personas & User Stories

Personas are about describing how you split yourself up - i.e. we as people have many stripes: 
You as a .... Individual Self, Husband, Father, Brother, Friend, Colleague, Teacher, Business Owner, Family-Man, Son, Daughter, Grandfather, Uncle, Social Worker, Community Member, etc, etc.  
So we have many commitments, relationships with people and business entities (including rights to meet), that demand our time, energy and focus - how do we organise ourselves so that we focus on the things most important and useful to us? How much investment should we put into relationships over self-joys? What is each Persona really about? What does it mean to be a Father, an Employee or a Friend?

Before I delved into my RAGE criteria, I had to understand myself: Who am I? What makes me Me? How do I slice myself currently?? And for each persona, what am I really trying to achieve as an Aspiration for that Persona??

I'm going to be brave and share my own persona list with you. Who knows, there might be something common in your own life, and you might share similar persona aspirations as I :-) ?? This is just capturing my current reality, and not looking into the future with dreamy eyes of who I could become (that ship has sailed long ago or has it?).

The table below shows the Personas for me, read as "Me as a..." split between my Persona & Professional Life, for each Top Level Subject area. For each topic, I borrowed a page from Agile user stories, taking the form of [As a....] [I would like to...] [so that ....] [...get something of value]

My Personas
Type
Area 
(Me as a…)
Top Level Subject
Personal
Brother
Being a Brother
As a brother to four siblings, I need to grow our relationships & support structures (including continued financial support), so that our family unit appears strong and united, always.
Personal
Colleague
Work Social
As a colleague in a work environment, I must nurture and grow authentic & sincere relations (not shallow, superficial hello, how you - but genuine relations), so that I am recognised as someone who values people and interactions, working together on projects, and when not working on the same team, I am a friend that offers a listening ear, advisor & mentor to colleagues as needed. Social interactions & sincere relationships in the workplace matter a big deal.
Personal
Community Member
Community Forum
As a member of the community forum, I must spare my time, resources and energy in committing to the good causes, so that ultimately we have a peaceful and safe neighbourhood for our families.
Personal
Family-Man
Home Affairs
As a family, living in any country, I need to sort out all Home Office requirements, so that we may live free in the country of our choosing.
Personal
Family-Man
Family Time
As a father and head of the family, I would like to invest my time, energy, love and passion into my family (wife, kids) so that we can nurture relationships, grow together and create a strong family unit, paving the way for a healthy, stress-free life going forward.
Personal
Family-Man
Lifestyle Choice
As a person living on this earth on borrowed time, I would like to make lifestyle choices, so that my family can live in the best situation & circumstances possible, that promote a safe, meaningful and promising future, where life is beautiful on all fronts.As a family, we would like to evaluate our lifestyle choices, our preferences and situational circumstances, and make changes (if required) to help us attain our ultimate lifestyle that satisfies our happiness criteria.
Personal
Father
Fatherhood
As a father, I must spend time with each child, building up a unique, loving and caring relationship, so that my children have good memories to take with them, such that they become successful (happy, content, confident, mentally, physical & emotionally strong) human beings.
Personal
Friend
Social Network - Being a Friend
As a friend, I need to maintain, nurture and grow authentic and sincere social connections, so that people see me as a trusted person they can turn to, so that I have a support structure in place for me & my family (and of course reciprocate to my friends).
Personal
Home Owner
Home Improvements
As a home owner, I need to continuously maintain the state-of-repair, redecorate & keep the property up-to-date, so that we not only enjoy the living space, but also be ready to sell (and make a profit), if and when we decide to leave.
Personal
Husband
Marital Relations
As a husband, I need to fulfil the rights of my wife, taking the relationship to new levels so that my marriage is successful, rock-solid, and future-lasting.
Personal
Individual
Health & Fitness
As a person I would like to reach levels of fitness & good living, so that I may lead a healthy & enjoyable life, with minimal medical issues
Personal
Individual
Hobbies
As an individual with interests outside of work / family, I would like to pursue my hobbies (Cycling, Writing, Art, Inventing) so that I have an outlet for my creative interests, and that I get joy out of doing so.
Personal
Investor
Wealth & Finances
As a person I would like to reach financial independence (by pursuing multiple investment streams) before retirement age, so that I don't stress when I'm retired (or in death) so that my family are taken care off financially. Must be within the realms of halal investments tracking as close as possible to Shariah.
Personal
Individual
Giving Charity & Helping Needy
As a person with extra means, I would like to help more in Charity (Sadaqah, Compulsory Zakaat, Lillah) so that I fulfil the rights of others (within my family, friends, workers, community, local and world), and in keeping with the guidelines of Islam
Personal
Individual
Motor Vehicle
As an individual with specific requirements for transport, I would like to invest in a new car soon, so that it is more reliable than my current one, and satisfies all present as well future usage needs (4x4 off-road, bikes, family-adventures, etc.)
Personal
Muslim
Spirituality
As a Muslim / human being, I want to reach a level of spirituality that allows me to be content and at peace with the world, so that I may live life, according to the way of life of Islam, as a Muslim, and a Sufi, tolerating & living in peace with all beings (not matter what belief system others may so choose). I would like to elevate my spirituality so that I am at peace with myself, others around me, the world - so that I don't go chasing illusions, accepting the reality of the fragility of life (there is more to life than career, business, etc.)
Personal
Son
Being a Child
As a son, I must cherish the remaining years with my mom, spoiling her, comforting her, taking care of all her needs, so that I fulfil the rights of my mother, set an example of caring so that my kids can learn from, and to show my appreciation to mom for her love, patience and support all these years. To maintain the Islamic & Indian traditions of taking care of ones parents.
Personal
Son/Bro-in-Law
Being a Son/Bro-in-Law
As a son-in-law and a bro-in-law, I must grow these relationships stronger, so that family are content with our life situation, and so that there is harmony overall. To being someone they can trust, count-on, and rely in times of need & support.
Personal
Uncle
Being an Uncle
As an uncle to 12+ nephews and nieces, I must be a good role model, offering advice, help, financial aid, coaching and mentoring so that these kids have a decent chance of succeeding in life.
Professional
Blogger / Writer
Blogging & Writing Papers
As blogger, I need to take my writing to the next level, so that I gain personal satisfaction out of it, of not being afraid to create my own art, especially when "it just might not work".
Professional
Business Owner
Consulting Business
As the owner of AS3, I need to establish the brand, grow a client-base, and run this company as a real-one, so that I get valuable life/work experience from this venture.
Professional
Consultant
Consulting - Client to MCA
As a consultant to MCA I must consistently deliver value, exceed client's expectations, so that my engagements are maintained, reputation remains in-tact, and overall ensure my client is happy with my performance, such that there is a pipeline of work always available.
Professional
Consultant
Client Engagement Options
As a consultant, I need to diversify my clients engagements, so that I can manage risk and survive, as well as broaden my network within South Africa or overseas.
Professional
Consultant
Service Provider Partners
As a consultant, I would like to take my relationships with other SPs to the next level, exploring opportunities for partnerships, joint ventures, etc. so that I improve my chances of success.
Professional
Consultant
Knowledge Base
As a consultant, I need to keep abreast and up-to-date, with topics I specialise in, so that I gain the knowledge & ability to apply new tools & techniques to improve the outcomes of my engagements, and so that I personally grow my toolbox as a professional.
Professional
Job Hunter
Employment at Specific Company of Interest
As a job hunter, I must find a role & company that I like, value and will enhance my career experience, so that I climb up the ladder on my professional journey onwards & upwards - ultimately to fulfil my ultimate career aspiration (awesome company, awesome brilliant minds).
Professional
Potential Innovator / Entrepreneur
Product Development StartUp
As an aspiring entrepreneur, I must push forward on my ideas, take chances & risks on a startup, so that I can ultimately say I've tried this (possibly failed) and learnt a lot in the process.
Professional
Potential [Company] Employee
Permanent Employment, exit Consulting
As a potential Employee, I would like to attain a senior management position in an area I can add value, so that I build my career & increase my network profile (in line with my aspiration of finding awesomeness).
Professional
Programmer
Programming - Software Development
As someone who used to enjoy coding (and was quite good at it), I need to keep my technical skills fresh, so that a) I don't become a dinosaur and b) to enjoy the feeling of creativity again, c) so I maintain my closeness to technology streams.
Professional
Software Professional
Seeking out People for Learning & Growth
As a software professional, I would like to learn & grow, seek out individuals, companies and interactions, to reach heights of excellence, so that I can not only enjoy the profession, but take me to new opportunities & experiences. I want to surround myself with people that motivate me, journey together to grow to the next level.

Phew! So that's over 20+ ways I must split my time up... Now for the next part, surely not all personas hold the same level of importance in relationship to another? There must be some way I can make sense of all of this by prioritizing the personas I'm most interested in...

Interestingly enough, my brother recently called me to help with the local school's governing body, they could do with my help. I said unfortunately, this topic doesn't occur on my focus areas for this year, I am filled up with other commitments, and may possibly consider that request for next year (i.e. Me as an active member of a school governing body). Now what is more interesting though, is I could add an activity under my Persona / Brother subject, and be able to support my brother indirectly helping in improving & strengthening our relationship, thus taking me closer to reaching my aspiration of increasing family bonds with my siblings!

So it certainly helps to have laid out your personal map...

How I ranked my Personas ...

At first I wrote down all by RAGE criteria for each Persona/Subject, and then prioritized my list based on the importance of the Aspiration alone. Then after much thought, I decided to get more closer to something I can actually implement, I need to treat personas differently. I had to come up with some way of weighting & ranking one persona against another. In doing so, I could then arrange my plan according to rank & importance of the persona itself.

So with this in mind, I created at 22x22 matrix of all the unique Persona / Subject Pairs, and went across from left-to-right, passing a value judgement when comparing one persona against another. For example, starting with Personal-Individual, going across and compare: Is being an Individual more important that being a Husband? and so on...

If a persona was more important in relation to another persona, it would get a value of 1, otherwise it would get a value of 0. I built in intelligence to track that if a value was 1, then the opposite relational-comparison, down the matrix, should return a value of 0.

I chose, for the first iteration to go the mutually-exclusive route - to keep things simple, and make the numbers balance. Of course, I could have went there OR route, meaning "If a persona is the same OR equal in importance" - this actually does make sense in reality, but I chose to park that formula because I'd just spend a good couple hours implementing the mutually exclusive rule, and I just didn't feel like reworking the formula again.

Anyway, the mutually-exclusive rule is useful because it drives home the point of distinguishing one persona against another, in true black-and-white, no grey in between. I either make a call or not - a simple forcing function that allows me to drive my behaviour changes going forward.

So this is how my relational matrix ended up:
Ranking Personas
Having entered the 1s & 0s, I then summed each row, and came up with a total. Then used a heatmap to identify the personas by rank (the higher the ranking, the darker the colour to red, the more important the persona).

Interestingly enough, the Persona that came out on top is my spirituality, followed closely by me being a Husband!! Prior to the exercise, I had prioritized my spirituality as something in the background, so this exercise brought to surface how important this topic is, since Islam is a way-of-life, and after much thinking and relational comparison, it appears on the top of the list (bringing to surface that my spiritual dimension is very important, which I've been neglecting for some time now).

I as a Husband on the other hand, did have prominence before the matrix, however, I would not really have put it as number one, because I was thinking more about my personal individual aspirations in terms of career & business, ahead of the family stuff (often taking family relations for granted and not investing adequate time and energy in those relationships to elevate them to the next level)!!

So this exercise has certainly given me something to think about! If only there was more than 24 hours in day ;-)

Difficulty Levels of Aspirations

In addition to getting a view on my relational-personas ranking, I wanted a way of ranking aspirations by importance. So I chose five levels of aspirations, and assigned a weighting (for points-scoring) to each one:

Level of Aspiration Aspiration Weighting
1 No Brainer - Absolutely Doable
100
2 Within the realms of Doable
80
3 Doable but with some Effort
60
4 Difficult but not Impossible
40
5 A Nice Dream - Stretch BHAG?
10

Like my formula in the ranking matrix, when I ran these numbers in the overall ranking plan, I got to thinking maybe I should reverse the weighting. If I really wanted to make some hard changes, I should instead focus on the most difficult things, and aspirations that fall within the realm of doable should be ranked low, since I have a level of confidence in achieving the aspiration.  This really is a matter of choice, some people prefer to focus on "low hanging fruit" since it is really motivating to knock-things off your TODO list building up momentum and confidence to tackle the harder, more challenging stuff...There is the risk of choosing the difficult aspirations that one gets bogged down and demotivated, leaving little time or lost time on the more doable aspirations...

Aspirational Importance or Happiness Index

In addition to having a view of the relative difficulty of achieving the Aspirations / Goals, I added another filter for defining the importance of the aspirations. Again, not all aspirations are equal, some are more important than others, so it made sense to rank the importance of aspirations, giving each one an arbitrary weighting:
Importance Levels Importance Weighting
1 Not at all Important
10
2 Slightly Important
20
3 Moderately Important
30
4 Very Important
40
5 Extremely Important
50

I was in two minds about adding another criteria for a Happiness Index - the idea was to quantify the level of happiness. Trying to answer the question, In reaching my goals & aspirations for a given persona / subject pair, what will be the resulting happiness index, i.e. how happy would it make me as a result??

Measuring happiness index has become somewhat of a fascination of mine, which I'm still experimenting with. I had this idea about Personametry (how nice if there was a device that could that?) so I am still trying to define my happiness matrix. For starters, I have been tracking two topics using a Trello board: One board for tracking my Happiness at Work and another board for tracking my Mood/Happiness at Home. The jury is still out on this...

So I decided that Level of Importance implies a level of resulting happiness. If I set something as Extremely Important, it implies a similar, if not equal, level of happiness. Hence I don't need another number.

Ranking Formula

Using the above quantitative techniques, it becomes possible to rank and sort the RAGE list by order of priority, using a simple points scoring system:
Persona Ranking x Importance Level (Happiness Index) x Aspirational Type
This is similar to user story sizing in Agile/Scrum - the higher the points, the higher the ranking / importance, and therefore should get your focus & attention.

Bringing it all together - the Personal Plan

I am using Excel to manage my RAGE list. With the Personas & Top-Level Subjects identified, for each subject, write down the Aspiration (e.g. I would like to complete a road race this year). Having identified the Aspiration, now work towards breaking down the Aspiration into one or more Goals (e.g. To enter 5 seed races by June, To ride 50km every weekend). Once the goals are identified, think about the Expectations - how confident am I, what's the probability of achieving this goal?  And as a final step, turn some of those goals into concrete actions.

Below is a snippet of my own plan - it has been ranked by highest story points, and I've also indicated the probability of delivery (in terms of my expectations of realising the goal / aspiration). This is just a first pass based on the simple, doable aspirations (I am actually going to change it to focus on the BHAGs Big Hairy Ass Goals)...
Snapshot of my RAGE Plan

Visualising the Persona Map


Whilst I've created a way to numerically rank and prioritize each specific Persona/Subject pair, and I can now focus on say, the top ten aspirations / goals, a table with numbers (as above), might appear to be a little misleading. I wanted a way of seeing the spread, and weighting of the rolled up Personas, one level up - this view is created from totalling up the points ranking (planning priority), giving a cumulative total for the main Persona/Subject pairs - basically a single view of how my life may end up being spliced:
How I'm being sliced up - TreeMap

Next Steps (Post initial sense-making)

Now that I've mapped out my life's demands for 2016, and have a reasonable idea of what my commitments and focus areas are, in relation to both life-and-work, I can now start planning to deliver on these goals. Using Excel is cumbersome, so I'm going to look at using Trello or Smartsheet to track and measure progress...I am also going to look at creating a schedule or a reminder system to help me monitor and track my progress to reaching my goals and ultimately my aspirations...it's a start!! I've also set up a personal Kanban Trello board to track any new topics for aspirations...I am also thinking of using HarvestApp timekeeping to start measuring amount of time I spend in each Persona/Subject pair.

I have shared my map with my wife - it's important to include the people in your life, their input is valuable as it provides different perspectives. It is also useful because this sharing opens you up to others, and makes them appreciate the challenges you're facing along the many facets of your life...

Of course this list can't be static, it needs constant grooming, refining and simplifying. I am currently grooming my list, rolling up similar personas, since the level of detail of the first draft is a bit too granular. Constant feedback, and updates from further introspections will happen, as well as, new ideas for aspirations must be tracked as well (you guessed it, I have another Trello board to track my new aspirations ;-)

Other Areas of Use

Apart from using this technique / tool for your personalised inventory checking, I believe this exercise will benefit others in areas such as:

  • As a student out of high school, settling on your future life choices can be daunting. So many choices, so many people with advice. You can use this tool to make sense of your options, and prioritize accordingly.
  • As a student just graduating from college, you too have to make choices around your next career aspiration. How do you choose the company that best meets your aspirations? What factors play a role in prioritizing? Use this tool to help you decide.
  • As an entrepreneur or small business owner, you're faced with many ideas and options to take your business to the next level, so how do you make sense of the next area to focus, which direction is going to add the most value??
  • As a person with ideas, or managing your product roadmap, how is one idea or feature more important than the other? In the same way as I've used personas, you can use the same deep thinking questions to help you sift through competing ideas - and prioritize by rank and value.
  • As a line manager, you have to manage people, set their goals and objectives. Wouldn't you like to use a more meaningful approach to setting objectives and expectations?? Using this technique will not only bring clarity to your team, but is bound to improve the relationships going forward (your team will look forward to defining meaningful objectives instead of seeing the appraisal process as a pain).
  • As a worker, you have many responsibilities, projects and tasks to take care of - how do you prioritize your work, time management and also do stuff that not only ticks the done boxes for tasks, but also help you grow in the company as well??
  • As a parent, how do you manage all the ideas, aspirations and goals you're setting for your children? Are you doing too much? Are you focusing on the right areas?? 
  • As a project office, how do you prioritize and manage the tens of projects under your portfolio? How do you value one project over another? 
That's a few areas just top-of-mind, I'm sure there's more...

Feedback / Coaching

If you found this topic interested, please share your comments on this blog.
If you're interested in learning more, or would like a template of the tool to use in your own life mapping and planning, let me know. I am glad to help out, to the point of running a coaching session taking you through this journey!!!