I’m not sure how much time and money has been spent making The Wrong Thing® with computers. I imagine you have your own stories.
It you work in IT you’re probably paid to solve problems for people. Of course when people bring problems, you bring solutions.
This post talks about how a team uses Clean Questions, and an Outcome based stance and stopped a lot of IT solutions from even getting started and stopped ‘The Wrong Thing’® getting built.
Here’s what happened
Colleagues in an internal consultancy were ideally placed to suggest solutions that didn't work.
For context this was a fairly standard organisation. The internal consultants job was advocating Office 365 as a solution to users needs. It’s a perfect set up for the IT-to-the-rescue problems I’m talking about.
Instead, they did this
Took an outcome based stance as way out of the institutional drama that had built up over time.
Used Clean Questions - these are great for being curious and rubbish for suggesting solutions
The team succeeded by stoping a lot of IT “solutions” from even getting started/ This mean they stopped a lot of ‘The Wrong Thing’® getting built.
And they showed the method to new team members who got it too.
Here is how
This was down with two approaches
A biased more towards a curiosity
Using a clean questions
A bias towards what we’d like to happen in the future can
this moved the relationship away from the cycles of rescue and blame, and towards shared problems and outcomes.
From Contempt to Curiosity
The basis of this work is the book ‘From Contempt to Curiosity’ by Dr Catilin Walker. We applied the ideas in this book to this situation.
These two approaches are what was required to save a load of work and money
The Iron Triangle
This approach helped break the Iron Triangle in IT.
Making stuff for users, using any development method or tools, there is “Good, Fast, Cheap” choose two.
The ideas in this article call this out. It’s just it ignores a whole load of stuff.
The assumption in this triad is that whatever is being discusses is the right thing to build. The assumption that IT can help. The assumption that “we’re here to fix!”
Of course IT is going to build the right thing! They’ll even iterate towards it with feedback. Or have an on site customer. Or carve your requirements into stone, and build exactly what you want.
Even using the most appropriate method (agile, xp, whatever) still makes the wrong thing.
The reality is the wrong thing, late and over budget.
Building the wrong thing might not be the fault of the person doing the building. Their performance review might require them to build something. There could be systemic forces in the organisation that drive this behaviour. It’s also learned, and can be unlearned.
If you can affect the things you build, you can stop building the wrong thing!
The two approaches above a bias towards curiosity, and a relationship stance that looks to outcomes and avoids the cycle of drama and blame help stop building the wrong thing.
*DANGER!
I can’t say this too loud. If you’re employed to help people by making something and/or your performance review just looks at the stuff you’ve made don’t lose your job taking this advice.
What’s next
If you'd like to spend more time and money on the right things and less on the wrong things, start by subtly changing the conversations you have with your customers.
Some takeaway from the team using this approach.
Stay curious, even if you think 'nah', hear them out. It'll help build trust and it may lead you all to something new... and right.
Listen to people and not just the HIPPOs (Highest Paid Persons). Sometimes it's the people at the coal face to understand the true system... and what their 'users' want.
Draw when possible as it's a shared map of what we know, where we've been, and what we've thought about.
Do take 'action minutes' and lean on Clean. "For us to achieve X, what might we need? Who might help with that?"
If you hit a barrier, can we climb over it by using Step 4 or can we work around it?
If you can't do it, that's okay. It's okay to not build the wrong thing!
I have a post about Clean Questions called “So what first attracted you to the Millionaire Paul Daniels?
This post on trust might also be interesting.