Stories Connecting Dots with Markus Andrezak

Strategie Machen! Henning Wolf hat mich im Hotelzimmer bei einer Konferenz interviewt. Es geht um mein Thema Nummer eins, neben Produkt: Strategie Machen! Wir erklären, was an Strategie kaputt ist und wie man es fixen kann. Wir erklären, was die drei relevanten Ebenen in Strategie sind und wie man sie wieder koppeln kann, um alles zu reparieren. Denn es ist das Koppeln dieser drei Ebenen, was Strategie repariert. Die drei Ebenen sind: Marker: unsere Identität, ausgedrückt über unseren Antrieb, langfristige Ziele. Alles was ausdrückt, wer uns was wir sind und was wir in der Gesellschaft bewirken wollen. Unsere Identität eben. Optionen: Das ist alles, was wir als nächstes tun könnten. Alle Möglichkeiten, die wir haben. Da wir nicht alles machen können, was wir gerne machen würden, entscheidet die beste Auswahl, die Qualität unserer Entscheidungen und Committments darüber, wie es uns geht. Arbeit: Arbeit soll fliessen und es muss passend viel Arbeit auf gute Optionen angewandt werden. Arbeit auf schlechten Optionen ist nutzlos. Viel Arbeit auf guten Optionen bringt viel. Dies erklärt auch warum Output wichtiger sein kann als gedacht ;) Arbeit realisiert Optionen, Optionen verwirklichen unsere Marker. Umgekehrt helfen Marker Optionen zu bewerten (und abzuleiten) und Optionen helfen Arbeit abzuleiten. Wichtig ist, die stabilisierende Natur und langfristige Wirkung von Markern zu verstehen und akzeptieren. Ebenso ist es wichtig, die mittelfristige Wirkung und die Notwendigkeit von längerfristigen Optionen zu verstehen. nur Arbeit soll fliessen, nur hier gelten Flow-Gesetze und ähnliches. Mechanismen von Arbeit auf die anderen Ebenen zu transportieren, zerstört diese Ebenen. Deshalb ist Business Agilität mit ähnlichen Mechanismen auf diesen Ebenen auch oberflächlich gedacht und toxisch. Viel Spaß bei dieser Folge. Vielen Dank an Henning Wolf für die Zusammenarbeit und die Geduld beim Fragen unter widrigen Bedingungen im Hotel bei einer Konferenz!

Dan Vacanti - Rightsizing I met Dan years and years ago in my active time in the Kanban community. Dan was part of the very beginning of Kanban in 2007! Since then he's been deep into Lean and Agile. Dan authored two books, "Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability" and "When will it be done?". He is also the founder of Actionable Agile. Dan always had his independent thought. Most of all, he is a builder of bridges. He worked hard with Scrum.org on integrating the good ideas of Scrum and Kanban. Also, he organises the conference LeanAgile US which just happened from 25 -27 Feb 2019 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Possibly most noteworthy, Dan's twitter Avatar is not the usual egg provided by twitter, but a self made picture of an egg. Here excerpts of our conversation as a loose transcript. don't take it word by word, please! Show Notes: The underlying idea for all of us is to maximise customer value. Cost of Delay is a tool suggested as basis for ranking, prioritising and sequencing on a more objective base rather than gut feel. Hopefully based on basic economic fundamentals. An extension of that is WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First), which is defined by CD3= CoD / Duration. This is meant to give a shortcut to give an answer to which number does this item have in the sequence of things to be done. But here's the caveat: It is critical enough to get the number for duration right (how long does this take to be done? - The Estimate!). But the even more critical question is: "how do we even get the number for the value of the thing we are building?" This is where my research started, but "Let me be honest with you, and this is just me talking, nothing I found was practical or applicable in my world." "More importantly, I felt there we're a whole bunch of assumptions going into this CoD number that didn't reflect reality." "Let's focus this discussion on the area of complex product development work. And we try to get that number even before start working on something. Which, by definition, is when we have the highest amount of uncertainty. And this is what struck me: How can this CoD number give us the right answer? And that's were I started my investigation." Customers will always be able to ask things from us faster than we will be able to deliver them. There are fundamental assumptions in CoD to be in place for that to make sense. When there is uncertainty involved, we need a probabilistic approach. That means, we have to work with ranges. That means we have to think about CoD as a distribution across that range. The same is true for the duration. Those two assumptions are not fatal. There are mathematical tools like Monte Carlo simulation that help us to come up with an answer. BUT: If you are in a world, where you no the numbers, then CoD/D = CD3 gives you the right number. If you do not know these numbers, once you deliver the thing, these numbers could be completely different. So now CoD can change and as well duration can change. When you now run a Monte Carlo simulation, you will realise that this is not the best tool once uncertainty sets in. The best answer in this world is to do things by random sequencing. What matters is: right sizing items. What that means is, we need to break things up to a size where they reasonable flow through our system. So, CoD doesn't make a difference. Duration doesn't make a difference. What makes a difference is right sizing your items. This flies in the face of what's lately been said in agile, where there is a lot of talk about outcomes over output. And what we found out is that it's actually the other way around: It's output over outcomes. It's the output that generates the outcome. A metaphor here is gambling, where you would place as many small bets as possible to generate outcome. „We're coming back to a fundamental principle of Lean, which is that value is defined by the customer." What is the smallest thing that we could feedback on from the customer? Links: Dan Vacanti on Twitter ActionableAgile, Dan's company ActionableAgile Analytics, the tool that Dan's company builds and sells Lean Agile US, Dan's conference, each February Books: "Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability" by Dan "When will it be done?" by Dan

Part II This is part two of the conversation I had with Jabe Bloom and Marc Burgauer during the Devops Conference 2018 in Munich. All information can be found in the show notes of part 1, which is Episode 21 of this podcast. Here some short show notes on this second part. Show Notes On Bid Data & being Data Driven "Russell Ackoff wrote a brilliant paper titled "On Data Mismanagement Systems and the basic thesis is: Managers need data to make decisions and the more data they have, the better it is. Of course, the answer is: Managers don't need more information, they need the right information" "Of course, big data is a response to a particular problem and the particular problem is "Oh god, we made such big piles of data that no human can actually process it anymore. And now we have to come up with an algorithm to summarise the data for us." On Change & Culture "By definition all future things are stories. They don't exist. That's why they're in the future. You can't measure them. You can't use data to understand them. You can only use data to understand what exists now." "People think that you have to change people's thinking first. You change what they think about things and then they change their behavior and that will change the output. And that's absolutely wrong. You have to change what they're looking at and that will change their thinking. And when you want to change something, that's when you need to create those models and give people new things to look at." Is speed still an advantage? "Right now everyone goes rushing towards high cycle time, high frequency: spin as fast as you can. If everyone is playing to the same time cycles, there is no advantage to doing that. … In fact, the advantage will be having the discipline … of having long term vision and connecting them to the capabilities of having a short cycle time. That's the next competitive advantage. We need people to be able to understand how to make commitments beyond two weeks. Period." "We need to create space for commitments. If everything is an option you have no commitments. If you had no commitments, you have no identity." Autonomy vs. Agency "I hate the word autonomy. … I think autonomy is individuating. … The way I hear the word and I think other people hear it - and I might be wrong and other people hear it differently - but the way I hear it is "I have the right to make my own decisions. I have the right to make my own rules." "If you look up the etymology of the word it means "the owner of the rules". (Whereas) Agency is my ability to chose in that environment and to see the result of it. Autonomy as the ability to act without responsibility is my concern. The ability to act without considering the feedback loop of what s the effect of what I have done. Thanks for listening! Remember to give us feedback on twitter, mail, wherever you want! Your feedback on iTunes will help us spread the word! Be prepared for the next episode in a few weeks!

Jabe Bloom and Marc Burgauer - Designing Systems Last week, beginning of December 2018, I happened to be guest of the DevOps Conference in Munich. The nice people from the organising company gave me the chance to actually make it a family meeting with my pals J Paul Reed (a giant in the field of DevOps), Marc Burgauer (from Scotland, doing Agile consulting in Banking) and Jabe Bloom (co-founder and chief scientist of Praxisflow). It was 3 really busy days, the bunch of us were continuously mingling in giving talks, workshops, being active in a panel and all kinds of fun. Finally on the last day, we all gave a huge workshop together, using all kinds of techniques and tools from all of our fields and it felt like really great collaboration - throwing together all our expertise from all the fields we've been busy in and merging the approaches. Collaboration without vanity and really sharing. It rarely feels this good!!! On the evening before the workshop, Marc, Jabe and me sat down in my hotel room and recorded roughly two hours of ramblings on designing systems. When Jabe is with you, it's always on the highest level and really abstract design theory. But Jabe has this tough in which he can really go sky high, risking to be Icarus. But just before his abstract knowledge makes gets him too close to the sun, he defends to us other mortal souls and he connects back to earth and leaves us all with a "ahhhh, I see what you mean!!!" The background is that Jabe is currently working on his PhD in Design at the Carnegie Mellon University and as such he is a monster in reading about all of the most abstract literature in design theory - specialising in change in human systems in extreme time spans (like hundreds of years). Of course, there are huge connections between these theories and what we are doing. Having Marc in this round is a totally different perspective yet and I love how the three of us managed to blast through all kinds of topics. Honestly, this one is one for the lodert and possibly for a niche. But I guess the niche will love it. I'll make it short this time and leave it with the character of the recording: Raw, uncut and a little meandering but always true to the topic and lots of lots of depth. I love this and it feels authentic to how my life and job is. Thanks guys in being my guests and inspiration in this episode. This is part 1 of 2 parts. The next part will make up the next episode and will follow in a week or so. This just had to be out there. Some notes and hints How different timeframes and different temporality change our thinking and how we have to take care about this. We mention Bungay, User Stories, Epics, Strategy … The focus of Agile is compression of timeframes. It can be a problem once we loose the language for longer timeframes. „Employee goes „I can't think of a way to come up with a chain of two week events that would add up to your one year story. I can't do it. It doesn't make any sense." The role of middle management in story telling and expertise. A Peter Principle of temporality, explaining micro management. OKRs and stories Humanist culture is about "What am I doing?" not „How do I measure what I am doing?" but "What am I doing?"‚ Determinism vs. "The Quality within", love vs. Process The more efficient you get, the more exploration you can do. Science doe not have time as a component. The scientific method is always in retrospective. It always thinks about the past and it never thinks about the future. The predictions it does on the future are based on a determined future. There is no **Open** in science. The thing about the Jony Yveish people out there is that they are able to imagine things that don't exist and can't be measured. You can't use determinism to get there. You can't use quantification to get there. You can only use story telling and narrative. How can Roger Martin's Knowledge funnel be used in a way that it brings mystery? It needs to be used non-linearly. You throw a thing in the middle, it pops up to the top and a mystery is born. That'd be a different way to innovate rather than simply finding "valuable problems" to solve. Doing Hackathons more right and more wrong. Apollo 13 mission story: Time constraints, a known set of components and *isolation* (so the team has to be put away from everybody) "If we had this, then we could make that!" Three temporalities to making sense: - How do I make sense of what's going on? - Retrospective coherence:How can I later explain why I did this in the future. (constraining) - Prospective coherence. If I put this thing that doesn't exist into the world, how does it change the stories that I'm in? Books John Doerr: Measure What Matters Christina Wodtke: Radical Focus I guess this is really abstract stuff. I just love it and I assure that if you are a regular listener, there is a lot in it for you!

I follow Matt since years. he has a couple of great books out, his latest one possibly being the top pick. It is called "Winning the brain Game". In "Winning the brain Game", Matt explains 7 fundamental flaws of the brain which hold us back from being the best problem solvers we could be. He describes how he discovered them, gives explanations from the fields of psychology and neuro science and finally gives hints on fixes for these flaws. I discovered Matt by means of a different book he wrote quite a couple of years ago. The book was called "The laws of subtraction" in which he gave structure on how to make things simpler and how to address that problem. At the time I headed a product which was really a complicated mess and the book helped me think through several of the problems I had at the time and I have it in find memories. Matt comes up with the following categories of flaws: "Misleading", which contains the flaws of Leaping (jumping to the first best, shallow solution), Fixation (being stuck on the first best idea) and Overthinking (not getting into a state of delivery at all. Then there is Mediocre with Satisficing (giving in to a half baked solution and not pulling through) and Downgrading (no, it's not so important to hang in and we didn't mean to reach that level at all) And finally there is Mindless with the flaws "not invented here" (if it's not my idea, I won't listen) and Self-Censoring (It's my idea, it can't be good). So, again: Misleading Leaping Fixation Overthinking Mediocre Satisficing Downgrading Mindless Not Invented Here Self-Censoring Also, expect a definition of Strategy and a little gossip on how one of the greats, Roger L. Martin, thinks on Strategy. Also really useful for me was a description of the value of frameworks as a way of describing ways to work with tools in a non sequential, non linear way and still feel comfortable and having a feeling of progress in highly abstract knowledge work. Another Gem for me was the framing of "assumptions" as "What has to be true? Given our strategy, what has to be true in our industry for it to work out? What has to be true for our org structure? What has to be true about what our customer really values? What about our cost? And what has to be true about our capabilities? Answering that questions opens a space right between the questions of "What is true?" and "What might be true" and help us thinking much more open about these issues. Show Notes "True Strategy os not about a plan, it is not about analysis. True strategy s about choice making." "There's a lot of talk about thinking outside of the box, And I'm here to tell you there's an awful lot of space inside of the box, if we think about the box in the right way." "When people say „culture eats strategy for lunch, what they're basically talking about is when you march out a plan of action without having the buy-in or the input of those being in some sort responsible for deploying that strategy, the Status quo will defeat that plan." "(Culture) does not eat for breakfast a great set of winning choices that answer - "what's our winning aspiration?", - "where will we play?", - "how will we win?",- "what capabilities do we need?" and- "What systems are required?" "The brain works very efficiently if there's some sort of limit. But you make that limit smart and intelligent. Just enough so that there's guidance but not prescription." Matt's Mantra "What appears to be the problem, isn't. What appears to be the solution, isn't. What appears to be impossible, isn't" "I think the key to able to think differently is to be able to reframe problems" "They (Toyota) are a very innovative company. They implement close to a million ideas per year, all across the organization." On Lean in the Toyota Way "A lot of what we see on the surface as Lean, what really drives it (and can't be seen) is creativity. To have someone who puts on a windshield improve that work. And that's something that took me 4 years to understand." "One of the training programs was called "Jobs Methods Training". And they introduced the concept of continuous improvement: Little ideas, implemented as quickly as possible as near to the frontline as you possibly can. It was aimed at the supervisor level. Among those was a guy called Deming." "Until this day, you will not find a Lean Thinking program at Toyota. You will find Toyota Business Process, before that it was PDCA." "I often get the question on what is the difference between continuous improvement and radical innovation. And it really is just a matter of scope, scale & magnitude. The process is the same. The problem solving process is the same" It's all problem solving. "Do I teach Lean? Yes, I do tech Lean Thinking. But looks an awful lot like Design Thinking." "In an ideal world, all this stuff (Design Thinking, Agile, Lean Startup. Lean, etc.) would just be called problem solving." "A neuroscientist will tell that there are only two ways that human beings solve problems. Just two. One is the conscious way. And one is the unconscious way." What is creativity? "The best that you can do is to steep yourself in the problem so that you have as best an understanding as you possibly can. And then simply take a break. Just take a break. because that gives the hippocampus time to make the connections that we call the term creativity. Creativity is nothing more than the mash up of certain elements, connections, criteria and memories that all boil up into that sudden burn of neuro chemical reaction that we term creativity: The Eureka moment." "Hansei (Reflection) in Japan is a huge part of a Childs upbringing. It's an after action review: What did you expect to happen? What did actually happen? And what accounts for the difference?" "First of all, Roger (Martin) would say that strategy is not a plan. … he would tell you the distinction is meaningless between Strategy and execution. … Essentially strategy has to cascade down onto every individual." Finally I hope this conversation was as much fun for you as it was for me and you could take away as much as I did. And I hope you could hear just how much fun I had! And honestly I got a little stuck taking down notes for the show notes. It was just just too much good stuff and gems in it! To me, it was a blast! Make sure you look up the Canvases that Matt talked about. There are links in the show notes. Also make sure to read Matt's last book "Winning The Brain Game"! Also, the earlier ones are worth the money and time! And maybe, look out for a conference close to you were you might meet him or me or both of us for some chat and a hefty dose of problem solving . I say thanks for listening in again. If you liked it, spread the word and recommend this show to your friend, colleagues and ,maybe your boss and leave a review! If you didn't like it, please tell me how to improve! And let's all remember the Mantra: "What appears to be the problem, isn't. What appears to be the solution, isn't. What appears to be impossible, isn't" Thanks again and hear you in a couple of weeks! Links Matthew E. May's Website Matt's latest book - "Winning The Brain Game" Matt's book "The Laws of subtraction" Matt's book "The Elegant Solution -Toyota's Formula for mastering Innovation" Matt's "Playing To Win" Strategy Canvas Matt's "Lean Learning Loops" Canvas Roger Martin's "The Design Of Business" - a book I often mention in my work and trainings. It is also mentioned during this conversation. - Roger L. Martins book "Playing To Win", in which he describes Strategy as the choices as discussed during this conversation.

Intro Diese Folge ist für mich ganz besonders! Als ich Norbert besucht habe, kam ich dafür in meinen alten Berliner Kiez, in dem ich fast 20 Jahre lang gewohnt habe. (Ich war ganz ausser mir, als ich mich da umgesehen habe ;) Und auch Norbert kenne ich seit den frühen 90ern, als wir noch Autobahnkilometer auf dem Weg zu Mountainbike-Rennen abgespult haben. Natürlich haben wir auch Stunde um Stunde beim Training auf Waldwegen und -abwegen verbracht und auch in Rennen. Wenn das Gute so nah ist, ist es manchmal schwer zu erkennen, was man überhaupt vor sich hat. Und so hat es bis jetzt gebraucht um Norbert zu interviewen und mehr über sein Geschäft und seine Industrie zu lernen. Und so ist diese Folge noch mehr als viele andere true to title: In andere Welten eintauchen um Verbindungen zu finden. Norbert Haller, designed seit 20 Jahren e-Bikes. Ich habe mich in seiner Werkstatt umgeschaut. Seit langem interessiert mich, wie man das alles in Hardware anstellt, denn Hardware ist cool. Und die Skalierung bei Fahrrädern ist immens: Sehr wenige Designer arbeiten an sehr vielen Modellen in sehr hohen Auflagen. Wenn wir in Software herum jammern über Prototypen, hört hier mal rein, wie komplex sich der Prozess von Design zu Produktion in Hardware ist. Interessant auch die Beobachtungen zu Märkten. Für mich war der Killer, dass Elektromobilität jetzt doch komplett von unten kommt. Jetzt ist ein Sweet Spot, in dem die Änderungen bei Leichtfahrzeugen einfach klappen und gehen. Und schon werfen sich in der Lieferkette diejenigen mit in den Markt, die bei Autos die Felle davon schwimmen sehen. Spannend war für mich zu hören, wie lange die Konstruktion ein Suchprozess bleibt, in dem man flexibel bleiben muss. Auch in diesem Designprozess ist es so, dass nach der „Reinzeichnung" eine Menge Detail- und Dreckarbeit anfallen, weil Design auf dem Papier und die Idee auf eine etwas brutalere (Konstruktions-)Realität treffen. Norbert beobachtet, dass jede Industrie ihren Master hat. Der Master bei Autos ist der Verbrennungsmotor und alle Lieferketten und anderen Prozesse sind um den Verbrennungsmotor aufgebaut. Das Problem der Autoindustrie ist, dass sich der Master gerade ändert und dabei zum einen unklar ist was genau der neue Master ist, aber auch: dass sie es nicht schnell genug hinbekommen, ihre Lieferketten und Prozesse inkl. Design und Konstruktion auf Batterien, und E-Antriebsstränge umzustellen. Es ist ein bisschen wie zu der Zeit als Norbert mit E-Bikes angefangen hat: E-Autos sehen noch ein bisschen behindert aus und nutzen nicht das Design-Potential des neuen Antriebs. Ganz am Ende noch ein paar Beoabachtungen, was e-Bikes mit dem Sport anstellen: Wir glauben Diversifizierung ohne Ende und neue Möglichkeiten. Mit e-Bikes fahren ist ein neuer Sport, der erst entdeckt werden muss. Es nicht einfach Fahrradfahren mit Motor. Erste Rennserien entstehen und ich bin überzeugt, wir wissen noch gar nicht was dort passieren wird. Das Level an Technik und Körperbeherrschung wird wieder ein anderes werden Jetzt aber viel Spaß mit 20 Jahren E-Bike Design mit Norbert Haller!!! Show Notes Man muss zielgerichtet sein, aber auch eine gewisse Flexibilität mitbringen, das Projekt anzupassen, wenn man merkt, sass bestimmte Bausachen nicht so funktionieren, wie gedacht." „Wenn man ein innovatives Fahrzeug für einen neuen Markt baut, gibt es während des Entwicklers teilweise einen Lernprozess. Da gibt es dann auf Seiten des Kunden einige Herausforderungen." „Wir wissen schon, was Shimano, Bosch und co. in 2-3 Jahren machen. Nur haben das dann die anderen Hersteller auch. Wenn eine Firma wirklich eigenständig in den Markt eintreten will und etwas noch innovativeres haben möchte, Da muss man doch relativ visionär sein. Da kann man dann nicht einfach die Informationen in einer einfachen Marktanalyse holen. Das wäre so als hätte Steve Jobs im nächsten Media Markt gefragt wie das iPhone aussieht. Dann hätten die ihm gesagt „mach mir ein Blackberry mit einer kleineren Tastatur für 200 $ weniger." „Kreativität ist schon sehr wichtig. Man muss schon sehr visionär denken. Vor allem aber die Kunden müssen auch visionär denken. Viele denken wir können das einfach abliefern. Wir merken aber, dass das Entscheidende ist, dass der Kunde auch visionär denkt und ein Verständnis hat, was kommen wird - denn der trifft nachher auch die Entscheidungen. Wir können aber auch nur Richtungen geben. Was so verlockend ist: Viele Kunden wollen einfach in den Markt kommen, der hier und jetzt ist. Das kann aber oft der erste Schritt sein, dass der Kunde keine Chance hat." „Fahrräder werden komplett elektrifiziert. … die Fahrrad-Industrie wächst immer mehr in die Autoindustrie hinein. Das nächste was kommt sind Lastenfahrräder, der Bereich Motorroller kommt, dann Micro-Cars und die Fahrradindustrie schlägt von unten nach oben auf. Die Autoindustrie tut sich relativ schwer." „Wie sehen die Hersteller der Zukunft aus? Ich bin der Meinung, dass sich neue Plattformen ergeben. In der Autoindustrie ist der Master der Verbrennungsmotor. Und es ist eine Industrie, die sich komplett um den Verbrennungsmotor aufgebaut hat. Jetzt auf einmal ist der Verbrennungsmotor nicht mehr der Master sondern er ergibt sich aus neuen Bereichen und der ist noch nicht genau definiert. Er ist bei den Batterien, den Antriebssystemen, der Digitalisierung. Um den neuen Master wird sich die Industrie herum aufbauen. Neue Marketingkonzepte und neue Geschäftsmodelle wie Sharing. … Die ehemaligen Komponentenhersteller, z. Bsp. Shimano switchen auch auf die neuen Master und bieten Antriebssysteme." Links IDBerlin, Norberts Firma A2B, ein Startup, dass Norbert mit aufgebaut hatte Hawk Bikes, für die Norbert fuhr und für die er die ersten E-Bikes entwarf Shimano Steps e-Bike Antrieb Bosch e-Bike Antrieb Bosch ABS für e-Bikes

Netflix. Wir schauen es alle. Und ich glaube, das es eine der kompliziertesten, koordinierten Arbeitsformern ist, wenn z. Bsp. 20 Autoren eine konsistente Geschichte über 6 Staffeln a 15 Folgen erzählen. Jede Folge hat dabei einen Spannungsbogen, Drehungen und Wendungen, wiedererkennbare Charaktere, authentische Emotionen, Überraschungen und am Ende immer einen Cliffhanger, der dafür sorgt, dass wir am Schirm bleiben zum Binge Watching oder eben nächste Woche wieder einschalten. Wir wissen ein bisschen darüber wie das funktioniert und es muss ein schmaler Grad zwischen Kooperation, Planung und Kreativität und Delegation sein, der da beschritten wird. Wer ganz viel dazu weiss und überhaupt darüber, wie Story Telling funktioniert und wie wir es einsetzen können ist Christian Riedel, der Gründer von Growth by Story. Christian ist mein Gast in dieser 18. Folge von Stories Connecting Dots. Christian hilft Firmen dabei, Story Telling gezielt zur Verbesserung interner Kommunikation, Alignment innerhalb der Firma und auch beim Erzählen nach aussen - im Marketing - einzusetzen. Um das zu können, hat Christian Cultural Studies und Marketing studiert. Das hat ihm aber nicht gereicht. Er hat noch Game Research und Design dazu gepackt und schließlich auch noch eine Masterclass im Drehbuchschreiben durchgezogen. Das er Geschichten schreiben kann, hat der Kurzkrimi-Preis bewiesen, den er für deine Kurzgeschichte „Terroir" bekommen hat. Beruflich hat er in vielen Positionen und Kontexten gearbeitet. Ich habe ihn durch seine Arbeit bei Jimdo kennengelernt. Bei Jimdo hat er unglaublich dazu beigetragen, der Firma ein Gesicht, eine Stimme und eben eine Geschichte auch aussen zu geben. In dieser Folge sprechen wir vor allem darüber, was Story Telling kann und wofür man es einsetzen kann. In einer, bald erscheinenden, weiteren Folge sprechen wir darüber, wie Christian mit seinen Kunden am Story Telling arbeitet. Story Telling ist etwas fundamentales, archaisches und wir alle verstehen Geschichten. Wie Laufen, Sprechen und Atmen können wir es einfach. Umso spannender ist es, sich bewusster damit auseinander zu setzen und zu verstehen was Story Telling ist und kann. Passend dazu kam mir gerade noch der Artikel Why Humans Need Stories von Patrick Tanguay unter. Geschichten gab es schon immer - sie scheinen der Kitt zwischen Menschen zu sein und die Interaktionen - z. Bsp. Kooperation - zu ermöglichen. Christian spricht einen sehr wichtigen Aspekt an: die soziale Bedeutung von Geschichten: Wenn wir Aktionen im Nachhinein nicht begründen können, wirken wir autistisch oder asozial. Geschichten helfen uns, Verhalten im Nachhinein erklären zu können - sie helfen uns Verständnis zu schaffen. Für mich sind Geschichten so wichtig, weil sie Gruppen helfen ein gemeinsames Verständnis eines gemeinsamen Vorhabens zu erreichen. Und die bedeutsamsten Vorhaben bekommen wir nur in Gruppen hin. Alleine sind wir alle Zwerge. Daher setze ich Geschichten ein, wo immer es notwendig ist, in Gruppen dieses gemeinsame Verständnis zu erzeugen. Ich rede gerne davon „Kommunikation zu erzwingen". Natürlich mache ich das nicht alleine und es ist nicht meine Idee. Die Geschichte von agiler Produktentwicklung ist voll davon und alleine die Begriffe User Stories und User Story Mapping zeigen woher sie kommen. Geschichten sind letztlich die einfachste und billige Weise, mit möglichen Zukünften umzugehen und diese verstehen zu können. Deshalb haben sie auch einen wichtigen Platz in der Produktarbeit. Bevor wir coden und entwickeln, sollten wir uns - billiger - über Geschichten annähern um zu verstehen ob die ausgedachte Zukunft Sinn macht. Ich glaube, wir können Story Telling nicht „benutzen" ohne es zu verstehen. Ich glaube, zu verstehen, wie andere Story Telling professionalisieren und fast schon industrialisieren, hilft uns dabei, unsere Arbeit mehr als kreative Zusammenarbeit zu verstehen und weniger als ein „Abarbeiten von Aufträgen". Die Metapher Story Telling macht uns erfolgreicher als die Metaphern „Fabrik" oder „Produktion". Zitate „Man darf die Regel nicht mit dem Ergebnis verwechseln … dafür sind auch zu viele von diesen Prinzipien Ex-Post von erfolgreichen Geschichten abgeleitet worden." „Never be boring!" „Das Emotionale führt zu einem Unsicherheitsgefühl, so dass man gegebenenfalls versucht, es über Regeln und Prozesse aus der Welt zu schaffen." „Aus der Falle kommt man nur raus, wenn man sich von dem Weltbild verabschiedet, dass der Mensch ein rationales Wesen ist, das in seinem Denken einem Computer ähnelt. Das ist er nicht." „(Geschichten erzählen) … hilft denen mit Visionen und Ideen, die eigene Idee für andere greifbar zu machen." „Story Telling führt zu einer Klärung, weil ich mir erst einmal Gedanken machen muss, wie ich es jemand anderem erkläre." „Man ist versucht, das Boot mit dem Ufer zu verwechseln. … Weil es komplizierter ist, sich Gedanken über das Ziel zu machen, macht man sich lieber Gedanken darüber, das Boot zu verbessern." „Die Magie im Writers Room liegt darin, die Balance zu finden von Strukturierung (meist mit Karteikarten an der Wand) und dem Detail dahinter. Also die Szenen zu planen, aber sie dann von einer Einzelperson ausfüllen zu lassen." Links - Growth by Story: Christians Firma - „Why Humans Need Stories" - Patrick Tanguay bei kottke.org - „Our fiction addiction: Why humans need stories" - BBC - Writers Room - die von Christian angesprochene Serie von Sundance, zu sehen bei Sky Arts

Ep. 17: Courtney Hemphill - Psychological Safety at Work I met Courtney years ago at the Lean UX conference. At the time there was a lot of talk of yet another round of inclusion. Where DevOps was going on in one part of the universe, this was the universe, we were talking and discussing inclusion of UX, User Research, Design and other disciplines into what we called agile. Each inclusion brings its own challenges as it takes us away from the trodden path. And somehow, all of these movements attract Courtney. Courtney is all about inclusion. And what all of these movements have in common is also the need for psychological safety. a safe place to be able to try out how we can better work together - coming from all our nice, little, funny, sometimes highly culturally coded environments and all of a sudden be a team. Courtney has a coding background but now is managing big efforts at and with clients to build digital products, but much help clients embrace the challenges of the digital change that is before us. at CarbonFive, Courtney currently manages the New York office. It is one of the few times I mention a company of one of my guests, as CarbonFive is special in how they are a great place to work, where Courtney and her colleagues try to self apply what they learn about how people can meaningfully work together. Courtney is also a climber of crazy skills, devotion, focus, love to the sport and perseverance. Climbing - another space to collect those experiences that can make you understand. Show Notes "You need to build the foundations of a good culture and the foundations of good technical solutions. It is going to be very hard to work in a risk free environment when the type of systems you have are breaking all the time: There's bugs all over the place and you can't release because you have to through 9 levels of QA." "(Radical Candor shows you ways) where you're saying the hard truth to someone, but you're saying it in a way where you have empathy with the person you are talking to. But also you are being self aware in the way that you are going to communicate. You are giving the person you are giving feedback the possibility to tell _you_ how they have perceived the feedback. Because a lot of times you think you are being candid and caring, and in fact you are being obnoxious." "The best of us have been there where we had a bad morning, went to a meeting and then were obnoxiously aggressive. But then being able to go back and say "hey, I'm learning from this … I need to work on my emotional intelligence. So let me rephrase that in a way where I am more empathetic"." "We tend to see teams that are much smaller. Microservices have played a role in this, the whole Conway's law thing. We can now have teams of 4, but we can have 50 of them across the company. How do we manage that? This has been a driving mechanism for the need of - and I hate the term - soft skills! Emotional intelligence - EQ. So it's less _lines of code_, now it's _how can teams collaborate with another_ and can be 10X in value, not in lines of code." "The reality is that nothing is going to work in any organisation if it doesn't feel right" "Climbing is - oh my god - I almost cry when I think of it, I love it so much. It is this perfect balance to the insanity of urban and work life. It allows you to be in a place where you have to be in a place where you are independent, you have to be self sufficient, you have to make these choices but you can not make them independently. You _need_ a partner." Links - "Radical Candor - Be a kick ass boss without losing your humanity" the great book by Kim Scott, mentioned in the interview. It is a great read and you will have all these moments of "oh my, I've been there". - Product Dartboard: A tool for frequent team self assessment. More info - Carbon Five, where Courtney works

I don't really dare to introduce Roman. He is such a big name in Agile Product Management. Since his beginnings in Scrum, he was totally focused: Scrum it will be, Product it will be - and everything that belongs to it. No more, no less. Clarity. In the field of Agile Product Management, he is really known for his great Scrum Product Owner courses, but also his books. His latest book is called Strategize and is all about product strategy. Unlike with many other books on strategy, what Roman accomplishes with his book, is to get the topic out of the vague. He gives clear cut advice in an otherwise often blurry topic. Knowing Roman for many years, it actually took me until this interview to actually decode one of his main qualities: Calm and certainty. Roman, in the best sense, gives you the clarity and certainty you expect from a teacher. While many teachers may bring you to the brink of doubt, Roman in a very calm, distinct and respectful way tells you what he found out to be the core of any topic he writes about. He really helps you to accept this things and go on with them. While I sometimes struggle and have to tell the world about all the different aspects of a topic, Roman already did all the thinking and came to a conclusion. And that helps. He does not leave out the rest of the truth, he just helps you to focus on the core and makes it easy to take the next step in your journey. I guess, it also has to do with his experience: he seen them all and has been in many contexts. He is running his brand as a business since 2006 and was amongst the first Certified Scrum Trainers in Europe. He really was amongst the pioneers and saw the potential when nothing was yet clear. He also writes a prominent blog on his website. These days, his focus is on leadership and product portfolio topics. It is also the topic of his newest blog posts on his blog. The Interview During the podcast we go through the following topics: What is a product strategy? Ways to work on product strategy in the context of new products Working on existing, mature products How to work with Roadmaps What was the writing process for Srrategize? What's next from Roman? Citations Here some citations from the conversation: "The main challenge initially really is to get to a launch": On why focus and a minimal good enough product is needed in the beginning. "What good enough means, what minimal means, depends very much on the innovation we're dealing with." "There is a correlation between the amount of time we spend on something and the level of attachment that results": On why it is psychologically so hard to change plans, even though we know it is necessary. "Two aspects are important: Do we have the right skills? And: are people empowered to do the product strategy work?" Often times, senior management is doing the product strategy work, which limits the strength and growth of the company. Management should do the business strategy and let the product department do the product strategy." Links The home of Roman's company Roman's blog Roman's LinkedIn Profile Lots of tools and resources that Roman invented and provides for free, e.g. the Product Vision Board template, a template for goal oriented GO Roadmaps, his Product Management Framework (a structured approach to ordering the disciplines and capabilities involved in product work) and much much more! Strategize - Roman's latest book, self published in 2016. Buy it! Read it! Agile Product Management with Scrum - Roman's 2nd book, published with Addison Wesley in its Mike Cohn Signature Series, a German version is also available - Scrum: Agiles Projektmanagement erfolgreich einsetzen, published with d.punkt Oh, if you like the music in the background, it is my first try at doing the music myself.

Fridtjof „Fridel" Detzner hat die letzten 18 Jahre mit seinen Freunden daran gearbeitet von einem Bauernhof aus die Voraussetzungen für Jimdo zu schaffen und dann Jimdo mit aufgebaut. Dort hilft er auch noch ein bisschen mit, er sucht aber nach neuen Feldern. Fridtjof „Fridel" Detzner hat die letzten 18 Jahre mit seinen Freunden daran gearbeitet von einem Bauernhof aus die Voraussetzungen für Jimdo zu schaffen und dann Jimdo mitkönnen aufgebaut. Dort hilft er auch noch ein bisschen mit, er sucht aber nach neuen Feldern. Darum hat Fridel ein Jahr hinter sich, dass anders war als anderen vorher. Er ist mit einem Fernsehteam durch die Welt gereist um für die Serie Founders Valley zu drehen. Sie wird weltweit ausgestrahlt und Du kannst sie auch auf youtube anschauen. Dafür ist das Team monatelang durch die Welt gefahren. In anderen Kulturen und Kontexten wurde geschaut, was „Gründen" dort bedeutet was Gründer dort antreibt welche Probleme Gründer und die Gesellschaft dort haben ob esMuster von Gemeinsamkeiten mit Startups bei uns gibt Und wenn einer eine Reise tut, dann kann er was erzählen. Und hier erzählt Fridel uns über die Erfahrungen in den anderen Ländern, und was diese Erfahrungen mit ihm machen und zu welchen Erkenntnissen und Konsequenzen sie ihnen treiben. Wir hören von Gründergeschichten im Kontext von Mangel und instabilen Gesellschaften und extremem Kontrast von Armut und Reichtum. Er erzählt von Sein und Schein und vom Kontrast zwischen Erwartung und echter Erfahrung. Wir hören von Glück und Unglück und ihrer Nähe zueinander und von ihren Geschwistern Erfüllung und Trott. Wir stellen fest, dass einiges was spießig scheint für uns überraschend Sinn machen kann, genauso wie Dinge, die zu „corporate" erscheinen. Aber auch darüber, dass vieles nur im Machen (und dann im Reflektieren) gelernt werden kann. So wie Fridel es meistens macht. Diese Episode hat mir besonders Spaß gemacht: Fridel und ich kennen uns seit langem und wir haben einiges zusammen gemacht. Wir teilen aber auch viele Interessen und Einstellungen im „Beruf" und im Rest des Lebens miteinander. Vielleicht hört man es. Viel Spaß bei dieser sehr persönlichen Folge von Stories Connecting Dots. Wenn es Dir gefällt, empfiehl die Folge und den Podcast bitte weiter und schicke mir Feedback und Ideen. Gern aber auch, wenn etwas für sich nicht stimmt! Hilf mir und schicke ein Review mit 5 Sternen an iTunes! Bis in ein paar Wochen mit Folge 16! Links - Founders Valley bei der Deutschen Welle - Founders Valley bei youtube - Simon Sinek's Ted Talk „How Great Leaders Inspire Action", den Fridel mehrfach anspricht. - Das Buch „Start with Why!" dazu von Simon Sinek