Work, wrote the oral historian and master of social insight Studs Terkel in 1974, is about a search “for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Sexta -feira meio que morre. ”
quase meio século depois, a natureza do trabalho para muitos de nós mudou para melhor, e a facilidade de mudar de emprego quando estamos infelizes também melhorou. Mas a busca por significado diário, reconhecimento e espanto continua. As pessoas querem seus empregos - e suas empresas - terem significado e procuram os líderes de suas empresas para definir claramente quais resultados estão tentando alcançar. Muitos líderes tentam fornecer tanta clareza, é claro; Mas, à medida que as empresas se tornam maiores, mais complexas e mais globais, é fácil para o vínculo entre uma posição específica e o todo maior se obscurecer.
Although we often hear employees recite broad corporate mission statements, the way people interpret and internalize those statements up and down the management chain can make all the difference in how engaged and effective the organization is. Far too often, different people interpret the same words in vastly different and conflicting ways, and many cannot connect what they do each day to what the broader organization is trying to achieve. Performance at the individual, business unit, and companywide levels can suffer as a result.
The connection between position and outcomes undergoes extra stress during times of major organizational change, such as a shift to maneiras ágeis de funcionar . Em nossa experiência, no entanto, isso geralmente acontece porque a empresa está focada na mecânica do ágil, como esquadrões e tribos e sprints de duas semanas, e a enfatizando os princípios críticos, como A colaboração do cliente, satisfação do cliente, || 355 and the idea that work done with clarity produces better outcomes. Unless leaders are committed to achieving strategic clarity and supporting the work that goes into it, no major change—agile or otherwise—can succeed.
Define the Outcome
How do some organizations create consistent alignment while so many others assume that alignment exists when it doesn’t? The head of retail banking for a large North American financial institution was running multiple agile pilots while he tried to figure out what the new way of working was all about. He dropped in on an agile sprint review one day (something we advise senior leaders to do regularly) to check on progress. The team’s charter was to shift customer requests for debit card support from the call center to the website and the mobile app—an important business outcome because customers’ digital experiences are generally better than their call center interactions, and digital support is less costly for the bank to provide.
The team had been empowered to work out which specific software features, operational changes, and promotional programs would drive a 10% reduction in call center traffic over the following six months while increasing customer satisfaction. The retail banking CEO asked team members to talk about what they were doing and Por que eles estavam fazendo isso. Essa equipe é o que se trata. Eles entendem que seu trabalho mais importante é definir claramente o resultado comercial e dar às equipes a autonomia de que precisam (dentro de corrimão apropriado) para alcançar esse resultado. Com o tempo, eles articulam de forma clara e consistente o objetivo e os objetivos da tarefa em questão, mas não ditam como executá -lo. Como o Agile depende do alinhamento por meio da autonomia, ele fornece uma poderosa disciplina para articular um propósito. Freqüentemente, as empresas não fracassam - independentemente de adotarem ágil - quando as pessoas recebem objetivos ambíguos ou interpretam mal o que deveriam alcançar e não são corrigidos. Isso leva a recursos desperdiçados, na melhor das hipóteses, os resultados inúteis na pior. To his astonishment, every member could tell a brief story connecting their work directly to the team's target outcomes—and to the bank's overall purpose of pleasing its customers.
He said afterward, “Now I understand why we’re adopting agile. The clarity of focus and purpose in that team is what it’s all about. They're creating value, not just delivering features. And they care about what they’re trying to achieve.”
Effective leaders do not leave to chance the most important ways to create value. They understand that their most important job is to define the business outcome clearly and give teams the autonomy they need (within appropriate guardrails) to achieve that outcome. Over time, they clearly and consistently articulate the purpose and objectives of the task at hand, but they do not dictate how to perform it. Because agile depends on engendering alignment through autonomy, it provides a powerful discipline for articulating purpose. Often companies fail—regardless of whether they adopt agile—when people are given ambiguous goals or misinterpret what they are supposed to achieve and are not corrected. This leads to wasted resources at best and worthless outcomes at worst.
Effective leaders understand that their most important job is to define the business outcome clearly and give teams the autonomy they need.
chegando a porquê
Escrevemos antes sobre a importância de definir objetivos e resultados desejados - o porquê do que uma empresa faz - bem focando nos princípios sobre as práticas, implementando a liderança certa e estabelecendo o alinhamento para permitir a autonomia= . Para que o Agile seja bem -sucedido, todas essas peças devem estar no lugar. As organizações ágeis são especialmente boas em estabelecer "uma cadeia ininterrupta do porquê", que é simples na concepção, mas longe de ser fácil de implementar. (Veja a exposição.) Esta cadeia ininterrupta estabelece vínculos entre os resultados dos negócios que a empresa precisa alcançar e o trabalho que as equipes individuais são acusadas de entregar. Um processo ágil bem administrado reforça a cadeia do porquê e define métricas claras de resultados. Mesmo que uma empresa não esteja aplicando ágil, a cadeia ininterrupta do porquê ainda pode ter um valor tremendo.
The chain of why enables agile organizations to establish proper alignment by in various ways:
- Articulating clear purpose, strategy, and outcomes for the group’s output, and linking that output to broader company goals
- Pressure-testing the outcomes’ boundaries in terms of scope and interdependence, to ensure that everyone understands the objectives in specific terms that they can act on
- Inventorying and organizing the blocks of work needed to accomplish the specified business outcomes
- Dividing the blocks of work and assigning the components to teams that, in turn, will coordinate with one another and use metrics such as objectives and key results (OKRs) to show progress toward the outcomes
- Curso de correção em resposta a novos dados ou direção
One of the most powerful benefits of agile is the ability to quickly recognize when things are going off course and to adjust on the basis of learning. If teams have the right capabilities and knowledge, and if they have internalized their business outcomes, they can make better decisions about what to pursue and when to stop doing things that no longer make sense. How companies can more broadly enable agile is the subject of a forthcoming companion article on how agile delivers.
One of the most powerful benefits of agile is the ability to quickly recognize when things are going off course and to adjust on the basis of learning.
Empresas que obtêm o ágil, veja resultados impressionantes: três a quatro vezes mais satisfação do cliente e retorno sobre o investimento digital, por exemplo, e reduções de 15% a 25% nos custos de desenvolvimento. As pesquisas mostram níveis de envolvimento dos funcionários em 90% ou mais. Quando as equipes entendem seu objetivo em termos de clientes e negócios e quando agem dentro de corrimões bem definidos, o alinhamento fornecido pela arquitetura e outros padrões permite que as equipes inovem dentro de parâmetros definidos. Embora possa parecer contra -intuitivo, o alinhamento com base no porquê de realmente permitir a autonomia, e é por isso que o Agile funciona.
David Ritter
Some executives fear that iterative ways of working will mean loss of control and, inevitably, chaos—but the chain of why serves as the check against this. When teams understand their purpose in customer and business terms, and when they act within well-defined guardrails, the alignment provided by architecture and other standards allows teams to innovate within defined parameters. Though it may seem counterintuitive, alignment on the basis of why actually enables autonomy, which is why agile works.
