BHAGs and Jigsaw Puzzles

A Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal is a powerful way to stimulate progress. The best BHAGs require both: building for the long term AND exuding a relentless sense of urgency: What do we do today, with monomaniacal focus, and tomorrow, and the next day, to defy the probabilities and ultimately achieve our?BHAG?" - Jim Collins, Built To Last

Solving a Jigsaw puzzle is in some ways similar to how we deliver BHAGs. Over the labor day weekend, we had fun solving a 350 piece Jigsaw puzzle and I thought of sharing the similarities.

Paint a High-Resolution Vision: Leaders paint a high-resolution picture of what the end state looks like. They make it readily available across all levels. The team uses this vision as a map for problem-solving and measuring progress. Build a high-resolution vision through detailed multi-year plans through Business, Product, and Tech Architecture visions.

Divide and Conquer: It takes many teams focused on specific problems areas to deliver BHAGs. Divide the problem into mutually exclusive sub-problems, define clear boundaries through system responsibilities, tenets, API contracts, Delivery Milestones, Dependencies, etc. Then empower your teams to deliver them independently. Build mechanisms to monitor their progress and support them as required.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Solving BHAGs require diverse perspectives to explore the problems from multiple vantage points and propose innovative solutions. Give everyone an equitable opportunity to be a part of the solution. Build an inclusive culture by leveraging the strengths of every team member. It takes a village to raise a child.

My younger son was good at finding pieces given a description. My elder son was good at sorting pieces that might go together. My wife gave me the idea of starting from the edges and working inwards.

Zoom In, Zoom Out: Stay connected to the details while working on the subproblem. Zoom out to the vision to enable all sub-problems connect towards the vision. Zoom out to understand how far the team has come, how long the team has to march!

Persist: Solving BHAGs take a lot of time, effort, frustration, doubt. Continue the march believing the vision. Celebrate Successes, Learn from Failures. Things get faster and exciting at the end.

There were points where we doubted if we had all the pieces of the puzzle and if we could ever complete it. We marched on to complete it. We solved the puzzle over the long weekend taking breaks.

Have Fun: It is the fulfillment and the exciting journey solving BHAGs that makes all the ordeal worthwhile. At the end of it, you have a solved problem that matters. You'll cherish this for your lifetime.

I have embarked on a BHAG to ensure the safety and compliance of the Billions of Amazon Products. I am hiring passionate and pragmatic SDEs and SDMs. Come join me to Make History!