Mindset: Age of Discovery
Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconce in Unsplash

Mindset: Age of Discovery

Introduction

This is a theme for me recently. Let's put a bunch of words together.

Discovery, surprise, learning, evolving, emerging, always in flux, fascinating, knowledge workers.

Ok. My hypothesis is that our Teams (I strongly recommend Teams) are discovering, always learning, in multiple dimensions or domains.

What are the domains?

Discovery starts first with: what are the worlds were are discovering?

Let me say this differently. I think every Team starts with some knowledge in a number of domains that are relevant. Definitely they have some knowledge. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

And always the Future will surprise them. And, commonly in a different way than happened with the last 5 products they worked on.

  • Discover the domains.

Here's a screenshot from my course deck:

Are these the best domains for your Team? I don't know, probably not for you. Maybe somewhat close.

  • Discover the knowledge that your Team already has.

Commonly tacit knowledge is hard to talk about. You don't know if others already know it. Explicit knowledge (already written) is easier to share.

We want everyone to know what everyone (in the Team) knows.

  • Discover the knowledge that is already available

In the interwebs, for example. In books. In people outside the Team.

And share it with everyone in the Team. (Yes, again, the bias is that everyone should know everything. Because it is likely to have some impact on the work each person will do, and we are working very collaboratively.)

  • Discover the knowledge that is not available

Well, I presume it is there, but, like "easter eggs" it is not known nor visible. You must actively search for it.

  • Discover the Future

This one is hard. Yes, sometimes the Future smacks us in the head like a 2x4. But other times the Future sneaks up on us, like a thief in the night.

The Future also holds all those things that Buddha mentioned: "Everything changes, nothing remains the same." These things too, like an Alien, we shall discover on the voyage.

  • Discover what we are made of

Hmm! What is this? People call it character. People say that people are strange. People say "there is a divinity that shapes our ends, roughhew them how we will." People say there is a magic in the Team. Still, do we have the guts, the grit, the creativity, the artistry, the taste, to develop a great product in a timebox? We shall discover ourselves.

Ulysses by Tennyson

Can we, will we, make the journey successfully?

  • Discover how much change we can make happen

Yes, just building the product seems change enough. And it will be great and grand. But more.

We must improve ourselves continuously (and yet within sustainable pace). We must make our organizations permit the needed changes, so every sinew in effort bears us to that glorius end.

Can we discover how to make all these things in us and around us change enough?

The Bigger Point

But the first point is the most important.

Yes, we do not have to discover everything. When Colombo sailed from Spain, when the Mayflower sailed from Southhampton, when Erik the Red sailed for Greenland -- they knew many things. But they were on a voyage of discovery.

We must gird ourselves with that same Mindset. And not delude ourselves that we know "almost everything."

The Team must become a complex adaptive system, sensing how to continuously adjust to a complex changing environment. Like the Millenium Falcon, we hope that we adapt so fast, that the monster we did not see before does not swallow us up. (Cf. The Empire Strikes Back)

So, the predominate activity is learning and sharing the learning.

This is not to say the main activity, but the most essential activity.

And of course, we must build. We must convert the learning into product. The learning helps us do many things, among them: build the product faster and better (eg, quality).

Conclusion

We recommend an attitude of Discovery, and the will to become a great adventurer (as a Team).

This includes adaptive planning, learning, sharing, and knowledge work. But also just adventure!




Wilfredo Honores

Human ingenuity at both ends of AI | Inspect. Adapt. Transform.

8 个月

Right on Joe Little. Adventure promote discovery, as iterations promote MVP, and both may be “red flags” in certain environments, if not perceived by what they are: the pursue of knowledge with due risk assessment of the known factors, and dinamically adapted by recent and forward experience.

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