On people...

Last week, I participated in a great workshop on org transformation hosted by Marty Cagan . For me, it was a really good investment of time and probably I will write a longer post about the workshop later.

Today, I want to focus on one question asked by a fellow class participant as part of the Q&A. She asked Marty: "What is the next big thing in the world of product?"

I do not remember exactly what Marty's response was other than something related to AI. As soon as the lady had asked the question my mind went into a search for an answer of my own. This post is about my thoughts triggered by that question.

Ever since I finished medical school and joined Bain & Company, I learned about various models and theories. I still remember the first model I learned while I was practicing for the job interviews: The BCG Growth Share Matrix. For those of you who are not familiar with it, I recommend this article: https://www.bcg.com/about/overview/our-history/growth-share-matrix

After I left Bain, I learned a ton about various frameworks, tools, and techniques mainly in the agile space including Scrum, Kanban, and Design Thinking. I also learned about helpful thinking/presentation tools like the ones from Alexander Osterwalder and his team at Strategyzer .

In addition to all of these tools, I witnessed a huge change in terms of technology. Not only did I see multiple new platforms emerge e.g. mobile computing, I also saw a huge change in how humans interacted due new software e.g. Slack, Zoom, and Jira.

Not all of that change is always positive... but there is certainly change.

So naturally the answer to the question "What is the next big thing in the world of product?" would be some kind of framework, tool, or technological change e.g. AI.

Having seen these tools emerge and having worked with them myself and observed others working with them, I believe the next big thing is no product, no framework, no model... it's people.

To give you an example: The Business Canvas is an amazing thinking and presentation tool... but the tool itself is worthless without the people who use it to map their business model, the people who make their assumptions visible, and the people who then step by step address each assumption and learn.

The same applies to Scrum... The framework is useless without the people who fill it with life and value.

Design Thinking, Kanban, OKRs, and any other tool all lose their meaning if we do not include the people.

"The people" includes those working on products and services to be created and those for whom these products and services are being created i.e. the customers.

So... what does this mean in the age of AI? I believe that more than ever individuals, teams, and organizations need to focus on people. We need to focus on the problems our customers are facing... no tool will tell us what problem to solve and how.

We need to focus on the people that collaborate to build those products and services that solve real customer problems.

And finally, we need to focus on the systems in which our people come together to create value at scale - which is mostly larger organizations.

I once heard this quote:

“All problems are people problems. And most people problems are people refusing to act like people.”

Apparently it is attributed to King Solomon... though I could not verify it. But nevertheless, to me this quote makes a lot of sense independent from who said it first.

When we see a team not working well together, it is rarely due to the tools they are using and more often due to the fact that they never learned to work as a team.

When we see an organization not performing to its potential it is rarely due to the business model in place, and much more often due to the fact that the leaders but also others in the organization never learned to set up the right systems and engage in difficult conversations - among many other things.

Now, this is nothing new or unique. If we look at other professions be it medicine, aviation, or carpentry the focus in all of these professions has always been enabling people so that they can become better craftsmen and better team players.

There are organizations that do this really well in the business world. Bain is certainly one of them. When I joined in 2008, I received a ton of training both on and off the job. Within a year, they turned a medical doctor into a really good management consultant.

Unfortunately, most organizations struggle to do this... sometimes they outsource even very critical competencies. This has the downside that it will get harder and harder to internalize those competencies.

In other situations they just assume that people joining their org know how to do the job... this is rarely the case. Other than a few exceptions, most people need to be trained on the job when they start a new job... this also includes when people get promoted internally to a new job. Ben Horowitz wrote an excellent piece about this in 2010, titled On Micromanagement.

Yes, technology changes, new frameworks, tools, and techniques will come and go... but the one thing that remains constant is the need to develop people and grow their capabilities. Enable them do things they could not do before, help them collaborate more effectively, and provide them with the environment to do their best job.

When the founders of 37signals , Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson , told their only investor, Jeff Bezos, they wanted to be in business for the long term, he shared with them his philosophy:

“The secret to that is to focus on the things that don’t change in your business.”

For all leaders this means: Focus on the people. There will never be a time where enabling people won't deliver amazing return on invest.

Closing today's article, I want to go back to Marty Cagan. One of the most important lessons I learned from him after various conversations and participation in all of his classes has been to scale through people and not frameworks.

His approach to scaling is much more in line with the Agile Manifesto's first sentence "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools" than any other scaling approach out there - including the ones created by signatories of the Agile Manifesto.

As Marty mentioned in his class: "This approach is hard, it will take time, and it is very fragile as it is based on people... but once you get to that model, you and your organization will be able to do things that you were not able to do before."

Have a great weekend everyone and remember #FromNothingComesNothing