A True Story Of Planning, Losing Our Path, & Visually Finding Our Way Again

I rarely post or write now because:

·??????? There’s so much written content with digital marketing and ChatGPT…

·??????? If I can’t separate signal from noise – how can other people do it?

·??????? My insecurity about whether I truly have original thoughts or if I’m simply parroting someone else? Today I have a personal story – so I feel confident that it’s original.

I feel inspired to write because I caught myself in a habit this morning that I started in my 20s before I knew about Lean, Agile, or Project Management of any ilk. I visualize my work and I keep it visualized in my work space – even if that means it is done in an analog way. In fact, analog is better for me if I always need it in my presence and awareness. Let me explain…

Story Time – Young Stephanie was broke and visualizing a spending plan changed it all!

Once upon a time, I was in my 20s. I had finished college, returned from Peace Corps service, and tried my hand at graduate school. I was a young scientist at a small biotech company. My career path had been intellectually interesting and in service to our global community – but I was broke. I was in pretty serious financial trouble. I brought my loose change in to work in pre-sorted plastic baggies to buy the very affordable daily lunch special at the children’s hospital (where our biotech company rented lab space). My boss laughed in hilarity at my baggies of lunch money. I didn’t laugh. It wasn’t hilarious to me. It wasn’t amusing to work at Pier 1 at night either.

I tried to read and understand Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey. I was also interested in a 90s book “The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas Stanley and William Danko. All of these authors laud responsible budgeting and it was time to grow up and learn to budget. My income was limited, my responsibilities were predictable, and my wants were vast. Budgeting to the rescue!

Obviously, the tool of the moment was Microsoft Excel.

So I filled in the spreadsheet each month and waited for the magic of responsibility on a digital spreadsheet to fix my financial crisis.

Hmmmn…nope - still irresponsibly broke.

·??????? Was the budget unrealistic? Alas, it was tight but it was achievable.

·??????? Was my income simply too low for my reality? It was low – but I had enough for my responsibilities.

·??????? Was I lacking initiative and care? I had cared enough to read books and draft the budget. I was invested in solving my problem.

·??????? Was I too lazy? I had two jobs – so no, it wasn’t laziness.

My choice to have a budget in a digital file meant that it was hiding. I could not enjoy the feeling of scratching a line item and I couldn’t visualize the work to be done in tough moments. During an incubation step and downtime in the lab – online shopping would sing its siren song.

The consumer websites were visible and my budget was hidden away in a digital file!

Kaizen for young Stephanie: Make sure the budget is always visible!

I wrote my budget out on a legal pad. I added more detail, I added checkboxes by hand for weekly expenditures.

I was able to always have the budget with me and I was able to scratch off or checkbox items. It was fun to do that and to feel those successes.

It was also a reminder of the plan whenever an emergency or frivolity crossed my path. Changing the plan was always a choice - I was always ready with a pen. I simply had to ask myself – was this new item so important that everything else needed to be adjusted?

Since it was analog, I could work this plan at my work desk or at a kickball game. I did not know what a kanban board was – but I knew that this was working for me. Month by month – I worked my financial future.

Fast forward nearly twenty years – I still write the budget on a legal pad and keep it out on my coffee table or desk and keep it visible to myself and my husband.

The end? Happily ever after?

I’ve noticed a theme – even amongst “lean-agile” organizations, work is not visualized.

The lean-agile consulting business is struggling for a myriad of reasons, some of those reasons made by The Agile Industrial Complex itself. For the record, I do not blame industry or government for ditching their consultants – I totally get it.

Yet – the basic principle of visualizing work is not established. I’ve seen this at Fortune 500s, start-ups, and Government.

In fact, I feel (no data to support this) that as we all chuck out agile consultants we are also chucking out these principles - if we ever truly embraced them.

As I attempt to become an Air Force Civilian with a new detachment – I often ask myself if anyone has a kanban to visualize the hiring of candidates. My future team has been communicative and great – and I’m overjoyed to join them soon. From the Air Force though - ?I’m often told “Ma’am – there is a process” and yet no one seems completely sure of where I am in that process or what is the last or next handoff or how my detachment could help move things along… SECAF, call me! J/K, SECAF, I want to join my new detachment and not get distracted along the way.

As we work to 2027 Zero Trust – is there a process for that? Do we measure it? Is it visualized in any way? With the roadmap, are we maintaining it and measuring against it? Or is it digitally rendered somewhere and hidden? My digital budget was hidden – so having a digital roadmap that is hidden in a file is not enough.

Fortune 500 and Government – when I taught SAFe – I was often shocked at how many people did not know how to incorporate their work into a platform that was in another part of the organization or where they were in the queue to get on the platform.

In stressed cultures, are we hiding plans? Are leaders providing flexible, notional sandboxes for plans to be in flux? If we can't have a sandbox - then teams hide plans until it's "perfect enough to present to leadership". Oof - leaders are hungry for more information from their teams - and fearful teams hide it. Ouch.

In conclusion:

Years ago, we reveled in great practices to constantly engage in a plan, maintain a plan and yet always be able to adjust it. Somehow, proselytizing the need to visualize work became buried. Let’s uncover the original message and pass it on to the world. My budgeting lifestyle isn’t done and the pursuit of lean perfection isn’t done either.

In service to the community,

Stephanie McCormick