You’ve charged forward on a new project, embraced the change, and taken on new technology. Now, you’re in the throes of it. The complexity is escalating, and issues are popping up everywhere. You can’t tell if anyone is making progress and you’re secretly hoping it doesn’t go completely off the rails.
But, hope is a terrible co-pilot. You need good information to make good decisions.
Is It Confusion? Or A Cluster?
Technical complexity can be hard to communicate. How many times have you had an idea, totally clear in your head, and when you try to explain it to others, they act like you’re speaking in a foreign language? It happens to all of us. It takes work to explain things simply.
No matter how complex technology is, it is still possible to talk about it in a way everyone understands. You and your team are going to have to be able to communicate about the project effectively in order to determine if there is a problem and how to address it.
As Albert Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Following is an outline to guide you and your team in talking through a technical project. Use this to break down three aspects of the project: Purpose, Process, and Tools.
Purpose: What is it the business is trying to accomplish?
Everyone on the project should be able to state the purpose of the project clearly so that everyone is aligned to the same objective. Consider the following two examples:
A) We want to improve the experience for employees submitting expenses
B) We want to streamline the expense approval process
There is a subtle but real difference between the two. Your project team may be making very different decisions depending on which one they are focusing on.
Often, the project purpose gets diluted to something like “improve employee expense entry.” While that may be true, it won’t help the team focus and make better decisions. In fact, a watered down purpose leaves it up to individual interpretation and increases the risk of scope creep.
Clearly define the purpose of the project and help everyone on the team articulate it correctly and succinctly.
Process: How does the work get done?
Process helps a team measure progress, identify barriers, and keep things moving forward. A good process doesn’t guarantee success, but it’s hard to achieve project completion without one.
The entire team should know and be able to explain how work items progress through the process and when tasks are considered complete.
A developer may think the process is: I take a story from the backlog, do the development, and submit it to QA. However, if the story isn’t considered complete until QA approves it, the developer needs to know that.
Talking through the process helps everyone know how they can contribute to moving the project forward and give feedback on ways to improve it.
Tools: What are you using to do the work?
Everyone on the team should have a general understanding of the solution components and the technologies used on the project. The architect or lead on the project can provide this for the team. Work with them to get a good summary and have them present it to the team.
There may be specific tools and technologies used just for certain areas. For example, the UX team may be using specific JavaScript libraries the database team doesn’t know anything about. Once the team has a summary of the overall solution, team members from different areas can provide a summary of the specific technologies used in their domain area.
A shared understanding across the technical team will decrease accidental complexity, increase team cohesion, and provide opportunities for innovation.
Be a Guide, Not a Grader
Once you go through this exercise you’ll have a better idea if the project is in peril or just complex and complicated. You’ll also be ready to have more nuanced discussions about things like personnel, task assignments, and design choices.
While explaining things simply may come naturally for you, it doesn’t for most people. It takes work and may be an uncomfortable activity for some. If you can take the role of guide or coach, as opposed to a grader, it will help.
As for my work, feel free to grade it. I welcome your feedback. If you have other questions or topics you’d like me to write about, let me know.
Until next time,
Brian