As the rate of change in the world is growing, there is a growing need for truly autonomous teams that can move faster and scale our organization’s “change-velocity”.
Autonomous teams need to be led and less managed. They require a direction instead of a directive. They expect trust in their ability to guide us to the desired destination and in exchange they accept full accountability for their results.
Roadmaps, as they are used today, are a huge barrier that prevents leadership teams from unleashing the power of autonomy. I want to suggest that to truly unlock the power of autonomy in our teams it is important to clearly separate the “road” and the “map” discussions.
Leadership is responsible for the map.
The autonomous teams are responsible for picking the road.
In the past we didn’t use to have navigation apps
In the past we used to navigate our cars using maps. We had to pick our route before we left our homes. We had no real-time navigation, nor the ability to constantly calculate and adjust our options as we advanced.
This is the same world in which roadmaps emerged as a leading product management tool. An age when products were developed in versions and versions took months, even years. Roadmaps evolved in a much more predictive world than today’s fast-changing reality.
As managers got used to roadmaps, they developed the notion that management’s role is to set the strategy and then approve the plans. In other words, management got used to drawing the map and picking the road as part of a single roadmap planning process.
Navigating our way as a company
Think of a company as a navigation app. To be able to reach from point A to point B in the most efficient way we’ll need the following functionality:
- A map — to orient ourselves
- A GPS — to pinpoint our current location on the map
- A destination — to have somewhere to navigate to 🙂
- Route selector — to be able to pick our preferred route to our destination
- Real-time routing — to be able to adjust the route along the way
Let’s review the different functionalities of the navigation app and see who should be responsible for each functionally (management or the teams?) if our goal is to truly empower our teams’ autonomy.
1. A map
The map gives us clarity regarding our surroundings and terrain (the market) It shows us all available routes (opportunities). It indicates any traffic issues (threats and barriers) and apps like Waze even lets us see other drivers around us (the competition).
It is the management’s responsibility to draw the clearest map possible for the whole company and share it.
2. The GPS
The GPS (our values and top-line metrics) enables our company to pinpoint our current location on the map. Our values and topline metrics enable us to compare our current location to the desired one.
It’s the management’s responsibility to set, install and promote the company’s values and top-line metrics. It is management’s responsibility to pinpoint to everyone where are we on the map compared to where we want to be.
3. A destination
In order to activate the route selector functionality, a navigation app must have a destination (vision and strategy). The destination pinpoints for everyone on the team the exact position on the map that we want to be in 1/3/5 years.
Notice, and this is critical, that in order to pinpoint a destination on the map we don’t need to know the exact road we would take. In fact, there might not even be a road connecting our current position and where we want to get to.
By setting our destination we’re signaling to our team where they need to get us next.
It is the management’s responsibility to input the next destination.
That said if our team reached high levels of autonomy we might integrate them in the destination setting process.
4. Route selector (is where things break)
The route selector is where most managements fail when it comes to creating autonomous teams. In their need for clarity and predictability, managements insist on knowing which road we will take in order to reach the destination they pointed at.
And this single “error” is what prevents most teams from achieving autonomy.
Once the autonomous team commits to a destination on the map It is their responsibility to get us there. It is up to them to calculate the best route and share it with everyone.
And if there is no route, it is up to them to blast a tunnel in the mountain, build a raft, or charter an airplane. As long as they are within the limitation of time and resources allocated to them
5. Real-time routing
Classic roadmaps are like a navigation app that calculates the route once, at the beginning of the trip, and then ignores all the signals it receives from the world along the way.
Would you like to drive using such a navigation app? You would probably stop using it after getting stuck in traffic once or twice. Yet this is exactly what we do each time we commit to a road and a map as part of a single roadmap planning process.
Real-time routing requires constant awareness of the signals of progress and the external world. Real-time routing is the trust-building interface between management and the autonomous teams. It is the interface that enables the autonomous team to constantly updates management regarding the team’s progress and notify them if there is any need to reroute.
It took us time but we can’t imagine navigating without our apps
I’m old enough to remember the early days of navigating with apps. “Fighting” with the app when it took me on unexpected routes. Being sure I know better and changing my route only to discover there was something up the road I didn’t predict.
It took time but we got used to it. We trust the apps (most of us do :-)) to get us there and we know that even if the route they choose for us isn’t the one we would have chosen, in most cases they would get us there faster.
We set the destination and let the app get us there.
We have the privilege to work with extremely smart individuals. Yet we insist on guiding them as they navigate. We refuse to let go.
As leaders, we should set the destination and let the autonomous teams navigate us there. They might not take the route we would have picked ourselves but overall we will get there faster!
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Are you leading or directing your team?