Navigating to the same page

With product teams, how often we meet is everything.

A t Newell Brand’s, our newly formed company (a combination of Newell Rubbermaid and Jarden Corporation) we make consumer product goods. With brands like Sharpie, Coleman, Goody and now Rawlings, Coleman, and Yankee Candle, we’ve got a lot of different markets to play in. We even make trash cans, quietly branded Rubbermaid Commercial Products ‘refuse containers,’ which you can see everywhere but probably never noticed.

As with any other big corporation, getting our products out the door is a big undertaking and it requires a lot of interaction between different offices, different functions and, of course, different personalities. As a result we’ve formalized several standard checkpoints for our networks to come together and align for each program, or product. There’s a lot to be gained from these scheduled encounters: teams retire to their corners to inspire and self-direct their work and the network has the opportunity to focus on other programs. Then, on the next encounter, the teams return again to advocate for their ideas to create movement within their network and feed on the signals they receive back. And then, again, the network (or tribes as Spotify calls them) retires to their craft to re-energize around the new signals they received and refine their inputs for the next encounter.

So how do we balance the empowerment that comes from the self-direction of a team within a network with the necessity of that network to be on the same page?

Radio Silence: A case study in teamwork

To try and answer this question I want you to try and imagine a mountaineering challenge: imagine two groups signed up for a day long hiking challenge. The start is up top of a mountain and the goal is to be the first to the finish line on the coast while picking up 5, ordered flags along the way. The highest number flag was the highest on the mountain and they were in order as they went down the mountain.

Group 1 is given radios, compasses and a heading for the coast.

Group 2 is given radios, compasses and a heading for the coast… but they can only use the radios during a set number of brief windows throughout the day.

Group 1 meets for a second and then heads off. Having decided to split up their members they begin canvasing the mountain, constantly chattering about where they are on their radios, what they see and if they’ve found any of the flags. They’re careful not to explore areas someone may have already looked.

Group 2’s first move is to try and plot what each member will accomplish before the next time they can break radio silence. They then head off, canvasing the tract of land they were assigned. They’re careful not to explore an area someone else was assigned.

Group 1 continues chattering about landmarks, locations, areas they’ve searched and whether or not they’ve found any flags. Sometimes its hard to tell where they are and they spend some time getting their bearings and finding landmarks others can also see. Someone finds a flag out of order and they all backtrack looking for terrain they may have missed and confirming that it wasn’t previously investigated.

Group 2, a bit later, breaks radio silence at the first open window. Status’ come in from each member — the group had found a few flags so far. They then report what areas they had covered and where they are currently. They continue on and someone finds a flag out of order and they wait for the next checkpoint to notify the team and see if any flags were missed that they team needs to back track for. They spend some time finding landmarks that others can also see but some members have gotten farther down the mountain than others.

Group 1 then has a member radio that they found the last flag. They all follow their heading to the coast, joining up again as they call out landmarks they pass.

Group 2 breaks radio silence at the next open window to do the same. It turns out that they had a few members had each found flags and they had all 5 now. They each agreed that they would use their own compasses to find their way to the coast and on occasion, members ran into each other on their way to the finish.

Which team would you rather be on?

Defining Team

The first group, Group 1, was able to act as one group the entire time. Group 2, however, was forced to act independently while keeping the groups goal in mind. The problem for Group 2 is that the groups goal changes as flags are missed or found. On occasion, the inability to communicate frequently for Group 2 created rework as they backtracked larger areas than Group 1 had to to find missing flags. Also, when Group 1 was able to find all the flags the entire team was instantly notified and the goal to head to the finish was immediately set.

The thing is is that you never know when you’re going to find a flag. You never know when you’re going to uncover something new and in today’s world, being able to share whats new in real time is your competitive advantage.

And yes its tough to know whats important enough to share (in this case the groups knew that sharing where they were and what they had found was important). But for most of the work we do you never know what could be important information for someone else to know, and thats how we should think about Team:

A Team is a group of people that share a common goal and have the same information.

Early and often

The more frequently you meet the more frequently you can redirect and prevent wasting resources on assumptions. In the graph below, each bar represents a checkpoint in which the team comes together to validate ideas.

This, in a way, is the foundation that makes agile development successful. The more frequently a product is tested, the lower the risk of failure because there are fewer assumptions built into each delivery. This can translate to less wasted energy spent on assumptions. Take our hikers, for instance: Group 2, the ones who could only communicate during certain windows had to operate with the assumption that not all of the other flags had been found. This is the default protocol yet it caused them to expel energy searching even after all flags were found. Similarly, because alignment could only happen during certain periods of time, teams naturally progressed at different speeds between check-ins, causing backtracking or waiting.

Now, for the balancing act

At Newell Brands and at many organizations, product designers, engineers, marketers and other functions need to be able to explore under their own direction. This is how they hone their craft, they immerse themselves in it and return to the table with their discoveries.

So to balance the empowerment that comes from self-direction with the need for the network to be aligned it may help to view independent work, the self-directed work, as the generation of assumptions. Your goal then becomes to uncover what your assumptions are and determine whether or not they effect any of the other members of your team. If the assumption is made within your own craft, then proceed to the next checkpoint. If the assumption is about another’s craft — radio in.