At the Edge of Productivity

I’m about to tell you a piece of advice that has served our team extremely well:

“Get your team to the edges of productivity, then do whatever it takes to stay there.”

What is the edge of productivity? It’s the border between known and unknown knowledge for any skill set or industry. As humanity progresses, knowledge grows, and the edge keeps moving outwards.

The sum of total human knowledge growing over time — the simple version.

Sometimes as the edge moves outwards, we uncover a miraculous piece of knowledge that is massively valuable (Think the discovery of the integrated circuit, the discovery of antibiotics, or the invention of the steam engine).

“Oh, cool — we can communicate across the world now!”

Pushing the edge doesn’t guarantee you will make those discoveries, but it’s slightly better odds than zero.

“Let’s see what’s over in this direction!”

If the blue represents the sum total knowledge of an individual, then the above illustrates an “i” type person. This is a person who has deep knowledge about a particular area but lacks practical knowledge, which can act as a barrier to creating practical value for anything they do discover.

“Nah, I’ll stay here.”

Conversely, there are “-” (dash) type people. These jack-of-all-trades types have very broad and practical knowledge. They can get lots done but are not pushing any interesting boundaries.

“Interesting idea, here are some ways I can use it.”

The final type is the “T” type. These are focused individuals who balance specialized skills and practical skills. They may be interested in solving a specific problem that requires a broad and deep knowledge set. There is a trade-off, where some practical and some deep knowledge is sacrificed in order to achieve both reasonably.

There is still quite a lot of white space remaining in the sphere of acquirable knowledge — this is where the team comes in.

“Ok, we have all these ideas. Now what?”

If each colour represents each team member’s knowledge, then this team of “i” type people will struggle to produce results.

Nothing Interesting going on here.

On the flip side, a team of “-” type people will struggle to find interesting ideas to pursue.

Now we’re cooking!

Metaphorically, this is what all teams should strive for in their growth. Differing core competencies based on experience, where each individual has a unique specialty. This allows for general growth while making each team member valued in their own right.

The team is pushing the boundaries in multiple spots as individuals while simultaneously pushing their baseline core competencies further and further out as they grow together as a team. Much more of the white space gets filled over time, which means that the team is adding more and more value.

Now how do we get to the edge of productivity?

Here are a few strategies I’ve seen used to get there:

1. Stand on the shoulders of giants: If someone else has built it, don’t rebuild it. If, for whatever reason, you have to repeat work, try to learn from others’ examples as much as possible. Your should aim to proceed where others stopped as soon as possible.
2. Go Alpha and experiment: Be willing to try new technologies — even if they are still experimental. Some of our largest gains have been because we started using products while they were in alpha or beta. For example — using newer metrics tools to track our team’s code productivity was a God send when we were pitching to investors. We were able to definitively show our ability to execute and deploy consistently, unlike other companies pitching for the same investment dollars. If we weren’t willing to jump in early, we wouldn’t have had several months of history at the ready.
3. Stay informed and keep your team informed: Each team member should know their specialty area and the set of core competencies for the team. More importantly, also have a good idea of each other’s skills (see this article to learn more about that).
4. Sharpen the saw: It’s great to talk about what’s new, but the next steps also need to be followed if we want to consider ourselves “T” type people. If your team decides that a new thing ought to be done, start creating and implementing plans to see it so.
5. Let Your Insufficiencies Burn Off Like Deadwood: I go into this in detail in this article on the tech side of things.
6. Build your community: When you or a teammate comes across an obstacle, who can you get in touch with to overcome it? Get to know a broad spectrum of talented individuals. Go to meet-ups, teach people how to code, mentor new programmers, answer forum questions, post videos, and write articles. When your team can get over issues quicker, you will all reach the edge of productivity quicker.

At the edge of productivity is where teams unleash their true potential. It’s where the most meaningful and valuable work is done. It’s where grand missions and moon shots are achieved.

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