The EDC Loop

I’ve seen many projects with many teams over the years. In that time I’ve found that the most successful engineering cycles tend to go through 3 distinct phases: Execution, Delivery, Celebration. If a team is underperforming in one of these 3 areas it will quickly show and drag down the other 2. It is possible to be successful without master these 3 phases and being explicit about which one you are in, but it is much more likely to be successful when you are.

Execution

At the end of the day execution is just getting shit done. Teams make a lot of plans through sprint planning, quarterly goals, daily stand-ups, etc. and execution is simply checking a step off of that plan. In a soccer context, coaches will create gameplans like attack the flanks, Tiki Taka, 0r parking the bus and looking to counter attack. Players are measured against how well they adhere to the gameplan and the success of the team relies on how well that gameplan is executed by everyone. If you don’t execute well it is going to be increasingly difficult to make it to the delivery phase.

Delivery

You have to score goals to win games and gameplans are designed to score goals and win the game. Executing the prettiest passes or the fanciest footwork just to miss the simple tap-in goal crushes the spirit of the entire team. Executing well and failing to deliver is often more demoralizing than executing poorly and never having the chance to deliver. Sprints, roadmaps, and general feature development is all about delivering a final product. An engineering team that executes tasks really well but can put it together in a delivery is going to have a hard time being successful. Even if you aren’t able to get all the features or optimizations you wanted into a delivery doesn’t mean you can’t deliver something. Delivering something creates a sense of closure allowing your focus to more completely go towards the next item on your list.

Celebration

Celebration isn’t about throwing a huge party, buying matching commemorative jackets, and drinking the night away. Well, not entirely at least. Celebrating an accomplishment also means broadcasting your delivery out and advertising it in a way that people will care and hopefully want to start using the thing you just spent weeks building. It also means looking back and reflecting on the journey you just completed in order to figure out how to do more of the stuff that worked well and less of the stuff that didn’t work very well. After a proper reflection, regroup, realign, and start executing on the next thing.

Soccer players don’t typically have a tough time celebrating after delivering goals. The often silly celebrations act as both a joyous release for the players as well as a way to get the fans to care about what just happened and become more engaged in the game and by extension the team. After a minute or so the team regroups, realigns themselves into their starting positions, and starts executing on delivering another goal.