Conversations as Key Results
Setting Key Results for Exploratory Projects
Over the past few months, our team in ViTrox has been thinking about the best Key Results (KRs) to set for new initiatives, where we are completely unsure about what can be achieved.
The problem is, we initiate projects all the time, often without knowing much about the nature of the work and the results to expect.
The age of simplicity is long gone, replaced by highly complex and hard-to-understand one. It is so complex that the business world has to borrow expressions used in the military to describe the business environment — volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA)[1]. In business, we cannot wait, we must start something and learn along the way. Former Chinese statesman Deng Xiaoping used a vivid expression to describe his “learn as you do” economic reform process — “crossing the river by touching the stones” (摸着石头过河). Under such unpredictable conditions, setting meaningful outcome-based KRs is impossible.
Before we make sense of the project, we typically go through an exploratory phase, which can last for a few months. So, the question is: what KR to assign to projects that are still at the exploratory stage?
In exploratory projects, we are basically learning the trade — as in one of our leadership development projects (which is called V-NEXT), consumer payment project, starting of a college, etc. Instead of putting “project completion” as the KR, we chose to use the number of discussions/meetings as our KR. Project- or task-based KRs are not good KRs, see my Todoitis article for the reason why I think task-based KR is bad.
Having conversations should not be regarded as non-work. It is effortful; it takes a lot to plan, meet, gather together, discuss, and follow up to make conversations productive. Efforts must proceed results, as Amit Sood, professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, puts it, “Outcome is not in your control. What’s in your control is your effort and your intentions.”
The key benefit of using the number of discussions is that it ensures the exploratory effort continues (and no one forgets about it). True enough, our experience showed that we made significant progress when we met regularly and consistently. We started to understand the issues quickly, and the following objectives became much clearer.
Beyond the obvious benefit of gaining a clearer understanding of the issue, conversations also allow cross-function team members to get to know each other better and build rapport. Emphasis on early, frequent and in-depth conversation helps to team to get through forming, storming, and norming stages quickly. Bruce Tuckman proposed in 1965 that whenever a group of people comes together to achieve something significant, it will inevitably go through four stages — forming, storming, norming, and performing [2]. This four-stage perspective is still a very applicable model today. The more interactions and conversations the group has, the faster it move towards the next stage. A group without going through the initial stage will not become an effective team as the intra-group trust level will not be strong enough to allow them to take on tough challenges. In short, the more a group has conversations, the faster the group mature.
On the other hand, I learned the value of conversation from my research background. When an issue is new to us, we almost always use qualitative research methods, which usually involve many unstructured conversations and interviews. Since these are qualitative methods, no measurement is possible on the outcome. In other words, we cannot measure the results in terms of numbers. The only measurable thing is the effort measurement, specifically on how many conversations we have, ie., how many people we have interviewed, how many cases we have reviewed, etc. Only after the issue has become clear to us, we switch to quantitative research methods.
Recent development in research methods has given more credibility to qualitative methods in scientific inquiries. Traditionally, due to the prevalence of natural science, qualitative methods were deemed unsystematic and less vigorous. Those were the days where only quantifiable and objective truths are considered valuable. Beyond the field of strict natural science such as physics, chemistry, engineering, etc., we quickly discover that many understandings we gain about our world don't come from numbers. Qualitative methods have gained a lot of acceptance in recent years. Albert Einstein once wrote [3]:
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
The power of talking about an unclear issue in conversations or meetings should not surprise us. We human species thrive basically on our ability to talk about issues and exchange ideas. Advancement in every field started with conversations. Conversations allow us to learn about new facts, check assumptions, get feedback, challenge beliefs and extend existing understanding and ideas. It is hard to find successful companies that don’t encourage their employees to have one-on-one sessions. One-on-one sessions are conversations, and it is one of the most important “employee engagement” tools. Families use conversations to foster stronger relationships; lovers use conversations to bring their relationship to the next level before they build their families; teams have conversations to act on opportunities and resolve problems, states use conversation to build ties and avoid conflicts. We have been using conversation at all levels of human interactions.
If the academic world has come out of the delusion of “everything is and should be measurable”, shouldn’t we the industrial practitioners stop pretending that everything is and should be measurable? My argument is that at least we should not insist on outcome measurement in the initial exploratory stage of our projects. As the project moves out of the exploratory stage, we can then switch to quantifiable outcome-based KRs to work on.
It is true that “if we cannot measure it, we cannot manage it.” However, we only manage something that is planned, and we can only plan after we have understood what is to be achieved and how we can achieve it. Before we have a plan, it is best that we just keep talking about the issue. To ensure that we keep talking about the issue, the key result should be the number of times we talk about it in a quarter.
References
[1] Roderick R. M. II, ed., Strategic Leadership Primer, Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1998, p. 1 quoted in Harry R. Yarger, Strategic Theory for the 21st Century: The Little Book On Big Strategy (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2006)
[2] Tuckman, B.W. 1965. Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin 65, no. 6: 384–99.
[3] 1991 February 11, Ellensburg Daily Record, This and That: Shy Suffer Hay Fever by L. M. Boyd, Page 8, [Crown Syndicate, Inc.], Ellensburg, Washington. (Google News Archive)
