Description
Delivers well-scoped units of work that meet their goals, on time, to budget, harmoniously
We are judging this across three dimensions:
- # of people involved
- Amount of ambiguity
- You need all three of the following... but as you demonstrate high skill you are trusted with more ambiguity
- The individual tasks (decomposed and sequenced tasks)
- High-level outputs (think epics or scopes... things that must get done, but aren't immediately actionable tasks)
- Desired outcome (just the goal)
- Amount of investment
- Project management hygiene
- No one has to asks you (aka show your work);
- What's the status
- How did you arrive at the tasks you are doing (hypothesis chain... this task is in support of this high-level output, which will lead to this desired outcome)
Milestone 1
I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can employ this ability with only a small amount of guidance
Effectively delivers individual tasks
- # of people involved
- = Usually just you... maybe a partner
- Amount of ambiguity (just the outcome or the decomposed and sequenced tasks)
- = Usually you are given tasks, but you are trusted to complete those tasks within a timeframe that is reasonable, usually set by a more senior person
- Amount of investment
- = Usually the tasks are less than 3 weeks from being handed to you to expected completion
- Project management hygiene
- = Your tasks in the project management tool always follows the rules set by the squad, function, department, tiger team... whatever the rules are... you follow them the vast majority of the time.
| Examples | |
|---|---|
| Estimates small tasks accurately | Read ShapeUp |
| Delivers tightly-scoped projects efficiently | Communicates blockers, pitfalls, and potential delays early |
| Follows our agreed upon Jira rules most of the time (ie WIP limits) | Knows diff between Scope & Epic |
| Engineering-specific | |
| Jira-tickets owned by you are almost always up-to-date | You've shepherded a PR to production with assistance |
| ProductOwner-specific | |
| You know what Jira should look like and help enforce the hygiene |
Milestone 2
I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can employ this ability, with no assistance as well as being a trusted active or passive mentor to others
Effectively delivers small personal projects
- # of people involved
- = Usually the entire squad is involved (for non-squad stuff, 3 - 5 folks)
- Amount of ambiguity
- = Usually you are given high level outputs, but you are trusted to break those down into actionable tasks
- Amount of investment
- = Usually the tasks are less than 6 weeks from being handed to you to expected completion
- Project management hygiene
- = Same as Milestone 1
| Examples | |
|---|---|
| Performs research and considers alternative approaches | Participated in the delivery of a D1T |
| Balances pragmatism and polish appropriately | Made an escalation mitigation improvement |
| Defines and hits interim milestones (aka milestone 1 on Decomposition and Sequencing) | Makes amendments/additions to the Weekly squad updates |
Milestone 3
I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to multiple squads when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can employ this ability as well as being considered an expert within this discipline
Effectively delivers projects through a squad
- # of people involved
- = Usually 2+ squads, ideally the entire department (7+ folks if not squad-based)
- Amount of ambiguity
- = Usually you are given desired outcomes and you are trusted to break those down into high level outputs and actionable tasks
- Amount of investment
- = Usually a quarter from being handed to you to expected completion
- Project management hygiene
- = You are actively participating in IMPROVING the rules / feedback loops / systems that will impact those even outside of your squad as we all pursue greater project management
| Examples | |
|---|---|
| Delegates tasks to others appropriately | Ran project retro to assess improvement opportunities |
| Finds ways to deliver requested scope faster, and prioritizes backlog | Oversaw technical delivery of a Big Bet project |
| Integrates business needs into project planning | Completed PLC process successfully |
| Chooses appropriate project management strategy based on context | Facilitated project kickoff meeting to get buy-in |
Milestone 4
I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can not only employ this ability but where they set the tone for this at the company level
Effectively delivers projects with a significant amount of stakeholders or complexity / Manages major company pushes delivered by multiple teams
- # of people involved
- = Usually entire company
- Amount of ambiguity
- = Same as Milestone 4
- Amount of investment
- = Usually a year (or more... but more than a year is dangerous regardless)
- Project management hygiene
- = You are actively participating in IMPROVING the rules / feedback loops / systems that will impact the entire company as we all pursue greater project management
| Examples | |
|---|---|
| Manages dependencies on other projects and teams | Managed infrastructure migration to VPC |
| Considers external constraints and business objectives when planning | Managed technical migration to a new paradigm (hot wire, ShapeUp, etc) |
| Leads teams of teams, and coordinates effective cross- functional collaboration | |
| Owns a key company metric | Delivered multi-month project on time |
| Leverages recognition of repeated project patterns | Involved marketing, legal, and appropriate functions at project start |
Milestone 5
I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to not just internal teams but the community/industry in general when wielding this ability, and they are recognized by the community/industry as an expert
Configuration Health
- ✅ Associated with 6 roles
- ✅ Has been referenced in 5 pieces of public recognition
- ℹ️ Fewer than five people (4) achieved a milestone on this ability. To ensure anonymity, analysis will only appear after at least five people have milestones.
- ⛔️ Last updated: over 2 years ago
- ℹ️ Last conversed about: over 3 years ago
Role & Position Requirements
- Code Creatorsmust be milestone 1+
- Forward Progress Facilitatorsmust be milestone 2+
- Hiring Managersmust be milestone 2+
- Launch Coordinator – Ops & Csmust be milestone 2+
- Launch Coordinator – Sales & Marketingsmust be milestone 2+
- Regression Reducersmust be milestone 1+
Examples / Observations
Observation created about 3 years agohttps://www.figma.com/file/ylIENc8ThXaHYOMn28us7a/ZipRecruiter-Sponsorship-Shaping?node-id=1%3A2658
Let's start this with a few beliefs I have:
- I expect Tech Leads to, well, lead. However, that comes in many forms.
- The hardest part of any project is the start and the finish.
- The start is hard because this is the moment you know the least, the moment where the members of the team are most misaligned.
I've seen hundreds of different ways to start projects. Some use templates such as Project Briefs or Pitches. Sometimes design takes the lead and starts wireframes/fat-marker sketches. Sometimes Tech Leads will jump in and start listing out spikes/dives needed.
All of these ways have their advantages and disadvantages. However, IMO nothing, and I mean nothing gets a project kicked off better than an old-fashioned flow chart.
Get to a whiteboard (digital whiteboard) and start drawing out the assumptions, the open questions, the flow as we know it today.
Alignment is one of the hardest things to do when you are moving fast and trying to be agile. But, the simplicity of blocks and lines help tremendously.
David was just put on this project, and already he's asked amazing questions, uncovered potential rabbit holes and no go's, and I for one feel incredibly confident in the project now knowing how well he has his head wrapped around it already.
Well done 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Observation created about 3 years agoLet me tell you a story about initiative, care, teamwork, and ultimately bringing clarity to a very confusing situation.
Context
- The Onboard and Engage squads do not have a PO right now
- Onboard is deep in shaping a titanic milestone for us...
Project: Tax Form Completion so simple luddites can do it(improved name coming soon 😂)- Onboard is all but done with the ADP POH project 🙌🏾🎉❤️💪🏾
- Engage is deep into shaping a titanic milestone for us...
Project: Understand you Employee, BEFORE they leave you(improved name coming soon 😂)Project: First step in moving plug to the right... Ascension of the new Team/Profileis launching, but in its testing party many opportunities for improvement were identifiedSpecific Struggle
The context came to a head in a Onboard sync meeting where is became clear that Paul would be mostly focused on shaping (organizing and executing on spikes... which is deserving of an OGO itself... stay tuned for that one), Kentucky Joe didn't have a ton next up, and new Onboarder Ryan wouldn't have something he could cut his teeth on initially. Especially give the season we are in where nearly all of Product is operating in a more stressed gear than any of us would like, this was a rare opportunity. Like some have disposable income, meaning income not directly allocated to other things, it is rare for Product to have disposable capacity. We want more of that, but we aren't in disposable capacity season... so what do we do?
- Three different moments of coaching were going on simultaneously which led to even more confusion without a clearly defined Forward Facilitator
- Canaan was giving good coaching to Paul, making sure he knew there were Classic::Onboarding bugs that we haven't touched because Classic::Onboarding is in "Maintenance Mode"... but if we have disposable capacity... why not?!
- Clint was giving Polly good coaching, making sure she knew of a new, short-lived, objective coming up...
Project: Ensure Alex has a great time(Alex being the shared ADP/CP clients). He has a list of 21 opportunities he believes will help and he has started shaping. Could this disposable capacity be used for that?!- AR3 was giving Teresa Berg coaching, making sure she remembered the context around
Project: First step in moving plug to the right... Ascension of the new Team/Profile... that Onboard and Engage will both be equally working in the Team/Profile space, so if we used that disposable capacity to help orient Ryan and Kentucky Joe to this area, while also knocking out some of the scopes we had to cut and polishing up Team/Profile in response to the testing party?Polly, noticed the collision of confusion and decided to SPEAK UP, STEP UP!! 💪🏾
What did she do?!
- She spoke up by calling out the confusion / lack of clarity happening
- She stepped up by essentially saying "I'm going to be here to assist Paul and Teresa as they take on some of the PO duties... and where I see an opportunity to directly take on a PO Assignment, I will"
- She worked with me, Ashley G, and Jaclyn to figure out how she can best help with the PO Assignments
- But the point of this OGO is the initiative she took in creating this Team/Profile Opportunity list
What do I love about this Opportunity list?!
- It is very well organized...
- The Legend/Key of breaking things into Bugs, Value Enhancements, and Privacy/security concerns is very smart... at a glance you can see what type of work is available to us
- The categories of Ready to be worked, Needs Shaping, Bigger change might be best to hold off, and Do we want these things... immediately focuses everyone on the things that are most important in this "best use of disposable capacity" mini-season we find ourselves in. In the meeting where we covered this, we immediately focused on the Ready to be worked lane.
- Side note: PO's are strongly encouraged to work out of ProductBoard. But the reason I'm so happy about the fact that Polly decided to work out of FigJam is this... she didn't wait. She saw a need, and used the best tools at her disposal. Much of the way she organized this FigJam is how we are organizing statuses/tags in the roadmaps of ProductBoard as well. We use different names, but they mean the same thing 🙌🏾
Here's the thing... I am fully confident that not only is the confusion likely gone... but crystal clarity has been achieved. This level of alignment is the ultimate goal of Forward Facilitators, and Polly has not received any coaching on the ways we want to do this Assignment... so the fact that she did it so well speaks volumes.
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