The Inability to Set Goals Exposes Your Existing Problems
Having Fewer Goals Sucks, But Having More Goals Sucks Even More.
As we explored in a previous post, a Team does Work to get the Results We Want:
If the work is guaranteed to deliver the results we want, then we can get away with giving teams instructions and telling them what to do. There are no surprises and the instructions will get them all the way to the results we want.
Unfortunately, when building software products, the work will contain many surprises. We discover what we must do as we do the work to get the results we want. In such a case, giving instructions and telling teams what to do isn’t good enough: teams need to know the results we want, how they relate to the work, and be able to adjust accordingly.
In other words: team must have a clear goal together with sufficient context to make the right decision in the moment. They must have mission that provides intent: what are we trying to achieve and why does it matter?
The inability to set goal(s) exposes existing problems. Let us explore some real-world examples.
1. “We Can’t Set a Single Goal During the Sprint”
There are many different reasons why your team can’t set a single goal during the Sprint, such as:
Your team is too big and therefore can’t work as a team. You must set multiple goals to cater to the different sub-teams.
Your team is not working as a team. Each silo must receive their own goal, to make it possible to work independently and remain in the comforting isolation of their silo.
You have too many competing priorities. Watch out, as your team members may end up cannibalizing each other’s progress. Either you choose what’s the most important, or it will be chosen for you, but you won’t have any control over it.
Your team is not a team. It could be that you’re dealing with a group of individuals that pick-up and complete work as it arrives. Everyone is working independently and individually. If that’s the case, then you should reconsider using Scrum. A team is a group of people working towards a common goal.
In short, the inability to set goals is usually means your team is unable to collaborate effectively and it’s up to you to figure out why it’s happening.
2. “Our Goals Feel Redundant.”
Delivering a feature is like telling a joke: it doesn’t matter unless it makes people laugh. The goal isn’t to tell jokes, but to make people laugh. You need both.
If your goals feel redundant, then telling the joke is the goal, and not getting the laughs after telling the joke. If you don’t understand what you’re trying to achieve, then anything will get you there.
Your goals should not mirror the work, as that’s pointless and redundant. Outputs drive outcomes, you must know the outputs (work) and the outcomes (what we’re trying to achieve). Only understanding one of the two, will set your up for failure.
If your leaders give you features to deliver, your goals will feel redundant because you’ll be busy reverse-engineering problems to solve from features you’ve already decided to deliver.
In short, if you give your teams problems to solve, then it can never be that your goals feel redundant.
3. “We Have Too Many Goals”
Having too many goals is a strategic and leadership failure and usually not a team-level problem.
If you don’t know what the right things are focus on, then everything becomes equally important. If everything becomes equally important, then you will end up with with too many goals.
If your team members can’t write all their goals down for the upcoming quarter within a minute, then they’re not on top of their mind, and they won’t be taken into account.
Being exhaustive with your goals hurts clarity, it’s better to be clear than exhaustive, because then at least you will have control over what falls off and what doesn’t. People can’t remember ten goals, so they will just be ignored.
If you’ve got a poor understanding of what you’re trying to achieve and what’s important then that’s the problem you must fix. Don’t make your teams a victim of your inability to think strategically. In many companies they set their teams up for failure through competing interests and cannibalization of each other’s progress.
Too many goals, usually means you have a leadership and/or strategic problem. Everything is equally important, which means you don’t know well enough what really matters.
Goals Are Simple and Hard
Having more goals isn't better, it's usually worse. Having more goals makes us feel great because our eyes are much bigger than our belly.
The restraint of having fewer goals pays off. It feels much more risky, but it's actually less risky.
If you don’t do the hard work of thinking strategically, you will simply end up cramming your existing dysfunctions into your goals. When working with goals and bumping into problems, it usually means you’re exposing your existing dysfunctions.
Unfortunately, frequently teams are blamed when they fail to deliver on their goals, instead of exploring why they were set up for failure due to setting goals in an ineffective manner.
Working with goals in essence boils down to this: you carefully choose what you will fail to deliver and won’t do. It’s incredibly hard and you will immediately feel the sting of what fall’s off.
It’s much easier and makes us feel much better to commit to as much as possible. When we choose to not be too be picky, we lose control, and will allow our goals to become anchors that cannibalize and compete with each other.
Committing to a portfolio of lofty goals makes us feels great. We’re going to complete all the things we want and we lose nothing.
However, when the rubble of failed delivery comes crashing down we usually have long forgotten it was us who set ourselves up for failure in the first place.
We must carefully pick what to focus on, or our goals will cannibalize and compete with each other. We will lose control and after the rubble has settled we will discover what has been picked.
If you want to read more about goals and Sprint Goals:
Insightful post! Thank you for sharing Maarten.