1. Unleashing Innovation and Productivity
Through Extreme Time Constraints
aka
"Shrink That Project!"
Pascal Pinck
Twitter: @pascalpinck Web: col-labor-ation.com
Used with permission

2. How long do your projects take?
Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Years?

3. Long projects have real benefits
• Time to "get things right"
• Time to do foundational research
• Allows us to tackle large chunks of
work
• Allows us to build up momentum
• Provides personal/team clarity
→ reduces "existential overhead"

4. Long projects also have big drawbacks
• Integration risks
• Market risks
• Compounding delay costs
• Parkinson's Law*:
"Work expands so as to
fill the time available for
its completion."
*Cyril Northcote Parkinson, 1909-1993, British naval historian

5. What is a project anyway?

6. In its most abstracted form, a project is…
An interlinked series of
discoveries,
decisions,
& actions
made in support of
an explicit, unifying objective
in a context of
limited resources,
evolving capabilities,
& changing stakeholder needs.

7. Can this be done in
very short cycles?
Yes. Some examples:

8. "Scrum"
for Software
Development

14. Let's revisit our definition. A project is…
An interlinked series of
discoveries, (= learning/understanding)
decisions, (= selecting/prioritizing/negotiating)
& actions (= creating/executing/delivering)
made in support of
an explicit, unifying objective
in a context of
limited resources,
evolving capabilities,
& changing stakeholder needs.

15. What is a minimum viable project?

16. A minimum viable project:
Includes some
1. selecting of available goals, resources, and strategic constraints
2. prioritizing, especially which tasks to OMIT
3. negotiating, especially tradeoffs
And results in some
1. shared learning about the market, especially end users
2. shared learning about the problem/solution space
3. creation of value based on this shared learning
4. delivery of value to stakeholders
5. shared learning about ourselves and our way of working

17. What is NOT (necessarily) required
• Formal planning
• Explicit mitigation of all (or most) risks
• Heavyweight (or even pre-defined) processes
• Expectation of a particular outcome
• A formal leadership structure
• Documentation

18. The real magic:
It's all about "less"

19. Less is good!
Less work
• Less work-in-progress
• Less task switching
• Less induced work
• Less low-priority work
• Less work that gets thrown away
• Less procrastination
(= work avoiding work)

20. Less is good!
Less debt
• Less social debt ("conversations not had")
• Less tradespace debt ("tradeoffs not made")
• Less prioritization debt ("nice-to-haves not let go of")
• Less bad news debt ("nasty messes not uncovered")

21. Extreme time constraints are an
engine for innovation

22. An engine for innovation
History shows that high-pressure, time-constrained
environments are extremely hospitable to breakthrough
innovation.

23. An engine for innovation
Extreme time constraints
• Snap people out of regular routines
• Call forth intense attention and engagement
• Make bureaucratic processes irrelevant
• Promote transparency and disclosure
• Raise the bar on team performance
• Force stakeholders into proximity
• Encourage swarming
• Encourage the simplest possible
solution

24. An innovation equation
Shared purpose
+ laser focus
+ authentic urgency
+ rapid feedback
+ social/organizational safety
= INNOVATION
MULTIPLIER
EFFECT

25. "So what's the bad news?"

26. Drawbacks/downsides
This type of project…
• Is cognitively, physically, and emotionally intense
• Can expose significant organizational weaknesses
• Can expose a lack of shared goals/vision
• Can expose poor relationships in the organization
• Can cause "iteration fatigue"
• Can disrupt flow in some cases
• Can be hard to scale

27. What about estimating &
budgeting?

28. Estimating & budgeting
For short or iterative projects…
"Do as little estimating as possible."
Why?
• We're almost always wrong.
• It tends to divert time and energy from delivering
actual value.
• It delays our contact with the market
• It defers key discoveries, especially the most unpleasant
(and expensive) ones.

29. Instead… try "Scope Flex"
• Timebox is fixed.
• Resources are fixed.
• Team does as much as they can in the time allotted
with the resources they have.

30. Instead… try "Scope Flex"
Three caveats
1. Team must work on things in the order of big-picture
importance (e.g., stakeholder value and/or risk).
2. Team commits to completing something of true
stakeholder value by the deadline.
3. While the team gets to decide
the specifics of what gets
delivered, they do so in an
ongoing dialog with the key
stakeholders.

31. Key success factors
• Frequent interaction with customer/market or proxy
• Leaders who model transparency and disclosure
• High-bandwidth communication
• Tolerance for ambiguity
• Willingness to learn iteratively
• Openness to failure
• Social/organizational safety
• Ideally, a small team (< 20)
• Shared cadence/rituals
• Co-location helps

32. Suggested reading

33. Questions/Discussion
Twitter: @pascalpinck Web: col-labor-ation.com

34. Image credits
Images used under creative commons license
p2 – tomato see http://www.flickr.com/photos/darrenhester/
p3 – baker statue see http://www.flickr.com/photos/learn4life/
p4 – sad face see http://www.flickr.com/photos/seandurham/
p6/14 – question mark see http://www.flickr.com/photos/barlowgirls/
p8 – scrum board see http://www.flickr.com/photos/acarlos1000/
p9 – code screenshot see http://www.flickr.com/photos/unavoidablegrain/
p9 – warning lamps see http://www.flickr.com/photos/jankrutisch/
p10 – control room see http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericolson/
p10 – news set see http://www.flickr.com/photos/fellyphotos/
p12 – football see http://www.flickr.com/photos/annerossley/
p17 – reams of paper see http://www.flickr.com/photos/luschei/
p19 – spoons see http://www.flickr.com/photos/jek-a-go-go/
p20 – credit cards see http://www.flickr.com/photos/shoot-art/
p23 – stopwatch see http://www.flickr.com/photos/julianlim/
p24 – bees see http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaibara87/
p26 – warning sign see http://www.flickr.com/photos/neumeyer/

35. Image credits
Images used under creative commons license (cont'd)
p29/30 – arching back see http://www.flickr.com/photos/trussmonkey/
p31 – running track see http://www.flickr.com/photos/a03575/
Publicity images – in wide release
p9 – Humble/Farley and Duvall books: Addison-Wesley
p13 – Kinect device: Microsoft
p13 – 3d visualization: adafruit.com
p22 – all images: NASA
p32 – Poppendieck and Highsmith books: Addison-Wesley
p32 – Pascale book: Crown Business
p32 – Anderson book: Blue Hole Press
Other image credits
p8 – scrum diagram: Mike Cohn / Mountain Goat Software. Used by permission.
p11 – all images: BrainStore Ltd. Used by permission.