Something will get optimizedseven days beforeComplex adaptive systems tend to make it difficult to make guesses about…The ghost of unclear theory of change

A motor and a rudder2021Having done a bit of work on researching and sketching out strategies…A strategy and a plan2021A colleague asked me this great question: “What’s the difference between a…The nature of the challenge2021While working on a strategy this week, I realized that one of…The unclear theory of change often haunts conversations about strategy — especially the longer-term strategy. It may be worth pointing out the ghost: “what’s our theory of change?” If you look up the basics of the theory of change, this might seem simplistic. However establishing a shared understanding of the causal links between short-term and long-term goals is an exercise that almost always yields productive outcomes.

What the heck is strategy work?2022We turn the mastermind toward frameworks. The key objective of this role…Jankless2021As we Orient, examining our prediction error and updating our model of…Embodied Strategy2022I was having a great conversation with a colleague about organizational learning…One of my vivid memories is that of my former colleague, a then-newcomer, making their first presentation to the team leads. In a few slides, they outlined the theory of change based on what they learned from talking with the team. Though it was merely a summary of already-existing embodied knowledge, the reaction varied from “omg this is brilliant!” to “this is not at all what we’re doing!” The sudden apparition of the theory of change was startling. The team was months into the project, yet didn’t have a shared understanding of how their daily work shaped the path to their long term ambitions. Though that particular example was particularly dramatic, I’ve now seen this scenario play out many times.

Separating cargo from the train2023I’ve been puzzling over a problem that many engineering teams face and…The productification trapthe same dayPicking up on last week’s 3P insight, I want to share some…Prototype the problemlinks here, 2021Where it gets tricky is making problem prototypes just as tangible as…A common symptom of unclear theory of change is endless contentious conversations between tech leads that the typical “disagree and commit” tactic can’t seem to allay, or sub-teams slowly but surely diverging and building duplicate bits of the stack. In these situations, we’re better off pausing to wonder: are there different theories of change at play? And what they might be? It may seem silly to sit down as a small group of leads and draw some boxes and arrows — this stuff should be obvious to anyone, right? Yet, if you’re experiencing the symptoms, the silly exercise might be just the thing to bring some peace to the haunted team.