Systems Thinking Our Way Out of Busy Work

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Systems Thinking Our Way Out
How to Work Smart and Overcome Our Addiction to Busy Work

When companies find product market fit they
begin to focus less on strategic work and more
on tactical problem solving.

Feature requests come from every angle.
There is an endless sea of potential work

We feel good fixing problems.

But this fleeting
feeling of
accomplishment
comes at a great
expense

Soon everything seems important

But do our customers really care?

How did we get here?

Findings
● This is a common pattern of
people across industries,
company sizes, and stages
● Often the smartest people are...

We need to think bigger than ourselves

● Copier
● Printer
● Scanner
● Fax
● Stapler
● Magician
● Steak Knife
● Baby sitter

What problem
are you here to
solve?

1. our most important features get buried
2. sometimes even they don’t work well
when we don’t know the problem

We keep adding and
never anything take
away.
We never have time to
improve the way we
work because we’re too
busy doing wo...

Building is the easy part of the
product development process.
Figuring out what to build and
how we are going to build it ...

Ask yourself
Are we measuring success on outcomes?

Do We Work with
Clear Measures
of Success?

Ask Yourself
Are we aligning work with root problems?

My Boss doesn’t
have a Status
Update
Problem Solution
Write a status
update

Work problems
are not the lack of
work solutions.

We’re here to
solve BIG
problems.

We need a logical
structure for
selecting good
work.

We need strategy

We should be able
to answer these
Questions
1. What is the most
important work?
2. Why should we do it
now?
3. How will we...

Step 1: Situation

Complicated =
Confusion

Simplify.
Focus on the
important details.

Step 2: Intent

Clarify the Overall
Business Strategy

Step 3: Measurable Value

&Customer Value Business Benefits

Step 4: Constraints

Step 5: Inspect & Adapt

Strategy
is NOT a Plan

Strategy transforms
our work from a
wishlist of problems
to something focused
and grounded in our
understanding of the
sit...

Build in Feedback

Strategy emerges from
experimentation and
validated learning

Build in feedback at every level of work design

Build in feedback on work delivery

Measure performance with data (and care)

Set a sustainable pace

Work Smart and value
Outcomes over Output

Thanks.

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