Nature of "Focus"
Observations and notes on how Technical Program Managers deal with keeping their teams focused.
Much of my time and energy (as well as for any Technical Program Manager) on projects and programs is spent on keeping my teams “focused”.
There is plenty of thoughts and strategies out there to do that - backlog grooming, proper requirements, giving teams autonomy, reduce churn, faster decision making etc. But, today I want to touch on the philosophical; sharing some observations about focus that have been on my mind lately.
Focus is not linear or singular; it is a fleeting ether that changes shape over time.
In the chaotic environment of software engineering and product development, focus changes shape with time. There is only so much backlog grooming you can do. Fully fleshed out requirements up front in an agile world is not possible. Autonomy and trust are difficult to build and even harder to maintain. So, what is focus and how do you hold on to it from start to beginning?
Focus is an equilibrium; an equation that needs a balance between the empirical and the mental.
Each project requires an individual strategy towards “focus”, and where you are on the timeline of each project calls will require a different type of “focus”.
The right way for Technical Program Managers to keep their teams focused is help them focus on the right type of FOCUS.
How do you know your team is focused on the right FOCUS? Momentum and Drift are the biggest signals that your team is focused. Think about the flight path vector HUD you see on airplanes that pilots use to land. The pilots (TPM) want to keep the drift from the desired flight path vector as close to zero as possible. Otherwise they will veer off and into the weeds… putting it lightly.
How can TPMs help their teams stay focused? - Let’s get down to the basics. All project development timelines have a beginning, middle and end. Forget the software development lifecycle phases and instead just think about this fundamental bare-bones systems view of a project timeline. Each one of these phases requires a different type of focus.
What is FOCUS in the beginning? Focus on the unknown, assumptions and missing pieces.
In the agile approach, many questions remain unanswered. Requirements are constantly evolving especial when operating with new tech or market. Focusing on productivity metrics like burndown and convergence too early can be unproductive; instead, FOCUS on reducing unknowns and filling in the missing parts of the requirements.
Think about building a new experience or technology you are rolling out. Product Management might have a good sense of Northstar yet the stepping stones to get there are not clear or engineering may need more time to understand the goals/requirements. So, you prototype, you test, you build things to try them out. That is the right focus.
⚠️ Caution: You as a TPM must help the senior leadership understand what effort is a demo versus what is on a path to production. You must also ensure that your teams are not drifting too far into spike land or skunkworks territory and lose sight of the ultimate Northstar to ship a production ready experience, feature, or service. Time is constantly running out.
What is FOCUS in the middle? Focus on the hitting peak and downward convergence trajectory.
An ideal project trajectory looks like a bell curve graph, with an inflection point at the middle that signals a downward transition. To ensure success, the feedback loop must be the FOCUS. Work must be done and tested, then revised quickly based on real-world results. This may reflect a waterfall-like process; no matter the project length - 12 months, 12 weeks, or 12 days - the faster the cycles, the less time you have to hit the middle inflection point. If you combine multiple cycles together the middle cycle must represent a downward trend.
At Apple, WWDC is the middle mark. Unless a feature is absolutely critical to the software release, focus will shift post WWDC to convergence where teams focus on quality, bugs, feedback from developer seeds + customer beta drops on features they know can ship. You pivot resources and spend them on the right things.
⚠️ Caution: As a TPM, you must monitor the project backlog and progress to ensure the downward trajectory of the project is maintained. If the complexity of the project increases and the trajectory starts to climb, it is essential to raise the alarm. Without timely intervention, delays, quality issues, and descoping become the only options.
What is FOCUS in the end? Bugs, quality, performance, and experience are the key.
Feature work has ended and you must now focus on debugging to make user experience exceptional. Are you still working on building features or moving towards completion? Big, long-tail projects are the ones to avoid as they become increasingly difficult to focus on because the drift is too much and time is limited for course correction.
At Apple, we devoted time to resolve quality, tech debt and performance issues, while suspending feature development. Linear takes it too a whole new level with Polishing Season.
⚠️ Caution: As a TPM, you must begin to help leadership understand how the remaining work for your team on the project is categorized between feature tasks and bugs. Go further and show them what are showstoppers versus nice to haves. When time gets constrained help focus more on crashes and catastrophic bugs that can lead to customer data loss or unusable experiences. The time is up for cosmetic changes… unless of course you work at a company that will delay releases or features to fix that button being a few pixels off.
This is all obvious. You aren’t saying anything new. I hear you but I bet you still struggle with helping teams stay focused. Why?
Like all things in engineering, there is always more than meets the eye. Over time, I have noticed that there are always internal and external forces at play that create drift in FOCUS. Here is a small list of things I have seen in my career:
Engineering team hit with attrition at the most crucial time of the project.
Institutional knowledge leaves the company.
Lack of engagement from leadership.
Too much involvement from leadership.
Priority mismatch.
Lack of trust within and about the product development team.
Project delays due to indecisive decision making on particular solutions or assumptions.
Lack of clarity on the north star vision.
Experts in their field being ignored in favour of instinct driven leaders.
New privacy legislation introduced.
Competitor releases something to the market better and faster than you.
Service outages for your key customer takes attention and resources away.
The contractor you hired is not working out.
External partners are providing firmware drops that are unstable.
So, how does a TPM approach this challenge to focus? As a TPM, having the right mindset is essential to helping your team stay focused. This mindset dictates your actions, reactions, and even the atmosphere you create for the cross-functional team. Mindset is the most important tool in your TPM toolkit, for each stage of product development has different needs. To keep focus, you need to know which forces to push against and which to accept. This mindset will be more effective than any methodology.
Bonus Point - Leverage Leadership Energy - TPMs are the barometer that leadership should look to let them know when they are sailing smooth or about to crash into something catastrophic. TPMs also help leadership not prematurely react. You, as the TPM, can help leadership focus on the right type of focus:
Beginning - Set clear Northstar goals, vision, expectations. Help them know what decisions they need to make.
Middle - Leverage demos for faster more effective feedback loops. Keep them aware of progress and hurdles but let them know what needs intervention.
End - Engage them more regularly, be data driven, bring options and recommendations when things are not hitting the targets. Above all - be brutally honest about the state of the program but show them the paths they can avail to get back on track.
Summary
The nature of focus in software engineering and product development is dynamic and multifaceted and needs TPMs to approach it with balance between empirical and mental aspects.
There are different types of focus required at different stages of a project, such as focusing on the unknowns and assumptions in the beginning, hitting peak and downward convergence in the middle, and bugs, quality, and performance at the end.
TPMs face myriad of challenges in maintaining focus, including attrition, lack of engagement from leadership, priority mismatch, and external factors like competitor releases or service outages. Knowing which forces to push on and which to ride is important for effective management of projects/programs.
Above all, TPMs having the right mindset and leveraging leadership energy to help teams stay focused throughout the project can make a huge difference.
Until next time 👋!
-Aadil
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