Unlocking Business Agility with Evidence-Based Management: Satisfy Customers and Improve Organizational Effectiveness, 1st edition

Foreword by Ken Schwaber     xi

Foreword by Dave West      xv

Preface      xix

Introduction      xxvii

 

Chapter 1: Finding Purpose      1

Rediscovering Purpose      3

     Goals      4

     How Goals and Measures Influence Behaviors      7

How to Rediscover Purpose      10

Closing Satisfaction Gaps Creates Value      11

     Customer-Focused Goals Enable Autonomy and Purpose      14

Improving Strategic Goals      17

     Ask “Why?” to Uncover the Real Objective      17

     Refocus “Internal” Goals on What Customers Need to Experience      19

     Think About How You Will Measure Progress Toward Your Vision      20

What to Watch For      21

Moving Forward      22

 

Chapter 2: Using Empiricism to Progress Toward Goals      23

Understanding Value      25

Progressing Toward Goals in a Series of Small Steps      27

     Taking Small Steps Toward Goals      29

Steering Toward Goals      32

     Adapting Goals      34

     Adapting Tactics      36

The Real Purpose of Goals Is to Foster Conversations      36

Losing the Plot and Finding It Again      37

What to Watch For      38

Moving Forward      39

 

Chapter 3: Becoming (More) Effective      41

Value Is Essential, but Frequency Matters Too      42

     It Is Not Delivery Speed That Is Important; It Is Feedback Speed      44

     While Focusing on Speed, Do Not Lose Sight of Value      45

Speed Is Not Enough; Teams Must Also Be Effective      46

Too Many Things at Once      48

Where Should Teams Start?      50

Beware the Efficiency Trap      51

Balancing Speed and Effectiveness      52

Cutting Corners: Sometimes Necessary, Sometimes Fatal      53

What to Watch For      55

Moving Forward      56

 

Chapter 4: Managing and Overcoming Expectations      59

People Who Largely Seek to Validate Expectations Are Often Disappointed      60

Transforming “Bad News” into Just “News”     61

     Letting Go of Expectations      64

     Expectations Can Be Stubbornly Held      65

Replacing “Meeting Expectations” with “Seeking Goals”      68

Stakeholders and Transparency      69

How to Define and Categorize Stakeholders      70

Escaping the “Echo Chamber”      73

Diverse Perspectives Counter “Groupthink”      76

What to Watch For      77

Moving Forward      78

 

Chapter 5: Separating the Signal from the Noise      81

Identifying Signals      82

Interpreting Evidence from Signals      84

Dampening the Noise      85

Bias Creates Noise      88

The Customer Is Not Always Right      90

Objectifying Narratives      92

Getting Unstuck      94

Making Decisions      96

What to Watch For      97

Moving Forward      98

 

Chapter 6: Applying EBM at the Product Level      99

Mind the (Satisfaction) Gap      100

When You Find Yourself in a Hole, Stop Digging      101

Not All Ideas Are Valuable      103

Replacing False Certainty with Experimentation      104

     Using Strategic Goal Mapping to Form Experiments      106

     Products Are Vehicles for Running Experiments About Value      108

Sometimes Teams Lose the Thread and Need a Reminder      110

Running Experiments and Measuring Results      111

     Inspecting Results and Adapting Next Steps      114

Customer Experience Is Not Always About More Features      117

Sometimes You Must Say No      120

What to Watch For      121

Moving Forward      122

 

Chapter 7: Applying EBM at the Portfolio Level      123

Maximizing Output Does Not Maximize Value      124

     The Problems Start with Misfocused Goals      126

     Revenue and Profit Are Important, But They Are Poor Goals      127

Reconnecting Investments with Customer Outcomes      128

     You Can't Have It All at Once      129

     How to Measure Outcomes      130

     You Do Not Know What You Do Not Know      131

How to Choose Between Bets      132

     Make Small Bets      133

     Kill Bad Ideas as Quickly as Possible      135

     Propose Experiments      138

     Evaluate Proposals      139

     Make Sure All the Cards Are on the Table      140

     Keep Teams Intact, and Bring Them Work      140

     Separating Budgeting from Funding      141

     Run Experiments      141

     Evaluate Progress Toward Goals      141

What to Watch For      144

Moving Forward      145

 

Chapter 8: Applying EBM at the Organizational Level      147

Why Change Efforts Fail      148

To Initiate Change, Give People a “Why”      149

Assess Where the Organization Is Today      150

     Empowerment Takes Trust, Transparency, and Time      152

     Benefits of Empowering Teams      153

     Measuring Empowerment      154

     Growing Empowerment      155

Inverting the Organization to Support Empowerment      156

     Reducing Context Switching      157

     Growing Self-Sufficient Teams      158

     Aligning Supporting Departments      160

Setting and Adapting Goals      163

     Most Goals Can—and Should—Change      163

What to Watch For      164

Moving Forward      165

 

Index      167