Does your team have have “forest goals” or “tree goals”?

This week, Jeff Sutherland revisits the roots of Scrum and expands on why trust is so important to teamwork.

He said…

“With trust based on real unity and cohesion, Boyd's Observe, Orient, Decide, Act feedback loop goes into an implicit state where there is Observe, Orient, and Decisions becomes implicit. The team goes into motion before the leader can give a command. Like in martial arts the Sensei is moving before he even sees the motion of the attacker using a sixth sense. This is the kind of trust a Dream Team has. You know it when you see it, but few software teams have that level of trust.”

I have seen my teams in this state, but they don’t always stay there.

Such a state is only driven by a “sense of urgency”—a sense is created only when…

1. Clear goals exist—not just “tree goals”, but “forest goals”. Your team must see how the little tasks they’ve committed to delivering add to the “big picture”.
2. The leaders are practicing what they are preaching. Truth, Trust, and Transparency have to be seen more-often than heard.

In that environment, the type of synergy Jeff describes is a no-brainer.

Incidentally, I have a meeting tomorrow to further to try and solidify my company’s “forest goals”. Wish me luck!

Comments

[HL Arledge]

Steve

You are so right!

I love the "north star" analogy. I've heard people use "over-arching goal" but that seems more like a buzz phrase. Your approach is more visual to someone trying to see the big picture.

Thanks for commenting!

-HL

[Steve Mitchell]

Hi H.L.

Great reminder. I find that some execs/leaders, especially in larger companies, can lose their ability to communicate those "forest goals" downwards. Or company politics can dilute the goals and cause confusion.

It's difficult to understate how important clearly defined and well communicated goals are to a software team. Besides simply being good leadership, they're necessary to provide the "north star" to developers who have a thousand trade-off decisions to make during the course of a project.