Should we add new features or improve the usability and discoverability of existing features?
Some years ago, there was a disagreement within the company where I was working. The Test Manager and Customer Support Manager wanted to focus on learning about customers’ problems and solving them by improving the discoverability and usability of features. In contrast, the Product Owner wanted to engage customers by creating new features.
I was recently introduced to a Thinking Process that would have helped us resolve the disagreement by reading Deming and Goldratt by Dr. Domenico Lepore and Oded Cohen with the Profound Book Club. I created these diagrams to help me understand the process described in the book.
The Thinking Process tools visualise the cause-effect relationships and are part of Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints.
The first step is to describe the disagreement in a Core Problem Cloud. The view of the Product Owner is that to have A we must have B and, to have B we must have D. From the point of view of the Test Manager and Customer Support Manager to have A we must have C. The example Core Problem Cloud below describes the disagreement:
“The Core Problem Cloud is sufficient, in many cases, to get consensus on the problem”[1] If this is not the case you can construct a full Current Reality Tree.
Below is a Current Reality Tree that describes the disagreement. From the view of the Test Manager and Customer Support Manager D contains the Undesirable Effects and D1 represents the corresponding desirable effect. From the view of the Product Owner D1 contains the Undesirable Effects and D represents the corresponding desirable effect. A is the common goal.
A Future Reality Tree can be created to design and control the implementation of a solution to the disagreement. The starting point for the creation of the Future Reality Tree is the Core Problem Cloud[2]. D* leads to the achievement of both B and C. The Future Reality Tree resolves the disagreement by learning about customers.
I learned a great deal from creating the diagrams. I went through quite a few iterations of each diagram. Whenever I could understand the problem better I updated one of the diagrams. Visualising the issues helped me understand them. I also felt that if I had worked collaboratively on the diagrams I would have gained a better understanding of the disagreement and learned how to resolve it.
If you have a disagreement in your team creating these diagrams will help you better understand the system and learn how to resolve the problem.
I hope this high-level overview of Goldratt’s Thinking Processes encourages you to explore further.
I’d also like to thank Dr. Domenico Lepore for joining a discussion at the Profound Book Club and Rob Park for organising the book club.
References:
[1] Deming and Goldratt by Dr. Domenico Lepore and Oded Cohen (1999, p123)
[2] Deming and Goldratt by Dr. Domenico Lepore and Oded Cohen (1999, p134)
Additional Resources:
Podcast:
Profound – Dr Deming – S2 E8 – Domenico Lepore – Deming and Goldratt
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