I inherited the "Engineering Operations" department that embodied dramatically different operational teams: DevOps SRE, Data, IT (TechOps), Platform, CRM/ERP operations, and QA. I was excited at the possibilities the group could accomplish. However, each team thought and acted in silos and struggled to externally communicate value. At the same time, how do I create a cohesive "north star"?
Finding cohesion
It started with creating an inventory of each team's customer. This process naturally led to building an inventory of customer journeys. Which made it easy to identify the value my teams provided and create KPI's to monitor progress.
With all these in place, we now could pivot from the operational mindset to a product mindset.
At the same time, I identified there are three ways EVERY team creates value/scale: TIME, COST, and RISK. This created a common language for communication and prioritization.
With all the pieces in place, we could now execute...
North star
With a common way to communicate, prioritize, and high degree of team autonomy, we could truly hit out stride. We started 2023 with a focus on dropping our vendor spend by 20%. This meant our prioritization looked like this:
- Handle all critical vulnerabilities immediately (unplanned work)
- #1: Focus on where we can reduce costs (but be smart about the consequences)
- #2: Where can we make the biggest improvement to our customers
- #1: Focus on where we can reduce costs (but be smart about the consequences)
- #2: Where can we make the biggest improvement to our customers
With vendor spending going well (but not done) interest in lowering the company risk exposure bubbled up. This meant our prioritization changed to:
- Handle all critical vulnerabilities immediately (unplanned work)
- #1: Focus on where we can lower our overall risk exposure to a target
- #2: Where can we reduce costs further
- #1: Focus on where we can lower our overall risk exposure to a target
- #2: Where can we reduce costs further
In only three months, we mitigated three long-standing vulnerabilities, hitting our targets for the year.
Note: "Product north stars" are often tied to building feature X, Y and Z. I dislike this approach because it provides zero ability to pivot to a different solution along the way. I prefer having metrics, which don't have to change if feature AA is the better play.