collaboration

The Story behind “Stories That Move Mountains”

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There is a new book available that I’d like to let everyone know about.  It is called “Stories That Move Mountains.”  I wrote this book with two fantastic professionals Martin Sykes and Mark D. West.  In this post, I’m going to talk about how this book came to be, and why I felt so strongly about it that I invested two years of my life in bringing it to market.

First off, if you are interested in buying the book, and we think you will be, you can click on the image of the cover to take you straight to our “buy the book” page on the book’s sister site, StoriesThatMoveMountains.com. 

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Edward Tufte and Me

My journey into “rich information” began, as it did many others, when I heard about a book called “Visual Explanations” written by Edward Tufte.  It was 1997, and the dot-coms were booming.  I had left Microsoft to stake a claim in the modern gold rush.  I was working as a development manager in a quickly growing web development company in downtown Seattle called Fine.com International. (see note) 

On my team was a talented young web developer named Brian Poel who told me about a seminar he attended hosted by Tufte.  In the seminar, Tufte taught about creating visual designs that inform, not just impress.  Brian showed me the materials and I ended up reading Tufte’s book myself  (Another bit of evidence to support the old saying: a manager is only as good as the smart people that surround him).

Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and NarrativeAt fine.com, we used the techniques described by Tufte in every way we could.  His guidance led to design ideas that fed into the Nasdaq.com web site, the Marriott hotels web site, and many more.  I learned the power of structuring information in a way that makes it easy to consume, elegant to perceive, and compelling to read. 

It would  be many years before I needed these techniques myself.  That didn’t really start until I became a management consultant.  The year was 2001, and the dot-com that I co-founded after leaving fine, Acadio, had failed along with tens of thousands of other young start-ups.  I had moved to a consulting company called Sierra Systems Group (headquartered out of Vancouver British Columbia) to make ends meet.  For the most part, I focused on technology activities, but I had to ramp up my communication skills.  So I started using some of the rich information techniques that I learned from Tufte in our marketing and sales materials.  I cannot say that I was particularly good at it.

I Can’t Draw… Seriously

I really can’t.  Not even stick figures.  Which is odd, because both of my parents, my eldest brother, and my daughter, are all gifted artists.  Not that I can’t create useful diagrams… I had trained in high school as a draftsman.  Give me a T-square, two triangles, a nice drawing board, and couple of sheets of vellum and I can draw a complete set of floor plans for your house (well… I could in 1980… maybe not so much now).  But freehand, I am hopeless. 

Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations that Inform, Motivate, and Inspire (Business Skills) (English and English Edition)So when I tried to create a nice visual representation, and failed, I thought it was because of my lack of skill as an artist. I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Regardless, the best I could do, at the time, was to follow the guidance in “Beyond Bullet Points” and create PowerPoint presentations that were compelling using emotive photographs.  They were nice, but they weren’t the things I wanted to create.

 

Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic

Turns out, I was part of movement of sorts.  A growing number of people had taken up the challenge of creating interesting visual representations of complex information.  The “infographic” movement had started, and companies were springing up here and there to provide clear, simple, and compelling explanations of complex information.  On the other side of the world, in the UK, an enterprise architect named Martin Sykes had begun his own journey, around the same time as I had.  Big difference: he didn’t give up.

If you ever get a chance to meet Martin, you will enjoy his company immensely, just as I do.  Martin is clever, thoughtful, easy-going, and funny.  He’s a systems-thinker and an excellent speaker.  Martin was also influenced by Tufte, but he continued on to find many other authors and designers who were publishing and writing about this new way of doing things.  Martin started creating his own single page explanations of otherwise complex information, building up his skills and collecting techniques along the way.  And, Martin took the time to learn how to draw.  That didn’t hurt.

I met Martin Sykes through a mutual friend, Gabriel Morgan.  Gabriel had joined the Enterprise Architecture team in Microsoft IT just a few months after I did, but he came to the practice from his work as a consultant using Microsoft Motion (later renamed Microsoft Services Business Architecture or MSBA).  Gabriel had met Martin a few times, and had seen some of the visualizations that Martin used to explain business architecture.   Gabriel worked with Martin to set up a workshop, for our team, to learn some of these skills.  And in late October of 2007, Martin flew to Redmond and spent a week teaching us how to “tell stories” using a series of visual metaphors.  At the time, he called them “Big Pictures” but that thinking evolved and we now refer to these creations as “visual stories”.

Can we do this again?

imageDuring Martin’s workshop, each of us created a visual representation of some idea or story we wanted to tell.  Martin had distilled his own personal techniques into a FIVE DAY COURSE on creating visual stories.  He walked us through ample examples, storytelling exercises, and a fairly simple process that he used to create visual stories.  I created two visual stories in that class, one of which Martin still uses today… as an example of what NOT to do in a visual story!

The five day class happened once. Over the next few years Martin did four one day classes at different companies where he had been asked specifically to do more following a series of 90-minute presentations he had done at internal and external conferences. But the ideas were not “catching fire”, in large part because Martin was just happy to use what he was learning and focus on his day job of making change happen.

 

Meanwhile, I kept using his materials, and referred often to the binder full of PowerPoint slides that he provided.  I practiced a few times more, and then stumbled into success.  I created a visual story to explain an enterprise architecture roadmap to the Vice President of Operations.  I presented the one page visual, and the meeting went fairly well.  We got the sponsorship we needed.  What I didn’t discover until later: that same Vice President took my one-page presentation and gave it to Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft and one of the most powerful businessmen in the world, to explain how Microsoft’s Operations Division was attacking a key problem within the company.

That single page told a story.  It was not a bunch of data.  It was not a bunch of clever graphics.  There was no hand-drawn art.  It was a careful construction created using Martin’s techniques, and it changed my career.  I was promoted and over time, I was leading a team.  I wanted to bring Martin back to our group to do another one of these fantastic workshops, so that more of us could learn his techniques.  I was willing to teach it myself if I had to.

A book is born

My goal was to put on a workshop for the entire Enterprise Architecture team within Microsoft IT.  I reached out to Martin and asked if he had ever updated those PowerPoint slides.  Thus began a series of meetings that morphed into a book proposal.  We planned to create something visually interesting, to use our own ideas to tell the story of how use these ideas.  Martin reached out to a friend of his, Mark West, a talented artist and designer that had worked with Martin on creating some of his training materials.  Mark was familiar with the process because Mark had lived it.  And he can draw.   (I’m understating rather wildly.  Mark has spent time as an art instructor at a college in Seattle, in addition to running his own design firm.  Mark is a change agent who masquerades as a very cool designer.)

During those early days, we simplified and clarified the process of creating a visual story, and we called it “CAST.”  CAST is an acronym for “Content, Audience, Story, Tell” which are the four stages of the process.  We created a simple “canvas” that anyone can use.  During this past year, Martin has put together a couple of workshops in other parts of the company and has used them to work out the bugs.  We call this canvas  the “CAST model” and I have completely adopted it.  It’s like a simple visual checklist that helps you remember and iterate through the steps to creating a visual story.

We still haven’t done that workshop for Microsoft IT.  We decided to create a book that we could both use to teach anyone we wanted.  We decided to focus on using these skills to simplify the process itself, and to make it easy for folks who, like me, are not artists.  Note: in a professional setting, on projects that are funded to create compelling information, I strongly recommend enlisting the help of a visual designer… but for your own use, to explain your own information, you can follow the CAST process to do the trick.  Just like I did.

The long slog

Anyone who walks the road from idea to a complete book knows that it can be a difficult and time-consuming effort.  We had our moments when each of us thought that this whole thing was nuts.  After all, there were so many good books already on business storytelling and good design principles.  Couldn’t someone just read those books? 

They could, but what I got from Martin, in that workshop in 2007, was not in any of those books.  Martin didn’t change my career with a collection of art tricks and bits from a dozen books.  What Martin gave me, and what we wanted to give our readers, is a simple step-by-step process that a non-designer could follow to create a USEFUL and COMPELLING single-page visualization.  Not high art.  High value.

We knew we had something unique… something that none of the other books and authors and workshops had built.  We had something that the non-artists among us could use to be compelling and useful.  We had a book about change, and making change happen.  We had a book about stories, and using those stories to drive big changes, huge changes… using those stories to MOVE MOUNTAINS.

Most of the text was written between November of 2011 and May of 2012.  Most of the artwork that infuses this book, on every single page, was created in the spring and summer of 2012.  The book is compelling and visually beautiful.  We treated every single pair of pages as a two-page layout, and each was hand constructed by Mark West.  Our publisher, Wiley and Sons, created a new team, with about twice the normal book staff, just to assemble it.  Wiley knew we had something unique, and they were willing to take a real risk on it.  Our team at Wiley did a fantastic job.  I’ve been a co-author before, but never had an experience anything like this one.  The level of communication, collaboration, and shared iterative design was simply unprecedented.  The Wiley team moved a mountain as well. 

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Sample of a two-page spread used in the book Stories That Move Mountains

What you will get out of this book

In case it’s not clear already, we want this book to be practical and useful.  This is NOT an art book, even though there is one chapter that focuses on detailed visual elements like fonts, colors and layouts.  This is not a typical business book either.  There are no long expositions on financials or sales strategy or performance measurement.  This is a book about change, and it is for ANYONE that wants to influence another person to lead a change. 

What you will get out of this book is a step-by-step process to follow that results in a visual story.  We walk you through numerous examples, showing how we use the CAST stages to create visual stories and there is a final chapter that literally goes end-to-end in creating another visual story.  We provide advice, and hugely valuable nuggets from a dozen other books that fill out shelves in mine and Martin’s and Mark’s libraries. 

imageOur references chapter is also a simple, clear, layout that focuses on a small and manageable list of excellent books for you to use if you want to “go deep” on any part of the process (you won’t have to, but just in case you want to).  We are also committed to continuing the conversation on the book sister-site http://StoriesThatMoveMountains.com where all three of us blog and upload resources (including a downloadable CAST model template, like the one on the right).  You can also find us on Facebook for a more socially-oriented conversation (www.facebook.com/storiesthatmovemountains) as well.

It should come as no surprise that both Martin and I are Enterprise Architects.  The biggest value we offer our clients is helping them to build the case for change.  But change can be anything.  You could be changing a business, or a team, or a family, or even yourself.  You can create a visual story for nearly any situation where you want people to remember, and connect, with your case for change.

Yep, it still works

I’ll give you an interesting example.  I am currently volunteering my time to a professional organization called the “Center for the Advancement of the Enterprise Architecture Profession” (or CAEAP, pronounced “seep”).  Through that organization, I have been assigned, by CAEAP, to work with another professional organization that they partner with: the “Federation of Enterprise Architecture Professional Organizations” (or FEAPO, pronounced “FEE-poe”).  I’m working on creating an industry-wide perspective on Enterprise Architecture.  I went to a FEAPO meeting just last weekend where I was working with people, in person, that I’ve only met one time before.  They were all aware of my project, of course, but it was not, and is not, their primary focus.  I couldn’t be sure that they remembered anything from the last time we’d met, in February.  I decided to use a visual story to frame what would have otherwise been a boring status update. 

imageOn the plane flight from Seattle to Fort Lauderdale (five hours in coach, on a red-eye overnight flight), I filled out the CAST model and created the entire presentation.  (I had no internet access on the plane, so the graphic images I used were all on my PC hard drive).  The moment I landed, I drove to FedEx Kinkos, printed the visual story on nice, sturdy, 11×17 paper, and drove straight to the 8:30am meeting.  When it came time to present, I handed out the sheets and we turned away from our screens and spoke to each other instead.

Later that evening, as we sat eating dinner at an upscale Surf-and-Turf restaurant, they were reciting back to me the humorous bits of the story that I told.  The story stuck.  It was memorable.  As a result, everyone has a good idea of what I need from them, and what they need from me, because we had a simple compelling visual story to work from.  (I’ll see if I can get a link to that document made available so that you, gentle reader, can see it.  A thumbnail is on the right).

So yes, I think you should buy this book.  I’d say that even if I didn’t help write it, but I did.  This is our way of saying: it’s time to change the world.  This is our mountain to move.  Join us.  The world needs change agents to be effective.  You are a change agent.  If we help you become just 5% more effective, what hurdles will you overcome?  What innovations will you introduce?  What problems will you solve? 

These are interesting times. 

“Anti-Collaboration and the Hungry-Hippo Secret Society.”

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“Anti-Collaboration and the Hungry-Hippo Secret Society.”

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Trapped inside their plastic bubble-land, committed forever to competing for access to worthless inedible coloured plastic baubles that represent to them a measure of status, members of the hungry-hippo secret-society collaborate in isolation from the world around them, waiting for their plastic environments to be exhalted as wonderful contributions to the mission, the project, the policy, the business requirements, the strategy, or whatever it is these self-professed dippy maven-muppets believe they are achieving without consultation, without reflection, and without harnessing the power and good intentions of the collective.

Actionable’s Blog.

Hungry Hippo

Anti-Collaboration and the Hungry-Hippo Secret-Society

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Trapped inside their plastic bubble-land, committed forever to competing for access to worthless inedible coloured plastic baubles that represent to them a measure of status, members of the hungry-hippo secret-society collaborate in isolation from the world around them, waiting for their plastic environments to be exhalted as wonderful contributions to the mission, the project, the […]

Conversational Antipatterns on Message Boards

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Architects argue.  I have, over the past year, spent a good bit of time on LinkedIn Message boards.  I’ve watched a lot of people argue.  I’ve learned a great deal about Enterprise Architecture, and a few things about myself, as I’ve compared notes with individuals who have different perspectives and motivations. 

That said, some patterns have emerged, good and bad, for conversing with other architects on these message boards.  In the spirit of the GOF Design Patterns, and the subsequent work on Antipatterns, I’d like to point out some of the antipatterns I’ve noticed repeatedly on the boards, and in each case, these antipatterns cause some level of anxiety.  This is borne out by observing the responses, where frustration is often explicit.

There are nearly always two roles in this kind of argument.  The provocateur ( a person who makes a statement that is challenging or innovative ) and the responder ( a person who responds in a way that triggers the antipattern behavior ).  

Conversational Antipatterns

  1. Don’t misrepresent me with my own words
  2. The problem with your general message is this specific use of a word
  3. If you don’t understand, you should read my published papers
  4. My argument has been validated with my years of experience, so you must be wrong
  5. My certification means more than you think it means
  6. You are using “my” terminology wrong

 

Antipattern 1: Don’t misrepresent me with my own words

In this antipattern, the provocateur will make a statement that appears to conflict with something that they said previously or said in another discussion.  If the responder points out the conflict, especially if done with a direct quote, the provocateur get’s offended and becomes defensive.  Conversation ends.

How to avoid: People are inconsistent but believe that they are quite consistent.  If a provocateur appears to be inconsistent, the responder should simply ask for follow up details.  Don’t pounce in public.  Find out what their real underlying thinking is, rather than picking at words.  If they remain inconsistent, the responder should reach out in private.  In the private message, the responder should point out the text from the other thread and ASK them to explain how these two positions work together. 

How to address: The forum moderator should look at the value of the conversation.  Has the provocateur added useful thinking?  Has the responder?  Normally, the answer to both questions is “yes.” If so, send a warning message to both asking them to assume positive intent and consider the emotional context of the other.

Antipattern 2: The problem with your general message is this specific use of a word

In this antipattern, the provocateur will make a general statement designed to express a “grand idea.”  The  responder will either agree or disagree (usually the latter) but then point out that a particular word, in the response, was used incorrectly.  Perhaps they said “process” when they should have said “capability.”  Perhaps they said “activity” when they should have said “process, activity, and practice.”  Perhaps they said “business” when they should have said “enterprise.”

How to avoid: The responder should start by stating whether they agree with the main idea, or not.  If they disagree with the main idea, offer a reason “why” that has NOTHING to do with the detailed wording.  Take the time to think about what the big idea is, and follow up to understand it, before focusing on a word.  Disregarding a “big idea” because you disagree with a minor distinction in the wording is frustrating to everyone on the community, and stifles the sharing of ideas. 

When you get to the point where you understand the big idea, the responder can offer a suggestion to improve the understanding the idea.  For example, “I agree with your core concept.  It appears that we have similar experiences and I find your description innovative.  It may help, as you go forward to share this idea, if you are careful about the use of the word “zyzzix” because I understand that word to be a synonym of “fryzzam.”  I understand that you make a distinction between these terms, but not all of your audience may agree that these two terms are distinct.  You may find it easier to reach people like me if you use the term “golozarat” instead to refer to this muddy concept.”

How to address: Either of the participants can pull back and “get to the point” by reframing the “grand idea” and ask if the other person agrees with a simple “yes” or “no” answer.  If no answer is forthcoming, no learning is happening.  If you are asked to consider a new big idea, take some time before you respond to think about that idea.  Be willing to learn and grow, not just pontificate.  My father used to say, “sometimes, the best way to open your mind is to close your mouth.”  It’s good advice.

Antipattern 3: If you don’t understand, you should read my published papers

In this antipattern, the provocateur will make a specific statement that appears well thought out, but may be innovative or controversial.  When the responder asks questions for follow-up, the provocateur replies “I explained this in rich detail in my book” or “please read my paper in the Journal of EA Innovation, September 2005, page 14.”  This generates frustration on the part of the readers who cannot hear the full discussion because some of it exists in a book or article that they may not have access to.

How to avoid: First off, if you are an author, you must realize that publishing a paper or book does not give you the right to force others to read it before speaking with you.  You will never be out of the “business” of educating others in your ideas.  Get used to it.  Getting defensive is counterproductive.

To avoid creating frustration, it is OK to point others to your work, but then ALSO offer a summary of what you said in that work and be willing to continue to discuss the problem in the forum.

How to address: When this happens to you, it is probably safe to assume that the author you are speaking with is looking for some validation.  Compliment him or her, and ask them to provide a summary of their thoughts from the book or article so that progress can continue.  If you are a moderator, and one provocateur does this a lot, or gets defensive when others DON’T read their articles, remind them privately of this antipattern.  If they persist, suspend them from the board for 30 days.

Antipattern 4: My argument has been validated with my years of experience, so you must be wrong

In this antipattern, the provocateur will make a statement that appears to be too directive or too specific for others to understand or agree with. If the responder challenges the position, the provocateur claims that their “years of experience” have found their position to be true.  The provocateur remains unbending, and repeatedly argues against any alternatives.

How to avoid: This is tough to avoid.  People form their own mental models of reality and when challenged, they can listen to alternatives, or defend their model.  The problem with listening to alternatives is that it is risky.  They may discover that a past “success” was not as successful as it may have been.  In the words of my friend Jack, “their ears are filled with their ego.”

Often the best way to avoid the problem is to model good behavior in your own contributions.  When posting an opinion, lead with “in my opinion” or “in my experience.”  Use phrases like “I’ve found this to be true in my situation,” and then ask others to share “their situation.”  That way, when someone does respond with a statement like “you are wrong,” you can follow up with a moderation message, like “I believe that our experiences may be different in this respect. I’m glad that you shared your experience.  Can you tell me how we should reconcile our two different sets of experiences to come to a mutual understanding?”

How to address: Usually the best way around this is to respond as above, asking for a common understanding.  However, if that doesn’t work (and it often will fail), then you have no leverage to “require” someone to change their opinion.  Ask if it is OK for the two of you to “agree to disagree” and move on.  There is no point in discussing the same issue over and over.

Antipattern 5: My certification means more than you think it means

In this antipattern, the provocateur will state that a concept that he or she is fond of, applies to the discussion at hand.  When the responder questions the concept, the provocateur responds that they are “certified” or otherwise demonstrably educated, and their certification tells them to use that concept.  Upon inspection, it is clear to all that the certification in question does not cover the same scope as the provocateur claims it does.  An example would be an IT person, certified in the development of software interfaces called “SOA Services,” claiming an understanding of business services or customer services.  Another example would be a person with substantial training in financial risk management claiming that all business decisions in the enterprise begin, and end, from a risk management viewpoint.

How to avoid: As with most of these antipatterns, we have a situation where the ego of one or more of the people may be getting in the way of open communication.  The “certified” individual may, in fact, have broader experience than their certification prepares them for.  However, there is often a predisposition, among those that have been formally trained in a field, to believe that the training describes the world “as it is” rather than the world “as it should be.”  More often than not, the training is simply out of sync with the reality on the ground.

As a result, of the “ego factor,” this antipattern is somewhat inevitable.  It will occur more in some areas than in others.  Unfortunately, in the EA field, it occurs often because of the explosion of certifications and the lack of consistency among the field participants.

How to address: One good way that I’ve found to address this problem is to point out your own experiences, using words that reflect that you are not dictating some universal truth but rather the experiences you’ve actually had.  Use first names of people (replace the actual first names, to protect your friends), and explain how they used the terms and concepts of the space.  Then describe how you worked in that situation.  Try to use successful scenarios to lend credibility to your position.  You want to help them to see that their position may not be universally true.  You don’t want to prove them to be wrong, because that would simply be your ego trying to stomp on theirs.  There are names for this kind of ego-vs-ego behavior.  Avoid it.  It hurts your credibility to engage in it.

Antipattern 6: You are using “my” terminology wrong

In this antipattern, the provocateur will state that a concept has one, and only one, meaning.  The responder suggests an alternate meaning, and the provocateur responds defensively, citing sources for their definition of the term.  This is where you see a “dictionary grudge match” where someone cites a definition from an authoritative source, and another person responds with either ridicule of the source or, even better, another authoritative source with a conflicting definition.

How to avoid: Firstly, if someone questions your use of a word, don’t immediately go hunting for a reference definition.  In other words, model good behavior.  Admit that your definition, regardless of how well sourced it is, was created by other (fallible) people with a particular context in mind. It is entirely possible that the provocateur also has a different context than you, and that the author of the definition that you are painstakingly citing would have created a different definition if he or she had the same context as the provocateur.

Of course, if someone asks you for a reference, it is perfectly appropriate to give one on a message board.  In writing a research paper, you would assume that the reader wants to know your sources, and you would always provide them, but for conversation on a message board, you should wait to be asked.

Secondly, don’t be “possessive” about the terms that you use.  Your openness will reduce the likelihood that others will be possessive about the terms that they use.  If someone wants to use a synonym, agree. 

How to address: One good way that I’ve found to address this problem is to ask the provocateur for their help in explaining their terminology to you.  Most people will be flattered by the request, and will go out of their way to describe what their use of a term means.  If you respond by “reframing” their statement, using a smattering of your own terminology, then you will quickly discover whether that person is interested in conversing with a shared set of terms, or if the conversation can only proceed by acquiescing to their use of language.  If the latter, it becomes a judgment call, on your part, about whether you should continue to interact at all.  It is better to end a discussion on a good note than to fight on forever over the meanings of words.

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That’s my list.  I’m sure that there may be more, but these are the ones that crop up often enough for me to want to write about them.  I hope this is helpful for folks who want to discuss things on message boards, like LinkedIn, without becoming entwined in endless arguments.

Experience Mapping vs Heavy BRUF

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After spending three months alone in a windowless-but-air-conditioned office, the business analyst emerged with a two-hundred-page document of business, functional, and non-functional requirements.  A short time later, her contract concluded, the document was discarded because it was useless — it was useless and it was very expensive. As part of understanding how to balance precision […]

Social Collaboration vs. Quiet Contemplation

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Roughly 20-30% of the population is acknowledged introverts and it’s no secret that IT has its fair share. One of the more famous is Steve Wozniak who dreamt up the first Apple computer in solitude. It’s highly unlikely that this quantum leap of imagination that changed the world would have bubbled to the surface in a boisterous brainstorming session. That’s because introverts like Wozniak excel in low-key environments and crave quiet to create, as Susan […]

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How Enterprise Architects can cope with Opportunistic Failure

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You may not think that Failure is a desired outcome, and on the surface, there are some negative connotations to failure.  It just sounds “bad” for a team to fail.  However, there are times when a manager will INTENTIONALLY fail in a goal.  Let’s look at the scenario where a manager may choose to fail, and see whether EA has a role in either preventing that failure, or facilitating it.

What is Opportunistic Failure?

Does your organization manage by objectives and scorecards?  Scorecards and metrics are frequently used management tools, especially in medium and large organizations.  In a Manage-By-Objective (MBO) organization, a senior leader is not told “how” to do something, but rather a negotiation takes places that results in the development of a measurable objective.  The term “measurable objective,” used here, is a well-defined idea.  It is specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART).  A measurable objective is a description of the results that a senior manager is expected to achieve.  In BMM terms, the objective is the “ends” while the senior leader is expected to figure out the “means.”  In business architecture parlance, the objective describes the “what” while the senior leader is expected to figure out the “how.”

Now, in many situations, a senior leader has to rely on other groups to perform, in some way, in order for him to achieve his measurable objectives.  This is quite common.  In fact, I’d say that the vast majority of senior-level objectives require some kind of collaboration between his or her people, and the people who work in other parts of the organization (or other organizations). 

For a small percentage of those dependencies, there may be competition between the senior leader’s organization and some other group, and that is where opportunistic failure comes in.

The scenario works like this: 

Senior leader has an empowered team.  They can deliver on 30 capabilities.  Someone from outside his or her organization, perhaps an enterprise architect, points out that one of those capabilities is overlapping.  Let’s say it is the “Product Shipment Tracking” capability.  The EA instructs the senior leader to “take a dependency” on another department (logistics in this case) for that.  The senior leader disagrees in principle because he has people who do a good job of that capability, and he doesn’t want to take the dependency.  However, he cannot convince other leaders that he should continue to perform the “product shipment tracking” capability in his own team. 

So he contacts the other department (logistics) and sets up an intentionally dysfunctional relationship.  After some time, the relationship fails.  Senior leader goes to his manager and says “we tried that, and it didn’t work, so I’m going to do it my way.”  No one objects, and his team gets to keep the capability.

In effect, the senior leader felt it was in her own best interest to fight the rationale for “taking a dependency,” but instead of fighting head-on, s/he pretends to cooperate, sabotages the relationship, and then gets the desired result when the effort fails.  This is called “opportunistic failure.” 

Thoughts on Opportunistic Failure

Opportunistic failure may work in the favor of anyone, even an Enterprise Architect.  However, as an EA, I’ve most often seen it used by business leaders to insure that they are NOT going to be asked to comply with the advice of Enterprise Architecture, even when it makes sense from an organizational and/or financial standpoint. 

In addition, one of the basic assumptions of EA is that we can apply a small amount of pressure to key points of change to induce large impacts.  That assumption collapses in the face of opportunistic failure.  Organizations can be very resistant to change, and this is one of the ways in which that resistance manifests. 

Therefore, while EA could benefit from EA, I’ll primarily discuss ways to address the potential for a business leader to use operational failure to work against the best interests of the enterprise.

  1. Get senior visibility. – If a business leader is tempted to use opportunistic failure to resist good advice, get someone who is two or more levels higher than that leader to buy in to the recommended approach.  This radically reduces the possibility that the business leader will take the risk to his or her career that this kind of failure may pose.
  2. Get the underlying managers in that senior manager’s team on board, and even better, get them to agree to the specific measures of progress that demonstrate success.  This creates a kind of “organizational momentum” that even senior leaders have a difficult time resisting.
  3. Work to insure that EA maintains a good relationship with the business party that will come up short if the initiative does fail.  That way, they feel that you’ve remained on their side, and will call on you to escalate the issue if it arises.
  4. Play the game – look for things to trade off with.  If the senior manager is willing to risk opportunistic failure, you may be able to swing them over to supporting the initiative if you can trade off something else that they want… perhaps letting another, less important, concern slide for a year.  

 

Conclusion

For non-EAs reading this post: EA is not always political… but sometimes it is.  Failing to recognize the politics will make you into an ineffective EA.  On the other hand, being prepared for the politics will not make you effective either… it will just remove an obstacle to effectiveness. 

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