“Rhythm – a strong, regular repeated pattern of movement or sound.” Oxford English Dictionary
We all live by rhythms in our lives. I don’t mean musical rhythms, but patterns that give our life order and predictability. Like the tides that come in and out, or the sun that rises every morning, we have certain “givens” in our lives that define our routines.
Every organisation has a rhythm – a series of recurring events built up over time that define the pace and culture of the place. After two decades of working at both brand-name corporates and digital start-ups, I think the challenge to inject a sustainable digital rhythm into a brand born from physical goods can’t be underestimated. It isn’t impossible, but you need to change the core rhythm of the place to make it really work. It is a bit like taking an orchestra that has always played Bach and asking them to switch to hip-hop – it can’t be done overnight and it needs to build on the core identity of the place. The real struggle for these corporations is that while energy is being spent trying to get their orchestra to adjust to new beats, digital native businesses are racing ahead grabbing market share.
Take this quiz – True or False
- “We have adopted agile, therefore we are a digital business.”
- “We have good processes, therefore we are a digital business”
- “We have a responsive site, APIs, metadata, a data warehouse, good SEO, good social media presence, therefore we are a digital business.”
My answers.
1. “We have adopted agile, therefore we are a digital business.” False
Agile is a methodology that helps development teams create new products. The method (some call it a movement) was born by engineers and gives teams who are building digital products a good framework to use for iterative development. But, it doesn’t address the wider picture of stakeholders and operations people outside the core development team.
Agile, in itself, doesn’t prescribe how to get buy-in from stakeholders and those who will have to work with the product day-in and day-out – such as customer service, editorial, sales, marketing teams and customers. Product managers act as the lynchpin between these groups and the development teams. But product managers can only succeed if they have active engagement, support and commitment from all members of the organisation. This isn’t easy when big parts of the organisation are trying to keep a legacy product, that is still paying their wage, alive and well.
2. “We have good processes, therefore we are a digital business.” False
I am an advocate of well-orchestrated rhythms over well-intentioned processes. I think too many check-lists, forms and templates can kill a rhythm. A good rhythm will get people dancing. A checklist will get people yawning. How many people get excited about filling out forms, surveys, and checklists?
I’m not saying that processes and forms should be abandoned – far from it. But they need to be in harmony with the “music” so to speak. It needs to be clear to the person who has to author any forms or use standard templates why it is important and what latitude he or she has in the responses. Like the product itself, there should only be “minimum viable process” in moving something from conception to delivery to adoption.
For a product manager, this means thinking in terms of the investment story. The two key questions that any good product manager has to answer is…
- Why should the company invest time, money and resources on solving this problem? What impact will this have our ecosystem? Those questions needs to be answered again and again as the team gets closer to understanding the shape, scope and audience of a product.
- Is the product, now launched, giving us benefits expected and are there any unintended consequences? Again this needs to be asked at regular intervals.
All other considerations are secondary. Processes that help tell that story are welcome, ones that hinder or constrain that story should be abandoned.
3. “We have a responsive site, APIs, metadata, a data warehouse, good SEO, good social media presence, therefore we are a digital business.” Maybe
These are the technical foundations for a good digital business, but it doesn’t mean that you are a digital business. It could mean that you have a digital arm, siloed from the rest of the business, that has all the tools of the trade.
I think you are a digital business when the majority of your revenue and profits come from your digital presence. That is the acid test. As long as most of a company’s costs are being paid for by physical products, there isn’t sufficient internal incentive to change a company’s rhythm.