Links option, you high level, you need to allow a group of
people to do successful. It's about a limit.
What is the vision? And then you try to align, what
is the MVP? The minimum viable product?
What's that? Very first step.
When you think about a minimum viable product, you need to
think about it from three angles, the business angle the
users, and then the engineers getting those three perspectives
together. So they align and the site.
Okay. What is that?
Very first step. Hey everyone.
My name is Henry Surya be Robin. And you're listening to the
tekhelet journal. The show will be bringing you
the greatest technical leaders practitioners and thought
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Hi, everyone. Another Goes by.
And I'm back here again with a new episode of the tekhelet
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every week. But today's episode.
I am happy to share my conversation with Paulo.
Caroli Paulo is a principal consultant at thoughtworks
co-founder of agile, Brazil and the author of the bestseller,
lean Inception, and the reason fun retrospectives.
I learn about lean Inception. When I used to work at
thoughtworks, and during my time there, I found that lead
Inception is one of the key techniques that thoughtworks
uses in many Klein engagements to bring everyone.
Together come up with a successful product vision and
create alignment between multiple stakeholders involved.
And hence. Most of the projects that
started with an exception will most likely result in a
successful project delivery in this episode Paulo share with me
the history of thought Works Inception.
How it evolved into the current Lynn Inception and its
connection With The Lean Startup movement.
He also explain the similarities and differences between Lynn
Inception and the other well-known design Sprint,
including the interesting story on how both techniques were
developed almost at the same time and why they ended up quite
similar, but different in a few strategic ways Paulo.
Also shared an example, how to come up with a good product
Vision, the concept of MVP canvas and the importance of
Shifting, our mindset project mindset to product mindset in
the second half of our conversation.
Paolo then shared his latest contribution, fun
retrospectives, which brings together many different
techniques to conduct effective. Retrospectives.
He explained. The reasoning behind the fund
techniques. Share some of those fun
activities that we all can try in our next retrospectives,
including the interesting token of appreciation technique.
He also emphasized the importance of psychological
safety and facilitation skills in a good retrospective.
And if you are interested to find out, My examples of fun
retrospectives that you can try. You can check them out on his
website at fundraiser respectives.com.
I hope you will enjoy this episode and if you like it,
consider helping the show by living it a rating review or
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tracks. Welcome back to a new episode of
the package. You know, today.
I have a special guest. His name is Paulo Carly.
He's a colleague of mine last time in thought works.
So he wrote a book called lean inception.
For those of you who are not aware of, it is actually one of
the technique that works use still doing I guess for all
customers before they start a project.
They will conduct a little Inception and understand what
the products come up with the agreement about how to build the
products, how to put your products until you come up with
an agreement of what kind of MVP that you want to build.
It is a very good technique. And so I'd love to have a talk
today with Paulo to understand further, but Linens, option and
also to share with all of you Sao, Paulo.
Welcome to the show. Thanks for agreeing for this.
Thank you. Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here. Sao, Paulo.
Maybe to introduce yourself in the beginning.
Maybe telling about your career Journey or highlights and
turning points. Sure.
So I'm Paulo Caroli. I am Brazilian.
I was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, but I went through the
software engineering school. I did a master in Brazil, and
then I went to Silicon Valley those back in the day, so, The
late 90s, there was a whole fish current of developer.
I used to go to the Hoops, La conférence a big conference in
us and fell in love with Silicon Valley.
And one of the trips to the conference event acidic
environment, like, oh, I want to leave here.
So I moved to Silicon Valley, spent eight years there.
I worked on quite a few startups when I got in West, which was in
2000 because of object-oriented is total can't pack which wrote
the book extreme program explaining and then I met him in
2000 and then I start following those things.
That they were called the child. It was one of the reasons that I
went to work for fought works because a lot of those folks
quite a few of those went to worked for fought work.
So I did the same when I joined falters.
I always had that Lee startup thing on me like a real like
that side, but I also like the Jets on side and the pot works.
You should work for big clients. Then I started traveling a lot,
serve organizations and move to Asia in Europe, back to Brazil
from a developer. I start being a facilitator.
One thing I realized I was pretty good.
Getting people together through a lie about something.
You should the beginning of the project was a very important
part fast for a developer who work for six months, one year.
And you don't see your product, like be successful.
It was really bad. And then I start getting
involved from the beginning phase, what's called an
exception demo. Well, what can we do to better
align, so we have a great success with our product, our
team. And then from 2011 forward, I
start to concentrate those in Saturn's to be more lean lean,
asked likely shorter and more. Active.
Imagine that tunnel with such. I will try to be more effective
now 2011, like 10 years after the German faster and we could
be even better before. The beginning of the bridge was
an exception. But was like, oh, let's
understand all the user stories and then installs and laugh.
And I realised, thanks, God. I used to live in Silicon Valley
and they was following the movements from there.
We gave a name to to Lean Startup and we should start with
the MVP. That's why the Inception it's
leave because of in start-up. It was a big shift on my career
and I think I'm fought works in the projects that I was working.
Working nearby. That's why I lease option.
Start spreading the word around the globe in Brazil.
It's a big thing because it was living there thing from 2011,
2019, which was really good. And because I had three kids in
Brazil. During those years.
I was not traveling abroad to a lot.
So it's doing a lot of cleaning Setters for precision
components. So in Brazil, like everybody's
doing exceptional days, 2019 and moved to Europe.
And now, if the remote will, I start doing morning settings all
over the Globe, remotely. Now, I think that the word
spread and faster, so maybe if you can share, what is Lynn
Inception in high level summary for people who are not aware of
it? Sure.
Links option, high level. You need to allow a group of
people to do successful. That's it.
It's about a limit. Usually, go to a company
Corporation or product. It doesn't matter.
There is efficient. Hey, that's amazing.
That's a visual who we are. All going to be rich, very
successful. Yeah, and then what and then you
need to align is this strategy like what's the path?
Traditionally, we would go with the stratagems like a long train
wreck. We need to do these and these
and that and that we realize the woods, not like that.
So only sexual life that group of people.
Okay? What is the vision?
And then we try to align, what is the aim to be the minimum
viable product? So we are okay with division
would support have division. But what's that very first step.
It's very hard to lie about that very first step because when
think about a minimum viable product, you need to think about
it, from three. The business angle, which is
super important business behind it.
It doesn't matter if you're a small comparable countries, that
business the users because you always build something for
someone to use and like, you want the users to love it and
then the engineers because you need to do it right when you put
those three people together to figure out what is that minimum.
It's not that easy because each one has different perspective
and they want different things. So nice about it, getting those
three perspectives together. So they align and the site.
Okay, what is that? Very first step and you And it's
also a revolution since it was created before, right?
Like you mentioned the portion of the lean so it becomes mean
Inception. So, how do you actually combine
this Lean Startup movement with this Inception?
And how does this relate to design?
Thinking, to me? It sounds little bit similar.
Yeah. No, it's definitely has a lot of
influence from. So, I think you have to put this
in perspective. I was in u.s.
From 2000 to 2008. So I was there in the beginning
of th eye movement. So, How you transpose, chime
movement, but I wasn't developed.
So I had the pain off own Sprouts, not successful because
like a build something, and no one's using.
This is from 2000-2008 before that on the 90s.
I was object oriented person. So I like object-oriented
analysis, design implementation, all the things that used to have
like years ago. But from that, there was
something interesting because we used to have Inception phase
Factor original created. Uml.
Another thing they create was the rational unified process,
which was a child like the industry.
Is moving towards which are more agile and group was one of those
first met adults that show them today.
If you look at it, like, oh, it was so slow.
But that I'm stressed. And then they named that
beginning of the understanding of what we need to do on a
project as an exception. So when I went to us and we
start with the achaia movement. Now, we start doing more like a
fat giant sections, where we understand everything we need to
do for that project. We used to use the word closure.
You the map it to user stories for it.
Another colleague of ours just that he wrote abuser start
mapping. That's from that period where we
try to understand everything, the users, their Journey.
The business needs and remember everything to user stories.
And we do this huge release planning with all the Springs.
Those three, two, one, two, three, even estimate.
Everything. And have story point and has
burned up for own. We're going to deliver 300 story
points and have that release plan for one year, nowadays
looking back. I'm like, wow, I was crazy to do
that. Why I'm saying this because like
in 2011, they start that movement is Silicon Valley.
They're like hey, I don't care about doing a charm not we
cannot do the product for one year to see if it makes sense to
the user. Let's do something.
The minimum thing we can do to validate if you're going in a
good direction and that's the entropy.
So the link separate is a shift from Latin understand overall
project to. Yeah, that's talked about the
vision and then figure out how do we get started?
So the focus is not more on real easy planning of the, all the
user Stories, the focus, like, okay.
How do we Start when you talk about them a bit.
Now the folks not that much on what we're all these stars
behind it. It's more like where you find
the day. What I Potter for today, you
know, let's talk about business, the user experience.
And then the Aging your side. What is the minimum we can do to
validate your going? A good direction, of course
after the except sure if you are a software delivery team, you
break it, you choose. Sorry, but now became much
easier because it's much smaller and if Parts aligned, so that's
the shift only exceptions like bringing that.
Start up thinking as a centerpiece in throat come like
a center result of that alignment.
And of course as a set which 2011 design thinking as a
movement something that was getting more and more popular
throughout I myself and I'm really good facilitator, besides
being a software engineer that like process and Improvement, a
really good facilitator. So I brought all of my
facilitation skills on cultural a group of people from different
perspectives. You need a lot of eye skills,
like handling both States, the cluster and do a fishbowl.
Kind of stuff. The book has two sides.
Once like a, let's talk about them to be, it's very important.
We should focus on it. The sequence of activities, they
work. Well really well, so if you want
to figure out, okay, how shall I group of people do them DP?
You can do. Like, I did took me like four or
five years to figure out a good segments of activities that went
well, and I was running cetera, like, almost every week or you
follow that recipe, that you're going to figure out how we
follow these. We achieve great results,
attend. So that's the link steps
techniques of the Activities and the sequence and why MVP with
some tips and ideas on, how do you facilitate it?
How about the design thinking? Because design thinking, I mean,
we also have this print design, right?
Sounds like it's also similar time frame where you envision.
What do you want to build? And you have an MVP at the end
of it. So, what's the difference here,
design, Sprint. In Inception, right?
I find it fascinating, Jake a nap.
He was also in Silicon Valley, right?
I think he's a little younger than me.
I was more of a developer who was more of a designer.
You have the difference there, but he was leaving Silicon
Valley. We went through similar
companies. He was feeling the same pain
that I was trans like, damn it. I need to align these people to
figure out what they're going to do.
Even as a poisonous. I was a consultant at Google for
one year. The same time that he was there
as well. We almost work on the same thing
was very interesting. If I remember in front, of
course, like both of us were not famous about like remember
others designed to do, which I like his style.
I could see is a good facilitator, Google shoot.
So welcome different teams. What?
Happening is in common, both of us, use design thinking both
States and okay, how to align people.
The Double Diamond open the options and then you close some
options. Both of us, have that same Style
Both of Us. Came to the conclusion that like
do know what it is a week. It is a five-day thing.
I have time sometime whether I would make it or sometimes would
make it shorter. If re shorter.
You don't have time to have a brainstorm.
It's more like if you try to do something in science, printer
Inception one day. Probably someone telling that's
what I want to go figure. If you have an a week, you can
open the options and then make a decision process.
That then the thing is, like, from the time, I was working on
Google went to India and they were always running status for
UK. And then I went to Brazil.
So I was not following what he was doing and he was not
following what I was doing Special, that I was writing a
lot in Portuguese, and we came to a lot of similarities based
on practical experience. But the place where we do
virtue, where we do difference. And of course, this has to do
for backgrounds, he has that week about the design team.
So he is Is more focus on the design.
So get that people that we figure out the design, they will
have some options for the designer.
Put in front of users is going to get like five users.
For example, they will test and then they'll decide.
Okay. We have one Winnie prototype,
but based on a design on interface at the end result.
It's a prototype, it comes from the design world.
I come from this doctor. I come from my childhood where
we used to have the user story, that's tells you exactly what's
the file its going to bring, how I'm going to implement and Even
testing the face. I don't want that as an entity
as I named the be, I want to be very clear.
What do I want to validate? But I don't want to specify the
how so it's a big difference to know.
If at the end of the week, we have a prototype and use the
prototype for something bigger. That's design.
Sprint on the link section. You are like a group of people
of the vision and you have planned for them to be but you
do not have a prototype, use the product for something bigger
MVPs, a plan for something small that first.
Step. That's a major difference.
Is that strategic difference? If you think, you know, we're
going to know the big picture. If you are read a line about
what you want Zayn Springs, if you wanna lie about what we
want. How do we start link section or
you combine both and then it's amazing.
So then my next question will be, how often do you run?
This Linens option? Is it like if you have a new
product only or is it? Like, even if you have a
product, you can continuously run these inceptions from time
to time, maybe quarterly or something like that.
What's the Frequency to run? This kind of inception?
First? I want to bring another person
which I really admire his work. Marty cake Mark Kagan writes a
lot and talks a lot about product teams that you should
have a product team and everybody's together.
So, in the perfect world, if you have a very strong product team,
everybody's together the whole time, they're doing continuous
Discovery. They are line.
It is the same team. You probably don't need the
inside from because the team's aligned, they are doing
Discovery and they are also developed the product.
They know what they need to do. Do just do it continuously, but
it's very rare to find those people and sometimes difficult
the company to structured organization with product.
Image. Majority of organizations are go
through, even though I love those stories about product
teams. That's what we should Aspire
for. But sometimes we're not there
and then we need somehow to get some people together chow line.
Okay, what we're going to do. What is the vision?
Sometimes, you do have some scope, we're going on.
So some people that they discover get together some
business people that maybe they're not.
Of the protein, do not get the whole time and then they change
years. Unfortunately, they are not
sitting together with the project team the whole time.
Then you need an exception. So when there is a, uh, moment,
new feature coming or important thing, that we need to align,
that's perfect for an inset from if the group get aligned and it
is the same group. Probably don't need another
interception because the red line your line about the visual
and the MVP not about continuously working or people
teach a little bit, like it's normal work.
It's not an insect. Anymore.
If the pivot, it's a huge change of Direction.
Then you need to lie again, then you do an exception.
It's not like continues. Deliver course, content
Discovery. It is.
Okay. Let me try and get together
online. So if I understand correctly is
that every time you have probably a potential difference
in terms of vision and Alignment, you will conduct this
Lynn Inception. In order to bring everybody
towards the same vision and towards the same environment in
order to build the same kind of understanding of MVP or in terms
of product. Is that a correct?
Understanding perfect words, I never knew.
Either alya real life people about Visual and density.
That's a cultural exception and it's also critical to have these
three types of people from Business, from The yes, and also
from users. I will say it's critical to have
those three perspectives because sometimes you go to a start-up
and you do not have a lot of people because they're shocked
that even though you don't have the three kinds of people you
want to invite the three perspectives in the room.
So I did run inside for a very smart entrepreneur.
The second day where me trick About the personas and the
journeys. He dressed differently broadcast
seems as if he were the Persona. Like, I thought that amazing
because he was inviting the perspective of the users.
Of course, there's more to start up, right?
Big companies is different because imp accomplice, you
wanna invite the people that represent those two respects and
you do have sometimes more than one people.
And then the chance, like okay, there are people who are how
they align in the startup invited perspective, even though
you do not have people, or I don't have all the engineer
seen, But You Wanna invite a date?
Perspective each of them. So maybe if you can walk through
in terms of high level. What is typical agenda of Al in
Inception? Sure.
First. I like to think about it from
outside in first. What is the goal of the week?
What is the vision? And what is the MVP?
So if that's the goal of the week before that week, you need
to understand why I'm bringing the group together to talk about
the vision. So problem there was a night
versus a lot. We component that use a lot of
project and not old style but more traditional approach
Korean. And finance oriented pro has a
portfolio of projects and send one of the initial hate is a
really good project and I'm like, okay got an approval.
And then after you get approval, maybe the during sex, if you're
a company doing like Discovery, a lot of Discovery going on and
looks like by comparing those five different doctors.
This one's a winner. Let's do an Insight on that one.
Show due to different sites. Our customers search.
You have a lot of customer, research and data and user
research. Oh cool.
Looks like we have something here.
Call for a link sadness. There's something that happened
before an exception or even a design Sprint.
That's the design Sprint and prototype of big thing.
Okay. Now, how do we start even test a
few users but like you use now in each week about entropy and
really validated. So, put in the hands of the user
only invited down to test the Prototype, which is amazing, but
let's not figure out what is the entropy that we're going to put
in our hands. So call for a new Snapdragon.
So I talk to about what happens before they go off the week
because there is that go of the week the week.
Need to start for kickoff. What's the key?
You tell the story of what happened before?
Hey, we're here like 10 15 people together because this is
the top priority project for a company.
Here's the differing wax research.
Here's the data from the business request, like whatever
information have that's shared on the kickoff, and then the
main sponsor, whoever that person is probably make a
beautiful speech. Hey, we're here.
It's going to be amazing, the best team ever.
The best Enterprise, the best product, whatever, so kickoff
speech from the main sponsor information of why we're here.
Why did you call for these links?
74. Disa initiative and three.
You should myself or whoever's the facilitator to bring the
importance of? Hey, you know, what's in
start-up. Do you know what?
Same CPU will talk about the big Vision, but at the end of the
week, you're going to have X zp to get.
There were going to follow this agenda.
So you need to bring that Master on the agenda.
It's a very important message that you need to bring on the
cuff. Why is that?
Because you want to bring it up like hey, whoever stay in the
room. I want respect from the business
from the users and from the engineer.
Together is not like the old world where someone okay, here
is the business. Requirement document.
Here's the data from the users. Here are the engineers.
They need to separate meetings and then through all those
documents. Let's hire consultancy figure
out and tell me what I should do.
No. No, we don't work like this
anymore. Yeah, let's talk about this and
a half price. Listen, let's talk about user.
Of course. Listen, let's talk about
engineers are very resistant. And then together, we are going
to figure out what Stanley P. It's not external thing that
some opala karate. He's really smart draw, all the
information in and at the end you bring the plan for them.
No, not at all. In fact, there is no such thing
as a perfect plan for MVP. The perfect thing is like,
people are lying about that plan and they'll make the plan of
success. They'll make the trend of
success, not because they followed the plan because they
are aligned, they know what they want, and they will pivot
together, especially work with them with me with people a lot.
So it's not about the plan is about to be aligned.
So that strong message is on the cuff.
Now that I have this, Drug message.
Also on the cough you tell. Okay, Friday, 3:00 p.m.
We're going to have a showcase, a review of the week.
Well, it's going to be nowadays in Euro, whatever to use past
year. It's going to be on the walls
here everything we did but we're going to show you the final
outcome, which is what is the vision?
What is the plan for them? So I invite you stakeholder,
that would love to be here. But I do know you don't have
time to be here because you have other things going on.
I invite you to come back here Friday at 3 p.m.
And we have a conversation or it over sessions.
At the presentation because I want to hear your input as well
to see if whatever plan we come up with.
It's a good plan. So that's the beginning and the
end of the week. Now.
I'm going to go day by day. They won.
It's more about understanding more about the business context.
We rely invalidated business context to use that product
vision statement from Jeffrey Moore.
What is this product what? It's not and if possible bring a
product perspective, right? We need to make that shift from
projects to product. So that's why I use the product
Vision to know whatever your To keep that as a box.
It is a box of product to deliver something.
What is the name that goes in the box?
If you love the product template statement, everybody together,
it's different than the statement that comes from the
product manager of the product owner.
The business owner know, we are going to kill it together
because we're together here in the were all understood, what we
want out of this. So first thing, a lot of things
about everybody's together. It's a little bit more from the
business perspective, right? They chew it's a little bit more
from the user perspective. Let's share the information we
have about on the personas. If you had user research this
deeper in the room together and together we shared information.
It's not a presentation together.
We are drawing, who do we believe are the personas that we
think will be backed by the singular beauty of where the
personas you should talk about before making decisions.
And then the Chinese were the user Journeys.
That those personas go to solve their problems today.
That's it. It's like they want.
Respect from the business that you perspective from the
personas. They create a freeze of product
attribute. It's a feature brainstorm.
Okay. Now that we look at the business
goals, the Persona needs, which feature, should we build to
fulfill those business goals, and to help achieve those
personas needs? If you look at the journeys, it
might be easier to find the feature ideas, but it might look
at the Persona needs at the business goes and that's it.
It's a feature brainstorming. You have some boundaries around
it. You're not starting with a free
children, instrument is very dangerous.
Sometimes you get the engineers and they won't start from the
future brainstorming from the technical perspective.
No, no, like when you put the future brainstormed, it's hard
for me to say because I'm a engineer myself, but When you do
the future, brainstorm on day three, they're more boundaries
around it. So even if you come up with an
amazing technique, right? You like it has a mistaken idea
to. So some of the, probably
different abuser of the users. It's important to have those
followers. Otherwise, we going to glued
myself on that as Engineers many times, you think about the
solutions before think about the pros.
So when it is on day three, it makes you think it's more about
the problem than the solution and then it, we also start
making a review for each of those feature.
And that's That's its. I'm thinking again, you're
opening the office writer than fish grease from your opening.
We're not think about them to pee yet.
So it's a brainstorm and then they trained before you start to
make a review of all those features.
We understand that an isolated. It's like small Lego bricks.
We know the vision. We don't know what Stanley be
but to talk about possible species of those rigs.
Those features and the review. Each one of them individually
from the perspective of the business, the users and the
technology and then what you do on day, five in the morning, He
is. Okay.
Now that we talk about often visual look back at those user
Journeys, and answer the question, how to improve their
lives with our features. And once we start answering this
question, you have a sequencer in which order should we work on
those features to fulfill those needs?
But wait a second. We are nailing section and now
is the time of this strategy, right?
So in all the information, how do you think big?
But start small invalidate and then this goes on the sequencer
and usually the sequencer people go.
Oh, I think he is the MVP, but people need to talk about.
What is the next increment? What do you think will come
after? That?
It's also part of the strategy even though we will focus on
them to be the following week, the business trip.
Especially we need a strategy. That's not only the first step.
Your first lap is also influenced by what we think we
have enough. And then from that you go to the
MVP canvas, which goes in Greater detail about that very
first step. And that's the final day they
five and showcase. So if I can summarize probably
from the beginning, you have the kickoff from the project
sponsor. I think the right mind set, the
right goal for everybody within this Inception workshop.
And then, on day one, you talked about the business, you set up
the vision, what the product is all about, and set a vision that
everybody agrees, they to is about user perspective.
Understand sona's, user Journeys involved.
They tree is about feature brainstorming what this product
would have in terms of capabilities and features.
And The crucial thing is about setting the boundaries not to
come up with the features without Vision, but coming up
from Vision into the future. Yes, and then they for you do
some kind of review from the tag from the ux, from the business
perspective. And then on day 5, you agree.
What kind of MVP that you want to build, including the sequence
of the pictures that you want to build and then the last
deliverable will be the MVP conference.
Exactly. Well, when your party thing
about the tree is, if your product, it's a little more
technical data, we might get a little more technical as well.
It's okay, when you do the freaky brainstorm, as engineer
know that, sometimes we need to get into some technical details.
It's Okay, don't get into too much detail because you don't
know yet. What's 1050?
Because our first level just for us to understand those those
blocks. And all those features make
sense in terms of vision. You mentioned, there's a
template that you came up with. So maybe if you can share
because to me Vision sounds a little bit vague right about so
many things but what is a good template for division?
The first thing you realize is Visions way, I'm not talk about
the organization of these. You think this is very
important. I'm talk more about that.
Product vision and I like the word product.
It's not a project, the product, even if you are within a project
scope, you need to figure out and building something.
What is this? Sometimes people are not very
sure. We're building at Microsoft's,
know it. What are you building
imaginative is in a box. Where is the box?
Who are you building for? What needs do these people have?
What is different from what you have today?
What is the main thing that in your beauty is bringing to this
people. So Jeffrey Moore jeffandmarie is
amazing writer. I really liked his work on his
book, Crossing the cows. He was really good on the early
adopters on that graph that he makes like, oh, you have their
doctors and then you need to go to the early majority.
It's hard. That's where the links are for
kind of fit. We kind of already agree that 20
think we have a solution to do you have that on the kickoff?
How's the tell me? What is the product?
So he has a product Vision template.
So the template I use is from Jeffrey's more, which is amazing
Reddit in go, his book from 1991.
The template goes like this for, that's what I find.
It's amazing. I don't even think it's
grammatically. Correct.
In English. You start the sentence for who
is this thing that you come up with?
Who were they nice that these people have for, who, the, what
is the name of the thing? Your beauty?
Give it a name and then, like, a product means, any more like
that box needs a name. What is that box?
It's a mobile app. It's a collection of apis.
It's a data mesh. What is it?
Because sometimes we confuse it. Product is a project.
It's a team. What is it?
That were the main characteristic of that thing or
those people today, without that boxer, put in front of them, our
product? What is the main differentiator?
I find that template amazing because it forces you to think
about all those perspectives to start with few start from there.
So I'm not going from the organization's Vision
perspective. I'm not going for all the teams
aligned on that box because later on at the end of the week,
I want to even a smaller boxes, not even a bottle.
The MGP, but I need to start from somewhere, but I'm not
going to start from somewhere. You Joe.
What's the organization of these old Tesla of issues to make this
a better world through the environmental?
Yes, talk about the product creation, put this in
perspective, the shift from product to product as a product.
That's why I like Market Kagan because you talk about product
team, just like data as a product.
Like, that's the thing like we need to think about those
solutions that were building as a product.
And Denise have started. What is the product Vision?
Really be can give an Example because just now when you
describe it, it's a little bit like in pieces, right?
So maybe if you can take one product example, and come up
with the hypothetical vision for us to understand better, if
that's okay. I can also view it from the
clients because great majority of the Inception of the clients,
right? With disclosure their product.
We just I'll give you a from the book for people that like
playing soccer who need to find other colleagues to play.
After work hours, the finder soccer.
Colleagues at is a mobile app that helps connect people to
play soccer after work hours or at lunch time unlike well
getting fat because it did not find the people or like sending
messages on generic WhatsApp group and place.
Good groups. Our rad will connect you to
people nearby that have the same problem and it should play that
game. At the end of the day.
That's a product Creation. In fact, it did happen in one of
the Inception but was for a community Brazil longer.
They create a mobile app for that, and of course, it's only
the vision, right? We haven't talked about them.
You can anything, but it get us started.
Get it started as the business perspective to users and the
technical respect and you should go through all the actives and a
week at the end of the week, you have for them to pee.
Thanks for giving the illustration.
So, the other thing that I find, very interesting from Lynn
Inception is the concept of this MVP canvas.
Maybe you can share a bit. What is MVP canvas, starts
running exceptions. Also, and 11 and culture works
in Brazil. We have Potter Porto Alegre,
where I was working at 200 people is a city in the South.
We had for example, and portraits received to other
cities and I was invited to run all the exceptions tell great.
Majority of them the teams that I would run the reception
support legs in the South majority of pressure from some
pole will travel some power on and Inception and those things
would come back to Porto Alegre where I was living and working.
They would go better to the teams that were in receiving
even though I was running the same insect.
And I was like why is this happened?
And then I realized that the weeks after the Inception I
would walk by the name of the item select.
Hey, how's that? And we be doing how are you
validating them to be? Because we only set to talk
about the building blocks of time, the p.m.
Like, okay. Now you're getting close like
how you're releasing. Are you open it to all a
specific group of you? For your courage to hold clients
database? Which part of the journey,
sorry, validating with them the because on except a couple of
turns, but then people is very full.
Right? And I would go like Like, what
is the expected result for the MVP?
Not for the product? Okay, that and would be that
you're releasing. Now.
What do you want? I want everybody to play soccer
or like that one. What do I measure on that?
Empty P. That MP has very few features.
What are the metrics that are plugged in to verify it?
So I realized that I was making questions that I should have
left them written down during the link section.
Even though I would make all those questions, the Inception
do just vanish after that, because the teams would go the
next week and build user stories and The backlog of work, and
that's it. And then you go and delivery
mode and you do lose a little bit of that strategy.
So I decide to bring this as a canvas on the link section and
then all the things would come some dealing exception.
So, when they go to their table and you sit together and have to
know the sequencer in the backlog of work next to it, they
would have them campus. All they know is that bridge of
okay, why we're building these and how we're going to solve the
results or how you're going to get information.
So then we can converse has seven blocks one.
What is the impurity proposal? Which very narrow focus on them
that they write the proposal of these MVPs to validate if
people, from that neighborhood, Who download that something
really small? It's documented.
Personas. Okay.
For all the persons over, talk only about amateur soccer
players from neighbor or not, talk about them, or
professional, the people that own soccer fields, that want to
make some money renting, then maybe the coaches.
No. No, this one's only for amateur
soccer players, not all over Brazil.
Only that one neighborhood where I have one soccer.
That I could rent, the user Journeys.
What are the user Journeys that their impact on this MVP?
Well, this empathy. It's only finding other people
to play with you. We cannot share the view.
You cannot do this and that, and that you cannot create a
tournament. It's only that one.
It's very specific or talk about entropy.
Okay, what are the features? Our workout is that we need to
get it solved on this empty p 0. We need to make the good of form
work, but when I connect with WhatsApp, we want to be calling
people, so, okay. We need at least integration
with Google form WhatsApp. You Detailed the work.
Which did what to expect result. Well, damn it.
Okay. Are going to make this work.
Oh, we should hire Edwards on Google for that neighborhood.
Okay, cool. So let's hire like $200 on that
words. So, $200 with these, we can buy
100,000, click to raise to expect that at least 10% of
those will click. And from those of the least, and
these number of downloads that and schedule match, qu you in a
second, but we should have the any passive they play the match.
We should contact them, or Going to contact them know, we figure
out. It's a message know, we can call
them so that you people. Okay, we expect then it has to
be at least this number. So, you know the Matrix and once
you know all of this, what is the cost and schedule?
Oh Constance guys. Well, 200 bucks for the Google
ads. Well, we need the team.
No, don't need the team. We can do this ourselves.
Only three weeks we can get this done.
And after it's done. We need at least one month
collecting data to decide the next steps.
That's called cause a schedule. That's it.
That's your chemist. It's very narrow Focus or them.
Yeah, if I can probably try to summarize so there are seven
different key things in the MVP canvas.
The first is was the MVP all about maybe the vision of that
particular MVP is not the whole product, definitely and then who
are the personas involved and what kind of musician is that?
You will build as part of that and BP the features that you
committed to build for this MVP. And then what is the expected
results or what are the expected results that you want to achieve
with? Mdp, and then you will have to
find out some metrics in order to validate those results.
And then the last point is about cost and schedule like how much
cause you need to build and how long the time required to build
the product. So Paula, I know that you also
wrote another book called fund retrospectives, right?
So the word fun here is very interesting because many people
know about retrospectives, but why specifically fun
retrospectives? Yeah.
In fact, like I said, I have to live like this link.
Second favorite respected. It's just my Things are and both
of them. Put people at the center, right?
As a lot of facilitation, but like putting people at the
center of the dough, making decisions or improving the way
they work with respects to influenced by scrum as it was
really smart. When they said a you should
always have a respect in your streets.
You should have one retrospective per week because
sometimes don't you scramble should have retrospect per week.
Is that continuous Improvement moment?
There. Were you get together for team?
And say, hey, let's listen to each other and see, how can we
be more effective as a group. It's a moment to listen to each
other. To look for process improvements
but a lot of the tests should going to people improvements.
It's almost like if you go to therapy every week is that one
hour of your therapy, but a group thing for that reason,
many times you get the group together.
We work on software delivery. The glass is always half full.
It's never. The glass is filled know.
It's always half full and for some reason, you get people
together my reservations, that have a tendency to focus on the
- thing we have a tennis jaw say, oh, look the glass
half-full. We never celebrate the glasses.
We all said the glass half-empty not have food.
So I put the word there for two reasons.
Once hey, you should celebrate the achievements and teams when
they're happy to deliver more. So if you celebrate that, the
glass is half, who is? Much better than if you keep on
saying, what do you do to fill up the other half?
So, the funder one is strike one to remember, to celebrate the
achievements and to make it a light environment because we do
need to talk. To both problems as well.
It is important, but in order to be effective and bring difficult
conversations, it needs to be a friendly environment.
So before getting to, hey, Henry, how are you doing?
I need to talk about a problem like, hello.
This is the context, let Heaven sighs.
Let's laugh. Let's relax.
Let's talk about the prime directive and then maybe not,
maybe we're going to bring the problem.
But like now, the environments is more of a light heart.
So that is why the front showed up there and also our colleague,
Pat Kwa. We were together for a few years
and he also is really good, the retrospect.
He also has a book on retrospective and when I was
selecting the name of the book and the website and I like, they
pat, I need the name. What should I call it?
Then? It'll follow you because make
the retrospectives more fun, even though we talk about
serious stuff like whenever you're facilitate you make it
fun, make it light. I'm not go far with respect to
thank you and then it became Our perspectives.
Thanks for sharing the story. So you mentioned a couple of
things, very interesting. The first thing is about
celebration, right? So what are some of the probably
examples of activities that you can do to come up with this
celebration within a team? Once very simple, look, you go
to retrospect. Usually, like split the born
into two or three areas or for when you split the board into
Aries named one of theirs. Thank you and then say, hey on
here, please write down. Thank you, notes jerk.
Colleagues write down. Why do you want to thank them
for usual respects about a period?
Like thank you or named one of theirs accomplishment.
That's right down the accomplishments we did during
this period. That super simple like I'm not
even tell you exactly what retrospect activities but
whatever retrospective style Gore activity is Select think
about F1 error for thing for acknowledgement for
accomplishment as you asked for it people want, right?
I think it's human nature. We will talk about the problems
if you're going. About the problems have one area
and say thank you another one, active super simple.
This was more fun presidential, bring a box of chocolate.
And then you named it, a token of appreciation then introduce
it as a facilitator. Hey, once part of the respective
we are going to appreciate each other.
So I have a chocolate box here. Let's please form a circle.
I'm going to start. I wanna appreciate Henry for
that day. All day.
Sprint planning. He was really helpful to me.
When he brought these lights and show done, all the things we did
last week. So Henry, thank you.
And then, I walk too, hairy for box of chocolate.
Harry, get one chocolate and now you appreciate someone else.
And then you give him that person a chocolate and verbally.
Tell why you're doing it. It's amazing.
The result going face-to-face. Thank each other.
In front of the group that boost the group, more of, its amazing.
Simple. Some box office equipment.
I just feel bad because until now I didn't find remote
automated like you could say, thank you, but like Chocolate
taste, how do we make it happen to remotely do?
How would you do it remotely? Because these days.
Everyone is remote, right? Yeah.
I did that one remote, like you made a circle and we're all new
reference like to put the people's Avatar in circle.
And then it's time like one person would walk with a flower
to do with other one and verbalize white season.
The flour and the Little Flower would stay there in person.
I prefer because I like chocolate.
It is something when you receive a compliment and right after
that to have a taste of chocolate in your mouth.
That's a Amazing home because it's like, you get the
government and then your body also gets a cobbler, a nice
tasty. It's a really good thing, but
when we need to verbalize, at least I know we removed.
One thing I did like I did a token of appreciation.
I organized the liver chocolate for everybody.
On the meeting. So they all received the
package, I said, they are going to receive a fax.
Please. Don't open before the
retrospective. You can only eat.
When you receive the appreciation.
It was cool. It work out.
Yeah, the one I've experienced before is somebody giving the
Post. It's just a posted with maybe a
few message. Like, why you think the person.
But I can understand that giving it with maybe token of
appreciation, like chocolate or flowers or something tangible.
At least it also gives some meaning for you to actually
enjoy after that actual message. So, definitely, I think for
people, maybe you can try these kind of fun activities, giving a
token of appreciation not just like oh States or letters.
That will be a good experiment. I guess.
Another thing is about light environment, right?
I think many people try to make retrospective relief.
Really lightweight, but many times.
Of course, we talk about problems, right?
How to actually be conscious on making this more lightweight,
that's a really good question because we will talk about
promise, right? We need to talk about problems
and respect it. Is that when you first talked
about problems, so how do you handle it?
First the context you have to be very clear about the conductor.
If the team is on a sad moment like the energy is low, do not
make a context that invites for problem.
Be cautious about the concept to respect the Super happy.
It's achieving cool. Let's focus on the problems.
The team morale is really low. Let's have a great respect to
boost morale. So that's part of the contest
when you decide what is the concept of the respect, we need
to be aware of the moment of the team.
Don't choose a context to dig further into problems if the
tomorrow it's really low. So first we are with respect to
boost morale and then the next one you did for the into
problems. So, the context is very
important. After the context, do run a
short Energizer. That's a five-minute - to you.
You need to break the ice special.
Now remote. Because before, when we were
presential, you leave the table, you leave the desk and then
together, you walk through a room and then as you walk in the
room, ok, I'm going to respect. It's similar to when you walk to
the psychologists often. Like okay.
I'm physically walking here to a place where I'm going to open my
heart rate with respect for the same with work of the room.
Now, it's just another meeting. So you need to break the ice if
possible. Then there has to be fast.
It's not oh, we're going to have an activity, which they want to.
Playing here. Now.
We cannot do this. It needs to be fast like five
minutes and if possible for subtle message related to what
you want to do from it. If you're having problems of
self-organizing I Energizer that has a subtle message.
From self-organizing teams, you have problems with the user
stories Energizer that has a subtle message about a which
communicate not only rely on recent documents.
So five energized for several measures that do help you with
the contest. So you had the context, you have
the energizing, the prime directive, where your mind Beep.
Beep about hey, it's not a blind fast.
But the prime directive after I energize it gets easier because
then Bryce laughs and then you read the sentence.
Okay, the environment already better.
Let's get remind about the prime directive.
And then after that a checking, what is the checking?
It's a quick. Let me feel how people are
feeling right now in the context of this retrospective.
And then check-ins, like people kind of open their heart or how
safe they are feeling before you move on to dig in further.
If the checking results show you yes, move forward because people
are safe, talk about it. Then you go and dig into the
problem and then you do your filtering and then a check out.
But before you dig into the problem, have you realized like
how many steps you went through and as a facilitator?
If you have signals very clear. No am I guess that context the
Energizer explodes group or not? Laughing at all the checking
those people are not safe. Don't go in that direction.
If we per individual red flags, like I cannot talk.
About crabs. I cannot talk about problems and
you go talk about problem. Guess what's going to happen?
They're going to explode, don't do it.
If there's a red flag, what you do?
It's like it's a pivot inside the retrospective Hoops, safety
slow. We should talk about.
What should you do to increase safety and not talk about what's
the problem with continuous integration or whatever?
That's the important about planning the retrospect and
facilitate. It facilitates.
Not only following a plan is like, go through the activities
making decisions. Yes, they're moving this
direction or that you Clamp, then you trusted the date,
right? So, how do you actually do this?
Checking is that specific question that you asked.
Are you feeling safe or is there kind of survey?
What's the process like on the site from retrospect.com?
I organized activities as per those steps their activities for
energizer's directives for the prime directive because you have
two kinds of friend, direct one about retrospective one about
future spectacle which different than one of about team building.
So the prime directive Then there are checking activities.
Then there are main course activities for prospective
future expectant in building different actors for each.
One of those and then checkout activities.
Oh, and future activities. So checking activities the most
famous one was safe to check but people only did the safety check
and that's it. They think about checking like
it needs to be fast to verify how people are feeling as they
enter before they do the main course.
Another example you can do is like one word share with us in
one word. How you're feeling right now in
the context of disrespect. Another one is draw your
feelings. Please draw her feeling right
now because of disrespect, or happiness.
Rater. Please share with us on the
scale of being really sad. Super happy how you're feeling
in average during this period, how you're feeling in every day.
During this period, for things related to the business for
things, relate of technology for things, reach the process.
It's only a headset or medium face for each of those
categories. And then you carry this forward
to the next one. Okay, so now tell me why you
were feeling this way, you draw something.
Now you need to ask them, why you're free to try to gather
data. But you as a facilitator based
on what you get from the check-in.
Okay? Yes.
I can move forward safely to this next activity or know that
we have safe. You are about sharing and talk
about anything. The group's not safe.
Why are going to ask now? Like hey now, let's talk about
anything. No, the good to do.
They are not safe. It seems that the facilitators
role is very Important in this kind of activity.
So what would be some good attributes or some good things
that facilitator should assess? I know that probably is not like
everyone can do this facilitation really?
Well. So what are some of the key
things? Do you think?
First things, the distinction about the facilitator hat and
the participant hat, if your facilitator is respect for your
own team, would even be nice. If you drink ahead and talk as a
facilitator, remove the head and talk as a participant if you
have the A luxury to have an external facilitator, even
better because then there's no hat and everybody participates,
right? That's the first advice because
I know that we need to facilitate a lot of respect for
teams. So, go ahead and say, hey, I'm
here is of the data if your talk is a facilitator, facilitate the
conversation, don't bring your opinion treat.
If you want to bring your opinion, remove the Hat, raise
your hand as anyone else. And then talk to know when the
moments appropriate. That's the first advice, second,
if you're going to facilitate, there is That happens before the
respects. It's like talking to different
people, trying to understand the moment of that team.
And then think about the agenda to that moment and be careful.
Cause sometimes you talk to people and they want too many
things for one respect. You want to be a retrospective?
Not, let's lock ourselves for one day here.
In the room. It's like having five hour
session for psychologists know psychologists.
Like they do a lot of one-hour sessions at in purpose.
Same with respect, others. Don't Bring too much in one
session is too much for us to handle.
So when you talk to different people, you need to think about
the agenda. The context detectives you're
going to bring, so prepare. The agenda for retrospectives
can help with that because the combination of actives will make
you think about the agenda that checking the main course, the
check out the context, the prime directive, your select is a
retrofit respective. Once you prepare the agenda,
then it's about facilitating potential to the results.
And how do you Create a good environment, then pay attention
if it is really good environment.
And if it is move forward with your plan, if something goes off
track during the focus to the people, not sure agenda.
That's the thing. Like look at the people, see how
they are feeling. Don't move forward in their
plan, or dig into a problem or something.
If someone's not feeling good about it.
Thanks for sharing all this. Unfortunately.
We are going to the end of this conversation, due to the time.
But I have one last question that normally I ask for every
guest is about 3, technically, Leadership wisdom Sao Paulo.
Do you have some kind of a message of wisdom that you want
to share or pass along to the audience?
Here? They're few three reasons for a
leader, empathy, put yourself on everybody's shoes.
And now it's a hard thing because we cannot give in the
context of try to understand where people come from, with
open, heart be very empathetic to understand people the cycle
to be openness. The moment you want to be
empathy. You have to be very open to
everything. Be very open mind.
For the difference that we have. You cannot find two people.
Like, so we need to be very open in order to have that empathy
level of connection with people. And then the third would say
servant the world has changed and if you want to be a leader,
you want to figure out how to be a servant leader empathy,
openness and servant. Because the other stuff
leadership. You have a lot of books and
things that you progress have covered for like a tea, openness
and serve active for me. Those are the three skills that
you need to really work on. Want to be a leader for today
because we are ready in the future.
Why has changed drastically. Thanks for the beautiful wisdom
message. I think I agree with that
empathy. Openness and seven leadership
will be like a very rare critical skills for leaders in
the future. So thanks again, follow for your
time. If people want to connect with
you or find out more about you. Where can they find you?
My website? I blog, very often like cover
all your dot orgy or all dot org, or if you want to respect
the stuff for with respect to.com., You find me.
Mike. Look for active on the blog's
the books to your liquid in but go to the website you find me.
Thanks Paulo. I hope that people listen to
this episode and they will try some of these things like lean
Inception and fund. Retrospectives.
Thanks again for awesome. Thank you so much.
Cheers. Thank you for listening to this
episode and for staying right till the end.
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