How an Executive can Limit Blast Radius
~550 works | ~2.5 Min Read
The agile mindset favors and seeks rapid feedback. In other words, you test a new solution, review the evidence and outcomes, then make a call. But the impact of failures scales up the higher you go, right? So, how can an Executive test new solutions or approaches without sinking the company? This calls for a change in approach.
In Tech, we call it ‘limiting blast radius’. But here’s an old naval analogy, back from the days of wooden ships and cannons. The smart sea captain would test range with musket fire before launching a cannon volley. Not only is musket shot cheaper, they take less powder to fire. By thus conserving both powder, and shot, the economizing sea captain gets the most bang for his buck!
In the tech context, we have lots of tools to ‘limit blast radius’: Canary Deployments, Feature Flags, and even Scrum! Each of these tools allows companies to limit the risk of loss on any given deployment. If that the next proposed increment isn’t work the RoI, you don’t need to run another Sprint. If that last deployment went sour, roll it back. If that new feature hurt user engagement, flip the flag off! These tools make change safe, by making it small, and reversible.
Each of these tools operates also operate on Knowledge Work. That’s he same kind of work that Executives do. What is more, each of these allows us to improve our judgement. Through safe, rapid feedback on small increments we learn to measure our risk. But you need to do some translation. The ‘Develop Software’ version looks different than the ‘Process Change’ version.
Consider If we wanted to change a workflow. In software, we could change a step in the UI with a Feature Flag. Suddenly, some of user’s flow down a different path. But for an Organization, you need to do more. You must pick who performs the new step. You must identify when they will do that. You must train the person to make that decision. And you must train the person doing the new step! What’s the atomic version of that?
Well, it might be training 1 Senior player. You should already trust their judgement, so they can make the decision. They just need to know how to do the new work.And then you ask them for feedback on what worked and what didn’t. The atomic change of a workflow, is changing the steps for just 1 person.
Now that’s at a team lead level. At a Director level, that might be 1 team running a process experiment. Or it might be starting 1 new project in a different way, before resuming the normal approach. The trick is to carve off a small enough chunk to reduce risk, and large enough to learn from. The driving questions are:
- What do I want to learn?
- How can I mitigate the risk of the attempt going wrong?
Product Ownership is excellent practice for the next Generation of Executives. It exercises the key skills, and ‘limiting blast radius’ is another one! Any Executive can ‘limit blast radius’. It’s another facet of knowledge work. Since Executives own the process, it is under their influence. All it takes is a new way of thinking, and to borrow insights from another domain.