Solve people problems with data

[This post has been a draft since 2013. Not sure why, it was 95% finished…]

At OOP one presenter asked the audience and thus me: “How did you successfully resolve the biggest challenge in your professional life?”

My answer: “Talking”. Every one else’s? “Conversation”, “Communication”, “Face-to-face-meeting”.

In many ways I’m paid for having conversations: As Jerry Weinberg said, every problem is a people problem – I try to solve these people problems by having conversations or making other people have conversations with each other.

But sometimes that’s not enough. It hit me, that my more successful interactions in crucial situations have not just been about exchanging perspectives. I’ve had data with me. Consequences of behavior expressed as numbers and charts, or even as a price.

When you’re leaning towards the “touchy-feely” end of things, it’s easy to forget how data can make the case for you.

For instance, if a Product Owner receives too many feature requests to implement all of them and is not empowered to reject them, the requests will pile up. If that pile is hidden in a ticket tracker, the problem is invisible. The requesters will just wonder and / or bitch why the developers don’t fulfill their requests, whereas the developers will groan under an impossible workload.

If the PO tracks the requests on a board the problem will at least be visible, when the board overflows. The PO can point to it and make their case. Will this change anyone’s behavior?

Sample Graph: Request VolumeWhat if the PO tracks the incoming vs. the finished tickets to demonstrate how much demand and capacity are out of sync: The yellow line represents the accumulating unsatisfied requests. This is a chart to base a discussion on. Much better than “it’s just too many”. The PO and the stakeholders now see that there’s about 3 too many requests per week and that there’s no way for the developers to ever catch up with the pile. Time to take some decisions.

Data is powerful! Especially if the information not hidden in a sea of numbers. If you want to convince people take the time to coax out the information. Make a fancy chart! You know you want to 😉

Sometimes it’s enough to bring a few numbers to put things into perspective: That you’re not complaining unreasonably. It can help counter the opinions (read “not backed by data”) of people higher up in the food chain.

Whenever I encounter a significant problem I think about how to make it accessible, visible or even palpable* for others who I want to help me solve it.

* There once was a team that inflated a balloon for every ticket they got. Within a week they were up to their knees in balloons, communicating to every one that they got way too many requests. Can’t find the original source 🙁

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