The phenomenon of "dynamic link" (how to work with initiative employees)

With this article I wanted to describe an organizational phenomenon that occurs in the work of many companies. Its essence lies in the fact that when something goes wrong in work, for example, inefficient business processes or deteriorating code every day, there may be people who will be eager to change it, simply because they themselves want it, they want to sort of "make the world a better place." And this energy is very important to use correctly. If it is not effectively sent in the right direction, then, without being realized, it will “burn out” the initiator from the inside and in the end demotivate him, or even lead to the loss of the employee. If it is used adequately, then you will be able not only with a high level of motivation to make changes useful for the organization, but also to further develop the employee.

However, in order to understand the complete chain of causal relationships and how they can be used for good, you must first explain the original causes of the occurrence and development of the phenomenon. Therefore, first a small excursion into the structure of the phenomenon.

Conveyor and Agile

You and I live in a great century, IT takes many of our familiar processes to a whole new level. And one of the main parameters of this industry, in which large companies will always quietly envy small, is the dynamics. Moreover, not only the dynamics of tempo, but also the dynamics of changes. To understand the difference between these two terms, imagine a runner. He can run long distances perfectly at the same pace, giving excellent results, but try to send him to the cross-country track with obstacles, where you need to jump, climb, dive, and he will quickly exhale. In one case, we have the dynamics of pace, we run fast, in the other case, the dynamics of change, we can quickly change course and maintain a good pace. After all, you can quickly run, but not where you actually need, or even completely, “could be cut through the forest.”
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The industrial age has taught us to develop processes with the dynamics of pace. One of the main decisions regarding tempo dynamics was a conveyor. He allowed to develop a high rate of standardized process and was a breakthrough phenomenon for his time. In the current realities of the IT industry conveyor can not be an effective solution due to a number of phenomena. The main ones are:
The impossibility of standardization of sections of the "conveyor" and the entire line. The market conditions change very quickly and, as a result, the product “moving along the conveyor belt” can change earlier than it leaves. It is for this reason that waterfall development is becoming obsolete.
The requirement for high motivation of employees. In the IT industry, this is directly related to performance. On the conveyor, this is not paid much attention, because it has little effect on performance.

The natural development of the production process to solve these problems was the Agile approach. In particular in the field of software development. It allows you to develop the dynamics of change, i.e. the need to change the product halfway is quite normal in the production cycle. Also in Agile there are a number of activities aimed at increasing the motivation of participants in the process, which also increases productivity.

However, one way or another, Agile is always also a business process, just another structure. From one side it is even a peculiar nano-waterfall. And we are all perfectly aware that there are no universal processes that fit all occasions. It is for this reason that you can hear from the well-known agile-coach the phrase "Not a single team is still working on pure Scrum." Actually Agile itself requires adjusting to the realities that the working process is facing. And here, the more the production process, the more links in it, the more “standardized” it is (interaction rules, etc.), the more difficult it is to develop the dynamics of change.

Processes arranged "like a clock"

At the head of many leaders, and this is still driven in in business schools with their ideal models of “spherical organizations in a vacuum,” there is an idea that the ideal process is when everything works “like a clock.” Let's try to imagine this in a metaphorical simplified image:
There is a spring that transmits energy to the pendulum, which in turn sets the pace for a chain of gears, which at the end of their process create a “value” in the form of a display of the correct time.
By analogy with the company: a spring is resources, such as finance; the pendulum is the leaders who set the pace (including the direction of development); a chain of gears - these are elements of the production process (marketing, development, implementation, maintenance, etc.).

Accordingly, an organization working “like a clock” is one in which everyone works at the same pace, ideally interact with each other, has enough resources, and as a result may never stop and stand idle at any of the sites constantly creating “value”. Such model perfectly is suitable for production cycles of konveerny type with a high share of automation. But, as practice has shown, it is rather difficult to obtain such processes in a large organization. Actually, one of the basic Agile practices, Kanban, was born at Toyota automobile plant in order to optimize the process of assembling cars. So the opportunity to have a high dynamics of changes in the current business space can be considered a quite serious competitive advantage, and in the field of software development this is already a must-have standard. A product with a release cycle of half a year and more is almost certainly doomed. Even the operating systems are already making updates almost on-demand.

Large and small companies

Let us return to the metaphor of the pendulum and apply it to compare large and small companies.
In small companies (start-ups) there is a problem with resources, but it is compensated by the strong swing effect of the pendulum itself (leader), and since the number of links is very small at first, the losses of "energy" before the creation of the final value are also small. As a result, such companies have high efficiency and high dynamics of changes, because it is much easier to reconfigure another combination of gears when they are few. And rarely small companies start with poorly fitted parts, as a rule, they are very “one-pointed” people.

In large companies, however, there are resources and good leaders that set the pace, but, nevertheless, the efficiency, compared to small companies, can be lower, and sometimes significantly lower. This is due to the fact that the number of gears in such companies is high. As a result, the losses on the interaction become greater, and if some two gears “do not converge in teeth” and “tempo”, then the whole subsequent chain begins to sink.

Here it is worth clarifying that under the gears should be understood not only individuals and departments, but in general the approach to the production process. For example, the emergence of a new product may be accompanied by new requirements for the skills of specialists, or interaction with external dependencies (outsourcing or customers) and so on. All that should “work like a clock,” but this is not always the case.

"Silver Bullet" regulations

The classic solution, which is legally justified and acceptable in our society, for such situations, is the regulation. For example: you need to get a layout from the design department. If the gears work "according to the regulations", then if something went wrong, you will be returned a task with a request for clarification for which you must answer in a certain time, and if you do not answer, the task will go to the next iteration of development and will be ready for a week later, but not the fact that there will be no new questions, which should also be “written” in the task with the translation of the request status and agreement. If the regulations are honed and all the gears fit together perfectly, then the process will go "like clockwork." But if something went wrong, for example, an email got stuck somewhere, or an alert didn’t work, or the person took a day off, the whole system would start to sag. The situation is quite typical and this solution is quite justified: the system has a description, there is a responsible person for each section, each does only his own work. And it even starts to remind something of the same conveyor in an attempt to control everything and control everything that is possible at each of the stages.

However, the situation of “perfectly fitted gears” is not always the place to be. Each organization is experiencing growth, hiring or employee satisfaction, a change in the direction of development, and other changes. And the more the dynamics of change, the more such effects. All this leads to the fact that some gears do not always interact effectively. The production process begins to suffer and the regulations in this case are not always able to rectify the situation, and sometimes even more harm. For example: a new direction, a new product, is opened, and a team is recruited for it. If you follow the rules, an attempt will be made to “rebuild” the team under existing processes, or even a new rules will be developed, not by people who will be direct participants, but by those who “know how to”. After that, these regulations will be “lowered from above” and the gears should spin “as it should.” Undoubtedly, there is a chance that everything will be like this, but more often it happens the other way around, and the mechanism will “twist with a creak” and its efficiency will leave much to be desired. To solve such problem situations in Agile methodologies, there is a rule that teams themselves are constantly engaged in changing their processes (the same retrospectives), naturally within the limits of what is permitted, and sometimes “within the framework of the regulations”. If only the result was achieved.

I believe that this situation is quite understandable and typical, and the standard way out of it is also quite obvious: finding the right combinations by trial and error. In this way, the development of most business processes occurs. To reduce the number of errors, consultants are also often attracted, but nevertheless, the errors themselves cannot be avoided and this is normal.

"Dynamic Link"

In an attempt to find a more universal and effective solution to this problem, I was faced with an interesting effect. Let's call it conditionally "dynamic link".

In the cases described above, when you have problems in the interaction of any links, a more effective solution sometimes is not to create a regulation for them, in order to “get them to work as they should”, but to create / implement a “dynamic link” between them. A kind of gear that can work with any pace and any form of neighboring gears without slowing them down or “breaking off the teeth”. However, as soon as it is possible to draw conclusions from the technical analogy, the load on such gear will naturally be much greater and the approach to such an element needs a little different from the approach to “static links”. It is this link that will help create / set the “overall pace”, and in the future, with the right approach, it can even be removed without losing the quality of the process.

What it looks like in life. It is required to launch a new project / product. A manager and developers have already been found for him, but they were recruited from other directions and previously they did not work together. The manager does not know how to work with this team. The team does not know how to work with this manager. They try to interact within the framework of the regulations, one sets tasks, others fulfill them. Naturally, the motivation in this case will not be up to par, but the violation of expectations on both sides (“incomprehensible tasks from the manager”, “the team frustrated all deadlines”, etc.) will also reduce the efficiency of the process. At the same time, everyone can find as many explanations as possible from the series “the problem is not on our side”. There is a bad interaction of links. And in this case it is more effective not to wait until all KPIs are broken and a new regulation is formed, but to introduce a “dynamic link”.

Consulting and agile coaches

As we know, where there is demand, there will be supply. Logically and historically, this niche is occupied by consultants and consulting companies. In recent years, IT companies have now begun to apply the practice of hiring agile-coaches. Like Agile itself, this profession is quite young.

However, Agile-coaches, in the current reality, are more focused on the IT segment and in particular the development teams. In areas where Agile is not yet so common, for example, accounting or legal support departments, this form of developing business processes in the form of coaches is not widely used.
Low rates of introduction of dynamics in these areas are related to the fact that work there is very regulated and, as such, the dynamics of changes there is not required, only the dynamics of pace. In this regard, in divisions with a high degree of regulation and low dynamics of changes, automation of processes is the best way to increase the pace, just as it is done on the conveyor. From here we see the growth of the electronic document circulation market and the high demand for products such as 1C.
All this, of course, is not very suitable for high dynamics of product development in IT. That's why people who need to make dynamic changes in the workflow are required.

Internal dynamic link

However, we’ll rather talk not about how to attract a specialist from the outside, but how to use internal resources with benefits both for the company as a whole and for the development of its employees.
So what is a “dynamic link”? This is a person with a very specific set of beliefs and skills. Such people exist in almost every company, perhaps, with the exception of strictly regulated organizations such as government agencies.

The main qualities (personal beliefs) that distinguish a good "dynamic link":
1. Work must be done perfectly.
2. "Who, if not me?".
3. The result is more important than the rules.
4. Never give up.
and a number of other beliefs that are similar to or derived from the listed ones.

Such people in life try to accompany their work by creating value. They especially love being needed and doing something useful and valuable.
Sometimes, if such links are out of place, or are not directed in the right direction, they can be perceived as “in each barrel a stopper”. They strive to improve everything they can, and this is not always welcomed by those who are accustomed to “go with the flow”.
As I said, a certain set of beliefs for such people is very important. These beliefs should create a useful result for the company, bring value, because if the vector of their interests does not coincide with the vector of the company, then their activity may be negative for the company. On the other hand, if their aspirations are useful and their skills are sufficient to create a useful result, then the efficiency will be much higher than from a static link.

The qualities of a dynamic link

Above were listed the quality-beliefs peculiar to people of this type. It is the qualitative implementation of each of these beliefs in the workflow that creates from the dynamic link a useful component of the workflow. If at least one of the qualities is not developed or not directed, or even completely absent, then this link will be more destructive than creative.
Let's sort them in parts:

1. Work must be done perfectly.
If the understanding of value is distorted, then “excellent” can take on different shades. For example, a programmer who seeks to do his job “excellent” may “dig in the code” and bring it to idel, although all the deadlines have already been broken and the product has lost customers.
Excellent - this means brought the maximum measurable value at minimum cost. It is important to understand not only the dynamic link, but also any participant in the business process.

2. "Who, if not me?".
If the previous item is useful for any employee, then this one is specific only for dynamic links. Often, the role of a dynamic link is connected precisely with the fact that no one else is able to perform the missing functions, and then, by virtue of this belief, and in accordance with paragraph 1, these people assume functions that lie outside their official duties. And they do not take with the words "I will try, but come what may", but to the full. They voluntarily make themselves responsible for what lies beyond their responsibility. Again, it is important to understand the “useful result” in this action. If the dynamic link in this way pulls over the area of ​​responsibility of another link, begins to do well the work of the person who does it badly, it will only harm the business process, thereby increasing the burden on itself and mask the existing problem of the “weak link”.
It is important to understand that it is permissible to drag on only those duties that are not currently assigned to anyone. Mentoring is also allowed, when a dynamic link helps develop its competencies to adjacent links, thereby adjusting their work. This is partly what agile coaches do.

3. The result is more important than the rules.
This is also characteristic of the dynamic link and it follows directly from the preceding paragraphs. , , . , , - , , . , «» , . , , .
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2. Clearly identify the criteria for when you reach the goal of positive change.
This will help you to have a reference point when you say, “Everything worked out!”.

3. Agree with the supervisor the required authority and duties.
This will help to avoid unnecessary tension and misunderstanding in the process of achieving the goal.

4. Define the "rules of the game."
How much time are you willing to spend on it, what resources do you need in addition, what changes will be needed, etc. Be prepared that you will require significant additional efforts that will pay off your development and recognition of success.

5. Do your (!) Useful work.
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If you think that you need any additional information or skills, do not hesitate to talk about it. Discuss possible weaknesses with the leader and how they can be strengthened. Often, managers are interested in the development of repaired, use it.

7. The clearer for you and your leadership will be the result of the actions you take, the more effective these actions can be as a result.
Also, it will be an additional confirmation that you are doing an important and necessary thing. Do not hesitate to demand from the manager that he gave you feedback on your work. It may also be helpful to do this on a regular basis. You can agree on this, even if you have already begun to take some action.

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Perhaps that's all that can be as brief as possible to tell about this phenomenon. I hope the article was interesting and useful for you. I wish you always strive for the best and be full of positive and strength for new achievements.

Leksunin Eugene ,
"Reducing the entropy in the development"