Hey there 👋. Do you want to make a breakthrough? Do you want to be disruptive? Need to find a problem for your next hackathon? This is for you.
The Goal
In our everyday work, we are usually stuck iterating over previous solutions. As the machine rolls, it slows down with debt (technical, emotional, procedural), causing laziness and a lack of energy. This article is meant to help you create a new machine (whether that'd be a hackathon, new idea, new process, new spirit, new anything), one that disrupts the old way of doing things, making you and others around you more effective, happy, productive, inspired, etc. We can optimize this process by creating guideposts for strategy, unbounding the spirit, and explaining the theory behind it.
The Guideposts to Strategy​
By setting up guideposts to strategy, we can create an environment that harbors optimal design. The 3 guideposts to strategy are the diagnosis, guiding Insight, and action.
Diagnosis​
Every problem needs a proper doctor's diagnosis. To get a proper diagnosis, you need to clarify the target objective.
Creativity is a very messy process because there can be multiple target objectives (and even subtargets), all of which can be unclear. To clarify the target objective(s), take into account the social dynamics, technical implementation, and business values. For each part of the problem, you'll recognize that the bullseye becomes clearer when constraining yourself to limitations and by answering open questions / resolving ambiguity.
I have a very open ended example of "what should I do this weekend?". Observe how there are multiple target objectives.
Social Dynamics​
Everyone has to take into account social dynamics for their respective situation. However, what every social dynamic has in common is that they require cooperation. We can optimize it through optimizing knowledge transfer and visibility.
Knowledge transfer​
Problems can be complex and no on understands the problem as well as you do. It is crucial that you can get others to recognize the problem in order to get as much support from managers and onboarding by other engineers.
- Record your meetings. Take succint meeting notes from the meetings and derive Insight from the meeting notes.
- Standardize the way you get your point across. When writing a slack message, make sure the slack message is concise, does not have big words, and is properly sectioned.
- If you are hosting a meeting, make sure that the conversation stays on track.
- Create high level -> low level descriptions of the problem. This is important so that you can easily tell a manager the problem in a high level way. And when you need to talk to an engineer, you can explain the problem thoroughly to them.
Visibility​
Make all of your work public! Post your meetings to your message boards after they are done. Post your meeting notes and insight. Let everyone know what you are doing via your planning tool, like JIRA.
Memetics​
The most powerful thing that you can do to get others onboard to your initiative is through the concept of memetics. Memetics simply means having an idea spread like a virus. The best way to have an idea spread like a virus is to tell a story. Tell a story about you initiative. Make it dramatic. Put your passion into it.
Memetics is where the word 'meme' come from!
Technical Implementation​
Every problem that needs to be solved requires a technical implementation. It is important to be able to distill the problem in a high level way as well as low level.
Business Value​
- What's the business value?
- How does this fit with the overall strategy?
- What's the opportunity cost?
Guiding Insight / policy​
The guiding Insight is derived from the diagnosis, and it is meant to be a high level guide for what your action should accomplish.
In the example, observe how the diagnosis is big compared to the guiding insight. This is because the Insight is synethesized / derived from the diagnosis. It should be simple and yet pack a punch.
Action​
Define the steps required to tackling the problem :). With the guiding insight at your hand, it should be very clear how you should tackle the problem.
Crawl, Walk, Run​
Create an approach so easy to follow that your manager doesn't have to ask you any questions about it. The best way to do this is through a crawl, walk, run phased approach. Define the objective in the crawl phase and the action required to get there, and so on.
The Spirit​
Everyone is a creation, therefore we are all creative.
The spirit is at the center of creativity. By learning how to unbound our spirit, our creativity will not only come easy, but become very enjoyable.
Unbound the spirit​
Your spirit is a fountain of creativity. Sometimes it does not feel like it because it is bounded by labels, limiting beliefs, and expectations.
From Labels​
Artist, inventor, engineer, backend engineer, frontend engineer, ux designer, craftsman, engineering manager, and product manager, are labels. By letting them define who you are, you are bounding your spirit to the confines of these labels. In other words, the labels are creating blockages in the natural flow of your spirit's fountain of creativity. But the truth is that they can describe who you are and they ultimately do not define who you are. By realizing this truth, you will unbound the spirit from the labels and it will be free :D! Your spirit's fountain of creativity will flow! If your title is an engineer and you would like to engage in activities a product manager would do, do it! If your title is an engineering manager and you would like to write some code, then do it!
From Limiting Beliefs​
- I am not smart enough
- I am incapable
- I cannot do this
A limiting belief is simply negative self-labeling. By freeing yourself from these beliefs, you will unbound the spirit from the confines of the beliefs and your fountain of creativity will flow freely! You are smart enough, you are capable! You can do this!
From Expectations​
Creativity is an extremely enjoyable process IF you free your happiness/spirit from expectations. Make fun solutions that will make people smile, make clever solutions that will intrigue your folks. Enjoy this feeling of freedom! Enjoy the process of creativity itself without any need to produce results. This means that you do not have any expectations to produce anything. Instead, produce because you enjoy it.
Let the Spirit Flourish​
Not only can you remove blockages from your spirit's fountain of flow to increase flow, but you can increase the rate of flow through inspiration. Surround yourself with beauty. Listen to a beautiful song. Talk to others who inspire you and have created beautiful things. Lastly, derive inspiration from yourself. Appreciate everything that you have in your life, and accept whatever you could not change. This is because everything in your life was meant to be. Although sometimes it might not seem like it, your life has been a beautiful dance this whole time. The truth is that you are going to misstep and be offbeat. Accept it. It is part of the dance of life.
Theory​
If you are interested in why this all works, here it is.
Disruption vs Iteration​
When you are iterating over a solution, you will be optimizing the solution. However, sometimes the solution will be suboptimal compared to producing a completely different and disruptive solution.
The Theory of Strategy​
Our mind imposes a mental construct of what the solution should be. However, the actual solution to the problem is found in the nature of the problem. When you are providing a diagnosis to a problem, you are describing the nature of the problem. From there, you can work to generate insight and have corresponding action that best suites the nature of the problem.
The Theory of the Spirit​
The same force that makes the universe expand exists within us.
Take a look at a a simple rock. There is unfathomable depth to it that our brains are incapable of comprehending. The rock is made up of an uncountable number of atoms that are arranged in an infinitely complex set of molecules, and so on. Our brains create mental constructs in order to help us navigate the complexity of the world, but they are inherently limiting as no mental construct can encapsulate the totality of the whole. Therefore, when we define ourselves as labels, limiting beliefs, etc, we are limiting ourselves.
Also, the universe itself is a fountain of flow, where it flows, the universe expands. We are apart of the universe, of its fountain of flow. Therefore, we can say that the universe expands through us. However, blockages happen to the natural flow of the universe when we limit ourselves to any mental constructs.
Resources​
The Artist's Way - Fountain analogy comes from here.
Good Strategy Bad Strategy - The kernel of strategy, the diagnosis, guiding policy, and action, is talked about in depth from a business perspective.
Change By Design - This analyzes strategy from a creative lens. This is important for producing disruptive solutions instead of iterative solutions.