Driving Toward Clarity

In this chapter, I’ll introduce the last foundational skill – driving toward clarity. It is not a single step in the management process but is instead a skill that is applied to every process we drive and every decision we make. It is the reason why you will hear the TPM in the room ask why and how. It’s why you see TPMs run meeting after meeting, working session after working session, and attending every standup that they can fit into their schedule. They are constantly taking the data they have and clarifying it so that it has no ambiguity left and is easier to understand and follow. This then feeds into getting consensus because, without clarity, it is hard to get past the first stage of getting everyone onto the same page, and we can’t move on to driving consensus.

As this skill permeates everything we do as leaders, it is not a pillar but the mortar that transforms a pile of bricks into a wall. It is an integral part of who...

Clarifying thoughts into plans

Everyone drives toward clarity in some aspect of their life. It is the act of taking knowledge and applying it to a situation to make the path forward better understood, and to lead to the desired outcome.

As an example, a retail worker may look at a product layout diagram, along with the products they have on hand, and the actual shelving they have available, and do their best to match the diagram – all along with making minor adjustments or judgment calls. They are driving toward the end goal of a properly stocked display. In the same situation, the worker may just be told to make a display out of the seasonal summer products. In this case, the level of ambiguity is much higher than the first – there is no diagram and no specific list of products, so the complexity and number of decisions are much higher. In both cases, the worker drives toward clarity to end up with a properly stocked display.

This is also true for a TPM and the...

Using clarity in key management areas

There are many ways in which driving toward clarity has an impact on project or program execution. We’ll discuss the key management areas to demonstrate how seeking clarity is utilized.

Planning

Let’s take the original problem statement that was the basis of our case study as an example for driving thought into plans. In the original iteration of the application on Windows, I had a problem I was trying to solve – I wanted to talk with my colleagues via a chat client but didn’t have the resources or permission for a centralized server. I took the problem statement and looked for solutions that fit the need for no central server and landed on a P2P network. From this initial solution, I then dove into high-level designs, low-level designs, and then implementation. In every step here, there was some level of ambiguity that needed to be clarified to proceed. I didn’t have stakeholders to convince, nor a development...

Finding clarity in the technical landscape

As a TPM, you are often aware of many programs and projects that impact your team or organization. You work with other TPMs, other teams, and leaders to deliver your goals. This gives you both a deep knowledge of where you directly run your projects, as well as breadth in the technical landscape surrounding you.

In a technical setting, we use this depth and breadth to our advantage as we have the ability to look at each problem from a different vantage point, all the way from the street level to the full cityscape. These varying vantage points allow us to connect the dots across projects and programs. Let’s look at a few examples of seeking clarity and connecting the dots in a technical setting.

Let’s explore a technical breadth example. As is often the case, members working on the implementation of a project are highly focused on the project goals. While this is desirable, as it ensures a solid solution to the problem...

Summary

In this chapter, we discussed in greater detail how a TPM is constantly driving toward clarity. From project initiation, all the way through to project closing, the TPM is clarifying requirements, assumptions, issues, plans, and estimates to continually steer the project in the right direction.

We looked at how everyone takes thoughts and clarifies them into plans, from building seasonal displays at a retail store, to varying levels of ambiguity in the problem a TPM needs to solve. We also touched on how the level of ambiguity increases the further in your career you get.

We explored how driving clarity is used in all key management areas and tied it together with specific scenarios that you can encounter in a technology space.

In Chapter 5, we’ll use the Mercury program and driving toward clarity to build out a more comprehensive project plan as we dive deeper into project and program planning.