The Dev Team says it’s impossible. What should Product Owners do?
Successful Product Owners don’t take the word impossible as a final state.
Successful Product Owners don’t take the word impossible as a final state.
Whenever developers want to shut down a conversation, they may say, “it’s impossible.” Over the years as a Product Owner, I’ve heard this sentence quite often. But why does it happen so often? I think the fear of the unknown blocks people from moving forward. Successful Product Owners don’t take the word impossible as the final state.
“It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” — Robert W. Service
The bigger the challenge, the bigger the chance to hear the team saying, “it’s impossible.” Product Owners should bring meaningful challenges to the team. We want to change the status quo. Many times the Development Team will think they cannot overcome the obstacles; they may say:
This is impossible! There’s no way we can do it.
Our system is not prepared for that.
We cannot handle it! It is too complicated!
Wow! That’s crazy! It’s a lot of work! We don’t have the time for that!
I have bad feelings about it! We can’t do that.
Whenever I hear something like that, I think, “It’s going to be an interesting conversation.” I believe that collaboration can help us find a solution to the impossible problem. As Nelson Mandela said:
“It’s always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Is it really impossible?
In my opinion, impossible is only a perception. Whenever we see something as impossible, I think we actually don’t know how to overcome that challenge. That’s why I don’t take the word “impossible” as the end of a conversation. Instead, I take as an opportunity for a meaningful collaboration.
The pillars of Scrum can help us to approach the impossible challenges. By inspecting and adapting, the Scrum team has the chance to sharpen their knowledge. Inspecting and adapting are powerful because they can reveal hidden opportunities.
Three pillars uphold every implementation of empirical process control: transparency, inspection, and adaptation.
— Scrum Guide, November 2017
Whenever a Scrum team receives a significant challenge, which they don’t know how to overcome, they need to leave the comfort zone. The comfort zone is dangerous because though we have a feeling of control over it, we can never become a better version of ourselves. Therefore, we remain stuck. For many people, leaving this comfortable place is a big deal. Some people will avoid it at all costs. The unknown is scary but rewarding.
Some people are just soft. Maybe you’re one of these people. See, being soft simply means you’re addicted to being comfortable and you’re afraid of doing anything hard. You can be soft mentally, physically, spiritually, so it goes.
The messaging of society is designed to keep you soft, weak, and complacent. See, here’s what the infamous “they” do to you. They take perfectly good, healthy, and reasonable concepts and bastardize them to the point they no longer become reasonable.
— Ayodeji Awosika, How to Cure Your Addiction to Your Comfort Zone
My opinion is, if we live in the comfort zone, we miss the chance of developing ourselves! The bigger the challenge is, the more rewarding the outcome will be!
“The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.” — Arnold Palmer
Understanding why it seems impossible
Approaching the word impossible as a perception allows us to change it. As a Product Owner, I strive to understand why the team has this perception. By exploring, we can uncover the real blockers. Open and explorative questions are useful in this case, for example:
What brings you to this conclusion?
Which challenges do you see?
Why do you think it is impossible?
What can we do to make it possible?
What are the alternatives we can explore?
Questions force the team to think and understand the scenario better. Explorative questions are powerful because they open the mind for reflection. That’s why we need to be careful with statements like “This is impossible!” because it shuts the conversation down. A great Product Owner is a curious person; the more questions we ask, the more alternatives we can find.
“Nobody makes progress by standing still. The beauty is in the push, and it’s never easy.” — Zat Rana, Andrew Wiles: How to Do the Impossible
We should take challenges as opportunities. They should never block us. Instead, they should push us forward!
“The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; The size of your dream; And how you handle disappointment along the way.” — Robert Kiyosaki
Moving from impossible to possible
Let me share with you a real experience. Once we had a challenge to solve a complex problem, we needed to answer the following question: how can we define the best routes for our field-force team? The details were:
20.000+ stores spread all over Brazil.
4.000+ field-employees.
Diverse transport options: public, automobile, boat, and bicycle.
I remember as if it was today, when I presented that to the team, the reaction was immediate. One team member said, “That’s just impossible to solve!”. So I thought, now it’s time for an in-depth conversation, that went like this:
Me: Hum. Interesting, why do you think this is impossible?
Team: Because we have no technology and knowledge to solve it.
Me: Which kind of knowledge and technology do we need?
Team: Well, we would need to evaluate how to calculate routes dynamically. Maybe if we could use an API like Google Maps, we may find an alternative. But we are talking of tons of work. We have no time for that. The amount of work is insane! It’s a monster!
Me: What if we had no time constraint, what would you do?
Team: Hum. Maybe we could start exploring Google API and playing around with some small set of data. Then, we could get some knowledge and build it step by step. But I have no idea if we would succeed.
Me: What holds you back from giving it a try?
Team: Time and permission to fail. If we had time to focus, we might have a way out. But if we fail, that should be taken as a learning. No blaming is allowed.
Long-story-short we delivered the whole Route Solution in three months. If I had accepted the impossible as the final statement, the company wouldn’t have a solution that replaced the work of twenty analysts. In the end, the team was incredibly proud and motivated by the achievement. We understood that impossible was only our perception due to our lack of knowledge.
“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” — Winston S. Churchill
Endnote
Impossible is only a perception. It is your choice to take it a hard fact, or to explore how to make it possible.
Whenever you hear the word impossible, take that as an invitation for an explorative conversation. Explore and search for alternatives on how to make it possible.
Use open and explorative questions to uncover the reasons why something seems impossible.
Don’t let the fear of the unknown hold you back from achieving your goals! Help the team to overcome this challenge and thrive.
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