> I’ve seen this kind of incentive in action first-hand, and the results are transformative.
I would love to learn more about this. What was the context? What was the starting state? What was the change? What was the end state? How long did the transformation take? Was there any resistance that had to be overcome?
Probably a whole series of posts here (mental note made!), but in short:
- Product teams and engineers weren't closely aligned with the outcomes to customers they were delivering
- As such, not much accountability, things falling between cracks, low impact work being prioritised
- Result: founders felt they had to keep a close eye on teams, taking up their bandwidth and reducing trust
- I pushed for greater clarity over business metrics, and empowering teams to take accountability for moving them
- Founders took this idea further than I imagined and instituted business units, cross-functional teams that had visibility into and responsibility for the P/L of their unit and would be entitled to a share of those profits
- From announcement to being enacted took a couple of months, and there were still things to iron out even then
- But the difference in terms of motivation, innovation and having fruitful, productive (if sometimes tough) conversations was very clear
- I left the company about 6 months into the experiment so can't verify how it holds up in the long run, but last I heard things were still going well and progress was rapid.
- Most important thing for me was that it forced engineers (including myself) to have a much better grasp of the economic realities of their actions, which wasn't always comfortable but was incredibly valuable and I think compounds over time
> I’ve seen this kind of incentive in action first-hand, and the results are transformative.
I would love to learn more about this. What was the context? What was the starting state? What was the change? What was the end state? How long did the transformation take? Was there any resistance that had to be overcome?
Probably a whole series of posts here (mental note made!), but in short:
- Product teams and engineers weren't closely aligned with the outcomes to customers they were delivering
- As such, not much accountability, things falling between cracks, low impact work being prioritised
- Result: founders felt they had to keep a close eye on teams, taking up their bandwidth and reducing trust
- I pushed for greater clarity over business metrics, and empowering teams to take accountability for moving them
- Founders took this idea further than I imagined and instituted business units, cross-functional teams that had visibility into and responsibility for the P/L of their unit and would be entitled to a share of those profits
- From announcement to being enacted took a couple of months, and there were still things to iron out even then
- But the difference in terms of motivation, innovation and having fruitful, productive (if sometimes tough) conversations was very clear
- I left the company about 6 months into the experiment so can't verify how it holds up in the long run, but last I heard things were still going well and progress was rapid.
- Most important thing for me was that it forced engineers (including myself) to have a much better grasp of the economic realities of their actions, which wasn't always comfortable but was incredibly valuable and I think compounds over time