Wes Higbee was a guest on a previous episode of the Art of Value Show. His latest book is about value and software, Commitment to Value: How to Make Technical Projects Worthwhile. He is also the owner and chief consultant at Full City Technology. Wes focuses on helping teams learn to develop from a value perspective.
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The Path to Value
- What is the most important thing you can share about pricing?
- Be deliberate about the type of customer relationship you want to have.
- Do not assume the type of relationship you want will happen by default.
- Use pricing to make it happen.
- What is the “path” and why is it important? (Chapter 1)
- This chapter was an explanation of the Wes' journey.
- Most people are path “takers”–walking a path that someone else has asked us to walk, not even sure of the destination.
- The metaphor explains the difference between effort (path) and results (destination).
- Understanding the destination is the most important part of the path.
- If you want long-term relationships, you have to focus on what is a sustainable relationship.
- You need to do what is net win-win for everyone.
- Figuring out what you want to do every two weeks (agile development) is dangerous.
- You need to have a guiding purpose.
- It is not second nature for developers to take the time to determine the purpose and then ensure that it has value.
- What is “impact” and why is it more important? (Chapter 2)
- Walk the path in the direction of having an impact.
- Have the skill to achieve the impact rather than just running down the path quickly.
- Run toward the impact but crawl down the path.
- You must first be deliberate about how you want to live your life and the type of work you want to do.
Gatekeeping Is Not Effective
- Why is not always saying “yes” a better approach?
- You need to find incentives to ask why and say no.
- You can price in a way that it is not in your interest to say yes to everything.
- Think about asking why, rather than asking how.
- The Answer to How is Yes, by Peter Block, is a whole different take on how you evaluate something.
- If you do not step back and take on more responsibilities and risk, you cannot leverage your intuition.
- It challenges the maxim that the customer is always right.
- Your customer has to explain what they need to help you help them.
- Courage is what you need because the customer probably wants help more than they care about being right.
- You can sometimes help your customers, even when it is their fault, by not assessing blame.
- The customer should be happy, not necessarily right.
- What is the problem with “mediation” in communication? (Chapter 4)
- Think of a game of telephone to see what message comes out the other end.
- When communication passes between people, things change.
- Even in deep conversations, it can be easy to jump to the conclusion that what you wanted to say was conveyed.
- There are filters on both ends, even in direct communication.
- Indirect communication can be even more biased, filtered and distorted.
- Important conversations should not rely on an intermediary to get the point across.
- It is neither effective nor efficient to exclude decision makers in purchasing decisions and discussions.
- If something is important enough to reach out to another organization to help you, a long-term relationship with trust is essential.
- Trust is necessary for long-run sustainability.
- Efficiency is doing it right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.
- Do not assume that because it is efficient, it is effective.
- Spend more time thinking about the things that you want to be second nature.
- Why is letting go of a specific path the best way to reach the destination? (Chapter 5)
- If you figure out the destination, you can determine out the path as you go.
- You can get anxious if you have only the destination, because of uncertainty in the path.
- If you decide that the destination is most important, you can assess alternative paths more easily.
- When facing a new challenge, look for the small successes.
- You need to build a habit of creating success.
- If you have uncertainty in a new endeavor, build up your confidence.
The Customer's Customer
- Why is it important to ask your customer about their customers? (Chapter 6)
- Long-run sustainable relationships with customers are reciprocal.
- To make your customer successful, you have to help make their customers successful.
- If you want to help people in life, you cannot just handle your domain.
- You have to look outward and be deliberate about how you can help.
- The opportunity to understand your customer's customer can make them more successful.
- Exploit the opportunities for everyone's gain.
- If you can provide value to the third-degree customer, you will also benefit.
- What do you mean by iteratively creating value? (Chapter 7)
- There is not enough acknowledgment that value is subjective in agile processes.
- If you are only focusing on the software, you will always focus on the effort.
- If you focus on value, you will incrementally have an impact.
- The only way to guarantee you are doing the right thing is to deliver value regularly.
- Set value targets incrementally over the 2-4 week period.
- Percentage done is not a good way to measure the value.
- There is no wrong way to do the right thing.
- You have to let the people doing the work figure out how to do it.
- Why is self-diagnosing a risk for the customer? (Chapter 8)
- If your mechanic expected you to tell him how to fix your car, would you be comfortable driving it after the repair?
- Software developers tend to let the customer tell them how they want things fixed, rather than figuring out what they need.
- When you have a hammer, everything is not a nail.
- Developers should be excited about a different way of doing the same thing.
- Do not learn a tool just because you perceive a benefit.
- Figure out the benefit per the things you are doing.
- Most technical people are good at what they do, but they need to focus on doing the right things.
- What is one of your best stories about creating value for a customer?
- When you bring your perspective, you can find new ways to help people.
- Providing knowledge, guidance and accessibility can give you the opportunity to have your customer's back.
- When you are in the world where you think about effort and efficiency, you have a tendency to think that people will take advantage if you open yourself up to unlimited access.
- There are so many ways you can help people. Give them unlimited access, without considering effort at all.
- When you focus on the outcome, your customer will too.
About Wes Higbee
- Website: FullCityTechnology.com
- Blog: WesHigbee.com
- Twitter: @g0t4
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