Describing directions

There are several options for describing and editing directions.

What would we love to see possible?

What's attracting us as we think about the impact and contribution we want to make to our world?

What is the good we seek?

What problem do we want to solve for?

Future beliefs

Our beliefs about the future have a distinct and not always conscious influence in how we create, engage and resist change and opportunity. When we become more conscious of them, we have the option to translate them into new and useful questions.

The power of goodness

Our momentum and velocity in any direction is shaped by whether we’re more focused on our challenges or goodness. Focus on goodness energizes our efforts. They provoke feelings of agency and optimism. Focus on challenges often provokes feelings of self-protection from failure that diffuses our energy.

The direction-destination distinction

One of the most useful distinctions in planning is between direction and destination. A direction is a desired arc. An arc is an edge of the circumference of our questions. We can have a clear, compelling direction inspired by a variety of possible destinations, but not constrained by them. While destinations can be locations to arrive at in the future, directions are lenses revealing new questions and options in the present.

RoadMapping use contexts

RoadMapping is useful in a variety of planning contexts:

  • Weeks, months, quarters, years

  • Projects, programs

  • Strategy, mission, vision

  • Annual budgets

  • Technology launches

  • Start ups, investor campaigns, pivots

  • Mergers, acquisitions, franchises

Conscious and unconscious progress

Two common ways of sensing progress are numbers and narratives. Numbers include statistics of speed, ratings and efficiencies. Narratives include stories of early wins, achievements and recoveries.

Progress can be conscious or unconscious.

In conscious progress, we know our numerical and narrative impacts. We are clear what kinds of numbers and narratives most represent progress. In unconscious progress, we are actually making progress but don't know it because we aren't measuring for it or extracting awareness from our experiences.

One way to become more conscious of progress is to focus more on lead than lag performance indicators. Lead indicators are cause; lag indicators are effect. When we reflect on why we make progress as effect, we make it possible to become more aware of the causal conditions. We make more conscious progress.

Shared progress

Another way to create and sustain alignment is through a shared sense of what progress means in our work together.

What progress could or will look like in any direction is not always obvious when we commit to any direction. We have to define it together.

A good way to begin defining progress is identifying the progress markers. These are events that represent clear progress in our direction of choice. Progress marker events are outcomes of our efforts, inspired, energized and organized by our questions.

Working by agreement rather than assumption

Working in any direction requires alignment. Alignment makes for optimal velocity. Before alignment is created, efforts create more talk than traction. People work hard without making obvious progress.

Alignment grows and sustains when we interact from shared directions, questions and expectations. These are expectations about how we work, communicate and learn together.

Creating shared expectations begins by identifying what we wish and assume about how we interact together. When wishes or assumptions are different or unclear, we craft experiments to test what could work best for everyone. We work from agreement rather than assumptions. This makes possible shared expectations that leads to alignment.

Choosing our committed directions

Once we identify possible directions we could take, we can choose the committed directions we will pursue by going through two iterations:

  • Are there themes, beliefs and values represented in our possible directions?

  • Are there directions that represent the most shared themes, beliefs and values?

  • Are there directions that we already have traction, progress of success in?

  • Are there directions we already have talents and resources to support?

Our committed directions are those that are most supported by themes, beliefs, values, traction, progress, success, talents and resources..

Smart teams

In smart teams, people are constantly learning and adapting to deliver the greatest good. They thrive in change and uncertainty because they know how to turn complexity into simplicity. Relentless learning and adapting creates an optimal ecosystem for creativity and collaboration.

It is possible for struggling teams to learn how to move forward in the direction of becoming a smart team. They have all they need to make progress.

What does it mean to pursue multiple directions?

There are many contexts where it is clear and realistic to think a good future will mean multiple rather than singular dimensions of the future. Pursuing multiple directions means moving from each through questions that emerge from our curiosity, actions and learning. As we move from our questions our sense of each pursued direction shifts. Some we edit, some we combine, some we delete, some we add.

One of the interesting benefits of questions is that as we get better at discovering and shaping questions, our progress produces value along the way. There is no value delayed or deferred. We gain new resources, opportunities, support, capacity and immediately useful outcomes.

This is one of the most interesting differences between directions and goals. Goals defer usable benefits until completion and directions deliver usable benefits along the way.

The psychology of RoadMapping

There is a unique psychology to making progress in our desired directions, one question at a time. The process is based on some core beliefs:

Whether we engage or resist it, change is a constant

There can be multiple good pathways in any direction

Our unknowns outnumber and outpace our knowns

We are as smart and fast as our questions

Our questions make us smarter together

We always have what we need to progress in the directions we pursue

What could it look like if...?

This is one of the simple questions to shape progress from any direction. It implies doing rather than discussion. If we have a questions about what a new product, service or solution could look like, we use what we have to build, test and launch what works. It all about action learning. Learning our way into a future different from the past.

RoadMapping and personality types

When people come together in any planning process, an ecosystem of personalities are possible. We're talking here about personality as a way of thinking, a perspective, a bias for knowing.

Some examples:

Dreamers: people who like creating a compelling sense of the future different from the past, who thrive in change

Realists: people who like being realistic, who have little patience for assumption based fruitless discussion and inaction, who like productive progress in a reasonable direction

Creatives: people who like to solve puzzles and problems, who enjoy constant experimenting with whatever comes their way

Learners: people who like to learn about things that intrigue them, who relish the whole process of discovery, who see unknowns as their greatest assets

Maintainers: people who believe if we just keep trying to do more of the same, with occasional adjustments, we will achieve success

Victims: people who like complaining, finger-pointing, lecturing others on what they should be doing, wallowing in pessimism or cynicism, mainly because it relieves them of the burden of responsibility

RoadMapping engages the gifts of realists and creatives, dreamers and learners while giving maintainers and victims a chance to share in the engagement toward a more meaningful future and path towards it.

Doing the most good possible

What's the most good we could do? This simple question empowers us with perspective as we shape and work from our directions. It brings about consideration of depth and impacts beyond the immediate. It gives our vision more length and depth.

What does it mean to commit to a direction?

Committing to a future direction means committing to our sense of its potential form, value, costs and questions. It is based on the reality that in many ways, the future we get is either the future we create the conditions for or the future we get that becomes our conditions.

It is not assumptive. The continuous unfolding of our questions create an optimal way of making sense of our world. We simplify the way we go about doing the most good possible.

What problems does RoadMapping solve for?

RoadMapping gives project teams unique advantage in navigating their way to success. Here are some of the many problems it solves for:

  • The project team isn't aligned on how to work through a project

  • The team moves through the project with more unknowns than knowns

  • The instrinsic uncertainty of the project makes for no one obviously superior pathway

  • Change is the most expected constant in the life of the project

  • Working by assumptions will cause the team to be unrealistic and miss key opportunities

  • Achieving success requires commitment to iterations of progress

Keeping directions aligned

As pathway directions emerge, they can have various levels of alignment among them. Creating alignment can happen by identifying the underlying realities, beliefs and values.

Alignment can also spark other pathway possibilities and other question possibilities for existing pathways.