I’m currently in the position where I’m arguing for the things you classify as “motion” at the expense of some of the “progress” (e.g. requesting more time on tech debt and improvements to current infrastructure over the bum-rush of onboarding new customers and accomodating feature requirements). It’d be interesting to see your point of view on how to balance this and get all parties involved to agree on a compromise - since I, as the engineer, obviously want a ‘nice’ product, whereas the sales team and CEO would obviously rather a faster growing customer base, clearly someone has to compromise, but it feels like aiming for the progress items 95% of the time is leading us down a dark path that ultimately ends in company failure.
Yes, that is a great point! Motion is necessary for success, if you spend all your time on progress you accumulate a form of debt that has to be paid down later.
A good balance depends on the stage of company. If you are an early stage company looking for Product/Market Fit, 100% of your time is on progress. If you're a large company with hundreds of thousands of employees, it's likely more 80% progress and 20% motion. The key is to not confuse them.
It is, in some ways, a self correcting problem. If you spend all your time on progress, eventually the debt builds up enough to prevent further progress. At that point the things that were motion become progress because progress is impossible without them! You don't want to wait until that happens, obviously.
You can usually quantify how much progress is being sacrificed and justify internal investment that way. If you know that your sales are being held up by broken tools and by fixing the tools you reduce the sales time by 50%, then that's clearly important since you have more time to close deals.
If leadership of a larger company is focused 100% on progress, usually that means things are not going well and their investors or board are demanding performance that isn't happening. Good leadership should understand the balance.
It's not easy, though, so good luck! I've been in your shoes before.
Sean, love the clarity you bring to everyday things people ignore or overlook. Most importantly, your single image speaks it all, the bar is high :)
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I’m currently in the position where I’m arguing for the things you classify as “motion” at the expense of some of the “progress” (e.g. requesting more time on tech debt and improvements to current infrastructure over the bum-rush of onboarding new customers and accomodating feature requirements). It’d be interesting to see your point of view on how to balance this and get all parties involved to agree on a compromise - since I, as the engineer, obviously want a ‘nice’ product, whereas the sales team and CEO would obviously rather a faster growing customer base, clearly someone has to compromise, but it feels like aiming for the progress items 95% of the time is leading us down a dark path that ultimately ends in company failure.
Yes, that is a great point! Motion is necessary for success, if you spend all your time on progress you accumulate a form of debt that has to be paid down later.
A good balance depends on the stage of company. If you are an early stage company looking for Product/Market Fit, 100% of your time is on progress. If you're a large company with hundreds of thousands of employees, it's likely more 80% progress and 20% motion. The key is to not confuse them.
It is, in some ways, a self correcting problem. If you spend all your time on progress, eventually the debt builds up enough to prevent further progress. At that point the things that were motion become progress because progress is impossible without them! You don't want to wait until that happens, obviously.
You can usually quantify how much progress is being sacrificed and justify internal investment that way. If you know that your sales are being held up by broken tools and by fixing the tools you reduce the sales time by 50%, then that's clearly important since you have more time to close deals.
If leadership of a larger company is focused 100% on progress, usually that means things are not going well and their investors or board are demanding performance that isn't happening. Good leadership should understand the balance.
It's not easy, though, so good luck! I've been in your shoes before.