Very interesting. Some thoughts from a triathlete:
- The toughest part during open water swimming (aka exploration) is to know you are swimming in the right direction. Usually, you need to reach a specific landmark, and there are waves, wind, and chaos around you. Humans cannot swim straight to that point, so it's full of zigzags. You swim a bit to the right, then raise your head, look at the mark, and correct. You usually overcorrect/undercorrect, so when you raise your head again you need to change course again.
The big dillema is each look-ahead takes a couple of seconds. If all you do is look, you don't make progress. On the other side, if you don't stop enough, you'll swim very far in the wrong direction.
My coach told me it's common for people to swim 2.5k instead of 1.5k, and in some very windy races people even quit because they can't keep the right course.
- The race starts a few hours before the first phase. You need to have the basics right: good sleep, toilet, equipment ready in the changing place. My try to apply it: before you start exploring with code, you better have some conversations with customers :)
- The human body doesn't have enough energy to complete all the phases without any supplements (at least it's not suggested), you have to get some calories during the race. I would say a founding team can rarely start intact during all 3 phases, without an external senior hire/replacement.
- re-transitions - An Olympic triathlon is much easier mentally than a marathon. When you transition, it's almost like starting from scratch (especially the first transition). Different muscles, different pace, different views. As you said, it might require different people - but it can also give the same people a chance to 'restart'.
Not sure all of those work, but it was fun to try :)
Very evocative metaphor. Three different sets of skills, activities, muscles, etc., for three different phases. It sticks in your head and explains itself. 👌💡
The metaphor seems useful as a way of describing the phase changes (in the physics/chemistry sense) of software development.
Moving from solid to liquid to gaseous has a similar graph. Exploring is the solid state; trying different things, putting energy in, until finding the feature, marketing plan, whatever, that makes the shift happen and things become fluid and move, likely in ways we didn't plan for. ...
3X’ fractal nature is isteresting. I.e. 3X applies to tasks, projects, even companies. Would be curious to hear you blow that theme up as big as possible. E.g. Would be interesting to look at a person’s entire career in this light, or maybe national economies of software engineers. How is all of computing still in explore? How is it in extract?
Another interesting qustion: how is new life possible once we are in extract? Again for people, tasks, projects, teams, companies, etc.
I'll give you my classic answer--why don't you try that & let us know how it goes (you can start new chat threads, I think).
I thought I had an essay on "explore in extract" but I can't find it. It's tough. Your extract activities have nearly guaranteed ROI. Why ignore those for something you're almost guaranteed to discard?
Would love to hear your thoughts one day on how you feel this model could be complemented (or how it differentiates from) Wardley’s Pioneers, Settlers & planners concepts and overall mapping approach.
My view is that a Wardley Map helps you map both the chain of providing value to a customer (which could be a product) and where that chain is on the genesis to utility scale. If the thing you are delivering has lots of parts that sit in genesis then the likely approach is more exploration and agile processes, if it is a utility then rent it as a service.
In that way I see the models as very similar. What do you see is the difference with your model?
This sounds like the Knowledge Funnel from Roger Martin’s Design of Business, published in 2009. In his model the 3 stages are mystery-heuristic-algorithm.
It also has similarities to Simon Wardley’s model of pioneers-settlers-town planners that he uses in Wardley Maps and the transition from genesis to utility
Where would you fit into the metaphor the idea that what you produce during exploration quick and dirty (like a prototype) should be rebuilt or refactored during expansion to remove the dirty to better lead you into extraction? Perhaps skipping the rebuild/refactor step would mean you're trying to use a front crawl to propel your Pinarello then doing the same to drag your body, face down, over the road.
Very interesting. Some thoughts from a triathlete:
- The toughest part during open water swimming (aka exploration) is to know you are swimming in the right direction. Usually, you need to reach a specific landmark, and there are waves, wind, and chaos around you. Humans cannot swim straight to that point, so it's full of zigzags. You swim a bit to the right, then raise your head, look at the mark, and correct. You usually overcorrect/undercorrect, so when you raise your head again you need to change course again.
The big dillema is each look-ahead takes a couple of seconds. If all you do is look, you don't make progress. On the other side, if you don't stop enough, you'll swim very far in the wrong direction.
My coach told me it's common for people to swim 2.5k instead of 1.5k, and in some very windy races people even quit because they can't keep the right course.
- The race starts a few hours before the first phase. You need to have the basics right: good sleep, toilet, equipment ready in the changing place. My try to apply it: before you start exploring with code, you better have some conversations with customers :)
- The human body doesn't have enough energy to complete all the phases without any supplements (at least it's not suggested), you have to get some calories during the race. I would say a founding team can rarely start intact during all 3 phases, without an external senior hire/replacement.
- re-transitions - An Olympic triathlon is much easier mentally than a marathon. When you transition, it's almost like starting from scratch (especially the first transition). Different muscles, different pace, different views. As you said, it might require different people - but it can also give the same people a chance to 'restart'.
Not sure all of those work, but it was fun to try :)
I was sure the analogy when deeper. Thank you!
Very evocative metaphor. Three different sets of skills, activities, muscles, etc., for three different phases. It sticks in your head and explains itself. 👌💡
And they all involve locomotion. From 10kms up you might say, "They are moving." You would be right but also wrong.
I also used to carry around a soccer ball, an American football, and a rugby ball to illustrate. It was a pain inflate & deflate them every time.
I'm definitely not a triathlete.
The metaphor seems useful as a way of describing the phase changes (in the physics/chemistry sense) of software development.
Moving from solid to liquid to gaseous has a similar graph. Exploring is the solid state; trying different things, putting energy in, until finding the feature, marketing plan, whatever, that makes the shift happen and things become fluid and move, likely in ways we didn't plan for. ...
Maybe my metaphor doesn't work. Yours is better.
3X’ fractal nature is isteresting. I.e. 3X applies to tasks, projects, even companies. Would be curious to hear you blow that theme up as big as possible. E.g. Would be interesting to look at a person’s entire career in this light, or maybe national economies of software engineers. How is all of computing still in explore? How is it in extract?
Another interesting qustion: how is new life possible once we are in extract? Again for people, tasks, projects, teams, companies, etc.
I'll give you my classic answer--why don't you try that & let us know how it goes (you can start new chat threads, I think).
I thought I had an essay on "explore in extract" but I can't find it. It's tough. Your extract activities have nearly guaranteed ROI. Why ignore those for something you're almost guaranteed to discard?
Would love to hear your thoughts one day on how you feel this model could be complemented (or how it differentiates from) Wardley’s Pioneers, Settlers & planners concepts and overall mapping approach.
Simon and I had a long talk & decided 3X and PST were close enough that we should merge them. No concrete plans as yet.
Wardley maps seems to me a different kind of beast. How do you see the similarities?
My view is that a Wardley Map helps you map both the chain of providing value to a customer (which could be a product) and where that chain is on the genesis to utility scale. If the thing you are delivering has lots of parts that sit in genesis then the likely approach is more exploration and agile processes, if it is a utility then rent it as a service.
In that way I see the models as very similar. What do you see is the difference with your model?
This sounds like the Knowledge Funnel from Roger Martin’s Design of Business, published in 2009. In his model the 3 stages are mystery-heuristic-algorithm.
It also has similarities to Simon Wardley’s model of pioneers-settlers-town planners that he uses in Wardley Maps and the transition from genesis to utility
Where would you fit into the metaphor the idea that what you produce during exploration quick and dirty (like a prototype) should be rebuilt or refactored during expansion to remove the dirty to better lead you into extraction? Perhaps skipping the rebuild/refactor step would mean you're trying to use a front crawl to propel your Pinarello then doing the same to drag your body, face down, over the road.
That's taking the metaphor further than I would. But then I know nothing about triathlons.
That's alright. I had to Google to get Pinarello and the name of that swimming style. 😅