Steve Blank: Relentless – The Difference Between Motion And Action | Hacker News Reader

Steve Blank: Relentless – The Difference Between Motion And Action

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150 pointswyday23 comments

This reminds me of my hero of project management, Tom DeMarco.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeMarco

His approach was that every task is either 100% complete or 0% complete.

No task is ever "80%" complete. If you really think that it is, then break it down into smaller tasks, 80% of which are 100% complete and 20% of which are 0% complete. This way it becomes much clearer what is complete and what remains to be done.

I have never allowed anyone to report anything as n% complete for values other than 0 or 100. As soon as someone does, that's a pretty good sign that they may be confusing motion with action.

Remember OP's discussion with Jim...

  Me: Jim, how are we doing with getting Ansys ported?
  Jim: Great, I have a bunch of calls into them.
  Me: How are we doing on the Nastran port?
  Jim: Wonderful, they said they’ll get back to me next month.
  Me: How about Dyna 3D?
  Jim: It’s going great, we’re on their list.

Now imagine how much different that conversation would be if each question started with, "Which tasks are complete and which tasks are incomplete?"

There is something very sexy about this.

Yet, I can think of situations where this is counterproductive. Take sales. Any company that has a sales cycle can create predictive models after a certain amount of time. They can make predictions like 80% of sales close after point x. So if a sales dept has 100 sales at point x, they can predict about 80 will close. If this model has proven to be mostly accurate over a period of time, it can bring a heathy sense of stability and consistency in the company.

I couldn't tell where Steve stands with this exactly but isn't a linear sales process what allows sales-focused companies to be able to scale? I know in the case Steve described it was not the way to go because the sales cycle hadn't been proven and needed to be developed. But once developed, you don't want to be reinventing the wheel each time a new sales guy joins the team right?

That's a prediction, not an outcome. Predictions are useful, but they aren't the same as outcomes at all.

(This is a different thing to the Motion/Action discussion, too)

I used to run a meetup group, and on their site they allow users to RSVP "Yes, No, or Maybe." Along your same lines, I found Maybe to be utterly useless. It was really just a "No" for people who don't like saying no, so I disabled it (thankfully they give you that option).

Either you show up at an appointment or you don't.

Along the same lines, when you start a business, either you're profitable, or you're not. I've seen plenty of startups do the whole "motion" thing, busying themselves with building their product and twiddling knobs, meeting, and imagining how big they'll need to scale some day. Non of which is action.

I agree with that approach and use it myself. But from a project manager's standpoint it is useful to know which tasks are incomplete versus not even started. In a tool like MS Project I arbitrarily mark any started task as 10% complete to serve as a visual indicator that someone is actively working on it.

1) As a child the most important thing is effort, not results. If you try really hard your teacher/parent will reward you, even if the results are crap.

2) If you watch "business people" on TV they're involved in phone calls, meetings, and deal making. No boring or hard stuff that involves solo work for hours on end.

Put together those two ideas and you get people who think their entire job is to make an effort by doing what "business people" do all day.

This is why someone could feel entirely satisfied with themselves, even if they haven't produced a single meaningful result through all their effort.

"deal making" is pretty damn important, I don't know why you think it's some intermediary step like making a phone call or sitting in a meeting.

Until the deal is done, it doesn't amount to much.

You're certainly right - did you notice how Steve Blank never actually explained how to bridge the gap between "schedule meetings with people" and "get the deal done"?

"Scheduling meetings" is required, it just can't be used as a metric for progress. Don't get fooled into believing all these problems can be solved by sitting down and writing code for 10 hours.

notice how Steve Blank never actually explained how to bridge the gap between "schedule meetings with people" and "get the deal done"?

He does in his book. But a blog post has to have a limited scope or it becomes a rambling mess.

depends on your angle. If your product is good enough (or enough cheaper than the competition) deals come to you. On the other hand, if you have a mediocre product, your sales guy needs to be pretty goddamn good.

The specific delusion that motion is action is but one instance of what I'll call "value generation bias".

Most people have a pretty poor sense of whether they are generating value, and therefore seek to reassure themselves that their time is well spent by taking pride in whatever accomplishments they can track and their peers can recognize. We need this validation in order to feel that we have a purpose, and are serving that purpose.

Successful entrepreneurs are characterized by a merciless drive to remove bias from their understanding of value generation. They do so by working in enterprises that inherently provide this feedback -- like startups that die if they're not generating enough value -- or by soliciting feedback from trustworthy sources like customers, advisors, or numeric measurements.

If you are the kind of person who places little faith in value assessments made without clear reference to a worthy goal -- grades, job titles, signs of social status -- and you actively seek out information that challenges your own value judgments in order to reduce your own bias, you are probably moving in the right direction.

That's a terribly honest and critical viewpoint. I love it.

I find I make this mistake constantly: I've contacted someone, I've put the ball into their hands, but the goal is still as far away as it was when I started. It's an easy trap to fall into, at least for me, because clients have as much to do as we do to get various projects completed. Now that I've seen the issue, however, I can watch for it and take action where appropriate.

I noticed that when I use the expression "the ball is in their hand", I don't really care about the outcome. I'm just happy I don't have to deal with it right now.

It's funny how accurate the expression is, now that I think about it. Handing over the ball is a sure way to prevent you from scoring.

OTOH, sometimes you get an alley-oop or an assist.

As a manager, how do I know I'm not making an opposite mistake - confusing action with motion? In other words, how do I know I'm not too hard on somebody? The guy is making dozens of calls, sending hundreds of e-mails, and going to dozens of meetings to get people to write software for my machine with no customer base, but I don't see any concrete results. How do I know it's not my fault for asking him to do an impossible task?

Two approaches:

1. It could be an impossible task, but if the company depends on it, then what are you going to do? You can't hang on to someone who isn't delivering the results you need because you don't have infinite time and money. If they are filling a seat that someone better could potentially fill, you and the rest of your employees would be better served finding that better someone and survive.

2. Some tasks are impossible, but most are just hard. Embrace this definition of insanity: doing the same thing twice and expecting different results. If your report is making no headway, quickly as a team accept that, learn from it, and then spend the time to generate new approaches and test those out.

Both approaches are correct. You fire or double down depending on how aligned your report is to positive action. If they are defensive, unwilling, or incapable of learning and experimenting, they are roadblocks. If they are also concerned about their lack of progress, generating ideas, and resourceful, go the distance with them.

Note: it's legitimate for your report to claim that given the resources they have, they cannot meet the target. They can demand from you more resources to meet your goal, or demand you adjust your goal to meet their perception of reality. Then the process works in reverse. Are you defensive, unwilling, or incapable of learning? Or are you concerned about how well resourced you are, resourceful, and willing to go to bat for your report?

It's easy to confuse activity (non business results-producing tasks) with productivity (direct business results-producing tasks). An entrepreneur is one who attacks that difference with zeal.

You could swap the words motion and action in this article, and it wouldn't change the meaning.

i.e. why not: action: just doing something, whatever motion: making forward progress towards a goal. movement

The words only server as placeholders -- they might as well be X and Y. Break out a dictionary once in a while.

There's no need to be hostile. It's a famous Hemingway quote. See the first line of the post.

Very simple, yet insightful article. This is something everyone should look out for-not just entrepreneurs. When it comes down to it, we're measured by our results not by our efforts.

The key point:

> My brain was wired to focus on the end-point and work backwards, removing each obstacle in my path or going around them all while keeping the goal in sight.

Which is a really good one.

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