# 🦄 ### The Unicorn Project Author: Gene Kim --- ## Purpose Here... To help you find and tell your story ------ * Stories have a formula * Learn this formula * Use it to tell your story ------ ### The Story Formula StoryBrand is a book by Donald Miller Great tool for understanding the formula of a story ------ * A character (our Hero) * Has a problem (serious and about survival) * And meets a guide * Who gives them a plan * And calls them to action * That helps them avoid failure + doom * And ends in success. ------ In this presentation we will show how The Unicorn Project follows the story formula using the StoryBrand framework. --- ## A Character... Maxine Chalmers ------ ### Strong and Capable... > "Everyone here values your incredible skills and talents and your fantastic contributions to the company over the last eight years" (Chapter #1) ------ ### Strong and Capable... > "Everyone knows you enable teams to do the impossible with software" (Chapter #1) ------ ### Strong and Capable... > "She knows that for the past twenty-five years, her job has been to bend technology to do her bidding - efficiently, effectively, precisely, with creativity and flair, and most importantly, competence" (Chapter #1) ------ ### With Honest Desires... xxx need quote xxx --- ## Has a Problem... Made the scapegoat 🐐 ------ ### Payroll Outage Maxine gets blamed for the payroll outage whilst she was on vacation ------ > "You're going to take one of your best people and exile her to the Phoenix Project because you need a fall guy for the payroll outage?" (Chapter #1) ------ ### IT Execs Fired! > "And both the CIO and VP of IT Operations were fired yesterday, no explanation given" > "And there are rumors of potentially even bigger and more sweeping changes coming..." (Chapter #1) ------ ### Serious / About Survival ! Company At Risk > "During Wartime, its about finding ways to avoid extinction" (Chapter #2) --- ## Has a Problem... Banished to The Phoenix Project ------ > "It takes months for new developers to do builds on their laptops and be fully productive" (Chapter #1) ------ > "All those stories about caveman technical practics in the Phoenix Project are actually true" (Chapter #1) ------ > "Apparently, here on the Phoenix Project, the toolbox is empty" (for Developers) (Chapter #1) ------ > "If the Phoenix development setup were a product, it would be the worst product ever." (Chapter #1) ------ > "Here we are, running the Phoenix Project, **the most imporant project in the company**, like we would have run a program in the 1970's. Developers coding all day and only integrating their changes and testing at the end of the project. What could go wrong?" (Chapter #3) --- ## Has a Problem... Causing our hero self-doubt ------ > "But there are time when Maxine wonders how the company will fare beyond the hundrenth anniversary, which wasn't that long ago" (Chapter #1) ------ > "She thinks about dusting off her resume, untouched for eight years, and putting our feelers for any job openings" (Chapter #1) ------ > "Is being assigned to the Pheonix Project making her a bad person" (Chapter #3) ------ ### Emotional Rollercoaster 😭😡😵‍💫 * "Tears well up." * "She is frustrated, every turn leads to a dead end." * "Worst scavenger hunt ever." ------ > "Good luck, chumps." (Chapter #2) Note: Maxine says this outloud untentionally. Then asked her real opinion by Kirsten (Head of the Project Office). Especially funny as her boss Chris told her to NOT to rock the boat. --- ## Has a Problem... Encounters a villian! ------ ### The Villain! 😈 Sarah Moulton ------ > "Sarah's speech sounds like listening to a general tell you how important winning the war is and then finding out that all the soldiers have been stuck in port for three years." (Chapter #2) ------ ### Premature Launch > "Word is that Sarah pushed for Phoenix to launch this week, and that Steve just approved it. All hell is about to break loose" (Kurt, Chapter #3) ------ > "We're fourteen hours into the launch, and the missile is still stuck in the tube" (Dwayne, Chapter #6) ------ Sarah: Great job Marketing! Demands IT pull their weight. > "She's unbelievable. She created this whole disaster! Is anyone ever going to call her on this?" (Shannon, Chapter #6) ------ ### Email to all IT employees > "Because of unanticipated problems caused by poor judgement exercised by certain members of the IT organization, all production changes must be approved by me" (Sarah, Chapter #6) ------ ### Email to all IT employees > "While the redshirts battle to contain the raging engine fire that is threatening the entire ship, the bridge officers continue to cover their asses." (Maxine, Chapter #6) ------ ### Email to all IT employees > "Sarah has effectively paralyzed everyone in this room even further." (Maxine, Chapter #6) ------ > "The witch hunt has begun." > "What a complete shit show." > "This is so wrong." ------ > "Better engineering practices would have prevented so much of that. What a waste..." (Maxine, Chapter #6) --- ## Has a Problem... What would you do? Note: There is a strength in not being "stuck" in a job. Being confident to leave means you are confident to speak up. But there is a difference when feeling "jaded". --- ## And Meets a Guide... The Rebellion! ------ > "If you want to meet the people who made all this happen, despite considerable adversity and huge obstacles that typically prevent feats of greatness like this, come to the Dockside Bar tonight at five" (Kurt to Maxine, Chapter #4) ------ > "We invite you to be part of the inner-circle of the Rebellion. We're recruiting the best and brighest engineers in the organization, training and preparing in secret for the right time to overthrow the Empire, the ancient, powerful, and unjust order that definitely needs to be toppled." (Kurt to Maxine, Chapter #4) ------ > "I've finally found my tribe" (Maxine, Chapter #5) ------ > "Thinking about the Rebellion, she realizes how important that group is. To her, it's a beacon of hope." (Maxine, Chapter #6) ------ > "We need to keep the Rebellion together and keep this important work going." (Maxine, Chapter #6) --- ## And Meets a Guide... Erik Reid ------ > "You mean everything that's wrong with the Phoenix Project we did to ourselves?" (Shannon, Chapter #6) ------ > "You are correct, Maxine. You are truly on the cusp of understanding the magnitude and scale of the *challenges that await you.*" (Erik to Maxine, Chapter #6) --- ## Who Has Empathy Relates to Maxine at first introduction... > "Thanks for taking such good care of the MRP system" > "A truly magnificent feat of engineering and architecture!" Erik to Maxine (Chapter #7) --- ## Who Has Authority Right when he is introduced... > "This is Dr. Erik Reid. You may not know this, but Steve and Dick have been trying to recruit him to serve on the board of Parts Unlimited for months" (Kirsten, Chapter #7) ------ > "He's worked with the company for decades. In fact, Erik was part of the initial MRP rollout in the 80's and then he helped manufacturing plants adopt Lean principles and practices" > "He's a genuine hero amonth the manufacturing ranks" (Kirsten, Chapter #7) ------ > "He seemed very knowledgeable. An expert, even." (Shannon about Erik at first introduction, Chapter #7) ------ > "Bill told me about how Erik is teaching him something called the Three Ways and the Four Types of Work." (Kirsten, Chapter #7) --- ## Who Gives Them a Plan... The 5x Ideals 🧙‍♂️ ------ ### The 5x Ideals The First Ideal - Locality and Simplicity The Second Ideal - Focus, Flow, and Joy The Third Ideal - Improvement of Daily Work The Fourth Ideal - Psychological Safety The Fifth Ideal - Customer Focus --- ## Who Gives Them a Plan... Locality and Simplicity ------ > "Simplicity is important because it enables locality. Locality in our code is what keeps systems loosely coupled, enabling us to deliver features faster." (Erik, Chapter #7) ------ > "Or do we work in small batches, ideally single-peice flow, getting fast and continual feedback on our work?" (Erik, Chapter #7) --- ## Who Gives Them a Plan... Focus, Flow, and Joy --- ## Who Gives Them a Plan... Improvement to Daily Work --- ## Who Gives Them a Plan... Psychological Safety --- ## Who Gives Them a Plan... Customer Focus --- ## Who Gives Them a Plan... #### The Process Plan Alleviates confusion --- ## Who Gives Them a Plan... #### The Agreement Plan Alleviates fear ------ ### The Constraint Brent is the constraint. So Bill threatens to fire him 😆 > "It's so fantastic," Breant says, even apprearing to be be... tearing up? "Bill told me that he can't fire the business unit executives. He said that the only thing he can do is ensure that I'm not wasting my time" (Chapter 8) Note: Bill is alleviating fear for those trying to fix the root problem (Brent being the constraint). He created fear elsewhere: "Oh no! I need Brent to do my thing!!". But it needed doing! --- ## Calling Them to Action... As key events unfold our hero(s) steps in ------ ### Funtional Programming Tom and Maxine after refactoring some tricky code using FP... > This is so much fun, she thinks. And a great exeample of the First Ideal of Locality and Simplicity." (Chapter #8) ------ ### One month feature freeze > "Apparently, the technology executives had an off-site with Steve earlier this week, and one of the things they agreed upon was a one-month feature freeze" (Chapter #8) From 'The Phoenix Project' (the hero from that book fought for this!) ------ ### The Data Hub Window of opportunity opens. Kurt becomes manager of The Data Hub team. Data Hub was the scape-goat for the failed Phoneix release. "Blaming Data Hub and Peter for Pheonix going down is bullshit" (Chapter #8) ------ ### The Data Hub > "I've talked with our numerous internal customers, and they told me how important Data Hub is. But they also told me about how we're often the bottleneck for changes needed across the enterprise, as well as for the Phoenix Project." (Kurt, Chapter #8) ------ ### TEP-LARB TEP = Technology Eveluation Process LARB = Lead Architecture Review Board > "The truth is there is nothing more difficult than getting through TEP-LARB. Nothing!" - Dwayne (Chapter #11) > "They are the Grand Pointless Council of No" - Maxine (Chapter #11) ------ ### TEP-LARB Gone Rogue... Dev + Ops They get blocked at TEP-LARB. So, take on Ops themselves (within the Dev dept) and make own decisions on tools. ------ ### Extended Warranty Programs First discussed two years ago! > "For something this important, we wasted almost two year. Instead of one product manager working on this the entire time, we could have had five people working on it. And we could have been learning the whole time." (Chapter #12) ------ ### Make a Difference Enlist Maggie Lee to work together on promotions that will make the biggest difference to Parts Unlimited in near future ------ ### Make a Difference > "You're looking at a renegate group fo engineers who want to solve big problems that actually matter to the business. Our attempts to go through the normal channles haven't worked, so here's our change to work directly with the business instead of through technology middle managers. If we succeed, we get credibility. We'd love your endorsement supporting these new ways of working." (Kurt, Chapter #13) --- ## Calling Them to Action... To Participate in Something Greater Than Themself ------ > "We want to ensure that the company's future is secure. If you have a pension or have been part of our employee retirement stock purchase plan, this is probably as important to you as it is to me" (Steve - CEO, Chapter #2) ------ > "I want to build and maintain something for the long haul, instead of shipping the 'feature of the day' and dragging all this technical debt around." (Brent, Chapter #5) ------ > "We could build a workld class technology organization and create an engineering culture. That's how we survive and innovate for our customers. And my dream is that everyone is the custodian of company data. It's not just the job of one department." (Shannon, Chapter #5) --- ## Calling Them to Action... Foreshadows potential tragic ending ------ > "She's seen the corrosive effects that a culture of fear creates" ------ Foreshadowed in chapter #1 * Restructuring the company. * Divesting non-core poor-performing assets. --- ## Calling Them to Action... Foreshadows potential successful ending --- ## Calling Them to Action... Shared suffering ------ > "Sarah Moulton is going ballistic, complaining how 'all the idle developers' are jeopardizing the promises the company has already made to customers and Wall Street." (Chapter #8) --- # Climatic Could go either way... foreshadowed failured or success 😯 ------ # Hero's Transformation ------ > "But *my aha moment* was when Kurt pointed out that we've somehow created a system where hundreds of engineers are unable to get simple things done without an incredible amount of communication and coordination." (Chapter #6) ------ > "Crap," she mutters. I'm back in the same place I was before, a long way away from the First Ideal. I still can't actually do anything myself, Maxine thinks. (Chapter #8) ------ > "I've seen things. Unspeakable things, Kurt. Such waste and needless suffering... No developer should have to go throuhg... this... this... madness!" (Chapter #10) ------ > The idea of liberating Data Hub from the Phoenix Project morass is thrilling. (Chapter #10) ------ > "We created all these rules, so we can break them too." (Chapter #10) --- # Helping Them Avoid Failure... --- ### Taps Into Loss Aversion --- # Ending in Success... --- # Appendix --- ### Lessons from Steve (CEO) ------ > If all our employees are excited to come to work each day, and if we're delighting our customers through constant innovation and great service, cash flow will take care of itself Note: 3 key metrics that Steve cares most about are Employee Engagement, Customer Satisfaction, and Cash flow --- ### Lessons to Takeaway ------ > "Developers **cannot** be productive without a great build, integration, and test process." (Chapter #2) ------ > "This is what an effective network is all about - when you can assemble a group of motivated people to solve a big problem, even though the team looks nothing like the official org chart." (Chapter #5) --- ### More Great Quotes ------ #### Watermelon Projects 🍉 > "Green on the outside, but red on the inside. That's what every one of our IT projects are these days." - Kirsten (Chapter #6) ------ #### Being the Constraint > It can be fun to be at the centre of everything, but it's certainly not sustainable. Down that road, only chronic wakeup capps, exhaustion, cyicism, and burnout await. (Chapter #8) ------ > "We don't even need guards anymore. We love being prisoners so much, we just think the bars are there to keep us safe." - Maxine (Chapter #10) --- #### Tech Debt > "Technical debt is what you feel the next time you want to make a change." Ward Cunningham (2003) > "I've started calling all of these things 'complexity debt' because they're not just technical issues - they are business issues. " - Erik (Chapter #7) ------ #### Tech Debt > "Every tech giant has nearly been killed by technical debt... they became so encumbered by technical debt they could no longer deliver what their customers demanded" (Chapter #8) ------ #### Tech Debt > "Technical debt is a fact of life, like deadlines. Business people understand deadlines, but often are completely oblivious that technical debt even exists" (Chatper #8) ------ #### Tech Debt > " Technical debt is inherently neither good nor bad - it happens" (Chapter #8) ------ #### Feature Freeze > "All the tech giants, at some point in their history, have used the feature freeze to massively rearchitect their systems" (Chapter #8) ------ > "Interestingly, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, still has a culture that if a developer ever has a choice between working on a feature or developer productivity, they should always choose developer productivity" (Chapter #8)