The Power of Purpose

Everyday struggles with lack of purpose in processes 🧩 The five-monkeys-and-a-ladder experiment 🧩 Everything needs a clear purpose 🧩 How to establish purpose in processes

Photo by Joseph Rosales on Unsplash

How often have you asked: “Why are we doing this?”, only to receive the answer: “Because that’s how it’s always been done!”?

It will be Mission Impossible to make decisions without having answers to your most pertinent WHY questions. But how do you ensure everybody knows the reasons behind each WHY?

Keep reading 👇

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🥴 Why Make Things Easy if They Can Be Difficult?

A while back, I bought a pair of shoes from the Internet. When they arrived, I tried them on but they didn't fit. So, I decided to send them back.

I put the shoes in their original box, which was covered in a plastic bag. I wrote the address on the plastic bag and went to the Post Office.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

To my surprise, the Post Office refused to take my package. The problem was the plastic bag. I didn’t understand what they meant. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: “I made the package exactly as it was. It came with that plastic bag on top. Why can’t I use it then?”

PO: “Because it’s our policy.”

Me: “It’s your policy not to transport plastic packages? And yet, you did. I’ve also received other plastic packages from you. How come?”

PO: “No, you cannot return your package wrapped in plastic, but others can send it to you.”

Me: “What exactly is that supposed to mean?! Others can send plastic, but I can’t??”

PO: “Yes, because you have to pay more.”

Me: “Oh, so this is all about money then! It’s not a problem with you not being able to, or simply refusing to transport plastic?”

PO: “That’s correct.”

Me: “Well, good to know! And how much does it cost?”

PO: “To return this package, you’ll have to pay the normal price of €5. For the plastic on top, you’ll have to pay an additional €30.”

Me: “Why am I paying more for the plastic?”

PO: “Because the person that mailed it to you didn’t prepay for the plastic.”

Me: “Excuse me??”

PO: “When the person mailed this package to you, they paid for the plastic too. But they didn’t prepay for your return. That’s why the plastic is not included in the return. You have to pay for the return and the plastic on top of it too, unless you remove it.”

Me: “And why do you charge separately for the plastic?”

PO: “Because we cannot transport it otherwise.”

Me: “I’m pretty sure we’ve already established that you can transport plastic. But it’s still unclear to me why you’re charging separately for it.”

PO: “Here, let us explain! Do you see this document? It has the Terms & Conditions of our company. Take a look at this paragraph. It clearly says that to transport plastic, we charge an additional €30.”

Me: “However, that still doesn’t answer my question. Why do you charge those €30??”

PO: “Because you cannot send your package otherwise.”

Me: 😖

We kept going like that in circles for about half an hour (I don’t give up easily!), after which I removed the plastic, put the address on the carton box, and mailed it for €5 🙄

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🐒 The Five-Monkeys-And-A-Ladder Experiment

Photo by Gustavo Sánchez on Unsplash

There is a famous fable about an experiment that happened in the 1960s:

Five monkeys were placed in a room with bananas hanging from the ceiling and a ladder in one of the corners. The monkeys really wanted those bananas, but every time they tried to reach them using the ladder, they got sprayed with cold water from the ceiling. It was a big surprise and not nice at all, so they quickly learned not to climb the ladder to get the bananas.

Then, one of the monkeys was taken out of the room and replaced with a new monkey who had never been sprayed with water. This new monkey saw the bananas and thought, "Hey, I can use that ladder to get them!" But before the new monkey could even start climbing, the other monkeys grabbed it, pulled it down to the ground, and beat it up.

The new monkey was confused. It didn't understand why the other monkeys were being so mean. But it learned its lesson: Don't try to climb the ladder!

After a while, another one of the original monkeys was taken out and replaced with a new one. Just like before, when the new monkey tried to climb the ladder, the other monkeys (incl. the first new monkey) stopped it and beat it up. This happened again and again, every time a new monkey was introduced into the room.

Eventually, all the monkeys in the room were new ones who had never been sprayed with cold water. However, they still stopped each other from climbing the ladder and getting the bananas. They had learned a rule without knowing why, just because… that was how it had always been done 😉

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💡 Underlying Principles

Processes are the plans we make to:

1. achieve our goals (repeatedly)

2. under given circumstances.

However, as it happens in life, both our circumstances and our goals change. That’s why it is essential to regularly review and update our processes to ensure that they always align with our current goals and circumstances.

If we don't keep our processes updated, they stop being useful very fast. They become like old maps that don't show the right roads anymore. And even worse: Obsolete processes turn into obstacles that can stop us from where we want to go.

Photo by Beatriz Pérez Moya on Unsplash

But here's the tricky part: We can't just update processes randomly. We need to understand WHY each element of our process exists in the first place. If we don't understand this, we’ll end up doing one of two things:

1. We will not update anything because we’re worried about messing things up. In that case, our process will become obsolete.

2. We’ll go ahead and update it anyway, and end up breaking things we didn’t know were connected. Those things won't get updated alongside our process, so they will become obsolete.

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☝️ How to Address This

Purpose always needs to be connected to how we do things. In other words, whenever we write something down - anything! - we also need to write down WHY we're doing it that way.

Think about process documentation like it's software code. When we write code, we are addressing certain Software Requirements. And there always is (or should be!) a bidirectional link between our piece of code and the related Software Requirement.

In our processes, the connection between purpose and what we do can be established in several ways:

Approach 1️⃣

Explain why the rule exists alongside the rule itself.

I have used this approach when defining a Documentation Management policy: I provided the justification for every item in each section. Here is the Review & Approval Cycle as an example:

Notice that I am not simply stating the rule: “The Review & Approval Cycle is 3 months.” I am also going a step further to explain WHY 3 months exactly.

Granted, with this approach, our documents will become at least twice as long. If that seems like too much, we can think of creative ways to include the purpose, e.g. adding a video explanation, linking to an external source, etc.

Approach 2️⃣

Connect the process elements to the process outcomes.

Every process has a reason for existing, which we call Process Purpose. This purpose can be broken down into what we want the process to achieve, which we call Process Outcomes. We can then connect these outcomes with different parts of the process, e.g. the steps we take or the things we measure. And we do all of this inside the same document, which we call Process Definition or Process Description.

Here is an example of this approach from the A-SPICE standard (ver.3.1), MAN.3 Project Management Process:

Notice how the Process purpose is broken down into Process outcomes, which are then mapped to the Base practices (i.e. the things we do). This connection helps us understand WHY we're doing what we're doing.

Similarly, the Process outcomes are also mapped to the Output work products (i.e. the documents and records we create while executing this process). This helps us understand WHY we need to create these documents:

Here is one more example from the CobiT framework (ver.4.0), process PO10 Manage Projects. The mapping is between what we want to achieve (Activity, Process, or IT Goals) and how we measure if we’ve achieved it (Key Performance Indicators or Key Goal Indicators). This helps us understand WHY we need these specific measurement indicators:

Approach 3️⃣

Use a system to maintain the mapping between process elements and process outcomes.

We can use a database (e.g. Requirements Management database, Confluence Requirements or Decisions section, or any other system) to maintain the connection between process elements (i.e. process steps, process metrics, process work products, etc.) and the reason they exist (i.e. the desired outcomes or goals of the process, or even specific process requirements). This approach is very similar to Approach 2, only the database is separate from the Process Definition/Description document.

On a logical level, our mapping in the database will look like this:

When using this approach, we shouldn’t forget to also connect the Process Definition/Description document and the database, preferably on a granular level. For example, Process Element A can contain a link to its description in the respective process, and vice versa.

Approach 4️⃣

Experiment to find our preferred method.

We can also think of a different method or combine the approaches mentioned above. As long as we explain WHY we need to do certain things in a certain way, any approach can be effective.

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And that's how we ensure everybody knows the reasons behind each WHY. So, now we can go on that beach vacation, turn off our phones, have fun, and trust that things will still run smoothly even when we're not there 😎

Photo by Cassie Gallegos on Unsplash

Next, see here how to install purpose in the organization:

Thank you for reading 💝

Till next time,

Irina

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If you need help with your specific business challenges:

1. take a self-assessment,

2. attend a webinar, or

3. contact me.