Running and Product Delivery…an unlikely analogy

A few months ago, I read about a runner named Eliud Kipchoge making history by completing a marathon in under two hours! If I hadn’t run a marathon myself, at one third of his speed (ROFL emoji goes here), I may not have truly appreciated the extent of this feat. It was amazing to see him approach the finish line as if he had merely completed a 5K.

Watching him made me reevaluate my running technique. I have some basic flaws with my form but I’ve never really consulted with anyone to get it fixed because my current goals as an athlete i.e. cross the finish line, can be achieved with a less than ideal running form. With the recent inspiration from Kipchoge and recognizing the potential to improve my speed while reducing the chance of injury, I decided to make a correction.

After some research (and a lot of YouTube videos) and lessons learned from my experience, I concluded that there are four major elements to ensure success as a runner:

1. Form — proper posture and mechanics of arms and legs
2. Stride Length — distance covered per stride
3. Cadence — number of strides per minute
4. Strength Training — ensuring all the muscles are able to support your body/bones and boost your performance

I have just started reworking my form and I have noticed how I am better able to engage the larger muscles in my body and put less stress on areas like my foot and heel (which had an injury earlier this year that prevented me from running for a couple of months).

I was reflecting on this change and I realized that the same elements that determine the success of a runner can be applied to Product Delivery!

Product Delivery is an outcome of Project Delivery

To share my views on Product Delivery, based on my experiences at different organizations and industries, I would highlight two main things:

1. “Behind every successful Product, there is a Project”.
2. “The basis of every Project is a Product”.

*Product in this case could also represent a Service.

The main point I am trying to make here is that Product and Project are interrelated rather than independent; Visualize the good old Scope-Schedule-Cost triangle. Yes, there arespecific skill-sets and functions that are expected of a Product Manager vs. a Project Manager, but the end goal for both is the same i.e. Successfully deliver a high quality, relevant Product in a timely manner. If this is not a shared goal, to me, that is a “Red Flag”.

Having set up the foundation for my analogy, let’s see how we can use similar principles to ensure successful Product Delivery.

Form

This is equivalent to a “Framework” in Product Delivery. This could be Scrum, SAFe or whatever the next best thing in the industry might be. But having a framework and being true to it increases the chances of success of Product Delivery. Needless to say, the framework needs to have buy-in from the top-down. Having leadership support and alignment on the dynamics of a framework makes execution that much easier.

Running form is similar in that it requires engagement from top to bottom (shoulders, arms, core, legs and feet etc.) too, otherwise it wouldn’t work.

Stride Length

How far can you reach without pulling a muscle? If you over-stride, you risk injury. If you under-stride, you are not tapping into your potential and there is more unnecessary impact on your feet and body.

This can be equated to how much work you plan for your teams. When you have your teams overloaded, you risk their long term sustainability, resource burn-out and very possibly attrition. There needs to be a careful distinction between “stretching” your resources and pushing them too far. Elasticity does have a breaking point.

Cadence

Simply put: Speed = Stride Length * Cadence

• The more distance you cover per stride, the faster you go.
• The higher the rate of your strides, the faster you go.

High cadence by itself doesn’t guarantee speed. If form or stride length are not aligned, cadence becomes a non-factor. You might as well speed-walk and call it a day! :) It can no longer be called “Running”.

Cadence can be equated to the frequency and time-box for a team’s work. In other words, it represents how often they are expected to deliver/showcase the results of their work.

There are underlying factors around team cadence as well. For example, how much are they being loaded (Stride length) and what are the team dynamics (Form) i.e. are they empowered, is there transparency from top-down, is there a presence of “Servant-leadership” or are they simply expected to be order-takers?

We need to be particularly mindful of the “point of diminishing returns”. If talent is repeatedly suppressed rather than fostered, embraced and rewarded this will lead to disengagement and a drop in productivity.

Runners also need to take care of themselves in terms of nutrition and rest days to make sure that they don’t experience that type of burn out and are both motivated and able to perform optimally.

Strength Training

When I trained for long distance events, strength training was an after-thought (mostly because I didn’t have enough hours in the day). I focused mainly on endurance. When I transitioned from long distance running to triathlons, I worked with a trainer who helped me with strength training. That is when I really saw the importance and benefits of strength training on the swim, bike and run portions.

Having strong muscles helps provide you the support and power needed to achieve your goal.

The muscles in Product Delivery would translate to the individual team members. Just as a muscle injury puts a runner out for a couple months, not having high performing team members puts a project and product at risk.

A runner, myself included, may have the illogical urge to run through the pain and hope that other muscles can compensate for the weak muscle or that it can magically heal itself. But that can ultimately lead to damage that is beyond repair! In much the same way, an underperforming team member tends to be the starting point of failure. It is important to identify such cases and take the necessary actions to “Strengthen/Heal that muscle” in order to get back on track (before the damage snowballs and falls apart like an avalanche).

Conclusion

Successful Product delivery is like Running. You can either cross the finish line haphazardly with less than desired results, OR you can pay attention to a few details, as outlined above to attain a more predictable and pride-worthy completion.