The Say - Do Ratio

I’ve heard it expressed many ways in my time.  In Agile of course we call it the Say-Do Ratio, the comparison of the number of story points accepted to the number of story points planned (multiply by 100 to express as a percentage).   Teams starting out often find their numbers sorely lacking, less than 50%.  A good, experienced, team taking reasonable risk might crack 90%.  An effective team uses this ratio to guide their future planning in order to become more predictable.  An effective product owner uses it to make sure he’s not asking his teams to do ridiculous things.  I find an effective architect often finds him / herself marveling at the lack of ability of some of the population to learn from experience.

Learning from experience is something most people intuitively understand.   More than listening to what people say, we look at what people do.  St. Francis of Assisi had a couple things to say on it: “The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today”.  I believe this with all my being – I have seen it in my co-workers, and in my children, and all those with whom I interact.   Francis was way out on the fringes in his day – renounced his family, his wealth, all worldly goods and set out to understand, live and explain the Gospel.   We have the image Francis in our gardens, reminding us of the Spirit in Nature, we have our Nativity scenes, of which Francis is credited the invention.  One time an entire church offered itself as converts to his religious order after one service.    A life passionately lived in genuine belief in the truth of the Gospel can have an effect that lasts for thousands of years.  Some day a Pope might even take your name and live out his life in the same spirit. *

 “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”   Here in Wisconsin, we are prone to a bit of hero worship, especially between September and the start of February.  Some of it, like the image of St.Vince in the stands, or perhaps in the parking lots near Lambeau Field is amusing and relatively harmless.   But this St. Francis quote is reputed to be a favorite of a man I am pretty sure would not accept the mantle of hero, and yet seems to live it out in his daily life, by his work as well as the causes he supports.  His colleagues seem to refer to him as simply “12”, and the rest of us know him as Aaron Rodgers.    His quiet intensity in all that he does, coupled with never taking anything about himself seriously (except criticism), sets an example which many would be served to follow.   I imagine what we can’t see – the hours he puts in addressing those criticisms, and the much harsher self-criticism a guy like that must have – turns him into a transcendent force in his chosen profession and beyond.

Authenticity has power.  So does inauthenticity.    Imagine if you will that you are a very visible executive, and one of your pet peeves is the expense of internal employee travel.  Now granted, most of your travel involves customer contact at one point or another.   But even if they understand, some of your employees get pretty frustrated when they are up in the middle of the night, the breaking of dawn, needing to be actively involved in hour or day long teleconferences because sometimes, no matter how simple and distributed a global organization is, the global pieces need to communicate.    So you might be a little more sensitive than naming your blog “From The Road”, and including pictures of your global staff, when some cannot even travel to onboard new members of their direct staff.

And don’t make one of the pillars of the company’s strategy “People are Our Most Important Asset” just before embarking on a major reduction in force.    I remember a number of the parodies that my colleagues came out with after that one – “People are our Most Expensive Asset” was one of the kindest takes. “People are Our Most Important Problem” was heard as well.   If memory serves “Walk the Talk” was on that list as well.  I know it has to be done sometimes.  But at least feign some semblance of remorse.  Also, check your acronyms, and have the courage to point it out to your boss if he names the team Platform Integration Services, or Technology / Medical Integration, or even the Computer Resource Allocation Project, especially if you suggested it.

Once authenticity is gone it can never be recovered.  Whatever you say, people are watching what you do.  Even when you think no one is watching.  The Say Do ratio isn’t just for Scrum planning any more.

*Apologies to my Jesuit friends  –  St. Francis Xavier was a pretty cool guy too.

** Today's picture is a Say-Do - Sandy and I said we would lead trips to Hawaii and this is the first one, for the transit of Venus in 2012.   Sometime we'll get to The Rest of the Story