Before we jump in…some potentially interesting bits of content: A 4,000 word post-in-progress on Bets, Success metrics, and Roadmapping An on-demand video on North Star Framework and Inputs/Flywheels (~1hr) An on-demand video on North Star Framework and OKRs
Love this article, John. Though I'd propose premature convergence isn't the best descriptor here, because it implies a time-based influence as the cause, suggesting that spending more time on the problem would lead to a more optimal approach. While it's true sometimes teams converge too quickly, I've also seen just as commonly that teams repeatedly spend far too long on discovery and *still* converge around a solution with a severe lack of optionality. The real causal factor is more so around the specific problems the team indexes their decisions around. Sometimes these problems and in turn their solutions are too specific, too narrow.
Completely agree with all points, but is there another way to describe it more indicative of the cause? Seems more so around missing a potential forest of optionality by instead focusing too narrowly on the problem trees.
Maybe overindexed convergence? Misaligned convergence? Still don't love these. Got to be something better that removes the time implication.
Love this article, John. Though I'd propose premature convergence isn't the best descriptor here, because it implies a time-based influence as the cause, suggesting that spending more time on the problem would lead to a more optimal approach. While it's true sometimes teams converge too quickly, I've also seen just as commonly that teams repeatedly spend far too long on discovery and *still* converge around a solution with a severe lack of optionality. The real causal factor is more so around the specific problems the team indexes their decisions around. Sometimes these problems and in turn their solutions are too specific, too narrow.
Completely agree with all points, but is there another way to describe it more indicative of the cause? Seems more so around missing a potential forest of optionality by instead focusing too narrowly on the problem trees.
Maybe overindexed convergence? Misaligned convergence? Still don't love these. Got to be something better that removes the time implication.