Convert that moat into a bridge

What if the nature of information flows out of Engineering to the rest of the organization looked less like a moat and more like a bridge?

For better or worse, Sales has tangible signs of progress that they can point to on their way toward a goal. They close deals all quarter and hit their number. Each deal and the % of achievement vs. plan are the clear mile markers. It’s pretty easy for everyone to follow along with how well, or not, things are going.

Engineering teams don’t have the same luxury. Progress and outcomes from key projects are more difficult to measure and don’t cleanly translate into language that most everyone across the company understands like a major deal closed or attainment of some bookings target.

The current industry response has been to try and measure productivity metrics in engineering like tasks, issues, cycle times, tickets closed and to pull requests. While these activity measures might tell you something about speed, they tell you nothing about quality or progress toward outcomes. And they certainly aren’t delivered in a language that the rest of the business understands. 

What if we made it dead simple for engineering teams to mark & communicate progress on their work and contextualize it within key projects, milestones and deliverables that everyone across the business can understand?

A really easy way to do this today is demos. Demos are the fastest way to show progress on something. Loom has made it really easy to create and share quick demos so that everyone can see how something is going. 

Now just imagine if those demos could be recorded anywhere and housed centrally inside of the projects they support? Think of it like a highlight reel or SportsCenter Top 10 Plays of the Week for the work being done across key projects and initiatives.

Making these tangible checkpoints and mile markers available for anyone that is interested in the status of key projects might go a long way toward converting that moat into a bridge.