1. We shouldn't automatically trust that dashboards, KPIs, etc., accurately represent what we're doing.
2. We have a tendency to paint a rosy picture when we're visualizing the work.
Scarcely ever would there be a workshop where a team trying to map the work doesn't need to be reminded that "we want to visualize work as it is, not as we'd like it to be."
In a recent example, I suggested visualizing leadership work (strategy, hiring, etc.).
"But we don't have a stable flow, and we don't keep work in progress limits," was the response.
So what? That's work. That's how it looks right now. To establish trust in the visualization, it must represent reality accurately. Otherwise, you end up with a muffin labeled as a bagel.
I think there's something analogous here between the tendency to accept a "rosy" picture of our work...and examples from the art world where a "rosy picture" literally exposes the painting as a forgery.
Not too long ago I read about one of history's most notorious art forgers, Wolfgang Beltracci, who fooled collectors and even auction houses who spent millions thinking they were getting the original work of a master. His recreations were absolute perfection.
So much so that his level of perfection is what led to his downfall.
Why? Because much like any "art" of inventiveness or creation, knowledge work is messy. So when a dashboard shows perfect WIP limits, ideal cycle time, seamless handoffs between teams, I am as suspicious as an art appraiser looking at a canvas and brush strokes that are too neat, too perfect. Real work (like real art) contains evidence of learning, correction, and outright mistakes. If a processes' visualization looks too good to be true, it likewise probably is.
In both cases that illusion of perfection masks the very things we need to improve. And in the end the most valuable dashboards (like the most valuable paintings) aren't the ones that look the best, they're the ones that tell the truth. Because even a technically perfect forgery of a Vermeer will never prove as valuable as an actual, albeit imperfect Vermeer.
Representation of the work is not the work.
This has two profound consequences:
1. We shouldn't automatically trust that dashboards, KPIs, etc., accurately represent what we're doing.
2. We have a tendency to paint a rosy picture when we're visualizing the work.
Scarcely ever would there be a workshop where a team trying to map the work doesn't need to be reminded that "we want to visualize work as it is, not as we'd like it to be."
In a recent example, I suggested visualizing leadership work (strategy, hiring, etc.).
"But we don't have a stable flow, and we don't keep work in progress limits," was the response.
So what? That's work. That's how it looks right now. To establish trust in the visualization, it must represent reality accurately. Otherwise, you end up with a muffin labeled as a bagel.
YES.
I think there's something analogous here between the tendency to accept a "rosy" picture of our work...and examples from the art world where a "rosy picture" literally exposes the painting as a forgery.
Not too long ago I read about one of history's most notorious art forgers, Wolfgang Beltracci, who fooled collectors and even auction houses who spent millions thinking they were getting the original work of a master. His recreations were absolute perfection.
So much so that his level of perfection is what led to his downfall.
Why? Because much like any "art" of inventiveness or creation, knowledge work is messy. So when a dashboard shows perfect WIP limits, ideal cycle time, seamless handoffs between teams, I am as suspicious as an art appraiser looking at a canvas and brush strokes that are too neat, too perfect. Real work (like real art) contains evidence of learning, correction, and outright mistakes. If a processes' visualization looks too good to be true, it likewise probably is.
In both cases that illusion of perfection masks the very things we need to improve. And in the end the most valuable dashboards (like the most valuable paintings) aren't the ones that look the best, they're the ones that tell the truth. Because even a technically perfect forgery of a Vermeer will never prove as valuable as an actual, albeit imperfect Vermeer.
Three things come to mind:
Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Grace Potter’s root s rock lyric: Well, I like the lies I see
In my rose-colored rearview
Rose-colored rearview
Power of narrative / controlling narrative.
Great piece. You should write a book!
That ship has already sailed :D
Funny you should (both) say that: there is indeed another vessel currently in the shipyard. It's on Obeya so maybe I should Christen her Flow State? 😉