Fix Upstream, Benefit Downstream
Running taught me about improving software delivery and sales.
For the last few weeks I’ve been trying to improve my running performance by completing a set route in 30 minutes. However, I often find myself needing to sprint the final mile to ensure I cross the finish line within those 30 minutes.
I now realise that trying to improve my performance in the last mile is the least effective and most stressful method of hitting my target. The performance of my run is determined more by everything that came before that final mile, than the final mile itself.
Neil Rackham noted something similar in corporate sales. He noticed much of the literature and training focused on helping salespeople with their final mile - closing the sale - than with what comes before.
Rackham realised this was “because my close was rewarded with an order, I’d somehow assumed that using the close had caused the order. Of course, from what I now know, it was the way I’d developed my client’s needs [up until that point] that had brought me the business. It had nothing to do with my close.”
Rackham realised that trying to improve performance in the last mile was the least effective and most stressful method of improving the sales process. The performance of the salesperson is determined more by everything that came before that final mile, than the final mile itself.
Likewise, we know that the least effective and most stressful method to improve the speed and quality of software delivery is to improve performance in the last mile by introducing more testers to find and correct software defects. As Deming suggests, “Inspection does not improve quality, nor guarantee quality. Inspection is too late. The quality, good or bad, is already in the product.”
The speed and quality of software delivery is more determined by everything that came before that final mile, than the final mile itself. We instead need to improve our overall software development process to reduce the likelihood of defects emerging in the first place.
The takeaway? Improve running, sales, and software delivery by improving what comes before the final mile. The final mile is merely a product of what came before.
