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Frameless Work

Introduction

Frameworks are great, but the less, the better.

Despite the popularity of frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, OKRs, and Opportunity Solution Trees, many top-performing product teams achieve success with a more flexible, frameless approach. In practice, many product professionals find themselves working for their frameworks rather than with them. Teams that focus on outcomes and detach themselves from rigid frameworks often create better results.

In discussions with product teams, there's a recurring theme: the desire for vision, mission, and values often overshadows the need for an aligned understanding of the company's direction and a robust decision-making system. Many companies implement OKRs with good intentions, only to find teams blocked because the structure doesn't reflect their reality well enough.

The product domain is saturated with frameworks tailored to different fields and problems, covering strategic planning, problem-solving, software development, prioritization, UX design, goal setting, and more. The sheer volume can be overwhelming.

Frameless Work offers a liberating alternative. It focuses on flexibility, direct action, and outcome orientation. It allows product professionals to do what truly matters: delivering value — for people and the business.

Framework Madness

Frameworks provide everything needed to get things off the ground quickly. In the fuzzy world of product management, frameworks offer guidance and confidence to build products effectively.

When advocating for a more customer-centric approach, using terms like "JTBD," "Opportunity Solution Trees," or "Empathy Mapping" makes the sell easier, especially when decision-makers have heard these terms before. The popularity of frameworks has helped the tech space make significant progress, thanks to thought leaders like Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber (Scrum), Teresa Torres (Opportunity Solution Trees), and Bob Moesta (Jobs-to-be-Done).

However, frameworks come at a price. They need to work within the unique environment of the company. Typically, both the company and the framework need to adapt to each other. If the differences are too significant, either the core idea of the framework is lost, or more time is spent discussing its correct implementation than focusing on value delivery.

Moreover, frameworks must fit the underlying problem. Inexperienced product professionals (Individual contributors and leads alike) may fall into the trap of applying the wrong tool for a specific problem, either because using the "best practice" provides confidence or because they are forced to use company standards regardless of the underlying issue.

Introducing Frameless Work

In collaboration with startups and scale-ups, we've observed that great companies often operate differently. On one end are early startups where founders, often without professional product experience, lead product development. Some achieve remarkable results, working customer-centrically and shipping fast, guided by strong principles rather than frameworks. On the other end are larger, successful product teams that require structure to be effective. These teams often customize their processes away from standard frameworks.

Frameless Work strips away the layers of prescribed methodologies to focus on what truly matters: delivering value efficiently and effectively. Unlike traditional frameworks that dictate specific practices and ceremonies, Frameless Work emphasizes flexibility and pragmatism. It encourages teams to adapt their methods to the unique challenges and opportunities they face, rather than forcing their work into a predefined mold.

Key Differentiators and Principles of Frameless Work:

• Pragmatism: Frameless Work reduces noise and clutter, eliminating unnecessary processes and documentation. It fosters clear and direct communication within the team, minimizing lengthy meetings and complex reporting structures. It's all about the results.

• Outcome-Oriented: The primary focus is on achieving desired outcomes rather than adhering to strict rules. This ensures that every action is aligned with delivering value to the people and the company.

• Flexibility and Adaptability: Teams are empowered to adjust their approaches dynamically, responding to changes and new information with agility. They can adapt their practices based on what works best for them, encouraging experimentation and iteration.

• Empowerment and Autonomy: Frameless Work fosters a culture of trust and empowerment, where team members are encouraged to make decisions and take ownership of their work, fostering responsibility and accountability.

• Work Visibility: Make your approach accessible to all team members. Explain your approach and include feedback to adapt as needed.

By removing rigid structures, teams can choose the best way to solve problems without arguing against the fundamentals of a framework. This approach eliminates distractions and focuses efforts on results.

In essence, Frameless Work is not about rejecting frameworks entirely but adopting a mindset that values flexibility, simplicity, and outcomes above all. It encourages teams to take what works from various methodologies and discard what doesn't, creating a tailored approach that best suits their specific context and goals. By embracing Frameless Work, product managers can break free from traditional framework constraints and unlock their full potential to innovate and deliver exceptional products.

What Frameworks Teach Us

Implementing Frameless Work is not about ditching all frameworks and starting from scratch. It’s about understanding the problem and the environment to find the best solutions.

Decomposing frameworks help us understand the key components we need to consider when going frameless. Frameworks solve organizational problems using specific components. Going frameless means customizing these components flexibly.

Key Components of a Framework:

• Basic Vocabulary: Concepts introduced and covered in a framework provide common understanding and communication. (e.g. Opportunities, Solutions, USPs, Features)

• Core Principles: Foundational beliefs and values guiding the framework, providing the underlying philosophy and rationale. (e.g. Agile work in Scrum)

• Processes and Methodologies: Defined steps or stages outlining framework implementation, including the sequence of activities, methods, and techniques. (e.g. Sprint Planning, User Story Mapping)

• Tools and Techniques: Specific instruments or methods facilitating the processes, such as software tools or analytical methods. (e.g. Opportunity Solution Trees, Backlogs, Burn-Down Charts)

• Roles and Responsibilities: Clearly defined roles and responsibilities ensure accountability and clarity. (e.g. Product Trio, Product Owner, Lead)

• Scope and Context: Definition of what is included and excluded in the framework, understanding unique challenges, opportunities, and constraints.

Implementing Frameless Work

Let's go step by step to design our custom "framework" using a fictional case for clarity:

Step 1: Define the Underlying Problem

Understand the problem you're trying to capture, focusing on issues hindering outcome delivery rather than internal challenges. We should include feedback and discussions from the team to get a good big picture.

Case: Our project priorities seem random, focusing on quick wins and low-hanging fruits without clear insights. We use RICE Prioritization, but it doesn't fit well.

Step 2: Develop Principles

The next step is about deriving principles from the problems we have identified. These principles are the guardrails to understand if we are delivering the value we look for. It creates a more positive approach if the solution is derived from principles rather than from problems.

Case: 

The problem definition leads us to principles like:

• Evidence over opinions

• Measure the impact

• Customer value leads to business value

• Transparent traceability of decisions

• Big steps over fragmented tasks

Step 3: Processes and Methodology

Now, we can consider ways to solve problems and align with principles, using or adapting processes from other frameworks.

Case: In this example, we might work with a backlog of tasks. If these tasks are too small we might think about doing it differently. We like the idea of ranking in the backlog as they prevent us from making everything a priority. We just want better decision-making. So as a process, we might define that all feature requests are handled as ideas and get only evaluation if they match our roadmap and higher-level goals. The product people get the job of thinking about initiatives derived from their domain expertise and other sources of data.

Step 4: Tools and Techniques

Specify how to execute ideas, creatively adapting insights from other frameworks.

Case: The team comes up with the of adding "profile cards" into the backlog instead of features and epic. The idea is derived from "Big Bets" in ShapeUp or a light version of "Working Backwards". We agree that a profile card needs to have all the content we defined as principles. Things like "What data points prove the relevance?" or "How do we know if it works?", etc. need to be described in a good way. To make sure we just not only add fake content, the team might decide to get a jury consisting of the engineering team because they are good at critical thinking.

Step 5: Roles and Responsibilities

Define the roles and responsibilities of people involved in the processes, tools, and techniques.

Case: In this case, we defined already that the product people are responsible for finding good problems and starting to add the information needed for the jury to make the decision. In this process, we need to add leadership into the decision-making as well. So we define that they serve as a prior instance to pre-select certain profile cards.

Step 6: Scope and Context

Understand the limits of the approach and the environment for the new way of working.

Case: This approach increases responsibility on the engineering team and requires product people to build additional insights, taking 1-2 months to establish.

We ensure not to forget any critical components when we think about all parts of a framework. This lightweight approach allows easy adaptation or discarding of ineffective elements.

Conclusion

Frameworks have played crucial roles in guiding teams towards efficiency and success, offering a pool of insights and knowledge. However, the volume and rigidity of these frameworks can lead teams to focus more on adherence than on actual value delivery.

Frameless Work offers an alternative approach that prioritizes flexibility, pragmatism, and outcome orientation. By focusing on delivering value to users and the business, teams can become more agile and responsive to unique challenges. This approach integrates effective elements from established frameworks into a more adaptable, pragmatic methodology.

Implementing Frameless Work means empowering teams to make decisions, fostering trust and autonomy, and always keeping the end goal in sight: delivering meaningful value. By shedding the constraints of rigid frameworks, product managers and teams can unlock their full potential, innovate freely, and achieve greater success in their projects.

Frameless Work encourages a mindset shift from process adherence to outcome achievement, using frameworks as tools rather than rules. Embrace Frameless Work to transform your product management practices and drive exceptional results.

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