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Removing manual work was never that effective. There is no security person checking configuration, no operations copying secrets from one place to another, no manager coordinating and prioritizing work between teams, no figuring out dependencies over and over, reduces surface of a costly mistake at least in half. In a fact most secrets are provisioned as part of blueprint and there is no soul which sees those credentials.
This leans feature engineering to crafting itself with minimal wrapping. This means feature can go to end customer with 4-5 times less people involved, and hence 8-10 times faster in a responsible manner. Risk management on early stages gives advantage on later stages. Hence compounding cycle continues as you go to larger customers.
This is a good example which shows five nine analysis prism in action: if something goes south, how can team reconfigure this quickly in a new place? Once this question answered - it turns out this is the same question as how to optimally design a feature in a first place, or how to reuse parts of technology would an organization go to a different direction or vertical.
Focusing on blueprinting of dependency provisioning multiplies software teams as they can provision own configuration once and pass it to relevant application at every stage of SDLC.
This is a way to own your SaaS.
Contact us here for more information.
See also
JIT economy
JIT economy changed many industries. Owning a SaaS (environment) is an asset. Just having it slows your process. Owning an environment means knowing how to go to new vertical, adjust, overcome, or pivot.
Let’s compare it to similar trends in home construction as they are more relatable than abstract in nature software development.
Home construction metaphor for SaaS blueprints
There were always rapid development approaches to home and cabin
construction. It is possible to take a standard shipping container, cut a few
windows, doors, create an outlet for electricity, and that’s a dwelling which
gives a roof over your head. It will protect against wind and rain in pleasant
conditions. You even can combine a few of these to have multiple rooms. When temperature
goes higher or lower of course comfort of being in such “home” is questionable.
Better technology would have at least insulation, and air
conditioning. Further improvement will need to have outlets for water and bathroom
waste to allow for connection of such unit to main foundation and utilities.
Boxabl [1] has offering to have kitchen with amenities, bathroom
and air-conditioning already pre-built at a factory. Unit comes in shippable dimensions,
which transforms into full size during installation. They offer these days units
which can be combined into multi-room dwellings.
And if you are a developer - that's the exact piece you
need. If you want to move into a house to live there, then someone still needs
to figure out how to design a blueprint and lay a foundation and hook up
utilities to the unit’s infra outlets.
[1] - https://www.boxabl.com/
Drawing parallels
The parallels can be drawn now between worlds of SaaS and regular construction:
These three components define typical SaaS environment.
Their quality defines how shippable it is from one place to another. Of course, what a copy is in digital world differs tangibly from a world of construction. The quality of these three components defines whether you own or just have your software.
Similarly to physical world unit infrastructure built into
the “walls” differs. Defining how flexible it is to be deployed to an environment
(“foundation”), combined with other services and reshipped to a new one.
The foundation in place has similar qualities, and flexibility
of its own blueprint.
Cloud-infrastructure changes how SaaS companies provision
servers, as cloud providers can offer servers in a matter of minutes.
Beforehand similar provisioning easily could start months and quarters ahead.
Similarly to the physical world, actionable blueprint for SaaS is
like having a factory which builds units, instead of having a container which was
built. Automation in both cases ensures standard and quality across the entire
production line.
It improves strategic positioning of SaaS companies in three
main directions: human capital, operations and risk management, and of course
existential adjustments.
Below are symptoms which appear independent at first look. They have the same
solution – owning an environment.
Human Capital
Risk management and operations
Existential adjustments
Line on a sand
Alone mentioned directions are quite difficult to prioritize
when a company is pushing another feature or product, but together they replace
constantly amortizing have by steadily compounding own. This is a
practical way to implement strategy of change, and lay foundation of infinite
game for a business.
See also
This shows one journey of discovering and putting meaning to
leadership as a service how it came and unfolded over the course of a couple
decades.
Service primarily driven by going from empowering a team by
being "the best" – which comes naturally; to driving the best out of your team by
example – which is quite an artificial process.
The darkness
To appreciate light, we need to see darkness. The darkness
here was and is Elite theory [1]. The “theory” de facto is a macro-sum (bias)
of individuals striving to be the best and stopping there. Or bluntly single
skill needed for leadership – operational (ephemeral) domination. This comes
naturally, and often lives inside of a cultural layer.
The gap which this theory has is in declining. To illustrate
this let’s dive into data on Olympic gold medals [2]. For 100
years of the competition there are just 318 incredible people in the
whole world who won more than a single medal.
Such a career has a typically short time span of 4-12 years
depending on the discipline. It took training of every muscle needed to be in
perfect condition for each sport, and every hour of the day to get to that
form, and then maintain it. And still, winning on the track of life is a short
period in these cases. What lasted – is coming back to their communities, and
giving heart back, showing example and path forward. That can and will last forever.
The ray of light
This was likely in a play, or movie. Happened instantly.
“Who cleans up your sh*t?” – the main character asks his
partner. Pause. Surprised look. “Parents.” – scene.
This started the process.
Mr. J
Mr. J did come to the USA with a school diploma, no college
profession, or bags of money. Mr. J came with determination and golden
hands. He got his English courses, landed a job in maintenance (floor cleaning),
and started building credit showing a strong habit of paying own bills on time.
When time came and credit score settled, he learned what’s
what, and where is who, they (J and his partner) could take a business loan.
The loan to buy a house, flip it, and sell renovated property ready for happy
family.
The loan had two components: money needed to pay for the house
itself as is, and money to renovate it. As the group knew how to do a bunch of work
renovating the house, they needed to spend only a portion on contractors, and materials.
That was their competitive advantage.
They did it with the first house, then with the second, and
over time naturally ended up owning rental properties for themselves.
The end of the millennium was a perfect time for this too.
There are famous script and novel writers too who follow the
quest of Mr. J: using every napkin, every short break while working in the
service industry. S. Stallone describes the making of Rocky in 1977,
which in spirit a way to describe typical software startup founder.
Meaningful work matters. It is effective.
NB: This story is about getting to your dream with given.
Though, college education is still important for professions around CRISPR, quantum
computers, legal, medical etc.
Wild exaggeration
Two thriller/drama movies as exaggerated models of group
dynamics.
Exam (2009) – about importance of clear structured
expectations, with a pinch of leadership as a service.
Experiment (2010) – this movie is the darkness
contrasting leadership of a service to servicing the leadership. Exaggerated version
of a manger who has no real explanation of own authority.
A typical idea in light is to make sure the manager is ready.
Frankly one is ready when a professional can sense if the supporting environment
is ready as well.
No further comments here to prevent spoiler alerts.
Business
Stories above were beacons. Showing what is missing. Leadership as a service piece is well shaped by the following books, presentations and practices:
It’s quite interesting to see how these works complement
each other from different angles, sides and surfaces.
Sports
Following Mr. J example. In sports plan A is to be a good player,
and then maybe train and coach as a plan B if injuries happen, or time comes.
It is important to mention Ted Lasso (2020) series too.
Line on a sand
Classical decision making describes three levels of maturity
from simplest to complex and smartest: reflex, reaction, and response.
Maybe, leadership as a service is a complex response requiring
training and preparation by a group itself, but yet it is smart and efficient
way to organize game, and channel priorities
in a smart way.
References
Assigning proper people to manage a priority is also critical. After all, you don’t want to vote if surgery is needed, or not. You use a very limited group of professionals to advise on it – doctors.
Priority is sometimes confused with projects. Quality
operations can allow many projects to be executed per person/team, but typically
execution on each of them happens consequently on one-by-one basis.
Priorities are much trickier, no matter how perfect a
product is there are parallel priorities as this product goes to operations.
The main characteristic of priority in well oiled company is how quickly you
handle a bottleneck when one arises.
Bottleneck could be a supply issue, customer question, making
sure systems are up, whether it is payroll, project management, one of many API
systems etc. When it happens, it means something went different on this day.
Someone needs to assess, contain and adjust operations based on the assessment.
Each priority typically means some set of bottlenecks which
your company experiences: or due to growth, or due to amortization. The theory
of constraints clearly indicates that each bottleneck addressed opens another
one somewhere down the stream.
That’s where decentralization comes into the game. When it
comes to time and quality. If you have a “player” on your “business field” who
knows what needs to be done to handle issues actively as they happen and further
proactively - before they happen, your business saves time and constantly
improves quality. In contrast, if everyone must go up to a single person
who constantly tells how to handle this and that instead of figuring out (at
least key) “bases”, there is obvious design flaw here – that person becomes a
bottleneck. Independently handling issues and crisis creates better throughput
especially when multiple priorities are triggered in the same time.
Ken Blanchard calls this training a team of eagles vs. team
of (lame) ducks.
At some point, they need to start, or re-start again to get
a better understanding of what the current process is. Decision making for
important questions, including which questions are important, which questions
need more discussions, and which discussions need decisions is a seniority
characteristic. This characteristic is always relative, and always recursive,
and always needs time and priority at every level.
To zoom out into a wider picture. Josiah Ober has a
fantastic linguistic analysis in his paper [1] where he shows how meaning of
democracy comes into capacity to do things, not simple voting tool when things
are non-binary.
Especially true for specialized knowledge, whether it is
surgery or refinement of an operating block. Think, about this… if you come to
an office floor and there is person in a jacket with a sharp object stuck out
of a pocket – you don’t need to wait for everyone to vote on it.
Teams are specialized to handle such “sharp objects” and
need to have enough autonomy to act even before it is not clear how sharp they
are for everyone else.
In the end of the day, that’s why we ask doctors for advice and diagnosis. That’s why you hire people who tell you what to do, no other way around. Then you work on keeping in synch. Then you apply “checks and balances” to what is expected from each function.
[1] - The Original
Meaning of 'Democracy': Capacity to Do Things, Not Majority Rule