Only Way To Fail

This week James’ Black Dog Returns, Darin experiences StreamDeck, Tyler hits the “wiggles of false hope”, and Angry Garret in a board meeting. All of that and the guys dive into EOS™ Processes - what they like and dislike.

00:00:00 - Pre Show

Changes in drinking habits

Machine gun readers (just like the Romans)

“Take a breath at the dots”

How many apples do Juan and Carol have?

00:02:59 - Show Start

00:03:19 - Follow-Ups 

Sandler Sales Follow-Up

Last week - Understanding a prospects decision making process

Quick Interruption by a James Screenshot

This week - BAT-ting average

Behavior, Attitude, Technique (combined you get your BAT-ting average)

Reverse engineering your financial goals into daily activities you control

00:13:13 - The Headlines

Darin

Strategic Team Sprint Focus

Order Bulk Load speeds

Can we get to a tenth (0.1) of a second per order?

Metaphor - Shipping 100 Things in 100 Boxes vs 100 Things in 1 Box

That 1 box is expense, but saves overall

Very pleased with himself (and feels good for his partner Tim also)

StreamDeck

One button to do...anything I want it to

Open an application, execute an action in application, and more

Full disclosure, Darin’s excitement is palpable (it’s a must listen)

Gyro Sandwiches

Wow, what a week

Tyler

Product Team L10™ - 3.6

Stuck in the muck of support issues

Wiggles of False Hope (Product Side)

Two steps forward, one step back

Moving Roll-Out team to a sprint process

2 Great D&E’s (Delegate and Elevate meetings)

Identify issues and solve them

Garret

Rough first few days back from vacation

Lead Generation is “broken”

Sales is “broken”

Conversation with Sandler Guru on Sales Management

Hard / Challenging board meeting

Guest appearance from “Angry Garret”

James actually came across as the “calm” one

LT L10™ - Issue taken for

This week James plays the optimist, Darin plays the pessimist, and Tyler can’t believe it’s Thursday. All of that and the guys discuss Issues and IDS™ component of EOS™. 

00:00:00 - Pre Show

“Red light” coffee warmers

Reduces trips next door

Finishing cups of coffee

Makes James drink a lot more coffee

00:01:52 - Show Start

00:02:08 - Follow-Ups 

From listen Becca

How is the “two headed” engineer and what is your celebrity couple name?

“DIM” or “Tarrin”

When will the other half of “DIM” make an appearance?

Tim is no longer open to any form of persuasion...so likely never

00:04:38 - The Headlines

Darin

First Strategic Product Team Retrospective

What went well?

What didn’t go well?

What did I learn?

What still puzzles me?

Who actually pushes back on Darin in product?

Tyler

Can’t believe it’s Thursday again

Product LTM - scored a 4

TS failed todo - auto IDS

Already completed

James was not disconnected this week

“Vision alignment is a tricky thing”

Reset the support rock (James took the monkey)

Learning to increase “trust but verify”

More on the verify side of things

James  

Tyler put on his “James Hat” and pushed back on the new website

Garret has completely defeated us…

Dominator Garret is off dominating somewhere

James takes a monkey from Tyler

James is absolutely in heaven with his monkey

But...lots of things he’s not doing

Need to give the monkey back soon

Breaking news: Ari didn’t kill James

Being open and honest with failures is hard to hear

People don’t see James’ failures (mainly because he only takes credit for success?)

Meta Conversation

Only one female on the leadership team (Ari)

“Hey (Tyler / Ari) that’s yours to take and follow up on”

Is that perceived the same when said to a female as it is to a male?

Hired a new Tier 3 Support Engineer...Why come to Infoplus?

Career Plans

Company Culture

00:30:43 - Topic 2 (1) Part 4 of EOS™ - Issues

We’ve covered Vision, Traction and Data… This week is Issues

L10s - Create issues and solve issues - through IDS™

What are issues?

They are anything that needs to be changed

Scorecard numbers off track

Bad news headlines

Rocks off Track

People

Tyler’s Likes

We welcome people to bring issues forward

“Bring me your bad news”

Team voting 

Get the entire team on same page of what issues are

Each member gets equal voting rights

A lens of what’s most important for the team that is present

The way we solve issues

One or more Todo’s assigned out

G,W,C

Do you get the todo

Do you want the todo

Do you have the capacity to do it

Tyler’s Dislikes

Struggle finding the correct root

Can’t go all the way to “mom and dad” issues

But how deep do we go

Having the right people in the room to solve issues

Long Term issue list

Don’t understand it

Where issues go to die

Darin’s Likes

Loves all of EOS (despite his tone last 3 weeks)

Issues help normalize bringing up bad news

Issues list and the process for working that list

Pick what are the most important (can’t solve them all)

May get some recency bias

Sorting process

While everyone gets equal voting rights

One person in each meeting has veto power (carries the big stick)

IDS 

Without it, I don’t know how people actually solve issues

Darin’s Dislikes

Not much...maybe the Long Term Issues list

IDS of the same issues again and again and again

The Voting

Not a great physical mechanism for the voting

James’ View

I agree with all of the above

Issues and IDS create the biggest challenge for new employees

Get frustrated when “the timer is up” = meeting is over

Struggle with a sorted list

What do you mean you’re not going to solve “this” issue

Point of IDS is solve the “sand” we have now for the greater good

Pull rank to keep IDS from going too deep

Long Term issue list

We need an outside integrator to show us the way

James the optimist vs Darin the pessimist on EOS???

00:56:43 - Long Questions and maybe Short Answers 

You mentioned that Infoplus is on the top of only a tiny handful of companies that do what you do. If you’re having issues trying to solve a problem, where do your employees or engineers go to solve it? Are there peers that can help?

Google!?

Why does everyone end up with their head up their a**es? Is this a common theme of Infoplus, or just those of us who are around James a lot?

01:02:56 - End of Show 

Send feedback for a “two hand” written reply from Darin

01:03:24 - Aftershow - Keyboard Maestro and the rest of Darin’s life hacks

Darin’s new water line to his Keurig

1% tweaks of continuous improvement on his life

Global Hot Keys - Keyboard Maestro

Hosts, Garret Richardson, Tyler Samples, Darin Kelkhoff, and James Maes

Show Notes by Garret Richardson

Proofing and Title by Darin Kelkhoff

Editing, Mixing, and Mastering by Brenton Wainscott

00:00:00 - Pre Show

Special cameo by listener Brandy

Cold wallpaper ends up on the floor

Snowy ice dams on Tyler’s roof

00:02:56 - Show Start

3 times the “power intro”

00:03:58 - Follow-Ups 

From listen Becca

Garret - How do you fit 9 bookends into 3 minutes?

Avoid the FBI interrogation and continually ask permission

James “Sandler(ed)” an interview candidate

Darin - When you say “Cool story bro”... what does that mean?

To James it means “a slap in the face and time to shut up”

Darin - Are you still being challenged working only in your Zone of Genius (ZOG)

The combination of Co-Founder - Best Friend - Engineer Tim and Darin = 1 decent engineer

00:15:42 - The Headlines

Darin

Second strategic sprint if finishing up on Order Speed improvements

Eliminating things we are doing 

Millions of times a day

Thousands of times an hour

Hundreds of times a minute

Tens of times a second

Darin goes full “nerd” explaining the Infoplus backend tech

“Cool story bro!”

Darin’s magic pattern in a 2 week sprint

Week 1 = 3D Print a lot

Week 2 = Do the sprint work

Tyler

Product L10 Recap

Issue solved - Legacy support sucks your soul

Finally bought in to the “all meetings Monday”

March 1 is “D-Day” - all projects are due

Great interview for T3 support candidate

Garret

LT LTM = 3.17 (with a rough IDS)

Retail Sales Team

Great 4.5 L10

Everyone feeling the push for results

3PL Sales Team

Great L10s

Knocked out 5 issues

James - Just a couple as usual

Single threaded mind of James can equal bad presence in L10s

“When you’re a sour, pissed-off, below the bar CEO...people tend to notice

Can’t rely on EOS to “tell” you what issue needs fixing

Hiring, all the hiring

There’s a reason why we don’t let HR, Lawyers, or Accountants run the business

James changes his title to “best buddy” for interviews

00:49:23 - Topic 2 (1) Getting into the “Meat and Potatoes” of EOS - Data

May just be the single most important part of the L10 (the health of systems today)

Things we like and don’t like about Data

Garret’s Likes

You can’t improve what you don’t track

On a deserted island, it can tell you the current health

Provides a quantifiable or objective view of good days→weeks→months, etc.

The consistency of the weekly review

Garret’s Dislikes

We have historically ignored the numbers

Sometimes either too granular or not granular enough for the team reviewing them

Tyler’s Likes

Gives a quick snapshot of overall health

Making a missed number and issue and solving it immediately

Tyler’s Dislikes

Maybe to “trailing”

Having metrics we don’t take action on

Not every person has a number

Use Non-IDS of a metric as gauge for importance of the metric

Darin’s Likes (loves)

Loves the idea of it

Leading indicators

Trailing indicators

Darin’s Dislikes

We are not great at them

Never been a part of a good session creating them

Missed numbers every week are treated as “normal”

01:05:49 - Questions and Actual Answers (this time) 

What does a “Retail” team in sales consist of?

How do Ari and Tyler feel about being given Monkeys?

Can we finally see a video of Ari’s dinosaur walk?

01:16:05 - End of Show 

“These will be the end of our show”

Find all the “podcast gold” moments on Instagram @onlywaytofail

00:17:08 - Aftershow  

Darin on personal app development

Tyler on … “itching scratches”

Hosts, Garret Richardson, Tyler Samples, Darin Kelkhoff, and James Maes

Show Notes by Garret Richardson

Proofing and Title by Darin Kelkhoff

Editing, Mixing, and Mastering by Brenton Wainscott

This week James takes proper CEO credit for success (twice), Garret “tells” James no, Darin goes from impossible to inevitable, and Tyler learns Same Page Meetings™. All of that and the guys dive into the EOS® Traction® component.

00:00:00 - Pre Show

“Happy Robot” song - not yet (or not worth) copyrighted

Peloton Drinking Apparatus

Checking resting heart rates “at Wendy’s”?

00:03:06 - Show Start

3 Nerds and a business guy (that is so business, he doesn’t know “The Matrix”)

00:03:31 - Follow-Ups 

MIPS (aka: MEPS) - with “stories”

Tyler

How is the new world of product going?

It's going…

Got a little vision injection from James

Things are really clicking

James takes proper CEO credit (1)

James only ever touches emails once

Garret

Can we get a Sandler update?

Last week - PAIN

This week - Questioning Strategy

Real time follow up - What is the Sandler Submarine™

Darin

Strategic Product Team - Update on sprint 1

Taking order placement to “milliseconds”

“From impossible to inevitable”

An out of body experience for Darin

00:17:27 - The Headlines

Darin

First “All-Hands” sprint demo day for the new product teams

“Isn’t it great the whole product team participated in the demo”

...(2 hours later) Darin and Cofounder Engineer Tim tell the team they’ve already planned the next sprint themselves

Enter James - How are you bringing the team along during planning?

00:20:00 - Quick interruption as James smokes his head on the stairs

Back to Darin

Darin brought the team into planning

All of that and an update on some home office improvements

Quick detour discussion around proper cold weather gear

Tyler

Impossible to follow Darin

“He just goes and goes”

Full shift to Asana for planning and task tracking

Starting same page leads with Garret and Team leads

Scrum Master Mo (Maureen) is taking the reins on tactical sprint

Product LTM = 4.7

Lots of good conflict and learnings

Garret

Company Financials

Pushing forward on accelerated hiring schedule

Opportunity for push back on James

Great sales team L10M’s™ with Sales Integrator Carter

Played the trump card a few times

These headlines interrupted by James’ water bottle

Sandler Sales in Action

Avoided spending hours of time with a unqualified prospect not experiencing pain

James - just 3 headlines (he’s not great at the “maths”)

1 - Last 41 days “wow, wow, weezha”

More done in last 41 days than all of Q4

People are feeling it

Change

Pressure

Growth

2 - Fundraise

“Don’t know what I don’t know”

FUD with the Infoplus board

Facilitator Ari deserves a ton of credit

Atomic Revenue brought on board to tell the our story

Goose bumps vs goose pimples

3 - YPO (Young Presidents Organization) mentor is fantastic

Core values in alignment

Experience share vs advice

Has a passion for people

3-A (really 4) What I’m reading

Behind the Cloud

The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

From Impossible to Inevitable

How SaaS and Other Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue

Extreme Ownership

How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

The Infinite Game

By Simon Sinek - How do we win a game that has no end? Finite games, like football or chess, have known players, fixed rules and a clear endpoint.

00:47:16 - Topic 2 (1) EOS® Part 2 of 6 - Traction

The grind of the next 90 days

Good Days→ Good Weeks→ Good Months→ Good Quarters→ Good Years

What does success look like today?

Only two types of meetings

L10s™ - Level Ten Meetings

Same Page™

Everything else is an email or a presentation (an most presentations should be emails)

Combat against tendency to procrastinate

What do Garret, Tyler and Darin like about Traction

Garret Likes

L10s™

Rocks

Use of L10s™ as a “hammer”

Daily Standups

Garret Dislikes

Quarterly Planning

Inconsistent same page meetings

We’ve ignored scorecards

Tyler Likes

Meetings (sacred L10s™)

Todo’s = auto-IDS

IDS™ (Identify, Discuss, Solve) issues

Same Page Meetings™

Tyler Dislikes

Rocks - Most important thing and not great success

James takes proper CEO credit (2) for Q1 Rocks 

Darin Likes

Loves L10s™

Daily Standups (engineerings version of traction)

Release cadence (new traction) for the strategic product team

Darin Dislikes

Rocks

LMA™ (Leadership + Management = Accountability)

Finished off with some “Podcast Gold” as Darin nods silently in agreement

01:09:28 - Questions and...Answers Next Week 

From listener Brandy

What’s the “retail” team in sales?

How do Tyler and Ari feel about being given “monkeys”?

Can we see a video of Ari’s dinosaur walk?

01:10:10 - End of Show 

Visit onlywaytofail.com - it’s the #1 website (for this podcast)

00:51:23 - Aftershow  

Darin on the relationships we form with our favorite podcast hosts

Hosts, Garret Richardson, Tyler Samples, Darin Kelkhoff, and James Maes

Show Notes by Garret Richardson

Proofing and Title by Darin Kelkhoff

Editing, Mixing, and Mastering by Brenton Wainscott

This week Tyler and Garret clear the air with each other, James explains his “roller coaster” history, and Darin has 1 mind, 2 hearts, and half a gut. All of that and the group discusses what they like (and dislike) about the V/TO™ (Vision / Traction Organizer).

00:00:00 - Pre Show

Discussing James’ amazingly good looks

00:00:59 - Show Start

3 Nerds and a business guy in a grey hat

00:01:15 - Follow-Ups 

Tyler

How is the leaning into 1 system going?

Asana is great on projects and keeping it simple

OmniFocus has better tools

James only ever touches emails once

Darin

Now that you are both more useful and less useful, how do you feel?

“1 mind, 2 hearts, ½ a gut”

Mainly “Happy Sadness” this week

Garret

An update on the Sandler System Foundations training

Give James all the goose bumps

James

How long will this “high” last around Infoplus, given your roller coaster history?

A review of the eras of Infoplus

00:13:14 - The Headlines

Darin

This week’s Headline Award goes to…

“Trump defeats Dewey and Darin loves life”

Tyler

Getting used to Monday meetings

Product Team L10™ Recap (hint: meeting scored a 4)

Seeing some wins and good feedback overall

Garret

Double “R” $$ still crushing it with financials

3PL and Retail sales team update

Garret refers to an earlier conversation that was edited to the After Show

James (delivered in record time...seriously)

“Evan took me to..court? Task? The cleaners?”

“My good meeting was good”

00:18:16 - Topic 2 (1) V/TO™ (Vision and Traction Organizer)

What are we trying to accomplish this year?

We have the right people

EOS® has 6 parts and Vision is 1 of them

This segment interrupted by “tiny men carrying weird objects”, a song from James to Darin, and “Angry Whale Garret”

Now that we’re past that -Tyler, Garret and Darin discuss 3 likes / 3 dislikes of our V/TO™

Darin Likes

Core Values

10 Year target

3 Uniques...but just the good parts?

Darin Dislikes

Vision not being shared

Long Term Issues (grey, FUD’y’, cloudy area)

3 Uniques...but just the bad parts?

Garret Likes

Infoplus Focus Statement

Core Values

Traction® - taking the big picture to a 1 year goal

Garret Dislikes

Lack of Quarterly review of V/TO™

Lack of 90 day measurable results/goals

It's only “high level”

James interjects with reasons (definitely not excuses) as to why the vision rock failed

Tyler Likes

Overall vision/direction that it gives

Long term goals

Traction® (Taking 1 year to a 90 day world)

Tyler Dislikes

Lack of department level V/TO™

Process of creating and editing the V/TO™

Failure around sharing and understanding of the V/TO™

Finished off with some “Podcast Gold” as Darin nods silently in agreement

00:50:28 - Questions and (Seriously) Long Answers 

N/A

00:50:34 - End of Show 

Get the “Garret” show notes at onlywaytofail.com

Send feedback get discounts on swag (aka: cool stuff)

00:51:23 - Aftershow  

Easter vs Western Europe 

Which is on the left, which is on the right?

James is definitely wrong (like “math” level wrong)

Tyler schedules and “executes” a Clearing Session with Garret

Hosts, Garret Richardson, Tyler Samples, Darin Kelkhoff, and James Maes

Show Notes by Garret Richardson

Proofing and Title by Darin Kelkhoff

Editing, Mixing, and Mastering by Brenton Wainscott

This week Darin looks forward to more of now, Tyler crams a week into a day, Garret forgets to “hang the banner”, James gets financial reports, and Facilitator Ari makes her debut. All of that and the group discusses progress around People and Product.

00:00:00 - Pre Show

Youtube rabbit holes and haircuts made for radio.

00:01:33 - Show Start

3 Nerds, a Business Guy, and a Facilitator Ari

00:02:04 - Follow-Ups 

None this week

00:02:08 - The Headlines

Darin

Done thinking and planning...the first sprint is underway

Wore down James and Tyler to go along

Version 2...maybe 3 of Product Team LTM

“We are the Dark Side of the Force”

Tyler

Wow what a week!

Squeezing a week into a day

Two teams and two sprints kicked off

Garret

Retail and 3PL L10 Meetings kicked off

Carter kicking off projects

Real headline, Carter needs a proper OWTF name

“Sales Integrator Carter”

James (as always 1 succinct headline)

Loves the “same name rule”

If you have the same name, pick a new one

“The world is an oyster”

With all the feels

Next key is finally unlocking

Finally able to delegate and get things done

TL/DR(L) - James has all the awesome feels

Facilitator Ari

“No!”

Cue the video game voice and T-Rex walk

00:18:16 - Topic 2 (1) What’s going on with People and Product

Tyler is still trying to define what he does

Still playing a little Scrum Master

The importance of a good organizational system

“If you’re gonna wake up and just think about what to get done today, you’re gonna drop 4 out of 5 balls”

Tyler is lowering the barrier of when to go to James

James has never yelled at someone at work

Darin yells and gets kisses

Plans and schedules are a good thing

Facilitator Ari prefers chaos

Tyler and Darin switch roles

This week, Darin feels “Sad Happiness”

Company restructure has a Facilitator Ari people side. What’s been going on there?

Ari is missing the people and personal interaction

Call to the listeners...we’re hiring.

Ari looks for permission while James promotes what he permits

“Bulldozers and couches have feelings”

Garret forgets to “hang the banner” on reporting structure

Facilitator Ari raises her hand to speak (for a first time)

As all podcast amateurs do

James is excited about significantly less “face meat”

00:41:45 - Questions and (Seriously) Long Answers 

Listener Becca:

Curious what does healthy conflict look like? And what does non-James healthy conflict look like?

“If you’re 49/51 and I’m 90/10, my passion is going to overpower”

Are there 60 or 90 day post rock reviews?

Cue shortest answer in Questions and Seriously Long answers history.

01:24:06 - End of Show 

Onlywaytofail.com the #1 website for this podcast

New swag is now in

Facilitator Ari raises her hand to ask a question (for a second time)

01:25:15 - Aftershow  

Ari gets to ask her question!

Hosts, Garret Richardson, Tyler Samples, Darin Kelkhoff, and James Maes

Show Notes by Garret Richardson

Proofing and Title by Darin Kelkhoff

Editing, Mixing, and Mastering by Brenton Wainscott

This week Darin hits the ground running, James pumps the brakes, and Garret kicks off some new teams. All of that and the guys discuss the plans for the sales in 2021 and all that it entails.

00:00:00 - Pre Show

Mac Pro vs M1 Mac

00:01:46 - Show Start

Missing a “Nerd”

00:02:02 - Follow-Ups 

Listener Becca - Where’s the “five thumbs up” image?

Nervous excitement around the 2021 Plan

“It was time”

00:04:19 - The Headlines

Darin

So excited and ready to hit the ground running

James pumps the brakes

50% on Product Backlog

Just lean in and own it

50% on Performance Monitoring

“What, and where, and why”

Garret

Back from Vacation

“Hiking and Biking”

Kicking off the new teams

Focus and Projects

James (only one headline ) 

Magic Cookies gave me a sore throat

Nope...not the cookies

62 out of 70 hours sleeping

Goals for People Processes in the company

VC kick-off

Can’t wait for Tyler to get back on Monday

Call to the Listeners:

We need a “single pane of glass” for our projects

00:17:08 - Topic 2 (1) - Restructure and Transition (Part 2) - What are we doing with the Sales Side of Infoplus

Focus on Customer Success through a Product First Mindset

“Tie those customers to the product”

Took the sales side of the company and shifted into Cross-Functional Teams

Q1: Lay the Foundation

Q2-4: Make it great!

How are we going to sell Infoplus?

Sandler Sales System

How do we implement SME (subject matter expert) sales approach

How are we going to approach onboarding?

“Build, Review, Iterate, Train, Approve, Repeat”

How are we going to approach Lead Generation?

Darin’s dynamite drop in

James - “Build is scary”

Opportunity to brand something else

What is the Sandler Sales System (in Garret’s words)

Having a prospect sell us on using our software

The perfect sales expert

“If you abuse it, I’ll let you know”

Question from Darin? Can you talk about SME based onboarding vs Project Management Onboarding because I’ve heard both?

“It seems like you don’t have anything in place for marketing.”

Sales gets Darin’s “Seal of Approval”

Note: Garret has set a personal record for time speaking on the podcast

00:41:45 - Questions and (Seriously) Long Answers 

Listener Becca:

I had a visceral reaction to James’ visceral reaction (visceral used more in 30 seconds than ever in human history).

 As someone who isn’t wired like an engineer I would find myself wanting. James, do you have a reaction to that?

James says “Do Do”

For the folks that don’t work at Infoplus...I’m curious what context to the conversation I’ve missed. Are you worried about the shift from 2020 to 2021 alienating employees? 

00:50:21 - End of Show 

“Re-minder” (it’s like a reminder, but with a Lollipop in your mouth)

Follow us at twitter @onlywaytofail and send feedback for your Two-Handed reply from Darin

We still have Twitter!

00:51:05 - Aftershow  

LG 5K Ultrafine Monitor

James agrees with Marco on this monitor

Garret’s DISC assessment

Hosts, Garret Richardson, Tyler Samples, Darin Kelkhoff, and James Maes

Show Notes by Garret Richardson

Proofing and Title by Darin Kelkhoff

Editing, Mixing, and Mastering by Brenton Wainscott

This week Darin is happy to be sad, James shows Facilitator Ari around town, and Tyler nails Commitment 7 (Appreciation). All of that and the guys discuss shifting back to a product first company with multi-functional teams.

00:00:00 - Pre Show

Skinned knuckles...and proper bandages

00:01:23 - Show Start

3 Nerds only this week

00:01:58 - Follow-Ups 

Listener Brandy - Wait, is this season 2? Did I miss the end of Season 1?

No - We just have no clue how to properly name podcast episodes

00:04:32 - The Headlines - Theme this week - “A good Great Week for All”

Darin

2nd Week back from vacation and in the groove

Getting happy about feeling sad?

Shifting roles in Infoplus

Tyler

No Sadness this week, so no happiness either?

Entering vacation mode for next week

James

Managers starting to make progress on the company shift

2020 - Delegated too much

2021 - Taking a step back?

Less delegating, more hands on problem solving

Facilitator Ari got to experience a day in the life of James (and Chester, IL)

00:14:12 - Topic 2 (1) Restructure and Transition (Part 1) - What are we doing with the Product Side of Infoplus

Focus on Customer Success through a Product First Mindset

New Cross Functional Teams

Tactical (now) Product Team

Complete product releases that improve the current nature of the product

Strategic (future) Product Team

Not features, but a better foundation for 2021

Performance, Scalability, Control, UI/UX

Rollout (WiTS) Product Team

All things other than code (Turn features into assets)

WiTS (Wheel in the Sky)...what does it mean

DevOps Product Team

Outsourcing system maintenance and infrastructure monitoring

James is still Company Visionary and Product Visionary

“Everyone is chomping at the bits”

Darin Takes on scrum master for Strategic Product Team and gets back to coding

“I think we can all agree I’m the best at it”.

Darin gets to Co-engineer with Co-founder Tim

Darin cries happy tears recalling his greatest addition to Infoplus

Moving to Product Board software to create and manage a backlog

Lots of initial excitement, but…

“We’re in the easy part right now, we have to start doing it over the next couple weeks”

00:36:50 - Questions and Long Answers 

None this week

00:36:556 - End of Show 

Go to onlywaytofail.com right now and read the show notes

“If they don’t give you joy and happiness, it’s known that nothing else will”

00:58:58 - Aftershow  

Darin watches Mandalorian

“I appreciate your appreciation of my appreciation”

Darin’s rating...Fantastic!

Hosts, Garret Richardson, Tyler Samples, Darin Kelkhoff, and James Maes

Show Notes by Garret Richardson

Proofing and Title by Darin Kelkhoff

Editing, Mixing, and Mastering by Brenton Wainscott

This week James is distracted by “Doom Reading”, Tyler considers taking up running, Garret’s perfect podcast voice and Darin takes full blame for 2020. All of that and the guys discuss what they came up with in 2021 Annual Planning.

00:00:00 - Pre Show

James hears robots

“Please take over the company, just leave our democracy alone”

00:01:36 - Show Start

00:01:59 - Follow-Ups 

How to pronounce JIRA with Tyler Samples

Garret has a perfect podcast voice

“To match his podcast look”

Final rock update for 2020

00:05:22 - The Headlines

Darin

Vacation didn’t work

Tyler

Good calm Christmas and New Years

Quiet week back at work

Wrapping up the late to get started, extra long sprint

Engineering LTM had a lot of “on hold” feelings

Garret

Finished the year in a daze

Planning started rough

Was ready to kill James

James

No headlines, let's get into the topic

00:10:50 - Topic 2 (1) What’s the plan - featuring James as the “Dark Cloud of Doom” (Take 1)

...wait, James does have a headline

Distracted with “doom reading” about the attempted coup in Washington D. C.

00:13:25 - Topic 2 (1) What’s the plan - featuring James as the “Dark Cloud of Doom” (Take 2)

James, Darin, and Garret take a 3 headed approach to 2021 planning - What are the results?

3 days coming in excited and immediately hit by the “Dark Cloud of Doom”

See 2 big shifts needed for 2021

Getting back product first

How do we get there?

Siloed departments leave everyone “at the effect of” others

(dynamite drop in by Garret throws off James’ flow)

“Aww people are sad, so we just aren’t going to do our job well”

Garret’s ready to throw a computer through a wall

Getting all the ideas and thoughts into writing

Cross functional teams with a singular focus

Garret gets defensive about his ability to “hero” through

What one thing do we want to accomplish this year?

3 variations of the same answer as its always been

We can’t “try harder” this year

Are our core beliefs valid?

In case you’ve been under a rock - Darin loves creating, designing, building and using software

Darin tries to take full blame for 2020; quickly countering with a solid brag

Is investing heavily in people working?

“I want customers to be thankful, Darin wants them to love us, and Garret wants...something.”

Would an unlimited number of Tyler’s in support make our customers successful?

Tyler’s “outsider” opinion

Likes what he’s heard so far

Gonna pick up running and white boards

Excited to be a part moving forward

“The name is the hardest part”

Darin gets 5 Thumbs Up

00:53:15 - Questions and Long Answers 

From listener Becca - What's a 5 year plan for a product and how do you scale when organized by product teams and not function?

Initial answer - “Becca please join our podcast because I don’t know”

00:57:32 - End of Show 

Show notes come with a Joy and Happiness guarantee

Send us feedback for a two handed written reply from Darin himself

00:58:58 - Aftershow  

What does each at home office setup look like?

What are the must haves?

Hosts, Garret Richardson, Tyler Samples, Darin Kelkhoff, and James Maes

Show Notes by Garret Richardson

Proofing and Title by Darin Kelkhoff

Editing, Mixing, and Mastering by Brenton Wainscott

This week James forgets we’re recording, Garret’s kids go crazy with Infoplus stickers, Darin’s having a vacation and Tyler averages a “cadence of 92”. All of that and the guys discuss plans for 2021 (without James). Tune in next episode for James’ reaction.

00:00:00 - Pre Show

Summer Lager in winter

Checks from Santa

00:02:05 - Show Start

00:02:29 - Follow-Ups 

Garret

“Better” Rock updates

Less rambling, more concise

00:04:38 - The Headlines

Darin

Product roadmap published on website

Wrapping up some loose ends

“Having a vacation through the end of the year”

Tyler

Production changes holding up

Focus on some system rewrites

1 Hour long ride with an average cadence of 92!!!

Garret

Lots of follow up with clients (lagging effect of holiday’s)

“First week without a shitty L10 (formerly LTM) in several weeks”

Personal

Full on holiday mode (wrapping, buying, putting up trees)

Day 22 of 75 Hard - still going, but getting hard

Dressing for the season (hint: long underwear always)

00:11:08 - Topic 2 (1) What’s next?

We’ve discussed what went well and what didn’t...now what’s next for 2021

Focus on customer success...period

“Back to the basics” - only 3 parts to any company

Probably shifting some seats

Slowing growth down (same numbers, smaller overall percentage)

Choosing clients to “feed the machines we’re building”

Originally nothing concrete for Darin...but quickly turned into pages of notes and ideas

Narrow the focus

What’s that mean for the leadership team?

What issues does/can that team solve?

Raise the level of L10s across the board

Truly launch the product team and meetings

Match great integrators at department levels with vision in those departments

Potentially put an engineer deeper into the support team

One engineer in support and others writing code

Take the outline in our heads and create the execution plan

Product department sprints broader than just engineering sprint

Quarterly release cadence?

Simplification and user experience - from the people that know and use our software most

Asynchronous processing?

Tyler is excited to hear the plans (outside of James word vomit on Slack)

Seeing the need for change and plenty of benefits to be gained

As an engineer, can’t wait to get back to consistent sprints

Take it all with a grain of salt until a plan is communicated

What does that look like 

Does the company level visionary /  integrator relationship go away or change?

00:42:09 - End of Show 

Tell somebody about the show!

00:43:00 - Aftershow  

What are the plans for the holidays?

Hosts, Garret Richardson, Tyler Samples, Darin Kelkhoff, and James Maes

Show Notes by Garret Richardson

Proofing and Title by Darin Kelkhoff

Editing, Mixing, and Mastering by Brenton Wainscott