So the last few months have been interesting in R&D as AI driven development has firmly caught on the imagination of the company. If there are better efficiencies possible with AI then companies must and should embrace it, to not be left behind the competition. Thats how these small, agile, AI driven development teams have started and been called as POD teams (we did have something equivalent but just not agile enough).
Anyway recently there was a discussion around the risks and mitigations for such teams and reflecting on it, i would akin it to running a marathon. Imagine a marathon where runners are running in small groups of five. And the race is not with anyone else but oneself. Can we do this better than we could do it before?
Some of the groups are running for 5k, some 10k, some half marathons and some full ones. These are like the efforts and complexity of the marathon (delivering a feature). Now one of the first risks that we can have is the runners don't know how long is the distance exactly - how much are the efforts that will be consumed (because with AI doing the bulk of planning and implementation - the estimation opportunities are low). The risk therefore is not knowing the goal (distance) but yet having to run for it (commitment).
The second risk that arises is the risk of injury. Having insufficient experience or expertise or practice causes injury. Just having a mindset to run a marathon does not make you capable to run one. You need to practice for it. The preparation of the runners is therefore a risk - have they run such marathons before - if they haven’t do they have sufficient practice to run them (maybe on treadmills), maybe short PoC’s, will they need support and if so how much etc.
Once the run is ongoing, we may realize the gaps - who is able to contribute, who is not, competence gaps, support issues and the like. Because in this marathon, everyone of that small group needs to reach the finish line. And then we may have runners who have to be substituted for those reasons. This is the risk of mismatch. Unfortunately you wont know till you try this phase out and go over it. For short runs it may not matter as much, but for longer runs this can become glaring.
The coaches in the meantime are the one who are like co-runners - showing (or finding) the way, depending on their own competence, arranging for breaks and stops for recuperation, getting those glucose and bananas for the runners., Ofcourse they themselves need to be trained to be coaches, and to understand the facets of the run to even support meaningfully.
Then there are other things that come up from time to time - and the marathon becomes more like a hurdle race - checkpoints to ensure we are not running away in a wrong direction or taking shortcuts along the way. We have our tooling business for that - they are not the main thing - rather indicators and traffic lights - so we should not confuse the woods for the trees - the race is still to be completed.
The success of any marathon depends on several factors- the terrain, the distance, the runners, the route, the hurdles, the coaching, the support systems, and everything in between. Also people to cheer us along and motivate us further. Maybe it can be compared to the units ensuring the pods and their members are sufficiently supported. Not having them support sufficiently (due to whatever reasons- capacity issues, expertise issues etc) is another risk.
The mitigations for these risks are rather straightforward. Giving sufficient training before the marathon, ensuring good fitness for the run. Taking feedback’s from the runners and the coaches and the units, from time to time - what do we lack, where can we improve, what are the difficulties, what are some solutions etc., Open discussions help to steer us else we fall into the trap of group think.
Finally, every POD has a story to tell - the good the bad and the ugly. And each have to be told, and heard, to make meaningful and transformational change.
So what then is the future of work? It’s evolving and we are learning - but one thing is for sure - it’s exciting due to the possibilities it opens up and the break neck speeds at which it can be achieved. Lets just ensure we keep our necks in the process!
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