Lean Growth Framework
Learn how we increased the personal motivation for continuous learning and feedback of our team members by making the process more transparent by using this method.
Table of Contents
In the late summer of 2018…
… being a team lead, there was one thing that turned into a big problem for me. Annual staff appraisals. As it is common in many companies, people are asked for a feedback session annually. The general idea is to reflect on the last 12 months, i.e. to discuss the status of the goals from the previous year and to define new ones for the upcoming one. These goals are often linked to salary increases or promotions. Defining personal goals for a year (365 days!) in advance seemed to me neither realistic nor the right frame size. I asked myself if there could be another way – a leaner, more continuous way. A way for people to take their development into their own hands independent of salary or promotion.
That was a few years ago. Between then and now, I was able to gather feedback from the people around me. Bit by bit, I’ve developed this framework to enable a leaner, intrinsically driven personal development: Individual, Flexible and Feedback-oriented. After several iterations, I would now like to finally present and share it with you.
🎯 Goals of the Framework
How is your mood?
Is it good, is it bad? Do you feel safe? Have there been problems in the past, are there any to be expected in the future?
Where is your focus and what is your passion?
What does you enjoy, what don’t you enjoy? What would you like to learn?
Where can you grow?
Define Intrinsically driven, small, measurable and realistic steps.
Reflect and Adjust – if needed
What has changed since last time? Do you need support?
🤗 1. Start with feelings
(Repeat this exercise at least once a month. Ideally more often)
“How are you?”
This is a simple question, right? Actually, for me, it’s not. And I will explain to you why.
At the beginning of my role as a team leader, I regularly asked my colleagues this simple questions. Most of the time just by passing them by. I wanted to understand if they were doing well or not. One day I met one of my team members in the kitchen, and – as usual – I’ve asked him: “How is it going”? He answered: “I’m fine!”. Three days later, he quit his job. In our exit interview, he told me his motivations. I could understand them 100%. Nevertheless, this conversation opened my eyes in a special way:
That day, I’ve learned that it makes a huge difference whether you ask someone about their state of mind as you walk by, or if you take a real interest. So I decided to create a method, that supports me in having a deeper understanding for the current state of mind of other people. And more important: I’ve decided to make this a regular session with all the time it takes.
The Mood Canvas
This method is simple in structure. As you can see (in the example below), it is not more then an axis with emojis and post-its describing the current feeling.
The Post-Its are only a means to an end here. More important is the conversation that is driven by it: Having a chat about every individual point. It’s about showing interest. There is no right or wrong here.
❣️ 2. Follow your passion
(Repeat this exercise at least quarterly)
Further development should not only focus on yet to be learned skills! It is equally important to understand what you are already good at, what you want to learn or what you don’t want to do in the future. The Lean Skill Matrix makes individual development areas more visible and helps to set the focus on further development plans. Where do I stand right now? What can I do best? Where do I shine? What else do I want to learn? What do I currently enjoy? What am I bored of?
You may know that feeling when you’re really good at something, but you lose the desire to do it? One of my team mates came to me with exactly that feeling. She is an expert in creating and maintaining design systems.
In one of our conversations, however, she explained to me that she had the feeling that she was treading water. She felt at comfort, but also felt a kind of emptiness.
I understood her plight. I had been in the situation too. At that time I used a canvas for my clarity. So I also offered my colleague to do this exercise with her.
That was the turning point.
We identified various learning fields. But more importantly, as we moved on, we found a solution to her problem: she would be given someone to work alongside in the coming projects. In this way, we would not only transfer the knowledge, but also relieve her of the burden of the subject matter in the future.
Since then I used the canvas many times. It helps to understand where you’re right now and what things you should focus on in the future. It’s created to behave like a living medium that is fleshed out, reflected and adapted in constant – repetitive – sessions.
It can also be used for hiring and engagement process and team-building. Let me explain it to you:
The Focus Canvas
The canvas basically consists of two crossing axes. The horizontal axis describes the enthusiasm range (from boring to satisfying). The vertical axis describes the knowledge range (from Starter to Expert). Putting both axes crosswise results in the following four fields:
Field 1 – Comfort Zone: You are extraordinarily good at something, but you are no longer satisfied with this activity? Depending on the character, working on these activities can lead to boredom — even demotivation — over time. But topics from this field are excellent for helping others to develop further in this area. Share your knowledge. And maybe you will develop more fun in doing them again some day.
Field 2 – Confidence Zone: If there’s something you like to do and you’re really good at it, it belongs in this field. Because this is where you shine. This field includes topics that you are passionate about, that don’t require any additional motivation and for which you are happy to go the extra mile with passion. This is your asset.
Field 3 – Learning Zone: It is human nature to be interested in new things. Whether out of necessity or pure curiosity: we all know the feeling of being passionately interested in new topics, learning new skills or wanting to dive into unknown areas, often in areas that have nothing to do with one’s own career or education. Many of us like to acquire new skills.
Field 4 – Waste Zone: It is also important to know what you don’t want! Many of today’s professions usually involve several different fields of activity. In the digital media sector (for example) there are roles that cover many individual specialized trades. That is why it is important to create boundaries and exclude fields of activity that one does not want to pursue or no longer wants to pursue in the future. Only in this way can specialization be made possible!
🧭 3. Define your way
(Repeat this exercise at least quarterly)
If there was one thing that used to give me a headache, it was annual performance reviews.
In the companies which I worked, for, an annual review was usually divided into 3 official parts: Personal feedback, review of the goals defined in the previous year and the definition of new goals for the upcoming year. An additional (but not official) part was to talk about aalary and promotion.
What sounds good and right in theory led to a wide variety of problems and phenomena in practice. Here are some:
- Due to the fact that goals had to be defined with a forecast of 12 months, it was practically impossible to keep them small, tangible and verifiable.
- In addition, salary increases and promotions were linked to these goals.
- I also often observed that some people started to work on the goals one or two months before their next annual review.
- I learned that for many, these annual interviews were the only opportunity to have an in-depth feedback conversation with their team leaders.
At that point, I decided to think about an alternative. One that is more intrinsic. One that is more about personal interests and learning. One that breaks larger steps into small, measurable and tangible steps. One that enables and drives a continuous growth process that is flexible enough for external and personal change. The result was the following method:
The Action Canvas
First: Take a look back at the mood and the focus canvas. What do you or your team member wants to achieve in the very near future? Where to develop? What to learn?
To get closer to the Action Tasks, first define topics of interest. Don’t worry, these topics can be adapted or exchanged in further reflection meetings, but you have to start somewhere! Use the topics from the Focus Canvas. A maximum of three should work best.
Once you have identified topic areas, define what should be the next possible smallest step to approach in this topic area. For example, if you want to learn more about Lean UX, a possible next step could be to watch videos about Lean UX on YouTube.
As I said: It’s always about taking the next smallest possible step. So try not to start digesting every remotely related book on this topic before you even know if the topic matches the ideas you have. Think in very small steps and try to be as accurate, as possible.
Once you have defined this next small step for yourself, consider what criteria you will use to identify when this Action Task is complete for you. You can use this kind of template:
I WANT TO [Discover if Lean UX interests me at all / meets my expectations]
FOR THIS, I WILL [read watch 3–5 videos or read articles]
Do this for 3–8 Action-Tasks and take them into your personal Growth Backlog. Then just grab the first one and work on it. I would recommend not working on more than 2 parallel tasks at the same time. Focus!
🔁 4. Repeat, Reflect, Adjust, Adopt
As you can see, at the end of the first three exercises we have not only talked about the current emotional situation and about personal passions, but we also paved the way to self-defined development topics with small measurable action tasks.
To encourage a continuous process, repeat sessions (at least) once a month. Go through your canvases and reflect. Ask yourself: what has happened since the last session? Is there anything to change or take on board?
