Baseballs and Hockey Pucks
"Keep your eye on the ball!" I was always coached when learning how to play baseball. Seemed like reasonable advice while standing at the plate, facing down the pitcher for the opposing team. Certainly wouldn't want to be daydreaming or casting my gaze to the horizon. It didn't seem to help, though. I excelled at striking out.
Later...much later...I came across Wayne Gretzky's quote: “Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.” I wonder if I had learned to figure out where the baseball was going to be and made sure my bat was there to meet it if I might have spent more time on bases. Keeping my eye on the ball didn't tell me much about when to start my swing.
No regrets. I still love the game (as it was, not as it currently is.)
I think of this Gretzky quote when I watch product owners struggle with organizing their backlog. (I also think how tragic it is that the business world has beat this quote into an intolerable pulpy platitude.)
Ask a product owner what their team is working on today, they should be able to give a succinct answer. Ask them what their team is going to be working on in three months and watch the clock. The longer they can go on about what their team is going to be working on, the healthier their backlog is likely to be. Struggling product owners scramble to keep their teams busy sprint-to-sprint. Good product owners can see where their teams are going to be in several months. Great product owners see to the end of the game.
Photo by Chris Chow on Unsplash