Waiting for a feature called Godot

Advice for enterprise buyers and software vendors on roadmaps.

Play will be opening in London in September

I was in Dublin last week. Jason, David and I did some planning for Acadian Ventures world domination.  I should warn you that whenever I go to Ireland I get all literary.  Last time it was Yeats, this time it’s Beckett.  Samuel Beckett was an Irish playwright. His most famous play is called Waiting for Godot. The play is about Vladimir and Estragon waiting for Godot to arrive. Godot never actually arrives. If you have not seen the play, Wikipedia summarizes it nicely.

Drama experts rate it as one of the most important plays of the 20th century. It is apparently allegorical. However there are very few special effects in the play, James Bond, it is not. It has some funny lines, but it would not be unfair to describe it as bleak. Beckett himself was pretty cagey about explaining what the play is about.

I have spent more of my life reading and writing roadmaps than Irish plays. I realised most software roadmaps have more than passing resemblance to Waiting for Godot. 

Act 1:

Vladimir and Estragon work at a large enterprise. They have commuted into the office on the tube and bus. There is a dusty fake tree in their office, but no natural light. They are waiting for the feature called Godot to be delivered in order to start their digital transformation. They aren’t quite exactly sure what Godot is, but they are waiting for it nevertheless.

Pozzo, the partner from the big SI and his junior consultant, Lucky, come by. The junior consultant is carrying a heavy workload, and does some dancing and powerpoints. Pozzo doesn’t know much about Godot either, but he has lots to say about AI’s potential to drive transformation. After a while he Pozzo and Lucky leave. Vladimir and Estragon’s confusion deepens.

The vendor account manager then arrives. He tells Vladimir and Estragon that Godot will not be coming today, but will come tomorrow.

Act 2:

Overnight the plastic tree has been cleaned by facilities, so it looks greener.

The next day the consultants come by again, they still don’t do anything really useful.

An account manager returns but denies having ever promised the feature. It may actually be a new account manager, but it is hard to know.

The feature doesn’t arrive. The play ends.

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Advice for enterprise software buyers

The Godot problem with established vendors.

When an established software company promises you a feature as part of your license deal, treat this with caution, if not disdain. Figure out if the person promising you the feature actually has the authority and capability to do so. Ask them what are they taking off the existing roadmap to deliver the Godot you are asking for. Insist on a licence escrow carve out until the feature is delivered.

Expecting a vendor to commit a date to a ill-defined feature is likely to create disappointment. Evaluate the long term vision of the vendor, but trust the existing customers that actually know the product to beat up the vendor’s short term roadmap, rather than you.

Understand the difference between vendor viability and product viability (I have a post brewing on that).

Godot and the start up.

When you are working with an early stage startup, they may well not yet have a product, so you are really waiting for Godot. Spend time with the vendor explaining what your business problem is. Help the vendor keep the scope focused on what you really need to go live. You need to get comfortable with the reality of an MVP. Remember to treat the startup differently from how you treat your established vendors.

Advice for software vendors.

Established and scale-up vendors.

In the heat of the deal, please avoid promising features for short term delivery.  Present a vision of where you believe the product will be in the future. Don’t base your sale on what you plan to ship over the next year, or worse promise stuff on top of your existing roadmap. Once you get in the habit of promising stuff, you will mortgage your future roadmap. This kills your agility. You will build features prospects think they want, rather than what your customers know they need. You will create technical debt, feature bloat and shelfware out of the gate. Pitch your product and your vision, don’t pitch your roadmap.

Read the book Escaping the Build Trap and do what Melissa says you should do.

Also do what Dave Kellogg says

From a sales perspective, roadmap presentations are the anti-sales pitch:  a well organized presentation of all the things your products don’t do.  Great, let’s spend lots of time talking about that.

From a competitive perspective, you’re broadcasting your plans.  If you’re presenting roadmap to every prospect who comes through the briefing center and at every local user group meeting, your competition is going to learn your roadmap, and fast.  Then they can copy it and/or blunt it.

But what irks me the most is what happens from a product management perspective:  you turn PM into “the talking guys” instead of “the listening guys.”  Given enough time, PM starts to view itself as the folks who show up and pitch roadmaps.

In real life, you may end up promising stuff, but know the real cost of the bargain. The more compelling your long term vision, the fewer short term compromises you will need to make. The more robust and disciplined your product management processes are, the less likely you are to stray. In the last few years, product management as a discipline has improved dramatically. If yours hasn’t, fix it. Learn what a modern roadmap is supposed to do.

Use Pozzo and Lucky to help you manage the enterprise. They can really help you build trust, and keep your customers on track, but that takes time and investment.

Early Start-ups.

Figure out if Vladimir and Estragon are really your ideal customers. If they are, you need to listen really well to what their problems are. Take them through a proper discovery process. Listen. Really listen. If you don’t have a discovery process, discover one with Teresa Torres. Build something that solves a real problem. You will find you wait for Vladmir and Estragon most of the time. Lucky and Pozzo may be of some help, but don’t bank on it. Understand your customer’s risk dynamics. Know how to make your you Vladmir and Estragon into heroes.

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When I remember, I add a song to end of my posts. Here is a new cover of the Talking Heads Song, Stop Making Sense, with Badbadnotgood featuring Norah Jones. I think it is lovely. There is more than a touch of Beckett in David Byrne.