Season 1: Episode 8
Big idea: We’ve made some big updates to Waymaker to help you achieve more, while doing less.
Waymaker product improvements in May 2021 include a new diagnostic which is up to 50% faster, a powerful new confidence score on all goals and an easier way to slice your data using the explore dashboard.
Transcript
Waymaker product updates
00:02
welcome to leadership talk
00:05
the official waymaker podcast where we
00:07
explore
00:08
how your organization can achieve more
00:11
by doing less
00:22
welcome to leadership talk the official
00:25
waymaker podcast i’m your host craig
00:27
hyneman
00:27
uh as always and i’m joined by ceo and
00:30
founder
00:31
of waymaker stuart leo and also
00:34
ceo and founding team member robbie
00:37
nixon
00:38
how are you guys great how’s it going
00:40
hey craig
00:41
welcome to the podcast that delay was
00:44
like
00:44
you guys were on the downside of the
00:46
world it’s not you’re in the same room
00:50
yeah yeah yeah we both looked up to see
00:53
robbie first that’s it
00:56
robbie it’s good to have you um on the
00:59
podcast
00:59
we’ve actually done a podcast in a
01:01
previous life
01:03
um together and you guys explored what
01:05
the top
01:06
10 you know future trends would be um
01:09
i’m actually interested to do a bit of a
01:11
podcast search and have a listen to that
01:12
again because you nailed a few
01:14
robbie you’re actually on the money on a
01:16
couple well four
01:17
we nailed a few yeah yeah
01:20
what was your call though i remember i
01:23
was getting getting back to call
01:24
getting back to core yep well that was
01:26
true so this was
01:28
yeah hey we just need to position the
01:30
time frame pretty
01:39
yeah well that’s true precoc got back to
01:40
coal and space exploration
01:43
so i’m not sure there was a time frame
01:44
on that one space exploration
01:46
yeah yeah yeah we said that would be a
01:48
huge train i mean that’s that’s
01:50
how that’s happened um what were some of
01:53
the others we said volatility
01:57
in in the marketplace yeah i’d call that
02:00
that’s
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that that covered certainly brought
02:03
volatility to marketplace
02:05
it was the year of the podcast over
02:06
blogging it was wasn’t it the year of
02:08
podcaster well and pretty much
02:11
and if you look back on 2020 it was when
02:13
everyone started a podcast because they
02:15
had nothing else to do
02:17
so and we’re still doing the podcast
02:20
because we’ve got nothing else to do
02:24
robbie’s been tapping into his inner
02:26
nostradamus
02:27
should have gone to that brokes yeah we
02:29
should
02:31
today’s podcast brought to you by
02:33
sportsbook uh
02:34
i think stu had we known the future we
02:37
might have um
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i wouldn’t have done anything different
02:40
actually
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yeah it was it was great it was it was
02:43
pretty good it’s worth a listen
02:44
do it do it do a search for it hey um
02:48
stu we thought we’d do a product update
02:49
yes yes uh in this in this episode we’re
02:52
we’re
02:52
45 ish days into
02:56
market we’ve had um great feedback so
02:59
far from our customers but
03:00
we’ve already made a whole bunch of
03:03
changes
03:04
in that time so a couple of really big
03:05
ones so i guess my question is well
03:07
we want to talk about this but my
03:09
question is stu why have we made
03:11
um you know some big changes in that
03:13
first
03:14
in that so early in the launch cycle and
03:16
and what are they yeah
03:17
so um well super exciting yeah
03:20
circa i don’t even know i should work
03:22
out the number of days somewhere between
03:23
45 and 60 days
03:25
um post release to first customers
03:29
officially and we
03:32
we have made um well we’ve actually made
03:34
a whole bunch of changes
03:36
but we’ve made two or three big ones
03:38
which we’re going to talk about today
03:40
why have we made them right because
03:42
strangely enough we
03:43
we actually practice what we preach
03:47
um we we believe in continuous
03:49
improvement and we believe
03:51
in balancing
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lean methodologies and market feedback
03:57
and all those fun and wonderful things
03:59
so
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so we’ve taken a product to market um
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it’s
04:03
significantly different from what it was
04:05
in
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um beta testing at the end of 2000 and
04:10
2020.
04:11
it’s significantly different from when
04:13
we went live in at the end of march
04:16
in 2021
04:19
and we’re pretty excited today to talk
04:22
about
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three big movements which is one
04:27
a much faster easier to use
04:30
and better diagnostic so we’ve found i
04:33
think
04:34
circa 30 to 50 improvement depending on
04:38
on users but certainly a massive
04:40
improvement in speed which
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we were already doing something fast
04:44
with that and now it’s even faster
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number two we’ve launched a really cool
04:49
feature
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called the confidence score so we’re
04:52
going to talk about confidence scores
04:54
and number three um we launched the
04:57
explore dashboard which
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you know i i love i love a bit of data
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like the next geek
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and um i i i really do geek out over
05:08
this one this is cool
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i love the explore dashboard
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one of our team members lisa her comment
05:15
about the explore dashboard was i hate
05:17
it
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because it means i’m accountable and
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that she’s obviously said that jokingly
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but it’s just a beautiful dashboard so
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yeah we’re gonna we’re gonna talk about
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all three of those
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and so i literally grabbed robbie by the
05:33
collar
05:34
from the office chair and said you’ve
05:35
got to sit on in this podcast
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because robbie leads product um product
05:40
engineering ops
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and has actually made these things
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happen um
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literally awesome all right well well
05:48
let’s dive into it then
05:50
i mean we’ve talked about faster
05:51
diagnostics in a previous episode but
05:54
sort of skimmed over the surface do you
05:55
want to do you want to give us a bit
05:56
more of a
05:57
an in-depth look at what that looks like
05:59
well why did we make the change we made
06:01
the change because
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we want to make it easier and faster
06:05
to get better insights on your business
06:08
we have a core
06:10
value a core pillar of our business
06:12
about providing instant insights
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on on your business whether that be
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instant insights on growing your
06:20
business or instant insights on how is
06:22
my business going
06:23
and so the diagnostic is the
06:27
is the the musher that brings a whole
06:30
bunch of data in
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when your team that’s the technical term
06:35
and um and we did get feedback that
06:39
it was taking too long to get through it
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that’s great that’s fair enough
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um we ask a lot of questions and
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i mean with the problem we’re solving
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with the diagnostic is
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a problem that would normally take a
06:50
management consultant three or four five
06:52
six weeks
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a whole bunch of face-to-face interviews
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and
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maybe six to eight hours in front of
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their computer writing a smart report
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so we’re we’re actually doing a whole
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bunch of work
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really really fast with some smart
07:06
calculations and some smart
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visualizations and when we
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launched our data was saying somewhere
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between um
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on the fast end sort of 30 to 40 minutes
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and on the
07:20
the slow end we had some users taking up
07:23
to 45 to 50 minutes
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i’m looking at robbie and he’s nodding
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and looking at me but i should look at
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my camera
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because i’m not used to doing um
07:32
multi-camera in the same room
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uh so so the problem was it was just
07:36
taking too long to get through that
07:38
so robbie what did we do uh yeah i just
07:41
want to chuck a couple of things in
07:42
there before i go on was um
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there’s the customer centricity here we
07:47
do take on the feedback from all our
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customers
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a couple of things that came out of it
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as stuart’s touched on is the speed
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it’s a bit clunky but also the
07:55
vocabulary that was used throughout the
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questions
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so we’ve put each of the questions
08:00
through plain english
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which has transformed them much easier
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to read digest and think about
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so that’s the first improvement where i
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use a
08:12
can actually understand the question not
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that they couldn’t previously but they
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can read the question quicker
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and they can make the decision quicker
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and therefore their answer and moving
08:20
through the diagnostic quicker
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you know one of the things that we say
08:24
and we encourage is you know you
08:26
use your first initial thought your gut
08:29
reaction so just keep
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moving through it as quickly as possible
08:32
bit like taking a personality test and
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if your gut reaction is
08:35
if your gut reaction is i have no idea
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what they’re gonna go uh that’s gonna
08:40
[Music]
08:47
accurate data coming out so we wanted
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accurate data coming in
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so we had quite technically structured
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questions
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and um we’ve balanced the
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technical element of the question with
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the speed to answer and
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that’s a it’s it’s an interesting
09:04
balance and so
09:06
we went back and rewrote all those
09:08
questions
09:09
quite aggressively and re-tested
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um some of those questions and um
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got a different outcome yeah so we’ve
09:19
maintained the structure the order
09:22
we’ve just reworded the question so used
09:24
plain plain english
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so it’s easy to understand or easier
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from a technical perspective the
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feedback was around the length of time
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it was taken to go
09:36
through we’ve moved the workflows now
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into the back end of the system
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so rather on click
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the workflow capturing data on the
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server side or on the browser side
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in front of you each time you click your
09:53
button to go to the next the data is
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sent to the back end of the database and
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queues and then
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processes without interrupting the user
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experience
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so that saved a huge amount of time
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and then simplifying the questions
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combined i reckon it’s about 55
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improvement on the time to take the
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diagnostic
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that’s actually which is a great result
10:18
that was the technical answer
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not getting too technical yeah that’s
10:24
right
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yeah so that’s a
10:28
that’s a huge improvement and we’ve seen
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um
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even small and as a startup and as we’re
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growing
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we’re seeing an improvement in um people
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being able to get in and take that much
10:40
faster
10:41
as a team yeah so to add to that as well
10:44
as
10:44
you talk stuart about um the reduction
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of time
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spent in workshops and interviews and
10:50
running the analysis
10:51
that that way
10:55
there’s always the element of
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subjectivity in that you know
10:58
probably the the loudest voice or the
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person further up the hierarchy can
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sort of maybe push their agenda a little
11:06
bit with a consultant
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once you’ve gone into the diagnostic
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you’ve got the whole
11:11
leadership or the whole team taking the
11:13
diagnostics so you’re removing that
11:15
subjectivity so you really are getting
11:17
more of an objective outcome
11:19
which is what you should be doing what
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the aim should be
11:22
right yeah
11:26
yeah that’s awesome hey um
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it’d be good to tackle some of these
11:31
other ones because uh
11:33
all of our listeners wouldn’t have
11:34
actually heard about these ones before
11:35
so confidence scores
11:37
um you want to talk about that so why
11:39
did we introduce confidence score
11:41
well i said the the principle at play
11:44
here is
11:45
um giving team members and leaders
11:48
instant insights on the performance of
11:51
their business
11:52
as much as the opportunities to perform
11:56
in their business and so the confidence
11:58
score was introduced to sit alongside
12:01
a progress score on an okr
12:04
so we’ve talked previously about okr’s
12:07
objectives and key results and that’s
12:09
the that’s the building block we use
12:11
around goal management the
12:15
confidence score is
12:18
it answers a different question so
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the question of how far into this goal
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is answered by what progress am i
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achieving on this goal
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and progress is is calculated by
12:34
rolling up the progress on the key
12:35
results so three key results
12:38
one at ten percent one at twenty percent
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um one at twenty five percent and the
12:44
average is going to be
12:46
i should have used different numbers
12:48
yeah the average of those three numbers
12:51
um and that’ll be the the average
12:54
progress on that objective and that that
12:55
rolls up to show
12:56
a progress score so so that that tells
12:59
um tells the observer both the owner of
13:03
the objective and
13:04
those around them that they’re x percent
13:06
into
13:07
achieving this goal but it doesn’t tell
13:10
the observer is this goal going to
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happen
13:15
and and is this goal going to happen is
13:18
picked up in a confidence score
13:20
and so the confidence score is actually
13:22
not driven by key results
13:26
in in this version of the confidence
13:28
score
13:29
it’s driven by the user giving a
13:32
confidence
13:32
input and we’ve laid the framework to
13:36
start to add to that in the future
13:40
so in the future we’ll talk about how it
13:42
can be
13:43
influenced by other activities they’re
13:46
performing so not just
13:47
so that so to get to the point the
13:49
confidence score is about the the owner
13:51
of the objective saying my confidence in
13:53
this goal being achieved
13:55
is x and we we mark that as a zero to
13:58
one
13:59
so that’s important um because
14:02
the the progress could be low
14:06
or high and and the progress could be
14:09
different
14:10
i could have a high sorry the confidence
14:12
could be different the progress could be
14:14
say 70 percent
14:16
but my confidence could actually plummet
14:17
and go back down to
14:19
20 something could change and so as
14:22
you’re looking at
14:23
will we achieve our goals this quarter
14:26
the progress on the objective tells us
14:29
how far
14:30
into the objective we are the confidence
14:32
tells us are we going to get there
14:34
and and really it’s it’s an equally
14:38
important metric
14:40
helping the team understand do we need
14:42
to change direction do we need
14:44
to adjust do we need to adapt do we need
14:47
to
14:48
get behind somebody so this is data and
14:50
information
14:52
coming to users and leaders fingertips
14:55
to affect daily changes um in in
14:58
behaviors and activities
15:00
is that does that make sense yeah and i
15:03
guess
15:03
for clarity are these a different set of
15:05
questions that are asked by the
15:07
by the um asked of the
15:10
project manager or is this or is this
15:14
calculated from data that’s already been
15:15
no no so
15:16
um just to give listeners context um
15:20
the when you’re managing your objective
15:23
and key result
15:24
so you’ve you’ve set up your goals for
15:26
the quarter
15:27
and you’ve said okay they hear my three
15:30
goals and
15:30
and they’re structured as as okr’s as
15:33
you’re updating
15:34
um your progress or your movement
15:37
through those goals say it’s week two
15:39
and you’ve you’re now 20 into the goal
15:42
then your progress your rolled up
15:44
progress score is going to be 20
15:47
but you have an opportunity at any time
15:49
to
15:50
update the confidence of delivery and
15:54
that will happen whenever you want to
15:56
update
15:58
that goal and we’d recommend you know
16:00
best practice recommendation is that
16:03
you’re updating your key results on on
16:06
demand so if you
16:07
if you imp if you move a key result
16:09
forward
16:10
say you achieve an outcome that day or
16:13
um then you would you’d increase
16:15
that key results percentage improvement
16:17
which is going to roll up and increase
16:18
the the objectives improvement
16:22
but our best practice recommendation is
16:24
that every week you stop
16:25
and you review okrs and you look at
16:29
your current status and in that moment
16:32
we would recommend
16:34
thinking about the confidence so um
16:38
at that moment we would say okay how
16:40
confident
16:41
are you that this goal will be delivered
16:43
and then then we ask you to rank that
16:45
and that feeds up that feeds up to to be
16:48
able to say
16:49
gosh we’ve now got confidence on a goal
16:51
and we’ve got a confidence
16:53
um across the business of what our
16:56
people
16:57
are thinking and feeling and knowing are
16:59
we going to get there
17:03
and would you imagine uh just out of
17:06
experience that that
17:07
is gonna kind of usually start high
17:09
because everyone’s like
17:10
super excited it’s gonna have a it’s
17:12
gonna have a dip and then
17:14
you know it’s gonna peak right at the
17:15
end or you know like do you kind of
17:16
imagine that that’s
17:18
kind of going to be a common trend
17:21
or have you not experienced that early
17:25
days yeah
17:25
is there a perfect curve is there a
17:27
perfect curve as well
17:29
i guess my question is the perfect curve
17:30
is the job gets done but yeah
17:33
it’s just a hundred it’s a straight line
17:34
at the top you should take this
17:36
i’m feeling that most people would start
17:38
around the 50 percent or maybe 70
17:41
sort of the upper end of that curve and
17:42
then i guess depending on outcomes you
17:44
know i think the best example or the
17:46
most
17:46
the clearest example i’ve heard of this
17:49
is a marketing business that’s trying to
17:52
secure 100 leads in the quarter
17:54
and within month one they’ve already got
17:56
50. so they’re 50
17:58
through in progress looking good they’re
18:00
going to achieve the result
18:02
however they’ve got no more channels
18:05
they can’t see how they’re going to get
18:06
any more leads with the resources at
18:09
hand so they flag
18:10
the confidence as a five or a three and
18:13
then therefore
18:14
the manager the team around them can see
18:16
you know this guy’s person needs
18:18
um needs a hand what can we do to help
18:21
yeah
18:22
yeah that’s a good example um yeah
18:25
life changes during the quarter and
18:29
progress doesn’t necessarily equal
18:32
outcome
18:33
it’s just progress it’s just how far
18:35
we’re going so
18:36
whereas confidence is a far more direct
18:39
line feedback of the individual going
18:42
i am or am not confident that this goal
18:44
will be delivered
18:45
and um so it’s it’s helpful um it’s a
18:48
lot more helpful
18:50
in the decision making process um
18:53
so i think the i mean to add to that um
18:56
example that that robbie gave
18:59
the the confidence um can
19:02
also um surface the issue of perhaps
19:06
this
19:06
objective is no longer relevant so
19:10
you know let’s say we get to 70 of an
19:12
objective
19:13
um delivered and and we’re halfway
19:16
through month two
19:18
and if we throw that confidence to
19:20
delivery back down to
19:21
you know zero well that’s going to
19:24
quickly flag
19:25
there’s a problem which is going to
19:27
drive a conversation
19:29
and and that conversation could also be
19:32
around well actually we’ve now learned
19:33
something
19:34
six weeks later this goal is no longer
19:36
relevant
19:37
and and that’s a good thing because if
19:40
the goal’s no longer relevant
19:41
um change it or bin it and
19:45
but don’t leave it there as a
19:47
performance outcome with an expectation
19:50
that you’ve had a good quarter by
19:52
getting 70 of the way through that goal
19:54
so um so i think the
19:57
we talk about a practice of a cycle of
19:59
performance of continuous improvement
20:01
quarter by quarter
20:03
but just because the cycle runs on
20:05
quarter by quarter doesn’t mean your
20:06
decision making is quarter by quarter
20:08
and and confidence scores allow you to
20:11
work
20:11
daily weekly and adapt to changing
20:14
environments
20:15
and and bring some of that insight and
20:18
surface it up
20:20
it seems to me to be measuring both the
20:22
objective
20:24
measurement of the performance of the
20:25
outcomes and the subjective of how am i
20:28
feeling about that correct
20:30
is that yeah okay yeah and trying to
20:32
drive collaboration you know
20:34
um one of the big parts of the platform
20:37
is
20:37
is trying to create alignment and
20:40
cohesion within a business
20:42
everyone’s working on the things that
20:43
matter right when you when everyone in
20:45
the business is working on the same
20:47
thing or towards the same thing towards
20:49
the same goals
20:50
you’re going to get improvement and it’s
20:51
going to come quickly
20:53
so if someone in the team has got a low
20:56
confidence
20:57
they need a hand it’s a great way of
20:59
visually
21:01
within the team being able to see you
21:03
know this this person needs a hand let’s
21:05
go and see what it is how can we help
21:06
how can we make sure that everyone’s
21:08
successful and achieving or
21:10
to the other point that stuart’s just
21:11
made is it relevant
21:13
has something else taken priority and
21:15
why so it’s always driving a
21:17
conversation
21:17
around how we can keep moving forward
21:20
towards the goals that have been set
21:22
yeah we talk in some of our training
21:25
materials on waymaker academy
21:28
around the best practice meetings and
21:30
the best practice
21:32
um collaborations and one of those
21:35
is the is the weekly or fortnightly team
21:38
meeting
21:38
team or leadership meeting where we talk
21:40
about surfacing roadblocks
21:42
and the best teams don’t talk about
21:45
what they’ve done or what they’re going
21:47
to do they spend time together
21:50
solving the problems that help the
21:52
individual team members
21:53
go out and do so they’re good problem
21:56
solvers
21:57
and i mean that’s a big insight right
21:59
there
22:00
but surfacing those roadblocks is really
22:04
important
22:04
and so the confidence score is one way
22:08
of surfacing a roadblock rapidly
22:11
so where we would expect and we’re
22:14
seeing
22:14
confidence scores moving up and moving
22:16
down
22:17
on a weekly or fortnightly basis based
22:20
on the roadblocks that you might
22:22
hit as you’re as you’re working on a
22:24
goal because you know one of those other
22:25
best practices we talk about is set a
22:27
goal but it should
22:28
stretch you 20 30 40 percent if
22:32
it’s if it’s easy to do it’s not a good
22:33
goal it’s a task
22:36
set a goal and that means you’re
22:38
entering into the quarter
22:40
with a level of unknown there’s there’s
22:43
an
22:43
element of mystery to this quarter we
22:45
know where we’re going we won’t know
22:47
what needs to
22:47
be done but do we know exactly how to do
22:50
it
22:51
no and that’s part of the mystery and
22:53
that’s part of the
22:54
tension that actually pulls the business
22:56
the organization
22:57
forward by solving some of that mystery
23:00
so
23:01
so really what you’re setting yourself
23:03
up for is to go in the next 12 weeks
23:05
we’re going to solve problems
23:06
we have to be good problem solvers and
23:09
if we’re not solving problems
23:11
we’re probably not moving as far forward
23:14
as we could be moving because life’s too
23:17
easy
23:18
and and we all know that if you go to
23:19
the gym and you lift weights
23:21
and you don’t break a sweat and it’s
23:23
really easy well you walk out
23:26
um you walk out a fat man not a strong
23:28
man so
23:29
um i know that
23:34
so you know if you’re not lifting those
23:36
weights in that that weekly or
23:37
fortnightly
23:38
leadership meeting uh you’re you’re not
23:40
pushing hard enough so
23:42
so we we found um the introduction of
23:44
the confidence score
23:45
um one of those continuous improvement
23:48
elements to surface roadblocks and
23:49
issues
23:50
quickly and easily in a positive way i
23:53
mean
23:54
um one of the cultures one of the
23:57
elements of culture that needs to be
23:58
broken down
24:00
when you when you move on to waymaker is
24:03
it’s a good thing to raise your hand and
24:05
go i’m stuck it’s a it’s a really
24:07
healthy thing
24:08
to go uh roadblock i’m not making
24:11
progress on my goal
24:12
which in traditional management and
24:16
a lot of that that um old world
24:19
20th century style of of management
24:21
that’s unhealthy
24:22
at that that’s people see that as
24:24
unhealthy
24:26
um and we want to we want to break that
24:28
and go
24:29
no that’s actually healthy um get some
24:32
spotters around you get some people
24:33
around you
24:34
go here’s a real roadblock how do we
24:36
solve this problem together
24:38
spend some time on that boom problem
24:41
solved mystery revealed
24:43
move on for the next week or two um and
24:46
and hopefully
24:47
um you know confidence scores are a way
24:49
of surfacing those roadblocks
24:51
um uh quickly simply easily without
24:54
without emotion
24:57
that’s awesome okay so we’ve talked
24:59
about faster diagnostics we’ve
25:01
introduced we’ve introduced confidence
25:03
scores
25:03
and the last thing that we wanted to
25:04
talk about on this episode was the
25:06
release of the explore
25:08
dashboard which lisa hates
25:11
but loves at the same time yeah yeah
25:14
uh let’s let’s talk about the explore
25:16
dashboard well um
25:17
what is it to start with um robbie what
25:20
is it
25:23
it’s a dashboard thanks mate
25:31
to visualize or gain the insights that
25:34
we’ve just been talking about
25:36
um we can drill down into okrs
25:40
across the business by team by business
25:44
unit by
25:44
owner uh even by function from the
25:47
diagnostic style um
25:51
the function of business so that in
25:55
itself
25:56
is really powerful so to lead a meeting
26:00
using the explore dashboard you’re able
26:02
to quickly drill down to the team’s data
26:06
and to reuse us and bless you the
26:10
the the headline of the dashboard will
26:12
show that person
26:14
that team’s progress confidence
26:17
and then there’s uh number scores around
26:19
averages
26:20
uh key results to objectives
26:23
updates to objectives and such
26:28
but we split it out between charts and a
26:31
list view of the actual objectives so
26:33
while you get a roll-up
26:35
aggregate from the charts you can then
26:37
see each individual objective
26:39
and key result listed beneath it so you
26:41
can quickly understand
26:43
where the roadblocks could be what’s
26:46
going well
26:47
um what needs addressing so from a
26:50
manager’s point of view running the
26:52
team check-in using explore
26:55
they’ve got all the data to hand and can
26:58
quickly make their decisions on what
26:59
needs to be raised and what
27:01
what doesn’t need to be raised yes
27:04
they’re working through a quick
27:06
quick meeting yeah i mean i’ll tell you
27:07
how we use it that might be practical
27:09
um when we sit down for a
27:12
leadership team meeting um we we start
27:16
off with
27:16
um sort of the usual five to ten minutes
27:19
of
27:20
of around the table of good news and
27:23
what’s working well and what’s happening
27:26
out there and then
27:29
we jump into what’s on our our goals
27:33
for the quarter but specifically what
27:36
we’re doing
27:37
and this is where we introduce the
27:38
explore dashboard
27:41
we look at those goals and we flag
27:45
roadblocks so it’s really easy to
27:48
in a meeting um change the filter set
27:51
from
27:52
say in progress with robbie or in
27:53
progress with lisa or in progress with
27:55
stuart or
27:56
whoever um and and the
27:59
the agenda is is really surfaced
28:02
by drilling into the explore dashboard
28:05
and so
28:06
we’re looking at data we’re seeing
28:09
that data on the four five six seven
28:12
eight goals that are across the team
28:14
we’re able to actually um see things
28:18
like confidence scores
28:19
um things like um progress
28:24
and and we’re able to actually have a
28:26
simple conversation
28:28
of well um do you have any roadblocks
28:31
yes no
28:31
if yes let’s talk about them where are
28:34
they
28:34
and so from a from a team perspective
28:37
and and
28:38
you know i mentioned before that lisa
28:40
hates it um
28:42
you’re always accountable to the goals
28:45
that you’ve set
28:46
because they’re in your face on a weekly
28:49
basis
28:50
and that’s a good thing because as a
28:52
team
28:53
we’re actually helping each other
28:55
achieve our goals
28:57
and and so the explore dashboard works
29:00
at every level of the organization
29:02
it doesn’t matter whether you’re you
29:04
know in an exec team
29:06
or in a frontline service team or sales
29:09
team
29:10
and and so it’s a it’s a way of
29:13
in one to five clicks
29:17
um drilling into any area of the team
29:20
[Music]
29:21
current past or planned goals um
29:26
in order to figure out where you’re at
29:27
so it’s it’s massively powerful we
29:30
we actually love it internally and um
29:33
early indications is where we’re
29:34
starting to see some love come back from
29:36
customers on it so
29:37
um we’re really proud of this one
29:40
that’s awesome and what are some of the
29:41
things that you’re seeing that you
29:43
weren’t expecting to see like what
29:45
like how has it identified some some
29:48
things in your business that you weren’t
29:50
actually maybe surprises do you know
29:53
on the explore dashboard yeah yeah
29:56
like for example for example like you
29:58
would get a much better
30:00
understanding of alignment based on
30:03
based on the data that you’re seeing
30:04
there that
30:05
so which is a little less tangible but
30:07
yeah i mean for for me
30:08
the the simplicity of running a team
30:12
meeting
30:13
um has been a benefit that’s that’s come
30:16
out
30:16
um we have a rolling agenda with a
30:21
standard agenda
30:22
um robbie might be laughing because he
30:25
sits in some of these and
30:26
um has to has to participate but i think
30:29
the
30:30
um is that stuart just does not say he’s
30:34
okay
30:42
everybody stop um take the first five to
30:44
ten minutes
30:45
and everybody update your akr so we can
30:47
have a productive conversation
30:49
that’s not a bad thing to do you know
30:51
i’d encourage other people to do that
30:54
you’ve got to stop you’ve got to look at
30:56
where you’re at and what you’re focused
30:57
on and if you’re running at 110
31:00
during the week when you come together
31:02
you want to make sure that you’re
31:03
looking at
31:04
accurate information so so it’s actually
31:08
really easy to stop
31:09
and for five minutes whether you do it
31:12
beforehand or at the start of the
31:13
meeting
31:14
doesn’t matter stop review your goals
31:18
update them update key results update
31:20
your confidence
31:21
marketing notes up so that it’s ready
31:23
for a robust conversation
31:26
and that’s a healthy thing to do because
31:28
everybody’s then
31:29
wherever they are looking at the same
31:31
data the same information
31:33
and you can have a productive
31:34
conversation so i think that simplicity
31:36
of running a meeting
31:38
for me was a nice surprise that’s
31:40
probably why i think we love it and we
31:42
use it
31:42
so much uh
31:46
robbie any any any uh surprises
31:50
from your end on confidence or explore
31:56
not so much surprises i think that’s
31:59
going to come into its own
32:01
sort of down the road with some of the
32:02
plans that we’ve got for the use of that
32:04
data
32:06
um i think if we can give our
32:09
listeners a small window into the future
32:12
is
32:12
setting up some notifications around
32:15
days and times of check-ins
32:17
so they’re not coming to meetings
32:19
unprepared
32:21
they’re uh they’re getting the reminder
32:23
to get it done before they
32:24
they get into their meeting which i
32:25
think is going to be a nice
32:28
shots fired i’m so glad i’m not in the
32:29
room
32:33
i’m going home after this yeah i mean
32:36
that’s a good point actually one of the
32:37
analogies
32:38
of that we often use is a bit like a a
32:42
smartwatch
32:42
you know it it’s listening and helping
32:45
it’s not
32:46
judging um and so as
32:49
as the as the data sets growing and
32:55
as we’re building more and more smarts
32:58
um
32:59
into that um you know we’re looking for
33:01
ways to
33:02
help individuals um
33:05
remember um simple things just remember
33:08
that oh i’ve got a one-on-one with my
33:10
boss tomorrow
33:12
do you need to update these three key
33:14
results
33:15
or you haven’t updated these ones for
33:17
two weeks is it time to review them
33:19
or simple things and so
33:22
um yeah robbie’s giving a window into
33:25
the future and
33:26
um over over some of our future podcasts
33:30
we’ll
33:30
we’ll definitely talk about how well
33:31
those things are rolling out
33:34
that’s awesome and i think that uh
33:35
you’re a little example before of
33:38
just taking 10 15 minutes to update
33:40
those is it
33:42
it highlights actually how quickly you
33:44
can do that it’s not going to take up
33:45
all of your day to input the data that
33:47
you need correct on a regular basis
33:50
um so you know it doesn’t chew into your
33:53
you know productivity hours yeah yeah
33:56
and
33:56
i mean yeah great meetings uh where
33:59
where you come with problems and walk
34:02
out
34:03
with answers and solutions you know yeah
34:06
meetings suck when you
34:10
you talk and it’s a talk fest about what
34:12
you’ve done
34:13
or what you think you’re gonna do and
34:16
and
34:17
you know i’ve i’ve sat in those meetings
34:18
i’ve been guilty as charged on running
34:20
meetings like that in the past
34:22
and really we need to blow those
34:24
meetings up they’re a waste of time
34:26
and great meetings solve problems and
34:29
they remove roadblocks and great leaders
34:32
remove roadblocks for their team members
34:35
and
34:35
and so that starts in your weekly
34:38
one-on-ones or
34:39
your weekly team meetings where you
34:43
change the conversation and we’re seeing
34:46
our technology change that conversation
34:48
and that’s a healthy thing when when
34:50
people’s
34:51
behaviors are changed for the better um
34:54
and it helps you be a better leader or a
34:57
better team member
34:58
then yeah we get it we get excited we
35:01
get to geek out over that kind of tech
35:05
that’s epic there’s uh three
35:08
more excellent reasons to jump on
35:11
waymaker.io
35:12
and sign up for a free trial uh faster
35:15
diagnostics
35:16
confidence scores the explore dashboard
35:19
we’re holding each other accountable
35:21
um you guys have obviously got some
35:22
stuff to talk about when we sign off
35:25
no just joking um this is actually
35:29
this is actually excellent and i i think
35:31
this is a great opportunity for
35:32
people that are just trying to get their
35:34
head around whether or not they want to
35:36
jump on board to go in and explore some
35:37
of these things
35:38
because um it’s going to
35:41
drastically uh simplify the way that you
35:45
do
35:47
business yeah yeah yeah yep
35:52
robbie thanks for joining us today mate
35:54
thanks for having me appreciate it
35:55
always good to have you you and uh and
35:59
um
35:59
we’re gonna talk more this might be the
36:01
last time uh when we get together and
36:03
talk about how to achieve more by doing
36:13
[Music]
36:15
[Applause]
36:17
[Music]
36:22
you
Waymaker product updates
We’re just a few months into our journey with Waymaker.
I’m really excited with our first groups of users finding value in the strategic gap analysis, planning and delivery tools.
Our goal is to build a platform that helps any team, anywhere, any size, leverage the whole of team to find gaps, build a better roadmap and deliver the goals that matter most with greater effectiveness than ever before.
Most importantly, thank you to all the Waymaker’s who have provided input and feedback over the last few months.
We’ve made hundreds of small tweaks and changes in the platform since launch but there are three significant improvements to mention today.
A faster, easier Waymaker Diagnostic
The Waymaker Experience Curve diagnostic is now up to 50% faster to complete on all devices.
The diagnostic is a key tool that helps leaders and teams rapidly plan strategic business improvement activities.
15 – 25 minutes of Q&A in the diagnostic helps teams rapidly surface valuable strategic initiatives by asking and answering the 7 Questions.
We’ve updated the questions, the data processing, and the UX.
Our goal was to halve the speed for users to take this and based on the data we’re seeing from users; most are taking between 20 – 25 minutes to complete.
How do you take the diagnostic?
New users take the diagnostic after signing up. Existing users receive access to the quarterly diagnostic 3 weeks before the start of every quarter.
Note, Admins can turn off a quarterly diagnostic if they want to only run once or twice a year. We don’t recommend it as a best practice, but it may suit your specific operating rhythm.
Confidence scores power your clarity to deliver
Our goal analytics on OKRs roll up all key result progress to an objective progress score. This was the standard user experience on launch.
Now, we allow the user to set a confidence of goal delivery.
Why?
A goal might be at 70% progress, yet the owner may now have new information which means their confidence of full delivery has changed to 10%.
The opposite applies too. You may have only achieved 15% progress on an objective, but your confidence based on the current situation is 100%.
Can you see the difference between progress and confidence?
Confidence scores help you adapt to changing circumstances immediately.
It is best practice to alert your colleagues to roadblocks as quickly as possible.
The best teams work on helping remove roadblocks, so team members have the clearest runway possible to goal delivery.
Check out our training on this, “Effective Meetings”, in Waymaker Academy.
A great way to surface a roadblock is through adjusting your Confidence Score.
Leaders and teams can easily scan goals and see the confidence of delivery alongside progress of delivery.
Never waste time in meetings again!
How do you adjust your confidence score?
- Go to the objective
- Edit the key result.
- Choose from the sliding scale of confidence (0 = no confidence, 10 = Certainty)
- Save the key result.
Confidence scores are now live for all users on all licenses.
Explore your data with a powerful new ‘Explore’ dashboard
The Explore dashboard gives the leader and team amazingly simple access to the most powerful data.
Know the progress and confidence of execution in your business in just a few clicks.
You can view your data on progress and confidence by role, team, user, function, status.
We also have pre-built quick lists for All OKRs, Needle Shifters (OKRs that are top priorities) and Multi Quarter OKRs (mid- or long-term goals).
The Explore dashboard makes team meetings very simple and powerful to track performance, progress, confidence, roadblocks, or success.
This applies for all OKRs completed, in progress, committed or in backlog.
How to access the Explore dashboard?
- Go to Dashboards
- Choose “Explore”
- Choose your filter sets by clicking on the funnel
- Set your filters and save.
The Explore dashboard is available now for all users on all license types.
Listen to the podcast here:
About Waymaker
Waymaker enables strategic alignment on teams of 2 to 2,000.
Waymaker is the intelligent business strategy platform that helps you build the organization of the future, today.
Find your growth gaps, build your roadmaps, align your team with OKRs and see exactly what is needed to win your quarter.
