# Expensive Problems >> Principles >> Practices: transcript Automatic transcript of the published podcast audio. Recognition errors are possible. Speakers are unlabeled; do not attribute a passage to Yuval or a guest without checking the audio. Episode: https://yuvalyeret.com/scaling-ai-podcast/expensive-problems-principles-practices/ Source RSS GUID: substack:post:161734892 Source: published Riverside RSS audio enclosure Transcription: faster-whisper base.en, English ## Transcript [00:00:02] End-to-end flow of value, continuous improvement, autonomy and empowerment, organizing around [00:00:08] value, sustainable pace, alignment, outcome-oriented goals, energized people, leaders who serve speed [00:00:15] and empiricism, all worthy agility principles, at least I think so, but why should anyone [00:00:22] care? [00:00:23] Hello, and welcome to the Skilling with Agility podcast. [00:00:26] My name is Yuval Garrett, and I'm here to talk about stories, ideas and patterns for moving [00:00:31] from agility at scale in your organization. [00:00:36] So today we'll talk about where to look other than those principles that they share. [00:00:44] They really believe in the value of these principles, but what I've seen is that while it's much [00:00:50] healthier to focus on principles rather than practices, even these principles are a form [00:00:56] of how. [00:00:57] They don't really answer the why are we doing these things. [00:01:01] What you could do is ask, so what happens if you don't really follow this principle a [00:01:07] couple of times, and then you will get problems? [00:01:11] Problems like miscommunication, duplicated efforts and decreased effectiveness, delays [00:01:17] and an inability to adapt to changing conditions, balance, demotivated employees and ineffective [00:01:25] product development processes, high turnover rates and decreased output [00:01:31] quality, poor team morale, lack of direction and reduced organizational success. [00:01:40] Those problems might resonate more, but even then we're not there yet. [00:01:47] So ask, so what again, and you might get to some juicy expensive problems, business leaders, [00:01:55] product technology leaders are really losing sleepover. [00:02:00] Things like falling behind the competitors, losing market share, failing to meet customer [00:02:06] expectations, hindered innovation, slow time to market, sub-par product quality that sucks, [00:02:17] impacting revenue growth, it's becoming more and more expensive to recruit and train people. [00:02:24] The team is not cohesive anymore. [00:02:27] People are starting to leave, customers are starting to churn, productivity is going down, [00:02:36] or margins are dropping, we're unable to achieve our business objectives, and there's a decline [00:02:44] in our overall health and profitability. [00:02:49] Those are really expensive problems, and now you have a couple of options for what to do [00:02:53] with this. [00:02:56] One is, you already know you want to focus on a specific principle, great. [00:03:02] Make sure that you ask yourself, why are we interested in focusing on this right now? [00:03:09] Make sure that you include such a why-now statement that connects it to an expensive problem [00:03:15] when you decide to focus on it, and when you decide on measures for improvement on that principle, [00:03:24] you also talk about measures of the outcome or the impact if you manage to move the needle [00:03:31] on that principle. [00:03:33] If you can't really find an expensive problem to connect to, maybe rethink your conviction [00:03:38] on that principle. [00:03:41] Another option is if you don't know where you want to focus your improvement effort, start [00:03:47] with a why-conversation, where you can explore the expensive problems your organization [00:03:51] is currently having, and then try to find principles that would help address that problem. [00:04:00] For example, don't tell a senior business director, we're going to use KPIs now. [00:04:05] Don't even tell them we're going to work on improving alignment to outcome orientation [00:04:09] and empiricism now. [00:04:11] Don't even tell them we're going to use KPIs to improve alignment so that we can deliver [00:04:17] better business wins, and don't ask me how I know. [00:04:22] Instead, what you might try to do is to facilitate a dialogue around the top expensive problem [00:04:30] on their minds. [00:04:32] What are they losing sleep over? [00:04:35] And then you can try to work back to what are the principles that could help. [00:04:40] What could we bring to the table that would help with that expensive problem? [00:04:46] You can create the connectivity, the connection of why are we thinking about that principle, [00:04:52] why are we thinking that focusing on outcome-oriented goals and measured by outcome KPIs, [00:05:01] why are we thinking this would be useful at this point in time? [00:05:05] Remember, you want to focus on expensive problems, use those expensive problems to decide [00:05:13] which principles to focus on, and use that to decide which practices to focus on. [00:05:23] And if you're struggling with a specific practice right now, walk back to why are you using [00:05:30] this practice which principle is it serving, and why do you care about that principle? [00:05:37] Which expensive problem is the reason that this principle is important for you right now? [00:05:44] All right, folks, that's it for today. [00:05:47] I'm Yvall Yerit, and I hope you join me again next time for discussions about scaling with [00:05:54] the GUT.