3X: Retaining Explore, Expand, Extract Cultures

In the early days of a start-up, there is a culture that enables us to Explore. As our first product expands, the company grows to keep pace with change. New people join as growth happens fast. The culture evolves. Necessity of safety in Extract changes the culture again. Now, we're the incumbent. Meanwhile, in the organisation, we find it harder to Explore; more difficult to react in Expand.

As the our product(s) adapts – through Explore, Expand, Extract:

• How do we retain what made the company successful in its early days?

• What lessons can we learn from incumbents that have failed to adapt?

• What can we learn from those that have succeeded in retaining a culture (or cultures) that allow them to continue to succeed?

In this evening workshop, we'll explore questions like these in groups to arrive at some ideas on what we can do in our own organisations.

Format
6:30 - Arrive, grab a bite to eat and have a drink
7:00 - Quick intro by Antony Marcano, outlining the workshop
7:15 - Split into groups to explore cultures of three fictional companies on different stages of their journey. We'll have some fun characterising culture with personas.
8:00 - play-back and open discussion
Hang out, socialise, chat until circa 9:30pm

About 3x: Explore, Expand, Extract

Winning ideas proceed in three phases:

Explore – the risky search for a viable return on a viable investment through experimentation. If you’re lucky, one of your many experiments turns out to be unexpectedly successful, which leads to:

Expand – now things are going nuts (think Pokemon Go or Facebook Live Video). Now, all you have time for is to eliminate the next bottleneck just before it derails you. Once growth becomes routine, it’s time to:

Extract – now the shape of the problem and solution spaces are clear. One euro in equals three euros out. Playbooks emerge, economies of scale matter: delivering the service at lower cost is more profitable.

For more, start with the Product Development Triathlon (https://www.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/the-product-development-triathlon/1215075478525314/), by Kent Beck; see also 3x – Navigating the Path of Winning Ideas (https://ideas.riverglide.com/3x-explore-expand-extract-b9aad6402a5a) by Antony Marcano, with Andy Palmer.

3x has many more layers that can challenge how we perceive models of software and product development. Come along to one of our meet-ups to learn more.

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