Happy New Year! 2020 is going to be a HUGE one for IABC Wellington and I can't wait to see each of you at our first event of the year on 20 February, with Justin Lester.
Chris Dutton, 2020 President
Kia ora tātou,
It’s our goal to make this year an absolutely unmissable one! Speaking of goals, it seems so cliché to use only the start of the year, time and time again, as an excuse to plan for the future. That said, wig-snatches have also become cliché, yet I still love them—so why not love the goal-setting of a new year?
Well, for me, it all comes down to two words: continuous delivery.
(Many reading this may have just had their blood run cold at the sight of those words.)
Continuous Delivery
For those who aren’t familiar, I’ve tried to describe continuous delivery below. (Probably clumsily, so forgive me.)
The story is: I’m a consumer who would like to consume a frozen, creamy treat that I can enjoy on a hot summer’s day.
The objective of any continuous delivery project is to safely and efficiently create a sustainable product for the benefit of its identified consumer.
The project team work with consumers to co-design a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) called “ice cream”. Workstreams are planned to explore sourcing and basic recipes, needed behaviour change, and methods of delivery. These workstreams work in parallel, constantly testing and refining with consumers, to deliver a solution in an agreed timeframe that will meet the basic definition of the MVP, meaning a consumer actually wants to consume the product.
Mmmm… ice cream…
That’s over-simplified, and I’m sure I’ll have emails from product owners and project managers telling me to stay in my lane, but hopefully that provides a very high level view of continuous delivery.
The move to continuous delivery
The places where we work are frequently moving to a “continuous delivery” approach. Unfortunately, the continuous delivery way of working is anathema for many of the communicators with whom I speak— but I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive to the way we’ve worked historically.
Most projects utilising a continuous delivery approach are planned and mapped out by those (if I’m being kind) with limited understanding of communications and behaviour change practices and principles. Workstreams are planned, resources are identified, and budgets are agreed and— if you’re lucky— a communications team may catch wind of what’s expected when they are asked to produce posters and collateral. Our organisations have become conditioned to say, “dance monkey, dance!”
That’s not an ideal position to be in— and we can shift the tide— but we’ll first need to earn our seat at the table.
Dancing to a new tune
It’s up to us, first and foremost, as communicators, to learn to speak the language of business. Those objectives in our communications plans aren’t to “deliver effective communications, so X understands Y and Z.”
The delivery of communications plans that lack strategic outcomes leave us without seats at the table— we shoot ourselves in the foot when we don’t operate in service of a strategic objective. In the example above, couldn’t we say, “We will achieve an increase in engagement of x%”, or “We will reduce costs of delivering communications collateral by x% while increasing engagement by y%”? Then we can get into the tactics for how we’ll get there.
We should always be driving toward objectives/outcomes that align to what our organisations hope to achieve. We need to think big on the front end and then deliver— constantly testing and refining along the way. It’s only then that we can effect the change we seek to see. It’s only then that we get a seat at the table. It’s only then that we can be part of the conversations taking place before projects get planned, resourced, and budgeted.
Taking the helm
Now, we’ve circled back to my main point: there isn’t a time to stop and start setting goals for ourselves, personally or professionally. We’re communicators! Let’s take the helm and adopt our own continuous delivery approach for an amazing future! Let’s seek and reach the goals that excite, challenge, and reward— for our projects, our organisations, and ourselves— but January shouldn’t be the only time we do it.
In fact, (shameless plug approaching!) what better goal than building your network and skills through one of IABC Wellington’s evening events? Even better, take advantage of IABC Asia-Pacific’s Fusion 20 conference. This is being hosted in our own beautiful city of Wellington - which means no flights or accommodation costs. It’s an opportunity to learn from, mix with, and connect to people and ideas from Africa, Aotearoa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas.
There are still tickets available to Fusion20, but be quick. (No, seriously! A LOT have already been sold.) IABC Members always get the best pricing, but we’ve made special, discount-pricing available for our colleagues from other professional organisations using the promo code PROPARTNERS.
I hope to see you all there!
Ngā mihi,
Chris
It’s our goal to make this year an absolutely unmissable one! Speaking of goals, it seems so cliché to use only the start of the year, time and time again, as an excuse to plan for the future. That said, wig-snatches have also become cliché, yet I still love them—so why not love the goal-setting of a new year?
Well, for me, it all comes down to two words: continuous delivery.
(Many reading this may have just had their blood run cold at the sight of those words.)
Continuous Delivery
For those who aren’t familiar, I’ve tried to describe continuous delivery below. (Probably clumsily, so forgive me.)
The story is: I’m a consumer who would like to consume a frozen, creamy treat that I can enjoy on a hot summer’s day.
The objective of any continuous delivery project is to safely and efficiently create a sustainable product for the benefit of its identified consumer.
The project team work with consumers to co-design a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) called “ice cream”. Workstreams are planned to explore sourcing and basic recipes, needed behaviour change, and methods of delivery. These workstreams work in parallel, constantly testing and refining with consumers, to deliver a solution in an agreed timeframe that will meet the basic definition of the MVP, meaning a consumer actually wants to consume the product.
Mmmm… ice cream…
That’s over-simplified, and I’m sure I’ll have emails from product owners and project managers telling me to stay in my lane, but hopefully that provides a very high level view of continuous delivery.
The move to continuous delivery
The places where we work are frequently moving to a “continuous delivery” approach. Unfortunately, the continuous delivery way of working is anathema for many of the communicators with whom I speak— but I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive to the way we’ve worked historically.
Most projects utilising a continuous delivery approach are planned and mapped out by those (if I’m being kind) with limited understanding of communications and behaviour change practices and principles. Workstreams are planned, resources are identified, and budgets are agreed and— if you’re lucky— a communications team may catch wind of what’s expected when they are asked to produce posters and collateral. Our organisations have become conditioned to say, “dance monkey, dance!”
That’s not an ideal position to be in— and we can shift the tide— but we’ll first need to earn our seat at the table.
Dancing to a new tune
It’s up to us, first and foremost, as communicators, to learn to speak the language of business. Those objectives in our communications plans aren’t to “deliver effective communications, so X understands Y and Z.”
The delivery of communications plans that lack strategic outcomes leave us without seats at the table— we shoot ourselves in the foot when we don’t operate in service of a strategic objective. In the example above, couldn’t we say, “We will achieve an increase in engagement of x%”, or “We will reduce costs of delivering communications collateral by x% while increasing engagement by y%”? Then we can get into the tactics for how we’ll get there.
We should always be driving toward objectives/outcomes that align to what our organisations hope to achieve. We need to think big on the front end and then deliver— constantly testing and refining along the way. It’s only then that we can effect the change we seek to see. It’s only then that we get a seat at the table. It’s only then that we can be part of the conversations taking place before projects get planned, resourced, and budgeted.
Taking the helm
Now, we’ve circled back to my main point: there isn’t a time to stop and start setting goals for ourselves, personally or professionally. We’re communicators! Let’s take the helm and adopt our own continuous delivery approach for an amazing future! Let’s seek and reach the goals that excite, challenge, and reward— for our projects, our organisations, and ourselves— but January shouldn’t be the only time we do it.
In fact, (shameless plug approaching!) what better goal than building your network and skills through one of IABC Wellington’s evening events? Even better, take advantage of IABC Asia-Pacific’s Fusion 20 conference. This is being hosted in our own beautiful city of Wellington - which means no flights or accommodation costs. It’s an opportunity to learn from, mix with, and connect to people and ideas from Africa, Aotearoa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas.
There are still tickets available to Fusion20, but be quick. (No, seriously! A LOT have already been sold.) IABC Members always get the best pricing, but we’ve made special, discount-pricing available for our colleagues from other professional organisations using the promo code PROPARTNERS.
I hope to see you all there!
Ngā mihi,
Chris