Watermelon Reporting

Green on the outside, and red in the middle

Hey!

I guess it’s way too late to say Happy New Year, but yes, this is the first Meeting Notes of 2024. I apologise for being off the radar for so long, but life has a way of testing you in many ways. And sometimes it takes just a little longer to pass (or fail) the tests.

In today’s newsletter, I will talk about Watermelon reporting, but before then a couple of important changes happening here at Cultivated Management.

I have migrated my entire website (and this newsletter starting in the next edition) across to Ghost. I’ve done this for a couple of reasons:

1. I was tired of constant security patches, paying for third party plugins and the overall tech management of Wordpress. The guys at Cloud Above hosting did me a solid helping hand a year ago when my site was hacked. They’ve been ace, but the time has come to move everything to a managed service. So Ghost it is.

2. Substack has an issue with far right extreme views, that they seem unwilling (or capable) of truly dealing with. Ed Zitron did a much better write-up of the problem than I ever could. He’s moved from Substack, others have too and so am I. I couldn’t sit by and potentially see my content alongside right wing hateful content. Sure, Ghost is not perfect but at least they have a policy to deal with hate speech.

So, this will be my last post on Substack.

I have ported across all email subscribers to Ghost, so from next week you should receive Meeting Notes from Ghost (assuming I have it set up correctly…..we’ll see).

If you are “following me” through the Substack app I have not ported you across due to GDPR. If you wish to continue following this content then the sign up form, with double opt in, for Ghost can be found here.

As with Substack, it’s a simple one click unsubscribe. I won’t be offended.

Watermelon Reporting

Wherever I consult, there is always a problem of Watermelon reporting.

Watermelon reporting is when the communication about a project status is green on the outside, yet red on the inside. The status is “all okay” but the reality is far from that.

I’m of course referring to RAG status reporting: Red, Amber, Green that is so prevalent in business - and something I always advice against using in the first place. It’s a shortcut way of communicating status, and it’s typically extremely unreliable.

The problem with most RAG status reporting is that it’s often subjective. It’s easy to game. It’s easy to lie. It’s easy to assume the best. It’s easy to paint a brighter picture than the reality. It’s easy to “miss” information.

The powerpoint says everything’s green, yet the team doing the work are barely holding it together.

And why wouldn’t people do this, when often they are working in an environment where “red” will get you into trouble? And so they adjust the truth. They go Amber, or Green, when the reality is they’re heading for a total disaster.

People don’t do watermelon reporting with ill intent, they’re merely trying to avoid getting into trouble. Thankfully, there are some companies where “red” is merely a flag for help. But trust me, most companies don’t operate this way. And even better - there are some companies that don’t use the RAG status at all - and focus on deliverables and value - and real time metrics (we’ll come to that).

Watermelon reporting is a communication failure and it happens in many ways.

The official Leadership update, the reporting system, the ad-hoc conversation in a hallway (“Everything’s going well!”), the systems of record fudged with fake numbers, the excel spreadsheet modified to show green. It’s endemic.

I’m reminded of Edward Deming when it comes to Watermelon reporting. He said:

“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion”

This applies to insights, strategy, decision making and more, but it also applies to reporting the status of progress.

Watermelon reporting is an opinion. It’s subjective. People often tell you what you want to hear. People lie to avoid the consequences. People sometimes only see the positive. People hide. It’s human nature.

And so, my recommendation is to communicate the truth. Early.

Sure, only you will know what the consequences are for that but if you keep delaying, and you keep doing Watermelon reporting, it’s only going to get worse. You may believe you can claw it all back and deliver before it’s too late, but I rarely see that.

Even better is to tie as much as you can together with data. To let the data, stats and evidence do the talking. Talk to the evidence and real insights. It’s not easy connecting the dots in a work system, between investment, activity and real value delivered, but it is possible. And it helps to avoid Watermelon reporting. (I say “helps” as in extremely toxic environments people will even fiddle the data from the reporting tools).

If you’re a manager or leader, try to avoid using RAG status in the first place - and get to the data quickly. If you must use RAG demand evidence to support the colour choice. Try to avoid reporting being done through Powerpoints and reporting grids….they breed Watermelon reporting.

Use the dashboards, insights and data feeds from the work tracking itself. Even better - go see for yourself.

When you ask people how things are going with a RAG element, you open the door for potential Watermelon reporting.

Communication in business should be specific, truthful and accurate. It’s important leaders start with this stance and weaken it depending on the challenges of gathering this data. And if you do have to use RAG, build a culture where “RED” is a flag for help, not a chance to reprimand someone. Develop the behaviours and culture where not being honest about status updates has consequences.

Watermelon reporting seeds false hope and invalid timelines that could result in decisions being made on subjective insights, all concluding in the risk of bigger commercial delays to the delivery of value.

We’re all managing some form of project at work - and the 101 of project management (whether agile or anything else), is to reflect reality. What’s really happening? What are we struggling with? Are we delayed? And why?

Communicating honestly and openly avoids Watermelon reporting. When we report accurately (and often), we get a chance to pivot, adapt, resource fully, make changes or at the very least, manage expectations. When we resort to Watermelon Reporting we open up a whole host of business, commercial, reputational and decision making risks.

Call out watermelon reporting. Find ways to avoid it. And if you’re a manager or leader, insist on evidence and data-informed reporting.

And if you ever work with me, you’ll find plenty of people talking about how to avoid watermelon reporting.

Communication problems in business are rampant, and watermelon reporting is often one of the main causes.

A link worthy of your energy and attention

Maybe it’s just how my brain works but I see a huge amount of overlap between the norms and rules of nature, and the norms and rules in an organisation (business). I think there is plenty we can learn about these natural mathematical rules in nature - and apply them to business.

In this short, but insightful post, the authors cover 5 mathematical patterns that appear in nature.

1. Fibonacci Sequence

   1. The agile community use this number sequence for estimation of work

2. Symmetry

   1. When I’m designing organisations that are functionally separate but must cooperate around work - I look for reflective symmetry in the structure and design.

   2. When I work on projects that are run in agile ways (iterative backlog delivery) yet have classic “waterfall” project management elements, I always use rotational symmetry. (Maybe there’s a newsletter idea here).

      1. In a nutshell, take a long, well formed, horizontal gantt chart and turn it on it’s side to be vertical top to bottom, from beginning to end - you have an agile backlog.

      2. Take a vertical agile backlog of work with estimation sizing and turn it horizontally and you have a gantt chart.

      3. Note: it’s not quite that simple but it helps both approaches understand each other’s perspectives.

3. Fractals

   1. The idea here in business is consistent PODS of people doing work. The approach (cadence, structure, flow of work) are similar to each other - and we replicate that at the portfolio layers in an organisation to be working in the same way. A fractal.

   2. Think scrum of scrums in agile.

4. Pattern Formation

   1. Patterns are how we make sense of our world to some extent.

   2. I always look for patterns in behaviour and structure in an org - they give you good insights into potential leverage points - areas you can mimic and where you can copy patterns that work.

5. Chaos Theory

   1. Urgh. This reminds me of my degree - we did an entire semester on chaos theory. It got better towards the end when we started to draw similarities to communication (it was a communication science degree).

   2. Get yourself embedded in any dysfunctional leadership team where people are vying for power and attention, and you’ll see plenty of chaos theory…..

Here’s an idea worth playing with

I’ve relaunched the Here’s An Idea Worth Playing With podcast, starting next week. I aim to post every two weeks, with Meeting Notes being on the alternative two week cadence. I’m easing slowly back into some form of routine. I hope you enjoy this.

Don’t forget to look out for the next Meeting Notes coming from Ghost!

Until next time.

Rob..