How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange

How Marcelo Callbucci Thinks About Alignment: Harnessing PR-FAQ for Strategic Clarity
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[00:00:00] Marcelo Callbucci: when you're sitting in a meeting and you're reviewing a peer FEQ, how do you provide the most value possible? If you are invited to that meeting, you should represent your role, not someone else's role. So if you are an engineer and you're providing, feedback on the design or the user experience it's not as useful as an engineer providing feedback as an engineer, ​

[00:00:23] Kenny Lange: Welcome to the How Leaders Think podcast, the show that transforms you by renewing your mind and giving you new ways to think.

[00:00:28] I am your host Kenny Lang, and with me today is the Marcelo kci, which is probably one of the top three coolest names that we've had on the show. We should get a t-shirt for you, Marcello, I think. I think we'll work on that and we'll sell that. It'll be in the show notes. He is the author, founder, and product.

[00:00:48] Leader in a space with a super cool title. I'm trying to convince him to change how he pronounces it, but the P-R-F-A-Q framework, which is also [00:01:00] the name of his book, he previously worked at Amazon as a director of product, so he know, he knows his stuff and. Technology at Microsoft, which even though I'm an Apple fan boy, that's still pretty cool.

[00:01:13] He's also founded many startups in Seattle and London, so you know, he likes the rain. Welcome to the show, Marcelo.

[00:01:21] Marcelo Callbucci: Thank you for having me, Kenny, and the rain does not bother me.

[00:01:26] Kenny Lange: You probably have a collection of really cool umbrellas. It's just like from one rainy place to another rainy place. If the sun pops out, does that scare you? What's that fire doing in the sky? Or is it just

[00:01:39] Marcelo Callbucci: Yes, there is a rule in Seattle. People that live in Seattle should not have umbrellas. Only the tourists have umbrellas.

[00:01:45] Kenny Lange: Oh, really separate. Okay.

[00:01:48] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah. We know how to navigate the city in the rain.

[00:01:51] Kenny Lange: Something that's, it's always been interesting is it seems like if you walk through the rain. You would get rained on more than if you run. But [00:02:00] every time I run through the rain, I feel like I get more wet. And I'm sure that there's probably some Seattle super secret science you could drop on us to explain that, but that isn't why you're here.

[00:02:11] But do tell me, Marcella, what is on your mind.

[00:02:15] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah, so, I wrote the P-R-F-A-Q framework book and released it just a few weeks ago, so it's very fresh and really what I was trying to solve is the problem where many. Organizations and executives and product leaders and inventors have, which is the lack of strategy and vision and clarity and alignment on what they're trying to do and working with other people.

[00:02:40] So that is top of mind for me, and I'm going around evangelizing this framework and this idea.

[00:02:46] Kenny Lange: As you should. And you were very kind to, to let me have a download copy and go through some of it and just, being able to skim it. I was like, oh, I need to. Probably like print or find something to like digitally highlight some of this [00:03:00] stuff. Even for myself, and I'm not even in the product space, I'm in the service space, but I'm curious Marcelo.

[00:03:07] It anytime anybody writes a book, right? You're cont content, you're contributing. There we go. To the, to thought processes. You're noticing something's missing from the vast catalog of knowledge out there. What was the current thinking or the prevailing wisdom that the P-R-F-A-Q framework is meant to challenge or improve upon?

[00:03:34] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah. I wouldn't say my book has a lot of inventions on itself, right? I am recombining ideas that already existed in something that is more usable for founders and product leaders and executives everywhere. I. So the idea came from, I spent 18 years building startups, founding startups, running startups.

[00:03:55] So that was my world. And then I joined Amazon, which is not a startup by [00:04:00] any metric, right? It's an enormous organization. And Amazon had invented this framework called the PFAQ for themselves, for them to make decisions on, like what ideas to pursue and what ideas not to pursue. And I was fascinated by it and I felt wow, like founders and product leaders everywhere could benefit from it.

[00:04:21] So when I left Amazon, I was like, I'm gonna write a book about this so more people can understand how to use that. And by the way, you mentioned on the services business, it is also applicable to services business. It's applicable for programs that you wanna create for changes in process that you wanna do.

[00:04:36] It's a way to really. Think critically about a problem and a solution regardless of what shape that solution takes and then debate with other people and decide on a visionary strategy, right? So the writing helps you think critically and create this narrative that gives you the confidence yeah, should we go in this direction or should we not go in this direction?

[00:04:58] Kenny Lange: That, so that, that [00:05:00] part and I think anybody who just sees the title of the book or the name of the framework, they're like. Pr, FAQ. Okay. Those are things that happen after something's already been decided. Something's already been released, right? Like we all, we go to Amazon and what do we do?

[00:05:18] We drop down to the reviews, but they also have that FAQ section that's sort of customer and seller answered and curated. PR is only used when we've got some big announcement. We got a big release already, and so. I think on the surface, or maybe even intuitively, I and, and others may be inclined to think, this is really good after I've decided.

[00:05:42] But it sounds like you're using it on the front end. So can you talk a little bit about how is something like. Pr public relations or frequently asked questions. 'cause what the hell are you asking if something doesn't exist already? How are those things being leveraged at [00:06:00] Amazon or in any updates you've made to the model to decide early on how to make better strategic decisions.

[00:06:07] 'cause I think that's really interesting.

[00:06:10] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah, exactly. So, one thing I forgot to mention is P-R-F-A-Q stands for press release and frequently asked questions, right? So the press release is not a press release that you actually send to the press at all. It's not a marketing tool, it's a decision tool. So you write the press release as if what you are thinking about doing already existed. So that helps ground the people that are contributing with you and collaborating with you, reading that and say, is this something that we wanna bring to the world? Or not, right? So imagine that you're gonna launch a service six months from now. You would write a press release as if six months from now is today.

[00:06:51] And you write today we are launching this service that's gonna help you know, customers do X. They had this problem, this is how they got started. So you make it. [00:07:00] As if it existed already, right? And then you have a series of frequently asked questions that helps understand the feasibility, the viability, the value of the project, the cost, the problem, the customer, the pricing everything like that.

[00:07:12] So that is your framework to discuss, strategy and vision. So there is nothing there yet. This is what we should be doing on the first two weeks of a project before you even start working on the project.

[00:07:24] Kenny Lange: So this really is in that, that ideation sort of dreaming phase if you're talking to entrepreneurs, I got a feeling in my gut, or something in my head, I gotta get it out. What does that final vision look like?

[00:07:37] You're excited, you're proud to talk about it, evangelize it. So you write your press release and is. Does that exercise, that practice, is that really about helping helping clarify your own thoughts, your expectations, maybe not just for yourself, but also [00:08:00] for the team members that are also a part of the project?

[00:08:03] Like what is, not, I hate saying devil's advocate. He's got enough advocates. But let's say like I've I just, I'm the CEO or I'm the founder, or I'm the, the senior executive in the room or something like that. And I'm working with people on a project.

[00:08:18] Wouldn't I just come in and say, Hey, this is the project we're working on. We need to iron out some details and build a project map and get this into our project management tool and just get rolling. But it sounds like you would slow some things down. What is that doing for everybody?

[00:08:32] Apart from just here's the final thing we're building, right? Here's the specs. What is that doing for people?

[00:08:39] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah, that's a great question. And you hit the name in the head here. What does A P-R-A-Q do for a project or an organization or an executive? The first thing is when you write your thoughts, it helps not only clarify the. What you're talking about, but also identify the gaps on the story, right?

[00:08:56] So you might be writing into oh, wait a second. I don't know about this. [00:09:00] Maybe I should go out there and do some research. So I'm gonna give you a concrete example. Maybe you have an idea to build a new product for veterinarians, right? And like you had an idea, and then as you are writing about this new product wait a second.

[00:09:12] But we haven't talked with in veterinarians yet. Maybe we should talk with them and get their feedback about a few things, and then you'll go back and you incorporate that into the document. So you're creating this coherent story, that at the end is clear. It might not be right, because you don't know if it is right or not until you go out there and build and launch the product or the service or the program.

[00:09:33] But at least it's coherent, right? And then use that to talk with other people in your team executives, your peers, you know the people that are gonna implementing this so they can provide input as well. So it's much easier to provide input in a document than to provide input in a project, right? Because you are like halfway there already.

[00:09:53] And this document is very much focused on the why are we doing this and more of the strategy. And I want you to think about [00:10:00] strategy as the boundaries that you're gonna put on this project. Like it could be the geographic boundaries the technology boundaries the go-to market boundaries. So you're making some hard choices about how we're gonna go about building this and launching this.

[00:10:13] How are customers gonna find and everything else. So you keep the conversation there and people can provide feedback and say wait a second, I don't think we can do that in six months. Or someone might say to do that thing we need this data, which we don't have today, so we're gonna have to adjust it a little bit.

[00:10:28] So you're like getting feedback from a bunch of people and continue updating the document until you get to a point that you have declared it necessary to make a go. No go decision. And usually it's not only is this document good enough, is this project good enough for us to pursue it is compared to everything else that we want to do, right?

[00:10:48] Is this the right one to do it now?

[00:10:51] Kenny Lange: Gotcha. Yeah. Amongst all of our competing priorities and attentions and resources and things. So [00:11:00] I really like this because I think that there's a nugget if anybody wants to go back and clip it, record it or just re-listen to it about. Number one, I like the idea of coherence, right?

[00:11:12] There's a I forgot it's Fisher's narrative paradigm. So I'm getting really nerdy on communication theories right now, but literally it's the only thing I can do with my degree in speech communication. So I'm just trying to make my dad proud. But he had two things when he talked about narratives whenever we communicate is you have narrative coherence and narrative fidelity like.

[00:11:35] Does it hang together and does it ring true? And so coherence is, does it hang together, right? And then the fidelity is, does it ring true to your experience or some sort of objective truth or data or something that we could measure. And so what I hear you saying is, look, we don't have to know everything on the front end.

[00:11:53] Nobody ever does, right? There's imagined tasks and then there's discovered tasks once you actually get into the [00:12:00] work. But at least if we can say assuming this is the end state, here's all the things that would be true. And we wrote about it in, in a more press release, more narrative format. One now that that helps us all get on the same page regardless of of how we operate best.

[00:12:19] Some people may love spreadsheets and bullet points, and some people just want you to write on a whiteboard and it's all disconnected and colorful. But this really helps bring the team together so that there's a shared understanding from the very beginning. Am I getting that right?

[00:12:35] Marcelo Callbucci: You are getting completely right. Right. So the press release is you paint the picture of the future and the FAQ answer questions about that picture. And answer questions in two different ways. One is you can state facts. You can say 37% of veterinarians have this problem which is a fact that you research and discover and you have other things there.

[00:12:55] There might be opinions or assumptions, right? Or hypothesis as [00:13:00] well. And you are making it clear that you don't know, right? What you don't want to do is to present. Elements on the frequently asked questions as being fact when they are just your intuition, right? So you might say Hey, I wanna launch a new podcast because I believe that people would love to hear about.

[00:13:20] Whatever topic, can you go beyond just that? Can you do some research to back it up to find the data to discover, at least interview a few folks to say like, how would you think about a podcast about this? Is this a problem that you have? Would you be interested? So it helps you develop an idea in a more robust instructured way until you go in execute on that with confidence.

[00:13:43] Kenny Lange: Gotcha. Where are you generating these questions? Is that on the, we will just lack of a better term, the project team whatever you're coming up with, is that on them to go, okay, here's all the questions in this press release. We haven't answered that we would I. Hope [00:14:00] to discover, discern, learn something over the course of this project.

[00:14:05] This is a, this needs to go on the FAQ list because we're gonna need to answer this either for ourselves or for the stakeholders. Like maybe it's higher ups, maybe it's a board, maybe it's the customers themselves, and it actually will be on an FAQ on a website or something. Who's, or do they, or are you advocating for, Hey, go out.

[00:14:25] And find focus groups and find this and go here. And that's where you generate these questions that go in the FAQs. Where is that sourced?

[00:14:33] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah, so it's a combo of things. First of all, like in the book I give more than 40, 50 questions that you can draw from to include on your faq. So the questions are typically, you start from what problem are we referring to solve? You might have a question is who's our main customer?

[00:14:51] Another question might be, how are they solving this problem today? So you start with a few well-established questions. But then you might have questions that are very [00:15:00] specific to your project, right? That you can't like simply draw from a set of questions that already exist. But you include those questions and the questions are not so much the details of this project.

[00:15:11] They are the high level. Vision and strategy questions, right? So you don't wanna have a question that is like, what is the signup flow or the restriction flow for a new user? You don't need to do that. Of course. Unless there is a strategic element there.

[00:15:26] Kenny Lange: That's two. Two in the weeds of things. Okay.

[00:15:28] Marcelo Callbucci: Yes. So you wanna keep it high level to understand really the problem of the customer, how much they suffer with that problem, meaning the importance and severity of the problem because you don't wanna solve a problem for a customer that is.

[00:15:41] Not important to them, right? Because then they don't care about it.

[00:15:45] Kenny Lange: Yeah. You don't wanna be a hammer looking for a nail.

[00:15:48] Marcelo Callbucci: yes, so, so you wanna ensure that you understand that space. And every once in a while you're gonna figure out that your initial idea has moved to a new idea because you [00:16:00] discover more things and you're like, oh, wait a second. The problem that we were thinking about solving is not as important as this other problem that we just learned.

[00:16:08] Let's pivot our idea to be this one. So you just save yourself six months, 12 months, 18 months of a dead end, right? Just because you had an assumption that was wrong.

[00:16:19] Kenny Lange: Yeah, people are your largest line item on any budget typically. The misallocation of human capital is one of the things that can totally wreck a company. Now, obviously, they're very large entities like Amazon, which, can absorb. Those mistakes, but the, they're in a rare class Right?

[00:16:42] With, along with a, probably a few others. So what do we do when, let's say we, we wrote the press release and is there a is there some sort of approval flow or ceremony to move from? Press release from PR to [00:17:00] FAQ.

[00:17:01] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah, so it's the other way around that you actually write this document. I know the document starts with a press release and then has the frequently asked questions, but the right approach is you start from the questions first. I. Questions like, what problem are we solving? Who is our customer? How are they solving today?

[00:17:17] What is our solution? How customers are gonna find our solution? What do we need to execute on this solution? What we are not doing right.

[00:17:27] Kenny Lange: Gotcha. So it's not like you just write an idea down and then you try to filter it through these questions. Next it's really we want to do something. So I guess, where's the genesis then of the FAQ? Is it like. Is it, do we use this in our like quarterly objectives, like OKRs? Are we using this to help write that for new projects?

[00:17:48] Is it for annual planning? Where's the genesis of the idea that says, alright, we have something, now let's go to the FAQ and if [00:18:00] it, and if we feel good there, then we'll write the press release. How? How does that flow happen then?

[00:18:05] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah, so it's both. It's quarterly planning, annual planning, or even ad hoc, right? So what you wanna have is a spark of an idea. And there are really three types of sparks that people get. One is they identify a customer let's say veterinarians, for example, and we wanna solve problems for veterinarians.

[00:18:23] But they don't know what problem they have and what solution they need. So you need to go and talk with them. That's the first type of spark that you get. And often that happens because you are already on that space, like you're already serving that customer and what else can we do for them?

[00:18:37] The second problem is when sometimes you are the customer or you're so involved with that customer that you already identify the problem, right? And let's say the problem is bookkeeping. And like you go let's validate that this customer has a problem with bookkeeping.

[00:18:52] Let's see if there are more customers that have problem with bookkeeping. And then let's find a solution for that. And the third one is sometimes you have an idea [00:19:00] for a product, but you need to verify there is a problem and a customer for it, right? Sometimes it's like a technology thing, like you see, oh, wouldn't it be cool if you build this?

[00:19:11] Before you go build it, like validate if there is a problem for someone and who is that person or their business that might have that problem. So you start from this opportunity space that you don't have all the answers, and then you start writing the FAQs to help elaborate. And then you write the press release and then you do a review with everyone that's gonna be involved in the project.

[00:19:32] And finally you make a decision about it.

[00:19:35] Kenny Lange: Gotcha. And it sounds like that last spark would be that ad hoc, that visionary entrepreneur who's just huh? I saw something, it made me think this, and now it's time to go see if this is worth pursuing or if I just had indigestion.

[00:19:51] Marcelo Callbucci: But a lot of people just jump right in, right? They don't even think much. They're like, let's go execute. Take a time to breathe and see if there is [00:20:00] coherence on that story.

[00:20:01] Kenny Lange: Gotcha. Because this sounds like a point of like intentional friction, if you will, to Hey, we don't need a ton, but we need enough to make sure that we don't go a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction. A hundred miles an hour is fine, but if you went. This way instead of that way, that could be costly.

[00:20:23] There's real cost, opportunity costs, all these other things.

[00:20:26] Marcelo Callbucci: And there's two things to that, right? One is going the wrong direction is the other one is different people on the team going in different directions. So you want everyone going on

[00:20:36] Kenny Lange: already been made and they're going like this.

[00:20:39] Marcelo Callbucci: Yes, because they haven't aligned, right? And each one is thinking slightly different solutions and slightly different about the problem and the customer and why they're doing so.

[00:20:48] What you end up happening is like in, in the months and years to come, you find so much dis misalignment and so much frustration and usually it seems from a lack of vision and strategy. So each one is [00:21:00] making up as they go.

[00:21:02] Kenny Lange: Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, I can see that. Can you share a little bit from your time at Amazon as you were coming in to seeing this, like what, obviously now you're very intimately familiar with the concepts and the practices and the rituals and all of that stuff, but take me back to, when you're joining up and obviously you're a seasoned entrepreneur and you've, read and you've studied and you've seen all, what works, what doesn't, different strategies and methods.

[00:21:28] You encountered this approach, what was that like and what made it stand out so much compared to a lot of the other things you had seen be successful? You, you said you've helped with numerous startups, right? You've seen a ton. What was this doing inside of Amazon that made it stand out to you, that when you encountered it, you go, whoa, there's something different here.

[00:21:52] Marcelo Callbucci: Yes absolutely. And what Amazon does is. Unique. I never seen anything like it in [00:22:00] any of the companies that I work or even the startups that I founded. So the first few times you experience this process is awkward, it's so unfamiliar, like you're reading a document. So at Amazon you see it for the first 20 minutes of a meeting, reading a document in silence, right?

[00:22:17] And everyone is reading that P-R-F-A-Q and then after everyone read it. Then the conversation start. So it's almost helps level the playing field so everyone knows what we are talking about and everyone has the right context for conversation. So the first few times it feels like very weird but then you start to realize, oh wow, the conversations are so much more meaningful.

[00:22:40] Then the typical conversations when you have PowerPoint driving the presentation, driving the meeting. In a PowerPoint world is like someone is speeching an idea and they put a PowerPoint with some slides, some screenshots, some diagrams, and people go asking questions and it never feels like that is, there is enough death into [00:23:00] that conversation.

[00:23:00] I. Right with the document, at least you have a coherent story there. And now we can point the flaws at the story to make it better. Your goal is not to undermine a story, but to identify how can we make this story better and work together on it so it's very collaborative. And PowerPoint is not collaborative.

[00:23:19] Like when you have presentations, it usually is a one way street. I'm pushing information to you. So that was very different and I felt that was really magical for this type of decision.

[00:23:31] Kenny Lange: That's, I've heard Bezos talk a couple times when he's interviewed and I heard him mention. About the we spent the first, 20, 30 minutes reading over a memo. He just called it a memo and no PowerPoint allowed thing. I didn't realize until just now that was the P-R-F-A-Q document was what he was referring to.

[00:23:52] So that's

[00:23:53] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah, PFAQ is one of those documents. Amazon has more than 10 documents for different things. [00:24:00] So PFAQ is a forward looking document, right? So it's a document

[00:24:04] Kenny Lange: Only used in certain meetings.

[00:24:06] Marcelo Callbucci: When you are deciding what to do in the future, now Amazon has other documents, for example, to review how a business is doing right now.

[00:24:14] And you read the document to understand like, how was the last week or the last month of performance on this. Product or this business or this program. So Amazon has several shapes of documents, and the PRQ is the one that I was fascinated about because as a founder entrepreneur, you're always this you need tools to decide what to do next, right?

[00:24:34] What to build. So the PRQ work really well for that.

[00:24:38] Kenny Lange: Gotcha. And I love what you said about it. It allows for a more deep and meaningful discussion, which also sounds like your book and this framework has an opinion. On what makes a good meeting and obviously this is something I, I deal with my clients is, I have at least for certain [00:25:00] types of meetings on certain cadences, I have agendas and why they work and why, other styles don't.

[00:25:06] But principally I have my own beliefs about what meeting time. Should be, should mean what the results of a great meeting should be regardless. Can you talk a little bit about the opinion that PR FAQs or even just you have about the purpose, the true purpose of meetings and how we get more out of those.

[00:25:29] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah, absolutely. I even wrote a long article about meetings four years ago, five years ago, before I even started learning about pqs. But you are right. There are many problems with meetings. The two biggest one is often people get to meetings. I. After another meeting. So it, they don't have the mental capacity or space to switch contexts as efficiently.

[00:25:53] And that deras the meeting. The second thing is, each person in a meeting, they're starting from a different [00:26:00] perspective on what we are having a discussion about. And that can cause a lot of misalignment because people are like some people read the. Whatever it was discussed in the previous meeting or the pre-reading materials, some people didn't.

[00:26:15] And you're starting from this weird place, and you are always having to course correct halfway through the meeting. So great meetings. They have outcomes I. That's what you want out, out of a meeting. And the PFAQ, it's not for all meetings and not for all projects, but in, in the context of A P-F-A-Q.

[00:26:32] What you want is at the end of A P-F-A-Q review session you do the 20 minutes read reading, and 40 minutes of debate and discussion. What you want is you want to get out of there with enough feedback for the idea to have evolved into a better idea. For you to live with more information that you can incorporate in the document.

[00:26:54] And then you have certain meetings that are decision meetings, right? So you have the 20 minute reading and [00:27:00] then followed by debate and decision. At the end of the meeting, you're gonna say, let's pursue this idea, or let's find more information, or, this is a good idea, but let's not do it now.

[00:27:12] Or not a good idea at all, and you say this is, we're not gonna pursue it. So that would be the good outcome of a decision meeting.

[00:27:20] Kenny Lange: I really like that. I'm of the, of a similar mind, like decisions should be made in meetings. Otherwise, if it's just I forgot exactly how you put it when you were talking about PowerPoints, but just information's being pushed to you, right? Just shoved at your face. When really if we can all get on the same page, somewhat literally then we can have that debate.

[00:27:45] And I do wanna I have my own opinions about this, but one of my core values is confrontation. So I don't know if I'm the best person to talk about it. But can you talk a little bit about. We've written the P-R-F-A-Q document, right? And you're [00:28:00] saying that we would create this document it sounds like collaboratively, right?

[00:28:04] Like the, whoever the project team or the senior leadership team were preparing for annual planning or quarterly planning or whatever. And we have this document to look, help us look forward and evaluate options. We've read through it. And now we're debating how do you define and even teach, whether it's clients or just interested readers or listeners or maybe friends.

[00:28:28] How do we debate in such a way that outcome you talked about, which is we end that 40 minute session, the debate part of the meeting with a better idea, or we've actually. Picked and evaluated. We said these three ideas move forward, these other two do not. How do we debate in such a way that we can have those, what I would consider positive outcomes inside of a, 40 minute window?

[00:28:56] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah I even have a couple chapters about this in the book, [00:29:00] right? So, one of the chapters that I wrote is to teach people how to provide feedback. I. And when you're sitting in a meeting and you're reviewing a peer FEQ, how do you provide the most value possible? So, so two ways that you can think about that is you have a specific role.

[00:29:16] Maybe you're a designer, maybe you're a product manager or an engineer, right? If you are invited to that meeting, you should represent your role, not someone else's role. So if you are an engineer and you're providing, feedback on the design or the user experience it's not as useful as an engineer providing feedback on, as an engineer, right?

[00:29:36] On the feasibility of. Of the idea. So that's one aspect that you can provide in a meeting. The second one is you need to understand if you are converging on an idea or if you're diverging into opportunity. And what I mean by that is there are meetings where. They're more like ideation, like they're brainstorming.

[00:29:58] Let's think about three [00:30:00] different ways. Let's think about four different ways. And this type of meetings often get confused. So if you're in a meeting where you're trying to make a decision, is not a meeting where you're trying to find more opportunities. You're trying to evaluate if the current opportunity is good enough or not, right?

[00:30:15] If the ROI of that opportunity is correct you might even have other ideas that you can save for later. But what often happens is like you are. Almost done with a project or A P-F-A-Q and you are two weeks in and someone's oh, how about we do this other way? That is completely different, right?

[00:30:32] That is not as useful anymore and it's not the time to do that, right? You should have done it a different occasion or maybe even offline. So you have to contain. Your meeting team to, to help them understand like what we are doing here. Are we making a decision? Are we exploring opportunities?

[00:30:48] So I want as many ideas as possible or we want to eliminate opportunities and let's pick the best one, right? Or evaluate the one that we have on the table.

[00:30:56] Kenny Lange: but that's stated upfront and [00:31:00] possibly even in the press release. Or anywhere inside of the P-R-F-A-Q document of, and what we want to accomplish is decide on the best one to move forward, or dec discover collaboratively how we could make this better and what might be missing.

[00:31:20] Marcelo Callbucci: Yes.

[00:31:20] Kenny Lange: You may have been an individual researching all of this, and you're meant to bring it back to the team, it sounds could also have been a small subsection of a larger team that's bringing this into the larger department or something like that. Is that right?

[00:31:33] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah. More or less like you, you need a project leader. Like you need someone that owns the P-R-F-E-Q from beginning to end. And this person

[00:31:40] Kenny Lange: they're helping collect,

[00:31:41] Marcelo Callbucci: Yes, correct. And it needs to be someone of authority as well. It can't just be someone that you delegate to, right? You want someone who is actually gonna be directly involved in that project, in executing the project.

[00:31:53] So it should be, someone that could be a director or a product manager or a vp, that it is the [00:32:00] person driving it, right? Because they're gonna have to balance the feedback from multiple people. The conflicting feedback from multiple people and they need to make a decision about it and say like, yeah, I listened to this concern from the engineering team but we decide to go in this direction, right?

[00:32:15] Because that would be better for our customers or for the business. So you need to incorporate all those. Feedback into the document, but you are including everyone in helping think through it and collecting feedback. So at the end, you almost don't need a buy-in process. You don't need to go around and get people to, to support the project because they were part of developing the project.

[00:32:37] Kenny Lange: Gotcha. Uh, There's a, a saying which the I've heard attributed to Sam Walton who founded Walmart, which is if, if people can weigh in, they can buy in or they will buy in.

[00:32:50] It sounds very similar to what you're doing, which is you've allowed everybody to contribute from the beginning almost. And so by doing so, they're [00:33:00] now more bought in because they've already contributed in the early phases. Some of what you're saying reminds me of and this may just be a recency bias because I've been doing a lot of work with the six types of working genius from Patrick Lencioni who wrote The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and the Ideal Team Player and a bunch of other things.

[00:33:19] But. He talks about the three phases of work with the working genius of ideation, activation, and implementation. And a lot of what you're describing makes me think of those first three steps, which take you through ideation and the first step into activation, which is discernment of picking the right thing but understanding in meetings where.

[00:33:45] We don't need to the 'cause. Those six types take you through all the stages of of work that gets done. Wonder, invention, discernment, galvanizing enablement, and tenacity. And pat will talk about the fact that because he's [00:34:00] ideation, he's always big ideas. Big ideas, is that one of the most frustrating things he can do is go to a team that's heavy into implementation.

[00:34:08] That's also the phase of work we're in. Implementation and go what, like a week before something's due, what if we considered this? Like you're taking your genius and you're implement and you're activating it in the wrong sense. But if we get clear on that in the meeting or in this document or something else.

[00:34:26] We can avoid a lot of that yo-yo, that, that keeps projects in limbo for years or months and become far more expensive. So it sounds like there's also with this process, this framework little bit of intentional friction to make sure we go in the right direction from the get-go and we don't waste thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars doing something that doesn't pan out.

[00:34:51] But also helps us stay on track once we've decided what track we're on. Is that are you seeing that result?

[00:34:59] Marcelo Callbucci: Yes, [00:35:00] a hundred percent. I even have a little diagram drawing on the book about this idea of if you're not online on the beginning, on the direction that you're going, you end up bouncing, on the walls back and forth. So you become much slower on how you do things.

[00:35:13] And that comes from the form of people are not agreeing on the direction they're going, or people keep changing their minds. Or one person changes their mind and don't tell everyone else, and then it raises the project. So you need more meetings to bring the project back together. This is all a lack of like good vision and good strategy early on, right?

[00:35:32] So the more you can get people to understand where we are going and why we are going that direction the faster they can move, right? Because they are on the right track then, and they can just celebrate and do you know what they do best?

[00:35:45] Kenny Lange: Yeah. Now on that maintaining alignment which by the way, what you're saying about the bouncing or if we start. Not totally aligned, that it can only get worse from here. I remember reading James Clear's Atomic [00:36:00] Habits, which I think is sold like 2 billion copies. I'm just kidding that it's a lot of copies.

[00:36:05] Everybody, I think every child born in the US is handed one along with their social security number. But the, but he said, just to give you an idea of how big of a difference, like 1%. Or one degree can make is a plane taking off from Los Angeles. A one degree shift in where it's aimed is a difference between landing in New York and landing in Washington DC and that's a matter of hundreds of miles of difference, right?

[00:36:37] But it just shows you when you're misaligned at the beginning. What, he was using it positively. I'm using it negatively. Sorry, James. But but I really like what you're saying about how important that alignment is now. Tell me, how often is this document. Reviewed. Updated, is it really just a beginning of work and the [00:37:00] debate and decide, and then it's and then are other systems or processes or rituals of project management kick in?

[00:37:07] Or do we bring the P-R-F-A-Q back and say, Hey, we've learned more. We're updating this now. And that project leader, that team leader, that the person with decision making authority, do they. Somehow bubble it back up? Or is it like, no, this help us get us started. We've moved on to other tools now.

[00:37:26] Can you speak to that?

[00:37:28] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah, absolutely. You definitely should start with A-P-R-F-A-Q on your initiative. But since the P-R-F-A-Q is vision and strategy, you would only update the document if there is an update to the vision and strategy. So maybe you did discover something like maybe the problem wasn't as important, maybe the customer moved on.

[00:37:46] Maybe the solution has changed. So in that case, you would update the PFAQ or maybe even create a whole new P-R-F-A-Q because you're changing the vision strategy. But otherwise it should be something that lasts. A little bit of time, right? [00:38:00] Maybe 12 or 18 months. You don't wanna have a organization or a product that change vision strategy every quarter.

[00:38:06] Like that

[00:38:07] Kenny Lange: Yeah, you'd be all over the

[00:38:08] Marcelo Callbucci: Which means like you haven't found, the direction yet, which is fine too, right? Maybe you're on the exploration phase. But once you, you have that PFAQ, use that just as a reference, right? And you move on to have OKRs and product requirement documents in project management artifacts like GaN charts or roadmaps or user stories, whatever you're gonna do.

[00:38:32] So the PFAQ feeds into everything else that's gonna happen later, and these other things change more often, right? But not the PFAQ, however, the PFAQ continues to be a useful document for new employees or for people to reinforce the direction that we were going early on and understand, if something has deviated and maybe it's time to rewrite the PFAQ because this strategy has changed.

[00:38:57] Kenny Lange: Yeah, I could definitely I love that you [00:39:00] mentioned the like a new employee. 'cause obviously if it's a, if it's a larger initiative, 12 to 18 months, right? Like we may have, hired people, swap, swap people out, do something, and we need to get them up to speed. And to pass that threshold of contribution to where they're now value add.

[00:39:21] 'cause initially anybody like value subtract. 'cause they're just, they're needing to download and get things from everybody before they can meaningfully contribute. But this sounds like this document could help with that. How often is what is the, I dunno whether you want to call it the habit, the ritual the use case, how often are we referring back? Is this in do we keep the P-R-F-A-Q document? Central like it's present in every project meeting. Hey I. We're talking about this, that's not what we put here. So either we need to change what we're doing or this needs to change and it needs to be BA based on the [00:40:00] data that was compiled in the FAQ.

[00:40:02] If we have new data, let's talk about it, right? So is it always showing back up or is it like it served its purpose and when we have a flag, we might need to go back to it? Or is it proactively put front and center in project discussions?

[00:40:18] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah. So, I think if you have a small disagreement between the direction of the project and what is on the document you might decide not to update the document, but you have to ensure that everyone who. Understand. So it's almost like you wanna add an addendum to the document, right?

[00:40:35] Whatever the repository is that you're using. But most of the time you have to be careful because people read the document and they assumed that's the direction that you're going. So if there is any change and the document is not updated. It's a recipe for misalignment, right? So you have to be careful there.

[00:40:53] At the same time, you, again, you don't wanna keep updating the document all the time. I would compare this to your company values, [00:41:00] right? Your organization values, like if you're changing your organization values every six months like you have no values, right?

[00:41:08] Kenny Lange: I'm gonna clip this and I'm using it in my next talk. That's

[00:41:14] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah, exactly. Like you want your values to maybe last three to five years and like updated, you know, a small amount. Uh, But your strategy should last, you know, a year or two years um, even for a,

[00:41:26] Kenny Lange: meaningful amount of time.

[00:41:28] Marcelo Callbucci: Yes. So you have to be careful there. If you are making a lot of updates to the P-R-F-A-Q all the time, it might be a sign that you're discussing tactical problems, not strategical problems, right?

[00:41:39] The technology that you are using, the process, the tool, the vendor, like all the stuff, get rid of all that, right? Think about what is the important stuff really that you're doing for the customer here.

[00:41:50] Kenny Lange: I, there's so much I love about this and I think we could keep going on and I'd probably just dive in and it would be questions no one else would care about, but I would, 'cause I'm a nerd. But [00:42:00] this reminds me a lot of the one page roadmap from the system and soul framework that I use with my clients to set company vision, culture strategy.

[00:42:09] Like where are we going? And that's a document we don't update. All that often, but it is a thing that I tell 'em, you shouldn't be changing this all the time. It's a bit like the press release of this company you're building. And it's just, it's fascinating to, to me there's so much about what you're saying that I like, I agree with, and now my brain's spinning with.

[00:42:31] Some sessions I have coming up, I was like, I might actually wanna reference this and figure this out, so we may need a call after this, but if somebody is listening and they're like, alright I love what this Marcelo guy's talking about. This sounds like this could be really helpful for bringing alignment to my team.

[00:42:47] I've struggled to get everybody on the same page literally figuratively, however. And I want to get the ball rolling. I don't use a whole lot of frameworks or tools or things like this, but this sounds like it could help me. [00:43:00] What would you tell that person to do to take a baby step in the next 24 hours?

[00:43:04] Spending little to no money to take a step baby step towards this. Better alignment, better projects, that we've been talking about.

[00:43:13] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah, I think the easiest way is go to the book website and find the link for the examples of PR FQs that I have there. So you can read that and digest that information. And each of these p figure is gonna take you less than 20. There are four there. Each one of them is gonna take you less than 20 minutes to read, so you get a sense for what this is, right.

[00:43:33] And then on the website as well, I have codes and other resources and templates for people to download in addition to being able to buy the book as well. That's a good place to get started and get a sense of what this is.

[00:43:45] Kenny Lange: Gotcha. And that's the T-H-E-P-R-F-A-Q. I just said all the letters. But if you're super cool you say perfect. 'cause that's I'm trying to trademark that. But the pr [00:44:00] aq.com go there and check out those resources that Marcela just mentioned. Marcela the book available on the website, I'm assuming on Amazon.

[00:44:07] I. And other places find books are sold. Is there any other way, like if somebody wanted to know more about you and your work and what you're doing to, evangelize and help share the good word of the P-R-F-A-Q, where should they connect with you or reach out to you if they have questions?

[00:44:22] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah if you go to the website you are gonna find links for all my social media profiles and my, even my email address is there as well, and people are happy to connect me that way.

[00:44:32] Kenny Lange: All right. And we'll have the links to what we just discussed along with your LinkedIn profile down there in the show notes. So if you're listening to this driving down the road when you get to a stopping spot, thing, pop in there, send him a connection request. And I'm sure he'd love to connect with you and learn a bit more.

[00:44:49] Marcella, thank you so much. I'm really excited about your work and the good you're doing in the, in, in the world. And now I'm excited to learn more 'cause I think that this could be helpful to me personally as, [00:45:00] as well as helping my clients. So thank you so much. I hope to have you on again in the future.

[00:45:05] Maybe you'll have some updated research or you'll be on book like three, four, or five or something like that. I

[00:45:10] Marcelo Callbucci: Yeah, maybe. Who

[00:45:11] Kenny Lange: in you.

[00:45:12] Marcelo Callbucci: knows?

[00:45:12] Kenny Lange: So thank you so much to you the listener. Thank you so much for staying tuned today and listening to this conversation. We sincerely, and I say we, me and Marcello, we don't.

[00:45:21] We could have this conversation without recording it, and we would've had a great time and and learned a lot, but we do this for you. If you enjoyed this leave a review, rate it, subscribe. Let us know what you thought about this and the comments, however you can. The more engagement it gets, the more conversations like this get in front of people like you who are on their leadership and growth journey.

[00:45:43] So that they can get the help they need. And you never know, somebody may be one conversation away from getting their breakthrough and you could be a part of that but until next time, change the way you think.

[00:45:54] You'll change the way you lead. We'll see you.
[00:46:00]