"Push" and "pull": or "supply" and "demand" side patterns
I love (seeing) patterns! I believe the more we can conceptualize things in patterns, and often common patterns, the simpler it gets to make sense of things.
Don’t get me wrong – I am as much into nuances, too. They do matter – often making a remarkable difference on how to think things through… Again, reality is messy, what can I do other than embrace it?
Perhaps a simpler way of thinking about it –
I like simple, but not simplistic.
Talk about that (language) nuance!
Here’s a common pattern that I’ve been reflecting about these days, and which I believe represents a remarkable overarching theme:
The idea of “push” and “pull”.
I am deliberately avoiding to put an opposing contrast by saying “one" vs "the other”. Not because the difference doesn’t matter – it often does… – but rather to acknowledge that there is value in both, and it may depend on context whether one approach suits better (or the other way around).
It’s an idea possibly as old as human ingenuity. Let’s use the example of traditional manufacturing approaches definitions to illustrate the key differences:
Push systems have production or work that are driven by forecasts or schedules. Thus, resources are “pushed” through the system based on anticipated demand.
Pull systems, on the other hand, have production or work triggered by actual demand. Hence, resources are “pulled” through the system only when needed, based on real-time signals.
It’s a traditional somewhat technical way of defining the different patterns. That’s why I more recently prefer the reframing from Bob Moesta’s writing, which talks about “supply” (what you are capable of doing – i.e., we can “push”) and “demand” side (what progress is needed from the customer’s point of view – i.e., we will be “pulling”).
Think about the overarching implications of all of that for a moment. I can almost bet you have been through professional situations where you felt like things were being “pushed” through (e.g., did you ever have to deal with a Hippo-like form of prioritization, for instance, when working to prioritize work?). But maybe (or even hopefully) you have also had the experience to get timely insight from what customers really needed, what were the stuggles they were dealing with, and thus was able to “pull” resouces into (solving) that problem.
YMMV, but I can tell you that right now I am dealing with a situation at work that ultimately can be matched to this idea of whether we should work “left to right” (just another way of saying a push or supply side approach) or “right to left” (pulling from value, or demand side approach). And while the matter is not as “binary" as to say “right or wrong”, but I’d definitely argue that one – the pulling from demand side – has a better likelihood of driving more value (or bare minimum better balances investment with unlock of value).
Yet another example: a recent post I’ve made on planning as investment also contrasted the difference of a supply side planning approach based on refining deliverables, and how to reframe it to a more demand side approach by having a defined sort of budget to ‘bet’ against options being considered. I do encourage you to consider doing the exercise at some point – first take one perspective (refining the deliverable) and then the other (investing on the options) to contrast.
I believe the findings can be quite insightful on clarifying why that different frame matters!
So, here we are… in a matter of a few paragraphs we’ve been through how push and pull (or supply and demand side) can have implications that range:
From how we go about producing or doing work;
To deciding upon priorities;
And then to approach planning and define how we spread our focus / effort across options.
And I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t take that long to come up with other situations in which this overarching idea can have a practical implication. Sometimes, it may be as simple as providing another angle (just another way of saying to reframe) to an issue. Other times though that different angle might be the difference between “good enough” and “excellence”.
What I mean with that is that focusing on supply side may well to be proven over time to be “good enough” in many contexts. Maybe you had enough fortune going your way and that made a difference. But quite often focusing on demand side is what will tend to increase the chances of making a difference, despite the challenges of circumstances and context.
Think about it this way – if you were in a simulation and playing the same game over and over again, which would be the approach that would tend to go in your favor more often?
To put it slightly differently, there might be a moment in which some level of “push” may be due and even the right thing to do, in context. But when it comes to the general pattern, we are better off “pulling” our way through.
Note: Help me get better at this! Please provide a quick feedback via this survey.
By Rodrigo Sperb, feel free to connect, I'm happy to engage and interact. I’m passionate about leading to achieve better outcomes with better ways of working. Can I help you?