David Maister on Passion, People and Principles

David Maister is so straight on with his post on Passion, People and Principles (posted here).

Over and again on projects and teams and in companies, I see these truths and consequences lived out. Throw in embracing a paradigm of servant leadership and an understanding of strengths, management and leadership, and I believe every person who wants to be successful, can be. But from what I've seen, many people aren't willing to give up what they want, even for better long term, or if it hurts the company, themselves or others. Like the monkey who can't get his hand out of the jar because he won't let go of the banana inside, these people get what they want but trap themselves in the end.

Agile, Operations and Strategy

From a management point of view, you want to know that you are getting the top return on investment for all of your IT efforts. Scrum makes this clear, visible and in the control of the product owner, who is often funding the effort.

But what about all of the other time and effort by IT personnel whom are not on agile projects, those who are most often "putting out fires" or working on short-notice market-driven system changes? Without a lightweight method to track these efforts, funding could be misspent and neither CIO's nor CEO's would know. Worse than money wasted on effort not making a difference, it is money that could have been spent on something that would have improved the company and\or IT.

This IT request tracking should give visibility to requests, timeframes, the requestor, estimated effort and status. It should be visible to all IT and company management and proactively alert key stakeholders, and also provide summary reports of effort so that management can regularly easily see a high-level view of all effort and knows how money is being spent.

Notes from Sprint Planning Observation

Watched a veteran ScrumMaster do sprint planning for a team's 16^th sprint. Below are some practical notes.

1. This team of 10+ found that 2 week sprints worked best.
   
2. A 'Done Is' list (unit tested, checked in, code debt noted, integrated into staging environment, smoke tested, etc) was handed out at the beginning of the meeting. Later, when estimates were given, the ScrumMaster would ask "Does that estimate include everything from the Done List?
   
3. They have a theme for each sprint. For this sprint it was roughly "Major focus is on user experience and usability issues."
   
4. Ramp-up time for new team members or members taking on new roles was noted, but not explicitly assigned hours. Instead, the weight of ramp was factored in to any given related task.
   
5. The sprint tool was Excel, and the estimated line items were grouped (using Excel's grouping functionality) by Feature or Activity.
   
6. Each feature had a team member assigned as Lead (noted in Lead column) who was responsible for 'cracking the whip' if need be.
   
7. Each task still had a specific assignee.
   
8. Meetings had line items for each person that was scheduled to be in the meeting with planned meeting length assigned.

Applying Your Strengths Where You Are

After attending Yelo, I had a chance to ask a question of Erwin McManus that has been on my mind for a while. I know my strengths, but what is the next step in moving toward working in my strengths more of each day as well as developing those strengths putting them to work right where I am? When we are not working in our strengths, work is harder, draining and we are less successful.

It was explained by both Erwin and, later on, another strengths coach that applying our strengths where we are is a matter of viewing the same tasks from a the perspective of our strengths.

At times I am overwhelmed with the details of numerous project management tasks. I am not by nature a detailed person or driver (Achiever, Command). But rather than look for other roles to apply my strengths of Strategic, Maximizer, Input, Relator or Connectedness (see below for definitions), I can view these same tasks through the lens of my strengths.

What I've done this week is:

1. Step outside myself and view my role and situation as an objective Maximizer. My immediate response is "We've got to clean these projects up: close the open items, push through the obstacles, provide clarity and direction for all those involved." What was stressful and exhausting when sitting in the office chair now becomes energizing and empowering while sitting in the Director's chair, even though the only actor on the set is myself.
2. Also, previously I viewed most of my team and task efforts as moving things forward for the sake of 'closing' them, but 'closed' didn't always mean that a task's destination was the best. Often it was good enough, or a customer-requested compromise of functionality and cost. Now from the Maximizer perspective, I can see that these task and project destinations truly are the best that I could do from the customer and my PMO's point of view (which should be my point of view as well) - that's what they're asking for. Now I'm driven to move these customer and organization requests from good to great.
3. Seeing my tasks and daily to-do's from the viewpoint of Strategic. When I did this, I felt a sudden, strong drive to get control of my day-to-day worklife because I was sure there were opportunities, inefficiencies, and broken processes all around but I couldn't see them because of the overgrown brush and weeds of business, overload and living in reaction mode. I could smell opportunity like Yukon Cornelius could smell gold, and I desperately wanted to clear out this overgrowth in order to get to the real treasure - strategic opportunity.
4. Considering, as someone who has the Input strength, all the valuable information that I'm not collecting because I'm too hurried. I was more motivated to get my projects and tasks under control so that I can not only collect data and information for the sake of proving useful at some later date, but also the opportunity that this information might provide in making more connections with people, projects, and initiatives.

These were the strongest results I had from trying to apply my strengths right where I was in my current role and responsibilities.


Definition of Strengths Referenced

• Strategic
  People strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.
• Maximizer
  People strong in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.
• Input
  People strong in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.
• Connectedness
  People strong in the Connectedness theme have faith in the links between all things. They believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason.
• Relator
  People who are strong in the Relator theme enjoy close relationships with others. They find deep satisfaction in working hard with friends to achieve a goal.

Reasons Vision Doesn't Stick - Success

I was listening again to Andy Stanley's presentation from The Leadership Summit 2003, and was struck by this statement:

Vision doesn't stick when you're successful because when you are successful, you have options and if you have too many options you get unfocussed...You wake up one day in a large organization and the largeness has made it complex, and complex organizations are stupid organizations. The smartest [my organization] has ever been - unbelievably efficient - was when there was just six of us.

But as you are successful, you become complex, and complexity is the enemy of efficiency and complexity is the enemy of vision. It could be that you're in a successful organization, but the vision hasn't stuck. Everybody's busy, but you've lost the connection.

Resources from Code Camp Presentation

Below are the resources related to accelerating your career by focusing on strengths.

Both Gallup's work and the MBS strengths are mentioned elsewhere in this blog.

Sweet Spots
If you don't find meaning in your work--or you're one of the 80 percent who don't believe their talents are used, what can you do? Finding your "sweet spot" is part of the Cure for the Common Life.

MBS Strengths (colors):
www.Strengths.com
My MBS profile
How to Work with Scott
MBS Profile Comparison

Gallup's Strengths:
www.strengthsfinder.com
http://www.marcusbuckingham.com
http://technorati.com/tag/strengthsfinder
My Signature Themes
My Strengths Guide

Private Victory:
Be Proactive, Begin with the End in Mind, and Firt Things First are the first three of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
FranklinCovey's training and resources website

ScrumMaster Training

Just completed ScrumMaster training through Danube, with Tobias Mayer. First off, Tobias is incredibly gifted in bringing understanding of business drivers, software challenges, and the spectrum of people's strengths and idiosyncracies all into a blend of guidance and assurance of how to really make this work.

My biggest take-away is that Scrum is simple, but it's not easy. And it's better to jump into rough water and try it than to wait for an ideal time and circumstance. From what I could tell from those who had been praacticing it, Scrum takes some courage (absense of self for the sake of the cause) to lead through it.

It is easier to do command-and-control waterfall projects, knowing they're more likely to fail, because the structure makes blaming others for project failure to easy (and often incorrectly) because of visibility on silo'd efforts. When effort in that specific task fails, the owner is more likely blamed because it appeared that required requisite steps were 'completed' and done so correctly (or else the project wouldn't have moved on).

In a scrum, all requirements, programming, project management and QA efforts are occurring simultaneously and you know the outcome in 30 days or less. So, who would you blame in the event of a failure? The whole team was involved. So one would have to look deeper into the causes, and that is always the right thing to do. Also, how severe would the consequences be on, at worst, losing a month's worth of work on a Scrum sprint versus three, six or more months on a waterfall project?

As far as learning Scrum, here are two additional links: The Agile Toolkit podcasts and a list on Amazon called The Scrum Master's Bookshelf.

Time Tracking for Team Member Accountability

As much as I feel strongly about employee motivation and appreciation, I see the accountability and extra effort that comes from employees who have to account for every hour of the day via timesheets (I should add how important that these timesheets are actually reviewed).

I have seen exponentially more effectiveness when an employee realizes that they have to not only account for where their time goes each day, but that there is accountability for how much time is taken for each task and some responsibility for whether that task was the appropriate priority. If there is no consequence for not working, not working hard, or not working on the right things, then what is the motivation to work diligently on the right things? Generally there is no more consequence than “you should have asked me: for more work/if that was the priority/how long I expected that task to take.” If so, every day spent doing what the employee would rather do is its own reward.

I’m seeing now that new employees generally work quite hard in the first week or two, not because the want to impress, but more often they are concerned about consequences for not working hard at the right things. Once they are sure there are none, they quickly adjust to the acceptable (palatable) pace of those around them.

Think of the additional gains of a time tracking system: real time actual costs of projects, estimates-to-actuals by project, team size, team members, real bell curves of resource usage in order to intelligently schedule overlapping projects.

Project Areas and Team Member Proximity

I’ve seen significant increase in information sharing on project teams due simply to having daily scrums (agile status meetings). I’ve wondered how much more would communication (and therefore team performance) improve if I had the team members moved to cubes in the same area. The evidence from Tom Peters, below, is significant. Note how close teammates need to sit for optimal interaction.

“…if you and I are separated by 5 yards or less, the odds of us communicating at least once a week are nearly 100%. At 10 yards of separation, the odds plummet to about 9%; and said odds are almost constant at 3% if we're 30 to 100 yards apart.”

Quote referenced from Tom Peters’ weblog here.

Proactive with Dependencies

I use the Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In from NetCentrics (http://gtdsupport.netcentrics.com/learn/ ) for time management and I depend on it for project management because it allows me to set email reminders for follow-up email interactions with other team members I require a response from, especially the sometimes goal-disconnected client team members because they are not in our office.

A tool I would like to have in order to be proactive about dependencies is a network resource monitor. In consulting, too often we have tasks that we get tripped up because someone changed something on us without notifying us. When it comes time to perform the task, we find that we have lost privileges to the client’s VPN, or SQL Admin rights to a database or local machine admin privileges on a test server. The delay in getting these resolved can impact deadlines.

If I could set up a monitor app to check these resources, using accounts the client has given us, I could know immediately when access has changed. I could then quickly put in a request to resolve it, and have the problem worked in parallel and fixed before it impacts project deadlines down the line.

If anyone knows of an application that can do this, please let me know.

Pacing Scrums

A client recently asked that I change our project management so that we run our one month scrum, then stop development activity. The pause was to allow the team to be available to help with support and user adoption, asses, then determine what to take from the product back log and begin the next sprint.

It’s easy to move faster than the user community, and if several dozen new features and functionality pile up without adoption, the result is that it is quite possible the real objective has not been met. I like this idea of scrum 'pacing', although it makes planning staffing more challenging.

IT Manager's Survey

I've been conducting an IT Manager's survey. I'll be using the results of as part of an effort to understand how personality and natural talent can be leveraged to improve one's career. The responses will be aggregated with the answers from other managers, and I'll post the final results here sometime in the futre.

I was previously a supervisor of a development team, and have my opinions on how developers can improve themselves and their career, but I want make sure I accurately represent the breadth of IT managers. The responses from other managers will help ensure this. Below is the survey.

Manager's Survey


1. What vehicle do you prefer for candidate leads?
A. referrals
B. job posting and interviews
C. recruiters and interviews
D. Other:

2. On the range of 1 to 5, with 0 being no experience with a technology and 5 being significant production-level experience, what significance would you give a interviewee if they had used the technology you're looking for a prototype at work, working demo or test application at home?
A. 5 - Equally significant. Understanding the technology can is the same whether done as part of a complex production or a working demo on a dev machine.
B. 4 - Significant. Of considerable value.
C. 3 - Minimally significant. Of little value.
D. 2 - Somewhat insignificant. Of almost no value.
C. 1 - Insignificant. Making a demo or test application is of no value in getting experience of applicable worth.

3. If a candidate had a blog, would you read it? Would a blog factor into requesting an interview or your evaluation of candidate ability and match for the position?
A. 5 - Very significant factor. I would take time to read the blog and give them equal weight with the resume.
B. 4 - Significant factor. Glad the candidate is sharing their knowledge and views. I would likely review some or most of the blog.
C. 3 - Not really a factor. Good for them that they're blogging, but I most likely would not even go to the blog.
D. 2 - Somewhat insignificant factor. Of almost no value. I would not go to the blog.
C. 1 - Insignificant. I couldn't care less that the candidate has a blog.

4. Besides technical skills and previous positions, what traits do you look for in a job candidate?
Please mark no more than 4.
self-starter works well independently team player
good communicator problem solver innovative
dependable calm leader
energetic organized creative
follows directions works well without structure Other:

5. Describe the attitude of your best employee. What does he/she do?


6. If you could have your typical developer change or grow in some way, what would it be?


7. What's your most common complaint, problem with a developer?


8. What do you look for when you have an opportunity to promote someone?


9. Describe one of the best workers you've recently (or still) have.


10. Describe one of the worst workers you've recently (or still) have.


11. What would you recommended to a programmer (or other IT worker) looking to advance in his career?


12. Could you list three to five basic traits, skills, or talents (such as strategic, responsible, decisive, persuasive, high achiever, adaptable, disciplined, quick learner, positive, or any others you choose) that define or describe the following roles:
- Senior:
- Architect:
- Lead:
- Supervisor/Manager:



13. Have you read about or been involved in training regarding personality styles, temperaments, traits, or strengths, and if so, what was the material or organization?


14. How did you get into your current position?
A. Hired into the position from another company where I was a manager/supervisor
B. Hired into the position from another company where I had a leadership role
C. Hired into the position from another company where I did not have a management or leadership role
D. Transferred within the same company into the position from another group where I was a manager/supervisor
E. Transferred within the same company into the position from another group where I had a leadership role
F. Transferred within the same company into the position from another group where I did not have a management or leadership role
G. Promoted within the same team
H. Other:

Spolsky's Guerilla Guide to Interviewing

I've been reading the chapter on interviewing from Joel Spolsky's Joel on Software (2005 Jolt Productivity Award winner). Two points that floored me, but I had to admit rang true.

First, there's only two qualities to look for in candidates:

1. Smart
2. Gets things done

Spolsky clarifies "smart" not as "knows a lot of facts" such as the "What's the difference between VARCHAR and VARCHAR2 in Oracle8i", but aptitude - the ability to learn quickly, easily.

I'll also add that the reality is that the paradigm of programming knowledge has changed over the last 6+ years. Before the internet boom, the ability to learn and hold details (such as syntax) was valuable because it took time to find information in a book or ask a coworker (stopping his flow). Now, it takes seconds to find answers. The value is now on the ability to search effectively and know enough about concepts to help set the context of your search and what you actually need.

Secondly, in the interview, ask open-ended questions that allow you to see three key attributes:

1. Passion
2. Ability to explain things well
3. Signs of leadership

Personally, I see these three as qualities that cannot be coached or taught effectively.

Add these items to other areas in business where we should First, Break All the Rules.

My Strengths According to Gallup

Per the Gallup Organization's Web-based talent assessment tool StrengthsFinder. When you purchase "Now, Discover Your Strengths" by Marcus Buckingham, you are provided with a key to take the exam online.

Per StrengthsFinder, my top five strengths are:

Strategic: People strong in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.

Input: People strong in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.

Learner: People strong in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.

Responsibility: People strong in the Responsibility theme take psychological ownership of what they say they will do. They are committed to stable values such as honesty and loyalty.

Arranger: People strong in the Arranger theme can organize, but they also have a flexibility that complements this ability. They like to figure out how all of the pieces and resources can be arranged for maximum
productivity.

I have had several of my staff take the exam as well. Not only are we finding that the results are incredibly accurate, but the seeing strengths of my team so clearly has helped me to adjust the work so that they are fulfilled, challenged, better utilized and more productive.

Which Project Management Approach Is Best?

I've been studying the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) lately, in preparation for the Project Management Institute's Certified Associate in Project Management credential (CAPM®) . I had recently read Craig Larman's book Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager's Guide. Reading about so many benefits of being agile and incremental in project approach, I would have said my project management preference was agile.

Now that I'm reading the PMBOK, I'm finding that there is a lot of value in the process-heavy PMI PMBOK. I say process heavy because, for starters, there are over 20 process steps in the Planning Process - one of five core processes. Each of those process steps can have several input and output artifacts. The value I'm finding is that, per the PMI's decades of effort towards a comprehensive project management guide, if I know their framework I shouldn't miss any steps in the next project I work on. I say framework because the PMBOK itself says that the steps are optional, and should serve indeed only as a guide. So, take what works and leave the rest.

One fear I have is that perhaps some say 'go agile' partly because it is easier to digest and understand in your head. But if someone doesn't understand all the possible steps they should take, they will miss the times when some extra process step would have saved the project at a critical juncture. Like any software framework, the PMBOK is a structure, guide and set of optional tools, but the benefit is in knowing what it is and therefore what you can apply where. Agile, in part, means low ceremony and therefore just enough process and documentation to deliver a quality product that meets the customer's needs and expectations. In my opinion, Agile and the PMI are not mutually exclusive. Not only that, it seems apparent that smaller, less defined, lower risk projects would benefit from an agile approach, while a large, multi-disciplinary, high-risk project woould be best suited following the PMBOK's process tightly. And odd as it sounds, I'm studying the PMBOK while starting my second agile project management book (Agile Project Management : Creating Innovative Products).

Perhaps its human nature, but I'm finding some tendency to polarize. I've worked with developers who felt that client-server was old and bad, and that, web development was the obvious direction to go, but there's a right time and scenario for each. I think people like precut answers, and veer away from answers like "well, that depends.."

So, what project mgmt approach is the best? Well, that depends...

Stay Lean

From Nuts! Southwest Airlines Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success regarding staying lean:

Bureaucracy creates a mindset of dependency, which makes people do what they are told but no more. Rather than encouraging employees to assume ownership and responsibility, bureaucracy teaches them to transfer responsibility. Leanness, on the other hand, gives control, ownership, and responsibility to those who are closest to the action. Southwest allows its people a lot of decision-making power and authority. With no more than four layers of management between a front-line supervisor and Herb Kelleher [CEO], the leader's span of control is very broad at Southwest.

Kelleher believes that excessive bureaucracy results from the egos of empire builders who try, through title and position, to emphasize their own importance.

In a bureaucracy it's easy for an employee to say "that's not my job." This undermines productivity and prevents the company from being as nimble and moving as quickly as it might. Leanness helps identify nonperformers because,in a lean organization, marginal performance is difficult to hide.

Insights from Southwest

Southwest Airlines is an exceptional company. They are the only U.S. airline to have made money every year since 1973 (since 1978, 120 other airlines have gone bankrupt). Southwest has consistent market share of at least 60% in almost every nonstop city-pair market it serves. Southwest has the best customer service record in the airline industry and is the only carrier in the U.S. to win the industry's "Triple Crown" - baggage handling, on-time performance and customer complaints. Southwest has a turnover ratio of 6.4 percent, one of the lowest in the industry, and was listed in the top 10 best companies to work for in America.

Several interesting quotes from Nuts! Southwest Airlines Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success:

• When people work really hard for something they believe in, a special bond inevitably develops between them.
• "Most companies fail in their growth because they don't have a vision." Howard Putnam, former Southest CEO.
• "Market share has nothing to do with profitability. Market share says we just want to be big; we don't care if we make money doing it. In order to get an additional 5 percent of the market, some companies increased their costs by 25 percent. That's really incongruous if profitability is your purpose." Herb Kelleher, former Southwest CEO
• "We'll train you on whatever it is you have to do, but the one thing Southwest cannot change in people is inherent attitudes." Kelleher
• Southwest was, in the words of Gary Barron, chief operations officer, "nimble, quick, and opportunistic." How did Southwest get that way? Whenever possible, Southwest flies in the face of bureaucracy: it stays lean, thinks small, keeps it simple."

Imagination and Tradition

This quote was recently shared by a pastor.

Imagination continually frustrates tradition, that is it's function. - John Pfeiffer

Perhaps based on this, I can expect resistence from traditionalists, operations-centric people, structure and consistency-oriented people. Perhaps I should even see the joy in that imagination is at work when people are frustrated with newness or "that's not how its been done."

I just don't know how much effort and time to spend trying to open people's minds, or help them shift their paradigms...

Putting Yourself at Risk: The Price of Leadership

Notes from The Leadership Summit 2oo5:

Session 4: Putting Yourself at Risk: The Price of Leadership, Eleanor Josaitis and Curtis Sliwa

Session 4 was an interview with Eleanor Josaitis and Curtis Sliwa. Bill Hybels introduced the session by saying that"leaders will always, always, always pay a price."

Eleanor Josaitis, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Focus:HOPE, began interview by saying leaders need and are marked by passion, persistence, and partnerships. As far as opposition, she said "You have to outsmart 'em."

For her challenges, she used the approach:

1. Meet the need, focusing on efficiency and specifications
2. Solve the problem

Criticism. Eleanor's response to criticism is "You can either deck 'em or out class 'em. And then work twice as hard." During times of criticism, her colleague would give her a penny, reminding her that "in God we trust."

Curtis Sliwa, Founder and leader of the Guardian Angels, said it was about being the "first, not the best" and recognizing that the "problem is our own." He would ask people, "How are you making a difference?" and challenge them with the "grander vision."

He added that in society "we lost the idealism," the belief that we can make a difference.

Seeing the Unseen

Notes from The Leadership Summit 2oo5:

Session 3: Seeing the Unseen, Mosa Sono

Mosa Sono started out by noting how good it is for leaders to take time out to learn and grow.

Sono, from South Africa, said that leaders are called to continuously see the unseen. There will always be opposition, but know that God will see us through. Mosa said there is a saying in South Africa, "If the rooster doesn't crow, the dawn still comes." We need to stay hopeful, because "hope deferred makes the heart sick." We need to embrace the future, we can't settle. "Wherever you are is better than where you've been." He summarized this point by saying that leaders should be bold, strategic, humble and informed.

Sono also explained that we need to empathize with our people. He said that if we do not understand the needs of the people, if we can not speak their language of suffering, then we will give a prescription not asked for. We will "scratch where there is no itch."

conversely, Sono said everybody must do their part. It is the leader who must be seized by a vision, but we as leaders must engage the minds of others, show how they can be involved. We need to move people away from a dependence mentality, as if someone else will solve their problems for them. Sono gave examples from the bible where God helped many people only after He had them take the first step (roll away the stone, fill the jars with water, throw the net on the other side of the water, step out of the boat into the water).

This certainly ties into my previous post where the worker needs to be the change he or she wants to see. Even more, from Sono's perspective, the leader cultivates this in his people, calling for initiative and moving those asking for change to become stakeholders themselves. Perhaps it is that step without seeing, that personal investment, that helps the vital hope and trust in the organization grow.

I found another good review of Sono's session on Jeff Mikel's blog here.