Category: management

What vacations and piranha have in common

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This Men’s Health article on fatigue in men mentions that men typically fail to take even 4 days of vacation per year. It seems hard to believe, regardless of the industry, but it does bring up an issue discussed quite often. The issue revolves around the idea that vacations are often more stressful than not taking vacations. The core concern doesn’t involve the stress of dragging the kids across the desert with a rabid dog or the back pain of sleeping on the in-law’s foldout couch.

The real apprehension around taking vacations often deals with (1) the amount of work piling up while gone, (2) missing important decision making process, and (3) not being able to defend against a work bully. To avoid these pains, people will give up unused vacation time and show up for meetings while on paid time off. Some might argue this shows real dedication, but as the article above proves, this is most likely creating a situation where the lack of a recharge will start to slowly take little bites from your mental health. (And hence, the weak piranha analogy is revealed.)

Some people deal with this by hooking up to the corporate email on vacation and just checking important emails while gone. (Absolute time boxing is essential.) This may seem counterintuitive, but for some, the decreased pressure can make the vacation more relaxing. I’ve seen others setup a designated substitute (possible a trusted peer or senior employee) while gone, who can make decisions and defend against a tear-down artist. This method has the added effect of building trust relationships with others in the group, which can ease the pressure during future vacations.

Another tactic for those having difficulty with time away from the office is to schedule vacation time when others are likely out of the office. While somewhat limiting to the family schedule, the chances important decisions are being made are lessened, and the amount of work piling up is often significantly decreased. Along the same lines of adopting one’s schedule, I’ve seen people take a series of 3-5 day vacations (ex. Fridays off for Nov and Dec), such that some time is spent in the office every week. Granted, short stints of time away may not completely clear one’s mind; it’s better than taking no time away or being tormented while sitting on the beach.

The Inertia Challenge

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It seems like the term ‘inertia’ has become washed-out in The Noughts, just as the term ‘paradigm’ was overused late in The Nineties. I often hear inertia as the key culprit for nearly every business problem encountered in the past 25 years. Inertia in this case can be defined as the force that keeps people and processes behaving in the same ways, even in light of superior methods. While there’s no doubt that changing the behaviors of 6.5 billion people isn’t going to happen overnight, not all problems can legitimately be blamed on this mystery force of forward momentum. In fact, as a general rule, one should question and further scrutinize any situation where the basis for some problem has been associated with ‘intertia’.

For instance, I’ve had several conversations where the creation of various roles in a business has been deemed questionable and mostly likely a product of corporate inertia. While this may be true in some aspects, especially with the standard approach used in handing out titles, there can be no denying the power of specialization in this process. If enough individuals existed with all the abilities to engineer, market, sell and support a product, market forces would soon push this new wave of white collar workers to the top of the food chain. Unfortunately/fortunately, these superhuman workers do not exist in significant numbers; thus, the need for most existing job roles continues.

Another similar situation often blamed on inertia is the existence of management within large institutions. Is the existence of VPs and CxO positions at Google a product of inertia at the enterprise level, or is this approach just the reality of not having a better system of organizing large numbers of people to accomplish a similar goal? If there has ever been a chance to rethink common ways of doing things, I believe Larry and Sergey would have found and promoted a different way. If innovation is the nemesis of inertia (and I believe it is), Google would be the Jedi force facing the Sith-based corporate mandate.

In general, pinning the responsibility on the ‘inertia effect’ will typically provide little help in solving a problem. In fact, blaming inertia will most likely provide a red herring excuse for giving up on attacking a problem due to the overwhelming nature of tackling such a mystic force. Looking for smaller solutions to problems and taking baby steps to tackle a larger problem will lead to much more productive solutions, and in many cases, these smaller solutions may lead to the generation of superior methods which alter the state of the bodies in motion.

The Power of Self

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This short article in Men’s Health has an awesome list of five reminders in boosting self-confidence. Every person has areas where he/she may be lacking in confidence, and if left unattended, these feelings often develop into harmful insecurities that can hurt personal relationships or an entire career. In fact, I would venture to speculate that the vast majority of interrelationship troubles can be attributed to some sort of insecurity in one or more of the individuals involved. My favorite bullet point in this article is:

“Self-image is the mental picture you have of yourself. It is not fixed, it is not objective, it can be changed and you can change it.”

Even as a firm believer in trying to find the objective part of any problem, I believe this cannot be said any better. It reminds me of something a friend recently told me about a recent blind dating encounter, where it was mentioned that the other person became magnitudes more attractive as they conversed. Granted, this story didn’t come with a visual reference point and may sound a bit superficial, but the point is proof in the power of changing one’s persona.

My second favorite bullet in this article deals with the issue of boredom in developing a lack of confidence. While I’m not a fan of busy work or delegating work for the sake of image, there is a good memento for managers hidden in this idea, because people with nothing to do or with mundane work will often become paranoid about their value to the organization and ultimately themselves.

The Accountability Myth

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Early in my career, I spent a lot of time collecting all the emails I had sent or received. I would have backups of 1000’s of emails lying around on servers, encrypted with compression passwords. Occasionally, I would perform a massive search on these GB’s of data to uncover a few emails discussing a topic, which had recently resurfaced. In many of these cases, the true purpose of finding one of these emails was to prove my rightness in a disagreement or occasionally show my innocence in some controversial situation (i.e. CYA – Cover Your Behind).

Nowadays, this all seems silly, and here’s why. First, if you are thinking you need to CYA something, there’s a good chance the decision should be reconsidered or handled in a different way. In other words, if your gut is not feeling good about the course of action being taken, those actions need to be changed. This sounds easy to say but often much harder to implement due to politics or other confounding aspects of the situation. Unfortunately, the career ladder is littered with those who just followed, but most of those at the top took the initiative to do something others weren’t willing to do.

Second, pulling out the old piece of ‘evidence’ to slam your work nemesis rarely gains anything but a short pride swell and a couple of enemies. For instance, pulling out the email that says ‘I said this was a bad idea’ is not much more than documentation of your self-incrimination. If it was such a bad idea the time, a simple email documenting a stance isn’t a worthwhile method of exoneration. Other options would have included escalation to a higher authority or complete removal of oneself from the process. In this case, pulling out the old CYA email has just shown a desire to track all disagreements with your peers as well as an inability to take a stand. In the end, neither of these will create healthy business relationships nor help with career progression.

The Bar of Gold Theory

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For all those loyal readers of my old blog, I decided to bring back the Bar of Gold Theory, but this time with a slightly more positive twist aimed at improving the situation. Simply put, the infamous Bar of Gold Theory:

If a person starts handing free bars of gold to anyone who asks, someone will complain.

Again with the disclaimers/assumptions:

  • There is plenty of gold.
  • The value of gold does not decrease relative to its existing monetary value. No violence ensues due to a mad rush on the gold stand.
  • Each person only gets one bar of gold.
  • Forget any other silly notions; it’s a metaphorical situation equal to many other proverbs, so ‘bar of gold’ can be easily replaced with just about any perk.

Granted it’s a subtle twist on the old saying ‘you can’t please everyone’, but in this case those who are complaining have gained something they did not have before. So, the question as a leader or peer is how to deal with this circumstance. Here are some proposals in dealing with those smitten with this dilemma:

  1. Ask if the situation is better than it was before the reward. (Sometimes a simple reminder of one’s benefits can resuscitate the optimism within a person.)
  2. Ask for a detailed scenario in which the situation would be better. (Mentally working out problems can help some see what’s there.)
  3. Ask for an outline of changes potentially implemented by trading roles, often referred to as the ‘What would you do differently if you were in my shoes?’ question. (Similar in nature to #2, this allows venting to occur which can calm down a heated situation.)
  4. Last but most importantly not least, ask for the reward back, and be courageous enough to take it back, if it would help. (This is the defibrillator method meant to shock someone into realizing their gain by showing what an equal loss would be like. In extreme situations, the overall outcome may be better by removing the reward as it has no longer retained its benefactive effect.)

Down with the “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” adage.

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The next time you hear someone warn ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, perk your ears and pay attention because dire straights may soon follow. The rate of change is increasing and what’s working today will be broken tomorrow because someone else will be doing it better, faster, cheaper, and with less effort. As the title of this blog declares “Continual Improvement”, this is the mindset necessary to compete, and frankly survive, in all areas of life today. (I was going to mention rapid globalization and technological advancement, but the double cliche was more than I could stomach.) Here are some examples:

  • Don’t see any issues with your smooth flowing work process? Wake up! One of your competitors is or soon will be using the same process with 1-2 tweaks to increase productivity two fold.
  • Think you know everything there is about programming language X? There’s 10,000 people connected to the Internet working to develop faster than you with an 8086 and for the same cost as an 8086.
  • Does the significant other seem quietly content with the weekly routine going on X years? Wait too long to throw some spice in the mix, and breakup city will be in your future moving plans.

The point is just thinking something isn’t broke means it probably is. These complacency thoughts should be the trigger in the mind that jolts us out of our slumber and starts probing for better ways.

The overtime trap

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This article about excessive overtime in the IT industry reminded me of a question I was asked about how meet a release date when the project was behind. While there are many things to try, asking the team to work additional overtime was low on my list, and here’s why.

Anyone who has worked in the software industry for any amount of time knows that releases can and often do have highs and lows in terms of work hours. If the team has been cohesively formed, development and QA engineers will most likely work extra as the release date approaches anyway. While a last extra push over a couple of weeks or so might help cleanup a few last details, the effects of doing this for many weeks will often cause the project to be delayed even further. This is because tired and burned out engineers will make more mistakes, which will create more churn and code chaos. In addition, if any team members quit before the release is complete, the project could take a serious setback and potentially fail. So, what can be done? Fortunately/unfortunately, there are three fundamental things.

  • Decrease scope. If the project is using an Agile approach, this won’t be an issue because the team will maintain a releasable state for the majority of the project. Some will often mention decreasing the quality, but this is essentially decreasing the scope since releasing a quality product was a requirement in the beginning.
  • Adjust resources. Adding people is a favorite suggestion for second and third level managers to make, and it never hurts to reevaluate the team. Unfortunately, software isn’t the same as building a highway, and in some cases, the additional resources can consume time from the key contributors and stretch the release date out even further. There are some interesting variations on this suggestion ranging from adding subject matter experts to help the existing team all the way to adding resources in specific areas, such as testing. With an Agile approach, resources are typically fixed, but if there are multiple Agile teams, some teams may be able to take tasks from another team that has encountered roadblocks. In addition, if the Agile teams have been formed over time as cross-functional teams, it becomes much easier for alternate teams to be able to take on extra tasks with minimal training time.
  • Push the release date. If no compromises can be made in either of the first two areas, moving the date will be required. When using an Agile approach, everyone agrees to the three laws of software development, often referred to as the iron triangle, and in this model, additional iterations will added until the desired scope is achieved.

Not a review of ‘True to Our Roots’

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While I was incredibly impressed with True to Our Roots: Fermenting a Business Revolution, I’ll spare all readers with another review of the content that can be had somewhere else. Instead, it’s much more beneficial to comment on an aspect that the author just touches in a few places but doesn’t seem to emphasize. To give a bit of background, the story is written by the CEO of Fetzer Vineyards, Paul Dolan, who helped transform the vineyard and a large part of the California wine industry into a ‘environmentally and socially conscious’ industry. While doing this, he grew the company at double digit earnings increases for ten or so years, and now, he is promoting this sort of change in corporate business policy to all companies and industries.

Dolan’s sale to the corporate world seems to be based more on the moral and socially responsible aspects of making these changes to business, but he doesn’t seem to accentuate the aspects that might have a bigger impact in converting the CEOs of the world, such as increased sales and higher profits margins. Here are some of the advantages I see from adopting the Fetzer philosophy, if the philosophy alone isn’t reason enough.

1) Employees that are motivated by more than money will work harder, work for less, and enjoy working much more.
2) Consumers will prefer an earth-friendly product over the contrary at the same price point, and in many cases, consumers will pay a premium for these products.
3) Consumers prefer purchasing products from companies with happy employees.
4) Companies that engage in these practices are often publicly awarded for making strides in environmental and social change.
5) In many cases, converting operations to an environmentally sound approach can lower operating costs over the long term.

CxO interpretation: lower costs, increased sales, higher productivity per employee, less employee turnover, free viral marketing, increased brand awareness

The “A” Word

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I’m often amused when someone says something is “Agile” in the software business. While I’m no expert, if there is such a person, it’s always interesting to see how almost any process can be classified as Agile regardless of how much water you can hear falling in the background. For instance, I recently heard of a new so-called-Agile approach that involved filling out a Word document to propose certain defects be fixed in the product as it neared the end of the release. It was justified the new approach (1) created a new process on the fly to allow change in the product and (2) was promoting change by allowing team members to submit change proposals. On the surface, it seems harmless enough, but for those that can’t read between the lines, this process ultimately creates a nonessential accountability hurdle which will make change much more difficult by requiring a form document.

So, begs the question, when is an appropriate time to throw out the “A” word as justification for a change in process? I would argue it should only be used when the proposed change meets the four tenets of the Agile Manifesto. Unfortunately, this seems like a cliche and/or and easy copout, so how about a few of simple guidelines that might trigger one to double-check the Manifesto. (I would argue these guidelines might be a good test prior to implementing any process in any business, but that off-the-cuff suggestion might be a tad haughty.)

Does the new process:

1) Increase the amount of time needed to make a decision by creating throwaway artifacts?
2) Primarily exist to make someone or some group accountable in the face of failure?
3) Attempt to minimize the amount of live interaction needed between one or more groups?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, it might be a good time to reflect on the change and reconsider the assumption of Agility.

When insiders become outsiders

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As follow-up to a previous post, I wanted to share a recent experience related to having someone from outside the group come in and suggest new ideas. In this case, the outsider was myself, and I was representing the Agilist in a group that was just getting off the ground with Agile software practices. The first few things I noticed were: (1) how willing everyone was listen to my suggestions (as an unbiased outsider), (2) how much experience I had gained within my own group and (3) who the internal champion was and how he was working to transition the group.

 

This arrangement is an alternative to the more expensive approach of bringing consultants from outside the company; however, the obvious catch is the company has to be large enough to have experts from outside the group. The key to making this work is to ensure the experts from within the company remain neutral to any factions that may exist. This is easier said than done, as it quickly becomes obvious where the obstacles are. In addition, the experts should use in moderation specific examples of how they have succeeded with their own group as this may unintentionally arouse feelings of bias. In other words, the internal experts should not continually use “our product x is wildly successful doing blah process”. Instead, they should focus the advice towards helping the new group and showing the benefits the change will make. In general, the experience has made me much more attentive to looking for others who may have useful knowledge from within our organization.