The next meeting of the Engineering Leadership SIG will be held on March 17 in SAP Building 2 (3412 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA), starting at 7:00 PM. Doors open at 6:30 PM. Topic of the main presentation, The Human Dimension in Leadership to Fast, Effective and Scalable Product Development, by Corinne Rattay.
Time: March 17, 2011 | 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Place: SAP - Baltic/Caribbean rooms in Building 2 (NEW BUILDING THIS YEAR!)
3412 Hillview Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94304
Topic: The Human Dimension in Leadership to Fast, Effective and Scalable Product Development
Most Engineering teams never get a chance to show their full potential. Leaders in fast-growing companies have learned to accept average team results, day-to-day stress and constant last-minute surprises in their deadline struggles. Why is this the way most high-tech companies approach software or product development? Why live with organizational tension and eventual team burnout when there are proven ways to get better products out faster and create a culture of happy teams? In this interactive and stimulating talk, engineering leaders at all levels will experience a paradigm shift in their level of thinking, which is the first step towards needed transformational change in R&D organizations so they can scale from successful start-ups to efficient, mature, market-leading companies. Corinne Rattay is an expert in R&D Transformation leveraging her engineering leadership experience at Juniper Networks. She will share exciting, personal insights and experiences she has gained in over a decade as engineering leader and director, explaining the crucial foundation of the human dimension in leadership combined with key product lifecycle processes that truly work.
About the Speaker
Corinne Rattay is an accomplished, passionate and thought-stimulating executive with 15 years of success in engineering leadership, product development, global team building & remote team management, off-shoring, business coaching and management consulting.
She has gained a well-rounded industry experience at Juniper Networks, Alcatel France and successful start-up companies holding positions such as Director of Engineering, Director of System Test & Product Validation, Product Manager, Program Management, Process Design, and reaching all the way to hands-on customer field trials, System Integration, real-time Software Development & radio frequency Microchip Design.
As a Breakthrough Leadership Consultant she helps high-tech executives achieve extraordinary results with:
- Product Development, overcoming barriers to innovation, better products, faster cycles
- Change Acceleration, shifting paradigms and beliefs to create new possibilities
- Leadership Transformation, elevating the client's thinking quality and leadership focus
Corinne Rattay has written for our blog.
She can be reached at crattay@crexecutiveconsulting.com or at www.CRexecutiveconsulting.com
Agenda
6:30 - 7:00 Registration, Free wine, beer, snacks, pizza, soda and networking
6:31 - 6:59 Engineering Leadership Roundtable (New and Expanded!)
7:00 - 7:10 Introduction and brief announcements
7:10 - 8:20 Keynote and Q&A
8:20 - 8:30 Other announcements (next month's topic & speaker, jobs, blogs ...)
8:30 - 8:45 Informal networking
8:45 - 8:50 Clean up and have a safe trip home!
COOL FEATURES OF OUR EVENTS AND SIG:
• BOOK SWAP - Every month! Bring books to share.
• JOB SWAP - Check out our Yahoo! Group here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SDForum_EL_SIG_JobSwap/
• PEER-to-PEER Roundtable - Every month! Join us to share insights and advice with peers each month prior to the 7 PM event.
• BLOG: Write or read EL SIG blog posts here: http://sdforumelsig.blogspot.com/
Snack and Beverage Sponsor: Matt Perez of Nearsoft
ONGOING MANAGEMENT SPONSOR: Project Connections is our EL SIG Management Sponsor.
Location: SAP -Baltic/Caribbean rooms in Building 2
3412 Hillview Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94304
Cost:
$20 at the door for non-SDForum members
No charge for SDForum members
For more information, go here.
More...
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
February 17 Meeting Notes [Robert Lasater]
On February 17, 2011, the Engineering Leadership SIG of the SD Forum met at SAP headquarters in Palo Alto, California. Featured was a presentation, “Keys to Collaborative Leadership”, given by Mark Voorsanger and Liz Agnew. Both are Certified Coaches.
The presentation was organized as a meal in a fine restaurant, with three “courses”, an appetizer, a main dish and dessert. Each “course” came with a challenge and a goal. The first part, an introduction, was designed to whet the audience’s appetite. The overall goal of the presentation was to inspire new thinking.
Mark V acknowledged that “collaborative leadership” might seem to be an oxymoron, and responded with a quote from Albert Einstein: “if an idea is not absurd, it is not worth pursuing.”
Whetting Your Appetite
To demonstrate the need for collaborative leadership, Mark V quoted two sets of statistics from a recent survey of American employees. The first divided employees into three groups:
Engaged 29%
Not Engaged 54%
Actively disengaged 17%
They then asked the participants in the survey if their current job brings out my most creative ideas. The results were broken down among the three categories:
Engaged 59%
Not Engaged 17%
Actively disengaged 3%
Not surprisingly, most of those who were not engaged or actively disengaged felt their job did not bring out their most creative ideas.
Now the current paradigm for leadership is Hierarchy. Decisions are made at the top. The currencies are power and authority. Mark V characterized hierarchy as working well when:
· People at the top have all required information.
· People being managed are doing rote tasks.
· People being managed are easily replaced
This of course does not characterized modern engineering organizations. Mark V though did stress that hierarchy has its place, especially when decisions need to be made quickly.
At this point, Mark V asked the audience to participate in an exercise. Gather in small groups and discuss how ineffective collaboration is costing you and your organization. Afterwards, several members of the audience shared their responses. They included:
· If you don’t do it my way, you are not collaborating
· Decisions are made without adequate information.
· Software is not reusable.
· There is no safe environment for unusual ideas.
Appetizer: Defining Key Terms
Challenge: No common language
Goal: Define key terms for a collaborative process
Mark V spent several minutes defining some key terms.
Collaboration: All relevant stakeholders have ownership and alignment around what we are going to do and how we are going to do it.
Relevant Stakeholder:
· People with the power to make a decision.
· People with the power to block a decision.
· People affected by a decision
· People with relevant information and expertise.
Ownership: the extent to which people feel or believe that a process, decision or outcome is theirs.
Alignment: The extent to which people see and understand a problem or decision.
Here is a metaphor for ownership vs. alignment:
Ownership: get everyone on the boat.
Alignment: get everyone rowing in the same direction.
And he provided this insight regarding Content vs Process: Content gets attention; process, not so much. Content is What; process is How.
And finally: a Collaborative Leader is someone who leads according to the principle of ownership and alignment.
Regarding introducing the principles of Collaborative Leadership, Mark V pointed out that one needs to be careful with change. Organizations tend to reject change the way one’s immune system rejects a foreign microbe. A suggestion: think small.
Main Dish: Problem Solving Template
Challenge: No common process
Goal: find a common process
A Problem is any situation that you want to change.
There are three obstacles to solving problems:
1. Groups don’t know how to (or don’t even think to) align around the problem that they want to solve. No agreement on the problem = No agreement on the solution + infinite arguing about solutions
2. Groups use implicit processes to do their work. Collaborative problem solving relies on explicit win/win processes.
3. People solve problems iteratively – so that nothing is transparent.
Mark V presented a structured process with a 5-step problem solving template
1. Context (what effect is the problem having; what happens if it is not addressed?)
2. Problem statement – a one sentence statement
3. Intent
4. Desired outcomes
5. Action plan
Mark V cautioned against “baking a solution” into the statement or intent. And one should build ownership and alignment at each step.
Finally there is the question of time. One of the advantages of hierarchical decision making is it is faster; collaborative problem solving takes longer. So it is necessary to concede that hierarchical decision making sometimes is required. But beware of creating a false sense of crisis. This will only work a limited number of times.
At this point, Mark V opened the floor for questions.
Q: How do you deal with the fact that not all stakeholders are equal?
A: Those who are less important are gently and politely informed of this.
Q: How do you avoid “baking the solution” into the problem statement?
A: By actively blocking these attempts. By reminding everyone of the importance of ownership and alignment.
Dessert: The Number One Missing Ingredient in Meetings
Challenge: Unproductive meetings
Goal: More productive meetings
The number one missing ingredient in meetings is the Process – the How. Make it explicit.
One final question:
Q: How to decide on decisions without a hierarchy
A: Some suggestions:
· Vote
· Consensus
· Unanimous consent
Be explicit about the process.
Mark Voorsanger is the Founder of Skyward Coaching (www.SkywardCoaching.com), 415-606-2101. His emal address is Mark@SkywardCoaching.com
Liz Agnew is president of Integrative Leadership Strategies (www.Integrative-Leadership.com), 415.401.7822. Her email address is: liz@integrative-leadership.com
---------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Lasater maintains this blog for the Engineering Leadership Special Interest Group of the SD Forum.
More...
The presentation was organized as a meal in a fine restaurant, with three “courses”, an appetizer, a main dish and dessert. Each “course” came with a challenge and a goal. The first part, an introduction, was designed to whet the audience’s appetite. The overall goal of the presentation was to inspire new thinking.
Mark V acknowledged that “collaborative leadership” might seem to be an oxymoron, and responded with a quote from Albert Einstein: “if an idea is not absurd, it is not worth pursuing.”
Whetting Your Appetite
To demonstrate the need for collaborative leadership, Mark V quoted two sets of statistics from a recent survey of American employees. The first divided employees into three groups:
Engaged 29%
Not Engaged 54%
Actively disengaged 17%
They then asked the participants in the survey if their current job brings out my most creative ideas. The results were broken down among the three categories:
Engaged 59%
Not Engaged 17%
Actively disengaged 3%
Not surprisingly, most of those who were not engaged or actively disengaged felt their job did not bring out their most creative ideas.
Now the current paradigm for leadership is Hierarchy. Decisions are made at the top. The currencies are power and authority. Mark V characterized hierarchy as working well when:
· People at the top have all required information.
· People being managed are doing rote tasks.
· People being managed are easily replaced
This of course does not characterized modern engineering organizations. Mark V though did stress that hierarchy has its place, especially when decisions need to be made quickly.
At this point, Mark V asked the audience to participate in an exercise. Gather in small groups and discuss how ineffective collaboration is costing you and your organization. Afterwards, several members of the audience shared their responses. They included:
· If you don’t do it my way, you are not collaborating
· Decisions are made without adequate information.
· Software is not reusable.
· There is no safe environment for unusual ideas.
Appetizer: Defining Key Terms
Challenge: No common language
Goal: Define key terms for a collaborative process
Mark V spent several minutes defining some key terms.
Collaboration: All relevant stakeholders have ownership and alignment around what we are going to do and how we are going to do it.
Relevant Stakeholder:
· People with the power to make a decision.
· People with the power to block a decision.
· People affected by a decision
· People with relevant information and expertise.
Ownership: the extent to which people feel or believe that a process, decision or outcome is theirs.
Alignment: The extent to which people see and understand a problem or decision.
Here is a metaphor for ownership vs. alignment:
Ownership: get everyone on the boat.
Alignment: get everyone rowing in the same direction.
And he provided this insight regarding Content vs Process: Content gets attention; process, not so much. Content is What; process is How.
And finally: a Collaborative Leader is someone who leads according to the principle of ownership and alignment.
Regarding introducing the principles of Collaborative Leadership, Mark V pointed out that one needs to be careful with change. Organizations tend to reject change the way one’s immune system rejects a foreign microbe. A suggestion: think small.
Main Dish: Problem Solving Template
Challenge: No common process
Goal: find a common process
A Problem is any situation that you want to change.
There are three obstacles to solving problems:
1. Groups don’t know how to (or don’t even think to) align around the problem that they want to solve. No agreement on the problem = No agreement on the solution + infinite arguing about solutions
2. Groups use implicit processes to do their work. Collaborative problem solving relies on explicit win/win processes.
3. People solve problems iteratively – so that nothing is transparent.
Mark V presented a structured process with a 5-step problem solving template
1. Context (what effect is the problem having; what happens if it is not addressed?)
2. Problem statement – a one sentence statement
3. Intent
4. Desired outcomes
5. Action plan
Mark V cautioned against “baking a solution” into the statement or intent. And one should build ownership and alignment at each step.
Finally there is the question of time. One of the advantages of hierarchical decision making is it is faster; collaborative problem solving takes longer. So it is necessary to concede that hierarchical decision making sometimes is required. But beware of creating a false sense of crisis. This will only work a limited number of times.
At this point, Mark V opened the floor for questions.
Q: How do you deal with the fact that not all stakeholders are equal?
A: Those who are less important are gently and politely informed of this.
Q: How do you avoid “baking the solution” into the problem statement?
A: By actively blocking these attempts. By reminding everyone of the importance of ownership and alignment.
Dessert: The Number One Missing Ingredient in Meetings
Challenge: Unproductive meetings
Goal: More productive meetings
The number one missing ingredient in meetings is the Process – the How. Make it explicit.
One final question:
Q: How to decide on decisions without a hierarchy
A: Some suggestions:
· Vote
· Consensus
· Unanimous consent
Be explicit about the process.
Mark Voorsanger is the Founder of Skyward Coaching (www.SkywardCoaching.com), 415-606-2101. His emal address is Mark@SkywardCoaching.com
Liz Agnew is president of Integrative Leadership Strategies (www.Integrative-Leadership.com), 415.401.7822. Her email address is: liz@integrative-leadership.com
---------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Lasater maintains this blog for the Engineering Leadership Special Interest Group of the SD Forum.
More...
Monday, February 21, 2011
One’s Feminine Side Can Still Hurt One’s Career [Robert Lasater]
A few months ago, Kimberly Wiefling wrote about the advantages a woman’s feminine side can bring to the workplace. Unfortunately a recent study shows those same characteristics can hurt a woman starting her career.
Before proceeding, some background is helpful. When someone receives a PhD in the sciences or mathematics, a typical next step is to take a post-doctorate, a one or two year assignment, a chance to continue research and get work published. Often one takes two or three of these temporary positions before starting a (presumably) more permanent position in the academy or industry. And key to this process are the letters of recommendation, from one’s PhD advisor or post-doctorate supervisor, or other professional mentors.
Recently Professors Randi Martin and Michelle Hebl of my alma mater, Rice University, reviewed several hundred of these letters of recommendation, written for both men and women candidates. They found the ones for men typically described the candidate using terms such as “confident”, “aggressive” and “daring”, while the letters for women uses terms such as “affectionate”, “nurturing” and “tactful” – the kinds of qualities Kimberly point out add value in the engineering workplace.
And when they took their collection of letters, took out names and personal pronouns (“he”, “she”, etc.), and then asked other faculty members to evaluate the (now anonymous) candidates, those written for men got significantly better rankings than the ones written for women. The candidates described as “confident”, “aggressive” and “daring” were more likely to be hired than those described as “affectionate”, “nurturing” and “tactful”. This despite the fact they had taken out all references to gender, and had insured the candidates described with feminine qualities had as much professional success - papers published, lead author, recognition and awards – as those described with masculine qualities.
It is unfortunate that the quick lesson from this work is likely to be to suppress terms like affectionate, nurturing and tactful, even though such people – men and women both – help make the workplace a less contentious and more productive place. But women too can be confident, aggressive and daring, and mentors do need to look for these qualities in the women they are guiding and advising.
I just want to add that in the sciences and mathematics, the most important qualities one looks for are originality and – yes it is masculine – daring. They describe Richard Feynman – and Barbara McClintock, who eventually won the Nobel Prize for her work in genetics. Oh, and persistence. It took 30 years for the scientific community to recognize the importance of McClintock’s work.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Lasater maintains this blog for the Engineering Leadership Special Interest Group of the SD Forum.
More...
Before proceeding, some background is helpful. When someone receives a PhD in the sciences or mathematics, a typical next step is to take a post-doctorate, a one or two year assignment, a chance to continue research and get work published. Often one takes two or three of these temporary positions before starting a (presumably) more permanent position in the academy or industry. And key to this process are the letters of recommendation, from one’s PhD advisor or post-doctorate supervisor, or other professional mentors.
Recently Professors Randi Martin and Michelle Hebl of my alma mater, Rice University, reviewed several hundred of these letters of recommendation, written for both men and women candidates. They found the ones for men typically described the candidate using terms such as “confident”, “aggressive” and “daring”, while the letters for women uses terms such as “affectionate”, “nurturing” and “tactful” – the kinds of qualities Kimberly point out add value in the engineering workplace.
And when they took their collection of letters, took out names and personal pronouns (“he”, “she”, etc.), and then asked other faculty members to evaluate the (now anonymous) candidates, those written for men got significantly better rankings than the ones written for women. The candidates described as “confident”, “aggressive” and “daring” were more likely to be hired than those described as “affectionate”, “nurturing” and “tactful”. This despite the fact they had taken out all references to gender, and had insured the candidates described with feminine qualities had as much professional success - papers published, lead author, recognition and awards – as those described with masculine qualities.
It is unfortunate that the quick lesson from this work is likely to be to suppress terms like affectionate, nurturing and tactful, even though such people – men and women both – help make the workplace a less contentious and more productive place. But women too can be confident, aggressive and daring, and mentors do need to look for these qualities in the women they are guiding and advising.
I just want to add that in the sciences and mathematics, the most important qualities one looks for are originality and – yes it is masculine – daring. They describe Richard Feynman – and Barbara McClintock, who eventually won the Nobel Prize for her work in genetics. Oh, and persistence. It took 30 years for the scientific community to recognize the importance of McClintock’s work.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Lasater maintains this blog for the Engineering Leadership Special Interest Group of the SD Forum.
More...
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Announcing the Next EL SIG Meeting, Feb 17 [Robert Lasater]
The next meeting of the Engineering Leadership SIG will be held on February 17 in SAP Building 2 (3412 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA), starting at 7:00 PM. Doors open at 6:30 PM.
TITLE: The Keys to Collaborative Leadership
SPEAKERS: Mark Voorsanger and Elizabeth Agnew
About the Speakers:
Mark Voorsanger is an executive coach and consultant with over 25 years working with and managing high technology teams. His experience as a business entrepreneur, senior corporate manager overseeing globally distributed production units, and executive coach and consultant focusing on leadership development and collaboration make him uniquely qualified to work with leaders in high tech.
As the founder of Skyward Coaching, Mark brings the COS and his collaborative facilitation skills to literally every client engagement, from individual coaching to the facilitation of corporate strategic planning. Mark's client list includes Electronic Arts, Sega, DreamWorks, CompuShare and Kaiser Permanente.
Liz Agnew is a certified coach specializing in leadership development and collaboration. Liz earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from Cornell University and a master's degree from Stanford. As president of Integrative Leadership Strategies, LLC, Liz's mission is to bring the world together by making the workplace a sanctuary for learning and truth. She transforms one team at a time, teaching them to work transparently and heal the pain of poor work relationships. Liz's previous clients include Genentech, Hewlett Packard, The City of Atlanta, Sun Microsystems, Lockheed Martin, and Jet Propulsion Laboratories.
Liz Agnew has written previously for our blog.
Details of talk:
Nearly every organization we know operates according to some version of the hierarchical system, which uses power and authority to accomplish things.
Although many have attempted to democratize their workplace by getting “flatter” and working in teams, power and authority remain the primary “currency” being traded. If you can accumulate enough power and authority in a hierarchical system, you can “win.” But as we know, a hierarchy concentrates power and authority in a few people at the very top. This prevents the rest of the organization from having the currency required to solve problems and accomplish goals. It makes working across the silos nearly impossible. And it makes the “leader” with the most power and authority essential.
Moreover, the degree of complexity in today’s fast-moving, global marketplace is simply beyond the capacity of the hierarchical approach. The interdependent, multi-faceted problems and opportunities facing leaders and organizations require a new system: one that engages workers by connecting the people with the information to those who make the decisions, and the people who make the decisions to those who implement them. The leader who can help their organizations make the journey to this new paradigm will predominate.
In this talk, Mark Voorsanger & Liz Agnew will introduce and explore the fundamental principles that drive Collaborative Leadership in organizations, principles that have the capacity to transform how we get work done. Join Mark & Liz for this fun and interactive session on The Keys to Collaborative Leadership.
For more information, including a detailed schedule, go here.
More...
TITLE: The Keys to Collaborative Leadership
SPEAKERS: Mark Voorsanger and Elizabeth Agnew
About the Speakers:
Mark Voorsanger is an executive coach and consultant with over 25 years working with and managing high technology teams. His experience as a business entrepreneur, senior corporate manager overseeing globally distributed production units, and executive coach and consultant focusing on leadership development and collaboration make him uniquely qualified to work with leaders in high tech.
As the founder of Skyward Coaching, Mark brings the COS and his collaborative facilitation skills to literally every client engagement, from individual coaching to the facilitation of corporate strategic planning. Mark's client list includes Electronic Arts, Sega, DreamWorks, CompuShare and Kaiser Permanente.
Liz Agnew is a certified coach specializing in leadership development and collaboration. Liz earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from Cornell University and a master's degree from Stanford. As president of Integrative Leadership Strategies, LLC, Liz's mission is to bring the world together by making the workplace a sanctuary for learning and truth. She transforms one team at a time, teaching them to work transparently and heal the pain of poor work relationships. Liz's previous clients include Genentech, Hewlett Packard, The City of Atlanta, Sun Microsystems, Lockheed Martin, and Jet Propulsion Laboratories.
Liz Agnew has written previously for our blog.
Details of talk:
Nearly every organization we know operates according to some version of the hierarchical system, which uses power and authority to accomplish things.
Although many have attempted to democratize their workplace by getting “flatter” and working in teams, power and authority remain the primary “currency” being traded. If you can accumulate enough power and authority in a hierarchical system, you can “win.” But as we know, a hierarchy concentrates power and authority in a few people at the very top. This prevents the rest of the organization from having the currency required to solve problems and accomplish goals. It makes working across the silos nearly impossible. And it makes the “leader” with the most power and authority essential.
Moreover, the degree of complexity in today’s fast-moving, global marketplace is simply beyond the capacity of the hierarchical approach. The interdependent, multi-faceted problems and opportunities facing leaders and organizations require a new system: one that engages workers by connecting the people with the information to those who make the decisions, and the people who make the decisions to those who implement them. The leader who can help their organizations make the journey to this new paradigm will predominate.
In this talk, Mark Voorsanger & Liz Agnew will introduce and explore the fundamental principles that drive Collaborative Leadership in organizations, principles that have the capacity to transform how we get work done. Join Mark & Liz for this fun and interactive session on The Keys to Collaborative Leadership.
For more information, including a detailed schedule, go here.
More...
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Company Wide Process Definition [Chris Bryant]
So, you have a small company that has grown from a startup with nice growth over the last few years. Now suddenly you are beginning to feel like you are losing touch with what is going on. You don’t know what is happening with customers. You hear about issues but can’t track down the history of how they came up. You’ve hired several new people in various departments but they don’t know what to do and are causing problems by doing the wrong thing or aren’t getting the right things done. You absolutely need to hire a dozen new people for various departments but are afraid that you’ll just end up with more people running around not knowing what to do or spending all their time trying to find out whom to ask the right questions of.
You are questioning what customers are buying what and what the prospects are for the next quarter. However, your head of Sales and Marketing are both traveling or out sick and can’t be contacted. Your field service techs are spending all their time putting out fires instead of helping with new installations.
You are looking at absolutely needing to get your next version of a product or a new product underway but the “indispensable” person that knows how everything is put together just left for a competitor.
Any of these sound familiar? If not, they may soon…
Congratulations, your startup is successful and is now evolving from a single department into an organization with multiple departments and multiple responsibilities. How do you facilitate communications? How do you determine what’s going on? How do you avoid the trap of the indispensable” employee?
The answer is complex but primarily involves determining how your company operates. In one word: PROCESS
Many view process as a straight jacket that large companies use to inhibit free thinking and keep the company from changing. It’s the primary source of red tape to keep things running in well worn ruts. Unfortunately this is true in many companies.
Process is neither an end product nor a tool. It is a skeleton used to facilitate communication and capture of critical company information. It is the framework on which tools and company interactions are hung. It should never be an inhibitor and must always be an enabler. It needs to be constantly reviewed and adapted as your company changes.
A company process is by no means simple. At the highest view it should be simple enough to be contained on a single sheet of paper. This would be a company model that shows clearly what your customer and supplier interactions are and who and when communication occurs. This outlines the scope of the company and how its products and/or services are created, sold, delivered and serviced. This really involves creating a model of the company. This should never be an “ideal” model as it must reflect how things are really done instead of how they should be done. However, while creating this model all the “it would be nice if” and “we could do better if” comments should be recorded. Also, when creating this model, talk with the people actually doing the work in addition to the department leads. It is the people in the trenches that often know more about how things are really done. Not to say that a manager is clueless. Far from it, however the undocumented steps and “just in case” things to do are often viewed as not important enough to mention. This allows you to capture those little details that have been painstakingly learned over time but are not obvious to new employees. This will enable each new employee from repeating the same mistakes and “learning the hard way”.
Determine how and what information is captured at the various interaction points. The view is to make this information capture as easy and adaptable as possible. If it is ever viewed as too complex, customers will be encouraged to weigh the effort of interaction against the possible gain and unless the gain far outweighs the effort, they won’t bother. Also, procedures that aren’t followed are far worse than no procedure at all. Even cursory information about a prospect or issue can be followed up on. However, if the potential customer or issue information is never captured then it is less than worthless as it could have cost you a customer.
Next is to drill down internally on what departments/organizations are responsible for what. This should model what is currently done as well as what information they really need and how it is currently captured, if at all. The view here is to begin to look for easy improvements that could facilitate communications, data flow, and information capture. Again, the goal is to determine how to facilitate each person’s job and eliminate redundancies and source of miscommunications. This section of the model also provides a necessary framework on which training for new employees can be created.
At this point you have a basic model of how things currently are done; now the real work begins to look at how to optimize interactions between departments to make sure that required artifacts are captured and necessary information is available.
------------------------------------------------------
Chris Bryant has extensive experience in managing software development teams as well as in general business operation. He has held numerous governing board positions from Treasurer to Chairman. He has a Masters in Computer Engineering from Santa Clajavascript:void(0)ra University and has dealt with hardware, firmware, applications, GUI and overall product design.
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You are questioning what customers are buying what and what the prospects are for the next quarter. However, your head of Sales and Marketing are both traveling or out sick and can’t be contacted. Your field service techs are spending all their time putting out fires instead of helping with new installations.
You are looking at absolutely needing to get your next version of a product or a new product underway but the “indispensable” person that knows how everything is put together just left for a competitor.
Any of these sound familiar? If not, they may soon…
Congratulations, your startup is successful and is now evolving from a single department into an organization with multiple departments and multiple responsibilities. How do you facilitate communications? How do you determine what’s going on? How do you avoid the trap of the indispensable” employee?
The answer is complex but primarily involves determining how your company operates. In one word: PROCESS
Many view process as a straight jacket that large companies use to inhibit free thinking and keep the company from changing. It’s the primary source of red tape to keep things running in well worn ruts. Unfortunately this is true in many companies.
Process is neither an end product nor a tool. It is a skeleton used to facilitate communication and capture of critical company information. It is the framework on which tools and company interactions are hung. It should never be an inhibitor and must always be an enabler. It needs to be constantly reviewed and adapted as your company changes.
A company process is by no means simple. At the highest view it should be simple enough to be contained on a single sheet of paper. This would be a company model that shows clearly what your customer and supplier interactions are and who and when communication occurs. This outlines the scope of the company and how its products and/or services are created, sold, delivered and serviced. This really involves creating a model of the company. This should never be an “ideal” model as it must reflect how things are really done instead of how they should be done. However, while creating this model all the “it would be nice if” and “we could do better if” comments should be recorded. Also, when creating this model, talk with the people actually doing the work in addition to the department leads. It is the people in the trenches that often know more about how things are really done. Not to say that a manager is clueless. Far from it, however the undocumented steps and “just in case” things to do are often viewed as not important enough to mention. This allows you to capture those little details that have been painstakingly learned over time but are not obvious to new employees. This will enable each new employee from repeating the same mistakes and “learning the hard way”.
Determine how and what information is captured at the various interaction points. The view is to make this information capture as easy and adaptable as possible. If it is ever viewed as too complex, customers will be encouraged to weigh the effort of interaction against the possible gain and unless the gain far outweighs the effort, they won’t bother. Also, procedures that aren’t followed are far worse than no procedure at all. Even cursory information about a prospect or issue can be followed up on. However, if the potential customer or issue information is never captured then it is less than worthless as it could have cost you a customer.
Next is to drill down internally on what departments/organizations are responsible for what. This should model what is currently done as well as what information they really need and how it is currently captured, if at all. The view here is to begin to look for easy improvements that could facilitate communications, data flow, and information capture. Again, the goal is to determine how to facilitate each person’s job and eliminate redundancies and source of miscommunications. This section of the model also provides a necessary framework on which training for new employees can be created.
At this point you have a basic model of how things currently are done; now the real work begins to look at how to optimize interactions between departments to make sure that required artifacts are captured and necessary information is available.
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Chris Bryant has extensive experience in managing software development teams as well as in general business operation. He has held numerous governing board positions from Treasurer to Chairman. He has a Masters in Computer Engineering from Santa Clajavascript:void(0)ra University and has dealt with hardware, firmware, applications, GUI and overall product design.
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Sunday, December 5, 2010
November 18 Meeting Notes [John Levy]
Notes from the recent Engineering Leadership SIG Meeting, November 18, 2010.
Tools for Team: A Panel Discussion on Collaborative Tools for Product Development
Co-Moderators: Ron Lichty & Tam Nguyen
Panelists: Sasha Ovsankin, Sandeep Jain, Chris Lunt, David Etheridge
Introduction by Tam Nguyen
Short presentation by Steve of Agile Learning Labs – note that there is a CSM course this weekend – with Chris Sims
Panel (see full names above)
Sasha is with a medical imaging startup
Chris is VP-Engineering with ReadyForce, his 8th startup
Sandeep’s focus is on productivity
David is working on Enterprise rollout
Ron: It’s hard not to be regretful after acquiring a tool and rolling it out, isn’t it?
Poll of audience: tools of interest?
Requirements management; project management, bug tracking, document management, lifecycle management, Agile support tools, defect/requirements tracking (customer-facing), adoption analytics, compliance (quality/conformance), wireframing, code review tools / 3-way merge tool, architecture / design patterns, code metrics, web conferencing
Question A: Creating Requirements and Selection Criteria
How do you know what you’re looking for?
Chris: ask peers, people I trust
Sandeep: it varies by stage (of the development group & company)
Sasha: transparency – “it just works”; allows everyone to see all the data;
Enjoyable to use
Sandeep: minimize overhead for developer
Sasha: input should be where the information happens
[discussion of whether these tools are “collaborative” tools]
Requirements-related tools ---
David: written requirements … Engineering response to PRD – the manager or leader has to break it down into sentences, then link tasks to each one;
It requires a human to understand the requirements!
Sasha: … and requires agreement by multiple groups
Selection: consensus – try it out; find an advocate who sells it to the team
The panel is generally in favor of SAAS, rather than on-premises servers/services
Question B: Adoption – How does adoption fail?
Chris: need cross-functional support (e.g., Product Management)
What are key success factors?
David: no greater burden than today (for users)
Ron: intersection between team & company vs. tools? Q: a lot of contractors with backgrounds using different tools – how to deal with this?
Sasha: has to be easy to learn / use
Chris: assign a peer to help the contractor get integrated with team & tools
Sandeep: embed the process in the tools
David: (regarding “resistance”) I make an agreement with my engineers: you enter (task) data, and I will deal with the upper management demands [on your time]
Question C: Favorite tools / recommended tools
Sasha: Pivotal Tracker; Freemind (mind mapping);
Tam: Xmind (mind mapping)
Chris: TRAC – wiki / source browser; (Redmine – not as good); GIT (but it doesn’t move back in time so well); Selenium (web testing)
Sandeep: SWplanner / HP Quality Center; Perforce; TeamTrack
David: Jira + Subversion, Bamboo, Crucible, Fisheye, Bugzilla + Yahoo Sprint Mgr
Audience questions
(Note: the audience had no major users of Rally Agile tools, Sprint 360)
(Cooperation tools, like wikis, blogs: wiki – about 50% use them; blogs – about 6 people out of 50 in the audience)
Sasha: continuous integration – an important part of Agile;
[unknown]: get Product Managers to write acceptance criteria
David: described using a Plan of Record (vs. PRD and Engineering response); tell executives “let them [engineers] solve puzzles” and get out of the way; if the PRD is too detailed, they will get passive-aggressive on you.
Much agreement from the audience on having seen PRDs that said too much about what to build (and how), rather than what function is to be delivered
--------------------------------------------------------------
John Levy helps business managers who are frustrated by the lack of results they are getting from IT or Engineering. He specializes in rapidly getting high-tech teams to align with business strategy and to contribute to business success of the enterprise.
John has been consulting for managers in industry for over 20 years. John’s book on management for technology executives, Get Out of the Way, was published in May 2010. http://bit.ly/9pX1wS
For more information, please visit his website at http://johnlevyconsulting.com ,
Email him at info@johnlevyconsulting.com , or call 415 663-1818.
More...
Tools for Team: A Panel Discussion on Collaborative Tools for Product Development
Co-Moderators: Ron Lichty & Tam Nguyen
Panelists: Sasha Ovsankin, Sandeep Jain, Chris Lunt, David Etheridge
Introduction by Tam Nguyen
Short presentation by Steve of Agile Learning Labs – note that there is a CSM course this weekend – with Chris Sims
Panel (see full names above)
Sasha is with a medical imaging startup
Chris is VP-Engineering with ReadyForce, his 8th startup
Sandeep’s focus is on productivity
David is working on Enterprise rollout
Ron: It’s hard not to be regretful after acquiring a tool and rolling it out, isn’t it?
Poll of audience: tools of interest?
Requirements management; project management, bug tracking, document management, lifecycle management, Agile support tools, defect/requirements tracking (customer-facing), adoption analytics, compliance (quality/conformance), wireframing, code review tools / 3-way merge tool, architecture / design patterns, code metrics, web conferencing
Question A: Creating Requirements and Selection Criteria
How do you know what you’re looking for?
Chris: ask peers, people I trust
Sandeep: it varies by stage (of the development group & company)
Sasha: transparency – “it just works”; allows everyone to see all the data;
Enjoyable to use
Sandeep: minimize overhead for developer
Sasha: input should be where the information happens
[discussion of whether these tools are “collaborative” tools]
Requirements-related tools ---
David: written requirements … Engineering response to PRD – the manager or leader has to break it down into sentences, then link tasks to each one;
It requires a human to understand the requirements!
Sasha: … and requires agreement by multiple groups
Selection: consensus – try it out; find an advocate who sells it to the team
The panel is generally in favor of SAAS, rather than on-premises servers/services
Question B: Adoption – How does adoption fail?
Chris: need cross-functional support (e.g., Product Management)
What are key success factors?
David: no greater burden than today (for users)
Ron: intersection between team & company vs. tools? Q: a lot of contractors with backgrounds using different tools – how to deal with this?
Sasha: has to be easy to learn / use
Chris: assign a peer to help the contractor get integrated with team & tools
Sandeep: embed the process in the tools
David: (regarding “resistance”) I make an agreement with my engineers: you enter (task) data, and I will deal with the upper management demands [on your time]
Question C: Favorite tools / recommended tools
Sasha: Pivotal Tracker; Freemind (mind mapping);
Tam: Xmind (mind mapping)
Chris: TRAC – wiki / source browser; (Redmine – not as good); GIT (but it doesn’t move back in time so well); Selenium (web testing)
Sandeep: SWplanner / HP Quality Center; Perforce; TeamTrack
David: Jira + Subversion, Bamboo, Crucible, Fisheye, Bugzilla + Yahoo Sprint Mgr
Audience questions
(Note: the audience had no major users of Rally Agile tools, Sprint 360)
(Cooperation tools, like wikis, blogs: wiki – about 50% use them; blogs – about 6 people out of 50 in the audience)
Sasha: continuous integration – an important part of Agile;
[unknown]: get Product Managers to write acceptance criteria
David: described using a Plan of Record (vs. PRD and Engineering response); tell executives “let them [engineers] solve puzzles” and get out of the way; if the PRD is too detailed, they will get passive-aggressive on you.
Much agreement from the audience on having seen PRDs that said too much about what to build (and how), rather than what function is to be delivered
--------------------------------------------------------------
John Levy helps business managers who are frustrated by the lack of results they are getting from IT or Engineering. He specializes in rapidly getting high-tech teams to align with business strategy and to contribute to business success of the enterprise.
John has been consulting for managers in industry for over 20 years. John’s book on management for technology executives, Get Out of the Way, was published in May 2010. http://bit.ly/9pX1wS
For more information, please visit his website at http://johnlevyconsulting.com ,
Email him at info@johnlevyconsulting.com , or call 415 663-1818.
More...
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Action is what manifests a choice amongst infinite possibilities [Corinne Rattay]
I listen a lot to people in leadership positions, many of them being senior management in high-tech companies. What they tell me are stories of lack of empowerment, of how they "felt stuck" between "too clear" directions from a powerful GM, CTO or CEO and, on the other side, their Engineering organizations, remote or local. I'm borrowing some of their words here.
In fact, these senior Engineering leaders knew what wasn't working and what needed to happen to move their teams out of burnout, general frustration or acceptance of mediocrity. I'm sure you have experienced or seen situations such as this one. Their main problem was the same as what we see in nature all the time. Things remain as they are for usually a very long time until, one day, something new happens. A different idea, a new concept, a quantum leap. Who knows what I'm talking about?
We've noticed that quantum leaps happen as soon as a "catalyst" comes into play. I won't go into the details whether the catalyst is purely passive (as in a chemical reaction) or on the contrary very active inside the company into which he or she was brought in by the senior Engineering leader who finally has had the courage to step up and yell, at least in his or her imagination, "enough is enough, things have to change now!".
The truth is that action is what manifests a choice. Our world is a wonderful creation of infinite possibilities. As Albert Einstein had already taught us so well about the relativity of all things, even of time and space, I firmly believe that there is no absolute right or wrong. Everything must be seen from one or another perspective and it is futile to look for an absolute or so called "objective" perspective. Out of all the possibilities of how situations can evolve, humans have a tendency of wishing for a change in one way or another. Let's call it a "desire".
There's nothing wrong with having desires, actually this is a good thing since doing so drives imagination. And "imagination is more important than knowledge", as was adequately remarked by Albert Einstein also a long time ago.
So what is the key message to understand here? It is that action, yes, even a simple little action, done consistently from this moment onward, is the first step of manifesting a choice and moving towards a desire which we have. It's that simple: nothing changes from knowledge or imagination alone, but it is action that sets things apart.
The moment that we decide to act despite fear rather than waiting for the fear to go away or for the right moment to come (trust me it never will), this is when we set change into motion. What is it that you as a leader would like to change, specifically, and what are you waiting for?
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Corinne Rattay works with senior hi-tech executives on strategic leadership, breakthrough communication and effective execution, helping her clients to achieve extraordinary results. She can be reached at crattay@crexecutiveconsulting.com or at www.CRexecutiveconsulting.com
More...
In fact, these senior Engineering leaders knew what wasn't working and what needed to happen to move their teams out of burnout, general frustration or acceptance of mediocrity. I'm sure you have experienced or seen situations such as this one. Their main problem was the same as what we see in nature all the time. Things remain as they are for usually a very long time until, one day, something new happens. A different idea, a new concept, a quantum leap. Who knows what I'm talking about?
We've noticed that quantum leaps happen as soon as a "catalyst" comes into play. I won't go into the details whether the catalyst is purely passive (as in a chemical reaction) or on the contrary very active inside the company into which he or she was brought in by the senior Engineering leader who finally has had the courage to step up and yell, at least in his or her imagination, "enough is enough, things have to change now!".
The truth is that action is what manifests a choice. Our world is a wonderful creation of infinite possibilities. As Albert Einstein had already taught us so well about the relativity of all things, even of time and space, I firmly believe that there is no absolute right or wrong. Everything must be seen from one or another perspective and it is futile to look for an absolute or so called "objective" perspective. Out of all the possibilities of how situations can evolve, humans have a tendency of wishing for a change in one way or another. Let's call it a "desire".
There's nothing wrong with having desires, actually this is a good thing since doing so drives imagination. And "imagination is more important than knowledge", as was adequately remarked by Albert Einstein also a long time ago.
So what is the key message to understand here? It is that action, yes, even a simple little action, done consistently from this moment onward, is the first step of manifesting a choice and moving towards a desire which we have. It's that simple: nothing changes from knowledge or imagination alone, but it is action that sets things apart.
The moment that we decide to act despite fear rather than waiting for the fear to go away or for the right moment to come (trust me it never will), this is when we set change into motion. What is it that you as a leader would like to change, specifically, and what are you waiting for?
------------------------------------------------------
Corinne Rattay works with senior hi-tech executives on strategic leadership, breakthrough communication and effective execution, helping her clients to achieve extraordinary results. She can be reached at crattay@crexecutiveconsulting.com or at www.CRexecutiveconsulting.com
More...
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