Capability Development

It Get The Point, Story Points That Is

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 09:55:00 +0000

So, this story point thing... what's up with that?

When estimating effort for user stories most people use either ideal hours or story points. My recent experiences have been with ideal hours. This works well but there has always been something that keeps me thinking about the value of using story points instead. I've never used story points but I'm increasingly feeling that there is a lot of value and an ability for them to help shake some teams free from rigid past behaviors. Is there anything wrong with ideal hours? Not that I can tell, but I do believe there might be some negative behaviors at play for organizations that are moving to agile software development from more traditional methodologies (e.g., waterfall, etc.).

What "Is" An Hour?

In release planning, teams typically arrange stories based upon some priority which may consider customer value, time to market, effort, etc. Stories are slotted into a release with the release being delivered after a certain amount of sprints have been completed. The number of stories that fit within a release is determined by the team's velocity. Velocity can be measured in any unit but often is represented in points or ideal hours.

If ideal hours are used to estimate story effort then it is really easy for people to equate these to "real" hours. It is a hard behavior to break. Hours and ideal hours look frighteningly similar. Might someone interpret a 40 ideal hour effort to be something that can be completed in one week? Please tell me you understand why this is not the case.

I have no proof, but might the use story points begin to break this connection to real hours. Since story points are a relative measure of the time needed to implement a story, there is no real connection to hours.

What's My Velocity?

Regardless of the unit being used to estimate stories, a team will stabilize around a certain velocity. Velocity representing the amount of work a team can complete in a sprint. There will certainly be some fluctuations in velocity which may be caused by holidays or an increase in support activities, but in general, a team will stabilize. One other item to note is that there is usually a difference in velocity across teams. For this reason, velocity is NOT an appropriate measure of productivity.

Where Did The Time Go?

At release planning, each story is estimated using points but once sprint planning is done, the team will use hours. Each story is split into some number of tasks representing work to be done for the story. The detailed tasks are estimated using hours and the team can then determine if they can complete the story. When the sprint planning meeting ends the team has a committed set of stories for the upcoming sprint.

Are We Done Yet?

Each team, and others, are interested in tracking progress during a sprint. Story completion seems like a good measure but often stories are closed at the end of the sprint with the customer which doesn't really help during the sprint. Since the stories have been broken down into tasks, the completion of tasks provide a good indicator of progress within a sprint. Most team members will update tasks, work done and work to be done, each day. Some sprint planning tools will use task completion and remaining work information to create a burn down chart which shows how well the team is tracking against their sprint commitment.

At the end of the sprint, the number of story points completed is used to determine a team's velocity. Story completion is the real measure of delivering value to a customer.

Wrapping Up

My initial purpose for writing this post was to try and discover for myself the benefits of using story points. In doing so I've highlighted common practices of release and sprint planning, certainly not in detail. At this point, I do believe there is greater value in using story points rather than ideal hours. My thinking is colored by my experiences and the type of organizations I've worked in so your mileage may vary. If you have an organization that is moving to agile software development that comes from a place where the norm included big requirements up front, lots of design up front, massive Gantt charts prior to project start (the plan is always right, right?), and similar dysfunctions then the use of story points might assist in the change. You might find that the use of ideal hours creates too strong of a connection to past behaviors. Story points are not a cure-all and will not eliminate unhealthy behaviors but they do cause a shift in thinking that can't hurt.

I'm game to give it a try.

Juggling Features

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:20:00 +0000

How often do you really take a look at the amount of work in process you have going on? I often find when I stop to do so I start to understand why my arms are so tired… juggling balls is hard work! Too much work in process will destroy your productivity even in the midst of being so busy. Busy does not always equate to productive. Context switching exacts a terrible cost and it can easily consume 20% of your productivity if switching between 2 or 3 tasks. The same personal productivity thief is found in many business when everything has to be done, now!

When developing software there is a focus on providing high value features to our customers. If we reflect upon the challenges of context switching we might choose to focus on one feature, complete it and potentially deliver it to our customers before moving to the next. More often than not, all of the features are deemed must haves and we are asked to develop them together thus creating a context switching problem which increases waste and reduces our throughput. This figure illustrates this concept.

As you can see if we focus on feature A, then feature B, then feature C we can deliver all features within a three month timeframe, in our example. In addition, we are in a position to deliver the value of feature A in a month's time and feature B in two months providing value to our customers and revenue for us.

If we choose to work on all features at the same time then we've created a situation where no feature is deliverable until 3 months pass. Worse, because of context switching overhead, we won't be in a position to deliver even these three features until almost 4 months pass (using 20% overhead for context switching). This causes a substantial cost of delay over the first example. This cost of delay impacts revenue and customer value. In the first model our customers begin to benefit as soon as one month which is 3 months earlier than the second model.

This is an oversimplified model but illustrates the dangers of context switching and the value of limiting work in process which I'll write about in an upcoming post.

Are You Talking To Me?

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 03:45:00 +0000

I've lately had a number of conversations with colleagues on the frequent disconnect between IT and the business. Does business look at IT and say, "are you talking to me?"

As my friend and colleague Brian Sondergaard (http://blog.softwarearchitecture.com) likes to say, we create this situation and we do it to ourselves. We do this because we believe that it is the technology that is important. Technology isn't necessarily important to the business. Sure, technology provides tools capable of creating business value but when they don't, they are not terribly interesting to the business. Using these technologies to provide business value? Now you'll get the business's attention.

We have to shift our language and understanding of the business. We must have a clear understanding of our business goals, communicate them to our teams, and have business discussions with our customers. When we start to understand and speak the business we are equipped to understand what is important and how we can use our skills to deliver software that increases revenue.

Creating strong ties to business goals creates clarity for what each of us must do to support the business. Business goals must be the rallying cry for aligning our teams. Every activity we perform should pass a litmus test of providing business value.

If we do this then we'll see that the business no longer sees us as a cost to be controlled but as a partner that understands how we can use and create technology to meet the goals of the business. I would much rather see the business as a partner and not one that doesn't understand the creation of business value.

Check Your Creativity At The Door

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:51:00 +0000

There is little doubt that companies that foster a culture of creativity will outperform, by a large margin, those that do not. A number of sources have proven this fact and I recommend reading The Future of Management for great examples.

Unfortunately, it seems to be difficult for companies to actually create an innovative culture. One where creativity is fostered and expected at all levels of the corporation. Companies that truly innovate tap into the creativity of each and every employee. They strive to enhance the creativity that exists in each individual.

We all enter this world with a vast amount of creativity. Think about your childhood and the how creative you were. Did you make up silly games? Did you tell fanciful stories? Did you sing, draw, dance? You were a very creative individual.

As we enter school, and eventually the workforce, the "system" strives to extinguish that creativity. We must become similar, we must not deviate outside the norm, we must comply. What a dull and uninteresting world we are creating. Corporate America seems to have perfected this ability to create a workforce of sameness. Training programs and rating systems are created to ensure everyone is molded into the same corporate citizen, much like the Stepford children.

This can be reversed! We can find and unleash our creativity! Why? True innovation is born from a thousand ideas. Creation of thousands of ideas is not the domain of the few. Thousands of ideas are created by fueling creativity across all employees. It is from these thousands of ideas that we find the game changers. It is the game changer that catapults profits.

Why then do we not unleash the creativity bottled up in every employee? There are many barriers but one is that change will upset the status quo. When every employee becomes a creative force then why do we need to have jobs specifically for creativity? Often these areas of the organization feel it is their responsibility to monitor for "unauthorized" creativity. They then fell a responsibility to maintain the status quo by dousing the fires of creativity that threatens their existence. Dousing creativity which is exactly what we need to foster in our companies.

My advice, as a good friend of mine likes to say, nurture the freaks.

Encourage creative thinking
Encourage people to bring non-work skills and passions to the workplace
Encourage people to foster their unique strengths
Encourage people to step outside of job descriptions
Encourage people to have fun
Encourage people to resist compliance

Do not check your creativity at the door. Nurture it and make something wonderful happen.

Photo courtesy of Elvert Barnes.

Getting Ahead, Really?

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:34:00 +0000

Have you ever been in a situation where you have not gotten enough sleep for some period of time? At some point you are able to sleep normally again which does wonders for your recovery. In times of extreme exhaustion we might want to sleep more than a normal amount. We believe we can make up for our earlier deficit of sleep. As my wife is fond of saying, "you can't catch up".

In fact, sleeping too much in an attempt to "catch up" can exacerbate the situation. There are a number of studies that show too much sleep can lead to increased anxiety, mood swings, and continuing to feel sleepy throughout the day. What seems intuitive is not.

Similarly, the same "catch up" behavior often occurs in software development. I've heard more than once in my career something like this - "we have some extra bandwidth with our business analysts so we're going to "catch up" on requirements. We can get enough done so that we will be 6 - 8 months ahead of development".

I hope most of you agree that this is wrong thinking. Do you agree that this is not an optimum approach? Why do we fool ourselves in behaving this way?

What's The Big Deal

Software development has inventory just like any other organization that produces something from raw materials. It is very difficult to see that inventory. Just ask your company how much inventory do they have and I'm sure you will get a questioning look or a statement that there is no inventory in software development. Any work we do that produces output (e.g. requirements documents) results in inventory. Requirements are just one example. What other examples can you think of?

Why is this inventory bad?

Uh Oh, It Is No Longer Fresh

This analogy may break down but why do grocery stores not stock their shelves will months of inventory, say bread or vegetables? Those products must remain fresh to provide value to the customer. If they are no longer fresh then they must be thrown out and that is waste.

Continuing with the requirements example, they too must remain fresh. Do you believe that requirements created 6 months before they are acted upon have not changed and are still "fresh". Not likely and in fact, some of those requirements may no longer be relevant. You'll either have to rework them or throw them out and that is waste.

Focus On The Constraints

Software development creates a variety of output needed to build functionality delivered to the customer. The process of software development creates inventory which has a real cost. We operate under a model that seeks to keep all resources at maximum capacity. We believe creating something is the higher order goal and we don't recognized the potential waste.

The Theory of Constraints would show us that our focus should be on eliminating bottlenecks in our development system. This is a very different view from what I've described and it implies situations may exist where we do not maximize output in all stages. This is NOT how most companies operate and that focus on maximizing resources unwittingly causes dramatic increases in unseen costs.

Be careful about "catching up", it can be a very expensive proposition and not one that provides value to your customer in the most efficient manner.

I'm absolutely captivated by this area of study and have more to say. If you would like to learn more then I would recommend the following texts:

How Many Startups Have You Invested In?

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:58:00 +0000

Does this look familiar? Someone comes up with a new idea. That idea is shared and has promise. It is then sent up the "chain" where it increasingly meets resistance. More often than not, it is killed. Why?

It is too different from what we do today
We don't have resources that can be taken off "approved" projects
It would take too much time and expense to prove that the idea could be profitable
It didn't come from the group that is responsible for new ideas...

Is this how a company operates that has an effective innovation process? No? It turns out that most large companies struggle with innovation. There is little appetite to try new things, especially those that do not have a guaranteed return on investment. The problem is, that it is very difficult to predict which idea may become the game changer.

Companies that have proven innovation capabilities are those that operate more like a venture capitalist. They understand the logarithmic nature of ideas to those that change the game. Venture capitalist's spread their bets across a wide range of options. Knowing that very few will be winners but those that are usually boggle your mind at how much revenue they can produce.

Is your company designed to support innovation? Have you created an environment that generates thousands of ideas so you can discover the true jewels? Do you have a program where resources can and will be applied to ideas so they can quickly be evaluated? Are you willing to release ideas to the market knowing they may fail?

Innovative companies rock the core of how an organization operates. Most companies resist investing resources to work on ideas that may fail - remember most will certainly not make the cut. Most companies want to spend months "proving" and idea is profitable before trying anything. Most companies limit investments to those pre-planned strategic bets that have already been made. Do you want to be like most companies? Is "your" company like most companies?

If you have thoughts about innovation then please comment. I have more to say about this but wanted to start the conversation with this post.

Can I Help You Sir?

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:52:00 +0000

How much of your time is spent helping colleagues across your company? Are you so entrenched in your day to day work that you don't have the time to help when you could? Are pressures on to ignore those in need, those that could benefit from your skills?

I've been thinking about this lately and the lost opportunities as a result of not helping others. I wonder if a lack of a helpful spirit impacts our ability to innovate and the notion of building T-shaped people. If you've not been exposed to the concept of T-shaped people then I can recommend a few sources of information:

Fast Company article - details on page 2 of the article.
Collaboration by Morten Hansen - from the standpoint of increasing collaboration
The Ten Faces of Innovation by Thomas Kelley, Jonathan Littman

In a nutshell, we're looking for people that are extremely competent and effective at doing there jobs but have the added attribute of being able to build connections across a company.

I think a component of creating T-shaped behavior is using your unique skills and abilities to help others. You represent a mix of capabilities unlike any other person. There may be others with deeper knowledge for a particular topic but no one else has the same mixture of skills as you.

Using those skills to help others creates connections that are real and beneficial. Connections that are built upon respect and gratitude. Connections that become a catalyst for bringing people together.

How do we promote the creation of T-shaped behavior with so much already on our our plate? I thought about the famous Google notion that every employee is encouraged to spend 20% of their time on some project that interests them. A phenomenal technique and has been noted by Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience that 50% of the new product launches originated from the 20% time (listen to this audio for more about this). What if we encourage employees to spend 10% of their time helping others? What if we actively reach out to look for opportunities to help others? Would that spark innovation? Would that help create T-shaped behavior?

I believe spending 10% time helping others will have a positive impact upon a company's ability to deliver new and compelling products, increase efficiency, and reduce costs. Some of the benefits of 10% helping include::

Opening more channels of communication
Reductions in effort for those being helped
Creating a sense of pride that you helped a colleague
Bringing differing ideas together to spark innovation
Increasing the number of view points leveraged to solve problems
Continual improvement and sharing of practices
Breaking down organizational barriers to collaboration

As usual, I don't have the answers and have more questions than answers. Do you feel this technique can provide benefits? How would you measure benefits? How would you prove that time is being spent helping others? How would you ensure help is delivering business value?

It is something I'll be thinking about and I would be very interested in your opinions.

Do I Know You, Can We Collaborate?

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:30:00 +0000

What is collaboration? How would you define it?

A simple definition that works for me is: Collaboration - one or more people working together to accomplish a goal.

We almost always accomplish our goals by working with others. Teams working int he same location will find it relatively easy to accomplish a common goal. I would guess that many of you routinely work with others that reside in other locations. You are as likely to work with someone in another country as you are with someone in the same office.

How does this impact your ability to accomplish your goals? What challenges do you face?

I've worked with some wonderful teams in my career. Some of those teams had an ability to deliver a mind numbing amount of value. Those teams had gelled into a high performing group. (Timothy Lister and Tom DeMarco talk about this gelling of teams in their book Peopleware.) Personal connection is an important element. Working together in the same location increases the odds that personal connections develop. There is more to the creation of high performing teams but personal connections are an important ingredient. How much more difficult is it for us to create those connections with distributed teams?

Collaboration capabilities provide tools to help teams accomplish goals and they should also provide capabilities to increase personal connections. This is the social side of collaboration which is often looked upon with suspicion in most companies. It is easy to justify investment to provide capabilities to allow teams to collaborate on materials and manage projects. Little effort is put into creating capabilities that help teams build personal connections.

People working together deliver value. People that are able to build personal connections are much more likely to gel into a high performing team. Social networking capabilities can help bring about those connections but they must be handled with care. They must be used to build the right connections. Measurements to gauge team effectiveness must be put in place. These measurements are designed to show value and how a team is able to provide value. It may be of interest to track how many times a person micro-blogged, or used a wiki, or commented on a blog post but that doesn't provide an indicator of value.

Social tools can help create deeper connections across a team. Greater personal connection will remove barriers to collaboration which increases alignment across the team and greater focus on accomplishing the vision and providing value.

I would love to hear more about how you are using social tools to help increase team effectiveness. Feel free to join the conversation by commenting.

What's Different?

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:20:00 +0000

As a child I remember cartoons which had two slightly different images and your task was to figure out the differences. Sometimes the differences were hard to spot but eventually, I was able to find them all. Of course, it might have taken me days to do so... I always like that game and it got me thinking about how this applies to business. In a world of sameness, what are your differences from your competition?

Some cartoon differences were frustratingly difficult to identify. Do your potential customers have this frustration in determining what makes your business stands out from the pack? Do they struggle in understanding why your business is different and in a manner that is important to them?

Or, is your business more like the cartoon differences which were spotted within seconds? Are your differences easily spotted by customers? How do you make that happen with your business?

What Makes You Different

If you have trouble understanding what makes your business stand out then you need to do some soul searching and identify what separates you from the competition. What do you excel at like no one else and what core value do you provide to your customers?

We all get caught up in the minutia of "work" and allow ourselves to forget what is most important. We get so overwhelmed that we soon forget what really differentiates us. Capability analysis includes a set of techniques that can help you clearly understand "what" is important and is a practice that will help you determine where your effort should be focused.

I won't go into great detail about the concept at this time but I do want to provide you with links to information that I think will prove to be valuable in understanding these concepts.

First stop should be a book by Ric Merrifield called ReThink. ReThink provides an introduction and overview of these concepts. This book provides the foundation and has great examples of where these techniques have been used.

Another person you should become familiar with is Dennis Stevens who has done a lot of work with Ric Merrifield on these concepts. Dennis has a very active practice and his blog is a great resource of information. In particular, see his post Toward A Next Generation Capability Maturity Model.

Dennis is also working closely with Mike Cottmeyer and they have begun writing a book where you will see these concepts and their continued evolution. See Mike's post called The Capability Conversation.

I find this approach to be a powerful one and worthy of study and use. In future posts, I'll provide more details as I learn more about it.

(Image from cartoonstudio.co.uk)

Been Locked Up?

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:43:00 +0000

Are you inadvertently locking up your knowledge? Are you hiding information from your peers? Are you limiting the spread of useful information?

I'm on a campaign, of sorts, to get people to think outside the inbox. A campaign to start leveraging more collaborative capabilities for sharing information and working together.

Does this scenario feel familiar, I receive an email, probably one with many recipients and the inevitable game of ping pong, back and forth dialog ensues, and some decision is made. What happens if someone wants to revisit that decision, tries to remember why a decision was made, or a new colleague needs some history about that decision? Those that participated in the discussion will probably remember they exchanged email and can search for the background material in their mail system. What about others? What do they do?

Email as the collaboration platform has created a situation where that information is now locked up. Is there a better way? I think so. If this dialog occurred within a discussion forum, a blog, or a social network platform, then that knowledge would be more accessible by others in organization. Searches might quickly find this dialog - that assumes a working search infrastructure that supports federated searches across sources of information.

Email is an important platform but it is not always the most appropriate collaboration platform, especially when making group decisions. Some of the benefits of using other collaborative capabilities, especially when backed with good search infrastructure include:

Ease of understanding why certain decisions have been made
Allowing others to benefit from prior research and dialog
Helping new employees to become more knowledgeable and productive in a shorter period of time
Reduction in email storage costs - How may times do you need to send that 3 MB file around?

The use of appropriate collaboration tools can level the playing field and help spread organizational knowledge. As we become more geographically distributed it becomes even more important for us to think outside the inbox and leverage more collaborative capabilities.

I encourage you to thing about how your daily work habits contribute to locking up knowledge. How might you leverage collaboration capabilities to set information free? Have you shifted from an email centric mindset to more collaborative tools? If so, what benefits have you seen?

I would love to get your thoughts on this.

Set Them Free, Stay In Radio Contact

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:24:00 +0000

Short post today and here I go again preaching for the continued demise of command and control management.

I currently have the pleasure of managing, and I use that word lightly, the highest performing team I've ever had the good fortune to work with. They rock and I'm sure I would still have a full head of hair had we been together for my full career :-).

I believe the most important thing I can do for my team is to provide provide clear understanding of goals and set them free. We all need to have an understanding of the goals we are asked to accomplish. Once those goals are understood then give the team the freedom to execute and succeed as they see fit by using their unique skills and capabilities. If I decided to micromanage or control them then I've severely limited their creativity and limited their growth. If I chose to direct them each step of the way then I've made the statement, "I do not trust you to meet the goal". Set them free.

Set them free, but stay in contact, provide guidance, offer advice when needed, and remove barriers. As a manager of a team, I should put most of my focus into supporting my team, and I'm not there yet. It is my responsibility to provide them with opportunities for growth and let them enjoy accolades of a job well done. Set them free but don't go silent on them. Teams need your support, not so much in my case, and teams do need to know you are there to support them when the need arises.

Just remember, as a manager, you are only one person. When you provide your team with the support they need and deserve then you create a situation that allows them to blast past your own personal limitations. Never underestimate the exponential value a team can provide the organization, whew, makes my head spin...

Support your team, praise your team, remove barriers, place your team in the spotlight, and set them free!!!

Felling Trees, One Forest At A Time

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:47:00 +0000

Do you ever feel like you are cutting down a forest of trees by walking up, taking a swing, walking to the next tree, taking a swing, and repeating as necessary? It will take a long time before you get the satisfaction of felling that first tree. Everyone I speak to these days, including myself, seems to have this feeling. Too many trees, not enough time to focus on a single tree, lots of waste cycling between each tree, unable to get into a focused rhythm.

We're responding to the do more with less mantra (my thoughts on that here) by running around from task to task, from project to project, from commitment to commitment. Is that how you feel? Is your stress level on the increase? Do you routinely have a sense of accomplishment?

We keep fooling ourselves with the myth of multitasking and believe that switching from task to task is productive. I don’t think we really believe that to be true but we sure act like it. There have been many examples of the productivity issues with multitasking including:

We greatly accelerate our completion rate if we will just slow down and focus on the task at hand. Determine the most important task, stay focused, enter the "zone", and knock it off the list. Sure, other tasks remain undone, for the moment. Celebrate your accomplishment and get ready for the next one. It is true that we don’t always have the luxury of maintaining focus on one task or project but we do have the ability to prioritize and keep our focus on those with the greatest impact.

Constantly moving from tree to tree provides little or no incremental value. Stop walking around wildly swinging your axe in the forest. Focus on one tree and put it on the ground.

Image by Tambako the Jaguar

If I Just Had...

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:43:00 +0000

Have you ever let the absence of something block your passion?

I think back to situations when I had little in material resources but was able to accomplish so much. My passion was greater than my need for "things". It is troubling that as we begin to have more resources and capabilities such as money, people or tools, we begin to view these as prerequisites to success.

Think back to a situation where you had little in the way of resources but you had a truck load of passion! Did the lack of resources deter you from accomplishing your goal? As a matter of fact, that lack of resources did something that is far more powerful. That lack of resources became a constraint that forced you to be more innovative in accomplishing your goal. Could it be we've allowed the abundance of resources to dilute our creativity and innovation? Is that inability to gain the resources we "need" become an excuse for not trying, for not innovating? Are innovation and creativity being sacrificed at the alter of need?

For fun I perform in an alternative rock band and we do all original music. It is interesting that all of the music we create is done so within the confines of our 8 note music system. We've been writing new material for years and not once has any of us said, "if we only had a few more notes, then we could make it big!". Should we stop trying to create new music because we can't have more notes? No! Those 8 notes represent constraints much like those we find in our day to day work. With sufficient passion these constraints become the fuel for innovation. We have to push our creativity to the extreme to continue to create something new out of the same 8 notes every other musician has.

What are your constraints? How can they be used to fuel the fire rather than an excuse for not trying? Are you going to let a lack of something snuff out your passion? Are you going to sit around and lament, "if I just had...."?

Do More Of The Right With Less

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:26:00 +0000

It is a tired old phrase. It creates great frustration. It strikes terror in our hearts. It is the phrase "we must do more with less". It is increasingly heard in tough economic times. Is this a phrase you have heard in the past few months?

Lean times often finds that our ranks have been thinned but, the work has not been thinned. Time to pick up more duties! Time to become more valuable! Do you become more valuable? Are you able to sustain the level of output and quality you are known for when your duties increase? Doing more with less often:

Results in reduced quality because of insufficient skills and reduced focus.
Increases stress because of a lack of skills. Employees may fear others believe they are not competent.
Morale is diminished which effects teammates similarly.
Throughput across the organization is reduced.

Rather than doing more with less, we should reevaluate our strategy, goals, and activities. Identify what can be done with excellence, what puts our company into a stronger position, and what will ignite passion for our employees.

This clarity becomes a guiding light for the organization and employees. Having a clarity of purpose allows employees to evaluate their activities in light of what is most important for the organization. This clarity will provide:

Laser focus across the organization for meeting goals.
Employees can make good decisions about appropriate work activities.
Employees believe they can make a difference.
Employees identify activities of no value and eliminate them.
Teamwork improves because employees have a sense of purpose.
Customer satisfaction is increased.

Doing the right thing inspires passion. Doing the right thing eliminates waste. Doing the right thing breaks through all barriers. Doing the right thing is should be the norm and there is no better time than now to reassess goals and make sure we are doing more of the right with less.

Killing Me Softly With My Job

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 12:45:00 +0000

Are you slowly killing yourself at work? I don't mean working an abundance of hours to the point of exhaustion. I do mean working in an environment where you are depressed, stressed about work, worried about the economy, worried about your continued employment, and a multitude of other workplace stresses that impacts your emotional well-being. These stresses are real and prevalent in the current economic climate.

I'm finishing a book called Emotional Intelligence and one chapter that made an impression on me, the book is a must read, is about the impact our emotional state has upon physical health. The author provides studies that show emotional well-being has a measurable impact on our health. Positive emotional health increases our physical well-being.

If we believe that our emotional health will impact our physical health then would you agree that emotional health impacts our ability to do our job and our value to the company? The book Happy Hour Is 9 To 5 shows that companies that focus on their most important resource, their people, routinely have higher revenue than those that do not. Take a look at this quote:

"According to Denison Consulting, unhappy companies in their study had an average annual sales growth of 0.1% from 1996–2004. Happy companies grew their sales by 15.1% in the same period."

15% increase in sales? Can you think of any investment in your organization that can provide that potential rate of return?

Emotional health is an important factor in your physical well-being and can help your company's bottom line. Here are just a few benefits of focusing on employee well-being:

Energy - Employees have increased energy when they are not depressed or stressed.
Innovation - Employees are more willing to "think outside the box" and are less concerned about the consequences of failure.
Teamwork - Employees reach out to each other and build a stronger network that they can tap into.
Recruitment - The success and excitement of of an organization that focuses on well-being is contagious and attracts talent.
Adaptive - Employees are more resilient to change, embrace the fact that change does occur, and take hold of new opportunities presented by change.

We all have the ability to influence the well-being of ourselves and our peers. Stop a moment and reflect upon what you can do to improve your emotional health. Think about the ability you have in improving the well-being of your colleagues.

Life is fraught with challenges and does not necessarily follow the course we would like. What we do have control over is our response and how we react to those challenges.

A Christmas Story

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:45:00 +0000

This will not be a normal Capability Development post. It concerns an event that recently took place that I would like to share.

I live on Lake Norman in Duluth, Georgia which has a typical migrating population of Canadian geese. In late spring of this year, we saw that a goose had become entangled in a nylon "wire" on a property across the inlet from our home.

Racing across the way, we found that the goose had repeatedly wrapped the nylon around his wing. It was wound so tightly that we used wire cutters to remove the wire. The wing was badly damaged and probably broken.

Over the next month we realized the goose would be unable to fly. We endearingly named him Gimp Goose.

We wondered what would happen when the urge to migrate called out. Since geese mate for life, what would happen between the mating pair? During early summer the flock left for their summer home. They left, including Gimp Goose's mate. Gimp Goose, unable to follow, became a permanent resident of Lake Norman.

Throughout the summer Gimp Goose lived a solitary existence with no other Canadian Geese in sight. Gimp Goose tried to hang with the six white ducks that live here, but they never quite "bonded".

Jump to the second week of December. My wife just happened to be out in the yard when she heard a flock of geese honking as they began to land in the lake. The migrant geese were returning to their winter home. One of the geese took a beeline to Gimp Goose. Gimp Goose took a beeline to her. They both began to croon, began to sway their necks, swam to each other, and continued dancing and honking. They did this for almost fifteen minutes.

After a long summer, she was back. Gimp Goose's mate was back. It has been three days since they reunited and they have been inseparable.

In the grand scheme of things this is a inconsequential event but for us, it has become a touching Christmas story.

Here's to reuniting with someone you care for during this Holiday Season!

Moving The Small Rocks

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 02:38:00 +0000

Part of my job involves helping teams identify potential improvements in the way they do work. A lot of focus revolves around eliminating waste, implementing more productive practices, and increasing collaboration in an effort to increase stakeholder value. This, in turn, causes changes in the way work is accomplished. Change is difficult for most organizations. Recognizing this we often create a "program" and rally everyone around the program to implement change and this can sometimes lead us into trouble.

How about this example:
We've identified the silver bullet that will solve our ills. It will be difficult to implement, will take years, and will be impacting to everyone. We will support you, we will provide training, we will provide mentoring, we will provide celebrations. This is one of our top goals." All the stars align, communication is provided, and in a flurry of activity begin to spend more time implementing the silver bullet and less time focusing on what is truly important.

Sound familiar?

You might call this the big rock approach to change and it can create all manner of dysfunctional behavior. The worst of which is an alignment of all employees around the silver bullet with such force that they lose sight of the primary goal of the company. Too often the big rock becomes the goal.

I suggest using the big rock to help set the "fence posts". (Setting the fence posts is a phrase a colleague of mine likes to use when speaking about phase or iteration goals.) Use the big rock to drive the overall road map and create a course of action. Have those impacted by change to help define and move the small rocks. Move each small rock one at a time; each accomplishing an incremental goal; each contributing to the completion of the big rock goals. At some point, the team looks back at all of the completed small rocks and, drum roll, they've accomplished the goals of the big rock.

Focus on the small rocks to eliminate the risk that everyone will become overly focused on the big rock. Move enough small rocks and the big rock goal will be met.

Plan around the big rocks but execute by moving the small rocks.

Photo by: Randen L Pederson

Are You A Union Shop?

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:52:00 +0000

Do you find yourself in an organization that is functionally aligned? Where each “function” has a specific role? Where your ability to be the best you can be at your function is valued higher than ensuring project success? Welcome to a union shop.

My definition of a union shop is one in which each employee has a well defined role and their behaviors are driven by a reward system that is functionally focused. Indeed, it is considered bad form for a person to step outside the “bounds” of their job function. “No, you can’t do that… Your job is to deliver the light bulb, not screw it in.”

Have you experienced the behaviors associated with functional alignment? You find a business analyst spending entirely too much time creating “perfect” requirements, and we all know that perfect requirements stand the test of time and need not change. Any examples of analysis paralysis where too much time is spent crafting a perfect design, a design that takes much more time than if we had just implemented and tested multiple solutions to prove the best design?

The union shop mentality is prevalent in software development organizations that follow the waterfall methodology. It is this waterfall heritage that makes it so very difficult to transition to a more iterative software development practice. Implementing the mechanics of an iterative development methodology is one thing, changing the behaviors of software development practitioners is something entirely different and much more difficult. Changing those behaviors require focus on:

A reward system where team success is valued more than individual success.
Success of the project is valued higher than perfectly executing a particular function.
Patience to recognize that change is difficult and must be supported with training, mentoring, listening, and constant communication.
Mistakes will be made and should be expected, so plan for it, accept it, and do not allow mistakes to knock you off the goal.
Celebrate each success.
Use every opportunity to show the business that the team’s focus is on providing market value.

Union shops provide an organizational structure that tends to focus more on functional success than market value. Break down the functional walls, build teams focused on delivering market value, allow your employees to swarm around a challenge and decide for themselves how best to meet the need. Support them and set them free.

Shoot For The Moon

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:59:00 +0000

When President Kennedy committed the US to putting men on the moon by the end of the decade, the 60's, do you think anyone really know how that goal would be accomplished? Did they understand all of the challenges they might face? Did they wonder how they would get from here (Earth) to there (the Moon)? Did they allow their uncertainty and fears limit their ability to meet the goal? Though it would be a difficult journey, they believed in the mission, trusted each other, had faith in their abilities, and knew they could rise to the occasion and accomplish the goal asked of them.

I find that teams moving from one software development methodology, say Waterfall, to another, say some form of iterative development, is akin to heading up a mission to the moon. There is resistance to reaching for the moon and a strong desire to keep to the comforts of the Earth.

Iterative development has proven its ability to more quickly react to and meet market needs. Like the engineers in the space program, software development teams find the transition to be a difficult journey. It is difficult to try something new when there is such great comfort in the ways of the past. A transition to iterative development will take a willingness to try new things, to make mistakes, and to accept the uncertainty that exists in software development.

As with the mission to the moon, iterative software development is a challenge for many teams but one that focuses on delivery of early value while maintaining focus on the overall goal. An iterative team is focused on meeting today's needs. Tomorrow's needs will be here soon enough and will be different than we might expect today. Maintaining focus on today's objectives will provide the foundation for solving tomorrow's problems. Plan for the long term, focus on success for the short term, take time to discover, take time to fail, take time to unleash creativity and innovation.

Can we accept the challenge? Can we accept that change is uncomfortable? Can we trust in ourselves and each other? Can we rise to the occasion and shoot for the moon?

Photo by Mike Baird

Where Have All The Children Gone

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:13:00 +0000

I was in a class recently where it was stated that by the age of 40 we only have 5% of the creativity we did when we were kids. I heard myself say "that really sucks". Everyone else heard it as well since I let it escape from my, obviously, uncreative noggin.

Do we accept this fate?

Children have this innate ability to look at the world through unvarnished eyes. They have an honesty and openness that is refreshing. Over time, they learn the rules, abide by the rules, become aware of the opinions of others, act and speak as others would have them, and start to conform thus losing a great amount of their wonderful creativity. Most organizations contribute to this continued "dulling" of our minds by creating a conforming mass of Stepford Wives through a constant barrage of:

"You need to follow the policy."
"No, that's not the way we do things here."
"You'll have to get permission to try that."
"But, we can't do that here."

There is an implication that organizational policies have it all figured out. We just need people to follow the rules and everything will turn out wonderfully. Today's organizations must be more adaptive than ever before. Yes, policies and rules are important but they were not originally designed to limit our solutions. Let's not allow them to kill creativity.

Like no other time in our history, we must create organizations that are adaptive, allow workers to swarm around a problem, and have the freedom to use all of their creative potential. Provide the goal, let 'em loose, demolish command and control, and see what happens when we bring the children back.

A few references that have shaped my thinking on this:

Power to the People

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:21:00 +0000

How do you drive change in your organization? Your organization is continually looking for needed changes, right? How do you decide what to change?

Our world is very different than that which existed at the end of the industrial revolution. Workers in the industrial revolution had tasks to do, they were just one more cog in a larger machine. The command and control approach to management was prevalent. The “company” made decisions about how best to manufacture and workers executed their piece of the process. Little thought was required or expected from the worker.

A funny thing happened, companies realized the worker is in the best position to understand how to do their job and how best to improve their abilities. I've recently been studying the principles of the lean manufacturing approach as seen in the Toyota Production System. The lean approach encourages the worker to continually look for ways to improve the process. Toyota recognized that their workers had far more to contribute to the bottom line than just muscle power. Their workers are not only experts in their particular job but also experts in eliminating the waste that may be present in their work. These principles have resulted in dramatic improvements in productivity as compared to the struggling US auto industry.

Software development has historically been driven by practices that might be "from the book". Whatever that book might be - waterfall, agile, RUP, etc. As with manufacturing, the processes around software development are well known but it is the practitioner that is in the best position to determine how to apply and use those processes. Software development is full of fluid and dynamic activities and there is no "one size fits all". So, who is in the best position to decide how to apply the best practices of a software development process..... I'm sure you guessed right. The People.

There is a body of work on lean approaches for software development. The most notable proponents of lean principles for software development are Mary and Tom Poppendieck as they have written about in Lean Software Development. As with the Toyota Production System, the principles of lean software development encourage team members to continually look for ways to improve processes and eliminate waste.

There is a term used within the context of the Toyota Production System called Kaizen (continuous improvement). It is a concept that places power with the people. It promotes a spirit of eliminating waste, continuously making incremental improvements, having the worker improve their own processes while staying focused on the larger goals of the organization.

Let's encourage our team members to drive change, to continually look for improvements, and provide support for accomplishing those changes. Power to the people.Technorati Tags: kaizen, lean, poppendieck, toyota production system, software development

Commanders Intent

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:31:00 +0000

Organizations that excel in today's competitive environment are those that quickly respond to market change. Do those organizations figure everything out up front? Do they create a detailed plan from start to finish and stick to the plan at all costs? Do they ignore unexpected situations or changes that come up during project execution?

Recently I started a book called Made to Stick. It has a story illustrating a concept called commander's intent. This military term describes a technique that recognizes it is impossible to create plans for every eventuality on the battlefield. As Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard von Moltke said, "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy."

Commander's intent suggests, rather than attempting to plan for all eventualities, the commander provides clear goals understood by everyone. Understanding the commander's intent provides each soldier with the ability to make their own decisions when encountering unplanned or unexpected situations. On the battlefield, it would be less than satisfactory if every soldier checked back with "headquarters" for every decision.

Software development organizations face a similar situation. In today's fast changing markets, it is unreasonable to think that an up front set of requirements and project plan will survive intact. It should be no surprise that software development efforts rarely, if ever, go as originally planned. There are too many variables.

As the solution comes to fruition the customer changes their mind.
The market changes.
A competitors is first to market and we must differentiate ourselves.
Revenue forecasts have changed and impacts the ROI.
Key resources leave.
And the list goes on.

If we understand the commander's intent then changes and unexpected situations will be less impacting. We will not become paralyzed and will use our clear understanding of the goal to drive our decisions. Software development professionals are - professionals. We have the skills, passion, and tenacity required to meet our goals. Let's use the commander's intent to drive our decisions and not allow the swirl of the "battlefield" to take us off our task.

This approach requires that we build the skills required for us to be in a position to make those "in the fight" decisions. We do this with training, experience, and a passion for excellence. We have the experience and skills required to make good decisions as we meet the goal.

The old command and control approach does not allow us to react and respond to new situations quickly enough. If we spend our time "checking back in with headquarters" then our competition will kill us. Empower the team, they will direct their own actions to meet the goal. No need to "check back in", they know the commander's intent.

Just Know - How Might We Collaborate

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:20:00 +0000

Over the weekend, my wife and I had a conversation in which we didn't need to complete our sentences or thoughts as we moved the conversation forward. We have built such a strong relationship that we just know. Does this represent a perfect state of collaboration? (I need to stop and credit my friend Mike Cottmeyer in raising my awareness of activities unrelated to software development that may illustrate principles that are related... See his recent post called Peace, Love, and Agility? )

Recently, I've been learning about the challenges of using offshore resources to augment software development. How does one maintain collaboration in light of the many barriers that may exist in an offshore partnership? Does success in delivering customer value depend upon the ability to create a collaborative environment?

Collaboration creates trust, purpose, a sense of value, and a passion for the delivery of customer value. Successful collaboration spans all disciplines of the software development lifecycle. Collaboration exists between customers, systems analysts, designers, developers, testers, technical writers, and any other stakeholder that has a material interest in the project.

Successful iterative development requires a level of teamwork not seen in previous development approaches such as waterfall. A particular skill set cannot just focus on doing only the tasks required by that particular role. For example, the systems analyst works closely with the business representative as you would expect. But, they will also work with other development team members throughout the project. Handing off "requirements" to development doesn't cut it. A systems analyst will be engaged throughout the project and will work with architects, developers, and testers. All skill sets can benefit from a better understanding of the needs of other skill sets involved in the development effort. Developers might learn better approaches for building test suites from the QA team. The systems analyst might be in a position to create richer and more complete requirements if they ask QA to help define exception conditions. This level of collaboration builds great systems that meet customer needs.

Have you experienced excitement that exists when working with a team that has gelled? See, Peopleware by DeMarco and Lister for information related to teams that gel. If you have experienced this, then you understand the power of collaboration. I've had the pleasure of working in teams that have gelled and it is an awesome sight to behold. The team acts as one with a singularity of purpose and drive. Team members understand how to bring value to the project, they understand how to help their teammates, and they are able to create a cadence of delivery that is exponentially greater than teams that have not gelled - those that do not collaborate.

Teams that collaborate, just know.

Spreading the Virus

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:28:00 +0000

I'm reading Lean Product and Process Development which is by Allen C. Ward and was posthumously published by a number of his colleagues. It is a thought provoking read and contains this quote:

"Unless you keep spreading the virus, the immune system of the organization will reject it"
-- Jim Luckman

This got me thinking about how difficult it is to implement change and the resistance an organization's "immune system" presents to any change. As change leaders we routinely underestimate this resistance. Even when we feel there is a compelling message that speaks to the heart of why we must change (see Kotter's Heart of Change). Most of us cling to that which is comfortable and in the absence of guidance, commitment, and persistent communication we will revert to old but comfortable behaviors. In effect, the organization attacks this interloper of change. Even when change is successful many of the new behaviors are a mutation of what was intended and may include elements of the past -this is not necessarily a bad thing.

There are examples of the human body rejecting what is considered to be an invader even though the invader may provide benefit. Organ transplants can fall into this category. The body is unaware an organ is failing or of the consequences and treats the new organism as a virus that needs to be eliminated. Similarly, an organization will resist change because it is unaware of the need and unwilling to consider the benefits of change. Organizations are different in that we can communicate the need for change. But we still must overcome the "immune system".

A number of factors contribute to the resistance to change:

Fear of change - We all find comfort in our existing routines. We understand how to be successful and accomplish our goals within the current framework. Change requires us to reset our expectations and learn new techniques and tools for being successful. For some this is exciting, for others it is merely terrifying.

Lack of understanding - A clear picture has not been painted for the consequence of not changing nor of the benefits. A key component of creating this message is listening. A convincing argument for change cannot be created if there is a lack of understanding of the real problems impacting an organization.

Legacy of Behavior - I'm not sure I have the best term for this but this relates to the entrenched behaviors of an organization. Our behaviors are so ingrained that we are unable to see how we might do things differently. This often drives mutation of the original change. We end with new behaviors that are not exactly as planned. In some instances this is appropriate but sometimes we need a clean break from the past.

Introduction of new behaviors require tremendous effort. Open and honest dialog may be the biggest challenge because it requires a desire to listen and be empathetic for those undergoing change. Change requires commitment that changes are needed and those changes will be accepted and embraced.The rejective powers of the immune system are strong and patient. Change takes time, strength, honesty, persistence, and patience.

Here's to the virus!

Learning, Growing, Improving

noreply@blogger.com (Rick Austin) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:47:00 +0000

Learning, growing, and improving – this is part of our job responsibilities. It is at the heart of capability improvements since we are learning, growing, and improving the organization. If this is the approach taken to improve our organization then can’t we apply this same approach to our personal development?

As professionals we have to make a commitment to improving our productivity and quality of work. Improvements do not come simply from attending a class or reading a book. Improvements come from an internal desire to better ourselves and invest in ourselves – we have a passion for improving ourselves.

In many process improvements efforts, there will be many people willing to support change as long as someone “shows me how to do it”. It’s as if some magic elixir can be applied and everything changes, everything has been made better. Worthwhile change does not work that way – it requires hard work. "No, no, just let me take the magic potion!", you say. Personal and organizational improvements require a substantial commitment to make needed behavioral changes.

I’ve had the good fortune of working with a number of inspiring colleagues throughout my career. In every case, those that excel have focused substantial energies to their own growth. Teams that have this personal commitment to excellence, create an environment full of creativity, passion, and excitement.

Make the commitment. Make the change. Witness the magic that happens when you do.