I don’t remember where I heard the story about a truck driver named John Barstow. Nearly every day of his life he would drive down Main Street making his delivery to a local store. His goal was actually on 4th Street, which was a one way street and he needed to go about half a block in the wrong direction, so he would pass 4th and turn right on 5th Street, go around the block, and pull up in front of his destination.

One of these many deliveries days, something unexpected happened on the way to his drop off. As he approached 3rd Street, his delivery truck blew a tire. He had to pull over and, upon climbing out of his truck and inspecting the damaged tire, realized he needed to call a tow truck. Being close to his destination he decided to proceed the remaining block and call for help from the store where he made his deliveries. He continued on, passing the one-way 4th Street and turning right on 5th, as usual. He was halfway down the 5th Street, getting ready to turn right and circle back on to 4th, before he realized he could have taken 4th Street this time.

He was on foot.

The quantitative decision — the habit of going around the block to avoid a one way street — won out over a qualitative choice, that of taking a shorter route. We get used to set patterns and “business as usual.”

The technology industry is among a small set of disciplines that takes the consequence of making quantitative decisions to an extreme. Software and hardware are both progressing at a remarkable pace that is, if anything, accelerating. We see this every day as new technologies develop and old technologies evolve. The open source community is driving this effect to an even more frantic extreme, as hundreds of contributors pour their effort into a single product. It is, and always will be, impossible to totally keep up with the pace of change and the challenges of an evolving world.

It’s not enough to define our process or methodology and let it settle in. Yes, we absolutely need to have a clearly defined and adopted set of processes and procedures to ensure a good product. And, those processes and procedures need to become a part of our daily lives so that we don’t take shortcuts and miss important steps. But at the same time, it’s important to never let it become too rote. Watch out for doing something just because that’s the way it’s supposed to be done. Challenge yourself to find out how things can be improved on a daily basis.

Related posts:

1. Making Scrum work: Common failings in adopting Scrum
2. Quality assurance as a way of life
3. Scrum is not an agile methodology

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Let’s start at the beginning and reiterate this original statement from Schwaber and Beedle, the creators of Scrum:

Scrum is a management and control process that cuts through complexity to focus on building software that meets business needs. Scrum is superimposed on top of and wraps existing engineering practices, development methodologies, or standards.

Scrum is a process. One process, that must be taken and combined with other practices, methodologies and standards. A process does not, in and of itself, create a methodology and for this reason I say that “Scrum is not an agile methodology.” I might even go so far as to say “Scrum is not Agile,” but that’s misleading — because as a process, Scrum is compatible with and enhances agility, either taken as an “Agile methodology” or a general practice of being agile.

As Scrum has become more of a buzzword it runs into this dichotomy more often. I experience this frequently with my clients, where the dialogue goes something this this:

Me: “So, what methodologies do you follow?”

Client: “We use Scrum.”

At this point, I feel as if, say, I’d asked for a bowl of fruit and being given a bit of jam.

Me: “Yes, but that doesn’t answer my question since Scrum is a management process, not a methodology — do you use any development methodologies?”

This last is often poorly received. It’s at this point that I typically remind my client the reason I’m here is because they’re having trouble, and the reason is likely because of poor internal processes.

Methodology is a body of practices, procedures, and rules used by those who work in a discipline or engage in an inquiry. In the context of software and systems engineering, it specifically addresses how we manage the conceptualization, specification and delivery of the software. Scrum does not cover any of this. Scrum is just a management process that can be applied to pretty much any business situation.

A good methodology is going to provide a framework in which requirements capture and management is specified. Project parameters and management criteria, such as reporting structure, authority and responsibility, status management and progress management will be specified. Program assessment goals and objectives will be specified. Assessing organizational capability and planning growth or acquisition may be needed. How requirements are stated, what depth they must go to and what standards must be met, and how to manage change in requirements will be specified. Likewise, quality assurance processes will be set forth (for example, audits and controls will be put in place to ensure requirements meet agreed upon standards). Testing of the product will be standardized as well: What techniques will be used, what are the goals of the test program, and what will the output of the test program be? User acceptance standards should be specified and usability testing programs implemented. Transitional phase operations, often overlooked until “after we’re done,” need to be planned and prepared for — and then executed. Scheduling, resource planning and budget management are of course a key component of any well-run program. And through it all, meaningful measurement criteria must be established and communicated to stakeholders.

Scrum touches only the tip of the iceberg in regard to much of this. This is intentional: Since it’s designed to work compatibly with just about any methodology, Scrum explicitly avoids putting too many constraints in place. More than anything it’s intended to refine an existing methodology and process, improving its productivity through streamlining.

Of course, sometimes Scrum is all you need. A sufficiently senior team, comfortable with the problem domain, combined with a project of reasonable size and a business that’s willing to launch without a clear end-point can work. But more often than not, one of these four essential elements is missing. Perhaps the business isn’t comfortable with an undefined, vague end-point (they may want to know what the budget is, or have a hard launch date). Perhaps the team is new, hence the necessity for more structure and measurement. It’s a rare situation that we can dive into a project with no methodology, only the Scrum process, and come out the other side in a favorable position. Sometimes it will work, but it’s a gamble — and often a gamble that the business isn’t willing to bet on.

I’d like to stop hearing “we use Scrum” in response to the question “what’s your methodology?” It’s great to say, “Rational Unified Process with Scrum to streamline it” or perhaps “XP with a Scrum wrapper so we have better visibility,” but please don’t try to deliver software with “just Scrum.”

Related posts:

1. Making Scrum work: Common failings in adopting Scrum
2. Navigating the methodology maze
3. Rational Scrum

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Related posts:

1. Articulating the value of training
2. Workshop and training topic survey
3. Finding strategic learning funds

1. Quality Assurance is responsible for auditing and ensuring all aspects of work meet agreed upon quality standards.
2. Therefore, if QA is also responsible for Structured Software Testing, who is going to audit the testing team for compliance and quality of deliverables?

Quality assurance is the “cop” that makes sure we all do our job right. It has the authority to say “hold it, something’s not right.” Testing is the organization that performs regression analysis on a product to see if it works right. The skills required for these two disciplines are dramatically different — as much as business management and programming.

The value in a QA organization is that it is independent. It focuses entirely on ensuring quality across the organization. Would you want development, project management, requirements management, configuration management, verification & validation, customer service or any other project discipline to report to QA? Why should testing be any different? The bottom line is simply that if testing reports to quality assurance its independence is compromised — the organization becomes vested in representing testing in the best possible light and, just possibly, taking shortcuts or letting a few things slide.

I realize that a large segment of the industry seems to use a different terminology, lumping testing under quality assurance. It’s unfortunate, because doing so handicaps both organizations. It’s important to realize the difference between the activities of ensuring quality in a project (largely focused on standards of process), and fault testing (activities that perform hands on fault detection and diagnosis).

The activities of quality assurance focus on things like quality assurance plans, project audits, requirement audits, checklists, enforcing standards and process, checking the results and deliveries of different teams, and discovering discrepancies between requirements, project artifacts, and functional goals. Quality assurance, as a general rule, spends more time looking at what the project teams are doing, performing audits on the work generated by each team, and figuring out what hasn’t been done according to agreed upon standards.

Testing, on the other hands, focuses on test planning and management, test case development, test execution, regression analysis, performance testing and defect diagnosis. These are “hands on the software” activities and much more akin to programming than auditing. Indeed, with today’s testing tools and complicated programming environments it can be a very “in the code” experience.

Keep your organization healthy and your teams focused on their competencies. Don’t disregard the value in centralizing authority for specific roles with specific teams — it lets them do their job well, without distractions and without muddying the water with conflicting interests.

Related posts:

1. Exposing the enterprise to risk: Who decides what not to test?
2. Quality assurance as a way of life
3. Scrum is not an agile methodology

Steve Muench, PhD, asserts that “Training is one of the chief methods of maintaining and improving intellection capital. Because of this, an organization’s training can affect its value.” (Tech Transfer Newsletter, 2004). In fact, the market-to-book value of companies significantly correlates with training as a percentage of payroll according to Bassi and Van Buren (1999). Furthermore, numerous studies have found that the organizational benefits of training are extensive. According to one, by Loewenstein and Spletzer (1998), “the effect of an hour of training on productivity growth is about five times as large as the effect on wage growth.” Research by Bartel (2000) also finds that employers, not employees, ”reap almost all the returns to company training,” going on to conclude that return on investment generally ranges from 100 to 200 percent ROI.

So, the evidence is out there — yet, why are companies cutting back when they should be investing?

One possible reason is a lack of good communication regarding the value of training itself. This is particularly true in small and mid-sized companies. The large ones seem to have it figured out: They do the analysis and understand how important “sharpening the saw” is. When asked if Amgen had made any cuts to training given the economy, CEO Kevin Sharer said, “We haven’t cut back on that at all. Developing people is the future of the company.” (Fortune, 2009).

But smaller organizations don’t have the maturity to understand the importance of training.

Training is investing in the future. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to simply ask the powers-that-be whether they want to make that investment or whether they’d rather remain stagnant while the competition passes them by. In a numbers-driven world, it comes down to dollars and cents more often than not. This means getting out the trusty spreadsheet and doing some math to show its value.

It’s not hard. The key is keeping your eye on the “line of sight” from training to profitability. More than anything, this means making sure that training is directly applicable to the bottom line. Training must become a resource, just like any other cost-oriented tool or expense. There’s no problem buying new software if it leads to profitability. There’s no problem hiring new staff when it means more revenue down the road. So, make the case for training: Demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) that a training purchase will generate, in terms of revenue to the business.

ROI analysis can easily be applied to training expenditures. It’s the same process as any other expense: Does the investment make sense and is it necessary to meet the organizational goals? Sometimes it’s an easy analysis to make. For example, if your company is currently losing money because of a poor process or incorrect practice, compare the current loss to the cost of correcting the problem (that is, the training that will fix the situation). Is the cost of training less than the ongoing loss (keep in mind that the loss is cumulative, continuing to accrue every year until it’s fixed)?

More complicated ROI analysis needs to focus on the financial value of your organization’s goals, and break that value down along the “line of sight” to the training investment. For example, let’s say your product launch is valued at $1 million, but half of that valuation is on the assumption you deliver a specific, key feature. That means your direct key performance indicator (KPI) for that feature is $500,000. Let’s further say that your team can only deliver two-thirds of the desired functionality without training. This means that the training program’s relevance to the KPI is about $166,000. Will the training itself cost less than $166,000? If so, you’ve got a business case to do the training. (You can round out the case with your ROI figure: If the training costs $20,000 then your ROI would be about 830%, which is a pretty darned incredible return on investment!)

If you’d like a more scientific, in-depth study of ROI methods, take a look at my article Should Training be an Integral Part of a Project Budget to Increase Project Profitability?, featured on the leading PM site My Project Management Expert.com. There’s a lot more research and some discussion of current ROI methods, as well as a couple of good examples.

Related posts:

1. Should Training be an Integral Part of a Project Budget to Increase Project Profitability?
2. Finding strategic learning funds
3. What do you mean, SQA isn’t testing?

Related posts:

1. Scrum workshop
2. Should Training be an Integral Part of a Project Budget to Increase Project Profitability?

One such tool is comindwork.com, a fabulously rich project management software as a service (SaaS) site. While not right for everyone or for every situation it’s definitely worth taking a look at.

Comindwork combines over 250 project management related capabilities under one roof, yet does it with a web interface that is, by and large, a breeze to use. Some of the strengths of the service include traditional project management tools, knowledge management, collaboration tools, information sharing and versioning, and both agile and traditional waterfall management tools (e.g.: think Gantt).

The entry point is easy, and that’s another strength for comindwork: A small team can get started for somewhere around $20 a month (for teams of 10 or fewer, it’s $1 per day that you actually use the service — if nobody logs in, it’s no charge). This offers up a wealth of really advanced tools at a fraction of the cost of most large scale management infrastructure. For companies that don’t have a system in place, it’s easy to give comindwork a spin.

Here are a few of the things I like about comindwork.

It all starts with the personal dashboard. I’m a huge believer in personal (meaning, customized and personally relevant) dashboards, especially if they follow the basic principle of “Getting Things Done” methodologies. Distraction is bad, focus is good:

With the project dashboard, you can:

1. Get a bird-view on all activities where you are involved, see who changed what and when
2. See your nearest milestones
3. Check team members’ status and mood
4. Easily access detailed project-specific dashboards

It offers both traditional (meaning, typically, “large scale”) project management and agile management philosophies living under one roof. At first glance I was taken aback by any system that can claim to offer this mix of tools, but comindwork manages to pull it off. On the traditional side, there are Gantt charts and round-trip import and export of Microsoft Project files, not to mention a whole host of reporting capabilities. On the agile end of the spectrum, to-do lists, tasks and very easy time tracking support simple progress monitoring. Unfortunately, burndown charts have yet to make an appearance, although there’s enough information available that they may not be entirely necessary.

Knowledge management and collaboration are central to the product. Blogs, to-do lists, milestones and business wiki support which codify and share tacit knowledge are tightly integrated into the project. In fact, one of comindwork’s strengths is that so many services are so tightly integrated. For example, linked business wiki entries, tasks and time commitments can be shared and kept up-to-date, with progress being reflected in round-trip Gantt tracking in Project. Notifications of all activity take place automatically, sending out instant email messages or daily digests that summarize project activity.

One of the problems I’ve run into with customers that have no pre-existing system is simply keeping track of all the project artifacts and versions of each. With email flying everywhere, documents being authored, and half the team not knowing how to use source management repositories, how can you hope to keep track of every artifact the team produces? I like to implement a policy of “email doesn’t exist,” but this means you need a tool that’s going to support the policy.

In other words, if someone wants to get something done, it should be in a system, not flying around in email. The idea of half a dozen versions of a document living on everyone’s desktop is just unacceptable to me. Comindwork provides file versioning and drag-and-drop upload. This makes it possible to implement the “email doesn’t exist” policy, and comindwork does a great job of delivering an easy to use tool:

Having a convenient and ubiquitous place to store project artifacts makes it easy for the team to share, manage, and collaborate. Comindwork put enough effort into the interface that it’s not painful:

1. Create a convenient tree-structure of your documents
2. Make common actions on a set of files (mass-delete, mass-move)
3. Provide comments to any file version
4. Versions are stored automatically whenever you upload a file with the same name. Check all revisions and easily revert if required
5. Use drag & drop area for native multiple files upload

You can even email files directly to a folder in your comindwork project.

For more demanding projects, you can design custom workflows to support the security, policies and customer demands of the project. This is an essential tool in my mind. Any project management solution needs to be able to grow with the project. Custom workflow makes it possible:

You can create graphical representation of your business process, modify the process with appropriate business rules and make sure your project is enforcing necessary policy:

1. Define, control and track states and transitions in your business process
2. Encourage process automation and standardization
3. Break your business process into easy to follow step-by-step workflow diagram
4. Reconfigure your business process as needed
5. Clearly define your business process and avoid miscommunication and inconsistency

If you’ve been casting about looking for how to get project tracking off the ground, take the quick tour and see what you think. It’s not a panacea that will fit all project’s needs, but it is a very solid tool that’s been seeing a lot of success lately.

If you decide it’s not for you, take a look at Atlassian’s JIRA too. JIRA is by far my favorite project management tool, especially if you’re agile-oriented. It requires a bit more of an up-front investment to get off the ground (both in terms of deployment and financial cost), but in my opinion, it’s one of very few first-rate tools available today. I’ve been trying to finish a detailed article on JIRA for some time now, so check back in a bit.

Related posts:

1. Whole teams

Indeed, a good question: What would we do without the hero?

Let’s flash forward a little ways. The hero has grown tired of the project and leaves. Fears abound that the project is doomed; there’s no way the team will survive without him. Concerns run deep, until the hero tells us he’ll stay on-board as a part-time consultant. Of course, he’s pretty busy these days — but, well, he’ll give us a “preferred” rate and show up at least a few days each week. He’ll keep the project afloat, no worries… in between getting his new company off the ground, of course. The one we’re funding with expensive consulting dollars. Either that, or the hero feels the project isn’t challenging enough, and leaves to greener pastures and more exciting projects, still promising to provide part-time support to keep the project afloat.

Either situation is dismal. Both demonstrate a project and a team that’s being held hostage to the whims of the “hero.”

The truth of the matter is simply this: Heroes are bad for the team, bad for the project and bad for the company.

Heroes are motivated by making themselves indispensable to the project by becoming irreplaceable. Most often this takes the form of information hoarding. The hero understands quite well that the established culture supports his role only while he and he alone can solve the project’s problems. One of the most effective ways to make sure this happens is to keep critical information away from the team. He’s the only expert in a few critical areas, and refuses to share his knowledge because it would be inefficient or too difficult to convey to someone else.

This leads to situations where the hero is subtly motivated to make sure there are instances in which only he can save the project. By ensuring the hero is the only one with the answers, the only one who can solve the problem at hand, he becomes indispensable — and, also, a tremendous project risk. Not only is everyone on the team constantly put in second-place to the hero, they also suffer as a whole when the hero is at his best. In times when the hero “shines,” the team is struggling to overcome roadblocks they haven’t been prepared to deal with. The project falls into jeopardy because the team cannot focus on a solution as a whole. Instead, the team churns in vain trying to contribute to the solution that only the indispensable hero can tackle.

Consequently, team morale is often a casualty of the hero culture. The continued failure of the team to exceed project goals, instead running into roadblock after roadblock, is tiring. Compound this with the fact that only one person, the hero, is enough of an over-achiever to solve the problems of a seemingly over-ambitious project and the team begins to become demoralized. Nobody likes to come face to face with failure repeatedly. Doing so in an environment that doesn’t provide the tools to better oneself is futile, and the hero team leader is certainly not motivated to fix the situation. In point of fact, most heroes tend to be pretty lousy team mentors, as being a hero implies putting oneself above everyone else. This means that while the hero has holed up inventing the next great solution, the team is left to its own devices. This vacuum of leadership provides a poor environment for anyone interested in advancing their skills and career, let alone seeking out a workplace that provides opportunity to learn.

Environments that support the hero become detrimental to the team. With the team leader focused on fulfilling the role of hero, collaboration suffers. Without a truly open, collaborative, information-sharing environment projects function at low efficiency (or, in some cases, fail to function completely as information is silo’d and isolated). In contrast, a healthy team elevates everyone, sharing information and skills, making the hero obsolete and making the entire team indispensable. A collaborative team rapidly turns into a formidable force when its collective attention turns to any problem — such teams turn out productive results faster and more efficiently. Each individual’s growth becomes a focal point, and the positive experience and knowledge gained from such a working environment becomes a lesson that each team member can share. In an open, collaborative, delegating environment the team lead will mentor the team; constantly challenging each person to take on more responsibility and grow into new opportunities. The best team leads are not information hoarders but information sharers, almost trying to engineer themselves out of the equation by teaching everything they know. In fact, this kind of leadership becomes truly indispensable because so few people are able to teach, motivate, mentor and unify a group of people toward a single purpose effectively. It’s not the information hoarded in the team lead’s head that makes him invaluable, it’s his ability to create a hyper-productive team and get things done.

As a project leader it’s important to confront the hero mentality head-on, making it clear that a hero is known for what it is: A detriment and risk to the project. Heroes are a liability. They are a bottleneck to progress, introduce the risk of “hostage projects,” generally make poor mentors and leaders, and always create specific situations that are harmful or dangerous to the project.

Unfortunately, putting an end to hero culture is often not an easy task. Many workplaces that embody hero culture don’t understand the problem — they think everything is “just fine,” and look to the hero as a critical resource, someone that has saved the project or the company time and again. Especially in young or inexperienced organizations, the difference between a supportive environment and a destructive one is unclear. The hero continues to operate above and apart from the team, often disregarding what little authority or direction he disagrees with. Inexperienced team members don’t know they should have a team lead that is mentor, guide and teacher. Organizations can be set up in such a way that the hero figure is empowered beyond reasonable boundaries, as often happens when clear structure and accountability is not in place. Combined, these problems can create the environment where a hero-mentality, embodied in someone who is ill-suited to create unity, lead, and mentor, ends up holding the project hostage. Most often, the evidence will point to the root problem: The team will constantly run into problems only one person can solve; team members will disagree with the hero and often not achieve consensus; much of the team will be “out of the loop,” particularly where the hero is involved; overall, the team will operate either apart from the hero or as individuals, not a cohesive group. Perhaps most indicative: The hero has sole authority over the project, yet little accountability. This is common in so-called “flat” organizations. I tend to avoid organizations that strive to be “flat,” as it’s really just a way of saying “we don’t want to deal with the fact that someone has to be in charge.” The simple truth is that leaders and managers need to have the authority to implement policy. Good leaders and managers will find ways to do it without using their authority unless necessary.

The easiest way to fight hero culture is from a position of authority, such as the project sponsor or project manager role. Given the advantage of authority, the hero can be given a choice: Either become a collaborative leader, or face what amounts to demotion as a new leader steps in. Some heroes won’t be able to make the right decision and will end up leaving the project — but others will embrace the idea of transforming themselves into a positive influence. I’ve seen this happen in a few cases and can honestly say the results were extraordinary. It could be that your hero’s spirit is willing but he doesn’t recognize there’s a problem. Likewise, it could be that your hero is struggling to move into a management role and needs guidance himself. Sometimes you’ll find out the hero was thrust into a leadership role without wanting it, and will happily step aside.

Whether tackling the problem from a position of authority, or from the inside, there are a few strategies that will help to ease the process. Developing a collaborative environment is a first step at ending the hero culture. This means putting in place tools and processes to share information, including an open information environment. Get information out of everyone’s head and into a tool that facilitates group review and commentary, such as a wiki or document repository. This can begin by emphasizing brainstorming sessions, collaborative documentation and group exercises to design and implement solutions. Often group development can be a productive tool, as well (some environments, such as Extreme Programming, push pair programming as one example — I don’t believe pair programming should always be put in practice, but this is a good example of when it makes sense). Project deliverables should also be managed in an open, collaborative environment. Use a project or task tracking system that lets everyone see what’s going on, what’s being delivered and how it’s being done, and most important: Focus on shared responsibility and avoid having unique specialties in favor of collaboration.

The team should also push for opportunities to advance skills and individual knowledge. Avoid “information silos,” or individuals who hold all the answers to a specific problem. It’s healthy for teams to have more than one expert in an area. Not only does it reduce risk, it also affords a more collaborative environment where two or more people can openly discuss a solution and work together on implementation. Any time you hear “only one of us knows how to do that,” immediately think in terms of how you can turn one into two or three people.

Demand a leader that is a good mentor. If the team hero isn’t up to the job, find someone who is — and be vocal about wanting an environment that supports growth. A healthy work environment includes ample opportunity to take on more responsibility. Any project manager that hears you want the responsibility will start casting about for a means to give it to you — and that usually means making sure the team leader can advance his team.

Ultimately, your work environment is in your hands. If you’re aware of the problem, identify it and and surface it — but do so in a constructive way. Have ideas and solutions ready to solve the problem, and emphasize the value it will bring to the team or organization. Focus on the facts as much as possible, like productivity gains the team will experience when it has greater bandwidth, and how getting to market more rapidly (and probably with a better, more robust product) will boost return on investment.

Related posts:

1. Making Scrum work: Common failings in adopting Scrum
2. Cohesive teams
3. Whole teams