NOOP.NL

Join Me at My New Site... Management 3.0!

2009-12-17T04:30:00+01:00

Today I've launched a new site dedicated to my upcoming book, which will be about managing agile organizations...

The site is meant to share and discuss ideas and resources about agile management. Some of those will make it into the book, and others will not. ;)

I will also use the new site to ask for feedback about materials I'm working on, hard choices I have to make for the book, and other mindwrecking problems.

Don't worry! My regular blog NOOP.NL will remain alive and kicking! Some of the blog posts I publish here will make it into the book, and (again) others will not.

So, if you just want to read my regular blog posts, you can simply stay here. But if you want to know more about how the book is evolving. Or if you want to discuss management of agile organizations in more detail, then go ahead and join the new site!

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6 Simple Questions for Bob Martin

2009-12-16T16:30:00+01:00

About one year ago I published a series of interviews called "5 Easy Questions". The answers to those questions came from Steve McConnell, Johanna Rothman, Alistair Cockburn, Robert L. Glass, Scott Berkun and many other celebrities.

Well, almost a year has gone by, and I thought "That was great. Let's do that again!" But this time with different people, and different questions...

Robert C. Martin is the author of many books on Agile Programming, UML, Object-Oriented Programming, and C++ Programming, his latest is called Clean Code. Uncle Bob is one of the software industry's leading authorities on Agile software development and is a regular speaker at international conferences. He is also CEO of ObjectMentor.

These are the six questions I asked Bob, and the answers that he gave me...

1. What has been the most effective motivator for you to do your best work ever?

I am motivated by an intense love of what I do. I love writing code. I want to do it all the time. And I want to do it as well as I possibly can.

I have other passions in my life as well. My family comes first and foremost. I love reading about science and technology. I love riding my bike through the woods on long winding trails. I also love to teach and speak. Put me on a stage in front of 10,000 people, and I'll have a ball with them, and they with me.

But in my professional life, I want to be the best programmer I can be. It's a matter of pride and passion.

2. What work has been the most difficult for you to delegate to others?

When it comes to my profession, I am a very happy delegator. There's little or nothing that I need to keep for myself. Indeed, I may delegate too much. But I prefer to err on the side of too much delegation, than too little.

3. How would you define the purpose or goal of your work?

To raise the bar for programmers, and to thereby help transform software development into a true profession. To teach, mentor, collaborate, and be taught by others who share that goal.

4. How have you tried to achieve excellence in the work you do?

Five ways: Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice.

Oh, and I also read a LOT.

5. Of which one of your failures are you most proud?

In 1983 I, and two others invented "The Electronic Receptionist". IT was a simple voice mail system that could forward calls to your current location and take messages if you couldn't be found. We built the hardware and software for this device. We tried desperately to market it. But we failed horribly. My company eventually dropped the patent application. Three months later, the patent was awarded to our competitor who has made gazillions on it. (sigh).

6. And which of your successes was completely undeserved?

I never had to practice speaking. I seem to have been born with an ability to get on stage and entertain a crowd. So for all my success at speaking, it's completely undeserved.

Well, these are the answers given by Uncle Bob. I hope you liked them.

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Management: A Deceptive Metaphor

2009-12-14T16:30:00+01:00

The observation from scientists is that rules in a complex system must be tuned for the system to be both stabilizing, lively and creative. A different set of rules leads to a different system, with different behavior.

In an influential paper, Stephen Wolfram, founder of the first journal on complex systems and known for his work on Wolfram Alpha (a “computational knowledge engine”), once proposed a classification scheme which divided cellular automata (mathematical systems consisting of “cells” that can be “dead” or “alive”) into four categories:

Class I: These are the systems with “doomsday rules”. No matter what pattern of living and dead cells you start out with, everything just dies within a few generations.
Class II: These systems are a bit more lively, but not much. Each initial pattern quickly collapses to a set of very boring static configurations.
Class III: These systems are at the opposite extreme: they are too lively. Each initial pattern in the system results in total chaos, with no configuration stabilizing and nothing being predictable.
Class IV: These are the systems with a set of rules not leading to dead, static or chaotic configurations. Emerging patterns in this category are lively, creative, often surprising, but also stabilizing.

It should not surprise you that, in dynamical systems, class I and II correspond to order, class III corresponds to chaos, and class IV (of which the Game of Life is a famous example) corresponds to complexity. Given that complexity is usually explained as the region between order and chaos, this means that class IV finds itself between II and III. (This strange way of using numbers makes Wolfram’s computational knowledge engine all the more surprising.)

The same universality classification can be used (or should I say abused?) as a metaphor when distinguishing complex systems themselves. Take the human brain, for example. A class I brain would be dead: nothing happens in the brain. A class II brain could be comatose or catatonic: a state of silence or predictable repetitiveness. A class III brain could be insane or epileptic: displaying unpredictable and uncontrollable behavior. And finally, a class IV brain would be the only one considered lively and healthy. To prevent scientists from classifying my brain as a class III specimen, I must stress that I use this categorization only in metaphorical way.

When classifying organizations some people make a similar metaphorical distinction between ordered, chaotic, and complex organizations. (I assume you will forgive me for ignoring the dead organizations for now.)

In ordered organizations no creativity and innovation are taking place. Nobody is empowered to make his own decisions. Bureaucracy dictates how all work is to be carried out, and fluctuations in organizational behavior are regular and predictable.
In chaotic organizations there may be plenty of creativity, but not in a structured and predictable way. There is no emerging order in the organization, meaning that people simply empower themselves in getting things done. And everyone does as he or she pleases.
Complex organizations find themselves right in between. In a complex organization, people cannot empower themselves. They are empowered by managers, who are faced with the challenge of finding a balance between empowerment and alignment, between self-organization and control.

It is said that a system at the balance between chaos and order, finds itself at the edge of chaos.

IMPORTANT: This classification of organizations is not scientific, but only a deceptively useful metaphor. I call it deceptive, because the metaphor has led some managers (including me) to conclude that they are responsible for finding the right balance between order and control. But as we shall see in some of my next blog posts, this conclusion is as common as it is wrong…

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Four Kinds of Trust (4): Trust Yourself!

2009-12-11T16:09:08+01:00

In the situation of a manager and several team members we can identify four types of trust relationships. I describe each of these in four different blog posts. The first post was Trust Your People, the second was Earn Trust from Your People, and the third was Help People to Trust Each Other.

Every time I’m on a plane I get to see the safety instructions, reminding me that I have to put on the oxygen mask on myself first, before helping any obnoxiously screaming little bastards next to me. You can only save others if you save yourself first. Another version of this principle says that you can only love others when you love yourself first.

This gave me the idea to suggest the following alternative:

You can only trust others if you trust yourself first.

In Making Things Happen Scott Berkun describes why self-reliance is so important. You must believe in yourself, and stay true to your own reason and common sense, even when others disagree with you. You should only change your mind when new insights have convinced you, not when other people have pressured you to reconsider. Because doing something that you don’t believe in is an act against the trust in yourself. A self-reliant person has confidence in herself, while still allowing new information to change her mind.

And that is why you have to trust yourself.

You must trust your people (1), earn trust from your people (2), and help people to trust each other (3). And you can do all that only if you trust yourself (4).

This concludes my series on trust. I trust you found some value in it.

(image by MMMpictures)

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Four Kinds of Trust (3): Help People to Trust Each Other

2009-12-09T16:30:00+01:00

In management and leadership literature one of the topics most often referred to is trust. Trust between two people operates in two directions. I can choose to trust you, and you can choose to trust me, but neither requires the other. In the situation of a manager and several team members we can identify four types of trust relationships. I describe each of these in four different blog posts. The first post was Trust Your People, the second was Earn Trust from Your People.

Even when you trust people, and they trust you, the situation still needs some work when the team members are reluctant to trust each other. This is particularly true for newly formed teams, teams spread over multiple locations, and team members with different job titles, like programmers vs. testers.

When trust among team members is low (for whatever reason), you should concern yourself with communication and commitment.

First, you make sure that communication among team members is improved by increasing the bandwidth and quality of their communication. Stand-up meetings, co-location, pair programming, team dinners, brainstorm sessions, and information radiators, are just a few of the many things that you and the team can introduce to get to know (and trust) each other.

Second, you see to it that commitment for activities in the team is being negotiated and respected. People new to agile software development may need a little help in this area. Assist individual team members in doing what they promised to do, so that their fellow team members are able to trust them. When it turns out they are unable to keep their commitment, help them in communicating this early and honestly.

Your involvement may not be necessary with an experienced team that has been doing projects together for a long time. But when there’s a small change in team membership, you might want to watch carefully that the new team members are participating fully in communication and commitment, and earning trust in their new team.

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