Edge - Thoughts on Technology

The importance of facilitating meetings

2007-10-24T13:59:00.000Z

Although most projects start enthusiastically, optimism fades quickly unless an analysis and design team gets traction and learns where it is going.

Working from a project charter, the team’s next step is defining typically, “What does success look like?”

These high-level requirements help clarify the project’s vision and give the team a focus. Many business analysts employ group facilitation to elicit these requirements. This blog post summarizes some of the steps you might follow in facilitating such a meeting.

The importance of “group think”
Long a mainstay of business analysis, one-on-one interviews with stakeholders is a standard business analysis tool. Typically, each stakeholder represents to you the interests of his or her own business unit and measures the project by what the unit may gain or lose. Accumulated, these one-on-one interviews make me think of the ancient Indian story of “The Elephant and the Seven Blind Men.”

Perhaps you remember the story. One blind man judged the elephant to be a large snake because of its trunk. Another claimed the elephant was a tree because of its leg, and so on. Is there method to develop consensus among opinionated individuals? I’ve found facilitated meetings to be useful.

How important is the “group think” that comes from facilitated meetings? In the elephant story, a revelation comes to the blind men as a wise man affirms their perceptions and helps them understand each other’s perspectives.

In a facilitated meeting, you help the team members recognize their unique perspectives, reveal mutual interests, and distill common agreement.

A successful group needs a diversity of opinion, independent perspectives, decentralized governance, and a good method for aggregating opinions. Stakeholders typically arrive at the meeting armed with the first three success factors. Through facilitation, you enable the fourth.

Facilitation as a tool
Facilitated meetings generate positive outcomes in several dimensions. First, consider the axiom, “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” In my experience, a facilitated meeting routinely generates more high-quality ideas than would be revealed by one-on-one interviews.

While “designed by committee” is sometimes derided, all requirements are subject to scrutiny eventually anyway. There is significant value in distilling and refining the team’s smorgasbord of requirements early in the project.

Facilitated meetings create value beyond the requirements. Even in the first meeting, you will witness the formation of a functioning team. From the ideas suggested by individual team members, adjustments, clarifications, compromises, and consensus emerge. Although it may take three or four meetings, a working team emerges and produces valuable results.

Management Techniques for technical staff

2007-10-24T13:56:00.000Z

some of the general characteristics of an IT project team. For example:
They tend to be introverts
They tend to think more logically than emotionally
They tend to be problem solvers
They tend to be technically creative

Knowing some of the characteristics of your technical staff allows you to better understand how to manage them effectively. Applying some or all of the following techniques will help you create a more conducive work environment where people can excel.

Give them the tools that need to do their jobs.
Establish an environment where people feel they have what they need in order to do their jobs. This includes having appropriate hardware and software. It doesn’t necessarily need to be state of the art, but it should be of acceptable quality. Because they’re in the IT field, IT people get frustrated when they don’t have the right hardware and software to do their jobs effectively.

Make sure they have the right skills and provide opportunities to learn.
IT people love to learn new things. Managers should make sure their people have the skills needed to do their jobs and that they receive opportunities to grow into new technical areas. This doesn’t have to be third-party training classes. It can include computer-based training, seminars, webinars, books, magazines, etc. Also, once someone has mastered a certain skill and they start to become bored, look for ways they can cross-train and learn new areas of the group.

Create a viable work environment.
Technical people like to understand the work processes in the group, and then they like to be creative in working within that structure. So, set the high-level rules, but don’t micromanage the details.

Give people as much information as they need to do their jobs.
Managers should strive to be proactive communicators. Remember, many IT people are introverts who like to process information internally. They may or may not come up to you and ask you what’s going on all of the time. Managers should make sure that they communicate as much as they can about what’s going on in the company, their organization, and their group.

Shield the team from office politics
Don’t let your team get bogged down in the organization muck. This means removing organizational roadblocks and shielding the team from organizational politics. IT people will tend to get cynical fast if they feel like a political environment is affecting their work or in decisions that affect them.

Make sure each person remembers he’s part of a team.
Even though IT people tend to be introverts, it doesn’t mean they prefer to work alone. IT staff may prefer to work independently, but they also like being a part of the team. Managers should nurture this need. For instance, they should have regular team meetings. Managers should also make sure they have opportunities to do fun stuff as a group - even if it’s just going to lunch together once in a while.

Be there when needed and respond to problems and concerns.
Not all problems can be fixed, but many times the simple act of listening and trying is enough. People will give you credit for trying, even if the ultimate resolution to a problem isn’t available.

You might note that many of these management techniques are not unique to technical staff in general or IT staff in particular, but they’re particularly applicable to the IT staff.

Two important leadership concepts

2007-10-24T13:49:00.000Z

1. Power is not the same as force

There’s a real difference between power and force but it’s widely misunderstood. Consequently, when times get tough, in an effort to get more productivity with fewer players, most managers simply try to push their teams ever harder. It’s kind of like trying to break your dog of a bad habit by using a whip – it’ll work for a while but at some stage the law of diminishing returns kicks in. And you may end up getting bitten.

People appreciate being asked for their advice. Especially if the manager is sincere about using it. Team members will give power to the boss if she or he doesn’t use it against them. And the boss will get much more done he’s are on the employee’s side than would be the case by simply trying to force his decisions downward.

2. You can tell the quality of an organization by those who are leaving it - not those who are joining it.

Even in difficult situations, good managers can recruit and hire high-quality players to boost the performance of their team through the use of money or other perks. This can mislead the manager into thinking all is well (or at least that things will get better) with the new players on board.

In an environment where the contribution of everyone is paramount, watch carefully to see who is leaving on her own volition. Sick companies have a way of causing the good players to bail out even if they’ve been told they’re being kept on during downsizing or difficult times.

The importance of pinning down how your client defines Quality

2007-10-24T13:19:00.001Z

A good definition of quality management is “to first understand the expectations of your customer in terms of quality and then put a proactive plan in place to meet that level of quality.” The first part of this definition can be the toughest - understanding what quality means to your customer.

Your customer may only tell you that you should build a “good quality solution” or you should build a solution with an “acceptable level of quality.” Your response to that should be “Great. But what does that mean?”

The customer needs to state that the project solution needs to be:
Reliable
Easy to use
Easy to maintain when completed
Available when needed
Flexible for future needs
Intuitive / easy to understand
Secure
Minimally defective (Doesn’t have to be perfect)

Once you’ve gotten that far, you need to help the customer drill down further. Let’s say that the customer thinks that a good quality solution needs to be “secure.” Further probing might reveal that for the customer, this means

The solution should be place in a secure room with password access
Only authorized people can login
The password must change every thirty days
There will be role-based security so people can only see data that is consistent with their roles.
People sometimes ask where this information gets documented. It’s easy - these end up being detailed quality requirements and they’re captured along with all of the other project requirements.

Most project teams don’t make it a point to capture all of their quality requirements. Most project teams focus requirements on understanding features and functions.

If you focus on features and functions, many of the quality requirements may come out as well - usually by accident. But if your team is trying to practice formal quality management, you should have a discussion with your clients that focuses on the broader and more specific set of quality requirements.

What is virtualisation?

2007-01-31T20:45:00.000Z

With pressure to deliver a cost-effective service that isflexible enough to dynamically adapt to changingbusiness requirements, perhaps the following concernshave crossed your mind:

1. Can I be certain that I have sufficient knowledge of thebusiness direction to predict what the

IT requirementswill be in 3–5 years?

2. Reduced cost is a goal—but not at the expense ofavailability. Our mission-critical applications requirehigh availability and a disaster-tolerant infrastructure,which inherently demand a costly overprovisioning ofservers.

3. We have unused mission-critical server capacity, butwe still struggle to meet peak workload demands.6. Software licensing takes up a considerable part of ourIT budget. Ways to reduce these costs would be ofgreat interest.

So what is virtualisation?

Wouldn’t it be an interesting approach to break down thephysical barriers, pool the resources, and share anyexcess capacity between applications as they need it?That is exactly what virtualization does.

Virtualization is the creation of a pool of physicalresources (servers, storage, and network) such that the physical infrastructure is transparent to the end user andthe boundaries are flexible enough to shift automaticallyto meet the end user’s changing demands.

Virtualization provides better synchronization between ITand the business. It provides a means of accessingresources dynamically, much like the way we accesselectricity or other utilities today: When you want more,you turn it on; when you want less, you turn it off.

Virtualisation - What does it mean?

2007-01-31T11:57:00.000Z

Knowing your workplace obligations

2007-01-23T21:31:00.000Z

Wouldn't it be nice if every boss were the same?

It would be so easy to know exactly what he expected, in what format he expected it, when you should deliver it, what predictable events would result from your input and how you should handle error conditions.

All the politics would go away. Those pesky emotions would become a nonissue. Success would become deterministic.

Sadly, it will never be so simple. Every boss-subordinate connection is a custom job. This is both the promise and the pain of workplace relationships; they are cobbled together not of hardware or software, but of wetware (the gray, squishy stuff between our ears).

The complaints about this are endless from the subordinate side. "I don't know what he wants, and he won't tell me." "She doesn't really understand what I do, so she can't tell me what she expects." "He tells me one thing, and then when I give it to him, he changes his mind." "She says that I have an attitude problem, but I don't really know what that means."

As it turns out, the inability to forge easily understandable, straightforward, repeatable relationships is just as frustrating for bosses as it is for subordinates. Supervisors would love to be able to clearly articulate exactly what they expect so that all their people would understand.

Sadly, many managers erroneously believe that they have clearly defined and communicated their expectations, and they just can't figure out why no one else seems to get their vision.
I've developed a rather simple philosophy of boss-subordinate relationships. Although not a detailed specification, it has served me well both as a manager and as a subordinate. It comes in two parts.

Part 1. A subordinate owes the boss and the organization three simple things:
Candor
Loyalty
Delivery

That's it. If I deliver on all three of those things, I can look myself in the mirror and feel that I've fulfilled my part of the employment bargain. Let's take a quick look at each one, because they are deceptively simple.

Candor.

We owe the boss honest opinions about important things on the job. As knowledge workers, we are not hired for our muscle power; we are hired for our brain power, so we owe it to the boss to share the fruits of our thought. That doesn't mean that we blather on about every fleeting neural discharge, but if something is important, we need to share our perspective.
Sometimes, this can be an unpleasant obligation. Disagreeing with the boss is not always fun. Some managers are not open to other people's opinions. Some are too insecure to accept them.

Some believe that power confers wisdom and that they don't need to listen to anyone else. But the boss's receptiveness doesn't affect the obligation. If a project is running aground, someone has to speak up before it's too late.

Loyalty.

I'm not talking about the blind fealty of a medieval vassal to his master, but rather a reasonable modicum of this uncommon virtue.
Ultimately, part of every manager's job is to make decisions. This includes making hard choices that may upset people. If a manager never ticks anyone off, he is probably shirking his responsibilities. If we have shared our opinions with our manager and he makes a decision we don't agree with, we are obliged to get over it and implement his choice. We should not spend endless hours trying to change things post hoc or, worse, trying to secretly undermine the decision.

Of course, there are exceptions to the loyalty rule. If what the boss has asked us to do is unethical, illegal, dangerous or patently self-serving, loyalty ends there.

Delivery.

And finally, when we promise to do something, we do it.

Part 2. Bosses owe their subordinates three simple things too:
Candor
Loyalty
Delivery

This simple understanding can go a long way toward smoothing relationships and directing successful careers. What we owe one another in the workplace may be vast, but in some ways it is quite simple.

Morale - Are you responsible for building it?

2007-01-22T12:47:00.000Z

In today’s overworked, high-stress IT environment, managers must deal with constant "morale" problems. The "do more with less" expectations established by the productivity gains we provide the company exacerbates this situation as we fight for more staff and resources to cover basic operational tasks.

Let’s redefine morale
Classically, the concept of morale includes several key components: enthusiasm, dedication, a common shared goal and unification. When all of these elements work in synergy, we claim a team has high morale. When they do not, or when they unify the team in a direction we do not approve of, we say a team has low morale.

Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm forms the first and most obvious of morale’s elements. If our team members come to work with a song on their lips and bluebirds flying over their heads, we think the team possesses strong morale and a great team spirit. Less extreme (and likely less medicated) signs of enthusiasm include positive conversations within the cube-farm, spontaneous group activities, positive reinforcement for activities from within the group, and a stable unwritten code of professional ethics.

Countless books, speakers, and professors proclaim foolproof formulas for creating enthusiasm. However, all tricks aside, the simplest way to generate enthusiasm for a project or goal is to show the team member how the work will further his own personal or professional goals. Everything else, from charisma-based rabble-rousing to teaming exercises, can have lasting effects if we proceed from this foundation.

Dedication
Dedication forms morale’s second element. Dedication involves committing to particular course of thought or action. This commitment provides the team with a driving strength to overcome obstacles when things go wrong. We generally assume people must display enthusiasm to remain dedicated to a particular goal. This attitude might hold true for young children, but adults display considerably more complex behavior patterns.

The commitment to accomplish a goal carries the team long after enthusiasm for the goal wanes. Teams working in this mode often display a no-nonsense, work-oriented approach to their tasks. They do not often chat among themselves and work communications may become strained over time.

A team running in a "dedicated" mode for a long period of time can burn itself out. Expending time and energy without enthusiasm for the task wears away at the team’s reserves until they have very little left. This tears apart the informal social fabric of the team, damaging communications and destroying the sense of common purpose essential to team work.

Common goals
Common goals, morale’s third element, are endemic to teaming approaches; indeed, they form the backbone of the team. In many organizations the team’s goal defines its organizational position: operations, project, application development, quality assurance, architecture, etc. When the team works towards a shared goal, it can receive the positive reinforcement that leads to enthusiasm and renewable dedication.

However, goal setting requires more than just a steady hand and a clear vision. The team’s goals should in some way align with team members’ personal goals and the business’s goals. This action feeds back into the creation of enthusiasm and the long-term support of dedication as described above.

Unification
We must establish agreement among the members about the team’s actual goal. We are trying to align some number of individual life goals with seemingly arbitrary and abstract business goals that may come into conflict with one another.

Unification, morale’s fourth element, presents us with more complexities and problems than the other three combined. We can create an environment in which our employees’ goals clearly align with the company’s, set an example of personal dedication, and encourage enthusiasm.

However, without people somehow coming together, the team, as a whole, will produce work like a collection of individuals rather than achieving a greater synergy.
Unification comes from trust and spontaneous communication within the team. As managers we cannot make the team members trust one another but we can and should assist with the formation of a team communication network.

Formally we encourage communications by establishing clear roles and responsibilities. Informally we encourage communications by constantly "roping" people into conversations. This practice, usually involving grabbing the closest team member to the discussion, creates lines of communication both by practice and by example.

Using the analysis
Now, when my clients come to me with a morale problem associated with a team, I have a way to define what we have to deal with. Does the team lack enthusiasm for its work? Do they not have sufficient dedication to carry them through the rough times? Is there a goal misalignment somewhere in the system? Or does the team suffer from a lack of unification? This analysis allows me to step beyond the obvious enthusiasm element inherent in morale. In turn, this helps me to build a solid foundation for any team’s continued success.

Firing without being emotional

2007-01-18T19:10:00.000Z

Lately, I have been thinking about a couple of management practices that seem (based on my experience in the public sector) to occur more frequently in government settings and to havesignificant detrimental effects on employees and the organization.

The first one is keeping underperforming employees around when they should be let go,
and the second one is promoting a good employee into management just because they“deserve” it, whether or not they actually have adequate management skills.

The first practice falls under the category of coddling an employee who cant quite cut it. Unable to let someone go, a manager keeps problem employees around by propping them up with support systems and other people.

Why is this so bad and how do you avoid it?

Here’s the situation: You hire a person to perform a function because you as a manager inthe organization have a need that must be met. Provided that you give theperson clear directions regarding the work to be performed, give them the righttools and the power to perform the task–you should have every expectation that this person will accomplish tasks in a timely fashion and with a level of quality that is satisfactory.

If the person cannot perform the tasks adequately and you have met your ownresponsibilities toward them, should you not let them go?

If your answer is NO you are: (A) cheating yourself out of avaluable position, (B) creating animosity amongst co-workers who are quick to notice ifsomeone is not pulling their load, (C) overburdening someone (you or someoneelse) who has to take up the slack for this person, (D) leaving important work undone,(E) cheating the person who is not performing by allowing them to think theyare adequate, and (F) leaving a mess for your successor to have to deal withonce you are gone.

All of these results are clearly bad things for a manager or supervisor to deal with, yet the practice seems quite commonplace.

Why?

There are probably a number of reasons–some political, some not. But I believe themain reason is that no one likes being the bad guy or girl, and there is awhole stigma regarding firing.

First and foremost, terminating an employee is unpleasant for most supervisors. Often they internalize the whole process and blame themselves for the employee, or are guilt ridden because the person has to support himself or has a family to feed, etc. Also, manysupervisors are conflict averse, and would rather let things fester than haveto deal with it.

All of the factors above and the notion, in many organizations, that firing is always a BAD thing and should be avoided at all costs result in a culture where poor performance is the norm and a select few carry the entire load for a section or department.

Now that we know why this is a bad practice, lets talk about how to avoid doing it in the first place.

First and foremost you have to dismiss the idea that firing an employee is a bad thing. In fact, it is your obligation as a manager to make sure that people who do not perform are let go; otherwise,you are doing a huge disservice to yourself, the employee, their coworkers, andthe organization. As long as you have done your part in helping that employee to be successful in the job, there should be no shame, guilt, or stigma in doing your job.

Now, before you start saying “but” let me add a few things. THE ideal time to be scrutinizing an employees work is during their probationary period. In most organizations, the rules for dismissal are far more relaxed than at any other time in the employees career within yourorganization.

You need to make sure that YOU DO NOT keep them past their probation if there is any indication that they are struggling or marginal. I do not care how long it took you to fill the position in the first place or whether you may lose the slot or not–you should not keep someone on that is not cutting it during probation. Most organizations have ways ofextending the probation period should you need to do so.

Once they are past their probationary period, as you know, things are tougher. You need to be VERY proactive and you need to document your rear end off. For all of you out there saying that it is impossible to let someone go once they are entrenched in government, I say baloney! It just means you have to work much harder to get to the point of dismissal and to make it stick. It is worth all the time and effort that you have to put into it.

Proactive Project Management

2007-01-05T11:25:00.000Z

There are three types of project managers. The first type is the "accidental" project manager. Usually, this project manager comes up through the ranks. For instance, a strong programmer becomes the project manager on a development project. Or a strong network technician becomes the project manager on a large network upgrade. These people understand the types of projects that they are managing, they can build a workplan, and they can assign work to other team members. However, they don't have a lot of project management discipline.

The second type of project manager understands that successful project management requires you to manage issues, scope, communication, risk, etc. The question is whether you are a strong enough project manager is to understand that project management discipline needs to be proactive.

The proactive project manager, the third type, is someone who has made the mental transition to apply his or her discipline on a proactive and ongoing basis. Look at the following examples of how this works.

A good project manager completes the initial Project Definition (charter) because it's required by the organization. A proactive project manager understands that the project must be defined ahead of time, and if it isn't, the team won't have a clear picture of the work that must be done.

A good project manager creates a monthly status report for sponsors and managers. A proactive project manager completes this same status report, but also understands that a status report is the minimum requirement for communicating. A proactive project manager manages communication in the context of an overall Communications Plan. This allows the project manager to proactively determine and fulfill the various communication needs of the project stakeholders.

A good project manager identifies risk at the beginning of the project. A proactive project manager identifies risk at the beginning of the project and then manages and monitors risk throughout the project.

A good project manager figures out how to resolve issues as they occur. A proactive project manager has an issues management process in place to deal proactively with all major problems when they occur.

A good project manager builds a quality solution because of pride and knowing it is the right thing to do. A proactive project manager determines the client's expectations for quality and puts a plan in place to meet that level of quality.

Do you see the difference? The merely "good" project manager understands the basic responsibilities of a project manager. The very good, proactive project manager has internalized these project management responsibilities and makes them a normal part of the project work.

Proactive project managers don't perform these duties just because they're required. They perform the responsibilities because they understand that these project management processes give them a much better chance for success.

Why are budgets missed?

2006-11-06T21:49:00.000Z

Why are budgets missed?

Managers don't know how to budget: For the most part, IT managers aren’t taught how to budget. Budgeting is one of the least-liked aspects of running an organization, especially for a technically oriented person, so it doesn’t get a lot of attention.

Managers don't understand the financial aspects of their businesses: Too many managers don’t take the time to review and understand the financial dynamics of their businesses. In most cases, there are only a half-dozen budget categories that tend to make or break you in any given year.

Managers don't make the proper effort: Because most of us hate to budget, too many of us don’t make the effort to gather the information we need to develop an effective and achievable budget.

Managers want to turn in "desirable" budgets: The scenario goes like this: The CEO asks for the budget and expects it to include many of the project initiatives discussed in various meetings. Once the first draft is submitted, the CEO asks for a reduction of expenses by most departments while trying to get the overall budget in line for the board of directors. Budget tweaking is normal. The problem exists when the manager cuts expenses but doesn’t reestablish expectations of what services or deliverables have to be cut to achieve the new plan. Fail to realign expectations at this juncture, and you are a sitting duck.

Managers submit "perfect" budgets: Sometimes, managers do their level best to submit a budget that’s perfect. They spend hours gathering the details for all the projects, go through exact calculations for salaries, increases, and benefits for their staff, detail every new project planned for the new year, and submit a budget that is exact. The problem is that a budget is a forecast and should not be so exact that there’s no room for error. Perfect budgets are almost never achieved.

Managers fail to manage expectations throughout the year: It’s normal for companies to alter plans during the course of the year. Too many managers sign up for the new business needs but fail to adjust senior management’s expectations on the impact those new needs will have on the original business plan. Unless you tell senior management otherwise, you’ll be expected to complete the new initiatives, as well as the original plan, all within the original budget. It’s your job to manage senior management’s expectations.

Identifying new leaders

2006-10-30T22:39:00.000Z

One of the great privileges and responsibilities of leadership is identifying and training the next generation of managers and leaders. Somewhere in between crisis management, contract negotiations, internal politics, status monitoring and your myriad other tasks, you should spend a few moments considering the future leadership of your organization.

Figuring out who has the potential to become a great leader or middle manager of IT is difficult. Given that leadership is one of those things that most of us can identify when it's put before us but find difficult to describe, it often seems impossible to predict an individual's prospects.

There are traits that can be predictors of success. But before we dive into what to look for, let's put to rest a few of the commonly used criteria that haven't yielded stellar results.

Education.
Lots of great business leaders have put in time in MBA programs, but even a degree from Harvard or the Kellogg School (my alma mater) doesn't guarantee the right stuff. While important, understanding the mechanics and subtleties of business doesn't necessarily translate into leadership success.

Tech smarts.
As believers in meritocracy, we're drawn to the idea that the person who best understands what's going on technically is best qualified to be in charge. Unfortunately, the skills needed in a leadership role are different from technical savvy -- and often don't reside in one person.

Bossiness.
The natural desire to be in charge doesn't necessarily predict whether someone will be a good leader in a technical environment. The hierarchical top-down approach tends to be fragile when it comes to creative work. Those with the built-in desire to command frequently run smack into the brick wall of technical staff intelligence and intransigence. So, which traits are better predictors of who will make great leaders?

Emotional flexibility.
We talk a lot about being a good leader, but what about becoming one? Great leaders start out somewhere else and have to move into leadership roles. Becoming a leader poses transitional challenges that can be met only with emotional flexibility.

One of the great challenges for a new manager is to transform his view of himself, to change how he measures himself and his success. Early life and career work is judged by personal productivity. In school, we're judged by the quality and quantity of our papers, tests and quizzes. Young workers are judged by the quality, quantity and speed of task completion. Our self-images become tied to our personal productivity.

Moving into management requires a fundamental shift in how we view ourselves, a shift in the emotions about self and work. Leaders are judged not by their personal productivity but by their effect on the productivity, morale and effectiveness of others.

Managers must be able to derive their personal satisfaction from helping others be productive rather than being productive themselves. This is a difficult transformation that's poorly understood and rarely discussed.

The ability to adopt a new self-image is critical to the transition into a successful leadership role.

Comfort with ambiguity. Beyond mastering their emotions, leaders must be able to cope with the chaos and confusion of reality.

The world is a complex place filled with facts, provisional facts, lies, opinions and emotions. A large part of the leader's role is to help interpret the turmoil and bring order, sense and meaning to daily work. Successful leaders must transform ambiguity into clarity and create compelling narratives out of complexity.

They also bring a high tolerance for the continuing existence of confusion. They're able to hold contradictory ideas in their heads simultaneously without experiencing undue stress. Strong leaders aren't impervious to new facts and information but are comfortable revising their interpretations to meet changing times.

Ability to communicate.
The ability to cope with ambiguity means nothing without the ability to communicate. If leaders and managers deliver value through their effect on others, communication is their primary tool. Whether leaders communicate verbally, in writing or through their actions, their ability to connect with those they lead is of prime importance.
Considering these "softer" skills can help you to ensure a successful future for your organization.

Taking a leaf out of the army's book on Business Continuity

2006-10-24T21:25:00.000Z

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) has been hot stuff ever since Y2K, and even more so since 9-11. BCP has been defined as:
The processes and procedures an organization puts in place to ensure that essential functions can continue during and after a disaster. It seeks to prevent interruption of mission-critical services, and to reestablish full functioning as swiftly and smoothly as possible.

According to Jack Welch, former CEO of GE:
"If you want to manage people effectively, help them by making sure the org chart leaves as little as possible to the imagination. It should paint a crystal-clear picture of reporting relationships and make it patently obvious who is responsible for what results."

In the Army, the document they use for this purpose is called an Operations Order (OPORD), a directive issued by a leader to subordinate leaders in order to affect the coordinated execution of a specific operation. A five-paragraph format is utilized to organize the briefing, to ensure completeness, and to ensure subordinates understand the order completely.

The five paragraph headings are: Situation, Mission, Execution, Service Support, and Command and Signal.

The Situation paragraph provides a general overview of the battlefield, the big picture

Mission is a clear and concise statement of the unit’s purpose and task, in detail, giving the "who, what, when, where, why."

Execution contains the very detailed and precise "how to" information needed for accomplishment of the mission, consisting of three elements: concept of operation, subordinate unit subparagraphs and coordinating instructions.

Service and Support contains all Combat Service and Support information, including transportation, supplies, maintenance, MEDEVAC procedures, Enemy Prisoners of War procedures, personnel replacement, etc.

Command and Signal consists of information and instructions relating to the commander. It includes the location of the commander, location of the Command Post, and if different than SOP the operational chain of command. The signal portion of this paragraph addresses all communications information. It gives all frequencies, call signs, duress codes, pass words, communications windows, near and far recognition signals for day and night, pyrotechnics signals, etc.

Upon receipt of an OPORD from one’s superior, an officer prepares his own OPORD for distribution to his own subordinates. Each successive OPORD contains elements of the two OPORDs that precede it, thus ensuring that subordinates have an awareness of the bigger picture objectives, and their unit’s part in it.

Obviously, such a document would need to be slightly altered to be appropriate for non-military use. And to make it work, the initiation and maintenance of a continuity book would need to be an important part of every worker’s evaluation process, from the CEO down to the lowliest support pro.

Armed with an OPORD and a continuity book, any individual within any organization will know exactly what their job is, how to do it, and what prioritization should be given to the tasks and goals assigned to them.

The idea has one more important outcome: It is a simple and straightforward way of initiating organizational transformation, which makes other transformation tasks and goals possible.

Tips on how to get the most out of recruitment

2006-10-22T11:51:00.000Z

Now that IT departments are starting to do just a little recruiting, it's time to think about how to hire the best and brightest people.

We've all seen job postings with statements like, "Must meet all requirements below to be considered. Otherwise, don't waste our time by applying." What follows is invariably a list of required experience that would elude even the most energetic and accomplished centenarian.

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't be choosy, but lets choose based on meaningful criteria. Too often, it seems, these attempts to be selective are based on a few myths that lead to poor decisions.

Myth 1: Past experience equals future success
At the heart of absurd selection criteria is the assumption that an applicant's previous experience doing exactly the same job implies future success. But there are a number of problems with hiring someone to re-create a previous performance.

People frequently try to repeat past success by doing things exactly the same way as before, failing to recognize the uniqueness of the new situation. In fact, if someone has done a job before and been wildly successful, he's unlikely to reproduce the results.
Early success doesn't lead to learning. Failure is a much better teacher.

Also, people get bored doing the same things over and over again and don't engage completely with the job.

A much better rule to follow when hiring would be "past drive for success implies future drive for success." The desire to be effective is much more enduring and important than some specific experience. You can see it in a progression of increasing responsibility, but mostly it comes through in the interviews.

Myth 2: You can do only one thing well
This myth assumes that each of us is entitled to only one primary skill. If someone has pursued a career writing mystery novels, he clearly can't be much of a programmer.

For me, one of the great privileges of being in IT has been working with just these sorts of talented polymaths.

I've worked alongside people who started their careers as opera singers, concert pianists, high school teachers, mathematicians, physicists, historians, salespeople, factory workers and psychologists. They all bring varied perspectives from their other careers, enriching our work experiences and the quality of our technical products.

If we allow these people to be forced out of the industry by checklist recruiting, our projects and work lives will be poorer for it.

Terrible Technology

2006-10-21T21:53:00.000Z

It's been a gangbuster quarter for terrible tech, from exploding batteries to half-hearted upgrades to pretexting scandals and everything in between. Join Edge's Wayne Zakaria on a lighthearted romp through the worst tech stories and products from the past three months.

Worst way to re-create the pyrotechnical magic of a Kiss show in your lap:
Sony laptop batteries
Forget about screen size and hard-drive capacity for a second. A laptop is only as good as its ability to not burst into flames while sitting in your lap. That's what makes the recent flurry of Sony laptop battery recalls so lame. Dell started the craze, and now everybody's getting in on the game: Apple, Lenovo, Toshiba and Fujitsu. The bright side of this is that, for once, a technological trend that started in America is taking off in Japan.

Worst thinking outside the box: Amazon Unbox
There's nothing really wrong with Amazon's Unbox online video service--except for the fact that you can watch movies only on the PC you downloaded them on. And it doesn't work with Macs or iPods. And although you need to download a proprietary player to watch the videos you bought, sometimes the videos don't play at all. And the Unbox software keeps trying to connect to the Net, even after you've disabled that feature in Windows. And it sometimes makes you go through a complicated uninstall process when you're fed up with it. Other than that, it's all sunshine and daisies.

Worst cause of CNET-wide paranoia: HP pretexting scandal
Gone are the days when CNET News.com reporters Dawn Kawamoto and Tom Krazit would chat with each other on the phone for hours, coordinating their wardrobes for the next day, discussing their favorite "American Idol" contestant and talking about whom each of them will ask to the CNET sock hop. Instead, they've both been under their desks for the past month with tin foil hats on, rocking back and forth in the fetal position and mumbling something about HP spies tapping their brain waves. Thanks a ton, HP. Their outfits haven't been coordinated for weeks now.

Worst way to get a free Dolce & Gabbana dongle: Buy the Dolce & Gabbana Razr for $400
Hooray for bling. Bling gets the point across: I have a lot of money and I enjoy fashion. But there is such a thing as too much bling. The Dolce & Gabbana Razr, for example, is getting all up in everyone's face with the bling. Suddenly, it's not enough to have a phone made of gold. If we are to believe Dolce & Gabbana, it's imperative to have a golden phone that announces "Dolce & Gabbana!" every time it's turned on or off. Why not a very loud speakerphone that yells "Look at me! I am fancy!" every time the phone is turned on? That would be great, and also cure the owner's insecurity. In other news, you get a free dongle with this $400 phone. We're holding out for the $900 Dolce & Gabbana fax machine (with free golden toner cartridges).

VOIP - Are you ready?

2006-10-19T22:15:00.000Z

Organizations are implementing VoIP solutions more and more everyday, but it may be awhile before people see it as a true replacement for their public-switched telephones. With its promise to save your organization money and increase its productivity, are you ready to deploy this solution?

To secure VoIP, both IP and VoIP-specific security procedures and best practices must be deployed at potential points of vulnerability, where the service or infrastructure may be susceptible to known or presumed attacks.
Threats to VoIP can be grouped into three primary areas:

Denial of Service
Fraud and Abuse
Data Confidentiality and Privacy

Security must be an integral element of all VoIP deployments from the beginning of the process and throughout the lifecycle management. Security is an on-going process requiring constant vigilance, and VoIP deployments must be closely monitored for new threats that could impact the service.

A business case for investing in a VoIP implementation requires evaluation of the associated ROI. VoIP offers many potential benefits, including reduced costs, new features, and converged networks.

Changing Perceptions of You

2006-10-03T17:30:00.000Z

Somewhere along the line, somebody’s going to get you wrong. A new boss you just happened to strike the wrong way. A client for whom you dropped the ball. That analyst from Internal Audit you tried a little too hard to schmooze.

The problem, of course, is that once someone thinks they have your number, it’s nearly impossible to get them to see you any differently. Their mind is made up. Confusing them with facts and evidence that contradicts their bias just seems to define futility.

So are you condemned to a perceptual prison — a life sentence of suffering an unfair ill-repute?
The answer comes in two parts.

1. Turning around another’s perception of you takes a concerted effort, and may take a while.

2. Some people, admittedly, never will let go of their initial estimation of you no matter how deeply you rub their noses in a pile of opposing truth.

For those decent folks with whom you have a reasonable shot at redemption, my coaching experience bears out that you still need to consciously, but subtly, launch a campaign to shift how you are perceived. Think of it as rehabilitation. Resuscitation. Resurrection.

Here are some action steps to take in your Operation Reputation Rescue:
1. Bend over backwards to avoid providing any possible evidence to support the former / unfair image or rap. Remember, all perception is selective. Give a shred of evidence to support the reputation you want to deny and it will be distorted, magnified, amplified, and given far more import than it should. Don’t waste a moment decrying the unfairness of it all. It’s a design flaw in the human cranium. Deal with it.

2. Never, ever, ever be cynical, sarcastic or snide about your predicament. It’s very tempting to verbally punish people for having unfairly “convicted” you — especially, ironically, right after you have a victory to rub their noses in.

3. Address the situation directly. Talk about it. Say, “May I ask you about the impression I gave you?” Go ahead and suggest what impression you think you left. Expect the other person to deny it. Doesn’t matter. Put the issue on the table. And swat it away. And move on.

4. Gather lots of evidence in your favor. Sometimes, especially when there is a disparity of power between you and the person who holds the inaccurate perception of you (such as a higher ranking organizational official or customer) you may have to endure repeated dressings down of your supposed short-comings.

Remember, no matter how you are perceived, you are who you are. If you once gave an impression you’d like others to forget, well, you cannot change that.

But you can live every moment going forward in a way that you can be proud of. Just choose to do that. And do it.

You can’t really expect any more of yourself than that. And that’s something you can feel good about.

How to improve your Blogs - 3 Tips

2006-10-03T10:43:00.000Z

If nobody bothers to read your blog posts, you might as well just scribble your thoughts on a cocktail napkin. But if you truly want to share your ideas and opinions, check out these pointers for crafting an engaging blog and building a loyal following.

Wayne Zakaria of Edge Consultancy offers a list of suggestions for blogging success, including defining the purpose of your blog, making it visually appealing and easy to navigate, using the right blogging tools, establishing a regular publishing schedule, and taking advantage of syndication.

Blogging is the new national pastime for Internet-connected people all over the world. It's an activity that spans all age groups and occupations. There are personal blogs, social blogs, and professional blogs. Whatever the topic, someone has probably blogged it. Some of us get paid to blog and others pay for the privilege of blogging (on a particular site or with particular software).
The Internet made it possible for anyone to publish content to a worldwide audience. The Web log, or blog format, has made it easier and more convenient. But all blogs are not created equal. Some draw an eager following and others languish in obscurity. Regardless of your reason for blogging, you can make your blog better, more readable and--if it's what you want--more popular.

The first step
In creating a better blog is to ask yourself why you're blogging. What's the purpose of your blog? Is it to be a public version of the personal diary, recounting your experiences, thoughts, and emotions? Is it more of a journal, where you preserve ideas and outline projects?

Is it a social site, for interacting with friends, sharing links, getting to know people? Is it an editorial page, for commentary on politics, social trends, and current events? Is it a professional or hobbyist site, for sharing conceptual and how-to information about some field of study or work (e.g., aviation, computer programming, or photography)?

Sure, you can have "just a blog" that combines elements of all of these, but you may find that readers prefer you to specialize. If you want to write about your field of expertise sometimes and your favorite political party at other times, it might be beneficial to maintain two separate blogs to avoid alienating or boring your readers half the time.

Speaking of readers, an important element in defining your purpose is to know your audience. That will help you determine the voice and writing style that's appropriate for those you're addressing. You probably wouldn't use the same style when writing to stock car race fans that you'd use if your audience were made up primarily of stock market brokers.

In keeping with your blog's purpose, you should have a defined theme. For example, if the purpose of your blog is to express political opinions, the theme might be to promote a low-tax, nonintrusive government.

#2: Create visual appeal
Content isn't the only thing that matters. Your blog site should also be visually appealing, or at least visually neutral. You don't want to scare away prospective readers or have them leave in frustration because the page is distracting or unreadable.

The best visual design for the page is dependent in part on your audience and theme. You can use color, font styles, and graphics to set the mood and tone--just make sure the tone matches the content. Whatever your theme, it's best to avoid dark letters on a dark background, tiny or overly fancy typefaces, and other elements that make your blog hard to read.
If your blog is hosted on a public blog site, you may be limited in how much you can change the design, but there will usually be a number of preconfigured visual themes you can choose from. Keep audience appeal and readability in mind when selecting one.

#3: Use the proper tools
You can create a blog using any WYSIWYG HTML editor, such as FrontPage (soon to be replaced by Microsoft Expression Web Designer), Macromedia Dreamweaver, or the Amaya open source editor endorsed by W3C. You can even use a text editor like Notepad to compose the HTML code.

However, blogging is made much easier, faster, and more convenient if you use a dedicated blogging program or the features of a blogging Web site that lets you compose posts in the Web browser or via e-mail.

If your blog is hosted on a free public blog site, such as Blogger or Windows Live Spaces, you can write your posts in your e-mail client and send them to a special address you're given when you create your account. For many, this is the easiest way to post, although it doesn't show you the formatting.

Changing demography and the impact on Knowledge Retention

2006-10-03T10:29:00.000Z

It would appear that 70 percent of all baby boomers plan to work past retirement age. Whoa! That’s a load off of our collective minds, right? I can breathe much easier now knowing that the impending brain-drain is no longer a reality—let those geezers work until they're 100!

Now that I can take my tongue out of my cheek, let's look at the reality of the situation: Planning to work past the age of 65 and having the ability to do so are two entirely different things.

Even with the incredible advances in medicine that we have been seeing over the years, most men, on the average, pass to the great beyond at or about age 76 and women at 82. Now before you get too excited and say, “There you go, 11 more years of productivity,” let me remind you that the years between 65 and 76 are years of physical and mental decline and while the mind might be willing, the body may refuse to cooperate.

So don’t bank on having all these senior people around forever in your organization, and start some real knowledge retention management before a crisis does occur.

Is this issue not even on your organization’s radar screen? It’s probably right up there with pandemic flu planning, as in, “let’s stick our heads in the sand and pretend the issue isn't there.”

My friends, both issues are real and require some planning. But let’s talk about knowledge retention now, and some of the things we can be doing about it.

First, there are different kinds of knowledge to be concerned about losing. Some organizational knowledge is easily quantifiable and can be documented; some knowledge is harder to capture and transmit—we'll call it "institutional knowledge." The area where quantifiable and institutional knowledge meet is, perhaps, the most valuable kind of knowledge. For the sake of this discussion, let's call it "wisdom."

The most progressive organizations are putting together mentoring plans, redefining works hours and positions to allow people more job flexibility, are conducting oral history projects, and more. These projects are often driven by human resources. But what about IT? What can we do to sustain the knowledge built up in our departments?

We have what I consider to be some of the best tools for knowledge retention management at our fingertips. And the best part is…it's in disguise. I’m going to let you in on this secret: these tools are business process mapping, the implementation of IT frameworks, systems re-engineering, and audits.

Floored? Of course not. You knew it all along. One of the main reasons that the retirement of the baby boom generation is an issue is that on the whole, most organizations are lousy documenters! Now those of you dealing with Sarbanes-Oxley are probably getting much better at it ;-)—but in general, we have a lot of seasoned employees walking around with a great deal of knowledge in their heads.

What better way to start gathering knowledge than to do all of the above while the employees with the knowledge are still around?

Business process mapping: Many organizations do not have a living document that captures what they do and why they do it.

IT frameworks: Introducing ITIL or COBIT as a way to formalize our business practices lends them legitimacy, as well as makes sure that what we are doing is up to snuff.
Systems re-engineering: How many of you are sitting on legacy applications that are dependent on one or only a handful of individuals to keep them going? If they all walked tomorrow, would you have to resign with them? It’s okay to raise your hand; no one is looking and I won’t tell.

The fact of the matter is that we have far too many of these applications/systems, and the best way to spread the knowledge is to rebuild them using today’s modern tools and techniques. This not only inspires and refreshes your now tired and bored legacy staff, but also excites the newer staff members who will learn from participating in the re-crafting of important systems/applications.

Audits: Stop cringing like that! The auditor is your F R I E N D. Because they are usually considered to be objective, people listen to them. Even if you have been saying the same thing to your boss for years, he may pay more attention to a recommendation in the form of an audit finding.

This can help you kick-start a project that you've been lobbying for a long time. Once an auditor brings up a problem, suddenly people want to “fix” it, and that is often the start of the money flow.

Additionally, if asked why something needs to be done, you can say, “The auditors told us to do it,” and that’s usually enough information for them.

In summary, knowledge retention management is important for all organizations as the baby boomers begin to near retirement. There are many ways to retain their wisdom and knowledge, and fortunately, many of those tools are already in your tool box.

In many ways, you can spin this like Y2K. We know the general timeframe when the last of the baby boomers will most likely be leaving the organization, so make your case and plan for it, just like you did for the end of the world as we knew it. Oh, and while you're at it – don’t forget about the pandemic flu!

Edge Consultancy will be more than happy to assist you with knowledge retention management.
Why not just give us a call

Small companies - Help is at hand

2006-10-02T17:03:00.000Z

Love it or hate it, if you want to succeed in business, there's really no getting away from computers, technology and the internet.

If the world recognises the importance of small businesses, why is there so little being done to assist small companies maximise the use of technology as a tool to accelerate growth.

If you are a small business entrepreneur in need of some computer help, or want some technology advice, you may not be sure where to go for support and information.

This blog seeks to help the small bsiness by providing links to useful web sites.
This blog was created by Edge a technology consultancy for small companies that think big.

The Miscrosoft small business centre offers sound technical advice for small businesses
http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/hub.mspx

The Small business company in the UK gives sound advise for small busineses
http://www.smallbusiness.co.uk/?gclid=CM7pyfnz2ocCFQtwVAod-3nL1A

You can also obtain free technical support from
http://www.techguy.org/index.php?referrerid=645

Edge Consultancy based in the UK is a technology based consultancy that provides small busiinesses with the same service that large blue chip organisations enjoy for a fraction of the price. To find out more visit www.edge-uk.com