Agile Management

Tips on managing product development and engineering by John Levy, consultant, expert and author of “Get Out of the Way!, An executive’s guide to creating timely, innovative and relevant products.”

What do I need to know about mobile devices and social networks?

October 10, 2012

Mobile devices and social networks are the fastest-growing trends in today’s world of IT.  Even though most of us have a smart phone and may have a Facebook account, we may not have perspective on what’s happening inside the device & the network.  Here is a review of key things to know about mobile & social, and a list of security issues to think about.

Mobile devices

Smartphones are still telephones, they allow you to communicate by voice with people on other phones using the cellular telephone network.  The cell network covers most of the world, but not everywhere.  There will be places where you get “no signal.”

In addition, a smartphone is a complete personal computer, with all the complexity that this implies.  There is an operating system, a network data interface, and all of the application software (apps) that you have decided to run on the smartphone.

Your voice and your data may or may not be carried over the same network.  For example, when your smartphone is near a WiFi base station that it can connect to, your data will be sent and received using that WiFi path rather than the cell network.

Your basic phone subscription fee doesn’t include data transmission, so you’re paying extra to get data service for your phone.  And unless you’re very lucky, you don’t have unlimited data access.  If your data usage goes over a limit, you will pay extra.

The designers who made your smartphone have worked hard to overcome the constraints of the phone, compared with a PC:  the small size of the screen, the absence of a keyboard, and the need to maximize the battery life.  As a result, you’re learning to deal with the digital world using your fingers in a new way.

Extra security issues:

Your smartphone is connected to the cell network all the time. As long as it’s switched on, even when you’re not talking, it is communicating information about where you are back to the network every minute or less.

While you’re using data services of your smartphone, it may switch from a WiFi network to the cell network and back automatically.  This may have implications for how much you’re charged for data, particularly if you’re overseas.

Communications with WiFi networks may be vulnerable to being overheard by other devices and are not as secure as the voice network.

Everyone who uses a smartphone has a certain amount of personal usage.  After all, we all get personal phone calls, receive personal emails & text messages, and browse websites that are not business-related.  So if you’re concerned about employees using their company-provided smartphones for personal goals, quit worrying – they will.

Personal usage also includes music listening and video viewing which can load the data network greatly.  You may need to consider limiting the amount of bandwidth (data network usage) that people in your company use – at least while they’re connected through the cell network.

Your smartphone has a GPS device built in.  So it “knows” where you are all of the time.  In addition, the location information it has can be shared with any App running on the smartphone.  Make sure you want your location information to be shared in this manner.  If you don’t, change the settings on your phone to turn off the GPS location sharing.

Similarly, pay attention to the fact that the web browser on your smartphone keeps a browsing history.  This history may be visible to running Apps on the smartphone.

There are some new apps that have strong security boundaries (see, e.g., a new startup called kumoso.com).  Explore apps like these if you are concerned about the security of your communications.

Coming soon: ads & spam

Have you noticed that you’ve started receiving junk text messages?  I have, and I’m sure it won’t be long until we get spam in many forms on our phones.  Beyond emails, it will include text messages, unwanted pop-up ads in the browser, maybe even unwanted calendar items.

If you’re managing a corporate network of smartphones, you’ll need to add the mobile devices to your list of possible targets for spam and malware.  Get filters (software) that will help keep this stuff off of your mobile devices.

Social networks

Social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, are now being used by nearly everyone who has either a PC or a smartphone.  There can be many advantages to using social networks, including:

• having quick access to status information on your colleagues

• posting short information to a large number of connected colleagues who need it (such as via Twitter)

• connecting with new people using colleagues who are already in your network (such as through LinkedIn)

• sharing articles and notes with people who may find it interesting and useful

Here are few things to consider as you indulge in social networks:

1. You have decided that your need for connectivity exceeds your need for privacy.  You actually want to hear from your friends & colleagues about what they’re up to, what they need, what they’ve done or read.  You don’t mind if what you share with them can be seen by anyone who cares to look you up or to Google your name.

2. You don’t mind that your history (what you’ve posted, poked, tweeted & connected to) is a public record.  Always assume that you cannot erase anything you’ve posted or tweeted.  The online record of social media is now a popular way for exploring vulnerabilities or skeletons in the closet of people who are lawsuit targets. Potential employers may search for your tweets to see what you’ve been saying before they offer you a job.

3. You don’t mind being open to well-targeted ads.  The more you share online, the more the advertisers have access to what you’ve expressed an interest in.  They will use this information to make their ads closely match your interests.

Summary of security issues

Be willing to receive all the incoming messages, texts and tweets that are in store for you.

Make sure you want the exposure in a public record of what you’ve shared with others.  Think before you tweet – this may be a permanent record.

 

New webinar series

October 30, 10 AM:  free one-hour webinar, “The 10 Danger Signs of a Failing IT Project”

Register here: http://www.anymeeting.com/PIID=E158DD888848

November 13, 10 AM:  free one-hour webinar, “How to Save a Failing IT Project”

Register here: http://www.anymeeting.com/PIID=E158D787854D

I’ll share with you a lot of the insights I’ve gained over the last 30 years in identifying and responding to problem in project management and other aspects of getting things done in implementing IT capabilities.

Join me in a two-webinar series on IT Projects, coming up on October 30 and November 13.  The first webinar covers the red flags you should watch for in major IT projects, and the second one gives more details about how to save a project that looks as if it’s headed for failure.

Filed Under: Agile Management, Painless IT Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When you need IT advice

September 25, 2012

When you ask for advice from an IT specialist, often the response is too technical, too closely tied to a commercial product, or simply off the mark because the underlying problems are management problems.  Who can you turn to for useful and practical advice?

What kind of technology advice do you need?

As a manager or executive you may have a variety of questions about “technology.”  Here is one way to classify those questions:

1. Pure technical analysis – what’s possible, what does it cost?

You already have a clear idea of the functions or capabilities you need.  But now you need to know what technologies can be used to get those functions, and what they are likely to cost.   An IT specialist with experience in building those functions can elaborate the technologies and give you a roadmap for building what you want.

If the specialist also has enough experience, you can get a fairly accurate estimate of how much it will cost – if things go well.  But always be prepared for bumps in the road.  Many time, due to evolving technologies, unforeseen glitches due to incompatibilities, and changing requirements, the costs will go up – even as much as doubling the initial estimates.

The best countermeasure to escalating costs is to define incremental delivery of the features.  Ask for demonstrations and delivery of working systems every few months, so that you can personally verify that things are on track – and that you’re getting what you want.

 

2. Help in selecting between competing alternatives – evaluating vendors and their products/services

When the times comes to select a vendor or to choose a team for building the capabilities you want, ask for help from someone who has done it before.  In other words, make sure the advice you get is from someone experienced in the particular functions and capabilities you’re asking for.

Be sure that your advisor is not “married” to a particular vendor.  Of course, this eliminates the sales representatives of the vendors from being the advice-givers you need.  Even your own IT staff may have prejudices based on their own history and experience with particular vendors’ products.  You may want to find a consultant who knows the field and can give you accurate information without being involved in the sale of a product.

Evaluating vendors also includes business aspects.  You need to know that the vendor will survive to support the product, has the infrastructure needed to provide what you need, and is willing to commit to meeting your service standards, whatever they may be.

 

3. Guidance in managing the implementation of new IT services

Once you’ve committed to implement a new capability, you form a team to carry out the project.  At this point, you may need help in assuring success of the project.

Projects fail all too often.  Most failures are due to one of the following:

•  Inadequate planning and scoping of the project

•  Unrealistic expectations about what can be done in what time

•  Unadequate management structures for coordinating the project

•  Unforeseen complexity and rapid change in the requirements

Hiring an experienced management consultant can insure you against project failure for a small fraction of the project cost.  You’ll want to find someone who speaks in business terms, has management experience, and knows technology well.

This third area — managing implementation — is the area in which I work.  I’ll be glad to offer you a free strategy session in which we examine your project and your plans in an initial consultation, to see if I can help raise your confidence that your project will succeed.  Simply contact me by any of the methods below.

 

SUBSCRIBE FREE: https://johnlevyconsulting.com/blog

Just complete the simple form. Takes about 10 seconds. And you’ll also get a free copy of my report, “9 Mistakes That Lead to IT Project Failure.”

 

John Levy Consulting                                415 663-1818

Deliver the promise of technology to business

https://johnlevyconsulting.com

PO Box 1419                  Point Reyes Station, CA 94956

 

Filed Under: Agile Management, Painless IT Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Eliminate your IT department?

September 10, 2012

Cloud-based services are transforming business IT in major ways.  What does this mean for the structure and mission of the enterprise’s IT department?  Is there anything left that can’t be done by the cloud and by cloud service vendors?

Yes!  There are three major areas in which every enterprise still needs a collection of people who focus on IT.  And it is best to have them gathered in a department where they are able to exchange information at high bandwidth – in other words, in an IT department.

1.    Expertise

While it can be advantageous to place IT specialists inside of business departments where they can advise their business counterparts on specifics of applications, data and cloud services, keeping up with the range of IT offerings is a job best done at a central location.

Building a center of expertise will enable IT specialists to respond to requests from business units for recommendations and advice on cloud vendors, facilities and functions of various IT packages, and general information on what solutions are now available.  In addition, the experts can create informative newsletters and workshops on what’s around the corner, the progress of corporate IT initiatives, and other current IT topics.

This type of dissemination of information cannot typically be done as well by department-captive IT specialists.

2.    Strategy

Your business has a business strategy.  Almost certainly, that strategy depends on certain IT initiatives.  Defining, aligning, and guiding those initiatives must be done by people who understand the business strategy and also understand IT deeply.  These people should be IT experts who also are involved in strategic planning for the business.

As a result, they are strategists for IT as well as for the business.  So they need to keep up with the latest trends and possibilities in IT as well as know a lot about all of the enterprise’s current IT implementations.  These people are natural members of a central IT department.

3.    Management

IT management involves several different perspectives.

First is managing the IT-business interface across all IT initiatives and across the functional components of the business.

Second is managing the IT department and its initiatives, including developing, training and promoting IT specialists.

Finally, there is management of vendors, including cloud service vendors – and increasingly crucial portion of the management workload.

All three of these aspects of IT require an IT department – or an equivalent – that concentrates IT expertise and IT-related missions into a place where communications are very frequent and easy.

Don’t eliminate IT, transform it

As cloud-based services begin to transform the way in which IT functions are accomplished, the IT department should concentrate on developing its expertise in the following areas:

Cross-connecting siloed business functions and helping to eliminate duplication in IT activities and services.

Teaching, training and informing business leaders about IT, including which cloud-based services can best help get their jobs done.

Monitoring, measuring and rewarding vendors who are supporting business functions in the enterprise.  This includes setting standards for performance, helping with contractual arrangements with vendors, and monitoring both positive performance and negative incidents surrounding IT vendors.

Creating IT strategic plans, including corroborating those plans with enterprise strategies and plans.  And finally, adapting the enterprise to the rapidly-shifting cloud services environment.

In other words, there’s plenty left to do in an IT department.  Don’t eliminate it.

John’s webinar titled will be held on September 25 at 10:00 AM Pacific time.

Designing, implementing and integrating major IT systems has numerous pitfalls that don’t appear, for example, in building construction. If you’re responsible for delivering a major IT project – or if you are paying for one – you need to be aware of what indicators are red flags for possible failure of the project.

See more information and register at 

SUBSCRIBE FREE: https://johnlevyconsulting.com/blog

Just complete the simple form. Takes about 10 seconds. And you’ll also get a free copy of my report, “9 Mistakes That Lead to IT Project Failure.”

John Levy Consulting

Deliver the promise of technology to business


https://johnlevyconsulting.com

PO Box 1419, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956    415 663-1818

Filed Under: Agile Management, Painless IT Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

How to generate team energy

July 23, 2012

If you lead, manage or work with teams, you know that teams have their highs and lows, just like individuals.  Energy is a quality of the interactions going on in the room the team is working in, a quality that you feel when you’re in the room with them. The energy of a team is a key indicator of how well the team is functioning.  Here are things you can do as a leader to generate positive energy.

There are a variety of types of energy.  A team may have intensity caused by anger or by competitiveness; or it may have high enthusiasm expressed by outbursts of joking and fun.  There may be quiet most of the time, interspersed with interactions that express appreciation or admiration (the wow! factor).   Or there can be a sullen tone in a team that resents its mission or its management.  Sometimes, a team pulls itself together and generates camaraderie because it is facing a common enemy – often represented by its management.

The energy of a team is a good predictor of its effectiveness.  The best teams have at least occasional bursts of intensity, and they maintain respectful, if joking, relations with each other.

As leader of teams, part of your mission is to sense the energy of the team and to intervene when things are not going well.  Unhealthy interactions are an early predictor of decay in a team.  You should be ready to make necessary adjustments when you see things unraveling.

Here are two things you can do to keep team energy positive:

1. Embrace & appreciate diversity.

Most teams we work with have people from diverse backgrounds.  Rather than cover over the differences in culture and style among the team members, call upon those differences in an appreciative way.  For example, if one of the team members comes from a culture, such as Japan, the Philippines or Thailand, in which harmony is the supreme value, ask that person review the team’s interaction ground rules.  While many Americans relish confrontation and argument, others may prefer that the ground rules keep them from having to argue in a contentious way.

You should encourage everyone on the team to call on members who typically have different views to get feedback about a proposed technique, method or solution.  In this way you help the team to revel in diversity and appreciate their differences, rather than viewing differences as being in the way.

2. Hear all the voices, trust the team

A few years ago, I was facilitating a team of business and IT specialists who were working to overcome their history of finger-pointing and frustration with each other.  We had a dozen people in the room, and they quickly took to the task of listing what was working, what was not working, and prioritizing the actions to fix their dysfunction.  As the process entered the second full day, I noticed that one person had not yet said anything during the group work.  I began to wonder why the leaders had included this person.

Normally I would go out of my way to be sure that everyone’s voice is heard, no matter how briefly.  However, in this case I let the process continue without intervening.  Several hours into problem-solving, the team was looking for ideas to deal with how to communicate certain technical details between their offices, 750 miles apart.  Suddenly, the previously quiet person spoke up with a proposal.  The suggestion was brilliant, and the team quickly adopted it.  The lesson for me was to trust the team and the process – the leaders knew this person had something to contribute, and they knew he would speak up when he had something to say.

You have a responsibility to guide the energy of the team.  You can do this in a positive way by doing these things:

a.     Create a common space – common ground – where the team can interact informally, even if they do not inhabit a common room when they’re working.  This is where they can trade stories, post items of interest on the walls, and find out what’s going on with the team.  Put key information there, but leave a lot of room for their own preferred items.

b.    Set the tone for the team by being a good listener, appreciating the work of each individual, and providing honest feedback about what you observe.  Don’t indulge in disrespectful humor or gossip.  And keep your own energy up, so that you don’t need to draw energy from the team.

c.     Get out of the way.  Most of the team interactions don’t need your guidance.  Check in with what’s happening at various moments through the day or week, but don’t try to guide everything.  If you give your team permission to try out and adopt processes that aren’t necessarily pre-defined, they’ll generate their own enthusiasm and will often surprise you with their creativity.

Filed Under: Agile Management, Painless IT Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Is your software stable or static?

July 10, 2012

In most professions, it’s good to have stability in the things you work with.  With software, stability is good, but often we confuse static with stable.  They are not the same.

Static software decays and becomes useless.

In a previous article, Why does it cost so much to maintain systems? I explained how software updates are critical to keep it alive:

Software by its nature is constantly evolving.  Not only do users ask for new and modified features, but the systems on which the software runs keep changing, so the software has to be modified to fit new environments.  These factors guarantee that updates have to be released several times a year to keep things current.

Here are some indicators that software is stable:

• Updates are regular but not urgent

• The list of bug fixes in each release is not excessively long

• You don’t experience crashes & freezes on the system

• The software “plays well with others” – there are no negative interactions with other software packages

• It scales up smoothly – there are no abrupt limits as the data size or workload increases, only a gradual slowing of response time

• The vendor’s support is consistently accessible and useful

On the other hand, static software is an entirely different thing.  If software is static it means that there are no updates, changes or evolutionary steps being taken to keep the software current.  As a result, some or all of the following will happen:

• The software will not run in new environments, such as latest release of the operating system

• The files being used with the software do not evolve with changing data formats, file systems and storage media.  Compatibility is lost with other software that begin using new data and file formats.  Old backup copies of data may not be readable on new storage devices.

• The software will not communicate using new network interfaces.  When it does communicate, it may be using old protocols that slow down the speed of transfers and do not use new features available in the network.

• The software may not be able to interact with cloud-based applications and databases that have been added since the software was released.

Stable software requires constant attention by the people who are maintaining it.  They should be in regular dialogue with the users of the software, have a list of issues they are investigating and correcting, and be using a set of maintenance tools that allow consistent and stable releases.

Strive to have stable, but not static software. 

Filed Under: Agile Management, Painless IT Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

What generates energy for your team?

June 25, 2012

How do you evaluate how well a team is functioning? A key indicator is energy.  Energy is a quality of the interactions going on in the room the team is working in, a quality that you feel when you’re in the room with them.

There are a variety of types of energy.  A team may have intensity caused by anger or by competitiveness; or it may have high enthusiasm expressed by outbursts of joking and fun.  There may be quiet most of the time, interspersed with interactions that express appreciation or admiration (wow! Factor).   Or there can be a sullen tone in a team that resents its mission or its management.  Sometimes, a team pulls itself together and generates camaraderie because it is facing a common enemy – its management.

The energy of a team is a good predictor of its effectiveness.  The best teams have at least occasional bursts of intensity, and they maintain respectful, if joking, relations with each other.

As leader of teams, part of your mission is to sense the energy of the team and to intervene when things are not going well.  Unhealthy interactions are an early predictor of decay in a team.  You should be ready to make necessary adjustments when you see things unraveling.

Energy-related things you can do as leader

Here are some things you can do to keep team energy positive.

Most teams we work with have people from diverse backgrounds.  Rather than cover over the differences in culture and style among the team members, call upon those differences in an appreciative way.  For example, if one of the team members comes from a culture, such as the Philippines or Thailand, in which harmony is the supreme value, ask that person review the team’s interaction ground rules.  While many Americans relish confrontation and argument, others may prefer that the ground rules keep them from having to argue in a contentious way.

You should encourage everyone on the team to ask questions of members who typically have different views to get feedback about a proposed technique, method or solution.  In this way you help the team to revel in diversity and appreciate their differences, rather than viewing differences as being in the way.

A few years ago, I was facilitating a team of business and IT specialists who were working to overcome their history of finger-pointing and frustration with each other.  We had a dozen people in the room, and they quickly took to the task of listing what was working, what was not working, and prioritizing the actions to fix their dysfunction.  As the process entered the second full day, I noticed that one person had not yet said anything during the group work.  I began to wonder why the leaders had included this person.

Normally I would go out of my way to be sure that everyone’s voice is heard, no matter how briefly.  However, in this case I let the process continue without intervening.  Several hours into problem-solving, the team was looking for ideas to deal with how to communicate certain technical details between their offices, 750 miles apart.  Suddenly, the previously quiet person spoke up with a proposal.  The suggestion was brilliant, and the team quickly adopted it.  The lesson for me was to trust the team and the process – the leaders knew this person had something to contribute, and they knew he would speak up when he had something to say.

Make space for the team

You have a responsibility to guide the energy of the team.  You can do this in a positive way by doing these things:

  1. Create a common space – common ground – where the team can interact informally, even if they do not inhabit a common room when they’re working.  This is where they can trade stories, post items of interest on the walls, and find out what’s going on with the team.  Put key information there, but leave a lot of room for their own preferred items.
  2. Set the tone for the team by being a good listener, appreciating the work of each individual, and providing honest feedback about what you observe.  Don’t indulge in disrespectful humor or gossip.  And keep your own energy up, so that you don’t need to draw energy from the team.
  3. Get out of the way.  Most of the team interactions don’t need your guidance.  Check in with what’s happening at various moments through the day or week, but don’t try to guide everything.  If you give your team permission to try out and adopt processes that aren’t necessarily pre-defined, they’ll generate their own enthusiasm and will often surprise you with their creativity.

 

Filed Under: Agile Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,