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.

 

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John Levy Consulting                                415 663-1818

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https://johnlevyconsulting.com

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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: , , , , , , , , , ,

Risk Management in IT

April 25, 2012

Risk management is a key area for financial leaders.  When we look at IT development projects, we’re usually focused on opportunities rather than risks.  But IT investments have risks beyond security and privacy issues.  Project failure can lead to losses even beyond the intended investment.  Here are seven ways to look at IT development projects from a risk management point of view.

1. IT Operations and IT Development must be managed differently. Development is Engineering and must be managed as such. In particular, this means that there must be a certain amount of experimentation to find the best implementation. Outsourcing of Development does not convert it into Operations – it is still Engineering.

2. Success criteria for IT Operations and IT Development are also different. Development should be measured based on expected ROI plus the strategic value of the project.  For externally visible development, time-to-market and accuracy in delivery against market requirements are also relevant measures.  Operations should be measured on predictability of spending and on Quality of Service.  Operations measures should undergo regular and consistent assessment of their relevance to the business.

3. Most failures in IT Development are caused or compounded by management errors. Very few failures are due to technical inadequacy. The probability of future failures remains undiminished so long as the management errors are not addressed. Examples of these errors include not planning for scalability or not emphasizing modularity of the implementation.

4. The cost of failure in IT Development nearly always exceeds the allocated budget for the activity. Project failure has consequences beyond the immediate failed project, both for people and for other projects.  For example, one late project often cascades through to lateness of follow-on projects.  Another risk factor is the loss of key people when a development project fails.  It is rare to find IT management mitigating this people risk immediately on learning of a development failure.

5. Failures and losses in IT Operations involve directly managed operations centers or outsourced providers’ operations. Outsourced operations are inherently riskier because the providers’ operations are less visible, and therefore less familiar, to Operations managers.

6. IT management should be able to communicate to top management the tradeoffs in IT Operations and Development, so that they understand the strategic implications of decisions in IT.  Operational budget must not be the exclusive determinant of IT decisions. In general, the CIO should not report through the CFO.

7. Multi-year planning is essential for both IT Operations and Development. A roadmap for upgrade and integration of resources and services is necessary, even if it must be revised multiple times per year as new services and equipment are needed. Contingency planning and scenario analysis related to possible shortcomings of vendors and outsourced services must be part of the plans.

If these ideas resonate with your experience – or if you disagree, please add your comments below.

These thoughts were triggered by a recent paper, “Risk Management Failures” (http://tinyurl.com/7ew4t79) by Prof. René Stultz of Ohio State University, published by Cornerstone Research in 2009 (http://cornerstone.com).  With thanks to Andre Neumann-Loreck for his feedback and comments.

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

Success always looks easy

March 13, 2012

With all the news about IT projects that go bad, you would think that we’d hear more news about projects that go well.  Then we could just copy down the “best practices” that led to the success and – voilà – our projects would come out perfectly every time.

But life is not so simple.  While we can enumerate key problems that led to failure by analyzing projects, it is much harder to point to one factor and say “this is what made this project successful.”  Success depends not only on avoiding the pitfalls, but also on bringing together all of the essential project elements.  Sometimes those elements are not so easy to identify.

Example 1:  I once struggled for 7 months with a project team that couldn’t seem to get all the right pieces together.  In fact, what was needed was to remove two members of the team.  One of them was in a key contributor position, but was just not disciplined enough to produce his part of the code (this was a firmware team).  The other was simply not contributing to the team because he didn’t understand his role and was not capable of fulfilling it.  While I had recommended the removal of these two on my 3rd day on the project, I had not insisted, and the result was a long slog.

What happens when you remove non-contributors from the team?  First of all, someone else on the team steps up to do what needs to be done.  Second of all, the whole team becomes more productive (and happy) because they are no longer saddled with the unproductive members.

Example 2: A client company launched a transition to Agile development methods in the development of a major sales-support package.  They hired an experienced team of software people and an Agile coach.  The program went well.  I was asked to assess the team and the project during its first year.  My assessment:  this team will do well no matter what methodology they use – because they are experienced people who know how to work in a team.

There was also an invisible success factor, invisible to the remote business people who chartered my assessment.  Within the ranks of IT management was an individual Director-level manager who secretly supported the Agile transition.  I say “secretly,” because the CIO turned out to be opposed to any special treatment of software developers (compared with, say, treatment of call-center operators), let alone “Agile” teams.  This manager quietly encouraged the Agile team and provided me with insight into all of the IT department politics that could affect the team’s performance.

If you manage to identify and engage the key success factors in real projects, you’ll be regarded as a genius.  But don’t let it go to your head, because a lot of it is luck.  Luck that is aided by keeping your eyes and your mind open.

If you’re managing a major project, it’s best to call upon resources (not just people, but information or equipment or software) that help compensate for any shortfall. So it’s a good idea to continually build up your network of contacts, your access to information, and your knowledge of available equipment and software.  Then, when you run into a roadblock, you can call on your network to help find what you need.  And of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a secret ally in the management ranks.

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

Metrics of Success in Development – Part 3

January 26, 2008

Today we’ll finish the list of ten questions that can give you a quick measure of your development group or department. The purpose is two-fold: to let you see how you measure up compared to other similar departments, and to suggest ways in which you can think about the stresses in your department.

Let’s launch into the final four questions, then we can total them up.

7. Viewed from other departments (outside of Development), how would managers rate your development managers and engineers in each of the following areas?
(a) Cooperativeness (with outside people)
Extremely cooperative – add 3 points
Very cooperative – add 2 points
Cooperative – add 1 point
Uncooperative or unavailable – add 0 points
(b) Flexibility (willing to work with and compromise with others outside the department)
Extremely flexible – add 3 points
Very flexible – add 2 points
Flexible – add 1 point
Inflexible – add 0 points
(c) Team-orientation (beyond the Development department teams)
Extremely team-oriented – add 3 points
Very team-oriented – add 2 points
Team-oriented – add 1 point
Not team-oriented – add 0 points

8. What percentage of the company’s gross revenues in the most recent year were allocated to Development (or R&D)? (If your company has no revenues, or if revenues are less than the Development budget, answer “over 10%”)
(a) over 8% – add 3 points
(b) 4 to 8% – add 2 points
(c) 2 to 4% – add 1 point
(d) less than 2% – add 0 points

9. Comparing this year’s Development budget to last year’s, how did it change?
(a) Increased by 20% or more – add 3 points
(b) Increased by 5 – 20% – add 2 points
(c) Stayed the same or changed by less than 5% – add 1 point
(d) Decreased by more than 5% – add 0 points

10. The number of concurrent development projects now in my department is
(a project is defined as an activity with a timeline and a goal which needs at least 1 full-time person to make progress towards the goal; if you have many small projects, you can count the number of project leaders instead)
(a) over 25 – add 0 points
(b) 15 to 25 – add 1 point
(c) 5 to 15 – add 2 points
(d) 1 to 4 – add 1 point
(e) none – add 0 points


If your total points add up to 52, you have a perfectly-performing development organization and have no need for improvement. For the rest of us, the points are probably in the following ranges:
Excellent: 37 to 52 points
Good: 22 to 36 points
Fair: 13 to 21 points
Poor: 12 points or fewer

How did you do? What does this mean? If you think about the stresses on your department, you can see that the point score is not as significant as the individual issues you’re facing. Are you having a lot of turnover? Slipped schedules? Complaints from other departments about your people? These can all be aggravated by declining budgets which are outside of your control.
Later we’ll examine some of these issues and how you can find ways to work around them. In the mean time, click on the Comment button and let us know how you scored.

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

Metrics of success in development – Part 2

January 26, 2008

Last time we listed the first three questions of a self-assessment questionnaire for Development managers. Those first three related to project completion, staff turnover, and how well the initial functional or feature list was met. If you are having problems delivering products, most likely you will experience problems in one or more of these initial three areas.

There is a less tangible measure that relates to suitability of the product to the customer. But I’m still trying to figure out how to ask about that in a way that leads to a consistent and useful measure. If you have any suggestions, please make a comment on this blog.

Here are the next three questions:

4. How many hours per week are put in by your project or program staff? This is to be answered in two parts: first for the average over the life of the project, and then for the peak of the project or program. Answer this for each of the most recent 3 projects or programs.

4a. Average over the project or program:
Over 60 hours/week (add 0 points per project)
50 to 60 hours / week (add 1 point per project)
40 to 50 hours / week (add 2 points per project)
less than 40 hours / week (add 0 points per project)

4b. Peak week during the project or program:
Over 80 hours / week (add 0 points per project)
70 to 80 hours / week (add 1 point per project)
60 to 70 hours / week (add 2 points per project)
40 to 60 hours / week (add 3 points per project)

5. How many direct reports do you have? (Direct reports include staff assistants, administrators, secretaries, project leaders, managers and interns)
Over 12 (add 0 points)
10 to 12 (add 1 point)
8 to 9 (add 2 points)
3 to 7 (add 3 points)
0 to 2 (add 0 points)

6. Of your direct reports, how many do you regards as “problem” employees (people you will replace when there is an opportunity)?
0 (add 3 points)
1 (add 1 points)
2 (add 0 points)

Questions 4 and 5 are searching for sustainability in your project loading. It’s OK to have peak weeks in which people are working 10 to 20 more hours than is typical during the project. But if you are driving everyone to work more than 60 hours per week on a long-term basis, you are not getting output that is sustainable. It may be time for you to institute metrics that measure results rather than inputs. Then you can experiment with different work schedules to see which ones result in the greatest output.

Sustainability applies to you and your management time, too. If you have more than 9 direct reports, the odds are that you are (a) not managing all of them as well as they could be managed, or (b) overloading yourself with management tasks that give you little time for planning and strategic analysis.

Next time we’ll complete the question list and tally the points for a complete score.

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