To my readers,

Thanks for these last 20 months as you have listened to my Random Thoughts every week. You have helped me confirm that my thoughts aren't alone in the universe, and for that I am grateful. I hope that in some way I have made a difference in your lives, at least make you think about things in a new light. For me, that is reward enough.

Over the last few months, I haven't been able to put the quality time that I needed to with this blog because of other priorities in my life that needed my attention. In addition, I feel that I have covered most areas that I believe would be an interest in others. Therefore, I have decided to take a "sabbatical" from blogging for an indefinitely amount of time. I am not sure if I will come back to this blog later on, stop blogging completely, redesign the site, or start something entirely different. What I do know is that I need to take a break from this and figure it all out.

I have made many friends along the way because I started this blog. To each of you, I will treasure those relationships and by no means will this be the last you hear from me. To everybody else, the number of quality blogs to read in the areas of management, leadership, self-improvement, organizational development and technology have multiplied over this time. I am sure there will be plenty of excellent posts to keep you busy and thinking for some time to come. I know that I will continue to read them and may respond every now and then.

Til' we meet again,

Skip

Traditionally, process improvement has come down from management.  It's expected that this is part of management's job, to keep check on the status quo and determine when things aren't working and fix them.   Management assumes that as well, and is always trying to find ways to improve without having impact to others in the organization.  Even if individuals who are "feeling the pain" with the inefficiency are discourgaged to help, and told to "focus on their jobs" and leave it up to management to improve.  Management ends up taking on the entire burden of improving the orgranization on their own.   As a result, because they don't have the bandwidth to improve everything they end up choosing areas of most pain.   The danger is that they aren't looking at the whole picture, and may be treating the symptom and not the cause.   At best, this only helps things temporarily, as the cause is still out there and will eventually hit a new threshold to cause other symptoms.   For those areas that they are able to attend to, it still impacts others in the organization as they have to react to the changes and aren't prepared when they happen.   Also, despite what managers think, they aren't directly "on the battlefield" and don't always understand what is really happening.  Especially, if they don't ask.

I think the model needs to change.  Improvement should be part of every employee's list of responsibilities.   Management's job is to help others understand what goals are most important to the organization and why, and how to measure success of these goals.  If they can do that and people truly comprehend it, then anybody can determine what improvement initiatives need to happen at their particular level.  It's then up to management to make sure that the initiatives are in alignment throughout the organization and depending on the priority and timeframes, make sure that people given ample attention and time to implement them.   Where possible, to reduce the impact to the organization, things should be done parallel to existing processes as part of a "pilot" project and then rolled out when proven successful.  By spreading both the burden and the work across the organization, this will allow more things to happen.  Management is then focused on the "big picture" instead of the "details", which helps reduce the risk that you are treating the problem and not the symptom.  Lastly, by involving people at all levels of the organization, you are assured that the improved solutions are going to work better because the people expected to implement have been involved throughout the process.  Not only do they have more ownership, they are more proactive in their approach.

Improvement isn't (or shouldn't be) just a "management thing", it should be everybody's business! 

I have learned a long time ago that as a manager (or a parent for that matter) you can be overprotective and micromanage trying to ensure that the people you work with don't make mistakes.  Especially those mistakes that you have experienced in your lifetime.   However, all of your hard work cannot keep mistakes from happening.  It is inevitable.  By being overprotective and micromanaging you are robbing people of the very thing that keeps mistakes from happening in the future - by learning from your mistakes.

If you are going to help people not make mistakes, they need to understand what they did wrong and try to figure out how they will avoid the mistake in the future.   They can only truly understand and want to make correction if they experience it firsthand.   They may understand that the stove is hot and can hurt you, but to truly value that advice they may need to touch the stove to find out.   Despite your best intentions on keeping them away from the stove, they may test your judgment by touching when your back is turned.  Then they will know never to do that again.   Others may take your advice and never try to touch the stove, but they will always be questioning your judgment.

The same goes with management.   As a manager, you have learned that there are certain processes and policies that are exist because of past mistakes either learned by yourself or others. These processes and policies were put in place to avoid those mistakes in the future.  By how do you know that they are stay relevant over time?  Compliance to processes and policies isn’t enough.  Just like the stove, the underlying assumptions and judgments that were made need to be challenged.

When you learned to ride a bike, somebody helped you get the skills down as well as learning how to balance by holding the bike along side of you.   That gave you confidence initially.   Then the person let go.  At first, you failed miserably and perhaps even skinned up a knee.  The person can back and gave you some tips and held some more.  Then the person let go again.  This time you made a little more progress.  Eventually, the person helping had to stop helping and let you learn how to ride your bike.  Otherwise, if they kept holding the bicycle for you, you would end up relying on them for a long time and it would take you much longer to venture on your own.  Both you and the person helping you would be much more frustrated.

As a manager, it is important that mistakes are not made so that quality and efficiency are at its peak.  However, this can't be accomplished if you are "protecting the stove" too much.  Instead, you need to provide the guidance and flexibility to help people "ride the bike".   Let them make some mistakes, and then teach them to learn from them.  In the end, their skills and appreciation of processes and procedures that are in place will be valued.   Those processes and procedures will also be tested to ensure that they are relevant today as they were when they were put into place. 

Ok, that's not really the name of it but Rosa Say over at Talking Story has had her annual event regarding learning.  This year her community of AWESOME people (who in their own right have awesome blogs) focused on the value of learning.  This has been going on throughout the month of September and in today's post she provided links to every post with commentary.  She also threw in some outside posts that she discovered during the month on the topic. 

There is a wealth of information here to keep you busy for some time.  Thanks Rosa, and keep doing what you are doing!

Here's the main link.

A few years ago, I went a local conference and attended a session called Open Spaces.  The concept was intriguing - groups of people determine topics that they would like to talk about and they gather to talk about that subject at a designated time and place.  Instead of a pre-determined "speaker", the group self-organized and determined what they would talk about when they met.

While I liked the idea, I was frustrated at the time with the execution of the Open Spaces.  People seemed to be confused, disorganized, and as a result little good came from it.  Seems I wasn't only with my frustration.

Scott Berkun has a great post this week on "How to run a great unconference session".  Here is his introduction:

It’s easy to assume that unconferences, the popular trend in tech-sector events, require little thought on the part of session organizers. The myth is that by choosing to do an unconference, special magic will trickle down into all the sessions, blooming into dozens of beautiful flowers of enlightened communal experience.

It’s not true: All unconferences have good sessions and bad. Ask anyone who’s attend one of these things - they’ll tell you about dud topics, confused session organizers, and the guy who kept taking the floor to talk about his company in session after session. For all their benefits, unconferences have their bad moments too.

One trick with unconferences is not to bet the farm on self-organization: people running sessions have a job to do, and it’s up to them to make the sessions work. The event planners do carry the heavy burden of setting the tone, creating the environment and inviting the right people, but the session creators themsleves are part of the the front lines for delivering value to attendies (and themselves).

Running a great session isn’t hard - it just take some thought and awareness of what can go wrong.

Read the rest of Scott's post on tips of things to consider when planning an unconference.  I think if people follow these rules, we should hear a lot more about the effectiveness of unconferences to come!

If you are a manager, have you ever had the thought when planning a vacation: "How long can they manage without me?"   A day?  A few days? Over a week? Longer?   How you answer that and what happens when you return after a period of time is very telling on how you manage others.

If my answer is "a day", this means that my team depends too heavily on me for daily decisions and I am a major bottleneck in their productivity.  They don't have any authority to make decisions.  Everything has to come through me.  This is a result of a lack of delegation, autonomy, and enough understanding of roles and responsibilities for each individual and functional area.  If my answer is too long, say a couple of weeks or longer, that could be another problem.  This means that my team doesn't need to report back to me or need my help in making longer term decisions.  They don't have any accountability to report back to me.  Chances are that they may be making some assumptions that at least need to be validated by me.  I need to be there to provide checkpoints to ensure that the team has what they need and are making the correct assumptions in their decision making.

Here's how our department is made up:  We have a cross-matrix between projects and functional areas of operation. Within projects, we have a couple of full-time project managers that manage several dedicated project teams.  These teams represent not only each functional area of operation within our department, but also other departments.  The project managers manage the overall cost, schedule, quality and scope of projects that are assigned to the groups by myself and other departmental managers.   If something significant changes in any of these areas, the project managers are to escalate issues to one or more of the departmental managers.  If I am not here, these departmental managers will assist in my absence.

The other part of the matrix is dedicated teams for each functional area of operation.  Roles and responsibilites of each of these areas are clearly understood by each team.  They are lead by part-time functional managers who not only help provide direction and esclation but also work along side the others on the team in the same functional role.  If something significant changes in each of the areas, the functional managers are to escalate issues to me as their departmental manager.  Since these functional areas don't change very much in roles and responsibilities, escalation doesn't really happen.  Most of the issues are around projects, so they go to the Project Manager for escalation.

So what do I do?  Don't you have too many managers, you might ask?  I don't think so, because my role is beyond daily operations which is pretty much handled by this group. Each manager is focused on particular functional roles and particular projects.  I am the orchestra leader.  I am looking at the projects and department as a whole, making sure that cross-project or cross-functional interactions are working smoothly.   I also meet with the managers on a weekly basis to make sure that they all are on the same page with me.  I also focus on overall improvements to areas that are weaker and work with the appropriate managers and groups in coordinating those efforts.  My focus is also on the future direction for the department, where we are going and how to get there.

So how long do I think they can manage without me?  Given the way I have set things up, I would say a couple of weeks without at least talking with managers to make sure things are going ok.  How long was it when I first started managing?  I would say only a couple of days at the most without a lot of chaos and work to come back to.   I would say that I have made progress!   I also have to be comfortable with the fact that people can be trusted to get the job done without me to a certain degree.  This is difficult for many managers, as they want to or have to feel like they are the most important and smartest person in the room.  For me, I have the confidence that I have my place, while being surrounded by very important and smart people (many much smarter than me!).  However, when I am in the office I expect people to come to me when they are having problems or need some direction.  I don't want things to take longer than possible.  If I am the bottleneck waiting on a decision, I want them to make the decision without me and bring other people into the decision as necessary.  However, if they are the bottleneck spending too long making a decision, I expect to be involved to help remove that bottleneck (or escalation to another departmental manager in my absence).

We finish this series on ways to have more effective meetings by discussing what should happen at the end of the meeting, as well as what you should do following the meeting.

Here is what should happen at the end of every meeting:

• Running out of time.  No matter how well you plan the agenda and try to stick to it, you are bound to have surprises which cause your meeting to run longer.  Don't just continue the discussion as people might have other plans following your meeting.  As I see it, you have two choices: 1) Ask for permission to extend the meeting for the additional time needed.  If people are ok with that, continue the meeting.  Otherwise, 2) Schedule a follow up meeting with the group at a more convenient time in the next 24 hours while the information is fresh in their memories.
• Thank attendees for their time and contribution.  You would be surprised how this little thing can make a difference in future meetings.  People want to feel that they helped in the meeting and by thanking people publicly it will encourage participation in the future.
• Summarize Action Items.  It is a good idea to summarize the decisions that have been made, who will work on the action items and when you expect to provide more information to everyone.
• Review the Meeting Goals as well as Questions.  Hopefully, if you have been doing everything right, this should just be a confirmation that these things were covered.  After all, this was the whole point of the meeting, right?   If some of the goals or questions were not covered, try to answer offline or schedule a follow-up meeting with the appropriate people.

After the meeting there are a few things that you should do to ensure that the communication and meetings goals have been completed:

• Create Meeting Notes.  Take the notes from your Scribe as well as the Action Items and publish meeting notes.  Send these notes not only to all participants of the meeting but any other stakeholders who were unable to attend the meeting but are interested in the information gathered.
• Check on Action Items. Hold people accountable after the meeting to complete the action items assigned to them.  Once those have been completed, either publish the information and have a follow-up meeting.  The decision will depend on the information and how accepted it will be with the stakeholders.
• Get Feedback on the Meeting from all participants.  Ask questions like: "What did you get out of the meeting?"  "In what ways can I conduct a better meeting in the future?"  "Did you feel you were able to participate in the future?"  "Was there anything that you wanted to say but didn't?"  There may be more questions, but these will not only help you in future meetings but also gives participants one last chance to give their opinions.

I hope that you enjoyed this series and that it will better help you in conducting meetings in the future!

The tone of the meeting can be set in the first five minutes.  Therefore, it is important to do the following things at the beginning of each meeting:

Establish Ground Rules - What are ground rules?  They are a list of things for each participant in the meeting to consider.  These ground rules can be global for every meeting or apply only to a particular meeting.  Here are some global ground rules that we have established for meetings:

• Inward focused not outward – “What can I/we do?” instead of “What can others do?”
• Proactive not reactive – Produce action items, not just talk.
• Participatory – Everybody should be prepared to contribute to the discussion.
• Be prepared – If you didn’t read the materials, please don’t come to the meeting.
• One at a time – Let each person finish this discussion before interrupting.
• Open discussion – Anything can and should be discussed as long as they fit the other ground rules.

Assign a Timer -  It is very easy to run out of time in a meeting unless you have somebody paying attention to it.  I have found this to be difficult for the meeting coordinator to do if they are to focus on the meeting itself.  Therefore, it is a great idea to assign this task to somebody in the group.

Assign a Scribe - Same goes with meeting notes.  We have tried to write everything up on the marker boards, then the meeting coordinate takes notes afterwards.  However, this doesn't always work because the meeting room might have a meeting immediately following.  We have found that assigning a scribe to the meeting ensures that we get accurate and complete notes that the coordinator can get at the end of the meeting.

Review the Agenda -  Though you sent the meeting agenda ahead of time, that doesn't mean that each person had time to review it.   Go through it and make sure that everybody understands what will be discussed.  Allow for clarifying questions.

Introduction of Attendees -  Unless the people in the meeting are very familiar to each other and their particular role in the meeting, it is always good to go around the room and make introductions.  This is especially important when you have outside visitors or are involved in a conference call type of meeting.

Once you get the meeting going, here are some guidelines that you need to consider as you progress through the meeting:

1. Stick to the Agenda - I think it is very important to discipline yourself and the group to follow the agenda.  This will ensure focus and make sure that sufficient time is given to all aspects of the meeting.
2. Establish a Parking Lot -  Though we should stick to the agenda, there are times where things will come up that weren't considered beforehand.  Plus, you don't want to stifle creativity by not allowing for out-of-the-box thinking.  Therefore, it is good practice to have a parking lot.  Document items that come up with the idea that they will be discussed in future meetings or offline with the appropriate individuals. 
3. Check with the Timer - You should establish with the timer a way to communicate to each other how we are managing our time.  This could be in the form of signals or just asking the Timer occassionally.
4. Document Action Items -  The meeting coordinator should put up on the marker board all action items that are coming up as the meeting progresses for all to see.  Don't worry about who and when those will be done yet, we will get to that later.  Just make sure you are showing the participants that some things will be resolved through the discussion.

Next, we will finish this series up by discussing what happens at the end of the meeting and the steps that occur after the meeting.

Before you have a meeting, you need to make sure that you determine if a meeting is the best forum.  Hopefully, the previous posts have given you some background.  In addition, you need to look at the following things:

• Why do we need to meet?   Is there a particular problem we are trying to resolve?  Do we need to choose a solution from several options?  Do we need to make sure that everybody on the team has the same information?   It is important to make sure as the meeting coordinate that you understand these things.  Don't just have a meeting because you can!
• Are the alternative forms of communication that should replace or accompany the meeting? Having a meeting, though valuable, is the most disruptive to people's schedules and workflows.  There are other forms that are less intrusive such as email, voice mail, posting pages on the company's intranet.   If there is a better forum, pick it.
• Who should come to the meeting?  Definitely, those people who need to come up with plans of action and are stakeholder.  All other people may be optional and you should consider the other forms of communication as a way to get their input or provide results of the meeting.  Also, if you are trying to come to a consensus for a decision, a reminder that the more people involved the harder it is to gain that consensus.  Try to limit the participants where making sure that others are included through activities and communication outside of the meeting.

Now that you have decided to have a meeting, it is best to make sure you are well prepared for it.  We have all been to meetings that have been poorly planned and done at the last minute.  Most of the meetings have been nightmares.  Don't let that happen to you.  Here are the steps:

Define the goals of the meeting.  "What do we want to accomplish by the end of the meeting?" Keep the goals to a few, no more than three, one or two is best.  This will set the general flow of the meeting to keep things focused.

Determine the stakeholders.  "Who are the people I need there to best accomplish the goals?"  Don't have a meeting without those people if possible!  If for some reason, a stakeholder cannot attend, try to have a "proxy stakeholder" come in their place.  Make sure that this proxy reflects the opinions of the true stakeholder.

Determine the timing of the meeting.  "Is this the right time to have the meeting?"  "How long should we take?"  Timing is everything.  If you feel that there is not enough infomation needed to accomplish the goals, WAIT to have the meeting until you and others are ready.  Otherwise, you are wasting your time and others!   Also, don't meet longer than necessary.  Too often, people just block out an hour for a meeting that should only take 15 minutes.  What happens?  It becomes natural that people end up spending the hour JUST because it is there.   It is much better to underallocate time, and have a followup meeting if necessary than overallocate.  Keep this in mind!

Create a meeting Agenda.  This really doesn't take a lot of time but is such a valuable tool.  The Agenda should contain the following items:

• Name of Meeting
• Meeting Organizer
• Date, Time, Place
• Attendees
• Purpose of the Meeting
• Goals of the Meeting
• Introduction Time
• Breakdown of Objectives with Description, Owner/Presenter, Time Allocation
• Q&A Time
• Action Items Form with Description, Owner, Date to Complete
• Place for Notes

Send a meeting invitation.  Most likely by email and integrated with a scheduling program.  This email should have the agenda attached as well as have the name of the meeting in the Subject Line and the Date, Time, Place and Purpose of the meeting in the body.  You should also ask people to RSVP by a certain date/time prior to the meeting.  Make sure that you hear back at least from stakeholders.

Next time, what to do at the start of the meeting... 

Over the next few days, I am going to talk about something we are all familiar with - MEETINGS!   Whether or like them or not, they are a part of your work life.   Most of the information discussed in this series aren't new to many of you.  If nothing else, this will be a refresher course for you.   The series will focus on the role of meeting organizer, though some of you will learn some things regardless if you are in that role.  So, here we go....

Why do people meet?   I think there are several reasons why meetings are necessary:

• Social gathering - If you are going to work as a team, you must get to know your teammates.  Meetings provide that face-to-face interaction that is important in any kind of relationship.
  
• Collaborative - If the purpose of the meeting is to brainstorm, there is no other vehicle of communication that fosters collaboration like meetings.   Bringing people together with various perspectives, working through the issues and coming to a better solution than any one individual can come up with.
  
• Change in Routine - Meetings can be a distraction - positive or negative.  A positive aspect is that it forces you to break up your routine.  You might find that the break gives you a fresh perspective just by having the diversion.
  
• Remove roadblocks - This is probably the most important reason to have meetings, in order to take care of the things that are getting in our way.  Finding solutions to problems and issues that are plaguing us.
  
• Be informed - Sometimes it is good to have a meeting just to make sure that everybody is on the same page by being well informed.   The information provided may help each person in ways that is not expected.

You can't be a leader if you are unwilling to embrace change.   Sticking with the status quo, with the mindset of "if it doesn't break, why fix it?" is only a short-term solution.   Something will break eventually.  Therefore, if you want to be a successful leader, you must be proactive and make changes now that will avoid the "break" in the future to be much more significant.  

Don't be fooled, though change is necessary it is very difficult.  If not planned well, it could cause major disruptions.  It is human nature for many to be against change, because it takes us out of our comfort zones.  Therefore, you must ease the change carefully and communicate constantly (including listening) to make sure that people can see the value and need for change but also to reduce conflicts and risks through the process.   I am a big fan of having "pilot" projects, in which you only impact a subset of people while still maintaining the status quo.  This gives you a chance to prove out the change and work through all of the kinks before unleashing it on others.

When I was a project manager, it was part of my vocabulary to resist change.  To stick on the agreed scope of the project and make assumptions on the unknowns and risks to minimize any chance of change.   No matter how much the customer wanted to put something in later in the project, I resisted such requests.  Sometimes it worked and the project was kept on task.  Most of the time it left the customer feeling very frustrated that they couldn't change their minds.  It also ended up require "heroics" by the team to keep things on schedule even though their originial assumption were incorrect and things came up that caught the team by surprise.   I knew that resisting change was causing these problems, but didn't know a different way to develop and manage software projects to properly embrace change.   It wasn't until I begin to learn and embrace the ideas of agile software development that I saw I wasn't alone in the stuggle and that there was indeed a better way!

As a leader, change can come in different forms.  People leave companies, with them you lose skills and particularly knowledge that will need to be transferred to others.  Sometimes that it is easy, sometimes it requires reorganization.   Technologies can change from underneath you.  Products can become discontinued, or support become limited because the company has moved to newer technologies.  Therefore, the tools you use in your work would need to change.  The markets and customers that you serve could change and create whole new markets or different "players" because of mergers and acquistions.  Therefore, you might see changes in your products and services that you didn't anticipate.   Sticking with the status quo with all of these kinds of changes could not only stop working but could get you quickly off-course.  Therefore, if you want things to keep flowing, you got to be one step ahead on where the flow is taking you and make course corrections as needed.  Those that can successfully do that, without major impact to the organization, is considered a great leader.

It seems that the word "passion" has come up a lot in my reading lately around having the right people in your organization.   People have used "passion" to describe me based on my random thoughts on this blog.  People that I work with, work for or have worked with have used the word to describe me at times.   I thought I knew what passion was, but learned more when I looked up the term (using Wiktionary):

passion - 1. great emotion; 2. fervor and determination

Ok, this seems to sound a little like me and is definitely the kind of person that I would want to work with in any organization.   As long as the great emotion is used in a positive and contributing way (I have had plenty that have great emotion or should I say drama with little substance).   Fervor and determination...hmmm...that sounds interesting, let me look up the definition for those words:

fervor - 1. An intense, heated emotion; 2. enthusiasm for some cause

determination - 1. Direction or tendency to a certain end; implusion; 2. The quality of mind which reaches definite conclusions; 3. That which is determined upon; result of deliberation; purpose; conclusion formed; fixed resolution.

Intensity, cause, implusion, quality of mind, purpose, and having a fixed resolution -- yep, that sounds like me and those kind of people who I most like to work with.  It also sounds like the scenario for the perfect company that I would like to be a part of.

I think of the movie "Joe vs. the Volcano".  It starred Tom Hanks and was a bad movie overall.  But there was this one scene that has forever stuck in my mind.  At the start of the movie, Tom's character is going to work and walking up to this mammoth building along with other people.  He and the rest of the employees look almost like robots - emotionless, cold, distant, and lifeless.   As he walks into the building, it's like one big cube farm (very Dilbert-like), so quiet that you can hear the buzz of the florescent lights, so dark and dismal, and everybody just goes to their areas and sits down and starts their work.  And my thought was....I never want to work for a place like this and become one of those "robots".  The entire organization had no "passion" whatsoever!   You could feel the life draining as each painful minute passed.

Though that was the extreme scenario, I have seen organizations that have no life in them.  People just come into work to do their mandatory 40-some hours each week to pick up their paycheck.  They drag themselves into work, and can't wait until the clock hits quitting time.   Their work life (and perhaps their entire life) has NO meaning, NO purpose, NO emotion, fervor or determination.   They have nothing to look forward to, and nothing to feel rewarded for.   I think it's an epidemic that continues to plague corporate America.

How do we turn it around?  It starts with one person, and this person doesn't necessary need to be the CEO.  They begin to ask questions about their role in the company and what the company is all about.  They encourage others to get involved.  It becomes a whole new viral epidemic.  People then want to know what the future of the company is, its mission and vision, to determine the organization's cause.  Then, if allowed by management, they want to be active and participate in that cause (if that's what they believe in).  Those that didn't fit into the cause, are probably not the right people to work for the organization.  You let them go, and replace them with others that want to work the cause.  Now everybody has meaning, purpose, emotion fervor and determination.  They look forward each day to contributing towards the organization's success and they receive tangible rewards for their efforts!

It starts with you.  Where is your passion?  Can you use your passion in your current role within your current organization.  If not, look for other places where you can.  If there still is a potential fit with the organization, start getting others involved and triggering their passion.  Sometimes passion has always been there, but never triggered.  Other times, passion was there but need to be re-ignited. Find it! Use It! Help others do the same!  If you find that these things don't renew your passion, then you seriously need to consider finding another organization that will. 

Unless you like to be a robot...

Pretend you are taking a week long trip with a friend.   You start packing and end up with a couple of large suitcases.  Your friend arrives with one medium suitcase.  You start thinking, "What are they thinking?  They don't have enough clothes to last the week."   You arrive to your destination.  When you start unpacking, your friend's clothes are all nicely folded and no wrinkles.  Your clothes look like a mess and will need to be ironed.   Your friend is able to put things into drawers quickly as well as the bathroom items.  You have to go through your bag and it takes you longer to find things and put them in their place.  However, your friend has less clothes than you.  As the week progresses, you begin to see that your friend has found ways to reuse what they wear - different shirts with the same pants - yet still appear like they aren't worn.   You on the other hand, find that at the end of the trip you had clothes that you didn't wear, but had to carry around.  Now you start thinking, "My friend has a better way.  I've got to learn from them for the next trip!"

Was the friend always this organized?  Probably not, they probably learned by somebody else.   Experienced travelers have tricks on how to properly fold clothes and how to maximize every spaces in a suitcase.  They have also learned what's "good enough" and not to take more than they need.  Even if they end up needing fresh clothes, they will end up using a local cleaners or wash their own clothes instead of taking too much.  They have learned how to best put clothes and other accessories together to maximize their use.

As my development staff is asked to reduce cycle times through iterative development using Agile best practices, their initial reaction is "That sounds all good, but we have found things to take weeks or months and that won't work with this approach."  They are correct, it won't.   But, just because you have done things a certain way doesn't mean that it is the ONLY way to do things.   We have learned how to do things as individuals.  We will now need to do those things together as a team.  We have learned that each person plays a particular role and has their own specialization.  We will now need to remove those specializations and have people wear multiple hats.  We have learned to think about everything up front is much detail.  We will now need to learn to do just enough for now and think about details when it is appropriate later.  We have learned to break the work and requirements down just enough to make sense for a 6-8 month project, we will now need to refine that work to make sense for 2-4 week iterations.

What's great about Agile is that it isn't just "theory" anymore, people have found it to work and improve the flexibility and responsiveness of the team to provide working solutions to customers.  We can tap into these "experienced travelers" and figure out how they have done it a different and better way.  It just seems strange to us because we have learned how to do things differently, not necessarily better.

When I first started reading blogs, I was excited about the amount that was out there.  I started out slow, reading about 10 blogs on a daily basis.   I found the content fascinating and of great value, so I started subscribing to a few more, and grew the list to around 25.   It was a little more challenging, but I was able to read this list every day.   I thought to myself, "If I can read 25, why not 50, 100, 150, 200?".  So the number of blogs that I started reading increased significantly over the next few weeks.  At one point, I had over 200 feeds that I was trying to keep up with.

Here's what I found though, I didn't have the time to really read and digest the content.  I found myself skimming material, some material that was very good but because of the volume didn't have much time to do more than that.  I begin to find that not only did it take me much more time to read everything, but I wasn't getting the value that I had received before when the numbers were much lower. 

I started looking at the blogs I was reading and determining which of these was really worth my time and which weren't.  The goal became quality not quantity.  I started narrowing the group down, soon to 100, and now around 75.  I still probably have to cut more down, but I am pleased already with the ones that I have remaining and have found that I am spending more time reading them.   I think I will really need to get down to about 30-50 feeds to maximize the quality of time I have dedicated to reading blogs.  This will take some discipline, but in the end will be worth it.

Now, think about the company that you work for.  Are you multi-tasking too much?   Do you feel overwhelmed and stretched too thin?  Are you focused on quality of what you do and not just quantity?  Is your company trying to do too much against its capacity?  Are people wearing too many hats?  Remember, it's always better to perform some things very well than many things just ok.

Start with yourself.  Find those things that you are doing that isn't bringing quality and value to what you do, and cut them out.  Talk with your boss about processes and workloads that you aren't sure why you are doing and verify the value.  If there is little value, remove them.  Encourage your boss to talk to their bosses, looking at those things that are taking away the focus from the things that are most important to stay in business and keep/get customers.  If everybody in your organization was thinking this way, just think about how successful the company could be!

Lean can mean different things to different people.

For some, lean can refer to how you maintain your physical shape through dieting and exercise.  For those that have been successful in staying lean, they will say that it takes a paradigm shift of how you take care of your body through what you eat and how you exercise.   When you start the process of becoming lean, you begin to cut out those things that are unhealthy and make you fat.   You begin to eat better.  You begin to feel better.  You start seeing results in the mirror.  You also are constantly monitoring your weight, heartbeat, blood pressure, caolries, etc through the process.  For some of us, myself included, we get lazy once we reach this point and start falling back to bad habits -- at first, a mistake here and there on what we eat, or missing a workout or two.  Then, you stop getting on the scale and recording your results.   Then, before you know it you are not lean again!

For others, lean can refer to how you maintain your financial status through budgeting and tracking your expenses.  For those that have been successful in saving money and making more through investings, they will say that it takes a paradigm shift of what you do with your money and where it goes.  When you start the process of saving money, you begin to determine where your expenses are going and which of those expenses you can eliminate that takes you from your goals.  You also look at ways to increase your income with those savings through investments.   You also look to remove your debt. You begin to save money.  You begin to feel better.  You start seeing results in your portfolio.  You also are constantly monitoring your income flow, expenses and net worth through the process.  For some of us, in this case myself not included, we get lazy once we reach this point and start falling back to bad habits of spending excess money, getting into debt, and eventually not saving money.  Then, before you know it you are not financially set again!

In the software engineering industry, lean is now referring to your cycle time - how quickly you get to a working solution for the end customer without losing quality.  For those that have been successful with this approach, they will say that it takes a paradigm shift of how you development and manage your software solutions.  When you start the process of reducing cycle times, you begin to determine where communication and collaboration need to happen, what activities or processes take away from reducing cycle times, how we do our jobs and the way we interact with other areas.  You will begin to see results.  You wil see the customer is more satisfied. You will find better ways to get your work done. You also are constantly monitoring your estimates, work completed, costs, quality much better. For some of us, myself a little bit, it is very easy to fall back into old habits of traditional and formal processes because you are so familiar with them and may get discouraged early on in not seeing immediate results you are hoping.  You then begin to see things slip, take longer and less of a feeling of accomplishment either by the team or the end customer.  Then, before you know it you are feeling that things aren't getting done as they should! 

There are many other scenarios that this lean approach can take - time management, stress management, strategy, project management, the list goes on and on.   What is getting in the way of your goals?   How do you improve on those goals?  What do you do to maintain those goals?   How do you measure the process of those goals?  

Focus on the goals and maintain discipline to see it through!  This is what lean should mean!

Whether you are in product or service business, you need customers to stay in business.  They are the lifeblood of your business, you need them to live and survive.  But, can you get bad blood?  Are there customers that can cause "infection" or "disease" in your organization because they bring more harm than good? 

I am concerned that too many companies fall into the trap that turning down customer requests or needs is poor customer service.  But I think companies need to re-evaluate customers that fall into these categories:

• Customers that require high maintenance but aren't charged more.
• Customers who ask for additional services or products that you don't provide.
• Customers who ask for custom solutions, that won't work for the rest of your customer base.
• Customers who don't buy into the future vision of the company, which they will need to commit to as some point.
• Customers who are cheap but want everything.
• Customers who constantly mistreat and disrespect your company's employee, no matter what you do for them.
• Customers who purchase your products or services but those products and services don't align well with their business or particular needs and are unique from your customer base.

With any product or service, you need to focus on who you want your customer to be and what expectations they have with you and what you provide to them.   Once you have figured that out, those customers that don't fit well with your customer need to be dealt with.  Otherwise, you have the potential to become something else for those customers while alienating your core customer base.   It may be better to lose those customers by NOT doing things for them, then to do those things and lose other customers in the process.

So is that bad customer service, or good business sense?  You be the judge!