How to Continuously Improve

Deming tells us to plan, do, check, then act. Is that all there is to it? Yes. But it's not that easy for a lot of people to do this. Why?

In more detail, here's the algorithm I use:

1. Plan a project or action based on your conversations with powerful and legitimate stakeholders.
   
2. Do the project or action according to plan. Do not deviate. Almost always there will be a gap between what was expected and what actually happened.
   
3. Check how big this gap is. Get feedback from the stakeholders. Note what to keep doing, stop doing, and start doing for next time. Make a plan to support what you want to keep, stop what isn't necessary, and start what's required.
   
4. Act on the plan.

Does this work for you? How do you modify this or do it differently? How does technology affect this? What tools do you use to support this process? Is there a different process? What is the hardest part about this? What makes this process break?

Planning Freaks People Out

People react differently to planning. Some like it, some hate it. Planning makes people think, commit, trust and eventually do work, perform, and risk exposing themselves. Their plans cause them to announce their intentions and make things public. That's scary for some, glorious for others.

An Answers.com definition of "plan" (the noun) is, "A proposed or tentative project or course of action." The word in the definition that I like is "tentative". It's funny because EVERYTHING is tentative! No one can predict the future or know the results. So why are we all so scared?

Expectations are another aspect of this. What do you expect? Why do you expect it? Do you have high expectations from yourself? Others? Products? Services? Things you make? Things made by others? We all have expectations but should we? Doesn't having them just hurt us? It's been said that "happiness is inversely proportionate to expectation." I would agree. So stop expecting and start planning 'cause none of us know anything ever.

It's Efficient, but for Whom?

One big problem with the "green" (environmentalism, efficiency, social consciousness) movement is that it is hard to know the truth about what is green. Hence the term "greenwashing" as in flubbing or lying about the greenness of one's product, company, or service. But is lying necessarily bad here? It could be.

It's the case in business and life that things can be "efficient" (defined by Answers.com as "Acting or producing effectively with a minimum of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort.") for one person but not another. In fact, that's the norm; there are system effects to improving one area of a process while not considering the others. There has to be a balance since there are many stakeholders and perspectives for anything we look at or touch. A simple example of sub-optimized efficiency is a company that dumps its waste into a local water supply, saving itself money but breaking the law and damaging the water supply. It's efficient for them but inefficient for the water supply, water users, etc.

Say things change and this same company decides to change its behavior and "go green". They promote how they reduced X, Y, and Z. This is good. All positive change is good, but it's still not enough. The company is not off the hook now for doing ONE GOOD THING!

The point here is that there are many SHADES of GREEN. Anything that is positive for people or the planet can be considered green but we have to be very careful what we call green or call good enough. What we should be shooting for is A BRIGHT GREEN THAT WE CAN MEASURE. That said, there's usually a the competing force of financial and economic greed. We can and do measure that well: it's called profit or loss. Where's the balance in a system like this? How would we know if we were doing the right thing? What if I made $1M from a business that hurt things and then reinvested that in saving children or streams? Am I bad?

We're All Actors

I've been thinking a lot lately about "performance". What does it mean? Here's my favorite definition from Answers.com, "A presentation, especially a theatrical one, before an audience."

I agree with this--albeit very public-sounding--definition. When I think of work I think of performance. Was the work good? Was it bad? Who was the audience? Usually your manager is witness to your work performances but sometimes they never even see, read, observe, or understand what you do. Sometimes we even get paid for performances that are not seen, heard, or used. What a waste.

I've been talking to people lately about my desire to write and speak more about my work and life passions. Blogging is one channel to accomplish the writing part but I'd also like to publish my work into other channels like journals, books, etc. To publish implies that one's intention is to SHARE his her work with an audience. The first trick, however is to identify and/or develop that audience. UNDERSTAND the audience. Who are you speaking to? What do they need and want? What are their fears and fantasies?

The more one becomes social and "out" (of their head, shell, closet, whatever it may be that's keeping them "in"), the more they act (real) and perform (well); the more they become their true selves and a key part of society.

If you're performing in a job that has a small audience and you feel like no one cares, get out of it today and do something else starting now! Grow your audience by reaching out to those around you and make a difference in your life in theirs. Let this change you take on be your NEW and NEXT performance. Make what you really love and want to do be your FINAL and REAL performance. Everything else is fake.

What's a project? What's a process?

A project is vision or plan that causes one or more people to change from doing things as they are (the current situation or status quo) to a new way (the desired future state).

A process is the current or future way that things are done.

Both human projects and processes share in the property that they require "work" to perform or sustain.

From General to Specific

ABSTRACT TERMS:
Concept, Idea, Model, Strawman, Framework, Class, Process, Template

CONCRETE TERMS:
Instance, Object, Product, Item, Implementation, Project, Realization, Fleshed Out

Where's your focus? Social? Environmental? Monetary? The work and process are what's core and what matters.

Roles of Agents in a Change Process

Generally, the roles are:

• Customer - The person getting the product or receiving the change
  


• Change Agent - The person working "both sides of the fence" to ensure proper communications
  


• Delivery - The person providing the service
  

In the case of changing a business internally, the specific roles, agents, actors are:

• Customer - The Business




• Express needs and pain points


• Adopt changes, whether originating from the business or IT

• Change Agent - Project Manager, Business/Functional Analyst




• Facilitate the discussion, negotiate, look for win-wins, and syngergy

• Delivery and Support - IT




• Develop, acquire, Deliver necessary services, supplies, and training to enhance quality of adoption

In the case of changing a market, the specific roles, agents, actors are:

• Customer - The Market




• Express needs and pain points


• Pay for products and services, whether developed from Push or Pull methods

• Change Agent - The Business, esp. Marketing and Product Managers…but everyone, really




• Understand needs within the Market, understand and communicate innovations and technologies developed internally and their value in the market


• Develop structural tension necessary to release products and services into market, as well as to be the voice of innovation and change required within the business to deliver quality and innovative goods

• Delivery - The Business, esp. Supply Chain Management




• Develop, acquire, Deliver necessary services, supplies, and training to enhance quality of adoption

Business Process Engineering and Business Intelligence

Two buzzwords. What do they mean?

To me, BPE is all about changing the way the organization uses its resources; seeking to improve efficiency, cost, quality, and time. It generally uses IT but IT is not the only tool it uses. Other tools that BPE uses include: re-organization, training, and good internal communications and programs. This is my favorite topic, and I think the most important one for business: How are we using our resources and how can we better use them through the adoption of technology.

Business Intelligence to me seems way more vague and stupid than BPE. One way to look at BI is through the lens of Six Sigma: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. I think that BI is about Defining systems that create Measurements and then Analyzing what's going on in the hopes that the system can be Improved and Controlled. BI gets into designing measurable systems so they can be controlled. That's all.

The Ideal Enterprise

What does the "ideal" enterprise look like and how does it behave? A few components:

1. Role-based everything - The organization knows what Jobs it has and what roles are played in its processes.
   
2. Process Management - The organization knows what its key high-level processes are and how they interact. This is essential for control.
   
3. Project Management Office - The organization knows what projects it is currently working on, their status, and the tools they're using. This helps manage change and progress.
   
4. Tools known, supported, and described - The tools (IT systems) that the organization uses are known and their uses transparent. There are sufficient resources to support them, add new users to them (training), and improve them.

Having all of these things helps the organization control and improve itself.

Making Companies is like Making Movies

There's a lot to be learned from Hollywood for the production of software. Making software isn't (or shouldn't be) all that different from making films. Since the early 1900's, Hollywood has been pumping out film after film. Technologies have of course changed over the years but the end product of a motion picture remains. Software is similar. Hollywood's "simple" process of pre-production, production, and post-production is a powerful tool. And its simple roles of Scriptwriter, Producer, Director, Actors, and Post-Product workers are powerful if applied to software projects.

PRE-PRODUCTION ROLES:
Scriptwriters
In film, these are the story tellers.
In software, these are also the storytellers. Their titles, however, are Business Analyst, Product Manager, Requirements Engineer, or Process Engineer.

Producers
In film, these are the guys that get the money and form the team.
In software, these are the Project and Program Managers (or above) who get the money (from investors or internal sponsors) and form the team.

PRODUCTION ROLES:

Director
In film, the director is responsible for the creative work and directing the actors.
In software, the IT Project or Program Manager does the same thing. The actors in software are the designers and developers who are creating the end product for the customer.

PHASES:
Pre-Production
In film, this is creating and refining the script, getting the actors, having a plan, and budget.
In software, this is creating and defining the software, getting the developers, having a plan and budget.

Production
In film, this is "shooting" the film and having the actors act according to the (sometimes changing) plan.
In software, this is "coding" the software and having the developers code according to the (sometimes changing) plan.

Post-Production
In film, this is the work involved in creating the final product of sufficient quality.
In software, this is QA work and is generally iterative where things are returned to developers to fix.

Iteration
In film, iteration is common. Many "takes" happen.
In software, iteration is common. Much "rework" happens.

So in total, I hope you can see that a patter and relationship emerges between film and software. They're the same. They're both productive processes generating a product for an audience. Applying more of our knowledge of the film industry and how it works to software would improve development lifecycles, decrease budgets, and improve user-satisfaction.

Technology's Impact on Politics

In preparing for the April 16 MIT Enterprise Forum Event on "Technology's Impact on Politics" at the Bellevue Hyatt, I've been doing some calling-around and a little research. Here are some thoughts based on my conversations. I'd like to know your thoughts, too. Some of the fun organizations that I've contacted are http://www.technet.org/ and http://blueutopia.com/.

I keep thinking that offering "political infrastructure" as a service may be valuable. I see that being delivered as a hodge-podge of already-existing technologies rolled into a service. ie I don't think there's any reason to re-invent the wheel here. Maybe there's unfulfilled need in the market for campaign service companies where candidates or causes outsource their whole campaign to achieve their goals through crowds. But do businesses have incentive to deliver services specialized in politics only? I kinda doubt it. Politics is obviously a very cyclical business, which is a downside for businesses. But I do think that there is a ton that can be learned from observing the way the political process works. ie how do communications, campaigns, and groups form and work together to achieve the goals of the candidate or cause? Maybe the political process is a model for businesses to learn from as they discover how they, too, can use technology to build their brand and achieve their goals.

MITEF Volunteering

I'll be volunteering with the MIT Enterprise Forum of Seattle. The two events that I signed up to support are "Information Transparency" and "Technology in Politics". I'm excited to learn more about these areas, develop some skills, and meet some people.

Program Managers and Product Managers. What's the difference?

I recently had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who works at Expedia as a Product Manager. He appears to like it. For comparison's sake, I think we're different in that I have been a technical resource for a number of years and get the engineering side of things perhaps better than he does; I've been a developer, I've built many web sites and software applications from scratch, so I get this engineering-type stuff! The thing is that I think I also get the customer side of things very well, too. I've been making solutions for people for over 10 years and have applied many leadership skills, Voice of Customer, and Use Case / Process Modeling techniques when working with my customers to ensure clarity and quality. My point is that I think I can do either the job of Program Manager or Product Manager but want to pick one. So which one?

Program Manager: I have a technical background. I have been a software, database, and process developer for years. I like the technology for the most part but don't want to get bogged down in too many technical details. There's cheaper labor for that type of stuff! I'd rather manage. I have been both a project and program manager for software and process implementation projects within Siemens. I enjoyed the control of those roles and got to do much the Business Analysis and Product Management efforts on those project, too. I had a really great gig and didn't even realize it. For me in those jobs, the hardest thing to be successful and feel happy was communicating. I've learned some hard lessons and it's really tricky! Respect and "yes, sir/ma'am" go a long ways and force is rarely a good tactic. As a Program Manager you should have a lot of pull and influence in the development organization but functional organizations beneath you in Engineering often get in the way of that. In this case, it's not always about working with the workers, it's about working with their managers...and that can be tough.

Product Manager: So it is definitely my goal to be very customer-driven in what I do. If it weren't for others, why would I be here at all? I want to make products that are for people and valuable customers. I love working with the customer(s), understanding their needs, and working with them, the development community and engineering to define an elegant and cost-effective solution. This is the job (or should be) of the Product Manager but the rub comes in that I've recently experienced Product Managers or Business Analysts not being valued (sure this isn't new) by the development organization. "Oh those business people don't know." But in my case, it simply isn't the case because I do know. In this last case, I appeared to know more about the technology than many of the technical resources. In many cases, they're hired guns trained up "just in time" to solve problems. I'm not going to be the one implementing but they sometimes didn't even get the concepts I was using.

To conclude, I want to be a Product Manager so I can care about and work with the customer to understand their needs AND heavily influence what is built (Program Manager). Do I need to choose one? Is there a hybrid? Is the only way out of this quandary as the CEO? Should I work for a smaller organization in hopes that I will find this hybrid?

Preindustrial Model for the Future

Just read a really interesting article that was shared with me from a friend who works at Sightline Institute in Seattle. The article is about some of Japan's past and present methods of operating sustainably. Even though times have changed and are complex now, I think there's a lot to learn from the Japanese and on building sustainable societies. I especially enjoyed the "co-creative" or "generative" communities statement that was made. Here's a part that I found really interesting in the article.

• "...You could say that a truly sustainable society existed in Japan during the Edo Period. Because all resources were regarded as precious, plenty of businesses evolved to deal with re-use and recycling. There were businesses that specialized in repairing metal goods; old cooking pots and kettles and other items of metal could be repaired and used again. There were special tradesmen who would repair wooden barrels and pails used to hold liquids. During this era, everything was repaired properly and used as long as possible. Paper lanterns and locks were repaired, mirrors were polished, and so on."

Hyperlocal

I was reading something from the guy that's doing Outside.in. He's talking about doing "hyperlocal" web services (things relevant to people at a very small level and made the following--I think uninformed--point in his post:

• The pothole paradox plays out with any number of different topics. The delicious Indian place that at long last opens up in your neighborhood; the creepy science teacher who finally retires at the local public school; the come-from-behind victory staged by the middle-school lacrosse team -- all of these are potentially exciting events if they are happening in the communities you inhabit, but they are mind-numbingly dull if they're one county over -- much less on another coast.

What bothers me about his comment is that I think you can't know if something's going to be relevant (confidence level 95% say) to someone unless it's a stated need for them. They have to opt in! So what's really needed is connecting a web service to people's preferences and interests like so: I have a local (or online) store of my history, etc. I keep track of restuarant types I like, my favorite restaurants, teachers I had, schools, I went to, etc. Keeping all of this information has to be fun, easy, and maintainable. You could build it. If people then exposed all or parts of this personal information to web services we'd be golden.

Scrabble, Boggle, Dictionaries, and Learning Tools

In this post I propose that advanced human intelligence and performance are enabled by real-time lookup tools (knowledge bases) such as dictionaries. Better information about processes (games) help expose information helpful to enhancing performance. Implementing systems and processes and games helps with success, adoption, and acceptance.

I spent a lot of time this weekend playing Boggle and Scrabble both on- and off-line. I recently came across an online dictionary that allows users to easily search for words that contain certain letters, start with XX, end with YY, etc. It's really useful for "cheating" in Scrabble. Check out http://www.morewords.com/. Not sure if morewords does it, but it would be great if they exposed their API so that other applications or users could plug in different dictionaries based on need. For example, right now their search results return words that aren't in the Official Scrabble Dictionary. Having the result set return the results of the dictionary with which you're playing --especially in the case of Scrabble-- is critical to this application's utility.

The best version of online Boggle that I've seen is at http://www.wordsplay.net/. The game "knows" all of the words that exist for the given board, the words that at least one player got, the words that you got, the words that only you got, etc. It's really interesting and fun to play, plus it's a great learning tool so you can "whoop" your friends when you play off-line. Learning the uncommon 4-letter words is key to mastery.

Scrabulous is in the news now for being sued by Hasbro due to infringement. Scrabulous is another great online game because of its flexibility in game modes. For example, you can play in real-time or asynchronously over email. Although the "game" (fundamental structure) remains the same, some of its dimensions can be configured.

These games are interesting and their connection to word search services like morewords.com could enable new gaming experiences in the future.

Games that capture and expose detailed comparative metrics that allow players to compare and compete on a variety of levels. Allowing people to look for their personal strengths and weaknesses as well as those of their competition gives new information and redefines competition. Instead of just winning and losing, users can now look at other facets that allow them to develop improvement strategies relevant to them. Exposing the model data and output of the good players to the lesser players promotes the lesser players' progression. In Scrabble, examples of "other metrics" (than total score) include 1) longest word(s) 2) highest word point value 3) most words created on single play 4) most points with fewest letters. There are a number of metrics embedded and inherited by the game that are not yet exposed to the users. This lack of information constrains growth.

To me, all of this is relevant to business in that tools can improve performance and by capturing good data about human performance and process, the lower performers are able to "come up" because good performance has been defined and modeled. Game theory is like process management in that numerous variants and metrics can be defined once the fundamental structure (game) is defined.