Know and act as thyself: don't sell out

The soul.  Be it.

Don't sell out.  Know yourself really well and make sure you're speaking and acting from the heart; from the place that you believe.  If you're operating from this place you will find that people will follow you and your beliefs and value.

If you are not clear on your beliefs and values and what is in your core and gut, anything is possibly and you'll sell out; you'll probably fail and be really unhappy in fact.

Sometimes in business we have to sell out or trade something off to gain some kind of reasonable footing or leverage and there are a ton of opportunities to lose yourself in this process.  But don't.

Get clear on your mission, vision, values, and goals and start speaking and engaging people from your soul and your heart; from your core beliefs and values.

In organizations, mimicry is the highest form of flattery

As the reflection is to the mountain, the repeated message is to the speaker.

I take a lot of notes in meetings.  I write things down and frequently write up my notes and send them back to the attendees for their information and consideration.

Some people might find this behavior annoying or overboard but I don't care.  I feel like I get a ton of value out of writing things down and sending them back to people.  In fact as a project manager doing so is critical to success and managing risk.

A lot of times people really don't know what they think or what they're saying and having someone write down and repeat back to them what they heard, they are given the chance to correct or expand upon what they have said.  A relationship can form and a deeper discourse is possible.

The same is true for the spoken word.  In conversations with people, repeating back to them what you heard is a key and important part of effective communications.

People need to feel like there is very high clarity between what they're saying and putting out there.  Some people say, "Do you know what I mean?" or other phrases in order to verify that they're not crazy or way off base.

So next time you're in an important conversation, please play back what you have heard to the speaker to the best of your ability either using the spoken or written word; or both.  Build a community.

Poker, tells, and fear in business

We want to be reliable, honest people but sometimes we have to lie or bluff to protect ourselves or our position.

We don't want to lie too much because we will get called on it at some point and possibly lose. 

To operate effectively in business, though, we have to take risks and lie sometimes; we have to BS and take chances.

As participants in the same messy world, though, we have to also become very good bullshit detectors and know when someone is lying to us.  We don't have to call people on their BS when we see it but at some point we can make them face the music and show their cards. 

Three modes of work life

There are three modes of work life: Serious Professional, Creative Management, and Social Contemplative that, without knowing it, we cycle through all of the time to create stuff.

Serious Professional.  The Serious or professional mode is primarily seen in project and delivery teams; when we are in operations mode.  In this mode we must be good at what we do, professional, and outstanding.  We prefer not to be overly gregarious and crazy in this mode because the whole goal here is to make the customer happy by producing the thing that they want and expect (which can be very elusive at times!).  We must be humble in this mode because we are not sure that the customer will be happy with our service and we really want them to like it!!

Creative Management.  The Creative Management mode frequently occurs in product life-cycle management processes (Plan, Define, Realize, Commercialize, Phase Out).  In this mode, we're thinking about what's possible, how to deliver it and what will make people happy.  Also, we're thinking about the business and operations and what will be that right mix of value (products, services, and experiences) that people love and keep them coming back.  We really have our management hats on in this mode: ie "How do we manage all of this opportunity and risk?"

Social Contemplative.  The Social Contemplative mode is when we think about the customer and market and how to reach them.  We think about perception and public relations.  We worry about ourselves and our organizations and how we might be able to improve.  We often see this mode in sales, marketing, and business development roles.  The Contemplative or reflective mode is often seen in internal teams, cultures, and organizations where they focus on how they can improve and what they can do better to improve their operations, systems, processes, and selves.  This is a humble and reflective place.

In all, we're cycling through these modes all of the time as we figure out how to make decisions about our selves and our organizations.  We need these different modes to be able to act effectively in the given context.  Determining which context we're in and which mode we need can be a challenge.

Real-time adjusting machines

Systems and processes can be constructed to adjust in real time to meet-users' expectations on the fly.

To do this we have to:

1. Define product success and failure (the limits).  Know customers' expectations and quality drivers.
2. Create our systems so they capture the data and can adjust.  Wire the systems up so they capture the data we need to know if the thing is performing to expectations.
3. Adjust in production (A/B Testing).  Try different things within the product to know which one is more successful.  Figure out what's better.
4. Change.  Make decisions to use the best approaches.  Have dashboards and controls to change how the thing is working while it's out there.  

So, in this way, we can have controlled and continuously improving management systems.

Simon Sinek and the Golden Circle

I just watched this TED talk from Simon Sinek about how he believes that it is our duty to act from what we believe before we engage people on what we do and how we do it (our beliefs and why we do what we do is central to everything, including success).

I figured I'd write up what I believe (as it relates to my work) for the sake of the exercise:

• Technology is good for people.  I believe that individuals can benefit from using the latest technologies.
• Technology is good for organizations.  I believe that organizations can benefit from using (at scale and in total) the latest technologies as a key part of their operations.
• Technology adoption is imperative and urgent for organizations.  I believe that organizations need to keep up with the expectations that customers have so they can stay in business and grow.
• Value among 'your and their' technologies.  I believe that organizations' technology must keep up with and interface with consumers' technology.
• Enough change is possible.  I believe that organizations can change fast enough to keep up with the bulk of their customers' expectations. 

What are your career and life beliefs?

Being curious vs. driving a hard bargain

Sometimes we say too much.  I know I do.  But I want to!!!  I feel like it's really important to get our interests out on the table early and up front so people know where we are coming from.  I know that they say that good things come to those who wait (and I'm sure it's mostly true) but in some other cases, I think we shouldn't be waiting around to find out things that we should know early on and up front!!!

Some people might see this as too intense and over-bearing and I agree but sometimes I feel like I have no other choice.  This is about me and business and sometimes nothing more.  Sure, it is about the business relationship and all that and I need to be a likable person but sometimes I really don't care and want to make sure that I am getting a good deal and am not being overly compliant or polite in business negotiations (rolling over)!

Qualification is another key part of interaction, especially in business.  I've been in a lot of different employment situations, some good and some bad, mostly bad.  I'm not saying that employers are evil but in a lot of cases, I think, they're the ones with the power and the control in the situation and I don't think it has to be like this, necessarily.  I think that it is incumbent upon all of us to insist upon what we want.  This may come in some cases at the cost of our jobs or at the irritation of a superior person but I think it is worth it.

The relationship between employer and employee shouldn't be contentious, whatsoever, it should be based upon open dialog and mutual respect.  For me, I think of this tendency of individuals to "drive a hard bargain" can be seen more simply as being curious about the nature of the relationship: as a person in business, I am curious to see what I can get out of other people or my employer, so that I know where we both stand and I know my limits.  If I set limits unto myself too early, I will find myself feeling limited and angry and not fully enjoying what I love to do for the company and customers.

There's a balance, though, between being clear and up front with people and "negotiating" and just saying yes.  I think I used to just say yes when I'd see an offer with a high price tag on it, but now I know that it's the other things--and primarily the relationship and open, reasonable dialog with the employer--that ultimately matters to me.

I know that I have to be careful and tread lightly in my interactions with everyone and ensure that I am demonstrating mutual respect and care.  But I think that life is about learning about ourselves and others and I think people who "put it out there early and often" are the true winners, even when they lose.

Lessons learned from 20 years of business experience

Because I am a nerd and curious about systems, processes, and experiences, I just listed out all of the jobs I've ever had a made a list of the things that worked well and didn't work well (lessons learned) for all of them, dating back to my first job as a lawn-mower on Guemes Island at age 13 and leading up to my most recent experiences as a Program Manager at Microsoft.  The lessons are listed in chronological order of occurrence and some repeat (for better or worse...).  I'm happy there's more good than bad!!!

The things that worked well (stuff to keep doing and looking for!!):

1. Good cash
2. Quick and fast
3. Use others equipment
4. Nice summer job
5. By the water
6. Marketing
7. Branding
8. Get looped in via friends (Andrew)
9. Customer service, solutions focus
10. Time to do my own thing
11. Networking with and learning from other smart people
12. Designing a product from scratch
13. Working with Garth
14. Brainstorming
15. Guerilla marketing
16. Crowdsourcing
17. Believing in your ideas
18. Leveraging existing technologies
19. Cool coding techniques
20. Seeing senior engineers
21. Leveraging existing technology
22. Reverse engineering
23. Giving people tools so they can continue to solve their own problems
24. Taking money from customers
25. Learning a ton of new stuff
26. Getting big corporate (enterprise) experience
27. Managing teams and politics
28. Using and implementing others’ technologies
29. Customizing stuff to fit users’ needs
30. Customer service
31. A business orientation
32. Project and program management
33. Networking
34. Learning a new business
35. Seeing opportunities
36. Microsoft experience
37. SharePoint experience
38. Meeting tech people more senior than me
39. Collab and web tech
40. Delivering SharePoint tech
41. Documenting things
42. Making cash
43. Forming LLC
44. Finding CPA and Bookkeeper
45. Leveraging existing relationships
46. Working with SharePoint as a solution platform
47. Leveraging FDA, compliance background
48. Project management
49. Relationship management
50. Creativity
51. Meeting people
52. Being a leader
53. Being creative
54. Learning Agile/Scrum
55. Leveraging SharePoint
56. Team leadership, managing teams, software dev
57. Learning about LINQ, jQuery, for example
58. Understanding software dev custom app dev process
59. Coding by myself
60. Building a product
61. Using recently learned technologies and latest technologies
62. Buying new technologies and environments
63. Focus
64. Ability to dev
65. Ability to focus on problem
66. Devving for the customer
67. Learning to dev in production
68. Partnering with other devs to get things done
69. Being more technical
70. Delivery of extremely complex solution and workflows
71. Mixing of technical and leadership skills
72. Customer relationship management
73. Managing up
74. Being clear with and partnering with managers
75. Playing with new technology
76. Partnering with sales team
77. Writing SOWs
78. Innovation
79. Partnering with key people
80. Creativity
81. Reaching out to the market
82. Partnering with sales
83. Branding
84. Making sure a very important project succeed
85. Making key relationships with key suppliers
86. Getting a job that fit really well fast
87. Leveraging my existing network
88. Leveraging my existing skills

The things that didn't work so well (things I need to fix, avoid, or be aware of):

1. Don’t piss off the boss
2. Don’t be overly cocky
3. It’s just a job
4. People are weird
5. Get paid and do your own thing
6. Business model
7. Networking with true professionals
8. Being a kid and inexperienced
9. Being overly cocky
10. Managing the project
11. Making sure there was money and a market
12. Overwhelmed by code
13. Didn’t work well with others, no team concept
14. Getting raises
15. Negotiating for salaries
16. Managing up
17. Some relationships
18. Reading politics
19. Personal relationships
20. Managing up
21. Politics
22. Peers, partnering
23. Politics
24. Non-technical people
25. Being to specific, clear
26. Boss person
27. Consulting
28. Professionalism
29. Maintenance of relationship
30. Personal relationships
31. Being overly ambitious and too abstract
32. Politics
33. Consulting
34. Customer relationship management
35. Launching
36. Partnering
37. Sharing
38. No team
39. No success criteria or project management
40. No partners
41. Too technical
42. Pigeon-holing
43. Craziness at Microsoft and with small vendors
44. Deciding to do the work as a manager
45. Internal politics
46. Poor incentives
47. Focus on the wrong things
48. Technology too “green”
49. Choosing the right partners
50. Managing big politics
51. Leveraging project into program, dealing with larger contexts
52. Context of contract and position
53. A new manager

Use vision to set the project

Projects are unique, time-bound initiatives.  If we think of opportunities and life as a series of (or one big) projects, then we probably have the right mental model.  Businesses can be seen as projects, but we want to think of them for the long term as well....  Without the short-term project focus, however, we'll fail and have nothing; we'll be talking heads.

Keep a project focus as much as you can but don't forget that the long term plan, strategy, expectations, and culture matter a very great deal to inform and focus of the project now!!

Defer to win sales and do the right things

Spectators along the road.

I'm not a sales person.  I never have been and really don't wan to be.  I want to come into things real and without an agenda; but the truth is that I have one!!!

In a lot of ways I can be compelling and engaging to people and lead them into my direction but I don't want to think of myself as a sales person...but I think I am...I think we all are.

My true self is a a creative technology person (nerd) but I've been learning over the years that selling and influencing decisions is a really key skill.  I'm continuing to try to develop and improve this skill.

I'm currently in a situation where I'm expecting an offer for a job and I want to make sure with the employer that I'm getting a good deal and setting all of the right expectations, protecting myself.  They're trying to sell me their company and this role and I'm trying to sell them myself and my capabilities as a member of their team.  I need to make sure that I'm doing this right and don't want to make any mistakes.  This requires selling.  I think I'm getting better at the language and strategy required to "get what I need" from the other party....this is sales.

Rewind five years ago and I've made some really big sales errors when it comes to employment: I lost a good offer, I've accepted bad offers, etc.  One of the main ways that we as workers encounter sales is in employment.  The employers are selling us to work and we're selling ourselves.

A big part of doing sales right, I think, is deferring action.  By this I mean that instead of "acting now" and jumping on the phone with the person and trying to close them immediately, I need to be slow and thoughtful, and develop a strategy and plan before I act.  I laid awake last night thinking about these issues.  I'm typically a good sleeper but I think I'm giving this issue the proper mental time and energy it actually requires!!

I'm deferring reaching out to the hiring manager until I've had a chance to talk to Jessica about my plan.  She's reasonable and can guide me.  I have a document prepared that I *can* review with the hiring manager but I have to decide if that's the way I'll go.

So I'm currently in deferral mode and waiting for the plan to emerge based on good thoughtful planning and the slow and appropriately-timed inclusion of others into my plan.

Drawing

My mom is an art teacher.  I grew up doing all kinds of art projects and was a really creative kid.  I loved making things but at some point the computer became THE place where I made--almost all--things.  My paper- and physical-material-based project time became greatly reduced.  Over the years I became more and more capable on the computer, creatively speaking, but I became less and less creative in the physical world.

One day I determined that I'd start drawing again and doing things on paper before I produced them on the computer.  I still see the computer as my "medium" and the true tool I use to create quality things...but it's not everything.

It's been a process for me to return to paper-based input methods but I think it's very positive for me, creatively speaking.  The holy grail for me is to start on paper and then be able to "map" that drawing into the computer for whatever purposes.  There's tools out there called graphics tablets that allow the user to draw and have the input go into the computer.  Of course scanners are other methods.  Tracing hand-drawn lines can be done in programs like Adobe Illustrator.

The computer is a really appealing and enticing tool; it can do so much!  But sometimes it hampers the creative process.  Develop a balance here.

"Need to make sure that..."

This is powerful language.  Whether it is me or you doing the thing, this is a command, plain and simple.  I witnessed this language to be in popular use at Microsoft a few years ago but I'm sure it's prevalent out there everywhere.  Do you hear this language regularly?  Where do you hear it?

Policy statements for a lean startup

1. One fair and shared process.
 We have a process that we all share as a team and company and continuously discuss and improve.  
2. Metric- and performance-driven.  We define how we measure our business (KPIs and metrics)
3. Targets.  We set business goals
4. Contexts.  We know what our business drivers are in any given context or situation
5. Customers first.  We know the key dissatisfiers (and satisfiers) of our customers and make sure we act to remove those problems post haste
6. Clear, shared vision.  We set and manage to milestones so that we can share direction and vision with everyone
7. Detail-oriented.  We're clear on what we do and write things using SMART goals and language
8. Clear communications and commitments.  We do what we say and say what we do
9. Smart and thoughtful.  We are good at analysis and problem solving
10. Dynamic and creative.  We "strategically plan" (possibly digress) when necessary in search of shared consensus and vision but we do not get overly distracted
11. Analysis and direction-setting together.  We review and agree on the best course of action from a set of options for any given problem or opportunity we face
12. Document everything.  We document almost everything for the purposes of clarity, record-keeping, transparency, and collective knowledge
13. Delivery excellence.  We deliver what we promised on time and to quality standards or we tell the people to whom we're committed that we won't be able to make it and we set other expectations.
14. Work breakdown clarity.  We define very clear project milestones and deliverables, we break deliverables down into tasks and assign them to the right resources
15. Growing.  We go and get more resources if we need them
16. One team.  We recognize when we get distracted on hard projects that require new resources and come back together to get focused again
17. Total accountability and responsibility of all personnel.  We are a "test-driven" organization, meaning that we think in terms of "how we would know" that something were true or false.  We make no assumptions but if we do have to, we IMMEDIATELY test them. 

Toward good: internal control, innovation, automation

Let's do three things: seek to develop internal control over ourselves and our organizations (create quality systems), innovate (make new things that people love), and automate (make things easier for ourselves and our organizations).

Total and supplier-level stack-ranking

Doing product development is complicated because there are many places that you have to "stack rank" (build queues for feeding things into processes / systems).  When you're a product manager of a big product or initiative, you have to plan the product and features "all up" (know what you need in what order at the highest level), and also on a per-supplier basis.  This makes things really complicated and complex.

The anatomy of an information process

Event - A thing that happens at a point in time.
Role - A generic category for an actor.
Function - A thing that is engaged upon, done, executed.
Authority - A right had by an actor or role to perform an action.
Measure - A way of knowing how a function is operating.
Tool - A method to support, enable, and/or enhance a function.
Actor - A person.

Integrate and extend what's there: collaboration over competition

A lot of times,  the stuff that's already there in an organization (people, tools, processes, knowledge) is good enough to start.  I'd even go so far as to say it's always enough!!!  There's always a place to start...

As managers and leaders, we need to leverage and depend upon what *is* already there, and then be able to extend and support it through more stuff  (people, tools, processes, knowledge).  Let's stop competing and hating each other and start collaborating and appreciating each other.

Customer Experience: What happens before and after the User Experience (UX)

There's a problem right now in the way that we're thinking about the product and customer service in our organizations.  Many organizations are broken because they're not agile.  The graphic below provides a very simple way to understand what's going on here.

The problem
"Customer Experience" matters way more than User Experience.  We spend *a lot* of time trying to get the UX right; maybe so much time that we forget about the overall Customer Experience (CX).  Customers call and complain (or don't) and have a bad time using the product.

The Solution
Let's invent a new practice: Customer Experience Management, that incorporates the best from things we do before UX (sales and marketing), during UX, and after UX (marketing and feedback).  I believe that the Pre and Post UX functions are missing in our software development practices today!

UX
This is all about what the customer experiences WHILE they are using the product.  Everything they experience WHILE.

Pre-UX
This is everything that the user experiences before they use the product.  Online reviews, recommendations from friends, word of mouth, marketing materials, sales people, training materials, etc.

Post-UX
These are all of the options that the user has for engaging in SUPPORT of the product after they have used it.  Online materials, customer service agents, sales people, support staff, etc.

Call to Action
Let's start to manage by this model.

Hierarchy of a process

There's a lot of swirl and craziness in my current workgroup right now.  I just created the following graphic as a guide to my boss to help him create structure that is much needed.  We used this hiearchy (or a variant of it) at Siemens and it seemed to work.  Hopefully the current client can use this, too!!!

Top 7 lessons learned in my last Sr. Program Management role

Background:

I'm moving onto my next career adventure on an adjacent team to my current one.  We got re-orged and I had to bounce to the next opportunity.  I'm sad leaving but learned a lot here, made a lot of great new relationships, had fun, and delivered!  Overall, it was a really great experience.  Here's the main stuff I learned during this time.

The Lessons:

1. Have your project really well planned and make sure all of the resources are there to deliver it.  This was one of the major benefits of my main AutoRenewal project: that the team was there and ready to do the work.  We just had to get semi-organized and pretty good things happened overall.
2. Plan your business intelligence and measurement/control initiatives very well; realize that these are projects / programs unto themselves.  This was a miss on my project.  This was a workstream that was neither defined nor planned and wound up taking up a lot of time, energy, and resources to get it off the ground.  We had to define the product, then build the supply chain and resources to make it happen.
3. Get organized at the aggregate and with each supplier.  Being organized at the aggregate is hard, and being organized to give clear instructions to each supplier / engineering team is also hard.  Both functions are critical, though, and this creates the overall process and organizational challenge.
4. Supplier-level management is probably the key process that matters.  In the context of this group, since they have so many suppliers and dependencies, they have to get these people organized and rowing in the same direction.  It's hard work and each one requires a lot of care!!!
5. Integration management is super essential to making things happen.  Without an "all up" view of workflow and delivery, nothing good will happen.  It has to.
6. Process does not come from thin air; it takes intention, rigor and experience.  A lot of teams WANT process but don't know how to get it.  They're not organized, they're not focused enough, they're too busy.  Process management is a leadership exercise that really only comes from experience creating new teams and forming consensus and conformity around a goal and an operation.
7. Organize the scenarios at the policy/process level rather than at the implementation level; but you do have them go down to the channel level at some point.  There's a lot of data involved in making big things happen at scale.  Keep it simple by only managing and communicating the policy, rather than the implementation details.  KISS is so critical here, but it requires structure and rigor to do this.