Managing Scope Creep
I believe that one of the most difficult tasks we face as software development professionals is scope management. We have all been there, features are added to a system because someone from a particular business unit says the features are a must have. When any system has multiple business stakeholders the problem just worsens. Here is an example: a CRM application is customized because the order of the data entry fields are not the way the customer service manager would like. In the majority of cases the cost incurred for making this type of change will never be recouped. This is because there isn’t any additional business value in reordering the fields. I’m sure that you have your own stories. If so please share.
What if I told you that I could show you how to mitigate these types of decisions from happening with a simple diagram that contains four boxes and nine labels which can be explained and executed within sixty minutes? You would probably think I was crazy, right? I sat in on a presentation given by Niel Nickolaisen, in which he did exactly that. Below is a modification of the diagram that Niel used in his presentation.
The key principals are to get the business owners to focus their decision making around the business value. I’m sure I don’t stand alone when I say it is extremely difficult to get multiple business stakeholders to agree on every feature set of a system. The diagram is a tool that can be used to accomplish this. As features/initiatives are being advocated, two simple questions can be asked.
- Does this feature/initiative have significant business impact?
- Will this feature/initiative differentiate us in the market place?
Doesn’t Matter
If something does not have a significant business impact and is not a market differentiator, then it doesn’t matter and you should not put any effort/dollars towards those features/incentives.
Partner
If something does not have significant business impact, but does allow you to differentiate yourself in the market place, then you should look to partner with another organization. Typically if this is the case, that is not a core part of your business. An example here might be if your organization is a book publisher, but and would like to offer products in an electronic form over the internet. You should not spend the dollars to build your own technology to manage the digital right and the distribution. A better use of your resources would be to find a technology company that can take that on for you.
Operate
This box focuses on areas which have significant business impact, but are not market differentiators. For these areas, you should try to find out how the rest of the market is doing it and copy that. You should not be trying to out do your competition here. In this area UNIQUENESS = BAD. Now with that said, you do need to be proficient in these areas because it does impact your business. An example would be invoicing & bill collection. This is vital to most businesses, but unless this is your core business, you do not need to create a new way to do invoicing or bill collection. Find industry best practices and follow those, use out of the box applications.
Innovate
These are areas in which have significant business impact and allow you to differentiate yourself in the market. This is where you should be spending most of your effort/dollars. Innovation is what makes a good company become a great company. As the axis states, this is how you will differentiate your organization from your competition. An organization should only have two to three areas here. Any more than that, will be a distraction.
Now when a decision needs to be made about a specific feature set, have the advocate identify which box it should belong to. Also have the other business stakeholder vet that decision, if you don’t get consensus, push a bit more. Once your organizations adopts this culture, you project/initiatives will shrink in size significantly. As we all know, the smaller the scope, the more manageable it will be, and the more reliable the costs estimates will be.
See how simple it can be. If you do try this approach, please post a comment to this post. I’d love to hear your story.
Grow a pair
and stand behind your words
This has been an issue of mine for some time now. Individuals that hide behind anonymity. I am targeting this frustration towards two groups of individuals. Those that post articles or comments on blog sites that won’t identify themselves. Their opinions are masked behind some random username that is only funny or makes sense to them. The other group are individuals within an organization that won’t provide feedback in an open forum. (This one is a bit more personal, because I’ve experienced this often at my company. Everything has to be annonymous.
"I don't feel comfortable providing feedback if people know it was me".
Frankly this is B#LLSH#T (fill in your own vowels). If you honestly believe in something than put your name to it. My perspective is that these folks really don’t have conviction in their points of view, because they don’t want to associate themselves to their comments. If you can’t stand behind your words, then your opinion doesn’t matter. Just like you should have pride in what you do, you should have pride in what you say. Within an organization, I can understand why people might feel this way, I don’t agree, but I can understand. There is a lack of trust between the individual and the organization. That’s a different topic, that I’ll address in another post.
I’m a55munch@someaddress.com and I have approved this post.
I apologize for the rant style of this post, but this just gets under my skin. If you didn’t get it, I’m not really a55munch@someaddress.com. I was trying to make a funny ;-)
Book: The Ten Faces of Innovation
Author:
Premise:
This book discusses the importance of innovation and how it separates good organizations from excellent organizations. The Ten Faces of Innovations also details the different personas that can foster & create innovation within an organization.
My Thoughts:
Go out and buy this book today, you will not regret it. Some books inspire you, others can make you feel something, still others allow you to look at things from a completely different perspective. This book did all of these things for me and much more. It validated my views on the importance of constantly trying to improve on what ever it is that you are doing. Companies that can evolve and adapt quickly to consumer needs will succeed, all others will be left behind. I am constantly looking for ways to push my company ahead of our competition and this book provided me with many insights on how I can achieve that.
“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” — Charles Darwin
For me the book articulated what I have been trying to formalize in my mind for some time now. It provides a language that you can use within your organization. One key aspect the book highlighted for me is that innovation is what your are, not something that you do. It is more pervasive than just saying that you have an R&D department that creates cool stuff, it is about how your entire organization operates from executive management to the folks on the ground doing the daily grind.
As the title suggests, the book discusses 10 different personas that push innovation through an organization. Instead of me trying to paraphrase for Tom Kelly, I’m going to pull a few sections from the book directly that crystalize my thoughts almost exactly.
“So who are these personas? Many already exist inside of large companies, though they’re often underdeveloped or unrecognized. They represent latent organizational ability, a reservoir of energy waiting to be tapped. We all know plenty of birght, capable people who would like to make a bigger contribution, team members whose contributions don’t quite fit into traditional catagories like engineer, or marketer or project manager.
In a postdiciplinary world where the old descriptors can be constraining, these new roles can empower a new generation of innovators. They give individuals permission to make their own unique contribution to the social ecology and performance of the team.”
Book Details:
The ten personas fall into three categories. I’m going to be pulling text directly from the book. Again, I think Tom Kelly is a better writer than I am. I don’t want to paraphrase and loose some of the meaning in the translation. Because of this, this section is a bit lengthy.
Learning Personas: These personas are driven by the idea that no matter how successful a company currently is, no one can afford to be complacent. The world is changing at an accelerated pace, and today’s great idea my be tomorrow’s anacronism. The learning roles help keep your team from becoming too internally focused and remind the organization not to be so smug about what you “know.”
- The Anthropologist brings new learning and insights into the organization by observing human behavior and developing a deep understanding of how people interact physically and emotionally with products, services, and spaces.
- The Experimenter prototypes new ideas continuously, learning by a process of enlightened trial and error. The Experimenter takes calculated risks to achieve success through a state of “experimentation as implementation.”
- The Cross-Pollinator explores other industries and cultures, then translates those findings and revelations to fit the unique needs of your enterprise.
Organizing Personas: These personas are played by individuals that are savvy about the often counterintuitive process of how organizations move ideas forward. Most people believe that ideas should speak for themselves. However even the best ideas must continuously compete for time, attention, and resources. Those who adopt these organizing roles don’t dismiss the process of budget and resource allocation as “politics” or “red tape.” They recognize it is a complex game of chess, and they play to win.
- The Hurdler knows the path to innovation is strewn with obstacles and develops a knack for overcoming or outsmarting those roadblocks.
- The Collaborator helps bring eclectic groups together, and often leads from the middle of the pack to create a new combinations and multidisciplinary solutions.
- The Director not only gathers together a talented cast and crew but also helps to spark their creative talents.
Building Personas: These personas apply insights from the learning roles and channel the empowerment from the organizing roles to make innovation happen. When people adopt the building personas, they stamp their mark on your organization. People in these roles are highly visible, so you’ll often find them right at the heart of the action.
- The Experience Architect designs compelling experiences that go beyond mere functionality to connect at a deeper level with customers’ latent or expressed needs.
- The Set Designer creates a stage on which innovation team members can do their best work, transforming physical environments into powerful tools to influence behavior and attitude.
- The Caregiver builds on the metaphor of a health care professional to deliver customer care in a manner that goes beyond mere service.
- The Storyteller builds both internal morale and external awareness through compelling narratives that communicate a fundamental human value or reinforce a specific cultural trait.
Book: Made to Stick
Authors:
Premise:
What is it about certain ideas/stories that makes people remember them? Made to Stick breaks down a number of different messages/stories and analyzes what makes them compelling enough to remember. Breaking down the analysis in this way shows you how you can get your messages to STICK, so not only can you learn how others have done it, but how you can do it too.
The book focuses on six principals that help your messages stick. Interestingly enough the acronym spells SUCCESs. Leave off the last “S” for savings. I know a really bad reference to 1-800-Mattres commercial. Each principle has it’s own chapter.
Before I start, I’d like to say that this post should be not be used as a substitution for reading the book. I’m not Cliff Notes, I am just trying to create interest so that you will actually go and read the book.
SUCCESs:
So lets discuss the six principals and why they work.
Simple
This principle focuses on identifing the core of your message, the single most important thing. The core should be simple & compact. In the book the authors refer to a concept called Commander’s Intent (CI), which is taken from the military. The following lines are taken directly from the book.
“CI is a crisp, plain-talk statement that appears at the top of every order, specifying the plan’s goal, the desired end-state of an operation.”
“Commander’s Intent manages to align the behavior of soldiers at all levels without requiring play-by-play instructions from their leaders.”
Examples:
Herb Kelleher (longest serving CEO of Southwest airlines). ”We are THE low-fair airline.”, this was the CI used to make decisions for the company. If it didn’t satisfy the CI, then it wasn’t done.
James Carville (key political advisor to President Clinton during his campaign). ”It’s the economy, stupid.”, was the message that would become the core of Clinton’s successful campaign.
Unexpected
This principle focuses on getting people attention and then holding on to it once you have it. They key aspect the authors talk about is to break peoples mental model of what they think you are going to say or what they think they know. Surprise gets their attention, but how do you maintain it. This is done by getting the audience behind the goal/message. One way is to create some mystery around the message. It’s in our nature to try and figure things out. The local news uses this approach extremely well.
“Which local restaurant has slime in their ice machine?” Find out at 11:00.
Concrete
The more abstract the concept, the less likely people are going to remember it. Concrete ideas are easier to remember. Experiments in human memory have shown that people are better at remembering concrete, easily visualized nouns than abstract ones. People remember things that they can visualize in their heads. A few exmples:
Abstract: High-performance
Concrete: V8 engine
Abstract: World-class customer service
Concrete: A Nordstrom representative gift wrapping an item from Macy’s.
Credible
Credibility helps people believe in the message. There are a number of way to build credibility into your message. I’m only going to talk about a few of them. In an Anti-Smoking campaign that ran in the mid-1990s the main spokes person was a woman that had been smoking since she was 10 years old. She had been smoking for about 20 years. The campaign followed this woman as she struggled to live while slowly suffocating because of her failing lungs. The campaign didn’t use statistics or a lot of data, they used what the authors call an Anti-Authority, they put a human behind the message.
Another way to establish credibility is to provide statistics in a way that people understand, in more of a human scale. As an example:
“Scientists recently computed an important physical constraint to an extraordinary accuracy. To put the accuracy in perspective, imagine throwing a rock from the Sun to the Earth and hitting the target within on third of a mile of dead center.”
“Scientists recently computed an important physical constraint to an extraordinary accuracy. To put the accuracy in perspective, imaging throwing a rock from New York to Los Angeles and hitting a $0.50 coin.”
Which statement seems more accurate & impressive?
If you do the math, the scales are both the same, but studies have shown that more people, over 80% think that to achieve the second statement is more impressive. This is because they can better comprehend the distance between New York and Los Angles than between the Sun and Earth.
Emotional
This principle is geared towards making people care about the message. Making you feel something. The beginning of this chapter opens up with a quote from Mother Teresa, “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will do.” This statement encapsulates the way most people behave. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University conducted test to prove this behavior. You have to read the book to get the details. The key thing here is to make your audience feel something about your message.
Stories
The final principal focuses on creating stories. ”Stories are effective teaching tools. They show how context can mislead people to make the wrong decisions. Stories illustrate causal relationships that people hadn’t recognized before and highlight unexpected, resourceful way in which people have solved problems.”
The reason why stories are an effective tool, is that when we are listening to a story, out minds are creating a mental model of what is being told. Our brains are visualizing the objects that are being talked about and how the interactions are being played out as the story unfolds.
Stories can also inspire us into action. Most inspirational stories have three types of plots, Challenge (to overcome obstacles), Connection (to get along or reconnect), and Creativity (to inspire a new way of thinking).
My Thoughts:
For anyone that has to communicate ideas either verbally or in written form, I think this book is a must read. This book is for professionals in the consulting industry, teachers in schools, doctors, lawyers, etc. Basically it’s for everyone, since we all need to communicate in order to function in this world. Go out and buy the book.
Yet Again
I woke up this morning tired as usual, again.
I got ready and headed out the door before anyone else woke up, again.
Another day another dollar.
I worked until late, again.
Got home after the kids were already asleep.
Yet Again.
Inspiration
Long are the hours you wait for her to come. Alone you sit, waiting for her to come. The harder you try to find her the further away she seems. She is unpredictable, coming only when it pleases her and leaving just as quickly as she came. When you do finally find her, it is the most intense sensation you can experience. She allows you to open yourself to all possibilities you couldn’t have imagined on your own. Your successes you owe to her. Treat her well and she will be your companion for life, abuse her and you can lose her forever.
Is your team as efficient as it could be?
Laying the foundation
Improve the efficiency of your team simply by changing the way you organize and think about your work. Organizations are typically composed of separate functional groups/departments that perform specific functions. Most organizations are setup this way regardless of their size or industry. Within these departments, there are the people that make the decisions (managers) and then there are the people that do the work (team). The managers are held accountable for the output of their team. Smaller departments roll up into a larger department. Those larger department then rolls up into another department and so on. Until you get to the very top, which is headed up by the elite executive team. The executive team is then responsible for the output of the entire organization. In this typical corporate structure, each department has it’s own management structure and team with their own goals & priorities. I’m sure that this isn’t ground breaking news for anyone, we’ve all seen this before.
So, what’s the problem?
The work within an organization is divided based on the function of the department and more specifically the role individuals play within that department. Managers define the work, the team executes on it. This is not to say that the managers don’t execute themselves, it just highlights that the team usually isn’t involved in the decision making process. Looking in from the outside, this all looks fairly normal and a good way to operate. You have people with specialized skills functioning within those parameters. This works really well in an ideal situation when there is enough work within each department to keep everyone 100% utilized.
Experience shows however that that there isn’t an ideal environment, there is always flux, especially in the services industry. All organizations experience this flux, which creates availability in one department while leaving a deficit in another. In most cases the groups that have an abundance of work will try to increase their team size, while the groups that don’t have enough work will either try to reduce theirs or will have availability which doesn’t add value to the organization. Availability should be viewed as inventory, you want just enough to service the current needs. Too much or too little inventory costs an organization money. There is enormous waste in individual departments continually trying to manage their own resourcing needs/constraints.
Well what else can be done, this is just the way it works. Every company faces this problem. The problem might exist for every company, but that doesn’t mean that you should try to solve it the same way as everyone else.
A different approach
The problem here isn’t how the teams/departments are structured, but how the work is divided and assigned. It turns out that this problem has already been solved, just in a slightly different context. Principals within lean manufacturing can be applied at the corporate/department levels. Instead of creating work based on functional groups/departments an alternative is to create and organize the work based task & priority. Many in the software development community have already embraced this new approach and have been applying it successfully towards their projects. Focusing the team on the tasks and priorities for the organization, puts the responsibility on the entire team not just the department heads. Teams will then organize around the task as opposed to their function, promoting cross functional collaboration. This approach allows the organization to leverage all of the skill sets of the team vs the specific function of their department. Not only can the organization take advantage of the untapped potential in their teams, but can prioritize the work based on what is going to add the most value to the company now. This now optimized the teams ability to add value and improved the overall organization efficiency.
The goal of this post is to create awareness of the problem. Subsequent posts will discuss specific things organizations can do to solve this problem.
