Working the Brakes

In a popular post, Putting on the brakes, I explored how Standard changes and automation can be
used to burn down the backlog of common changes thereby freeing up capacity to keep pace with what the business wants.

I also discussed when to use the brakes to improve overall speed - on non standard change requests
- force prioritization by the business (should we do it now)
- require funding by the business (should we do it at all)
- coordinate properly across IT teams (make sure we do it right)

Business life is full of sharp corners.

Every IT organization is a complex system. There are IT services being used by business users, underpinned by technology and software, with skilled IT specialists and processes to support them. In fact, it's amazing that it all works as well as it does!

So when we look more closely under the covers, it's no surprise that there are in fact more problems. Lurking in all organizations there are bottlenecks. A person or process who acts as a gate. Constraining the maximum speed of execution and change in the organization.

Bottlenecks? What bottlenecks?

Technical debt

Technical debt is the work that still needs to be done. Not doing it makes subsequent work harder, less efficient and could even cause complete failure.

Common causes of technical debt include:
- lack of process or experience to define proper architecture
- time pressure to complete the project / budget for modernization
- lack of documentation & collaboration on what was done, how and why

While the notion of technical debt is really just a metaphor - the costs do mount up and the impacts are very real:
- postponed upgrades
- poor system performance or scalability
- complexity of usability or supportability

People and Process

One customer I spoke with said that it takes over 90 days to build a new server blade. Asking other customers revealed a similar problem. "Workarounds" ranged from building capacity in advance to hoarding - creating problems later down the line.

Your organization may not have a server build bottleneck - it could be a Person key to all data design or a Process supporting organizational moves.

So how do you locate a bottleneck?

Build a Flow Chart

Use a flow chart to identify where the problems are. Define the flow in terms of how value is delivered by naming specific steps in which work is done.

Examples of common steps for software or system development include
- requirements definition
- business analysis
- development of system
- testing of system

Apply the Five Whys

Start by identifying the problem area you want to address. For example, delays in project closure while waiting for customer feedback to complete acceptance testing. Start by asking why the problem occurs, and keep asking why until you have identified the root cause.

Why - because the test system isn't ready for testing
Why - because it took a week to be ready for testing
Why - because there's only one test system and it was in use for defect fixing
Why - because there's no planning of system allocation
Why - because the person coordinating with the customer left last month

There's the solution - a missing team member! So now you can just assign the task to someone else.

Unblocking a bottleneck

There are two ways to approach a bottleneck depending on the desired outcome

Reduce the input

In the second case you may try adding an additional resource for capacity again it's possible you may encounter resistance. Realize that the bottleneck resource is so skilled that training a second team member to the same level initially increases the bottleneck. One approach is to assign the most skilled / productive team members. Another option is to limit the work that the skilled resource is given - while allocating non bottleneck activity to other less skilled workers.

Increase the efficiency

In the first case you may apply automation as a way to reduce the manual effort and increase productivity. You may encounter resistance to such new approaches - the perceived loss of unique value. But I've also seen a DBA team start using an automation tool and be thankful that they got their evening and weekend lives back! Help them understand what's in it for the them.

What bottlenecks have you encountered and what creative solutions have you tried?

Kudos to Qantas

WOW!

When was the last time you had a great experience on an airline?

For those of us not traveling in business class Wow experiences can be few and far between.

Well yesterday I was WOW'd. Traveling on QF442 from Melbourne to Sydney I started to eat my snack. A chocolate cranberry bar. I tried to bite in and thought I was breaking a tooth. Being hungry I persisted using my molars and worked through it.

When the steward, Hayden, came around with coffee I realized by jaw was aching, and asked if the bars were supposed to be so hard. He said politely that he'd check. A few minutes later he did return, and assured me they were not and offered a bottle of wine from business class with apologies. I accepted.

A few minutes later the head steward, Marty Claasen, came over with the wine and apologies. He also said that he would report the incident so that they could keep an eye out for it.

I was very impressed at how they taken a simple issue and turned it around into a positive customer experience.

Well done Qantas, and thank you Hayden and Marty!

Is there such a thing as The New Product Economy

Interesting slide presentation : www.slideshare.net/bt4u/bethtemple4u-new-producteconomy

Reinforces the view from the highly recommended Winning by Jack Welch that you need to always need to be looking over your shoulder "You can't be paranoid enough"

And that, as Seth Godin points out, in our attention economy you need to truly differentiate - like a Purple Cow.

Driving Change when your staff don't want to

Surprising fact #1: We want Change

We often say we want Change when it suits our needs. But when actually forced to change, many of us actually resist changing.

Well that is unless you happen to be a wet baby - but they're probably not reading this blog.

Surprising fact #2: But none of us want to

So if we all want Change, why do we resist so much?


FEAR!
Losing our security blanket. 

UNCERTAINTY
Moving us out of our comfort zone.

DOUBT
Choosing not to see the big picture.

So what should we do?

Communicate! To overcome the FUD that is undoubtedly impairing your Change effort you need to over communicate with your team and customers what the big deal is. 

Communicate this in terms that they understand. 

You need to communicate openly about why this Change is so important. Get into the details of the What (potentially bad thing) happens if we don't change?

It's also essential that you actively listen. First to ensure that you earn their trust. And second to ensure that you haven't missed any critical details in the planned Change.

Led by communicators they trust.

Hint: in the case of Change that may not be you.

Search amongst your team for those that others look to for advice and improvement. They can be your best advocates of Change.

Watch out for those that actively resist - make sure they're not in a critical role for your planned Change.

Be a role model for your planned Change. 

Your team is watching you so YOU need to change as much as they do.

Your team doesn't know how to implement the change being asked of them. Develop maps highlighting descriptions of the new patterns of behavior. <Link to post on gamification>

Reinforce with realistic goals and objectives. <Link to post on measurement>

You need to Drive

Change is inevitable. Pace of change is increasing.

To maximize our impact we need to support the business in developing services that customers value.

This requires us to to increase our team's ability to Change, and make sure we're serving and supporting the right customers.

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Losing your suitcase.

The risk of travel

My wife tells me I travel a lot.

757,337 lifetime with United.
105,896 miles last year.
Oh, and 1 lightning strike on Monday in Houston.

Don't lose your suitcase

The last major trip I went on was to Europe. My boss last saw his suitcase in NY en route to Denmark through Spain (don't ask!).

We had a customer meeting first thing Monday morning.

In Denmark on Sunday night he was lucky to find a tailor in the hotel - hopefully he got paid back by the airline because it wasn't what I would call cheap.

How to manage the risk

Here's an interesting travel tip: when traveling as a group share essentials between different suitcases.

That way if one suitcase is lost - it's not all or nothing for the lucky traveler.

There is a lesson here for mitigating risk in Change

1. Ensure that you have a backout plan. If you don't you are sure to need it. If you do need it, it will waste time and resource to develop, unless you can quickly backup and recover.
2. Architecturally share risk - manage how data / workloads are shared between storage and servers. That way a minor modification to a tier 4 app doesn't risk a tier 1 business service.
3. Manage the payload of Changes. If you group a lot of changes together, you're more likely to want to proceed for a major win - but one small error for a "minor" change could risk success. 

The power of (a shared) Purpose

Two similar companies separated by their mission

Adidas: The Adidas Group strives to be the global leader in the sporting goods industry with brands built on a passion for sports and a sporting lifestyle.

Nike: To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world. *"If you have a body, you are an athlete."

So what's the difference?

Nike offers to do something WITH it's customers.

Adidas merely offers to do something for ... it's shareholders?

"How can you create shared purpose? It's simple, but not easy"

Source: Purpose is Good. Shared Purpose is Better (Harvard Business Review)

Innovation lost in time?

Lack of freedom can stifle innovation

3M is ranked the third most innovative company on the planet after Google and Apple.

But the leader of the Post-It note initiative, Geoff Nicholson, says they are seeing problems in innovation.

The 3M ambassador suggests some key points to watch out for:

• Don't ask for multi-year plan
• Don't use the process heavy plans to test a new idea
• Do praise new ideas and ask what else a solution could do
• Nurture creativity and new ideas

"... provide the leadership and then people know that they can practise innovation"

He thinks that processes such as six sigma can have unintended consequences. Actually inhibiting innovation. One thing that 3M is doing to try and raise the level of creativity is allowing employees to spend up to 15 percent of work time to conduct research beyond their normal focus areas.

"failure is a learning experience"

He also worries that organizations are worried about failure. In his mind, failure is a way of learning. Learning what works, what doesn't work, and potentially get some ideas on how to improve it.

For more, listen to the interview conducted by ZDNet
http://www.zdnet.com/six-sigma-killed-innovation-in-3m-7000012593/