What I Learned at AgileIndy 2023

As a business professional, it helps to spend time with others who you do not work with. It helps provide fresh perspectives and moral support when times are tough. It is also good to hear from others that they share similar struggles in their business situations. It is like cleaning the emotional pallet from the sour aftertaste of daily dysfunction. I took the opportunity to attend the AgileIndy 2023 conference to perform that cleanse. I was a presenter, and I learned a few things. Today, I wanted to share my trip report with everyone. 

I traveled to Indianapolis to present a talk on servant leadership and how to use language to build credibility with team members, stakeholders, and leaders. I had a packed room, and the presentation went well. I look forward to making many connections and seeing if my tips are helpful to people in the field. This journey's best part is meeting old friends and making new ones. The agile community is one big tribe of like-minded people who bicker like family but often unite to make work more sustainable. 

Along with giving a presentation, I got to sit in on some great presentations and discussions about how to make businesses more successful with agile techniques. If there were any big themes at this conference, they were twofold. The first theme was the role of managers in an organization going through an agile change. Teams that self-organize and deliver in rapid iterations create unique challenges for managers who now have to do something else beyond traditional management. The other theme is establishing trust in organizations. I want to discuss each of those themes. 

For many of us in the agile community, implementing agile techniques works well at the team level, and executives occasionally achieve buy-in. Most managers threaten agile methods because they fear the organizational changes that agile demands. Thus, self-organization, empowerment, and transparency often make managers feel redundant and threatened. Many change management efforts fail because middle management strangles it if considered a threat. Fortunately, Diana Williams and Liz Rettig had a great conversation about this forgotten cohort of people who can make or break your agile adoption. I know plenty of folks at Project Brilliant, and I was not disappointed by the advice and suggestions they provided. I am going to devote a future blog post to their advice. 

Mike Cottmeyer from Leading Agile gave the keynote speech about the enormous challenge facing the agile community in 2023: building trust between business leaders and agile teams. We in the agile community demand empowerment for groups doing the work. Still, empowerment does not happen if that team does not create working solutions for the business to sell. It means that for a team to be empowered, the company must trust the team to do the work. Cottmeyer points out there are steps to business agility, and approaches like SAFe and Scrum at scale are about helping the business manage technical debt and dependencies. Dependencies are agile killers in organizations, so it is up to everyone to find ways to mitigate them. The truth will always win between reality and purity, so Agile professionals need to be reality-based. 

I had some great conversations in the green room at the conference. Coaches love to talk shop, and sharing experiences with others is always instructive because our experiences overlap. Finally, I met Dimple Shah and attended her presentation, which covered diversity in organizations and how the drive for diversity is often the same as the desire for organizations to become more agile. In a relaxing manner, she reviewed that people need to both talk the talk of change and walk the walk. By following this simple approach, people create credibility in the organization.

I am fortunate to spend time around so many great people. It is also a blessing to share my knowledge and experience with others and help them. Best of all, I learned a few new things to return to my practice. I hope to present to AgileIndy next year, and I look forward to visiting plenty of old friends and making new ones. 

Until next time. 

Being Woke is Good Business

Nothing entirely focuses on the mind, like unemployment. The fear of losing your job and the threat to the security of your family forces people to pay attention. The current four years have tied people into existential knots. COVID-19, insurrection against a free and fair election, the return of inflation, and business leaders forcing people back into office are enough to rub a person's nerves into a raw nub. I feel it and see similar behaviors in many professionals around me. If that is not enough to worry about, Forbes magazine published an article earlier this month, and I feel compelled to talk about it. 

The term "woke" has become a loaded term in public discourse. For many, it represents a social movement to be respectful to others and the many variations we encounter. To those with a more right-wing perspective, it is a threat to the values of western civilization. Suppose you genuinely want to understand the history and controversy around the debate. In that case, I strongly recommend Lewis Walter and his video about the subject on his YouTube channel "Then and Now."I look at the controversy, and I scratch my head in puzzlement. As Elvis Costello sang over forty years ago, "What so wrong about peace, love, and understanding."

Forbes magazine pointed out that middle managers at corporations are embracing woke culture to advance in their careers and that there needs to be more study on the subject. There should be more research on the subject, but we should be okay with this trend. 

According to Florida General Counsel Ryan Newman, the meaning of woke is "…the  belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them." This quotation seems like an accurate definition, so middle managers are trying to combat injustice in the office one cubical at a time. You will know why if you have spent time in the professional world. The diversity of the workforce is changing, and it is becoming a lighter share of brown. More people from Latin America, the Indian Subcontinent, Korea, China, and the Middle East are joining the workforce. Not only are they recent immigrants but first-generation college graduates who overcame tremendous obstacles to become professionals. I feel a deep kinship with them because while I am a white cisgender straight guy, I was also a first-generation college graduate who became a professional person. I have made it my mission to help others avoid the mistakes I have made in my career. 

This kind of diversity is a net benefit for the business. The economy is global, so we need to understand the needs of various people. Can food be sold in Muslim countries because it respects halal dietary restrictions? Green is associated with infidelity and black with darkness in ethnic Chinese communities, so it might be a good idea not to market those car colors in those countries. Finally, software engineers often ignore women because they make up a significant minority. In each of these scenarios having people from a different backgrounds would improve the chance of customer success. It is just smart money to have a diverse workforce. 

Companies realized that sexual harassment could be a huge financial and public relations risk after the confirmation hearing of Justice Clarance Thomas. These early efforts also included training on racial, sexual, religious, and generational categories. Over the last thirty years, this movement has been part of being a working professional. Naturally, managers are learning that treating people with dignity and respect is becoming a growing trend. 

A more diverse workforce means better delivery of customer value. Being able to lead this kind of workforce is not an optional skill, so we should embrace this trend. I have met plenty of mediocre people in business. Along the way, I have also encountered some toxic and intolerant people. Making the office more "woke" will help remove these people from the work environment. If we want a more sustainable, sane, and satisfying work environment, this is a trend we can all get behind. 

Until next time. 

Professionalism and Developers Part 1

Developers see the world differently.

I have spent a long time working in the software business.  I was not very good as a software developer until I did it professionally for ten years.   Today, I still consider myself a mid-level developer in terms of skill.  What set me apart later in my career was the professionalism I brought to the job.  Documentation would get written, time cards would get filled out, and I spent a lot of time over-communicating with management and stakeholders.  As I moved into project management, scrum mastery, and leadership, I noticed that software developers struggle with professional behavior patterns, which other business professionals have internalized.  We should discuss this.

The subject of professionalism is a touchy one in software engineering.  If you look at the history of the profession, it is easy to see why.  Bill Pflegin and Minda Zetlin, in their book, “The Geek Gap,” points out business people and technology people see the world from two different frames of reference.  A business person wants to be likable and profitable.  If you are agreeable, others are more receptive to your product which you are selling.  Thus, business people are very focused on being likable.  Engineers are not concerned with being likable.  The most important thing for an engineer is to make sure things work.  An engineer spends most of their time wrestling with the rules of physics or computer science to get things to work faster, better, and more reliably.  Something works, or it does not, and this binary view of the world and their career is often disorienting to business people.

Next, developers since the 1950s have a deep affinity for counter-cultural movements.  Beatnik, Hippie, Anarchist, Libertarian, and Punk mindsets permeate the culture of programming.  The let it all hang out attitude of developers is similar to the approach of Jazz musicians.  Hair color or politics does not matter; what matters is technical ability and the respect it generates.  It is why we have engineers with “UNIX beards” because they honor other engineers for the work they have done, and they do not care what business people think.  Someone like this does not have to care about being likable because they build things that work and keep the organization going. 

Finally, developers are more creative and intelligent than the average business person.  Creative people are alienating to people who are not.  Creative professionals are deeply suspicious of authority and rules.  Combine these two factors, and it is natural to see how business people and engineers distrust each other.  It is also why engineers chafe at the rules, regulations, and notion of professionalism.  To the engineer, professionalism is the curtain that hides the inability to solve problems and make things work.

There are three key reasons why developers and engineers do not behave as professionally as other business people.  First, they see the world differently and judge their value from a different frame of reference.  Next, developers embrace sub-cultures that do not respect authority.  An engineer or developer appreciates accomplishment or skill.  Finally, developers being more creative and intelligent, often chafe at rules made by others.  These three ingredients combine into a perfect stew of unprofessional behavior.  I will talk about how to work with these realities in my next blog.

Look forward to seeing you then.

Until next time.

 

When Culture Eats Agile for Breakfast.

Bad Culture is like canoeing over a waterfall.

I am very fortunate to have family and friends who are into musical theater.  For an aging high school theater nerd, it is always fun to sing along with a show tune while driving.  The funny thing about musical theater since the Second World War is that it has tried to tackle social issues.  “West Side Story,” addressed gang violence and racism.  I remember “A Chorus Line,” exposing me to gay characters.  Finally, “Hair,” had a rock-and-roll soundtrack and a fiercely anti-war message.  Over the weekend, I was running an errand, and the family was listening to the “Hamilton,” Broadway cast album.  I had an unusual emotional reaction, and then I began to think about my agile journey.  

One of the essential songs in the show, “Hamilton,” is “The Room Where it Happens,” where the characters Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson make backroom deals and compromises to keep the American republic moving forward after the revolution.  It is an excellent song about power and the practical matters of running a country.  It is also an ironic song because Hamilton’s rival Arron Burr jealously wants to be in the room where those compromises happen.

I thought back to a previous position where my manager would joke that I attempted to drag the company toward agile “kicking and screaming.”  The last two years of my career were so frustrating because I would propose solutions and fixes, but because I was not in the room with the decision-makers, my expertise was ignored or actively discouraged.  I would even complain to my manager that I wanted to be in the place where the decisions occurred.  Naturally, when I had my exit interview, I cited the firm’s lack of agile adoption as the reason for leaving.  Looking back at the experience, I realized my efforts were not going to gain traction because the culture of the firm was not going to value agility.  It valued tenure and experience over actually getting work done.  The stock market has rewarded the organization appropriately.  I was never going to be in the room where it happens because I had not paid the twenty-year commitment of time and adequately ingratiated myself with the other leaders.  Shipping software and delivering value was considered a threat rather than a virtue in that organization.  

The rough learning experience helped me grow and develop as a professional, but it reinforced the notion that culture is more influential than agility.  A dysfunctional culture or organization is going to actively fight against agile because agile quickly exposes the rot in the organization, and that threatens the careers of people who professionally benefit from that inefficiency.  People will quickly ally against any change, which is threatening.  The 14th State of Agile report echoed this state of affairs when they said cultural acceptance of agile is lagging because of leadership, not understanding it, and the organizational culture resisting its improvements. 

It occurred to me that unless you have senior leadership working alongside agile coaches and scrum masters, the rest of the organization will continue to do what it has always done through the force of inertia.  Even if I were in the room for decisions, at the old organization, it would not have made a difference because the leadership would not have understood a word I was saying.  So as a coach or scrum master, pay particular attention to culture because if they do not value the agile manifesto or principles, you are going to paddling against the current.  If the senior leadership does not understand agile, then you might as well go over a waterfall in a barrel.  

Agile works, but if you don’t have the right culture, you are up a dangerous creek.  You do not need to appreciate show tunes to get that message.  

Until next time.  

Listening to COVID-19 and What It Means for Agile.

Pay attention to the world around you.

It is an extraordinary time.  The world economy lurched into a lower gear.  Many of us are cooped up in our homes attempting to teach children, work remotely, or pass the time because our jobs disappeared with the stay in place orders.  It is also a time where we have discovered how networked and interdependent we are.  A virus half a world away can create a wave of disruption.  In my physical –isolation, I have taken the time to process a few bits of wisdom.

The COVID-19 virus has exposed how networked the global economy and society has become over the last fifty years.  It has also acted as a great equalizer. The developed world is just as susceptible to the virus as the poorest of nations.  The mutation of a virus in bats which spread to humans now threatens everyone on the planet.  It is a slow-motion disaster which we saw coming.

Scientists, health workers, and professionals crunched the numbers and played out the worst-case scenarios.  When leaders listened, you had widespread testing and public health responses.  Where leaders decided to ignore the evidence, military quarantines of entire cities would be necessary, and health care systems were overcome with sick people.  The experts were right and we should trust that expertise more often.

It is easy to be smug in a time like now.  Hundreds of thousands of people are suffering economically as restaurants, bars, and nightlife shut down.  The education of millions of young people is upset by schools closing.  If experts were trusted and people gave credit to others who dedicated their entire lives to the study of science and public health, we might not be in such a difficult situation.  The reality of saying, “I told you so,” is only going to make the present situation more unbearable.

The distrust of experts comes from a particular place.  We often see these experts in comfortable offices and universities and think they lack real-world experience.  Many professionals have authority over others, and it creates resentment.  They are the teachers, doctors, lawyers, judges, and executives who make decisions about our lives.  Making matters worse, professionals often do not live in communities where their choices have the most impact.  It explains why those who work hourly like to use words like quack, shyster, and shylock to describe those with expertise.

One of the reasons I wanted to get into agile is because I wanted to be a different kind of professional.  I wanted to be responsive and empathetic to others. I wanted to show kindness.  Professionals must earn trust each day. It is up to professionals like myself to create ways to work, which are sustainable, satisfying, and sane.  If we are going to dig out of the economic calamity, we are going to discover better ways of working.  Agile will be one of the movements leading the way.

So the main piece of wisdom I have obtained while I remain in self-isolation is that respect of experts and professionals must be earned.  Earning that trust means treating others with decency and kindness.  It means having shared experience in good times and bad.  Agile will be part of this transformation, and I will continue to be part of it.

Until next time. 

The Road to Respect

Coaching others is a difficult business.  You need to listen and have empathy for others without forfeiting objectivity.  A coach must be responsive to the cultural and emotional difference of each person you work.  For me, I have had to change my mindset from a fixed position to a growth perspective.  I am fortunate there are plenty of people in the agile community to provide inspiration and direction. One of these individuals is Kim Scott, the author of “Radical Candor.” The more I read about her suggestions on being a better boss the more I think about the agile value of respect. 

I have blogged about the topic of respect numerous times.  It is one of the fundamental values of Scrum.  It is also something which is hard to quantify and explain.  The best definition of respect comes from the Kaizen Institute blog.  They say the following.

“Respect is ultimately about actions.  Do you really value the next person in your process to such an extent that you will go out of your way to satisfy the need of that person?”

So respect is not about creating an often false emotional bubble of niceness.  Instead, it is about acting in a way which shows other you are meeting their needs.  It can be showing up to meetings on time or authoring unit tests on new development.  It also means saying something which needs to be said.  Kim Scott calls being nice but not challenging others directly “ruinous empathy.”

If the phrase ruinous empathy sounds harsh it should. I see teams with ruinous empathy in many corporate environments.  These people have meetings where everyone spends time complimenting each other.  Everyone gets along because challenging someone is seen as not being a “team,” player.  In many cases, ruinous empathy resembles the worst moments of high school where the favorite students are fawned over by their less popular peers.

Entrance into these social circles is the path to social advancement, but it requires the sacrifice of self-esteem and personal values.  It is “everything is awesome,” and everyone is above the average world.  No one works too hard, and there is no accountability.  Sooner or later, someone is going to point out a challenge, and they are ostracised.  The good feelings return, but the problem lingers.  If the members of that group respected each other, they would try to help one another address the challenge instead of putting up a false front of nice and banish the person who raised the problem.

Where things become challenging in a group is when you care about others and test them directly, but they do not see it as a radical candor but obnoxious aggression.  I am attempting to navigate this currently.  I pointed out to someone the information they were posting on the company slack channel need to be more credible, and that anecdotal evidence was not enough to justify sharing.  I received a hostile reply saying the link shared was from a security expert.  The individual also said they felt “shamed” by my public reaction and my coaching. 

I decided to deescalate the situation and apologize.  Afterword, I thought about it and discussed it with someone I trust.  In hindsight, it is clear I should have taken these individual's concerns more seriously.  I did what is called “front-stabbing,” by Kim Scott.  I should have coached this individual in confidence.  I was obnoxiously aggressive when I thought I was radically candid.  I will not make that mistake again.  Returning to the Kaizen Institute’s blog, I was not meeting the needs of the person I was coaching; instead, I was publicly shaming them via the social media of the company which was a slack channel.  I engaged in the behavior which was the antithesis of respect. 

Respect is a delicate state to achieve.  I learned a valuable lesson about it this week. Avoiding ruinous empathy and challenging people is not enough.  A coach has to understand others and the context they work so they do not feel ashamed when you coach them.  It is a hard lesson to learn but just another step along my agile journey.  I will earn more respect along the way. 

Until next time.

Software Development needs Women

We need more women in Technology.

I take a great deal of pride in what I do.  Being a scrum master is difficult but it has plenty of intrinsic rewards.   As I have muddled through my career, I have noticed the technology business is diverse.  I have worked with Indian, Pakistani, Russian, and Latino developers.  I have worked with every possible religious group from atheists and pagans to evangelical fundamentalist Christians.  The only criteria in the technology business I have encountered is could a person write good code.  Race, creed or color never disqualified a person from being a software engineer.  Unfortunately, gender is not diverse in the technology business.  We need to do a better job having women represented in the ranks of coders and agile practitioners.   This week, I want to formally provide my support for efforts to get more young girls to join the profession I love.

In the early days of software development, women and men were equally involved in the trade.  These pioneering software developers were business people first who learned how to write software without a formal collegiate curriculum.  One of the best depictions of this period is the film “Hidden Figures” which shows women of color working for NASA.  The 1950’s and 1960’s were not a golden age of diversity in American Business, but in the early days of software development, there was less gender disparity.

I believe that this changed as colleges began accepting undergraduates for computer science course.  Men began to dominate in this academic major, and it created a feedback loop of men helping other men get into the profession.  As women retired from the occupation, men replaced them.  These individuals knew how to code but did not understand the businesses they were working. As the business of software development became more lucrative and prestigious, companies pushed more women out the activity.  With fewer women in the occupation, the “brogrammer” culture began to grow, and software development teams became hostile work environments.  With the rise of Silicon Valley software shops, this trend became more pronounced, and it has been severely parodied in popular culture thanks to the HBO series. 

I am glad to report that over the years, I have run into plenty of exceptional women who walk a lonely road and work in this profession.  It is also good to see the rise of organizations like Girl Scouts and Code Like a girl encourage young people to get into the profession.  There is plenty of toxic masculinity in this business, and only with the addition of more women, a means to discourage it.  Finally, it is important that men support women in this craft.

Software development is a diverse profession, but it could do better with gender equity.  It is up to all of us in the business to recognize that girls can code and they are welcome in the profession.

Until next time.

Continuous improvement is a scrum master job.

Development is a lot like theater

One of the greatest things about my job is that I spend numerous hours working with people.  I am learning new things on a constant basis.  I also spend time teaching others how to be better in the workplace.  It is this back and forth which keeps me going into the office.  This week I was asked about how you inspire teams to make continuous improvement.

Business professionals use sports metaphors to describe what they do.  I was never any good at sports, so I look business through the filter of music and performing arts.  I think it is a more constructive way to look at the work.  There is no scoreboard hanging over the cubicles in the office.  Business leaders are often too busy to chart out plays, and there is no playoff season or championship.  Business is an ongoing activity.

To me, the world of work resembles repertoire theater or a jazz orchestra.  Each week the company needs to put on eight shows a week with a matinee on Sunday.  The quality of the performance needs to be professional grade because people will not pay big money to see an elementary school recital.  People get sick, and performers drop out but in show business terms, “The show must go on!” If the show does not go on then, people do not get paid.  The cruel arithmetic of performing arts is that quality must be outstanding and that people must want to purchase your product.  Otherwise, you starve.

So as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach you need to look at your job as if you were a theater director or the leader of a jazz band.  Instead of being autocratic about the work, you will need to be collaborative.  You will have to get to know the people you work with and understand them as people.  Do they have children, are they single, is this their first job or do they have experience?  Do they show up for work on time?  Are they prepared?  Can they improvise and can they handle the pressure?  As coach and scrum master you need to know.

Once you understand the above, you can lay out the goals and mission of the team.  Scrum is good about this.  Each sprint has a beginning, middle, and end.  The release of working software should is like a performance.  When the curtain falls, the scrum master and the team decide how to do better job next time.

I am a big believer in the 1% principle.  Each sprint, I want to improve the performance of the team by 1%. If I have thirteen iterations in a year, the team has increased its performance by 13%.  Over a period of five years, that would be a 65% growth in efficiency.  That is the kind of return which creates pay raises and promotions.  So create small increments of improvement and meet them.  Over time, you will be amazed by the results.

Finally, Agile and Scrum can not overcome a poor work ethic, incompetence, or stupidity.  Being average is not sufficient.  As a coach or Scrum Master, it is your job to help everyone become a better team member.  People unwilling or unable to improve must go.  It is best for the individual and the team.  It is one of the hardest decisions to make.  As someone laid off multiple times, I speak from experience.  Each time I have lost a job I have bounced back and been a better developer.  Nothing focuses the mind quite like unemployment.

So look at your role as a theater director.  Get to know your people.  Collaborate with your team and hold them accountable for small improvements over time.  Finally, remove people from the team holding them back.  Being a scrum master is not easy, but it is the most rewarding job you will ever do.

Until next time.

Reflecting on Why a Scrum Master is a Commander.

The aftermath of the U.S. Election has rubbed a lot of nerves raw.  I did not expect these results.  Between bouts of sleeplessness and eating comfort food, I did a lot of reflection.  I thought about what I stood for and what it means to the others around me.  I am scrum master and a servant leader.  I have spent the last twenty six years of my life attempting to reach this point.  During my dark night of the soul, I recalled the words of Former Secretary of State Collin Powell who said, “Command is Lonely.”  This week on my blog, I want to talk about how a scrum master is often in command.

The scrum guide is ambiguous about the authority of a scrum master.  It is very clear about the responsibilities and expectations of the role.  The agile community has filled in some of the blanks with talks about a scrum master being a servant leader.  I have written about this myself.

Over the last year, through a few successes and countless failures it has occurred to me that to be a scrum master is also about being in command.  It isn’t the typical command many of us think.  There is no barking of orders and obedient subordinates fulfilling those orders with the predatory efficiency of ants.  It is a different kind of command.  The kind of command where when things go wrong everyone turns to you.  Powell fought in Vietnam so he knows a few things about when things go horribly wrong.  This is why command is lonely.  When the metaphorical bullets are flying and you have situations which could cost money, careers, and lives; it is up to you to lead.

For a scrum master, that means staying up late with the development team when they are deploying code after hours.  It means being a calm head when others are panicking.  It means listening to others even people you find abhorrent.  It means many things and nothing at all because being a commander is not an official title bestowed by someone else.  It is earned.

This means each day as a scrum master, I have to earn my command.  I have to put in the effort to work with my development team.  I have to make sure that I am doing the best as I can to help the team improve.  I have to be able to work with people I disagree with better.  Other people are counting on me and need me to be an example, I will be a better example.  Not only do I need to know the agile manifesto and its principles but I need to practice what I preach every day.  I have to listen more and talk less.  Command is hard and it is going to be lonely.

Doing these things is not going to be easy but if I want to change the business culture of my company or found my own then I need steel myself for the hard work.  It is going to be a struggle but nothing worth fighting for should be easy.  Even in darkness we can find resolve and purpose.

Until next time.

I Can't Believe I was Being this Dumb

I can learn a few things from this guy.

A scrum master is a leader without any authority.  They are someone you follow because they help you become a better developer and help you finish projects in a timely manner.  It is not for everyone.  I spend much of my time in self-reflection and attempting to improve my skills.  I also have to control my autocratic and curmudgeonly nature when I am dealing with individuals who are not pulling their weight.  On twitter, I had an interesting interaction with someone I respect in the user experience field Gail Swanson and I think there are a few lessons to be shared.

Like many of us, she uses twitter as a place to vent frustrations, test out ideas and share knowledge.  I respect her and follow her because she has plenty of things to say about being a good user experience person.  Then she shared this on twitter.

Imagine if your boss referred to the male employees as 'boys'. Doesn't feel right, does it.

— Gail Swanson (@practicallyUX) August 12, 2016

I responded with the following

I use "Ladies. And Gentleman" is that acceptable? https://t.co/5enCJj4YpZ

— (((Ed Wisniowski))) (@eeeThree_ed) August 12, 2016

Finally, Angela Dugan chimed in and she might as well have dropped a mike.

@eeeThree_ed @practicallyUX how about "team" or "everyone". Unless it's a super gender specific topic/event, why even bother being specific

— Angela Dugan (@OakParkGirl) August 13, 2016

It took some time for this to sink in but it dawned on me that words and behaviors matter.  What I consider being respectful to my developers comes off as condescending and superior.  How I spoke to them effected their performance and it need to change right away.  I was being dumb.  So now, I use the terms “everybody”, “team” or “folks” to refer to the people I am working with.  I was doing something dumb and it took people I respected to point it out to me.

A contemporary scrum master has to interact with numerous people.  They work with off shore teams and on shore teams.  They are mixed by gender and religious affiliation.  I have Sikh, Muslims and Hindus working for me off shore.  On shore, I deal with evangelical Protestants, Neo-Pagans and Atheists.  What unites all of us is that we know how to code and that we are working on the same project.  I as the scrum master need to respect these cultural differences and keep everyone focused on the end goal.  My personal feelings or prejudices need to called out and controlled if I am going to guide these individuals to their goal.

It also means that the macho cruft that you see in software development needs to go away.  I am fortunate enough to work at an organization where women are incorporated into all of the development teams.  I think that has improved the development teams.  The testers, technical leads, developers, and QA people who are female are regular members of the teams and because of their skills have earned the respect of their male colleagues.  For our organization, diversity produces better results.

So there you have it; a scrum master needs to change and adapt.  The increase of off-shore development and the number of woman in the profession, has made me confront some of my own prejudices and make changes. I hope others can learn from my example.  I am just trying to be a better scrum master and guy.

Until next time.

Reputation is not licence to be a jerk

We know lots of people like this.  A few of them 
 set the conversation of the technology world.
 Image courtesy of Slate.com.

The world of technology is filled with plenty of smart, talented and colorful personalities.  This dynamic was one of the reasons why I was drawn to the business.  This week I want to talk about of these colorful personalities and how he represents some of the worst impulses in the technology business.

There are plenty of stereotypes in the technology business.  These are reinforced by popular culture in productions as diverse as James Bond movies, the Fox series 24, and the HBO program Silicon Valley.  Having over 18 years’ experience in the business, I have seen many of these stereotypes in real life.  I have also met plenty of great people who are unique and innovative in every way.

By any standard, Alex St. John should be seen as one of the leading minds in the technology field. He was self-educated and self-taught.  He created the DirectX technology which powers Xbox and just about every PC game on Windows.  His work helped make Microsoft the power house it is and he earned further accolades founding his own company.  This kind of achievement should make St. John a good will ambassador for the technology field instead, he is coming off as a colossal jerk.

I can provide numerous examples which have already been articulated elsewhere on the web.  These offenses break down into three categories.

• He does not see the value of women in technology.  Exhibit A.
• He thinks that exploitative work conditions in the software business, particularly, the game business are acceptable.  Exhibit B.
• Finally, anyone who disagrees with him is a “whiner” of not willing to work hard.  Exhibit C.

I have stated repeatedly, technology needs more women.  The fresh perspective they provide to technology is essential to improving product quality.  It also makes the office less like a Mongol raiding party and more like a 21st century work place.  The less testosterone in technology the better.

Next repeated studies have shown that long hours are a hindrance to productivity rather than a boon.  Notions of “crunch” time and working eighty hour work weeks are exploitative and boarder on the illegal practice of wage theft.  Additionally, the twelve principle of Agile discourage this mindset stressing development should sustainable.  To St. John and others developer burn-out, turnover, and alienation are the cost of doing business.  Technology workers are not different that sweatshop workers and they should be grateful for the conditions.

Finally, St. Jon has ridiculed people who disagree with him about issues of diversity and exploitation of tech workers by claiming they are not ambitious enough or smart enough to understand his arguments.  In St. John’s world, I would have died of a heart attack because I would be living on steady diet of caffeine, pizza, and stress.  The technology world has undermined two of my marriages because of high stress, turn over, and uncertain employment conditions.  It is hard to keep good employees if they don’t see or sleep with their significant others.  I consider myself a valuable professional to any organization, but to St. John, I am just a pencil to be ground down into a nub to be replaced by someone else just as disposable.

Bottom line, if you do not agree with St. John, then you are neither smart nor talented enough to work in technology.  This may explain why he is spending more time coaching CEO’s and HR professionals on how to recruit technology talent than actually managing technology talent.  I have worked for people like St. John who are convinced of their intellectual and moral superiority. It is not fun and I consider those periods the low points of my career.  Technology is changing thanks to agile and efforts to improve diversity.  Faced with the changing environment you can, lead, follow, or get out of the way.  I think that St. John is about to get trampled to death.

Until next time.

A Little Respect for the Scrum Master

I spend my days working with software developers and helping them get work done better, faster, and with higher quality than they did before.  This week,

Building software is not for the meek!

I wanted to take some time out and talk about why being a scrum master maters.  Technology is one of the hardest things in business to manage and it helps put things into perspective.

One of the key things everyone in technology needs to understand is that the ability to write code is rare skill.  For every thousand people working in accounts receivable, there may be only five able to write software which manages the accounting systems.  Because of relative scarcity of people with these skills, there is always too much work for too few people.  This makes business people testy because they are taught that customer service should be instantaneous and to be forced to wait for IT seems like a waste of time.  Often business people accuse IT departments of being lazy or non-responsive.

 Also many people outside technology think that putting together good working software code is as easy as composing a power point slide or an excel spread sheet; this is a gross misunderstanding.  So they see the eccentric people who develop software as detriment to the business.  Combined with how expensive software developers are to hire, it is no wonder that there is so much push for off-shoring.
 
The funny thing is that off-shore teams and no different than their domestic counter-parts.  A developer in India or Northern Ireland is just as rare as they are in the United States.  They are paid higher rates than their peers and make a very good living because they still very rare compared to the world population.  They are less expensive that American or European developers but they are still an expensive labor force.  They are also just as over-worked as their on-shore colleagues.

Now add to the mix a twelve or thirteen-hour time difference, child care concerns, and the cultural obstacles which obviously crop up between two nations and you have a recipe for disaster.  Fortunately, software developers being smarter than the average person have learned to deal with the obstacles and build software.  It is not pretty at times but the work gets done.

It is up to scrum masters to get development teams working together and efficiently.  We have to bridge the ocean gaps and make our off shore partners feel like they are making a difference.  It is up to us to put together a vision and then direct others to make that vision possible.

I was attempting to explain my job to others and it is hard.  Some people get offended that I work with off-shore teams because they think I am enabling the loss of jobs in the United States.  Others think that what I do is not real work because all I do is participate in conference calls.  The truth is that scrum masters who work with distributed teams are essential parts of the global economy.  We keep the projects going.  We make sure the software is delivered on time.  We keep the promises executives and sales people make to their clients each day.  It isn’t like being a nurse or a fire fighter but it is just as important.  

So if someone says they are a scrum master give them a little respect. They are the people who make sure the global economy does not collapse into a big ball of mud.

Until next time.

The Virtues of Agile: Respect

This is part two of five of our series of articles about the virtues of Agile.  This week we cover the topic of respect.

Of all the values of Agile, I think that respect is the most difficult to define.  I believe that this is because it is the one virtues based on emotion more than any other.  You cannot force a person to respect another person. It is a situation which develops over time when two people work together.  In high pressure atmospheres, like technology, respect can also be fleeting.  The person you respect today could be a colossal impediment tomorrow.  It is a difficult quality to cultivate and develop among professionals.

In my experience, it is also difficult to give respect to others because for most of my life as a professional respect was something which was earned.  Someone did not receive respect from you until they earned it by helping you or accomplishing something worthy of respect.  I remember this being the case during my years in debate and I also saw it in the realm of technology.  People who understood how to implement technological solutions were elevated above others and were granted respect by junior developers.

Since I have been a scrum master for the last year, I have seen that respect is not something earned from others but something you give others and they repay in back to you.  Respect is a virtuous cycle which reinforces itself with in the team.  This is not just about knowing the names of the people on your team.  It is about knowing if they have children and what they are doing.  It is about giving time off for them to attend Christmas programs.  It is also just shutting up and listening to people.

This is contrary to much of the leadership advice we receive from public figures like Donald Trump or Kevin Trudeau being leader is not so much about being in charge but being a servant.  A leader serves the people he is supposed to in charge because the only way that they succeed is by helping others instead of being a selfish jerk.  It also means that you are going to have to swallow some pride and learn to work with others who seem impossible.

It has become obvious to me that most of my problem employees are not really problems per say but they are having problems with their job and it is my duty to fix them.  A developer accustomed to cut and paste programming was floundering, after a few training courses and working with MVC5 and Typescript they are a dependable member of my team.  In addition, he volunteers to help in situations I was not expecting to contribute.  It happened because our relationship moved away from conflict about him not hitting sprint goals to him actively participating in the team.

I am not perfect on this front.  I struggle with names on a regular basis and I have to suppress my more narcissistic tendencies.  Some people I have a very difficult time respecting because they have toxic personalities or are self-centered but I try and hope that a little dose of respect will go a long way.  Respect is not easy but if you truly want to have it on your team them you are going to have to provide it to you team members.

Until next time.

The Magic of Doing the Right Thing

Doing the right thing is not magic.

There is a lot of news that has bubbled up through the web and media about doing the right thing.  From administrators mismanaging VA hospitals and providing inadequate care to our nation’s veterans to the ongoing controversy regarding the National Security Agency; each day we are confronted with people who made impossible choices and exposed wrong-doing or corruption.  Setting aside the politics of this news, it is clear that people will do the right thing even when it is not in their best personal interests.  This gives me hope because as long as there are people in business and politics willing to do the right thing there is hope for the future.  I wanted to discuss this in my blog this week.

Doing the right thing is a very vague term.  If you Google it you are taken to a weird mixture of self-help sites, quotations, and a shout out to the Spike Lee joint by the same name.  During the revelations of the Pentagon papers, Daniel Ellsberg was considered both a traitor to the nation and a hero to the counter culture.  Looking back on the situation, it is clear that without Ellsberg’s efforts open debate about how to prosecute the war in Vietnam was greatly informed by the leaks of this classified information.  Thanks to Ellsberg and his efforts, congress understood how Democratic and Republican administrations lied to them about involvement in Vietnam.  It was also a valuable source of scholarship for historians and military professionals seeking to understand the conflict.  As Ellsberg said himself, “I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.”

In 2009, Mattel the makers of Barbie and other popular toys was dragged into court because they had violated the federal ban on lead paint in their products.  This time the whistle-blower was a Chinese factory worker and the plant manager committed suicide before the full extent of the contamination was exposed.  Thousands of toys were recalled and the company had to pony up 2.3 million dollars to pay fines.  Worse was the hit to the reputation to the company, as it went into the holiday shopping season and had to explain to nervous parents how their products were now lead free.

These two stories have one thing in common.  When someone was confronted with an ethically dubious situation or a clear example of corruption, they decided to expose it and then they took responsibility for their actions.  They did not “play ball” and allow these situations to continue rather, they decided to change them with the only tools they had at their power which was information.

I have spent the bulk of my career trying to do the right thing for my customers, co-workers, and clients.  In some situations, I was rewarded with unemployment.  In others, I was demoted or marginalized.  That did not change how I operated because I always felt that when the chips were down others would always remember when you were under tremendous pressure and still did the right thing.  This was one of the reasons why I founded E₃ systems.  I wanted to be the owner of a software development firm and I wanted to continue to do the right thing.  Please look us up and we will tell you more.

So as we come out of a long holiday weekend commemorating the sacrifices of military during the history of our nation.  Take a little time to recognize the people big and small who sacrifice every day doing the right thing for others.

Until next time.

Death to Performance Appraisals!

Performance Appraisals are about as
 helpful as slapping your employees

It is that time of year again.  We are hustling to and fro and feeling like we are running in place.  You may think that I am talking about the holiday season, but the reality is a more grim corporate ritual.  It is the return of performance appraisal season.  I hate performance appraisal season.  I hate it like a young child hates liver or a dog owner despises animal cruelty.  I do not see any benefit to having them in a business environment and I certainly do not see them doing any good in an entrepreneurial environment.  This week on the blog, I would like you to indulge me as I explain why I hate performance appraisals.

At an early age we come in contact with the performance appraisal, it was called a report card.  These pieces of paper and notes home to our parents were necessary to let them know how we were doing in school.  If you were lucky you had parents like mine who were involved in your education and had a fairly good relationship with my teachers.  If you were like other students I knew your parents would be surprised each time you brought back your quarterly report card.  As you grew older report cards were a means to perform educational triage.  Hard working and gifted students were moved to the front of the line for college preparation and scholarships while those who didn't measure up were cast aside like trash.  Grades determined your official status in school and your possible desirability to go to college.

Flash forward four years of high school and another four years of college and when we get into the job world we expect to be free from the tyranny of report cards.  Instead, report cards are replaced by performance appraisals.  Unlike report cards, performance appraisals are not based on objective standards of excellence.  They are based on the economic needs of the company.  So you could have perfect attendance, not miss a deadline, and generate millions of dollars of sales and still receive a “meets expectations” on your appraisal.  For a classic example of this kind of insanity, just take a look at Microsoft and its old stack ranking appraisal process.  I feel very strongly that Microsoft hurt its ability to retain good employees and innovate because of this system; if everyone “meets expectations” and then the company really can’t meet the expectations of the customer.  So good employees leave and mediocre and poor ones stay.

There is another reason I hate that hate performance appraisal and that is because it resembles management by fear.  According to W. Edwards Deming, the godfather of lean manufacturing, one of the seven deadly diseases of management is the use of Evaluation pf performance, merit rating or annual reviews to control employees.  People are not dumb, and if they know the metrics you are using to evaluate them they are going to game the system to get the best rating possible at the expense of the business and customer.  For instance, if you reward a bus driver for on-time drop offs they will avoid picking up more riders during high traffic periods because that will affect their drop off times.  This creates perverse situations where people are rewarded for poor customer service.  People are afraid to do what is right for the customer instead they do what will be appraised in a positive fashion.

I am not against rating people and their performance, but the way we do it now reeks of mental illness.  Managers should be in contact with their line employees daily providing coaching and encouragement.  When a performance issue comes up it needs to be addressed right away instead of during the appraisal process.  Immediate feedback when you screw up is much more helpful then trying to recall what you did during the middle of the fiscal year.  Agile teams need to know how much velocity they can perform and if they are improving it.  Sales people and marketing professionals need to know what is going on the top line of sales and how much margin you are making on the bottom line.  All of this data is important and necessary, however you cannot squash it together into a gooey ball of muck an use it to objectively rate an employee. I would much prefer a manager telling me that the firm could only afford a two percent raise than telling me I met expectations and that is worth two percent.  The honesty would be bracing.

So what do I propose as an alternative?  I am a big fan of development plans.  Every 90 days a manager should tell a person what they can do if they need to improve and what they need to do if they would like to advance to a higher position.  In six month intervals, this information should be written down and then saved for HR purposes.  This way over the life time of the employee there should be a record of the growth and development of the employee without the capricious rating system that most companies use.  This forces managers to manage their employees instead of kissing up to their superiors.

At the end of the day, a business must satisfy the needs of their customers.  I strongly believe that the performance appraisal process as it exists in contemporary companies satisfies neither the needs of the employees or those of customers.  Something must change and I hope that as my business grows I will be one of the people leading this change.

Until next time.

Our Values Mater.

We think about our values each day.

E₃ systems suffered a major loss last week as the founders experienced a death in the family and took time off for the funeral.  If you have visited the company web site, one of our company values is respect.  With the passing of one of our founder’s relatives, it only seemed right to take time off and pay our respects.  During this difficult time, I reflected on my values and the values of the company I founded.  This week on the blog I want to discuss those reflections.

I founded this company three years ago out of frustration with my technology career.  I spent too much time in meetings and taking orders from people who could not use a mouse.  I concluded, in this fit of career darkness, I would found my own business and help others use technology to improve their business.  It was a crazy dream but I was determined to see it through.  Since then, I spent countless hours writing software and meeting with potential clients.  I have affectionately referred to the company as my mistress.  We have released two major software projects in that time and we are launching sales efforts to support those products.

Along with coding, I spent a great deal of time to think about what kind of company I wanted to build.  I wanted a firm where people respected each other, the customer and the communities they server.  I wanted to be able to grow so that I could reward our stake holders and employees.  I look forward to hiring my first employee and the only way that is going to happen is by growing and improving sales.  When we hit that first million dollars in revenue we will let you know.

The other two values of E₃ systems are agility and development.  I strongly believe that to be successful a company needs to respond to customer demands.  This is why I have embraced the agile manifesto and why agility is one of my corporate values.  If you do not like something we are doing give us two weeks and it will change.  This is one of the reasons why smaller firms seem to be having more success that larger ones in today’s environment.

Finally, I believe strongly in personal development of my employees.  Unlike traditional businesses a good technology company demands that its employees get smarter and better at what they do. A technology worker needs to relearn their job every eighteen month. Each employee, should learn how to be better at what they do and become more knowledgeable of the world around them.  Continuing education and training just makes sense as the world becomes more complex.  People are not machine tools to be used up and then thrown away.  Only be investing in people and helping them develop will you be a successful postmodern business.

I strongly believe in these values; growth, agility, development, and respect.  I have place them on my company website and I have struggled to live them as I have launched my business.  This organization counts on two things the quality of our product and the trust of our customers.  If we do not have those then we deserve to fail.

We know that in order to earn your trust and provide quality we have to have values consistent with theat.   I know we do.  So reflecting on this journey, I can say we are doing it the right was and look forward to future success.

Until next time.

My Commencement Speech

If I gave a commencement speech this is what I would say.

This time of year is filled with commencement speeches and pockets of wisdom from many public figures directed at college students.  My favorite was by Senator Elizabeth Warren. Twice in my academic career, I asked to be a commencement speaker when I received my associate’s degree and when I received my masters.  Both times, academic and community politics got in the way with me sharing that message.  Someday, I am going to be a successful entrepreneur and when I am there this is the speech I am going to give.  Enjoy.

Thank you Madam President and fellow students, I am deeply honored to be here and to be a small footnote to your lives.  You see on a day like this you have a lot more things on your mind that what some middle aged portly man has to say about life, the universe and everything.  As many of the fine arts students who have read Douglas Adams can attest the answer is 42.  All kidding aside, you are more interested in where you are going to have dinner, visiting with your parents, and figuring out what to do with the rest of your lives.  This is heady stuff and important.  You know how hard it is to get a dinner reservation in this town tonight.
 
That said I do want to leave you with something besides my vain attempts at humor.  Today is one of the biggest successes in your life you have entered a very elite group of people you are college graduates.  According Harvard and the Asian Development Bank, only 6.7 percent of the world population holds a bachelor’s degree.  You are not quite the 1% but you are damn close.  You are roughly the one in twenty people on this planet that can boast this kind of education and experience.   But you didn't get here on your own it took your family and community to get you here.  So for a brief moment can all the parents, siblings, spouses, friends, and significant others please stand up.  Give yourself a hand because these graduates are here because you helped them get here.

Like I said, today is a big deal.  This may be the biggest success you have in your entire life but I want to leave you with a little nugget wisdom on this big day.  Today you embrace success, but now that you are graduates you will be confronted with failure.  How you deal with failure and hardship will define you for the rest of your lives.  I am sorry, I am harshing this happy occasion but it would be wrong of me not to share the wisdom I have accumulated over the years.  Failure is necessary.  Failure is pure.  Failure educates in ways that will remain with you the rest of your life long after your American Literature finals.  Many of you have been scared of failure and have done everything in your power to avoid it.  I have some bad news for you.  Failure will find you and grasp you in its unjust embrace.

My father had a sign on his desk which said, “The only people who never fail are those who never try.”  It was a dose of wisdom that as a twenty year old graduate, I mocked.  As a middle aged man launching his own business, I understood.  As a culture we are frightened of failure.  I have known people who have failed who were treated like those afflicted with leprosy by their friends because they were afraid that failure was contagious.  I have seen careers end because of failure. I have seen people end their own lives because they could not cope with failure.  It is sad because I have learned that failure is just another way that human beings learn and grow.

I have failed in so many ways in my life.  I am twice divorced.  I do not have any children to carry on my name.  I have been fired from several jobs because I struggled to conform to what I thought were ethically dubious situations or take grief from someone I though was not my equal.  On paper, my life looks like a failure.  I beg to differ.  I am my own boss and lead an organization that employees many people.  I have finally earned some financial independence and I can support my parents in their old age.  Finally, I wake up in the morning and can look myself in the mirror without feeling profound levels of contempt and rage for the petty compromises I have made in my life.  I have gotten to this point because of failure.

The playwright Arthur Miller said, “…possibly the greatest truth we know, have come out of peoples suffering.”  This from a man who was married to Marilyn Monroe; I get the feeling he did lot of suffering.  We suffer because of failure.  People are greedy, mean, selfish, and crazy.  And that folks is just on the good days.  Add personal pride, money, and sexual gratification to the mix and you have a recipe for suffering and failure.  I know.  I have been in those situations and I am sad to report they don’t sell t-shirts.

What I have discovered is that during these profoundly dark moments, I have learned something.  Failure educates in ways that cramming for an exam does not.  It enlightens because I illustrates who your friends are.  They are the ones who will stand by your side and support you went others will turn away.  Failure shows you what your limits are and what you need to do to overcome them.  Failure is the reset button of your life because when you fail the only way to go is up.

It is said that there is nothing worse than a failure.  I disagree.  There is nothing worse that someone who doesn't learn from failure.  There is nothing worse that someone who doesn't grow after failure.  There is nothing worse than someone who repeats the same mistakes to fail.  Finally, there is nothing worse than someone who wallows in failure.  It is not wrong to fail.  It is wrong to fail and not gain something anything from the experience.

I come from a community of technologists known as the agile community and our motto is to fail early and often.  So today on one of the greatest days of success in your life, I want to remind you that failure is coming.  Fail early and fail often.  Don’t quit trying.  Don’t give a crap about what others think; because at the end of the day you sleep with yourself and you better learn to like that experience.  Look in the mirror and know that you have done your best and then do better the next day.  Life is unfair, cruel, and short.  Don’t be like life.  It is not a question of if you will fail but when.  It is that test of your character which will define you for the remainder of your life.

Fail early and fail often, because inside each failure is a nugget of wisdom which will lead you to greater success.  God Speed, go forth and fail.  I will see you on the other side and then we will have stories to share and a world to change.

Congratulations and God bless you and your families.

A Logistics Party Like its 1992.

Most fashions from 1992 didn't not age
well.  So why are you doing business like
1992?

I have spent most of my adult life around the world of logistics.  From my early days fresh out of college to my current role as president and chief of development at E₃ systems, I have been involved in the world of moving goods and services from place to place at the best price.

What has struck me is that while other businesses have become more automated and 21st century much of the logistics business seems stuck in the 1980's.  While the 1980's were a great time for music and fashion, it was not so good of a time for moving goods from place to place.  Deregulation cut a wide swath of creative destruction through the industry.  Additionally, rising fuel prices and increasing competition shrank the profits of many of the companies which remained.

Something had to give and that was investment in new and better systems to manage their business.  Computers were slow to be adopted in the industry and companies which did use computers used clunky AS/400 systems.  This became a perfect recipe for inertia and an office in the trucking business today looks very similar to an office twenty years ago.  Scattered PC's are in most offices but they reside next to green screen CRT terminals connected to obsolete mainframe and as/400 systems.  Stacks of paperwork fill countless file cabinets and many of the clerical people spend their time fat finger keying data from those forms into computer systems. 

This was one of the reasons I launched E₃ systems.  I wanted to put together an easy and cheap system which business people can use with existing equipment.  No hardware to install.  All you need is an internet connection.  Feel free to contact us and find out more.

There is a better way to do business in the 21st century.  It means knowing your inventory 24 hours a day seven days a week.  It means being able to generate electronic or paper documents at a moment's notice.  It also should be easy to understand, economical and available everywhere. 

I much prefer the 21st century so why do we continue to do business like it is 1992?

Until next time.

Getting away from the mistress.

My business is my mistress.  Not as good
as this one but it is still my mistress.

Sometimes, you need to step away from your business and spend some time with family and friends who are not entrepreneurs.  When you are building your own company your business becomes your mistress, child, and unhealthy obsession.  I needed a chance to break away and set the business aside and just enjoy the moment.  I have also been dealing with health problems and I have not been as focused as I should. 

The most interesting part about taking some time off is that I notice particular things.  First,  it is pretty difficult to find a good breakfast buffet.  Next, that your struggles are not different than other peoples struggles.   Many of us get up in the morning, shake off the sleep and try to earn a living for our family and friends.  Finally, when you tell people you are an entrepreneur you are greeted by a mixture of responses which range from mild jealousy to fear.  Some people are totally frightened by abandoning all security to pursue a dream and others wonder if they have what it takes. 

I wonder sometimes myself.  I have to try and find out.  I don’t want to say I never tried.

Until next time.