Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

Are Your Projects "LAME"?

I'm a big advocate of Lean methodologies as a way to improve a company's operations and therefore I follow a number of Lean related blogs.  Jon Miller in a recent posting, Here are 4.5 Signs that Your Lean May be L.A.M.E. at Gemba Panta Rei talks about Lean is getting a unjust reputation due to poor implementations.  Miller refers to Mark Graban at the Lean Blog who coined the term L.A.M.E as "Lean As Misguidedly Executed".  In essence, the problem isn't with the concept of Lean but rather how it is implemented.

The same holds true for many of the IT related projects we work on.  Our projects start out with a lot of hope and great expectations and as time goes on people become disillusioned and disappointed with the outcome.

Customer Service - A Real Life Example

I use Sitemeter to collect statistics on visitors to my blog.  It is an excellent product that provides me information on how many visits and pageviews I've had, geographic location (don't worry, it is just to the city level - it doesn't give me your home address), length of visit, how they were referred to me and what search terms they used if it was the result of using a search engine among other items.  I also use Statcounter, IceRocket and Google Analytics.  They all give similar information although each has its own way of presenting and summarizing the data.  I do use all 4 products but use Sitemeter the most.  I do a quick scan of Sitemeter every day to get a feel of how people are finding me and what articles are of most interest.

Because I use Sitemeter extensively and really like it, it has been disappointing to recently suffer 2 problems with their service.  Unfortunately, this type of situation is not unusual with IT service providers.  However it is important because as I will show later in this post it does have customer (revenue generation) impact.  I bring this up not to complain (well OK maybe a little) but to use this as an example of how these situations could have been mitigated and customer service improved with very little effort and little or no cost.  Perhaps we can all learn from this.

OK, so by now you may be saying what happened and what, Mr. IT Hotshot, should they have done about it?

Are You Ready To Throw Away Your Safety Glasses?

Jon Miller in his blog on Lean methodologies, Gemba Panta Rei has a very thought provoking post where he suggests Safety Glasses Are a Sign of Unsafe Processes.  Most U.S. factories require you to wear safety glasses whenever you go out on the factory floor.  The reason for this is to protect you from flying debris.  However, if you had safe processes in place, adequate machine guarding to be specific, you wouldn't have flying debris and you wouldn't need safety glasses on the factory floor anymore than you would need them in the office.

Miller goes on to explain:

The Japanese consultants I worked with always puzzled at why American and European factories had such inadequate guarding at the source of the debris. They used to say that safety glasses are a sign of unsafe processes. I think of safety glasses as an sign of a process that is far from ideal, just like inventory is a sign of a lack of flow or forklifts are a sign of disconnected processes.

It is hard to refute the logic of the argument that you wouldn't need safety glasses if you had a safe process, and yet . . .   So while all this is an interesting mental exercise what does it have to do with IT?

Are Your Sales Tools a One-Way Street?

It's all about your customers.  Sales drive the company's profitability and growth.  We have to get closer to our customers.  These are some generally accepted universal truths for success in business.  These concepts are also something IT folks like because they represent a great opportunity for IT to apply technology tools to support these concepts and also show we really can be strategic.

IT and software sales people have done a great job of selling CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and SFA (Sales Force Automation) systems to company leaders.  All you have to do is implement these systems and you'll have the information you need to understand your market and your customers and manage the relationship in an efficient manner while growing sales.  We can hardly wait for "go-live", sales will go through the roof.

Despite all these high hopes these tools have a reputation of disappointment, a failure to live up to the expectations.  The sales force fights the use of these tools and loudly proclaims "I told you so" with every failure.

Is this a failure of the technology or a failure in the implementation?

Director of First Impressions

Recently I had occasion to visit the headquarters of the large company here in Houston.  Stepping off of the elevator I came to the reception desk on which there were 2 signs.  One sign listed the name of the receptionist.  The second sign listed her "title", Director of First Impressions.  What a refreshing display of the realization that the impression people form of your organization starts with there very first contact regardless of who it is.  It was obvious that the receptionist understood that.  She was very professional and efficient in answering incoming calls while greeting visitors.  At the same time through her demeanor you felt like you had her attention and that she (and by extension her company) was happy to see you there.  She (and thereby her company) made a great first impression.

Another Day In Paradise?

I recently ran across 2 articles that have a major theme in common.  The first was an eWeek.com article by Deborah Perelman entitled How to Stop the Dilbertization of IT.  She is of course referring to life in IT as a cubicle gnome beset by meaningless tasks, vague strategies and clueless leadership as personified by the comic strip Dilbert.  The bottom line in this environment is that IT isn't fun any more.  This naturally generates the question, "If I'm not enjoying working here why should I stay?".

Mary Ann Maxwell recently published an opinion piece (Hidden Talent) in MIS magazine on the need to keep people happy as a way of retaining them.  In line with Perelman's article Maxwell asks the critical question:

Why would a talented person want to work here?

Making Your Email More Effective; A Lesson From Lincoln

This past President's Day Mary Schmidt had a posting Write Like Lincoln suggesting that we resist the urge to "flame" someone or send a "nasty gram" email when we were upset.  In her post Mary referenced Tim Sanders post Write letters like Lincoln, to yourself.  The suggested technique is to go ahead and write the email and then send it to yourself and then wait to read it.  Hopefully after you see it in "print" and have cooled down you may be more inclined to approach this in a more constructive manner. 

Abraham Lincoln is famous for doing this.  He would vent his frustrations with his generals in letters he would never send.  This gave him the emotional release with out hindering his ability to inspire and lead.  What an excellent idea.

In following the links from Mary's blog to Tim Sanders I discovered that he has a number of excellent suggestions for dealing with email.

It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear

My wife Bridget recently heard a radio interview with Dr. Frank Luntz about his new book and the power of words to shape our thinking.  She suggested that I read it and I always try to follow her suggestions for many reasons one of which is that they are always worthwhile suggestions.  Luntz's book Words That Work does a great job of helping you craft your message.  It is all based on one recurring theme which happens to be the subtitle of the book:

It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear

That is an extremely important concept -- considering our message from the listener's perspective and not our own.  As Luntz states,

You can have the best message in the world, but the person on the receiving end will always understand it through the prism of his or her own emotions, preconceptions, prejudices and preexisting beliefs.  It's not enough to be correct or reasonable or even brilliant.  The key to successful communication is to take the imaginative leap of stuffing yourself right into your listener's shoes to know what they are thinking and feeling in the deepest recesses of their mind and heart.  How that person perceives what you say is even more real, at least in a practical sense, than how you perceive yourself.

Fortunately, he provides us with Ten Rules of Effective Language.

How Am I Doing?

Ed Koch the mayor of New York City from 1979 to 1989 is renowned for walking around NYC and cheerfully asking everyone "How Am I Doing?" Actually, it was closer to "How'm I doin'?" but it's hard to type with a New York accent. Koch was ahead of his time since what he was doing was a version of a Gemba Walk.  The whole point of his question was to engage his constituents to find out what was important to them and to see how he measured up against their needs and expectations. What an excellent idea! Sometimes all you have to do to find out what people are thinking is ask.  It really can be that simple.

This is a great tool to use at work with our key stakeholders, customers and employees. This can also work at home although I'd advise against referring to your family members as key stakeholders or customers and don't even think of using 'employees'.  You may not like what you hear but at least once you know about an issue you can address it.  After all, you can't address a concern that you don't know about.  I think it can also apply to blogging.  And so dear readers I ask,

"How am I doing?"

Please leave a comment with your name or anonymously, good or bad. Tell me what you like or dislike, what you'd like to see more in my blog or less of. Let me know what's on your mind.  I can't promise that I'll be able to do anything in response but I can promise I'll listen.

Are You a Policy Parrot?

I've been enjoying Matt Moran's stories about "when customer service personnel become policy education experts - explaining to you the policy versus listening and reasoning through your concern or situation."  He calls them his Policy Parrot stories.  We all have these stories.  It is a common situation where have a problem and are extremely frustrated only to hear "Squawk! I'm sorry but our policy doesn't allow . . . Squawk!"  The parrot label is very appropriate.

In hindsight these stories always seem humorous especially if someone else is the "victim".  However, the fun soon disappears if we see ourselves in that story, not as the victim but as the parrot.  Realizing that at times I've been a policy parrot is not a good feeling.  However, as with so many other problem situations the first step in recovery is to recognize that you have a problem.

The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan

I just finished an excellent book, The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan (John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-78977-1) by George Bradt, Jayme A. Check, both of PrimeGenesis and Jorge Pedraza formerly with PrimeGenesis and now with Unison Site Management.  As the title implies this is about starting a new job with an action plan in place.  The reason an action plan is important is that it helps you to quickly establish yourself as a leader by taking you through the critical steps of communication and engaging the culture followed by implementing your people decisions ultimately leading to early wins.  They also point out that your action plan actually starts before you start your new job.  The driving imperative behind all of this comes from a study they cite that 40% of all new leaders fail within the first 18 months.  That is a pretty sobering statistic and one that should encourage you to do all that you can to improve your chances of succeeding.

I recommend this book to anyone starting a new job at a new company or with your current employer.  As good as this book it is a shame that they may be missing a large potential audience where this could be of tremendous help.

Empowering Employees In Their Professional Development

One of the great thing about writing a blog is the comments you receive.  Sometimes within those comments you find some insight that turns out to be of greater significance and import than the original posting.  Such is the case of with one of the comments I recently received on my posting What Color Are Your Employees?.  That posting was about being attuned to employee attitudes and morale and acting to prevent excessive employee turnover.    In that post I made a comment in passing about being open to such things as giving sabbaticals, providing training etc. as a way to develop employees and keep them within your company.  A friend of mine, Ernie Perez left a comment and a followup talking about his experiences with employee professional development.  Ernie is the Executive Director of the Greater Houston Career Alliance a non-profit organization that provides an informal network of Houston area community and faith based job transition support ministries.  Ernie is the unofficial coordinator of over 30 non-profit job support groups in the greater Houston area.  He tirelessly works toward finding people work and has a wealth of knowledge about career development.

Ernie commented on a way to provide employee professional development that also empowered the employees and improved morale.  What he said in his comments was:

Leadership Conversations

I recently had a unique opportunity to briefly talk with two business leaders about CIO leadership and making IT strategic.  Although I won't try to relate the entire conversations I thought I'd share a portion of their comments as they touch on some of the topics that we've discussed.  As you can see below they both lead large organizations that obviously have a high dependence on IT and therefore and a strong interest in having an IT department that supports both the day-to-day business operations along with the company's strategic initiatives.

The Venue Is Set: Houston Networking Get Together March 6, Y'All Come

Dan Sweet from FRACAT (Free Resume and Career Toolbox) is arranging a second networking meeting the evening of March 6th here in Houston.  The last one was a great success.

I'll be making a very informal and hopefully very interactive presentation on:  “Improving Your Results by Understanding Monster for the Employer’s Side”

I hope to see you there it should be fun.  Dan has the details on time and place posted on the FRACAT blog.

Update (3/6/07) a change in venue: Updated Details on Fracat blog

Join The Conversation - I've Added A Comments RSS Feed

Comments are the best part of writing these articles.  It is a conversation, an exchange of ideas, a different perspective.  It's great fun and I always learn something from them.  It's not unusual that the comments are more thought provoking than the original posting.  By way of example, one of the posts for this upcoming week is based upon a comment from one of my readers.  They added some new insights, something I had never thought of before and I truly appreciate their sharing their wisdom.  I hope all of you will continue to comment as we continue on our journey.

To make it easier to follow the conversation as new comments are added I added 2 ways to automatically receive new comments.

• The first method is an RSS feed.  It will provide a separate feed of the comments to your reader similar to the postings feed.  This feed is separate from the postings feed and you need to subscribe separately.
• The second method is an email subscription.  New comments will be emailed once per day (if there any comments that day) between 3PM and 5PM  US Central time.  This is also a separate subscription from the posting email subscription.

The subscription links are in the left column just below the subscription links for the postings.  I hope that you find this new tool useful.

Why I Blog: 10 Reasons to Blog To Establish Your Personal Brand

In a previous post I wrote about senior execs blogging for a number of reasons one of which was personal branding.  As part of my career transition I decided to establish a personal brand as way to better explain myself to hiring managers and to differentiate myself from other candidates.  The goal was to become known for more than just what was on my resume.  I wanted to highlight my "value proposition" in a way that would help make me an attractive candidate.

There are a number of ways of doing this.  A website, writing articles, making professional presentations and blogging were all possible ways of doing this.  I chose to author a blog on IT and Business strategy as a way of demonstrating my ability to highlight my expertise in both areas and to be able to act as a bridge between both worlds in a way many other CIOs do not.

So why did I choose to write a blog?

Houston Networking Get Together March 6, Y'All Come

Dan Sweet from FRACAT (Free Resume and Career Toolbox) is arranging a second networking meeting the evening of March 6th.  The last one was a great success.

I'll be making a very informal and hopefully very interactive presentation on what goes on "behind the curtain" when an employer uses Monster to search for resumes. 

I hope you'll stop by.  Check the FRACAT blog for details on time and place on March 6.

[Update 3/3/07 : Dan has the details on time and place posted on the FRACAT blog.]