Back to the future!

Why does it seem that we always have so many big problems to deal with? You would think there would come a point when all of those major issues would be dealt with and we could relax – just a little. But they keep on coming, and on any given day our list of problems is as large as before.

If you consider this situation over a relatively short term (that will vary based on your type of job and industry), that certainly may be reality. But, let’s consider what happens over a much longer period of time. Again, this may be a year or longer depending on your particular situation. Especially if you’ve been brought in to “clean up” an area or a product, you are probably looking at time periods of a year or longer.

Let's do a little time travel, shall we?

Take a look at the actual “big” issues that you are dealing with now, and compare them to the big ones you were battling a year ago (or some reasonable time interval). Try to actually recover your issues list from back then through email trails, notebooks you keep, status reports you wrote, or any other means. Look at each set (past and present) and score them as “big”, “medium”, or “small” in terms of their level of severity. Of course, we are assuming that your basic job and responsibilities are about the same.

Now, compare the two sets of issues. In some situations, the comparative severities might not have changed much. But, if you’ve been working to improve your people, improve communications, update inefficient processes, and generally help the team be more productive, you may find that the average level of severity is a little less dire right now.

Sure, you still have problems to deal with – you always will. And, from your perspective, you still have “big” problems that need to be fixed. But items that you currently consider “big” might only have made the “medium” category a year ago. It’s just that when you solve all your bigger problems, your smaller ones become your bigger ones. You have to step back, look at the issues you and your team are contending with, and realize that things might actually be getting better overall.

At times that I’ve done this with my teams, we’ve actually said things like, “Wow, these are the things we actually consider to be our biggest problems now!?!” Getting that fresh perspective is important for your own well-being – as well as the team’s. Again, there will always be problems, but it’s both gratifying and vital to recognize improvement having occurred. Otherwise, if all the work isn’t resulting in overall improvement, why bother? And if it is, then making folks feel good for their accomplishments is an important step in providing yet more motivation to continue the effort.

More importantly – you have to recognize your successes. It’s great if you have a boss that showers you with praise for your wins more frequently than your annual performance review. But, let’s face it, that can be rare. You probably beat yourself up enough over the things that go wrong. So, you have to look at what you’ve done right, and pat yourself on the back. Even if you do that on a short-term basis, it’s important to consider the long-term effects of your efforts as well. And when you can look at your own set of “big” problems and chuckle to yourself, “Wow, these are the worst problems I have!?!” you’ll sleep much better that night.

We're from the government and we're here to help!

Many of us have worked for very large corporations. Undoubtedly, that corporation has/had a few policies and procedures in place that drive you, and most everyone around you, absolutely nuts. “How in the heck did anyone ever come up with that?”

One of my personal favorites was from a company I worked for a few years ago. Our expense reimbursement system was very manual, and in addition to completing hardcopy forms, all of your receipts needed to be taped to a sheet of paper and mailed (not e-mailed) to a processing center along with the expense form. When the finance group announced that this process was going to be automated, there was cheering throughout the land. We were all using company credit cards, so it seemed logical that the information could be captured to radically modernize the system.

Well, no, not really. We now had an online form to complete. Okay, much better than writing and
manual addition. The receipts could now be scanned and electronically attached to the submission. That’s cool. But, after submitting my first claim, I eventually got queried regarding my receipts. They still hadn’t received them. Of course I responded that the new process had them electronically included when I sent the form in. “Yes, but we still require the hardcopies of the original receipts to be mailed in.” I responded, “Oh, so we don’t have to scan them?” “Yes, we need both.”

This wonderful new process was developed by someone in finance, and was approved by the CFO without much thought or crosschecking with other teams. It didn’t matter all the extra work that everyone in the company was now committed to – the process seemed correct to them, and that’s all that mattered.

At one company, even though I had my own budget for the year, my direct boss was required to approve every new hire I was going to make. He also had to provide his approval, even if the hire was simply a replacement for someone we’d lost, and even if everything was going to stay within the budget boundaries. Alright, alright, I hear you saying, “What’s so bad about that?” Well, it wasn’t only my direct boss who needed to approve, it was also my boss’s boss (I call this person my 2-boss). We’re not talking about hiring extra people out of budget. We’re talking about people already approved for the budget, or folks only replacing others. And, in case that doesn’t sound quite heavyweight enough, in addition to approving the actual hiring in these situations, the same boss and 2-boss all had to also sign off on the job posting to open the position. Not only is that wasteful of everyone’s time, it is a sideways acknowledgement that “we don’t really trust you to make decisions, even those within your budgetary scope.”

If you consider the case of most of these large companies, they probably started as small companies long ago – maybe even as startups. If you’ve been part of some startups or small companies yourself, you know that things are optimized for action. There’s real work to do, and there isn’t enough time in the day to waste on bulky or redundant processes. So, here’s the question. Over the years of growth from startup size, how and why did so many large companies allow themselves to degenerate so many of their processes and procedures into heavy-weight, burdensome, and confusing piles of garbage?

Each time a process change is proposed, someone needs to examine the costs and benefits, and ensure that the change will truly result in an improvement. Upon hiring a new manager for your computer service center, you might see the following announcement:

“We used to send someone over to help you work out computer problems, but now we have a phone number you can call to file a service request. This helps us save some money and track our workflow and provide you a good SLA (service level agreement).”

Translation:

“We think we can save a few dollars by outsourcing our support desk. You will spend ten times as long trying to make them understand your problem as if you called us directly. And, sadly, you’ll probably have to call back a couple of times because they won’t get it right the first time. We ourselves have to deal with a complicated new tracking system. And, the fact that we now lose 20% of our time dealing with the new system means we’re going to need to hire a few more staff – ultimately at your expense.”

This is not to say that being able to manage the work backlog, provide service quality metrics, and not lose items in the bit bucket aren’t good things, but you will find, almost universally, that these moves turn the focus from “helping folks out” to “procedure for procedure’s sake.” In numerous companies with these types of procedures, I’ve had folks on the phone tell me, “I have the answer to that, but I can’t give it to you unless you call the service desk.” And the company is hiring new people to handle administrative paperwork responsibilities, rather than actually assist folks with their problems. Wonderful.

For every crappy process problem you have to deal with, somebody once put that into place… on purpose. Who was there at that time, why did they do it, and why didn’t anyone call them out on it? Sure, it might have been the CEO, but even he can be bargained with. And, as was said, it probably wasn’t the top dog – it was likely a new hire in some service-oriented department.

Learn from this! As your company grows, watch for the warning signs and try to avoid the pitfalls. If the company is already large, why limit yourself to “large company” processes? Look at each item and consider, “Is this the way an efficient startup would handle this?” Simpler is better. Do you really need to sign off on in-budget hires for replacements four levels below you? Also, periodically ask your folks what processes exist (inside or outside your scope of control) that they hate and feel could be easily optimized. They’ll tell you. And if it’s within your ability to change it, do it. If not, muster up as much support as you can get from your peers and negotiate change with the controlling department.

If your company is still small but growing, and you are bringing new people in to help shore up your various departments to support the growth, try to hire folks who will institute the “right” processes and procedures, properly molded to fit your company’s particular situation, rather than merely implement a “big company” one, just because it’s what they happen to have experience with.

And as for you, when you make process changes, make sure that you are doing the right thing for the right reasons, as well.

Beam me up Scotty!

So, when trying to estimate a project, we've discussed starting with estimates from your front-line guys, and then holding them to those estimates.

Next, once you have all your estimates, roll them upward until you have a total, and then apply a safety factor. Just because we’re discussing adding safety factors is not to say that you should be “sandbagging” your estimates. You know, intentionally padding everything way beyond anything reasonable. Remember Scotty from the old Star Trek? When he finally appeared on the Star Trek: The Next Generation series he admitted that he always grossly inflated his estimates so that he could always be the hero for Captain Kirk.

Don’t get your hopes up too high, though. You are unlikely to have as much success with this technique as Scotty did. Sandbaggers become very visible and disliked, and they will usually have a fairly short lifespan in the real business world. But there’s nothing wrong with adding padding that represents what you have truly found to be needed in the past. Whether accounting for estimating errors, compensating for changing requirements along the way, or dealing with the occasional disaster, it’s easier to build it in early on than it is to try to readjust everything later.

How do you know how much extra to add? Experience! This is something you can grow more comfortable with as your career builds, but it will also have a component that is specific to each particular team that you lead. Each group, each company, each product, each set of processes, all create an environment that requires a varied amount of “fluff” in your estimates. You’ll learn how well each of your team members is capable of accurately estimating their own work. That, in itself, is another highly valuable characteristic to watch for. You’ll learn who needs bigger safety factors versus those who are pretty good at nailing it time after time. (You’ll also be able to start grooming the more accurate guys for additional responsibilities in the leadership realm.) Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re cheating by building in a safety factor. You’re being smart. It’s your experience leading you to a successful conclusion.

Ultimately, your goal should be to “overdeliver” on what people think you’ve actually signed up for. What’s wrong with coming in a little early on that deadline, or having a few more nuggets of gold in the product than they thought they’d have? We’re not talking about over-delivering by some massive amount – just by a little. Yes, sometimes the stars will align and everything will go close to perfectly, leaving much of your padding time untouched. But if you consistently deliver in half the time you predict, folks will think that you are trying to be “Scotty” and look like the hero. Even if that wasn’t your intention, you should use this as a sign that maybe you’re padding things up a bit too much. Something is probably different in this environment than in whatever one you were using as a model. Tweak your algorithm a bit.

“Isn’t it great, though, if I can constantly deliver much sooner than I’ve predicted?” No! There are many others who are using your estimates to build their own plans. They’re weaving together tasks they’ll have to do from a number of different projects, and if you keep coming in that early, you’re going to be making them miserable. They’ll be encountering high work peaks when they thought they had things smoothed out well. They will not be your friends.

“Yeah, but the sales folks will love me!” Nope. They might not mind a delivery that’s a little bit early. But if you are that early, they won’t have prepped potential customers for the arrival of your bouncing baby product. You’ll throw it over the wall to them and they’ll say, “Well that’s great… I have nobody ready to buy this right now.” They won’t be ready with the marketing brochures, advertising, and other sales support they’ll need to have available, and your support department won’t be staffed up yet to deal with the customers.

In short, you are not helping anyone by crazily inflating your estimates. Use a reasonable safety factor, then target to try to overdeliver by a bit. Consistency like that is what makes for a real hero.

How big is the breadbox?

A highly critical aspect of your leadership job is being able to make predictions. Sometimes, the most difficult of these can be in making project estimations. Your ability to intelligently provide an overall estimate that comes close to reality will do much to solidify or liquify your management career. There are so many different aspects to consider, so many different variables in play, and so much pressure from above to do an absolute maximum performance with a minimum of expense and time, that these experiences will leave you wondering what you ever thought was enticing about a management job in the first place.

If you are working in an industry that can take advantage of an AGILE process, you can avoid many of the problems involved with estimating huge projects. But, for now, let’s assume that’s not the case. Over the years, I’ve found that there are really a few key principles to keep in mind that can help make the job much easier, and help you deal with the pressure that always comes to “do more with less.”

We’ll start by covering the cardinal rule of guesstimating… overestimate, and overdeliver. That means, give an estimate that you can beat (by just a little bit), and bring in a product that rocks!

The first important aspect here is leaving plenty of room for your team to adequately get the work done. It can be very tempting to give estimates that make it look like your team can perform at super-human levels, and maybe they can from time to time. But, doing that too often will lead either to failure or mutiny by your team as they grow to resent the never-ending pressure you’re placing on them. They might step up to the plate for you in an emergency situation, or at some time when the company might have a major opportunity, but eventually they’ll think you’re a loser for constantly making them work 80-hour work weeks so you can come off as some kind of hero.

Even if you think you’ve left sufficient time in your estimate to allow the team to accomplish the goal without absolutely killing themselves, you probably still need to provide an even bigger safety margin. Everything takes at least double the time you think it will anyway.

The best technique for estimating the time it will take your team to accomplish a task is for you not to estimate it at all. Let the team give you the estimates. Start with the front-line folks who will actually need to do the work, and ask them for their best estimates. They’re the ones with the most intimate knowledge of what they’re being asked to do anyway. It is also usually true that workers will give themselves tougher goals to achieve than you would assign for them. Whether based out of ego, a desire to over-deliver, or maybe they know how to do something better than you do (hard to believe, I know), whatever they come up with is something they feel comfortable with.

At this point, that guy (or team) owns the estimate. As long as you don’t go mess with the assignment, he should be absolutely committed to coming through for you – no excuses. If that means he needs to work a little extra time, okay. Keep your eyes on the progress, and make sure to refresh his memory if needed. There is absolutely no excuse for someone making his own estimate that a job can be completed in 10 days, and then having it take 10.5 days. If, at the end of that 10th day, you see that guy heading for his car at 5pm, you should congratulate him on having the job done on time. If he says, “Actually, I just have a few more hours to do and should be all done by lunch tomorrow,” you have every right to turn him around back to his desk. He couldn’t find an extra few minutes a day to get it done? Not acceptable. Major project slippages don’t happen all at once. They are the result of many little slips all piling up on each other. Mind the little things.

In the next installment, Scotty comes through for Captain Kirk again...

Caulk, not concrete!

Let's continue the discussion around making good decisions.

Sometimes, it's not just about making GOOD ones, it's about making QUICK ones. It is amazing how long people are willing to merely let things ride, despite massive evidence pointing to a need for change. Whether in regards to a particular personnel problem, a process problem, or something inherently wrong with a product, humans do tend to like that path to effort minimalization.

You must remain as vigilant as possible on your own. But you can profit greatly from input from your team or the occasional outsider who, benefiting from having that fresh pair of eyes, simply asks, “What’s up with that?”

Through whatever mechanism, when you detect things going wrong, do not delay in finding a better way. Although we certainly want to avoid extra work when possible, things like this fester quickly, and before long, you will be dealing with a monstrous ravine requiring a dump truck full of concrete to fill it, rather than applying a little caulk to a crack.  Do it now!

When you decide to make modifications, ensure that you’re doing them for the right reasons, and with the right evidence supporting the need for the change. I have definitely been guilty of making some changes, or being talked into them (still my fault), where the situation didn’t seem to require modification at all. Things had been working wonderfully. True, I could have been deluding myself, but after collecting additional information, it still wasn’t clear why the proposed change would improve the situation further. The lesson learned is that old adage of “if it aint broke, don’t fix it.”

However, there is an interesting corollary to remember as well – “If it didn’t work the first time, why would it work this time?” This is somewhat akin to Einstein’s definition of insanity being “doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.” If you had a process that you stopped using, or a person that you managed out of your company, and now you’re considering going back to that process or rehiring that person, be sure to ask yourself “why?”. What’s going to be different this time? Will the process be used in a different environment? Will there be better people executing it? Has this person changed or grown somehow? Whatever the case, be certain that you’re not expecting things to be different just because time has passed.

Finally, when the changes are implemented, do not take your eye off the ball! Be especially wary of the potential for the cracks to begin developing anytime you are intentionally making changes. In these cases, you're already focused on it, so you have your best opportunity to closely monitor how the new things are working. Watch carefully until you’ve seen evidence that your improvements are, indeed, improving things.

Ebony and ivory... bad choices

Black and white. Both have their uses, but not so much in the process of making productive and effective decisions. You need to be prepared for a distinct lack of problems that result in a choice of two polar opposites like “we either do X or we do Y.” Everything turns into a dingy shade of gray. And that's not a bad thing! There’s almost always a way to find something in between X and Y that results in a better final outcome.

Here's what’s painful.  It’s much easier to settle on X or Y, and not spend the extra brain cycles trying to figure out if there isn’t something a little gray that might be more attractive. And, as humans, we’re certainly known to enjoy the path of least resistance. But this is a pain you must accept. In my experience, black or white answers will usually be insufficient to solve a problem, or they will be outright wrong. If you or your folks seem to be setting something up as an X or Y decision, step back and ask if there really isn't anything else somewhere in between that might make things even better. You'll surprise yourself with the new creative ideas you can come up with.

Also, remember this. Over the lifetime of a particular project, its success will be determined by how you and your team handle a plethora of decision-making opportunities. You’ll have hundreds, or even thousands, of decisions that will plow the road to eventual victory or catastrophe. A few of these decision points will be biggies – major choices with monster affect. But the vast majority will be much smaller issues that need to be handled almost daily throughout the project's life.

Which of these, the bigger ones or the smaller ones, have a more urgent need for your thoughtfulness and ability to bring focus? Answer: the smaller ones! The really big ones are going to get everyone’s attention. People will so clearly see the issue’s significance that the pot will boil over with attention. But, it’s those hundreds or thousands of smaller issues that others might not be so interested in that require your assistance. It is more likely that the project will fail from a “death by a thousand cuts”, since each of those little wounds won’t attract the same level of interest as the big issues.  Be on the lookout for those!

My favorite F-word

So many different discussions can occur around ways to actually optimize your personal success, or more importantly, the results from your team. I'll cover a wide variety of these in future writings, but I want to start from the top. If there’s one general concept that you should always remember, it’s “Focus.”
 

Okay, well I guess "Shutting Up" should be the one concept, but if there's a second one, it should be "Focus." The ability to hone in on what’s really important while ignoring the static is a key component to success. When folks attempt to defocus you from what’s really important, you must push back as much as required.

If there’s a big and important product that you work on that’s responsible for all the profit the company ever sees, beware of letting yourself be distracted by some work on a nearly insignificant product. I’ve seen examples of managers loaning folks over to some small and unimportant project, simply because someone asked, and they wanted to “play nice.” In the process, they were risking aspects of a big product delivery that was critical to the company. Remember this: if your project ultimately fails, nobody will remember (or care) that it was because you were a good corporate citizen and loaned key resources over to something that didn’t matter much. All they will remember is that you screwed up the important task.

I know it seems like a pretty hardball thing to be saying, but you have to focus yourself, and you have to be able to bring focus to whatever aspects of the company demand it, in order to ensure overall company success. If your boss is asking you to divert resources, or somehow otherwise defocus, you owe it to him, your team, and the company to absolutely ensure that he understands how that will affect your project. Does he really want to risk it? Explain it to him in any terms necessary. Help keep him and the company focused.

And don’t let someone artificially boost the perceived value of something in an effort to divert focus. Television news stations are famous for trying to enhance the attraction of news stories by throwing more cameras, on-scene reporters, and helicopters at them. Doing so does not change the inherent nature of the story, it just blows it up out of its deserved proportion. The same is true for office distractions – just because someone thinks some task deserves its own helicopter does not necessarily make it so. Lay the situation out and make clear what's being risked. Help to keep the focus.

Bottom line -- you're always going to have numerous tasks and projects competing for your time. Just like the old "80/20" rule, only a couple of them are going to account for the biggest chunk of your success or failure. Keep your attention on those items, and consider the rest to be "bonus" items... do them (or do them well) if you have the time. But don't take your eye off the couple of big ones.