Objectives again

I don’t normally respond to comments on my blog.  Most of them don’t actually require anything more to be said but on this occasion I thought I should respond.  And keeping to my one entry one comment policy I’ll take them both separately.

So, the question was: Am I changing my view on objectives?

And my answer is: It depends; in this case I’ll wait and see what happens.

I think it is worth knowing what you are aiming for.  I think setting your own objectives is worth while and can help improve your performance.  And I think they are a good way of communicating priorities to and from management.

I also think that if you are going to have explicit objectives it helps if they can be more objective than subjective.  So, the SMART rules make sense.  But… well, there are problems….

Not everything you want to aim for can be specific or measured.  Quite often we operate with ambiguity.  A lot of my work is ill defined, trying to make it better defined can be useful but it can also be counter productive because things will change.  I’m not really sure what my goal is or should be, I just kind of know the general direction.

There is also a problem with the achievable and realistic part of the rule; in a word setting realistic goals encouraged people to satisfice.  If your promotion, pay rise or bonus depends on meeting an objective then there will always be a tendency to aim slightly lower, for something that is more achievable.

As much as they can improve communication between management and workers they can also be the source of misunderstanding; when they are imposed on people, when management sets the objective and forgets about them for a year, or when management sets them and then abdicates all responsibility for helping someone meet them.

So I stick by my answer: it depends.  I’m in favour of objectives when they are used appropriately.

TDD, Objective setting and doing the obvious

I’ve been doing a round of objective setting for my client recently.  When it was first announced the company wanted to go down this path I groaned.  “Arhh” I thought, “I hate objectives, I hate people setting them, I hate all the baggage that comes along with them.”  Neither was I impressed by the way my client’s HR department presented the idea or the proposal for implementation.

I’m a past master at criticising management by objective, it is quite easy really, just look at the side effects and read Goodhart’s Law.  Anyway, its not turning out like that at all, little bit of imaginative thinking and things are looking good.  Sure we are only in the objective setting phase so far so it is too early to say, much could happen but….

First I have rigorously applied the SMART approach – objectives need to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time boxed.  Second I added an extra criteria “V” – call it the SMART+V formula.  “V” stands for Value-add.  (Only I now realise it should be V+SMART, if you can’t show value don’t continue.)

Next was the realisation that the development team all did pretty much the same job.  Therefore one could expect them to have pretty similar objectives.  And if they all had similar objectives it would aid team work.

Finally, I think I realised how to use this to my advantage.  The team have not been doing code reviews or Test Driven Development (automated unit testing if you prefer) but everyone is willing to do both.  So, its now turning out that most of the team have objectives around these area.  Not everyone, and individual goals might have a slightly different take but they all build.

Half way through and this approach seems obvious.  If a manager wants his team to do TDD then why not just set it as an objective?  Surely this is the way it is meant to work: manager decides, manager aligns team, team does what manager wants.

If it is this obvious why bother with all the TDD evangelising, training, coaching and calls to do it.  Why both with fancy change ideas.  Just set it as a target and do it.  Could it be so easy? 

Of course it isn’t going to be that easy.  For a start just because it is set as an objective doesn’t mean it is going to be met.  Just because people want to do something doesn’t give them the knowledge to do it; at the start people don’t know how to do it.  Then there are the usual problems like time pressures and people who will think “it won’t work here.”

Having set it as an objective I’m still going to have to work hard at giving people as much support, training, coaching and other assistance as I can.

One real danger to this approach is that the managers who set these kind of objectives might just believe that setting an objective is all that is required.  As I just said: setting it as an objective doesn’t mean it will happen.  Objectives are a two way street and managers need to help people meet theirs.  Thats why I’m thinking of setting my own objective as: “Team reaches 80% of objectives.”

If this approach is so obvious why haven’t I done it before?  Well apart from the problems I just outlined this particular tool has not been available to me in the past.  Sometimes management wasn’t bought in to TDD, sometimes objectives weren’t in use and sometimes I wasn’t in a position to set the objectives.

At the moment it feels good and I think its going to work.  I’ll report back…

Normal service is being resume...

Believe it or not the book is finished – kind of.  Still some stuff to do so things can start to return to normal, and that means more blogging!

Seriously, I don’t want to get back to the multiple postings a week phase but I do want to blog more.  I’ve got a back log of things I want to talk about.

I’m off at EuroPLoP next week so there will probably be a lot of pattern posts in the next few weeks.  I’m currently reading the papers for my workshop, so far it looks like it will be a high quality year.  As usual I will come back physically exhausted and mentally renewed.

Finishing the book also means I can return to reading more books and reviewing them here.

Still I’m very busy with stuff to read, things to do on the house, boring book stuff, very busy client work and a back log of things to write.  I even intend to contribute something to ACCU Overload in the next few months!

Anyway, on with the show…

Off-shoring gets more expensive

Interesting piece in the FT today about the increasing cost of outsourcing to India – Offshore call centre benefits challenged.  Seems companies are finding that call centres in India are getting more expensive, wages are rising. 

I have long help that this would happen, and as it does off-shoring becomes less attractive.  Even in India the supply of suitable call-centre staff is limited and over time their wages will rise.  This is good for everyone: the individuals get paid more, India gets more money and more jobs get retained in the source countries.

And if increasing cost were not enough it also seem the same call centres are less effective at dealing with complicated enquiries and less successful at selling additional products.  (Neither does this article mention the high staff turnover rates that call centres and other off-shore operations experience in India.)

I expect to see this trend repeated in the off-shore software development sector too. 

As I’ve said before, I’m not against outsourcing or off-shoring.  In fact I see good reasons to support off-shoring.  Just I do not believe it is a cure for all problems, and I think it can cost a lot more than people think.

Neither do I think it is right for early stage companies.  I think it works best when you know your product, your processes and what you are trying to do.  When any, or all, of these things are in flux you are better off having the operations were you can see them, control them, and keep feedback loops tight.

 

McKinsey endourses Lean Software Development

I think most regular reader of this blog will know that when it comes to flavours of Agile Software Development I’m a strong supporter of Lean.  In fact I’ve argued before that “Agile” is a type of “Lean” – and I’ll argue it again in my book.

Now it appears that non-other than McKinseys consultancy has seen the sense in Lean software development – see this piece from their online journal (registration required).  Perhaps not surprisingly McKinsey’s also identifies “the change problem” as the challenge facing organizations which want to benefit from Lean Software Development.

As I said, its not a surprise, McKinsey’s make their money from advising companies on “change” so anything that creates fees is good for them.

Second it is not surprising because that is the problem I see! – hence the forthcoming book.  Naturally it goes without saying that I’m a lot cheaper than McKinseys!  (You know where I am.)

Introducing: Software Inside

I’m going through some notes from the ACCU conference in April and note I made after a conversation with someone – I forget who so sorry for not crediting you properly but I want to capture these thought….

We write software but we seldom write software for the sake of it.  We write software as part of something else.  Perhaps we write embedded software for a mobile phone, or we write an enterprise application for an account department – you get the idea.

The thing the software goes into – devices, process, etc.  – is itself a system.  A mobile phone is an electronics system, which is part of the cellular communications system; an accounts ledger is part of a business systems which tracks accounts.

Increasingly it is software that makes all of these systems possible.  You could do a lot of this in hardware, albeit specialist hardware but doing it in software is easier and cheaper.  Despite all the problems with writing a software application to manage a cell phone it is still a lot simpler, cheaper and faster than creating dedicated hardware.

Software allows you to use commodity hardware, commodity manufacturing and commodity infrastructure to create your product.  The truly unique bit rests in the software.  While you can copy the binary code or application for virtually nothing the creation of that software is unique.  Knowledge is embedded within the software.

Ultimately all software systems are simply part of a bigger system.  Systems have software inside.

This idea isn’t new.  I’ve said it myself before, what is new is the term: Software Inside. I guess we can credit Intel with providing the inspiration for the term – thanks Intel!

This term allows us to focus not so much on the software but on the greater system: the phone, the accounts system, the car, the washing machine, the moon-landing, etc.  The fact that we know about software can take us (the software developers) into many different and strange domains. 

And once in them we ourselves, the software experts, need to adapt and learn these new domains.  We need to be soft ourselves.  Software developers need to be cameleons.

Coming up for air - thoughts on writing

This blog has become noticeably less active lately.  Thats a sign that I've been very active myself.  What with Software Strategy, clients and the book to work on things have been busy and blogging has had to give.

Well a funny thing has happened.  The creative stuff is now done.  I'm now waiting on other people for things before I can continue.  It will be a month or two before the manuscript is completed and it won't be until January 2008 till you can buy a copy but now its all loose ends and minor editing.

The big gap is due to typesetting: it takes the best part of 6 months to get a book typeset.  Decidedly un-lean.)

Here are a few thoughts on what I have learned while I've been writing, and working with a publisher.

Diagram and pictures are a pain:

Problem 1: I have no artistic ability, some of my diagrams are OK but others I want redrawn.  I've now found someone to do this for me but I shouldn't have left this so late in the process.

Problem 2: I've used at least 4 different tools for drawing my diagrams so things are inconsistent.  I won't do this again.

Problem 3: Permissions.  Apart from the diagrams I've invented I have to get permission for everything else.  This seems silly to me because I can quote other authors without permission but I need permission for every diagram.  Probably isn't silly but it feels it.  This leads to more problems.

Firstly I've dropped illustration which aren't essential to reduce this problem.  This is a shame, I would like to break the text up some more but its practical.

Secondly some diagrams I can't source, I know I've seen them, and I can even find similar ones on the internet but I simply don't know where the original was.  Guess this is my own fault, I should have stayed on top of this.

Third few of my diagrams are exactly like they are in the original, so we have to make a judgement call on whether or not I need permission.

And fourth, if I get it wrong its me who gets sued and has to pay up.
All in all I've really increased my respect for authors who use a lot of images, and in particular Tom Peters Re-imagine! book.

I should have got more feedback earlier

I wish I'd shown more of the work to people earlier on and got more comments.  As it was most of the text was written by the time I started to show it to people and publishers.

Things you can't say

Turns out my publisher has a dispute with a well known CEO.  Therefore I can't mention him by name.  I think there was only one CEO I mention in the entire book and it turns out to be the one who is in dispute with my publisher.  What luck!

Its been an interesting exercise so far and I've learned a lot.  If I ever write another book there is a lot of things I will do differently.  For now I just want to get this one finished.

Post-Agile

I’ve written before about the Agile backlash I see coming.  But what I’ve been wondering is: what comes next?

One idea comes from James Noble and others who have suggested Post-Modern Programming.  I like the idea, it helps us understand the world better and it helps reposition our view of software development but it doesn’t tell us to do anything differently.  Post-Modern programming is more a philosophical understanding than a prescription.

Myself I’m a big proponent of Learning Based Software Development.  While this changes the emphasis on in software development I’ve yet to develop the ideas into a proposal for anything more than … well ideas.

Actually Learning Based Software Development (yes I just invented the term so lets invent the abbreviation LBSD) can be seen as a software specific version of Knowledge Based Product Development.  (Sorry, one of the entries with messed up formatting.)

This week I stumbled across a blog by Jason Gorman in which he discusses Post-Agile.  This is the first time I’ve heard the term and it seems I’m a little late to the party.  (Also a sign that I need to get to XTC a bit more regularly.)

It appears from what Jason says that opinion is divided on what “Post Agile” means yet but one possible explanation is: Being informed by the Agile/Lean movement but not following any prescribed methodology.  If that is what it means than good, it could be what I’m looking for.

But boy, Post-Agile is such a pretentious title.

 

Chance favours the prepared mind

First an apology: I’ve been very busy the last few weeks so I’ve not been blogging so much.  Naturally the creation and launch of Software Strategy has kept me busy and so has the company’s first client where I am far busier than I have been for a long time.  Add to this friends and family visiting from abroad and a few things have had to give….

Despite this I wanted to capture a quote I read this week which I think is very wise.

Last weeks Economist carried a profile of Gerald Grinstein, no I hadn’t heard of him before either.  Turns out he is the boss of Delta Airlines and what he said was this:

“Chance favours the prepared mind”

Which when you think about it is so true.  If you spend time thinking about where you are, what needs doing, what options are available and how things might unfold then when chance occurs you know whether to grasp it or not.

This is what worries me about being so very busy.  When I’m busy busy, and when see companies who are busy “doing stuff” I find so often that opportunities are missed and much of the stuff that gets done isn’t necessarily the right stuff.

For example: I often advise people to keep a work diary (or journal as some would call it.) Writing a journal is not really about recording what happened but thinking about what the implications are and what might happen next.  As such it is an act of reflection.  I find that when I get busy my journal (and blogging!) get squeezed, but when this happens I loose direction and although I’m busy I am less effective.

So this is a reminder that in the middle of this very busy period I still need to find time to think and prepare my mind.

Still, a big apology to all those people who are waiting for replies to e-mails, letters and such.  I’m hoping to break out of this cycle real soon now!

More Agile failure modes

A couple of weeks ago I raised the topic of How Agile Teams fail.  Well in recent conversations and observations I’ve been reminded of two more modes of Agile failure.  (Maybe reminded is the wrong word, maybe I could say I’ve spotted patterns, having one or two cases logged in my mind some more examples have focused my thoughts.)

One mode is where the developers simply state they are doing Agile.  We can call this Fake-Agile.  By simply stating they are Agile the team can then ignore documentation, avoid project management, and generally hack.

Frankly this isn’t Agile and it gives Agile a bad name.  I’m sure some examples of this are genuine attempts to become Agile but without real understanding or experience it is difficult.

The lesson here is: Simply stating you are Agile does not make you Agile.

I’ve also been reminded of this by recent TDD experiences.  A team I am working with has decided they want to start doing Test First Development.  However nobody has done it before and three weeks after voting to do this there is little sign of it being done.  This isn’t necessarily the team’s fault, although they want to do it they don’t really know how.

Think about it.  When I decided I wanted to drive a car I hard to learn to do it.  The same with skiing, wine tasting, and lots of academic subjects.  Sure I can pick some of it up by just doing it, and if I’m really clever, lucky or something else I might just succeed – like the way I first learned to programme. 

But generally, wanting to do something isn’t enough to actually do it.  You need help and advice.

My solution is to arrange some training and coaching for the team to help them start doing TDD.  Once we have that in place I expect things will change.

The second Agile failure mode is a bit more complicated.  I’ve seen it a couple of times now and I suspect its behind many Agile failure.  It happens like this…

A team are trying to adopt Agile, but they are also working with new technology.  The new technology could be technology new to the team, it could be technology new on the market (perhaps a beta release from a vendor) or it could be newly introduced technology.  Whatever, the team need to learn the technology.

So we have New Process and New Technology.

The first sign is exploding cards.  Teams write cards to represent the work they are doing to do at the start of the iteration but when the iteration gets underway it turns out the cards were vast understatements, both in terms of the time required and the work required.

(By the way, you need a card and board system to spot exploding cards, a software tool will simply hide the problem.)

In some cases progress is slow and few, if any cards are complete.  Perhaps people say things like “the card is 80% complete.”  In Agile iterations 80% counts as zero.  It is either done or it is not done.

In other cases, where teams recognise the extra work involved they may write more cards – hence the expression exploding cards.  Here developers start work on a card and realise/find there is far more work than they anticipated.  They break this down into several smaller tasks and the number of cards multiply.  In one case I saw developers took to folding the cards in half to fit them on the white board.

There are techniques for dealing with this situation.  Writing cards to represent the extra work is one, and you may need to add more frequent re-prioritisation.

Another technique is time-boxing: where developers have to guillotine their activities at some point and just go with the best they know so far.

And another is investigation: where an investigation task (probably time-boxed) is conducted before the actual work itself.  This can help split tasks down.

But, all these extra techniques for dealing with this situation are relatively advanced.  An advanced Agile team may simply take these problems in their stride.  For a team new to Agile this situation can be off putting, some people may take it as evidence that Agile does not work and it may even lead to project collapse.

Such projects were probably going to end up in a mess whether they are run Agile or not.  Because of the new technology the project is uncharted waters and the amount of learning and investigation needed is very high.  Therefore, even with traditional project management techniques the project will probably hit problems. 

Here the advantage of Agile is that you know the problems are happening much earlier and not just at the end.  But, if they team is new to Agile then you may loose the project and the Agile practices too.

The solution here...  Not sure I know one.  Some projects will always slip and even fail no matter how well you try to manage them. 

If there is a solution it lies in seeking help, involving people who have done these things before – either Agile or the technology.  Training and coaching can help too, whether in the new technology or new process.

What is the lesson from all of this?  Well if there is one it is simply that Agile Software Development may look easy but it isn’t.  Getting to be Agile is not simply a case of reading one book, it is a case of reading many books, talking to many people, working with experienced practitioners, having training, coaching and trying again when things don’t work out.

It isn’t easy being Agile.