Henry

Bringing Innovation 101: Managers to Leaders

Software development is not as simple as A + B = C, It is more a collaborative effort of different skills.

As someone said “Building great software is easy: build a great team and they'll make the software for you.”. Building a team is not a managerial job. 

There is an interesting comparison between managers and leaders in their article titled “Are you a manager or leader?”

MANAGERS administer are a copy maintain systems/structure focus control short-term how/when bottom line imitate accept good soldier do things right

LEADERS innovate are an original develop people focus trust long-range what/why horizon originate challenge own person do the right thing

As you can see, it's clear that, what we need leaders not managers. Unfortunately, apart from making every other aspect of the software development unimportant, including quality of code, maintainability and usability, etc., delivery focused approach makes a process based managerial environment, which is completely opposite of the people based environment.

Managers might be good option for a process based controlled environment such as manufacturing, but defiantly not suited for software development.

As quoted by Azim Premji in his memo “Why employees leave organizations” 

Largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called First Break All The Rules.

It came up with this surprising finding:

If you're losing good people, look to their immediate supervisor. More than any other single reason, he is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he's the reason why they quit, taking their knowledge, experience and contacts with them. Often, straight to the competition. "People leave managers not companies," write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. "So much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good people - in the form of better pay, better perks and better training - when, in the end, turnover is mostly manager issue." If you have a turnover problem, look first to your managers. Are they driving people away? Beyond a point, an employee's primary need has less to do with money, and more to do with how he's treated and how valued he feels. Much of this depends directly on the immediate manager. And yet, bad bosses seem to happen to good people everywhere.

Innovation can happen only by empowering people, not by following a defined set of processes.

All you need to empower people is Leaders, not Managers.

Here is, what you can do, as an organization

1) Hire Good Leaders
2) Upgrade your Managers to Leaders
3) Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes. - Phil Daniels

Refactoring GM and Ford

Nowadays, GM and Ford are known more for their ongoing struggle than their cars. The reports on possible alliance between GM-Nissan-Renault triggered yet another round of debates on their future.

Even though I am not from automobile industry, I can correlate a fundamental problem we face in software development with the problems of GM and Ford.

Someone said “software evolves, grows and... dies if not taken care of”

To control this, new age software factories use a technique called Refactoring, it is s simple technique to rearrange, restructure and throw some of the unwanted and redundant code.

In terms of GM and Form, the problem is not about CODE, it is about their BRANDS. Over the years they acquired many companies, today, they become too many, unmanageable and lost their uniqueness, and height of all, they are fighting each other instead of their competitors.

If you take GM, Except HUMMER, I don’t see any unique identity between their Brands

The only solution i see as a outsider is, Refactoring.
Refactoring by rearranging, restructuring and throwing some of the unwanted and redundant BRANDS

and of course, It's never too late.

Bringing Innovation 101: Delivery to Wow

The systems, processes, culture, environment, people, policies, and behaviors are the result of who we are and what we want to achieve.

The current model used by most of the IT service companies, (especially Indian based) is the result of their focus on ‘Delivery’, which was evolved during the early stage of out sourcing, where these companies are expected to deliver only the code against the given functionalists.

This approach works perfectly for delivering code, but not for creating innovative solutions.
Here are my reasons:

Innovation, who cares?: 
In current model, from the Project Managers to Programmers are rewarded based on deliveries, not on the usefulness on the product/solution. As a result, no one cares about customers and  what they do with the software.

Signoff Syndrome:
Though this is result of Fixed Bid projects, we continue following this in non fixed projects, just to safeguard our delivery commitments. This raises a very fundamental question on why we are in business; Just to Deliver or Make a difference in our customers and customer’s customer life.

Refer my previous post for more details on “Sign-off” syndrome

You are Smart? Keep it with you:
This is the dangerous of all. Since the game is not about innovation, there is no place for smart people with some great ideas. The statistics shows that smart and innovative people tent to change jobs and employer, more frequent than delivery based people.

Am I against ‘Delivery’? Absolutely not

Take the example, Microsoft, Apple, and Sun Microsystems.
They all started in the same time, with similar passionate people, and all on the same business

So, what makes Microsoft and Apple, so successful than Sun.

The answer lies in a small change in their focus

When the wind change,
Microsoft and Apple started writing “Software for Improve People Life”
Sun stayed with “Software for Improve Technology”

Microsoft and Apple still a technology companies, but their focus is on the people and their life

The same way, Changing your focus to Wow, doesn’t mean not delivering.

For me, it is a question of purpose, purpose of our life.
if you are not making a difference
better quit the game

So, How do we move from Delivery to Wow?
The answer is simple

First, Starting thinking about how we can make difference to our customers

Second, Change the pattern of incentives, from Delivery to WoW.

In the book Freakonomics, The authors Steve D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, clearly explains the role ‘Incentives’ in everything we do and there is nothing exceptional to this.

See my earlier post on Freakonomics: Information. Fear. Incentives.

Third, Teach your employees the concepts of Wow Projects a book written by  Tom Peters 

End of Open Source As We Know It

Every Open Source has a different story; some are created just for fun, some are supported just to trouble Microsoft, even some knows how to make money out of it. But there is no clear pattern on how enterprise has to react to Open Sources.

Fortunately, Eclipse RCP has some great answer for such questions

Eclipse RCP is core engine which makes the fabulous Eclipse Java Editor, this core is important for every desktop application. If you try to build such core it might take years and need hundreds of highly skilled engineers. So the best option is come together and build the core. Today Eclipse initiatives is driven by companies such as IBM, Actuate, BEA, Borland, CA, Compuware, Intel, Iona, Motorola, Nokia, Scapa, Serena, Sybase, Wind River, and Zend

So, the bottom line is simple

1) Open Source is no more about individual programmers, it is new corporate Game
2) Share the common burden and focus on the real differentiators

I am not alone, Sun's Chief for Open Source, Simon Phipps, has raised similar thoughts in the recent Open Source Business Conference

As always, there are some counter views and Simon's response to the same.

Sun "Chief Open Source Officer" on "Open Source"
Simon Phipps on Open Source: Redux