Appraisal and Performance Criteria

I must have got at least a few stares and a few comments from friends that the post around How to handle Bad Appraisal was a employer perspective and very little thought was given for how one feels like when the appraisal goes wrong.

I felt it was not a employer perspective, instead it was a perspective on how one should cope up with such situation no matter what you are employee or employer... anyways, since I deal with development Teams more closely .. I also got a question that said that usually the Key Result areas or the performance evaluation critieria's are not made very clear, bench marks are not set , there are no clear definition of success and fail parameters and thus when it comes to appraisal time the developer / engineer thinks that he was the best and did the best and the Manager thinks that there was good work done, but there are a lot of things that did not go well.... So here I thought I would put together a few questions that can be used as indicators to one's performance . These questions would help define cleared goals and/or also in turn help a better appraisal process....

1. Attitude

Q. How does he/she perceive his/her job?

Q. How does he/she perceives he/she role in the Team?

Q. Do he/she stand by the Team, helping them on issues and small troubles?

Q. Do he/she needs to be called for help? or he/she walks by to help others?

Q. How does he/she take change?

Q. How does he/she work in absurd condition? tight deadline and power outages or urgent work needed to be solved but machine is slow, or long hours and so on.

Q. For a failed commitment how does he/she react? Blame on others, things, accepting mistakes, or retrospecting to improve?

2. Understanding

Q. How well does he/she understand the requirement and makes other understand it?

Q. How well does he/she adapt to the project and helps other adapt?

Q. How much of self time is spent on exploring the requirements?

Q. How much of value does he/she add to the Project?

Q. How many challenges or questions are raised by he/she

Q. How much depth is the understanding? like a high level feature understanding or a detailed scope?

3. Communication

Q. How does he/she communicate with the Teams.

Q. How frequently does he/she update about the actual progress to others?

Q. How much time is spent by him/her on the interactions related to project tasks with the Team?

Q. How well the person says YES or NO?

Q. How well does he/she explain the reason to those YES and NO

4. Reaction

Q. How does he/she react to a changed requirement at the last moment?

Q. How does he/she reacts when he/she is not center of attraction?

Q. How does he/she react to immediate and drastic change?

Q. How does he/she react to negative changes?

Q. How much of cribbing, whining, crying does he/she get past a task he/she is not supposed to do?

5. Skills

Q. How fast does he/she do his/her work?

Q. Are the core competencies utilized best?

Q. what are his/her best skills? Does he/she improvise on them?

Q. Does he/she document what and how he/she is going to do the task?

Q. Does he/she demonstrate frequent and consistent improvement?

Q. Does he/she actually do things instead of just talking about them?

6. Quality

Q. Is the quality of work done good?

Q. How many iterations happen when he/she does some work like estimation? Plans etc?

Q. How many bugs are created on the work done by him/her?

Q. How much of re-engineering and rework has been done on the task done by him/her?

Q. How much self initiatives are driven by him/her in improving the quality of the product?

Q. How many bugs are caught during the testing, by the customers, by him/her self?

7. Organization

Q. How does he/she manager his/her time?

Q. is he/she planned and organized?

Q. How is his/her desk kept? clean, dirty?

Q. How well does he/she plan the meetings and other times?

Q. Are the estimates given by him/her met? if not why?

8. Ownership

Q. Does he/she care about the module and takes he/she is doing?

Q. Do he/she take responsibility and show authority on his/her task?

Q. Is he/she passionate about what they are doing?

Well these are just those few questions that you as a Manager needs to ask yourself when you are putting someone on a performance appraisal. Pull these questions, customize it to your Team and let them answer these for themselves.. Your development Team's may get the best answers for themselves... Keep a lot of scope for project or release driven retrospectives as they are the best indicators of how one did...

In the end remember this is just one way to know what improvements you need to pull over for your Team instead of having a discussion "I did everything you asked me for, now why is it a bad appraisal?" or "You did OK , but not great"

Read More

Manage your vision

A lot of us are visionaries, not all you can say but many. Of people I have met in my life quite a few have been visionary.. They had Vision to grow, Vision towards various things.. they inspired me, they got me think of how to become one. I learnt from them and then tried to do the same.... but then over my last discussion with one of the developer I realised that vision is like a stray dog.. it can be a good guard of your neighborhood, but if left alone it can be one hell of a menace...

Yes.. I mean it.. like your dog your Vision needs a caretaker. Vision needs to be managed too, like our finances, like our spouses, like our expectations.. Vision also need to be managed and that too with more care... You very well know what happens when you don't manage your finances.. you are one bankrupt person end of the month isnt it?

Non-Managed vision is creator of bigger problems. It leaves the implementers and the visionary un-satsified. A while back I got a chance to work with a Sr. Executive had a vision to do something really good in field of technology and open source market. He kept on bombarding his thoughts on himself "I need to do this" "I need to do that".. this lasted for quite some time before he realized that he cant do it all alone and he had to rely on others to convert his vision to reality.. he chose the best ones that were available, formed a small start up unit and tried to get his vision on track... In a span of 1 year his creative team of five was left with 2 including him. The only person left believed that they could achieve everything they thought. Great ideas, Exceptional vision.. yet the path and approach screwed it up... when he gave up he told something in one word "Never carry luggage of ideas on your journey, you will not be able to decide which ones to keep and which ones to throw up and in the end you will be left with just luggage"

So to bring you back on track... today I had a chat with a Developer who is involved in a Knowledge Transition on one of the legacy products along with our Architect. During the discussion we discussed the approach and how to handle the transition. We started discussing and discussing and perforated our vision to smoothify the whole transition... in process we started adding things that would smoothen the life of the product to some extent.. soon I realized that visionary thoughts had taken over the plain and immediate needs and we started asking
"I want this" , "Like this" , " By this period" blah blah blah... the confused developer looked at me and said "I surrender"

Yes.. its very important if your vision is not managed.. so how does one manage his her vision...here is my view...

1. Snap a grid of your vision, split it into major sections.. work, personal, technology and so on.. every single concept, phenomenon, idea or thought put them into the bucket..

2. Keep on adding comments and keep your vision in a evolving mode.

3. Dont just throw your excel sheet at some poor soul.. Vision is easy to cook, hard to digest.

4. Find the right time to bring the right elements. You will not want to think of building your muscles when you are down under high fever..

5. Put a review date to each of the items in your vision list / lists. Visit it religiously.

6. Dont hesitate to strike them off.. A huge list may give you a feel of visionary but in reality it will also make you look a non-organized executor.

7. Vision is futuristic , but has to be linked to present tense.. so dont burden your present or future.

Now if you too are a visionary or have some or the other items in your vision.. check your vision, form it well, organize it and better "MANAGE IT" before you destroy what exists.

Read More

Make your Product a Platform, But wait first invest!!!

Why are apps so popular on iPhone and not on BlackBerry? Why does iPhone have such a huge developer community and why do you have to struggle to find a BlackBerry app developer? well leave BlackBerry out of this why do no other product has such a huge community of developers as compared to Apple...

Answer is simple... Apple is led by a Innovation method that leads to a revenue model. In clarity the developers find a platform on which they can build a huge set of apps and tools and use them as the product to earn revenue out of it. Similarly if you see the path taken by Amazon Web Services and Salesforce it is clearly visible that they have turned out from being niche products into very strong platforms. Millions of tools, apps , products and Integrations now revolve around such platforms and they have become the Oracle.

I recently read a small snippet that said that startups should build desktop and mobile apps in the early age of the launch to be successful... I think more importantly they should build a set of API's and SDK's around at the time of their launch. The API's will help them to let open features that can attract developers or products to build tools and apps around. I also feel that this should be a step to become a platform sooner or later. However one has to be careful that not all products have successfully become good platforms... a lot of vision, hard work and investment is needed to do that... Importantly right attitude is needed and long term thinking required from the stakeholders to do such thing...

Here are my few tips on why one should look to be a platform and what care should be taken...

Why Platform?

1. As opposed to a product with a few API's available, platforms gives luxury to community to build things around it. If people think they can build things around you and use it for some revenue creation... you are going to be successful on how fast you accelerate your platform.

2. A platform has a longer life than a product... specially because it always invites and controls a lot of apps around. More than anything you are sure you would always have a set of old customers who would stick to you ONLY.

3. If you are new it will open up new avenues for Integrations... if you are OLD.. you have scope to drive the market towards you.

4. In the world of clouds... just a set of API's will not take you anywhere.

But building platforms is not a easy thing like I said.. you need some support, trust , effort and vision... Above all I think an organization should think of becoming a platform only if:

1. They have readiness to Invest :

Platform building is more of investment for a long time to reap the benefits out on the later stage.. A lot of companies simply want to have quick small web services to fulfill immediate needs and that's it. A lot of times the created services or API's or SDK's are unaligned.. they simply cant cover one single module... Moreover if you have a set of API's or services created years ago, you need the thought to upgrade, refactor them sooner.

2. If you don't sow, it wont reap.

One of the products i worked on.. API's started to become key. So important to a level that a whole bunch of internal tools were created around to help the customers use them... however there was no effort to ideate and align the model of such API's to a platform... Effect? Well they just end up as API's.. and you always try to change the existing ones to fit the needs coming ahead.. without really building any new.. If you are not refactoring and re-architecting the core time and again... you are running at the speed of a celeron.

3. You have a strong marketing plan for your platform

A lot of products and platforms fail because they dont know how to market and sell there platforms.. sometimes to whom and sometimes where and why...A year ago I met a retailing tool provider who had some experience on Salesforce developer program... In his first meeting he asked me about all possible tools and products we use.. in his second meeting he came with 100 different ways of Integration of the apps with the products we use... Interesting? Yes your marketing Team should know who and how to market the apps...

4. Document , Document , Document

If you aint document your API's upfront and the platform details upfront.. chances are you will never do it.. Once I heard from myself say this while working on the Web services for our old product... "Everyday I sleep, I feel a missing organ of my body when I dont see a wiki driving the platform details with examples, samples , usability , case studies of the API;s and SDK... ". This should be your first step....

5. Separate vision for Platform, Aligned to a product roadmap

Imagine you have a CRM and to get it up and running as a platform you create some services for Lead Management, some for reports and some for CR.. its not going to work.. take the vision, pick the important piece of the app.. and build everything possible around it as API;s and SDK... let it be used by some... I always feel a need to have a separate vision for building a platform... in terms of scalability , performance , robustness and communication... and then align it into the roadmap...

6. Communication

Its not a cup of Tea.. believe me.. you cant just have 500 Services and API's and without effective communication. Services provided by products like Mashery can come handy here...remember if you removed a XML tag from your response it can break 20K tools using that service... and this is not a easy thing to manage and maintain.

Now if you are a startup, a settled product , a nice market product having some or no API's.. and you think your product has a good future... make it great... think on making t a platform... and think of investing in that platform... A platform is any CTO's dream... any Engineering Director's vision... how you make your Product achieve it is something you have to think... Go think

Read More

Decision - The Reality and the Fantasy

Of all the things we do in this world we always make 2 types of decision a real one and a one based on Fantasy.. and the reason behind is our imaginative powers... we live in reality but we dream fantasies. I spoke to a colleague yesterday and upon the discussions we ended up discussing something on how we map expectations to reality...The way this happens is, we want something to happen , badly very badly without knowing the consequences or effects of what happens that is exactly what I term as fantasy thinking...

A few years ago I badly wanted a car, I went for one... When I bought the car I realized a few things that should have been taken care of before I bought the care... I found:
- I did not hold a separate parking space for my car, I had to park the vehicle far off from my home and walk almost 10 minutes every time to park it ro take it with me.
- I did not think of accidents and maintenance costs, leave the fuel hikes
- What about the borrowers, so many of my friends and relatives wanted to borrow it, resulted in other issues like bad usage

So I had a fantasy expectation of having a car..I call it fantasy expectation because it lead to things that I did not foresee or the consequences unknown. Result was definitely some bad things that came my way. In reality I was capable to buy a car, I deserved it so I fantasized my expectation. In reality this turned to have several unthoughtful consequences which I did not think off.

A similar story happened to one of a dear colleague who desperately wanted to be a Project Manager. He kept bugging me and other bosses for making him the PM. When the opportunity did not come his way, he resigned and started looking for openings and found one as a Project Manager. His have's included everything that he wanted to be a Project Manager except the readiness to be the Project manager. When he took over the role he realized that it wasn't easy, a while after I came to know from his Team mate about the disasters he made. As a courtesy to help I asked him to speak to me and he confessed-
- It was easy for him to create a rumor in the Team, but then it became difficult to handle the same when it affected him own.
- It was easy to work over others estimates than giving one
- It was not easy to handle people
- It was not easy to handle ego's and expectations
- Several things dont go right, its not about how you fix it, its about when

So in the story about the person was in a state where he expected a fantasy without calculating the reality... and this is the big thing that can change the life.

Now... Fantasy is not a fully fantasy expectation or decision... its a decisions , expectation that can turn real with the step of time... In Other words fantasy decision if given time can be a well made real decision but not many do that...We make Fantasy decisions based on what we want and not what we have.. results in some real bad steps.

Another incident worth mentioning a year and a while ago I was supposed to migrate to the UK with a change in job. I was in a state of mind.. The reality said that it wont make a difference on where you want to be, it will make a difference on what you want to do... I made a decission to migrate, though in back of mind I always had this question Should I? it took a year... all the thoughts about where to say, what to do, how to do in the foreign land started getting answered as I started to visit the place I was going to be very often. Realized the pros and cons and finally the decision came of not to migrate... The fantasy for me then was A Great Job in a Great land, Great Money, Great experience... but all this made me not think over all other facts that stayed as consequences of moving... Somebody who makes a decision and move in such time, then ends up not been satisfied for long.. and then wanting to turn back... Got any friends who joined another company thinking that its a great opportunity and then wanting to come back? or someone who left the city in despair and now wanting to desperately come back?

So... how do these fantasy decisions or expectations be turned into genuine , well thought decisions?

Pessimistic Approach
1. Dont just think it your self
Involve others who are near and dear to you. Friends , Family play good role. However do not tell them what you think before you get to know what they think about it. A lot of times decisions are biased based on your thoughts. A friend left his job because he was feeling not so good and he cribbed about it to his spouse everyday.. spouse suggested to leave the organization... Friend only later realized that he missed a good thing coming his way.. and was now stuck in another deep shit.

2. Is there a list, Is there an experience
Ask if others have experience in the decision.. people who have been through can hlep you make a decision.

3. Family is driven by your decision, involve a critic too.
Family recommends good always. Critic can give you some thought for money. He may be harsh but will give you a taste of reality.

Optimistic Approach

1. Give it a time before you take it
Time heals everything... before you take a decision spend enough time, working, reworking and re-re working. I was able to change many bad decisions of mine while repeatedly working and thinking about them.

2. Do not write it off
it may be great. A fantasy decision maybe great so never write it off...

3. List down pros and cons
What else can help you make an effective decision? make it with friends and family, make it with colleagues and run it with some experts.

Read More

Is Worrying hurting you?

A lot of your troubles start with you worrying about things. You worry about your future, You worry about your past, You worry about present. You worry if You will be able to buy the car you wanted, Or You worry if you will be able to make a vacation this year considering the work load. You worry if your colleague will get more money than you or you worry if he will make your job redundant. So many things You worry and so many times out of these you don't know if you should worry.

Recently I came across a dear colleague who put this on her IM status "Worrying works! 90% of the things I worry about never happen…". A lesson that I always thought worked for me... what I worried about, never happened, I learnt this a sweet way and then I put it in my public diary that worrying doesnt make life easier.. You dont stop worrying though, stop worrying about the fact that you are worried... In other words start looking at your worries with a suction pump and a blower.

Lets take this general example in your life...
1. Your credit card is over limit and you have mortgage cheques coming in.
2. You promised yourself to buy a new car
3. You worried that your colleague will get the promotion you eyed on
4. You worried that because the economy is bad, you will be fired
5. You worried that because of the financial crunches you will not be doing all that you wanted to do...

In a general scenario... a human starts putting all this in one small head and then gets worried about everything.. yes everything.. Results are here:
1. He is frustrated and the frustration results in arrogance and abrupt behavior at work, on colleagues. Specially with the ones who think are responsible for it.
2. You are non co-operative with a few
3. Your face is frowned and body language dull
4. You start spreading negativity about everything
5. You discuss issues with your spouse, who in turn gets worried that if you loose job what will happen.
I still leave the sleepless nights, frustration , anxiety and other side effects all of this had on you...

Now with the same worries if you prioritize them by 3 rule principle...
1 . When : Put the impact of your worry...

A. I will die Immediately if -
B. I will die in a few weeks if -
C. I will die in a few months if -

Now put your worries in the 3 when's...

A. I will die Immediately if -
None really?

2. My Family will die if will hold :
1. You are cashless and you have mortgage cheques coming in.
2. You worried that becuase the economy is bad, you will be fired

3. I need not worry if will hold :
1. You worried that becuase the economy is bad, you will be fired
2. You worried that becuase of the financial crunches you will not be doing all that you wanted to do...
3. You promised yourself to buy a new car
4. You worried that your collegue will get the promotion you eyed on

So in other words... there is nothing that will kill you immediately? then for the things that you are not getting killed by today, why worry about them? Now take the ones that you are going to be immediately hurt by or hurt in a few weeks...

2. What

What can I do with them?
1. You are cashless and you have mortgage cheques coming in.
Can I borrow from friend, family and return them when I have enough?
Can I put it on hold with the bank?
Can I use my savings?
Can I call the bank and tell them to hold?

2. You worried that becuase the economy is bad, you will be fired
Can I go talk to my Boss and ask him whats happening?
Can I ask my Boss if I am good?
Can I review myself on what I have done so far and then review myself if I am doing good?
Can I see how much time I will have if the worst comes to hit me?

If you ask yourself these questions maybe you are half worried already? Now take the impact of the what and when... can I see how I can resolve them?

3. How
If you have answers to the first 2, I think you already have answers to how... so thats not hard anymore... Now lets take the 3 principles and see what we actually did with them?

Now the items that we didnt take to far from the 1st principle... lets see how we handle them?
1. New Car? - Well I can wait because if my job exists today or tomorrow I will have it.
Promotion? - Well I am doing the best here, I am sure it will come through with some time... waiting is better than getting fired?
Collegue with negative intentions? - Well how far did anyone go with negative intentions? People who do best will continue to do best.

So for some of these issues

1. We Put first things first
We prioritized. Lot of times we worry of everything that is running in present.. if we prioritize the best ones to worry about, I think we resolve half the worries there...

2. We put things that we can handle
I had a debate with a friend who continuously cribbed about the government on how they are unsuccessful and prices of commodities are going high and how politicians are dirty.. I asked him 2 questions.. "Can you change the prices" "Can you help anyone do it?" 1st was a no second was a yes... he participated in a campaign , now he feels happy that he did something and he has one less thing to worry about.

3. We went with an attitude that everything will be all right in phases
Negativity kills. A lot of people tend to spread negativity without knowing facts. Its the negativity that makes you more and more worried.. if we leave the negativity aside the bigger part of worrying is gone. They say bring 2 powerful nations to debate on world politics and we are at a world war.

4. We simplified things
We simplified items ourselves... Dont involve others in doing this as they would complicate things for you.

5. We stopped comparing
Huh? My money - his money will never end. Humans are never full and satisfied. Even Adam and Eve were not, result known to everyone. But then decide the Have's carefully and stop comparing. Because you will always have 1 less a thing than the other.

6. We trusted selves and others.
Bring trust into yourself first. Insecurity is outcome of self confidence on a fall. We trusted our Bosses , Ourselves our family to get out of this.

Now that you just found one way to be less worried, why not take a chill and help others getting less worried?

Read More

What Problem are we solving here?

A few years ago when a developer was requested to build a feature or a module he would be worried about the content of the document that came in to him as Requirement Specification document. Things changed… with the running market he started worrying about the time, scope and quality of the feature. Are we moving so fast that now the developer’s have to worry about the eligibility of the feature? Yes indeed… I was asked a question 2 times once by my 6 year old when I was trying to fix his pedal scooter and next by a developer who was about to work on one of the important features in the Product that I am working on.

The question was simple “What are we trying to solve here?” Answer most complex…When @aranhas07 started working on his product for Social Intuition, He had a problem each one of us face in the social world in mind… but when I look back and forth I see tones of products made every day making news on @Scobleizer and @Techmeme or @mashable I don’t really understand if they really are there to Solve a problem or to create one?

Do we answer this question before we start working on something important or so called important thing? Well the answer is NO it is thought but perceptional.. Yes one entity’s perception make him think that this is a problem and then a solution is designed around it... In process others really miss what is much needed or required... We spend millions and millions solving a problem which actually is not a problem…

Talk about the Iraq war (No WMD’s were ever recovered) or talk about the appointment of a bowling coach that got Indian team in a big mess a while ago. As Managers we always plan a lot of work.. but in process we plan work that comes through perseverance or perception. You let your teams spent millions and years on something that probably is not a problem but you are trying to solve it.

Once a sales consultant for a leading product made a big comment on the salability of a product saying since this product doesn’t allow robustness in letting multiple users connect to the system at the same time this product needs a big change as all the customers are asking for the said feature… The team went on creating a plan and effort and finally spent millions before a new developer got in and who asked... why are we building all of this? Can we not make the login web driven and leave other things on the rich interface? A management review was done and solution brutualized…

Next time when you begin to spend your important time on something don’t hesitate to ask these questions to yourself, your stake holders, your Managers, your CEO’s... For one thing can come out of it that they may not know what problem they are trying to solve…

The next few questions can actually help you work towards a solution than an issue..
1. What is the Problem?
2. Who faces it?
3. What are the workarounds?
4. What are the options available?
5. What can we do to make the solution generic?
6. Is the cost worth building a solution?
7. What are various options in the solutions?

Read More

What should I do?

Seth Godin's post on "Tell me what to do" is a nice fit to what we face in our day to day life as Project Managers...

"I committed to do this, but now I cant do it.. tell me what to do!!!"

I tried hard for last 1 hr , tell me what to do

Not only that souls want to push the responsibility, but "Tell me what to do" is also an excuse many of them find to get away from a task... as in I asked you what to do.. and I was waiting.. Based on tell me what to do.. I categorize these souls into 3 sections...

1. Bow Enthusiasts - They wait for you to tell them what to do always, Ask what to do always.. They are like the bow... everything should be done by the arrow, and be told by the archer
2. Show Enthusiasts - They show that they can do everything.. true or not is a different question and Do or not is another. This type exists in very small amount in smaller teams and Big amount in bigger teams.
3. Do Enthusiasts - They just do it... They are the YN's and YT's of the Team (The two members who need no instructions...)

The only reason I put them as Enthusiasts.. is at work every one is enthusiastic though some for "work" and some for "NO work", some for passion , some for pride, some for goals and some for Holes...

Read More

Team Engagement - 10 ways to get loved by your Team - 2/10 Just Be there

Team engagement, doesnt it get trickier as you go on doing it? But doesnt it ease up so many things when you do it? I have known companies spending thousands and thousands of bucks on this one thing, involving people , places and dont know what not... Success in Team engagement is however limited unless that Attitude and Culture is evolved....

Now coming to our next element.... take this situation:

Its 1 in the night actually early morning, you have 4 members from your team working on a very critical issue that has to make the production tomorrow morning, you have no onsite support available. You assign the issue and you leave for the day. You call your team member in the middle of the night or he calls you and updates you that the fix is done. All goes well.

Same scene.. the fix is not done.. what is your reaction now? you organize a call with stake holders, you shout , you yell, you are upset? you reschedule the fix and ask for another day, come to the office and ask them to be there to give you an explanation? firefight, issue resolved but did something go wrong here? The feeling in the Team????

Now same scene.... You are with the Team all the time, discussing solutions, evaluating options, the fix is done and all goes well.

Same scene again but the fix is not done? What will you do now? Since you have a complete understanding of what the team has done so far and what you have being doing all this while.. you can set a correct expectation?

Yes... sometimes you may not be the Technical expert, You may not add any value being with the Team while they are working hard on something.. sometimes it is important just to be there, facilitate things for them, try to check on their needs and try to remove there blockers so they can work well. Its a morale support to the Team... they know who to go back to when you are there. Now if they can depend on you for this, Aren't they surely going to love you?

Today we did a release, one of the fellow colleagues asked me "It is OK if you are not in, we could have taken care of it" I said "No worries, I just like to stick around" a few minutes later the same colleague was stuck with a issue and needed some help from me to reset some user details. I reminded the colleague "When you lead a Team, make sure you are there for the Team, you never know what will come up and when you will be needed" ....

You must have come in this situations very often... Your Team would be working day , night , late hours, weekends... if they see you around with a motive of helping them out... They are going to like it.

A few things to remember and do while you are JUST THERE for the Team

1. Make an arrangement for a quick Pizza grab if they are working late or weekends

2. Give them a ride home if it is late in the night.

3. Ask them about if they need any help occasionally.

4. Get them short breaks if they are working late.. this would release them from some pressures.

5. Do some petty tasks for them... like random tests to help them, or builds, or deploys that can save them some time

6. Get them a coffee on their desk... they may like it

7. A quick shoulder massage... of course for male colleagues is not a bad idea.

8. Appreciate their effort....

Do not

1. Be there to do a status check

2. Do not give a feeling or be there to monitor the activities.

Both of this is showing distrust.

Another small thing... But this can really help making life of Team members and Leads easier... a low cost item that can improve the leads level of engagement with the Team.. Now ask yourself ....On when you were present when your Team needed you the most...

Read More

Keep up the Bad work!!!!

How does it sound? Annoying? Well isnt that the real truth? You keep on saying this to your team member even when he is at worst of his performance... dont care for what reasons? Well the truth is out of fear of loosing, causing revolt , constraints around resources etc etc you tend to do this... you go back with a feedback to your engineer and tell him "Look mate, you are doing OK, but you have a lot to improve on" I revised this statement in a simpler way and made it "Keep up the bad work!" .

For an under performer anything that is not direct or straight is like saying "Keep up the bad work mate". As Managers it will be your duty to make and build the communication in a way that says "It's enough of beating around the bush, time for you to respond", Again based on the nature and call and time and nth event of the feedback you can lighten up the statement, but in the end you have to help your under performer friend to boost it up.

We all want to make it sound positive, but not flattery... Tom was a project Manager dealing with Max who had been under performing in spite of last few months of support and attempts made by Tom and Team to get the issues with Max's ability sorted... when the options started reducing Tom had to go and open a communication which will help Max understand that the water has just hit the deck... Tom ran through the profile of Max and saw that he as a Formula 1 follower... took an opportunity on a one on one lunch and had this conversation...

This will hopefully enlighten you to make a easy conversation with your under performing member.

Tom "So, I learn that you are a Formula 1 fan"

Max "Yes, I a great fan"

Tom "So how does a normal F-1 race works"

Max "blah blah blah...... and thats how"

Tom "And how does a driver get in?"

Max "Its touch, but you need xx,yy zzzzzz blah blah, and this is how the points and ratings work for the Team and individuals"

Tom "Ahhh.. So the points for running a championship is also relational to individual driver performing?

Max "Yes"

Tom " And what happens if say Ferrari Team who is leading the championship has a Minus Schumacher"

Max "They fall back"

Tom "So how do you see yourself in this Team?"

Max takes time, thinks over it.. replies back "I think I have to change!!!"

Tom "OK, so lets get our driving gears, define a race path, lets target steps 1 to X until the pole position. Lets work on your car and gears and see how it works for your next race?"

An easy conversation goes well, without defences and grudges. Max realise the point and wants to seek help to do what would be best for the Team. A few races later Max is up to the speed.

But if the same conversation had gone in a way where Tom says "You are racing well, you need to win now" would have maybe not gone well... and Max would have continued with what he had being doing...

So next time you have an under performer in your Team... work out a best story, his likings and hobbies along with a statement that will make it clear for him that the feedback is counting and you dont and you never say "Keep up the bad work!!!!"

You can follow me on Twitter at sameera_cmc

Read More

Team Engagement - 10 ways to get loved by your Team

Donate for Haiti Earth Quake Victims to the Red Cross here

Do you love your Team? Does your Team love you? Alrite do they like you? Alrite do they like to work with you? Alrite do they want to see you in office? Ok.. OK.. OK... I know the answer... You are one traditional Manager who is definitely hated by his Team. Never mind... You are not the only Manager thinking this... there are bunch of them who think they know they are been hated...hated by their teams... Initially i felt that it is just a normal human nature "Hate your Boss" but luckily I realise that it is not so (Thanks to all the bosses I have got in the past from Sakore Sir to Subhash Sangam to Kari to Gert-Jan). They all gave me a feeling that Bosses are one part of your life that can definitely make you one Hell Of a Good Manager.

To what I have learnt all these years from these great leaders and will continue to learn from... I will put down those 10 important elements that can make you love your Team and your Team love you... For those impatient soul's in here, this is not going to come in one shot... so please take I element at a time work over it, try to practice it, wait for the next and then carry on... For those Alpha Managers sitting and reading this, I am sure you may have tried all of these but read on there is nothing to loose if you get a good Idea of this.

Element 1 that will get you loved by your Team

You are leading a Team of 50 odd people, you walk into the office every day remembered ever you stopped by side of one of your engineers and asked him "Tom!!! Are you feeling better today after yesterday's headache?" Or Did you send a Birthday card to one of your new Team members on his first birthday with the company?

Well this is one of the last thing that you as the busiest manager would want to do... but who told you that no matter what you do, you will always be loved... try this with your son or daughter... just ignore them for a day or two and see they wont even want to see your face... So when our kids cant love us if we dont love them... how do we expect our Teams to love us if we dont like them , Love them , take care of them?

What was your reaction when you were mentioned in a big company meeting by the most important person in the company? You were on the 10th heaven? Well similarly when you show the care to your employees, about them they feel good.. and this good feeling is what builds an understanding and bonding that turns it to love... Yes Love for you by your Team members.

So if you havent got this right yet... The element here is your memory.... Yes if you remember the name of your Team member (In case of bigger teams), some important dates that affect them, some important days of their life and some important elements of their life... they love those who care about their personal things... and when they love you they work hard for you.

So how do you do this?

1. Get their important information

This can be done by various ways... I used a funny survey document that I asked the Team to fill. I got to know their hobbies, their partner names , their passion and much more. You can also do a social network check and find a lot about them from the social websites. You have to do some homework and be alert on this.

2. Store it in a way you would be reminded

Just having the information and doing it once is not the right way and thing to do... make sure you store the information at some place where you can retrieve it easily or it can remind you well in time. I use Microsoft Outlook and Remember the Milk tool to remind me of important dates of Team members and even family (considering the fact that I am a workalcoholic, I even store my anniversary reminders in these tools). The funny part is I still have important dates of team members who no longer work with me.

3. Show the care when they are and are not associated with you

Yes it is important that way. Even if you are not directly or indirectly linked, showing care would get the feel of closeness. This will bring more trust and love factor. And your Team would love you even when they are not in your Team.

4. Never mix work with care

"Are you feeling better today? Now since you said yes can you fix this for me now?" well dont mix it this way. Unless it is very important make sure that you keep work and personal care about your team in different zones.

Many of these things dont add up to cost. They are simple smaller things that have a huge impact on effective Team engagement. Now if you see yourself as a Good Manager you have to be honestly good.

So Today is a very Important day.... You just have to find out for which member in your Team....

You can follow me on Twitter at Sameera_cmc

Read More

We all suck at Feedbacks - Part 3.1/4 - How to give Feedback that can be unpleasant

The beauty of this word starting with F (Feedback) is you cannot start it with a F word.This part of the statement is the most tricky and sensitive. All the time in Managers life he has to give negative feedback to everyone.. honestly it is not negative feedback it is the feedback that will not be pleasant to hear... A Call centre manager is walking by and hears a angry Customer Service representative blasting the customer or agitating the customer... the next thing he does is blasts the CS representative immediately after the call... what good does it do to him ? the Team?.

I went to a shopping mall last weekend, While my wife did all the shopping part I took a seat in the corner watching people, I saw a old lady looking for a bed linen where a sales rep was helping her. The sales rep initially showed interest, but when he saw her not being able to make a decision got agitated and reacted a bit rudely. His supervisor was watching all this and he stepped in had a chat pleasantly with the lady and tried to bring the lady to consensus and sold the work she was looking for. After the lady was gone he smiled at the rep and told him... "We will always have bad customers, they will come buy and go. What will remain is the reputation we hold. Now next time you get an angry/painful customer like this think that she is your childhood crush you never got a chance with.. I am sure you will serve better"

Inspiring... I liked the innovative way of feedback... What I liked about it was it had patience, place , perfection and politeness. Those P's that can make the F' better.

So what is it that we have to take care while we give a negative or not so pleasant feedback?

1. Place it well

Yes the place acts very important in the feedback sessions, specially when it is unpleasant... no one in the world wants to listen bad things about himself, secondly not in front of others. Make sure that when you have to give a feedback, give it in a private place.. it should be between those 2 souls and no one else. Find a right place to let the person know about the unpleasant things... so even if it gets worse it remains in there.

2. Point it well

Its very important to point it well. Again I prefer taking a profile book of incidents to support the unpleasant thing. You cannot just go and say "You miss all deliveries" you have to mention which item, which specific delivery and when. Be very specific to point on what you think about the incident too. This will help the person get your perspective about it...

A Manager once gave a feedback to his subordinate "The Management thinks that you are not capable or ready yet to take up this role" The guy went back, tried to figure out why , when , how asked the same questions to the manager.. he did not get an answer he Quit... if the feedback is not specific it is a disaster.

3. No place to emotions

Your emotions have no place in the feedback part. There is nothing worse than a angry, agitated, shouting and yelling manager giving a feedback. Be calm while you speak the feedback. Remember after all it is all about improvement.

4. Person is not the key, Action is

Feedbacks can get personal, A manager not happy about the attitude of the employee can take it personally while giving the feedback. He may pour only the personal perception and leave the public perception of the employee in due course. Ensure that when feedback is given it is given about actions and not person. Its ugly when a Manager says "You are not committed to the task" than he saying "We find you committed always, but for this particular task you missed the nerve"

5. Time it well

Run it instant. This will help you discuss the feedback more effectively. Any delay in giving a feedback on a unpleasant or negative action may turn disastrous in long run. Try and provide a quick if required short feedback but instantly for unpleasant actions.

6. Define actions

If it is the first time about something make sure you list down action items from the feedback. Try to create a check list and summarize and agree upon the actions when you close the feedback. If it is a repeated item on feedback then document it and make the consequences clear.. Yes politely. A developer who was a cricket fan was somehow not able to get hold of the pressure in development. Technically good he was still struggling with some or the other items.. after repetitive instructions the developer was not able to perform well when the Manager gave him a message "If you are a captain of the cricket Team, what will you do if some player consistently does not score? and while others are sitting on the bench to play the game? " He got the message and he listed down the actions he would work on.

7. Speak, Wait , Listen , Speak

Speak and wait to listen what other person have to say about it. At times ask the person to speak about it. Try to get a valuable input out. make it as a discussion not a lecture.

8. Trust

Build trust by re-emphasising that your faith still lies and you would want to get better results out of the actions defined. If you show your trust , it goes well.

9. Finish it there and follow it later

End it well. Try to emphasize on the objectives and make sure that you leave the feedback there. The items discussed in the feedback should not be discussed , just the action items derived should be followed up. keeping things about feedback in mind may cause unhealthy expectations and cold wars.

Of all these things.. remember you can use your sense of humour to give the unpleasant feedback wrapped in a pack of jokes and humor.

Dont forget that the objective of the feedback is to re-achieve well what we could not do for any reasons. We as managers have to make sure that when we come out of a discussion where the feedback about someone , something was unpleasant we have a plan to make it better.

Read More

We all suck at Feedbacks - Part 3/4 How to give Feedback

Continuing our series…
We as Managers hold a primary responsibility of seeing growth for others. We see this growth for our colleagues, employees, Team and organization. In handling this responsibility we have to ensure that the set objectives are compared with the actual results and to match both of these we provide feedback to our employees or Team members… Consolidating feedback as one element would be a mistake so I would treat feedback as Positive Feedback, Negative feedback and constructive feedback the manager has to give. Remember the first 2 types of feedback can be fatal if not given in the right way and order. A constructive feedback would be the one that would be a mix of both + blended with a futuristic approach to grow collective and personally. So let’s begin our quest to find out how not to mess up when we provide our feedback…

Positive Feedback
Usually managers think that praising someone is the easiest task, honestly it is not. Just telling someone you are doing great is not working well enough for various reasons…
Once a Supervisor who was pissed off with a rail track maintenance engineer attended a manager motivation seminar, inspired he decided that he will see how praising an employee worked and went to the engineer and said “You are doing really great, keep up the good work; it’s good to have people like you in the team”. The next question the engineer asked was “Are you also giving me a raise?”

Another occasion a very excited boss went to an employee and started praising him. Confused about a untimely praise the employee went and put down his resignation with a fear that he was going to be fired.

Positive feedback has to come in right time and with right words... If you just go and say someone “What a nice job you have done” may not be the right word if said when someone recently had created a blunder. As managers we have to do the following when we give positive feedback:Again I would iterate “Feedback is a continuous process, As managers our duty is to give timely and frequent feedbacks”

1. Choose the time
Pick the time when the morale of the employee definitely need a boost. Ideally the time after a good job done, a deal won and implemented, a release done and no issues from it is the right time. Never be hasty in giving positive feedback. There are 2 reasons to it:
A. Early or Late feedback may not go with the same flair as a slightly delayed one would.
B. Just after a good job done the person would be in a relaxing / parting mode and your feedback may just not hit the right angle.
The Development Manager sent an email calling for a party that weekend after a big release was done.. only later to realize that the next day of the release caused blunderers and a lot of issues from customers which the Team spent fixing all through the week and later had to roll back. Time is the key factor.. So a feedback has to go in the appropriate time.

2. Choose the incidents
Just going and praising someone may not be good. The person may not value it or the message would be misinterpreted. Ideally when you turn to give a feedback make sure that you collect incidents at work off work that can help you build a great way to give a positive feedback also helping employees realize how and when they good. I maintain a Project Portfolio for every engineer in the Team… Every Project they work on, the hit and the miss. The learning’s from the Project for them, for me and for the Team. This helps during the feedback time when it is easier to tell someone
“Time is a key in support, and as a support engineer the reaction on LIV-XXX has being very helpful. It not only helped XXX customer go with their release on time but also helped us build a good relation with them”

3. Praise with clarity
A lot of positive feedbacks go without clarity. We Managers mix feedbacks always with Objectives… as in when we have to say “You did good at XXX” we say “You did at XXX , let’s do the same with YYY” this can cause a confusion.. it can be treated as an appreciation to what is done and also may be treated as a comment of what is not done and how to do it good next time. We have to be careful when giving this feedback that we don’t mix up Objectives and Goals with the praise or positive statement.
Clarity can also be bought by giving more preference to the actions than the person.

4. Bring Objectives in as a compliment
They say that feedback is the right time to give preview of goals too. Make sure that once you give the positive view of the past give a positive view of future. This makes feedback go stronger.. it is always treated as “Where I came from, What I did and where I would go”

5. Expose the pitfalls and improvements
Every Positive step is a step to improve. Similarly every positive feedback is a notification that you have to improve. With the positive feedback expose the pitfalls and the short comings; this helps the person understand the elements of improvement. Only praise is not the idea of a positive feedback, blend it with attorney of improvements.

6. During a feedback session , keep this part in the start and the end
I recently read a tweet that said “If you begin and end well you are sure to do well” Yes.. keep a pleasant beginning and end. So that when you enter the room and go out of the room the impression is positive. It’s the beginning and the end that will also drive how you run through the session. The last thing to do on a feedback session is to start with “You are an Idiot and did not do X, Y and Z” and end with “I hope you will do well here onwards”

I believe feedback being a mass topic in itself we should split this version into 3… we talk about How to give positive feedback today, How to give negative feedback next and then we mix the 2 to generate how to give a Constructive feedback.
I hope you would like the post and the series and would feed me back on what I have to do more.

Read More

We all suck at Feedbacks - Part 2/4 . The Reaction

Continuing with our series on Feedback from the previous post we went through how to accept feedback. What is important is the reaction to the feedback. Many of us after accepting feedback don’t know what to do and how to do it... Here are a few things that may help you post receiving a feedback.

1. You asked for it, you got it so don’t crib

Feedback usually comes as a periodic output of an expectation. Usually the receiver of the feedback is the one who asks for it. Objective is very clear “How can I do well? Better? More?” Now the human nature doesn’t let us listen to criticism that easily. You always see a complain box in front of a government office, asking for feedback. I for fun once put a note in it criticizing the way the work was carried in that department. Next the “complain/feedback box” was removed. The common ways the feedback's are reacted are:

a. Ignore – By not listening, thinking or understanding the objective of it.

b. Over react - Thinking it is personal

c. Quit – Trying to run away from the feedback or the person giving it

d. Defend – for things that you clearly need to work on

We sometimes forget it was us who asked for the feedback....

2. Your body language speaks more than your words

During one of the feedback session while the Manager was giving the “Knowledge Doses” to the employee the employee kept looking at the pictures in the office, at the marriage ring of the Manager, at the laptop screen.

Once a Manager was giving criticism lessons of how a call centre executive should handle angry customers, the CS executive begged to differ and started arguing on every incident recorded, made faces and finally walked out.

An employee listened to the Boss , took the feedback, positively went out of the office onto his desk and with full fury started throwing things haywire, unlucky enough that the Boss walked right behind him to tell him that his promotion anyways is due that month ;)

An eye to eye contact, a sincere attention to the speaker, a calm body, a smiling face trying to adapt to the situation is a good foundation to the constructive feedback and professional career. During and after the feedback a sensible way to react is to try and list down what needs to be done.

3. Defence is the best offence, but only if you know what you defend

Every time we receive criticism we try to defend.. if the Boss says “You could have done this better” you say “Yes but that’s because you had X, Y and Z problems”. Your boss says “You should have done it this way” you return “No, this is how I was told to do“ blah blah. Defence is good, but only if you know what you are defending. A defensive approach during feedback is the offensive approach... it lets you go away from the core objectives. Never take a defensive step, listen adapt figure out what to do.

4. It’s all about perception?

Feedback is nothing but a summary of the personal and public perceptions. Your Boss’s opinion based on his perception considering your personal approach and how people see it. You may be doing all the right things but they may not be the rightest one in other people’s opinion. It’s about perceptions. The best way to handle this part of the feedback reaction is to read and not the perceptions and list down how you can improve them.

5. Your feedback is not to prove but perceive

The best thing to do after a feedback is to not prove that someone is right and someone is wrong. It is to perceive and not prove. I remember an incident that happened today. We asked one of our customers in a meeting about their feedback about our web application, the customer was honest and frank and he said “It is very slow”, The first thing that came from a developer sitting by my side was “It may be the browser, internet connection, etc etc.” We chose to say that we would like to check the same thing and get back to you. The right thing to do this is to summarize the feedback items and from time to time go back to your Manager and tell him on what you have worked on and what you are working on.

6. Mr. Good boy or Mr Grumpy?

Arrogant or Grumpy will never get you feedback again. Keep the attitude to yourself.

As much as feedback is important in our path to learn and grow it is similarly important that you react with the spirit of feedback. Remember the feedback is given to let you improve, learn and grow.

Read More

Don’t just be a “bargain” Guy?

We all bargain something or other, somewhere or else... we have learnt bargaining from our mothers, sisters, grandma’s, teachers, Bosses, colleagues and everyone else who we deal with on a day to day basis. You want your kid to wake up early for school he would ask for a toy, you bargain for a cheaper one. You drop him to school to study the teachers bargain for studies. You want him to be admitted to a school you bargain on price... Now as Software Engineers you face this bargain every moment..

Your Sales guy comes to you and ask for a feature, you bargain on time, he on dates.

You estimate your Project manager bargains on it

You give a Project plan your customer bargains on it.

An 80 yr old man who could not get out of the bed asked his 10 yr old to go and buy stuff from market. Since he was too young to shop, the grandfather told him “Bargain on anything that the shop owner offers”. Kid asked “what is bargain?” Grandfather said “If he tells you the thing is for 10$ you ask for 5$”. The kid went to a shop asked for a video game, the guy came back and showed him one. The kid said “I will pay 5 dollars for this”. Surprised with the kid the shop owner checked his price list found it was 4$ and he was still in profit said “OK, take it for $5” The kid thought for a moment and said “I will pay 2.5 for it”. The pissed of shop keeper said “take it for free”.. on this the kid said “then give me 2”

Everyone in this world bargains and when they bargain they bargain hard... But as Manager’s it is our job to balance the bargain. It is a need not a necessity so when we have to choose we can decide what and how much to bargain. Next time you sit on a chair where you have to bargain as an Engineer, Sales, Customer, Project Manager, CEO or CFO or anyone... bargain:

• On time that will not hurt Quality
• On resources that will cut cost but not Quality
• On schedules that will not hurt the burn-down status of your resources
• On commitments that will not affect your Teams plans and schedules
• On Plans that are over optimistic
• On technologies that can help you build a stable product than a faster product.
• On Quality that can let you sleep with peace

Read More

Be Capable, Success will follow - Raju Hirani in 3 Idiots

Second time in the row I saw this movie today 3 IDIOTS a bollywood masala movie from the maker of Munnabhai MBBS and Lage Raho Munnabhai, Raju Hirani, from the producer of 1942 a Love story , MunnaBhai series, based on Chetan Bhagat's 5 point someone and with the lead played by Aamir Khan. This movie really entertains, its a block buster but also leaves us with some questions that needs some serious thoughts. Leaving the entertainment side, Hirani definitely gives us back a lot of lessons to learn from...

1. Success doesn't mean Money

2. Learn your lessons well

3. Attitude is needed, A Good one definitely

4. Teachers need to learn first

5. Do what is your passion

6. Be Capable first, Success follows ability

To give you a gist the movie is about 3 students and their life in an engineering college, based on facts events, mentors , attitudes, approach on life.. it ends up with the lead who guides and takes life innovative way, brings on change with his Iris attitude. He goes missing and I will leave the plot to be explored by you. I liked the dialogues and each of them are hitting my minds since last 2 days... here I write about them...

1. Success doesn't mean How much Money you make or what designation you hold.

A few years ago, a talented Engineer in his early career left the Team I lead. He came to me and said "I need a promotion, I am OK with my Role in the company, Team and my salary."

I asked "All of a sudden, whats in your mind?"

he said "All my friends now are Team Leads and Managers, they earn 5 figures, its time for me to grow. I also think that my peer is my bigger competitor here and I can go out and grow more than him or my friends"

I said "Do you want to grow because your friends have? Or you want to grow because you think you deserve it?"

He said "I am getting old now, I think I deserve to grow"

I said "So You want a jazzy designation to impress your friends? Or you think the jazzy designation would be justified by what you do?"

..... The guy left us, A few years later the guy got in touch with me and said.. "maybe I should have taken the role when I was ready, I think I screwed up a lot of projects because of inexperience and abilities"

In Summary : If we make more money from our jobs or have bigger designations doesn't makes us more successful than others.. eventually it is what we do and what we turn around that makes us more successful. Early Feb I wrote this about success.. worth read to connect

2. Learn your lessons well

We learn our lessons, but do we learn it well? So you would ask me what does this mean!!!! A couple of years ago a Software Company made a disaster of their product. They Outsourced the product development, not enough analysis done on the requirements, technologies, no efforts on process, no definition on what to achieve, No stakeholders defined, no ownership taken, The Team had an attitude of money buys service and who gets money has to do things. They failed miserably, The outsourcing partner did not understand what to do and how and they took the company in ditch. The company recovered.. formed its own team, got a new product done to begin, got the foundation of a great product ready. They learnt their lessons and they got well out of it. Eventually when they progressed to newer development they hired 100 people in a month to do the rest of the development.. another disaster in way!!! if you had learnt your lesson well you would have Built the Team not formed.

3. Attitude, Have one a Good One

We always talk about it in our blogs.. so I dont elaborate much now... but its very important that you have an attitude that leads you to be capable of doing things...

Attitude, is what keeps us going. Attitude is what reveals our characters... Attitude is what is required... You have one is the basic necessity. And when you have one, dont leave it..

Read it on and on through the blog

4. Books are friends and teachers, Do all friends guide well? Also Teachers need to learn first.

Well they definitely need to. I think we as mentors, Guidance sources, advisers and drivers to our Teams also need to learn TEACHING first. Not only our educating systems needs to be changed, but also the way we teach. When I say education system I refer not only on how we teach our kids, but also our employees, teams and members of organizations... This movie has a character called "Silencer", the guy who believes that he can dump the book in mind without understanding what it means... but its not his fault, because the examination he writes or the questions he answers to the interviewers or professors is based on what books teach.

In one of my previous companies we had a SQA (Software Quality Division), this department would audit and evaluate all the projects done by the company, define flaws , recommend suggestions to improve the quality process. However the members who were a part of this had a bible book in front of them to refer to it... and when they did not find something in the book, it meant the project did bad on quality ;)... In one instance our product involved a short term (1 day) project. The requirements were one liners as the customer needed it very very urgently. But since it was not a bug, nor a change request nor a full feature we did not have SRS and other documents for it... result? SQA recommended not to go ahead with the project, result????? wanna guess????

I have also seen that many of us dedicatedly believe in what text books says.. for instance principles of Agile... Ask a Developer who involves himself in Agile, he would know that demo and integration of feature, code and qa is an ongoing process. Nothing is complete. Ask a Text Book Agilist He would want a document, a start and end of the feature and time lines... Books are our friends (Not all friends give perfect guidance)

5. Do what is your passion

If you are passionate about doing something, then do it. Dont do something that you are not passionate about. But remember lean your passion in a way that you still have a day Job. Passion is needed in what you do, but it cannot be converted in what you are doing. Passion is the part of your character, that tells how much of your character actually exists.

6. Be Capable first, Success follows ability

If you are passionate and capable... Success will follow. Google did not start big... it grew, it followed its path, showed its capability, success could not hide long, it followed. Gandhiji took his abilities and followed a path, success (Independence) came along. If you are running behind success then you are ruining those abilities of you that you can definitely succeed with. If 1M Unique readers is your blogs goal, and if you focus only on SEO, promotion and marketing... without putting the actual writeups (ability of your blog to get readers) you will not succeed, you may see short term benefits not success.

Pele the football God once said "When I step on ground, I just want to play good football, Wins and Goals come along when playing the best football"

A Painter puts all his imagination in his paintings... he doesnt know when he starts on what he wants to get out of it... but when he puts all his efforts without thinking of results he creates a "Mona Lisa"....

As the Hindu Grantha of Bhagvada Geeta says "Do your Karma, Dont think of fruits, they will come with your karmas"

Read More

Successful Manager : How not to messup Delegating

Do you delegate? Do you believe in delegation? Do you just delegate or you are involved? Are you a chicken or pig in our story? Well all these questions sometime shine in your minds, rest of the times you ask yourself. If not more, some of your seniors bring this to you when you start taking more and more responsibilities. In our step towards finding the orgasms of Management we explore this vital skill we call “Delegation”.

When we as Managers decide to trust others with appropriate responsibility and authority so they can achieve the set of tasks designed that were meant for us, we call it Delegation. But do we use and misuse delegation? Yes we do, don’t we? A long time ex-colleague got me on gtalk today and told me how much he is enjoying his new BDM role... with a flavoured cream on top he added this statement “I don’t have to do all the rubbish, I just delegate the rubbish to others so I can do better things”.
I asked back “what do you earn?”
he said “Experience and challenges at the cost of my work getting done by others in time”
I asked “What do you loose?”
I got no answer.... So the point here is we as managers believe in delegation, and yes we have to.. Delegation is an art through which we groom our future, we prepare our subordinates to take up tasks that we do, thus add value to their growth. We move over those tasks of us that we can easily do, to be done by others for reasons like “Time” , “More work” , “Building the next level” etc etc. But do we really use Delegation effectively? I think Yes, I think No.... meaning sometimes Yes and sometimes No... So here we put down some tips on delegation, better of how to handle Delegation..

1. Identify what to delegate
It’s very important that we know what we need to delegate. Many of us really really don’t know. For instance everything that we take to one of my fellow colleagues he wants to do it, all by himself. His answer on any task would be “I will do it” in return he loads up himself with a piled set of tasks that he cannot do all by himself. I always use a dinner course technique when deciding what to delegate... as in When you get a plate full of food, all the food that you love... what do you do? You pick the best of things that you love and that too in certain limits... You don’t have only ice cream for dinner.. so when you have tasks to do... go by the dinner menu technique.. pick your items you want to have and pick the items that you want others to have... pick the quantity correctly so that you don’t have to loosen your belts when you are done ;)

2. Who benefits?
Yes you do. But who else? Ideally we think of benefits for us when we delegate... like I delegate the task so I can go home early. Or I delegate the task so I can do something more important. I think when you choose items you want to delegate you should also think of benefits of the delegation. A more simplistic view is when you delegate tasks that are second line that you are doing and that can help:
1. Get someone else too able to take care of in your absence
2. Prepare the person to the next level
Benefits that the person doing it will derive from it have to be explained better, This will ensure that the benefits of delegation have multi routed outputs. Thus increasing possibilities of the task succeeding.

3. Identify the person
If this fails the whole delegation model fails. The person who the task needs to be delegates needs to be picked up well. For instance you cannot pick up a Jr. Developer to do a Code review for you if you are an architect, it may be good for him but in the end a disaster for all. Imagine having a Air hostess getting control of a Airbus 380, even if the pilot thinks autopilot works? Or imagine the pilot turning the mode of the plane to autopilot when in a stormy situation? Yes the person doing it has to be chosen. Keep the following things in mind when you choose:
1. Is he ready to do it.
2. Is he capable of doing it.
3. How much of time he needs from you to do it? Do you have time to give him?
4. What happens if he fails?
5. What happens next if he succeeds? Do you have expectations to be managed?
6. Will the person do this without having to move out of what is hi core interest?

4. Understanding
Its very important that you as a delegator explains the delegated task very well to the person who is going to take it up. There has to be a very clear understanding on :
1. What needs to be done.
2. What are the ways to do it
3. Who , How , When to contact for what
4. Success and failure criteria.
5. Process and guidelines.
6. Expectation from you in terms of results and steps in results.
7. Final output

5. Time, Support and Help

You can’t just delegate a task and vanish. Delegation brings more and more responsibilities... Once you delegate you have to follow up with the person (Not to micro Manage) but to ensure that the required help and support is seek. Ensure that you give enough time to the person to understand and get adapted to the task. Follow up so the person seeks required help and support from all sectors that involves his/her task. Facilitate whatever possible to let the person get a good control and fall into the correct and positive rhythm. Ensure that required authorities and responsibilities are listed to the member. If its a checklist its well and good. Imagine a security guard asked to protect a premise not having access to the premise? Remember even if the person doing the task is responsible for it, you as a delegator is the accountable authority for it.

6. Review , Evaluate , Feed it back.
Yes.. Frequently review it, evaluate the status, provide guidelines and feedback appropriately. It cannot be worse than not reviewing a delegated task. This can break the moral of the person doing it because he/she may think that it is less important and thats why it is delegated, also the task will loose its own importance.

7. You don’t need to be a Manager to delegate, You don’t need to delegate things to others
Yes. You necessarily not be a manager. Imagine a part of the code you are supposed to work is also being worked by someone else... you can delegate a part of your task to your colleague. Imagine you have to go pay bill for your phone and your friend is going out to do something, can it save some time for you? The other side of delegation is you don’t need to just delegate things to others...you can delegate it to yourself.

8. Prepare a checklist
Always. When you delegate a task, make sure you have your own checklist to follow up. It would be good to create a checklist for the person who is doing it. This helps in clear definitions of things to do.

9. Credit reasonably
A lot of times leads and managers think that delegation is a easy way to succeed. They get someone else do the task and prefer claiming the credit for it. This creates a very bad culture and over and over gives a broken moral to the team. Ensure that the credit is given to the people who are doing it. Leadership is on how best you get it done, leaving others to learn from things and at the same time letting then have their share of cake they deserve.

10. Failures
Before delegating analyse the risk and consequences of failures. You may not want to delegate a task that will involve a huge deal that can change the future of your company. If you are the best person to work on, DO IT. Seek help and manage delegation in doing it. Define the failure items , potentials and criteria so the person doing it knows what NOT TO DO and avoid. Also be supportive if a delegated task fails.. this can else turn a disaster.

11. Be Reasonable
Amit a day ago gave me an example on how his lead would give a task to him without his knowledge of how and what to do, and also giving an estimate that is unreasonable, forcing him to do it. Finally when it came to review and seeking responsibility how his lead would not turn up. This shows that you maturity level is low and you need to grow up to give a reasonable time to everyone you delegate the tasks because they are not as experts as you are.

Read More