Make your Team Innovative, but wait invest first!!!

After my post yesterday on Independence - A way to empower a colleague over a chat asked me..."Do you think Independence only will lead to new Ideas, Innovations?" The answer I am very sure about.. "NO". I believe Independence is a vehicle that you give to your Team to reach the milestones faster.. how they drive it, how they handle speed and consequences is built using a culture... We all call it Company Culture that's one thing that drives Innovation... Some say that cultures with freedom and Independence drive Innovation, I disagree.. even red carpet company cultures can drive strong Innovation...

A few years ago I worked with a company where I was not supposed to access any social networking web site, however I was building one... The Team of 15 developers was building something that they could not compare with the competition.... quite a few developers raised this issue, they were blocked to use chat tools, social sites, forums and god knows what not.. I only realised how Innovative people can be in such red carpet zones, when I found that they have figured a way to proxy requests using a custom made java app... only in a few years of time that type of product became one loved by red carpet companies, people called web routing.

So how does one build this culture so people can innovate? Well its an investment, and if you need to reap the benefits of Innovation and Innovative teams you need to sow the seeds of investment first....

1. Encourage your Teams to interact more, if they aint doing it, Ask them to do it.

2. Remove the fear, The fear of failure or complexity is a killer. Kills anything on its way.. let them wander freely...

3. Celebrate failure, Learn how to fail. If you do so, you would be able to find the reasons of failures and improve..

4. Encourage people to get off their desks, meet informally. If you think that is not working out well... organize small events in office where they can be fun and casual.

5. Think long term. Your Innovation is not finished in next quarter. Tell them that you are looking for beyond future

6. Involve as many people as you can, when you share Ideas and innovations... more the people, more the benefits.

7. Learn and encourage the art of brainstorming. Train them to jump into conversations, debates

8. Find ways to learn and share the learning's.

9. Find problems, Share problems, find ways to work out... make them work.

10. Reward both individual and groups. Innovate Innovation heroes

11. Remove blockages that stop people from communicating , innovating.

12. Train them to think above growth, money and success

13. Learn to say " I failed". learn to say "No" . Learn to say "I will"

14. Ensure that they understand that only thing secretive at workplace is "Agatha Christie's novel kept in the library"

A few things that you can start with to foster a Innovation culture or as well build a company culture to Innovate...

Remember to make Best Products , best processes , Best People... you need to invest first!!!!!

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Independence - A way to empower

Leadership or Management, its all about vision, goals and success. Leadership take a long term destination to achieve broader goals, Management helps achieve it. One of the key elements of this piece which we call achieving Success is "Team". Its the Team that really decides the fate of a successful leader. A quote from the famous movie Armageddon where Bruce Willis tells Truman...

" I am the best, because I work with the Best"

So if this Team is so important, how does one ensure they become best? I found a way all through the past few years... the word Empower. A theoretical meaning says "to equip, to supply with necessary things to achieve a goal, to enable , to permit" a practical meaning much more than that...A Team that is empowered can make decisions, can do things right and can build a powerful ground to achieve organizational goals.

In a team lunch we recently had for the new members of the Team, I asked "How does it feel like to be with us?" he replied "Amazing!, I have never seen such level of Independence, in all the companies I have worked with" another colleague replied "I begin my career where my Boss let me do a lot of things on my own, demos , meetings, development and so many other things, I feel that I got those days back". I am thrilled that the Team that is merely 3 weeks old, realize the culture we imbibe in people "Independence" in narrow lanes, Empowerment on a highway.

I realized the importance of Independence when I took up my first job... Teaching I was supposed to teach a class of 10 people on computer topics "Microsoft Excel" to be precise. It was my first day and first ever experience of taking a lecture, my Guide and Sr. tutor chose to sit along with the class to see how I do. The class lasted for 40 mins, I shivered the whole time, fumbled. She walked to me and said, next time she would not need to be in the class as I was doing good, she also let me design my own breakups of the lectures. Believe me this inspired me so much and helped me to a level that it wasnt difficult for me to train corporates in a very short span of time.

A small piece of Independence can help empower the Team members to take complex things to ease. Interesting isnt it?

• Independence to work in their own ways , but within the boundaries



• Independence to make decisions, to make those decisions better



• Independence to execute , and yield good results



• Independence to build strong self, while helping others to be strong

Independence makes a lot of things better. Helps in empowering the Teams to be more strong, more powerful, more effective....

So how does one give more Independence to the Team?

1. Assign tasks that will allow your subordinates to grow and take on additional responsibilities. let them decide the execution paths. This will build a lot of confidence in them.

2. Explain them the task and the goal of the task and what is it that they can achieve out of it, let them decide what is best in it for themselves.

3. Challenge and get Challenged. Ask questions that will help them realise and be more effective if they are falling apart. Let them ask questions so they know what is it.

4. Trust their decisions, stand by it.

5. Be a part of criticism and appreciation wherever needed.

6. Help them when they fail, but help let them succeed after they fail.

After all an empowered Team member is what can make life easier for a bigger piece of your Team.

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Stop fitting pieces, You may break!

Of the busy work schedules I took my time off to meet the old time friend @aranhas007, he had been off lately very busy with doing some product development and we discussed on some cool ideas. One of the stuff we ended up debating on was FourSquare v/s Facebook Places.. yes the location driven services.. the question came in where we asked "Do fitting successful pieces into a product succeed?" I doubt looking at what Google tried in the last few years through Wave , Orkut and Buzz... it doesn't seem that you can club successful pieces and make one big hell of a product.

A serious given thought reminds me that whoever tried to do such thing never succeeded in making it big.. for various reasons... A lot of people think that cloning or replicating or milking a small idea is an easier thing to do, because all you got to do then is follow a model and execute... sigh!!!! if that had worked I would have read a biography of a few legends and would have by now qualified to become a Noble prize winner. Well cloning failures not only applies to product but also companies and their models...

A few days ago I heard a few comments while discussing organizational cultures, comments like

"In X company one is allowed to do this, that and this. Why don't we learn from them "

"People in X company get Y and Z, and they can also do X"

"Why not take good parts of Google, Microsoft and become one great company?"

Well that doesn't work. Does it? Steve Jobs when doing any announcements to his product family would wear the regular turtle neck with his denim, while Microsoft CEO would be in a suit...

Now can you make a Steve Jobs wear a suit on the launch and get a Windows out?

Well no its a different culture, model and process... you cant just fit 2 odd things together.. even though some law say that "Opposite poles match"

So why does this bringing together small pieces not really work?

1. Models are different

If the models and types of products are different, they ain't going to let you succeed instead they are going to add up to the Technical and maintenance liability. For instance just because the location driven services are hot, you cannot buy one service or build one to your product that is purely a non-content product!!.

Business, Development and Product Models define the vision and future and they cant be built in pieces from various successful models.. they have to be unique in order to succeed. A NON - REPLICA in other words...

2. Size

Size of the user base, company , executors affect the ability to join pieces. A smaller company or Team will find it easier to adapt to building or fitting in multiple pieces as opposed to a larger one. It does matter when it comes to adapting and executing with results when the time between former and later is too short.

3. Culture

This is a driver. Try making a few traditional SDLC developers execute a lean process. You will find resistance. The culture to adapt change is key. If this culture exists and prevails in your system it is possible to achieve some level of success in fitting in pieces. The culture to build, FAIL, and Change need to exists and most of the time some of these do not. People who have been able to join pieces of successful models and succeed, have a great culture that is blended with ability to FAIL, LEARN and CHANGE.

4. People

Finally , you can replicate products, ideas, tools , processes.... what made all these are the people.. and it is not easy to replicate them.

Now if you are thinking that you may pull a Agile + Waterfall + Six Sigma to build a very strong process for your company.. you maybe wrong.

If you are thinking that you will bring a twitter and a Youtube together to build a new realtime streaming product, You maybe wrong.

If you are thinking to bring Senior Managers from 10 different companies to make your company successful. You maybe wrong.

You maybe able to utilise small pieces to build one good thing, but you cant just pull a great future out of it. It has to evolve and evolve and become one unique thing to succeed.

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And you become a Project Manager!!!

One stormy windy night, when lightening strikes the roof, you are deep in sleep with a dream that takes you to a deathly hallow... sound of serendipity all over your ears, voices of shallow deaths all over the world.. a dark cloud starts covering the world and with a bang there strikes a lightening right at your left foot... gives you the power of a Knight and makes you take the oath as a Templar.. there with a bang the time stops... and there

"YOU BECOME A PROJECT MANAGER"

Well not really... its not that dramatic, nor that simpler to be a Project Manager... but then how does one really become a Project Manager?

1. You take your vision to the next level and give every project participant a feel of ownership of the project.

2. You tell them what, when and how of the future of the project is going to be.

3. You communicate effectively and timely.

4. You communicate to your team and alert them when they are going to make a mistake.

5. You stop them to think, You kick start them to march

6. You share the same page with every one on the project

7. You make them believe that it is achievable

8. You make them execute in the way it is most beneficial

9. You think every moment of time that 1 line of code you would want to write

10.You start staying over night to plan tasks for others for the next day.

11. Your list of TODO is always bigger than the size of your monitors

12. Your mailbox is full of unread emails

13. Your calendar buzzes you every 2 hrs about a meeting that starts in 15 minutes

14. You buy gadgets to ease your job, You dont use it because they are an effort to setup.

15. You think of Orange , Green and Red all the time

16. You start your day early and you end it late.

17. Weekend is a extra day you get to complete the pending tasks

18. You are always busy, when it comes to friends and family

19. Until the moment of failure, you believe you will succeed

20. You drink coffee like water, and water like coffee

21. You think Lunch hour is the best hour to send the pending email responses.

22. You think meetings are a waste, when they dont expedite the project

23. You always feel you are short of resources

24. You think you need to know what's involved and what's not involved in the project.

25. You started to like this word DONE.

If you see the above few symptoms in you, You bet you are turning to be ONE HELL of a Project Manager.... but wait.... remind yourself of those things that takes you away from been a Project manager....

1. You hold a weekly status update with the Team and next day you fire a email to check status of your Team

2. You call in , walk to , or chat with one of your team members 5 minutes to 5 about something very critical that you told him/her that you wanted to discuss in the morning

3. You schedule multiple meetings with your Team members who are on tight deadlines. Just to ask same questions.

4. You cannot make a decision and you think that pushing the decision on others court will get you away from it.

5. You want your Team to think out of the box and code and develop fast, even if requirements are not defined or present.

6. You think every one is wasting their time, and everything was supposed to be completed yesterday.

7. The only thing you want to hear is "It is Done"

8. When one person in your Team quits, you think the task can be handled by the person next in the alphabetical order

9. You like to change the resources, scope, budget but not the time

10. Quality means BUG FREE to you

11. You have a meeting with Project Teams, just so that you can summarize in black and white on what you want them to do.

12. You look and ask for only those options that you know are not feasible

13. You assign someone 2 tasks at the same time 1 with highest priority and then check on the other task every day

14. You think you are the one working hard than anyone else.

15. You switch on teams tasks depending on the angry emails you receive

16. You compare the planned date Vs the Actual date

If any of the above symptoms are nearing you, You need to get into a meditation mode and think of Project Nirvana... because these things are just going to turn your project into a miserable experience....

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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.

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How to handle a Bad Appraisal?

There is a time each year when each one of us undergoes the very very critical thing in our professional lives... Performance Review and Appraisal. Believe me it is as much of a hell for the person under going it as it is for the person doing it. Performance review no matter how much ever clear definitions of Key Result Areas are, how much ever clear review a performer undergoes through... Performance review can be most depressing. Though the name is suggestive enough to be inspiring, in reality this is the most critical phase that see's low moral for a lot of employees.

I have undergone a few really bad performance reviews and undergone some of the best ones.. Here I wish to share the experience and things to do.. so for those who come under such situation can maybe get some help handling the situation...

1. Dont gather conclusions, gather facts

The immediate and worse issue of any bad appraisal is the fact that the employee draws immediate conclusions to them... X person was favoured. Y is a useless manager, Z things were not considered correctly and so on. Conclusions drawn in haste cause a mental trauma in the post bad appraisal period. In the influence of quick drawn conclusions the intention of appraisal is missed out and you forget to enjoy the real benefits you draw from the whole process.

2. Speak up, Open up and ask questions without been defensive

A lot of bad appraisals happen because the employees are not communicative enough. It is important that post bad appraisal a clear time is given to thought and the reaction to the appraisal is communicated to the Appraiser in the best possible way. If certain task done by you had issues try to ask for what and how. Getting defensive is the worst mistake a lot of people do.. causing a wrong impression in the mind of the appraiser. Stand back, take time, collect the details of the points that affect negatively and communicate more on those topics, rather defending on what best things you did.

3. Comparison is outdated

The misery of a bad appraisal is a conflict that arises between colleagues. A developer working in my team earlier would not care as much about his own appraisal as he would for the rest of the people in the Team. Resulted in his best appraisals also sounded like the worst of his own appraisal. Comparison of reviews and appraisals is a waste of energy and effort.

4. Mobs are destructive

A bad or good review when discussed in a mob turns ugly. This is such a topic that when it meets the group it turns like ammonia smelling from a rose. I once gave a real time example to a friend on how mob can be destructive in making, drawing and converting a good thing to a worst thing....

A friend of mine wanted to discuss with us when he wanted to marry a girl he liked.. he wanted his friends to suggest him if he was doing a right thing.. and he raised this when everyone met together and were drunk... To the likes and dislikes of each soul he got several questions.. a few of them made him take back his decision and in turn loose the love of his life. The questions and suggestions he got ranged from "Is she a virgin? How is it possible?" to "I think she dominates you" and "I think she is less beautiful than your ex"... whoa... how destructive can a mob get on sensitive topics? Well I would put this topic for future sometime on why...

5. Review, Reform and Analyse

A lot of bad performances result in bad decisions and steps too... The first thing to do after a bad appraisal is to review yourself, understand what went good and what went bad. Analyse and try to structure an action path. This should include those retrospectives that you missed in your offence.

6. Calculate Growth

Review and calculate the growth options for yourself. A lot of people turn to change or hop jobs thinking that their bad review or appraisal is a step towards there demise. Try to ask and identify what and how much you mean to the Team or the organization. Check for your growth options and evaluate if those options would make you happy for future.

7. Communicate

The disaster that causes the post bad review period is the communication. Sitting with a frown face, reacting with a negative mood, not co-operating or bitching around are the symptoms that show the true professional value or ethics you carry. Communicate in a effective and direct way with the appraiser with positive and strong annotations about your expectations and also about what you intend to do. This helps in building a strong relationship at the same time concluding the ethical values of a professional attitude.

8. Dig the reality than building the dream palaces

Unlike drawing conclusions the post bad review period forces anyone to build palaces of assumptions that can very well hurt the morale not only for self but for others. A reality check is necessary.. what , How , Why and When are the legitimate questions to ask for.

9. Never spread negativity

A lot of people are due to spread negativity about bosses, about organization, about people about appraisers and many more such thing... this is the most ugly thing to do and get known for doing it.. Causes the fact that your image gets built as a Bad influence... And this impression can cause more troubles than console anything else. Bitching about people, blaming others, cribbing and similar acts are symptoms of this.

10. Stand up, Back it up

The stand someone takes in times of disasters is a stand well appreciated. Stand up and support the backend system instead of blaming it. This is the right time when your influence is seen and your potential identified.

Well of course there are quite a few more to do things that can get you out of the bad review mood.. the important element is here to assert the reality and do a check of what is good and what is bad... For a bad appraisal may just be waiting on another turn you intend to take or another path you want to draw.... or maybe you would be on another side of the table .. reading or doing a Google search for such topics on how to handle the Teams... As Managers it is important that you are motivated and prepared to handle this...

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