Tuesday, 15 December 2009

Next to Come

Posted by Sameer Shaikh

21 Habits of Winners

Diversified Cultures of Development Teams - Issues and Solutions

The show off

The next few waits ... coming soon on the Project Management Better than sex blog ;)

Etiquettes of Business Lunches

Posted by Sameer Shaikh

In the last post we discussed the do's and dont's of Team lunches.. today I write about the Etiquette's of Business Lunches. Yes those lunches that you take with your clients, customers, potential customers, bosses. It is as important to have some etiquette's followed (calling strictly) as it is to attend these lunches/dinners with them dressed strictly formal.

If you are with your Boss, Customer, Clients and Prospects remember one important thing "You are under a radar" yes, you are being watched for the manners. It is extremely important that you do some basics / learn some fundamentals and execute some starters correctly. Here is a list of some things that you should take care on Business dining...
Through the post we will refer Business Partners, Clients, Customers and prospects as Clients to avoid confusion.

1. Make sure you take your client to a place that determines not very casual or inexpensive dining place if you are the host. If you are not the host be courteous enough to accept and acknowledge the invitation well in advance.

2. Nothing is bad than keeping your client hungry
Try to be as much punctual as you can. Be in time atleast 10 - 15 mins earlier, if you run late not more than 10 - 15 mins. Make sure if you are the host or not if you have to meet a client try picking them up from the workplace so you can go to the dining location together. This is due to the fact that if you know each other you can choose to save time, if you dont imagine waiting for each other.

3. Initiation is import, Are you prepared?
No matter if you are having your lunch with your client or Boss, do you have something to speak about? I have seen several members just eating and looking at faces. The impression your boss or client can make around with this is not going to please you. Before the lunch / Dinner prepare yourself with some small talks.. they can be anything related to city , growth of company , domain, media or general issues...

4. Drinks and Drunks
If your client chooses to order some drinks accompany him, dont go haywire and start ordering cocktails... the first question your boss , client will have is "does he come to office next day if he drinks so much", if you are the first one to decide then put off by saying "I can company if you are interested". Start with breezers or very light drinks..

5. Whatta nice chick!!!!!
Unless you know your client , boss very well.. never ever go and discuss women or politics over business lunches. The talk speaks a lot about your character and its not good to reveal it for no reason. Also remember that your client or boss is not dating you. Bigger blunder is, if the client or boss is an opposite sex never ask for a Date ;)

6. If you cant respect people who do lower jobs than you, You cant be respected.
Treat the staff well. If you throw arrogance you reveal a very non essential part of your character. Calm down even if there is a blunder, shows maturity.

7. Know with who you are talking
Imagine discussing things that may not please someone you are dining with and he is your potential client... in a sense that you may say "XXX what a shameless city" Now imagine if he / she is from there ;) Be prepared and know your customer and their business well. If you are with you boss try to discuss topics that you are sure you know about... Idiots sound good in movies not in real life.

8. Never hammer your competition
You have to surpass your competition by outstanding them , not by cribbing about them. Never ever slam your customers or competitors in front of your customers. If possible in front of your Boss ;) He may like it , but he may also find you defensive. And blaming someone doesnt make you good.

9. Dont let the check go off
If you are the host then never let your client know the amount.. he has seen the menu , so he knows the cost.

10. Suggest
Suggest for restaurants, Food, and anything that come your way in discussions, never dominate the discussions... listen to the client,boss and see what they want to say...

Now time to go to some manners... if you are attending the business , informal dining... here are the Do's and Dont's :
Do's
1. Unfold your napkin when you seat, keep it on your lap. Use it to wipe your lips and fingers.. sneezing is a NO NO.
2. Drink your own glass
3. Hold the knife and fork in correct hands, use fork upside down when eating some rice etc.
4. Do not order food items that you cannot easily have without using hands
5. A Clean plate is an offence for a chinese host , maybe not for an Indian. You can leave some food in the next plate...
6. Try to give some respect by standing up when some guest arrives and greets you, when a lady is in action it is good manners to d this when they come and leave too.
7. Use the time when the food is served to have small talks

Dont's
1. Keep mouth full while talking
2. Burp or make noises while eating.
3. Picking teeth, sneezing
4. stretching across table
5. Drinking too much wine
6. Just focusing on food and wine
7. Order food that involves a lot of gravy and sleazy material that would need a lot of care.
8. Dont Criticize food or wine, specially if it is a choice of your client or Boss
9. Leave the Dinner before everyone is done and ready to leave if you are with a client or if everyone is done and with due excuse if you are with your Boss or Team.

Team Lunches/Dinner for Integration - Do's and Dont's

Posted by Sameer Shaikh

Team Lunch / Dinner – A word that is used, executed, performed every day for various teams around the world... Every team has some or the other way of celebrating / collaborating. Team lunch is common across. I haven’t seen a Team that have had no Team lunch/Dinner. It can be with the Managers, with colleagues, with clients, with Management anyone. However not everyone derives the real meaning of Team lunches. For some of them Team lunch is:
1. Eating good food at company expenses
2. Time out from office
3. Exploring restaurants with office colleagues
4. Blowing company’s money out
5. Managers attempt to please people and keep em Happy.

Unfortunately, it is none of the above. The very much objective of Team lunch is Integration. The Managers think that there is a time needed to have a bonding between the team more than their office desks. They need to integrate with others based on not what they do in office but beyond that. Thus we go a lunch / dinner out. I thought of writing this post to derive a few things:
1. Understanding the Objective behind Team lunches / Dinners / Events
2. The Do’s and Don’ts of Team Lunch / Dinner
3. Etiquettes – With the next post

Understanding the Objective behind Team lunches / Dinners / Events
Every meeting needs to have an objective; meetings are done to prepare the objectives, execute them or finalize them and approve them. If you or your Team is doing meetings without objectives your management needs to do some serious thinking. A team lunch or Dinner is also a meeting (just a one with informal objective in general and Integration of employees in specific).
The Integration objectives can be including:
1. Get the old and new employees together, make them share a word.
2. Let the old employees derive the futuristic of the organization
3. Share a laugh
4. Prepare team for the next big announcements to come, a casual update
5. Create a rapport between members(foundation of Love and Bonding)

The Do’s of Team Lunches / Dinner
1. Organize the lunch / dinner in a time when the entire Team can be present.
2. Take the Team to a place where the sitting arrangement can give you enough space to move around.
3. Choose a non noisy restaurant, after all you need to speak not listen to music and dance
4. Organize smaller and casual games before food so that team can relax, choose games that can be played when sitting
5. People who are centre of attractions, bring them in the centre of the sitting arrangement
6. Get a helpdesk to arrange a restaurant that serves food your Team likes and can eat.
7. Prepare your lunch, prepare your speech, and prepare your schedule.
8. If you want to have longer time with the Teams, take em for a Dinner as lunch would mean longer time off from the work. Start early if you are for Dinner so team can reach home in time.
9. Be courteous to ask colleagues to give them ride if late.
10. Discuss casual elements of work with starters. The dinner table is not a work place so discuss only those things that don’t affect people or individuals directly. After all the lunch/dinner is to moralise not demotivate.
11. Start conversations with those who are quite, involve people into conversation.
12. Keep one surprise element to every lunch/dinner reveal it towards the end, announce it at the beginning. Remember one lunch should increase Team’s curiosity to join other.
13. Make people realise how much they missed when they miss a team event.
14. If you have visitors in the event, then discuss about Teams likings, their achievements, individual achievements.

Don’ts of Team Lunches and Dinners

1. If you have people who get high with alcohol, do not include alcohol in your event
2. Don’t let groups getting created on the dinner table
3. Do not discuss office issues; this is not a place to do it.
4. Humour is good, but if it is going beyond a limit it can cause pain.. Avoid people drilling others who are serious in nature and can react.
5. As a Manager start with the Team and finish with them. If the lead is not with the Team to enjoy who is going to bond?
6. Don’t focus on just eating and drinking. Do not let people do it too.
7. If you are there for a Team lunch / dinner doesn’t mean that you are there for food only.. Make a point that you speak beyond food.
8. Don’t crack toilet, physical or boss jokes.
9. Don’t make announcements that have higher impact at the beginning or middle of the lunch / dinner.
10. Don’t do your speech when the food is on the table.. that’s the time when Team cannot focus on you. This can be between starters and main course or main course and desserts i prefer the later.
11. Don’t mix announcements with this event. Do it later.
12. Don’t go to the same place where you always have being. They may be disinterested. New place every time can make Team curious to join.

Remember the Team lunch and dinner is for us to interact, bond. Using it for just the sole purpose may not be very helpful. So when are you taking your Team out for lunch next? Do you have more Do’s and Dont’s?

A bad day in the life of a Project Manager

Posted by Sameer Shaikh

Well planning can be so important an element in the life of a project Manager.. they end up planning and risk managing everything.. everything. The profession takes up so much on them that they end up tying up everything with their profession. The more Alpha Manager you are the more this is imbibed in your life. Though planning and risk managing being an integral part of the life of a manager somethings like today can happen.. and we can it a Bad day.

For you to know today I had an expensive bad day. Here is the sequence of events for you to know... tell me where to improve ...

So first I let you see how I planned my travel below:

11th December : Pay the bill in the night so I dont have to struggle in morning

" Booked the cab at 4: (He can come by 4:15 , worst case 4:30, I still am 15 mins ahead of Bus)

12th December : wake up 3:00 AM (worst case 3:30 , i put a BB alarm and a wake up call)

" : Get ready 4:00 AM

Cab : 4:15 AM - worst case 4:30

Bus to LHR : 4:40 - 7:00 - 3 hrs in advance (worst case 6 AM bus reach there at 8:30)

Reach Frankfurt 12:20 by 9:50 flight , worst case 2 with a 11:30 flight.

And here is what happened...

1. I was supposed to travel from Cwmbran to Pune today morning... As planned I started at 3:30 AM in the morning, ready by 4 to catch a bus from the Newport station at 4:45 AM. The cab driver was asked to pick me up at 4:15.. He doesn't turn up until 4:20.

2. I make a call to the cab service as there is no one on the Hotel Reception in the early morning. Cab service says the Cab driver has started as expected, should be there anytime.. I wait till 4:30 , call again. Cab driver reaches 4:35... speeds me up the station, I see a few other passengers, also waiting to go to Heathrow. Bus doesnt arrive. Somebody tells me that the bus might have left. We all look at each others faces... 4 of us.

3. I call the National express to change the ticket... The support office doesn't respond. Then a lady picks up the phone on my 3rd call overall 11th call. We are asked to wait for the next bus at 6:00 AM I calculate 6 + 2:30 hrs Alrite I am still 1:30 hrs earlier on the airport. Bus comes, but the co-ordinator can only allow one extra passenger.. the oldest one takes the seat. We 3 decide to take the Train.

Result : 34 GBP wasted.

4. 6:40 AM Train to Padington(I am still 1 hr ahead on the airport as per paper), I buy a ticket to Paddington and subsequently heathrow 66 GBP. Train delays by 8 mins. Surprise , Surprise.. this train goes to Gliucester and other few stations before it reaches Paddington (Expected time 9:30 AM on Paddington). At Reading, announcement for further delay of 10 mins.. we get down take a Rail Air to heathrow, thinking it will take us there by 9:30 (30 mins ahead of my flight), Another collegue who was with me had already lost his connection.

Rail Air reaches Heathrow at 10:05 tks to Traffic

Result : Flight to Frankfurt off. 66 GBP wasted.

5. I walk the ticket desk, they give me an alternative at a cost of 188 GBP. A flight at 11:45 AM that will reach Frankfurt at 2:00 PM, 40 minutes ahead of my connection. I checkin the lugggage.. flight overfull. Ofcourse expect nothing much but delay. I arrive FRA at 3:00 PM.

Result : Flight to Pune off, Tickets had to be changed for the next day travel, 188 GBP wasted

6. I decide to wait on the airport, instead of sneaking into a hotel. Remembered my last experience when Heathrow was closed at 11: in the night and I had to wait on the airport all night to take an early morning 6' AM flight to Paris. I decide to take up and go to the Frankfurt city. I buy the Train tickets, call the Hotel get myself booked for 90 EURO night. Just before I step on the train I feel a shivering effect.. My winter jacket got left over at the Lufthansa Ticket Desk. I run back and search for it. Lady tells me that it is kept in the lost and found section.. I run to that section without knowing how to prove its my Jacket... lucky enough the nice person on the counter lets me take it back. Its 5 now and I am sitting in the Hotel. First thing my tired mind tells me to do is Blog this experience...

Now.. if you have seen the Actual Plan (Over Plan) and the Actual execution... you can call this my most expensive Bad day in life. I hope no one ever misses a connection

Ownership - The Beauty spot

Posted by Sameer Shaikh

Nobody washes Rented cars - So how do you expect employees to own things they dont think they own?

Your Team members are owners of what they do? Do they call themselves owners? do they own what they do? Is there enough ownership in your Team? You know where I am getting at with these questions don't you?...

Ownership is that action which comes from you and your team when you give an all out effort and commitment to what can lead you succeed. Ownership... Yes, the beauty spot of the Team... its that dimple on the rosy cheeks of success that every Manager wants to see. So do you see the scar of not having ownership within your Team? Or do you face problems getting Team own something? Or commit to Ownership? Yes? My dear friend you have a problem in Management then.

Managers who fail to generate a feeling of Ownership in the Team, fail to succeed in building great teams. The feeling of Ownership cannot be forced on the Teams and Managers who think they can do that eventually lead the Teams to fail. Yes, this beauty spot is not something that can be enforced on employees or Team members.. If you want to have your Teams possessing at-most levels of Ownership, then you need to go dig some ground and build the foundation of it... this foundation is made up of certain crucial elements that help Ownership feelings takeover the minds and brains of your Teams and Employees. So what are these elements that let you bring Ownership in your Team?

1. Fun

A lot of organizations lack this element, which is a prime element in building the foundation. If you come to work and sit around 50 frown faces, that dont even smile at each other.. you are going to miss something very important. And you are going to miss it badly even if you are doing good. This is a element driven by culture, so if you can bring fun in your workspace , in your team, in your behaviors.. you are going to let the Team members enjoy what they do.... and did Adam and Eve tell us that they did what they enjoyed the most????

Add fun to your teams :

1. Have casual times in the work hours so that the Team can crack jokes, feel the humour, enjoy, relax...

2. Dont leave any opportunity to discuss topics that are on and off works with the Teams.. let a crowd be involved in such discussions so they realize they are learning something....

3. Have team building events

4. Small Stress Busting games once a month

How does this help????? Well if they enjoy where they are, they would enjoy what they do....

2. Challenge

A lot of times our jobs get boring... routines you know what I mean? Build this element into your culture that you get challenged and you challenge... I honestly mean that ask Why??? this can help the Team develop a spirit to handle anything that comes to them.. questions , issues , problems and solutions. If a developer says that he is scared of something, throw him a challenge covering some risks. A few months ago YN (Yogesh Nimbalkar) one of our prominent developers told me that he was not so sure about UI development... we threw him a task to build a slide show , he came back with a cool charts functionality. If your culture promotes challenges, you are sure you would have the Team members looking forward for more coming there way.

3. Connection

You come to office at 8

You drink COffeee

You work on your desk

You have lunch at 12

You drink coffeee at 3

You leave office at 5

Is that all you are meant to do? Do you know if your colleague sitting beside you is wearing a new shirt today? Or why your product had a downtime yesterday? Or why your boss is looking sad today? Or why your pair was off yesterday? Or where he is going for the weekend party? Well connection is needed to get this feeling of ownership. If you are not connected to the people you work with, your product , your work , your machine how would you show ownership? A strong connection has to be built, your culture has to let it build so that people can remain connected and improve the connection with everything they do.

4. Love

If love can get a blind man see the world through imaginary eyes, love can also create a feeling of very strong ownership. If you love something you would care about it, you would fight for it. Yes let your culture promote love... for the Product you work on, for the workplace , for the desks they sit on, for the people they work with, for the job they do, for what and how they do it..

1. Max is a terrific developer, he loves technology. Thus he builds great stuff.

2. Max is an amazing person, but he hates programming. Can he make a great developer?

Let your Teams love everything that is linked to your work. Managers, Collegues, Work, Product , Technology. If they love it, they will like it too ;)

5. Collaboration

Improve on collaboration. Dan today told me that he is amazed the way we communicate and collaborate in our Teams.. Collaboration leads to inspiration... people with different mindsets coming together and trying to achieve common goals ends up inspiring and motivating each other. Today we are a global company with teams spread out in France , UK , Germany , US , Wales , Pune , Chennai...just for what we do... even if there were a few more locations and more developers every where we would have being communicating and collaborating more and effectively?

Let locations, people , Teams and team members collaborate.. create an opportunity for them to collaborate.. for instance a travel together for 2 people who speak limited with each other. Or an off topic task where these 2 people have to speak to each other. Easy way on a picnic ask these guys to pick each other up? Do come car pooling? Well all are mechanisms of collaborating.. try em out.

6. Choice

Zaheer a long time ago collegue of mine always wanted to be a Programmer.. he hated what he did.. which was inventory Management and web design. For a long time (3 months) he kept on doing the same with a lot of hatred... Yes he did not love what he did... We then chose to tweak what he did.... we gave him a choice of doing the Web Design with some programming to ease up his job.. which would mean writing automated scripts to handle inventory management at the same time do the web designing. He happened to deliver both ahead of time and quality. Sometimes its about choice, understand the choices of your teams when you speak to them, if they are asked to do what they prefer to do... they would own what they would be doing.

7. Goal and Results

Isnt it important to let the Teams know on what is expected after all? Well if they know the Goal and the outcomes of what they are doing.. they would definitely like it. If you tell your Team that you plan to build a web that will rule the future of internet like Gooogle is doing... do you think people will not want to own what you want them to do? or what they are doing?

Some scared mouses may run away, but anyways do you need people who are not committed to organizational goals?

8. Opportunity

Give opportunity every single time you can... Make the Max do the trickiest elements of development, Let Max handle strong modules independently, Let the Max decide what technology to use for the product development. Given an opportunity creates a feeling of rhythms and growth and employees and Team members like the fact very much... they thus commit themselves to what they do.

If your best developer is always developing, he may unlike what he is doing after a while. But if your best developer is doing different things in different ways every time he would take it as an opportunity. Let them travel whenever you got a chance... they would have a feeling of reflective investment and thus they would want to contribute more than what they could have.

9. Failures

Let them taste failures and stand by them when they fail. Though the objective here is to not let anyone fail.. but in professional lives it is important to fail. Its failure that teaches them on how best to do things next time.. you can be there to help them fail on smaller things so they can succeed on larger things.

Max started to build a feature , he failed miserably doing so. His Manager stood by him and they worked out the best way to make it work in future. Result Max built the same thing with enhanced capabilities.... 2 reasons that contributed that....

1. Feel of failure invokes lust for success.

2. Backup in bad times gives more confidence..

So.. do you think you do any or all of these? If not think of ways to get these elements imbibed in your culture... if you are building a product for future with a Team that will define this future... this investment is necessary... atmost necessary.

Lets Own what we do! What our Teams do !!!

Top Product Managers you should follow

Posted by Sameer Shaikh

Have you not always wanted a list of people who would contribute to your lives? Inspire you? Motivate you to do things? And while doing all of this they stay closer in touch with you? Well yes as a Twitter Advocate I would like to bring in some cool lists of people from various areas so that you can stay and follow them. Of course I do this so I can help you not get snowed under Knowledge Overload.... So as a part of my initiative here I work over next few precious nights of mine to put up a list of people from various areas that you may be interested in following... How about people who create these products? The Product Managers themselves?

Productologist - Blog Link here

Adam Bullied - Blog Link here

Covati - Blog Link here

Lisa Gardelle - Blog Link here

Brett Miller - Blog Link here

JP Fozo - Blog Link here

Abhay Kambale - Blog Link here

Christian Almgren - Blog Link here

Mark Kromer - Blog Link here

Peter Han - Blog Link here

Irina Dollov - Blog Link here

Rich Mironov - Blog Link here