5 Why's?

Good Gramma

2010-11-21T07:22:00.000+11:00

Here is something I came across on my bookshelf the other day. I thought that you may find it helpfull.

"How to write good"

by William Safire

Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.

No sentence fragments.

it behoves us to avoid archaisms.

Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.

Don't use no double negatives.

If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: resist hyperbole.

Avoid commas, they are not necessary.

Verbs has to agree with their subjects.

Avoid trendy locution that sound flaky.

Writing carefully, dangling participles should not be used.

Kill all exclamation marks!!

Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Take the bull by the hand, and don't mix metaphors.

Don't verb nouns.

Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.

Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? so silent....

2010-05-10T14:48:00.001+10:00

Everyone,

I've not really been that silent, if any of you managed to read p66 of last weeks Australian Financial Review silent is not how I would be described. (feel free to drop me a line if you are curious as I do have a scanned copy)

I've now created Endurance IT - the Site is up and running at http://www.enduranceit.com.au I will keep posting there into the future. Although I do have a little work to do to get it working effectively so please be patient. Also there is the issue of adding a logo sometime in the future as well.

Will I post to 5why's into the future - I am unsure, maybe some things that I feel need saying but don't match up with Endurance IT may appear here. In the meantime though keep an eye on the Endurance IT site - I will be putting out more content sometime soon.

For those of you who have been watching this site - Thank you very much.

Cheers

Andrew

Short & Sweet - Slidument's

2010-04-15T14:36:00.000+10:00

I am madly writing a white paper in preparation for the 2010 PacRim IT Service Management Forum and will subsequently be putting the presentation together. During this riveting process of moving from a 'Blurt' to a paper of some quality and credibility I found myself not only referencing the concept of a 'Slidument' but actively avoiding this dire sin of presenting. I do not want to be guilty of causing Death-by-powerpoint.

Why am I telling you this? Because the more people who start to understand and appreciate the burden that a mis-used tool such as powerpoint can create on society the better, and yes I do mean literally a burden. The hours I see people spending working in powerpoint, printing them out to find that there is yet another change to the format, the image, the colour and so forth is phenomenal. This all costs time, money and trees.

Anyway my short rant aside Garr Reynolds makes the point of slidument's in a much more eloquent way than myself so Please go have a read of this post.

Interestingly I have a second conference to attend later this month and Garr's post is very pertinent and has some sage advice I will be taking.

Cheers

Andrew

Take Back 10 Minutes

2010-03-22T21:53:00.000+11:00

Here is a quick tip from HBR titled 'Take Back 10 Minutes'. It is short and sweet, quite simply change your standard meeting time from 1 hour to 50 minutes. This is very much inline with some of the ideas I mention in the Post 'Too many meetings'. Here are a few of the tips:

1. Don't Blindly Accept - Make a judgement call if you should attend, delegate or decline.

2. If there is no agenda - Restrict the meeting to 30 minutes.

3. State the purpose and approach upfront

4. If the delegate is not taking notes their not going to take action.

5. Remember your toolbox

6. Sit-up Straight

Cheers

Andrew

Mandate Morass

2010-03-19T14:10:00.000+11:00

Mandate Morass

Recently I've been listening to Seth Godin's Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us (for the second time). Amazingly I bought the book as well. Both good in their own right, although the audible version is abridged so only takes a couple of hours to get through. It is listening to Seth that has motivated me to tackle this post about the concept of 'Mandates' that has been on my list for a while now.

Mandates! Managers need them, Leaders don't. I have arrived at this perspective after years of comments like 'I don't have the mandate', 'If only the boss would mandate it', 'You don't have the mandate' and so on and so on. I'm not sure if this particular dilemma is a trait of Big Corporation's, although this is where I have seen it most often.

All of these comments have whirled around my group and I as we have plowed on and made a difference. In the way we work, how we are structured ourselves and the fund we were having in making a difference. To us waiting for a mandate is like walking through a Morass, it is really hard work, slowing you down, if not stopping you entirely.

Even if the above sentiments are real. I challenge you to be brave, ignore them, look at your job description or the activity you are driving and be quite literal. For example if your title is 'Head of Technology' then head the technology, head it in the right direction, head off the challenges and problems.

This is particularly pertinent when you are trying to change an IT Organisation. Chances are the senior executive don't fully understand technology, or if they do they are so busy trying to manage the broader scope of running a large Business Unit or organisation that they do not have the time to address it directly, and infact are assuming this is what you are doing.

Therefore you need to lead. In reality the only form of mandate you should be obtaining is funding approval and guidance. Even when it comes to having your leaders stand in front of the masses and re-iterate your message, chances are you will have a big role to play in defining the message, in fact even writing it.

I often tell people working with me it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission (obviously there is a caveat to this - as long as you are ethical and within the law). It's great when they quote it back to me sometime later, as challenging to me as this can be, it is an indicator that they are leading and making a difference.

So get stuck in, be brave and have some fun, lead. If I haven't convinced you and you are going to sit and wait for the mandate from on high, could I at least encourage you to read or listen to Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

Cheers

Andrew

Life of a Diagram.

2010-03-16T23:23:00.000+11:00

Diagram's are central to an I.T. professionals career, be they Process flows, system diagram's, Ishikawa, causal loop etc. Interestingly as you get more experience you will become more and more reliant upon diagrams as a communication tool. In particular the informal ones.

With that in mind it pays to educate and familiarise yourself with the most pragmatic and easy to recall approaches that are out there. At the end of the day though people will argue that you really don't need formal training of any sort simply a piece of pen and paper.

So why would you need a formal approach to diagraming. The rationale behind this would be that using a structured approach to Diagram's in a collaborative session can harness the ideas and energy within a room.

For example having someone try to draw a process flow, whilst another is considering a systems thinking approach, while a third person doesn't understand either of these approaches will result in a lot of confusion beyond the normal challenges of terminology and jargon.

Before we define the life of a diagram and make some reading recommendations the key principle of diagrams needs to be stated. Quite simply diagrams are used to improve understanding and advance ideas. Interestingly people fly in the face of this principle all the time, two examples:

The first example is that of the overly complex or elaborate diagram. Interestingly I see a lot of these diagram's originate from some very smart individuals (i.e. see Zealots & Cowboys). Although they recognise the benefits of using diagram's they endeavour to interpret their thinking straight into a digital form (normally Power Point) and then cast this out onto their audience.

A second example I often see is the diagram that has achieved the goal of understanding quite quickly. The ideas are embraced and people move beyond the original diagram. Often because of the originator's attachment the diagram keeps appearing.

Both of these examples and many more resulted in the concept of the 'Life of a Diagram'. The first example can be addressed by the early stages of the lifecycle outlined below, whilst the second example is a problem that comes in at the tail end of a diagram's life. The life of a diagram concept/approach is as follows:

1. Scribble and talk, as you work through identifying the problem, opportunity or defining an approach to be taken, socialise it with your peers and co-contributors. test the diagram, get input, and then test it by talking and scribbling some more with another peer or contributor.

2. Go analog before digital, like many creative things, writing, presentations, concepts etc.. it often pays to work with good old pen and paper before you go and get digital. Doing this will allow you to further test the diagram as well as improve your understanding and interpretation.

A by-product of this approach is that you will become very proficient in drawing and articulating the diagram. Enabling you to draw it anywhere - on blackboards, whiteboards, napkins, tablecloth's etc. Something that may be pivotal in the case of a stakeholder encounter over a coffee.

3. Go Digital - when you want to communicate your diagram to a greater audience or in a formal construct such as presentations and whitepapers. Remember the KISS Principle (Keep IT Simple and Sweet). The rational for step 1 and 2 above is that starting analog keeps it simple due to time pressure and effort it takes to draw.

4. Seek feedback and suggestions for improvement, this has a number of benefits, one significant benefit is that as more and more people contribute to the concept you are presenting the more and more supporters and evangelists you have in achieving your goals.

5. Recognised when the diagram has done it's job. Retire it to your reference library for future use. Interestingly if you have followed step 1 & 2 above you're fine diagram will always be at hand (literally) if and when you need it for future conversations.

As an example to the output of this approach have a look at both the 'Process Approach' and STO Model represented on this site. Also look at other peoples diagram's, even better participate and contribute to the evolution of these diagram's.

Two books have jumped out at me recently. One prescribing a Systems thinking approach to diagrams Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Thinking and Organizational Tools for Large-Scale Scrum
and The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures.

Both books, although approaching the idea of diagrams from slightly different perspectives provide some great insights and ideas on using this extremely powerful medium to good effect. They do both emphasise the principle diagrams are used to improve understanding and advance ideas.

Cheers

Andrew

Tardiness!!

2010-03-05T16:22:00.000+11:00

3 Weeks in and I miss the weekly goal!!! Wow what sort of commitment is that.

Big week this week, I've incorporated a company called 'Endurance IT', turned 39, picked up some new toys - in particular a 13" Mac Book Pro, and met with one of my first clients, with the intent of commencing work next week.

In addition to that I've just been down investigating the Antarctica trip - look like this will occur in early December. I am now taking moment to sit in a pub and create this post by way of penance for missing the Sunday deadline.

Over the coming weeks and months you will see a shift away from 5Why's and towards Endurance IT. I will shift some of the content from this site across, question is how much and in particular what.

In the meantime I will endeavour to get back onto the weekly post bandwagon. Please bear with me as I start to make these career/lifestyle changes. Coming up shortly 'Life of a Diagram' due out Sunday.

Cheers

Andrew

Past Posts of Note from 5Whys

2010-02-21T22:00:00.000+11:00

Keeping in line with the goal of a weekly post, I thought I'd take a direct approach this week. As suggested by Darren Rowse in his 31 Days to build a better blog (or was it one of his recent posts that gave me this idea), I am going to bring forward a number of key posts I have done over the last couple of years that may be of interest to you.

So here are 10 of the best in order of oldest to Newest:

1. Create and Communicate Direction - One of the handiest techniques I have come across. People who have worked with me in the past get sick of me asking 'Have you run this through CCD'

2. The Process Approach - This is an exceptionally useful tool when looking at improving or introducing new process. It keeps things nice and simple. Going analog on this can cause weeks if not months of continuous improvement

3. InBox Zero - This is more links to a really handy Site. Merlin Mann of 43 Folders provides great insights on sorting out your inbox. Something very handy when you are receiving 100+ e-mails a day. (Note - this fellow inspired number 5 on this list)

4. 5 Questions in 30 Minutes - Running a large team, or inherited one. How do you get to know your people as well as get some really valuable insights on what needs to be done. 5 Questions in 30 minutes was an approach I used to achieve just this.

5. e-mail Insanity!! - Unbelievably I still see this on a regular basis. In fact I'm probably suffering it a little myself due to the recent acquisition of an iPhone. This is something you should seriously consider.

6. The First Strategic Principle - One of the best!! Awfully simple to understand and draw with massive impact to any organisation design or strategic conversation you may be having. Feedback on this principle continues to be quite positive.

7. The GOOD, the BAD and the UGLY - Great approach to getting some feedback. I've even tested it's scalability by running it as a feedback mechanism for a group of 100 people.

8. To Many Meetings! - Add this to the InBox Zero and e-mail insanity perspectives above and maybe you can start to claw back some thinking time.

9. Elephant Spotting - An innovative way of seeking feedback from a large group of employees.

10. Philosophy of play at work - A newbie but a goodie. Real stories of introducing play at work.

Hope you find this recap on past posts handy.

Cheers

Andrew

Christmas break is over!!

2010-02-14T22:19:00.000+11:00

And a long break it was. My last post (below) was pretty much two months ago. Fairly slack of me, although I will admit some significant changes have occurred (more on that later). for now though I am going to announce a personal challenge, which I hope you will all benefit from at some point or simply appreciate.

The Challenge:

For the remainder of this year (Approximately 46 weeks) I am going to endeavour to publish a post once a week.

This is in no way a new concept or idea, it is something I came across a couple of years ago courtesy of Mr Merlin Mann (of 43Folders fame) and Jonathan Coulton. In short Merlin either interviewed Jonathan Coulton or discussed a challenge Jonathan and independent musician had given himself, and that was quite simply produce 'a thing a week'.

Theoretically this should be fairly straight forward - I've a backlog of at least 36 ideas to write about and more being noted all the time. In addition to this I am presenting at two conferences over the next couple of months (PACRIM IT Service Management and IT Showcase Asia) and feel these presentations should be underpinned by supportive articles.

Other challenges of course is juggling work and kids, throw in a trip to Malaysia and Antarctica and this is shaping up to be a pretty interesting challenge.

Your part in this, quite simply provide some comments/feedback on what I am posting, if I'm slacking off let me know. My intent would be to make a post by Sunday of every week.

Cheers

Andrew

Philosophy of PLAY at Work.

2009-12-14T23:30:00.000+11:00

Over the years I have come across lots of advice or inspiration around the concept of 'Fun' or play at work. These messages have been delivered through many forms. Everything from fellow bloggers, articles from Harvard Business Review, management training and Most recently a TED talk.

This particular ted talk was by Tim Brown CEO of IDEO. IDEO are exponents of the concept "Serious Play". I've included it here for your reference. The talk runs for approximately 27 Minutes.

This idea of PLAY has always appealed to me. An interesting perspective I have is that when I have actually achieved this it has not really been done with the concept of 'fun' at the forefront of my mind. This has been a By-product of the activity/task at hand. With that in mind here are three examples and a simple suggestion to get you started down this path.

NOTE - Fun at work should be the default state.

Stories at work

A lot of the teams I manage are involved with the process of making things work or happen. That is Service or Project management. When I first get involved I often find the groups are challenged by issues of ambiguity. Ambiguity in their roles, ambiguous actions that they take relative to others, ambiguity around their right to make decisions etc.

It is because of this environment that the group is often struggling to be objective. The concept of 'Accountability' and interdependence often alludes them. I have found on two occasions that I have a great method for addressing this particular challenge. In short I take them out of their comfort zone and tell them the 'Story' of My life as a submariner.

The benefit of this is that it is a fully immersive story (literally). Taking a team through this environment and being able to provide stories of first hand experience, I am able to articulate the concept of clarity in an environment where ambiguity can get you killed. It allows me to provide examples of clear process, clear communications, and team work.

Although a relatively extreme example of Story telling it has proven to be very effective.

Games at work

Games are a particularly under-utilised tool. I have used games on a number of occasions to great affect. One particular game that comes to mind is that of the Simpson's Game (Pictured) that I had created a few years ago, and have used with a number of teams since.

Last Import

The beauty of this particular game is that it provided benefit from inception through to execution. I had inherited a demoralised disempowered team, which needed to be reinvigorated on all fronts (people, process and technology). I could not afford the $30k plus price tag to educate the team in ITIL concepts so we did this ourselves.

From the word Go we started to make an difference. Locking one or two creatives away in a room, having them carry big pieces of cardboard in with great fanfare, colouring pencils, colored cardboard etc. was a master stroke - the anticipation this generated was impressive. The team was learning to appreciate the adage 'Under new Management'.

Second to this letting the team come up with the 'Theme' proved to be invaluable. Out of this the Simpson's game was born. We then had team members buying Simpson's characters from their local supermarkets through to bidding for Simpson's cars on eBay. The creation of the game rules themselves provided a challenge for a different part of the team.

By the time we actually got together to play the game the team was keene to see what they had created, and the fundamentals we were trying to learn were easily understood. Three years later this particular game is still in use - although looking a little tired.

Play at work

The idea of banter and fun at work is often a challenge, especially if you're running a lead team of senior managers who spend 99% of their time on task, that is focusing on managing teams and activities to achieve outcomes, dealing with exceptions etc. Often a leadership team will find that they do not get enough time together to make sure things are running smoothly.

Traditionally this predicament is either addressed by extending the existing formal meeting by an hour, or simply having two of them. Interestingly this particular format is not overly conducive to addressing the actual need. Traditionally meetings can only handle 2 - 3 topics in a given hour, doubling the meeting time does not necessarily mean doubling the output.

My most recent team recognised this particular issue, and we started to try and work out how we can address the problem. In reality the team wanted more time together, whilst I really wanted a team - one that works well together. Enter the concept of the Mop-up.

This particular approach was influenced by the TMZ.COM team (tongue-in-cheek), agile methodologies, in particular scrum. We threw in some wine, cheese, crackers and an electronic egg timer.

As the mop-up matured we found ourselves having quite a good laugh whilst being able to discuss and address a number of issues/opportunities within the team, ranging from making sure each other understood our interdependencies through to discussing team members performance, as well as identifying actions to be taken in the coming week.

This particular approach really turned the group into a an efficient team. The philosophy here is that teams are not built on away days or off-site events, they evolve on a daily/weekly basis. The mop-up provided and enjoyable bookend to the week and allowed the leadership team to check-in on how things were going.

Give it a crack

The above examples are simply some of the games and stories I have used in the workplace over the last couple of years. They are not overly complex, and as you can see by the quality of the game and video above it can result in considerable discretionary effort from your team. Something all managers should aspire to.

One last example and a take-away that you could apply immediately is the ide of the Photo collage. Have you team members bring a photo of themselves, a landscape from their travels or their hobby. Stick them on the wall and have the team guess what picture belongs to which team member. A simple idea, that can generate a lot of interest and good will within your team.

Have a play - you could only improve your environment.

cheers

Andrew

CowBoy's and Zealots

2009-12-03T16:08:00.000+11:00

Sometime ago I wrote two posts for the Alinement Network. As I mentioned in one of my recent posts titled 'Alinement Network - Missing in action' these guys were hacked last month. Louis has recently e-mailed me letting me know the two articles are up and running again. So with that in mind I thought I would provide you with a link to the two articles.

The first of the two articles 'Zealots and Cowboys' endeavours to explain two common blunders made by people trying to implement a program of change that revolves around a best practice such as ITIL or Six Sigma.

The second article 'Pragmatic Management' builds upon the story of the zealots and cowboys by providing you some pragmatic advice on how to avoid these common mistakes.

Hope you find them interesting

Cheers

Andrew

Elephant Spotting - How to know about the proverbial Elephants in your team

2009-12-03T15:54:00.000+11:00

I stumbled across this idea by accident earlier this year. It was the eve of my inaugural presentation to the group that I had just commenced managing. I'd been observing/learning the lay of the land for approximately six weeks and now had to explain myself to 60+ people.

By explain, I basically had to let them know who I was, why I could lead them, what my lead team and I had decided to do and how we were going to do it. Really quite a bit of content to deliver. To add to the fun the I.T. group within the company I work for was also going through a major restructure announcement.

So here we were, myself and a communications consultant working through the CCD approach for the up coming presentation. When the consultant started discussing feedback channels. It is at this time that we came up with the idea of the 'Elephant'. How? Why? What? You may ask.

The inspiration was a draft presentation I was working on called 'Drawing the Elephant'. It was this pre-occupation with the proverb of the 'Elephant in the room' that caused me to suggest. "Why don't we simply tell the group that if they want to get in touch with me directly to send me an e-mail with 'Elephant' in the subject line."

On the day we did embellish this a little, firstly we added in a Service Level/Guarantee. I committed to the group that I would respond personally within 24 hours. We re-iterated this message a number of times throughout the presentation as well as ensured it was the full stop to all group meetings into the future.

Honestly this is one of the best ideas/initiatives we put in place over this last assignment. Risky as it may sound I have received numerous 'Elephants' all of them very valid concerns or comments from the team. Please note they have not been complaints, or condemnations. The majority have respected the idea by being both objective and constructive when articulating the elephant.

As recently as today I have received two 'Elephants' both of which are to be addressed tomorrow morning. Addressing the elephants is not simply a reply to an e-mail, although an e-mail acknowledgement is a must you should not restrict yourself to this when you actually address the elephant in question.

Methods of addressing the elephant include:
1. Escalation of issues to senior or peer managers
2. Engagement and delegation to direct reports and the individuals line manager
3. Meetings to further understand or address the issue
4. Public acknowledgement and discussion (Without disclosing the elephants instigator)

So if you want to go elephant spotting - why don't you simply follow these three simple steps:
1. Identify a term or saying your group can associate with (use 'Elephant' if you like)
2. Set a response time guarantee that you can achieve, and commit to it.
3. Get stuck in and make this part of your groups practices.

Note this is a bit of a derivative of an earlier post I wrote '5 Questions in 30 Minutes'. The challenge on this occasion though is that 5Q approach would not work on a team of this scale.

I'd love to hear what you think of this idea, especially if you implement it.

cheers

Andrew

5 Websites/Blogs that provide interesting perspectives for (IT) Managers

2009-11-24T00:30:00.000+11:00

I've bought '31 Days to build a better blog' from Darren Rowse of Problogger fame and am slowly working my way through this. I'm not quite following the 31 day principle but am somewhat along the way.

That is I am up to day 5 in the program, and this post is actually representative of the day 2 task 'Write a list post'. On this occasion I have opted to provide you with 5 Blogs/websites I have found to be quite useful in my day job as an IT Manager.

1. http://www.presentationzen.com/ - Garr Reynolds has a very good site on an approach to presentations, he has also written a really good book called Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. Well worth the read, Garr regularly provides great advice, tips and examples.

2. http://www.manager-tools.com/ - I take this particular website so seriously I am actually a paid subscriber. The site provides a weekly podcast focused on helping you become a more effective leader. Paying actually gives you show notes, templates and presentations that accompany the podcasts

3. http://www.43folders.com/ - This is Merlin Mann's site dedicated to helping people find the time to get things done. Merlin is a little out there at times, the site does have some great content on creativity and productivity. Note it is a little neglected at this time as Merlin is concentrating on writing a book.

4. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ - Joel Spolsky is one of the cofounders of Fog Creek Software, he writes on a range of topics from software development through to business and management articles. He does provide some interesting perspectives for the development managers amongst us.

5. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ - Marketing guru of sorts who has written numerous books, two of which I've actually bought 'All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World' and 'Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us'. He provides all sorts of perspectives that provides interesting input to different management approaches and ideas.

So, thats my first list post. Now to move onto Day 5.

Cheers

Andrew

A Fortuitous Lesson

2009-11-22T21:26:00.002+11:00

The group I work within is on the eve of a restructure. Tomorrow we commence the 'Transformation' of the application development group. For me personally this is a significant change. My immediate group is disbanded and I will move onto my next management opportunity.

Some may perceive this to be bad news. It is not, it is in fact a great time to slow down and reflect on successes and lessons learnt over the last year, and this is what I am doing. It is during this time of reflection that I quite fortuitously stumbled across the below TED talk by Philip Zimbardo.

Philip Zimbardo is the professor infamous for the Stanford Prison experiment. Since that time in 1971 he has written numerous books and contributed to documentaries etc. On this particular occasion at TED he provides an interesting perspective on time.

Would you have gotten 1 or 2 marshmallows?

A personal insight for myself is that I am future oriented. This means that I've made a few mistakes when it comes to paying attention to Family, Friends, Fun as well as sacrificing sleep and my general health. Basically a little too focused on work in the last 8 months.

My trick now is to work out how I can use this particular knowledge to avoid making some of the same workaholic mistakes into the future. I am resisting the temptation to buy his book - The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life. I should finish reading my current backlog.

I've posted this as I thought others may benefit from Zimbardo's perspective on time.

Cheers

Andrew

Too Many Meetings!

2009-11-14T22:56:00.001+11:00

I ran a GBU (Good, Bad & Ugly) session with my broader group recently. This was actually an interesting exercise from two perspectives. Firstly facilitating a GBU across 50-60 people, and secondly some of the insights it provided myself and my leadership team.

One particular 'Ugly' that jumped off the page at me was the sentiment 'Too Many Meetings!!'. I can associate with this from one perspective - i.e. my record is 14 meetings in one day. This point aside though it did get me thinking, is it that there are too many meetings or that meetings are poorly run? Or even worse people do not know their role in making them effective.

Obviously meetings do serve a purpose, many in fact. They allow for collaboration, inspiration, innovation, direction setting, delegations, escalations, relationship building, communication etc.

So if they are so useful, why are they so painful? In short, because people are not disciplined, nor do they recognise the role they play in driving effectiveness out of meetings.

There really are only two roles in a meeting, the 'Chair' and the 'Attendees'. Many may challenge me on this with more formal roles such as Secretary, time-keeper, evaluator's etc. For me though, in addressing the 'Too Many Meetings!' sentiment there really are two roles we need to talk about.

The First role - The Chair. If you are the person calling the meeting you carry considerable accountability. You need to ensure a number of things occur, in particular the topic, format, and attendance. Failing to take these considerations into account is a definite indicator that your meeting is in a bad way before it even occurs.

I could in fact write paragraph's on setting up meetings, agenda's, pre-reading, advanced distribution, roles and responsibilities etc. On this occasion I won't, I will simply refer you to the team at Manager-Tools and a series of podcasts they have produced on 'Effective Meetings'.

The Second role - The Attendee (Even as the chair you are really one of these). So what can you as an attendee do to improve the quality of the meetings you attend. The following points are a short list of some principles I apply in my day job:

1. Don't Blindly Accept - Make a judgement call if you should attend, delegate or decline.

Recently I messed up on a meeting invite, instead of simply inviting the sender of an e-mail I managed to invite all of the addressees for a 'Coffee Catch-up'. What was amazing was the number of people who accepted and the buzz I caused in the office. What was this coffee catch-up about, why did he invite so many people, is he going to pay. Yes I was a dill and had to retract - but when you see the people who responded my misdemeanour fades by comparison.

2. If there is no agenda - Restrict the meeting to 30 minutes.

One hour meetings without an agenda are a chat fest. They definitely do have their place when building relationships such as catching up with associates, creating a new business relationship, or meeting with friends/family during the work day, what they don't do though is promote focus, drive and actions.

Therefore if someone approaches you for a 1 hour business meeting that provides no information relating to purpose or scope they should only be graced with 30 minutes unless they can produce the relevant materials.

3. State the purpose and approach upfront

It is not uncommon to arrive at a meeting with little more information than the location, a name and a one liner describing the topic to be discussed. More so if you take into account Principle 2 above.

A way around these scenario's is to simply ask/state the purpose of the meeting up front and ensure agreement amongst the attendee's, this will keep you focused, and allow clear closure to the discussion.

If this happens to be a one hour meeting without an agenda and supporting material. I would encourage you to not only discuss the purpose upfront but to discuss the approach or set the agenda (write it on the whiteboard). This way you can agree the topics to be covered in the time that you have and again check-off and close the discussion effectively.

4. If the delegate is not taking notes their not going to take action.

If you are sitting in a meeting and the attendees are not taking notes throughout, especially if they are clearly being assigned actions/tasks, I would be worried. Subtly encourage them by restating the task, and asking them if they have any questions or concerns about the task they have just picked up, even be so bold to suggest they write it down. If you're not comfortable doing this, provide feedback at your first opportunity.

Keep in mind though, this applies to you as well, note the actions/tasks you receive/agree to do. Following up on actions can only make you look good.

5. Remember your toolbox

A tried and true way to make sure you look good as the chair of a meeting is to build your meeting templates and approaches. We've all come across agenda templates we like, so clear out the detail from the best one you've seen and save it in your toolbox. This way you can always refer to it.

Other examples of this approach include a Standardised 1:1 template, 5 Questions in 30 minutes and even the good old Create and Communicate Direction (CCD) template discussed in one of my earlier posts.

6. Sit-up Straight

I'm a sloucher, I am seriously atrocious. Recognising this in myself I headed off to do some learning. Yet again, I'll suggest a Manager-Tools Podcast. I found their guidance Sit Up, Seat Up, Square Up, Hands up invaluable.

So that is it, a few of the principles I attempt to abide by when it comes to meetings. I am in no way a gun chair of meetings, and I do still slouch when I am an attendee. In any one week I compromise one if not all 6 of the above principles.

All that aside though If you are in a state where you spend your life in meetings, or even worse a company that thrives on them. It will be up to you to make them an experience worth having.

Cheers

Andrew

Alinement.net - Missing In Action

2009-11-14T20:52:00.005+11:00

It appears Louis Taborda's Alinement.net is MIA. I wrote two articles for this site in the past. Louis tells me he was recently hacked and is madly recovering this weekend.

When he is up and running again - I'll post the links to 'Zealots and Cowboys'

Cheers

Andrew

The GOOD, the BAD and the UGLY

2009-04-06T09:38:00.002+10:00

Here is an idea that I have used a few times. It originated from a peer at a management forum a few years ago.

Quite simply this brave soul had asked a number of her direct reports to get into a room with three pieces of butchers paper. One titled ‘The Good’, another ‘The Bad’ and finally ‘The Ugly’.

She then asked her team to provide her with some written feedback. At the end of this session the nominated lead of the group rolled the papers up and returned them to the manager.

Our intrepid manager admitted she took these pages home, sat down with her preferred vice (good glass of red wine from memory) to absorb the answers and advice she had been given.

This I thought was a brilliant idea, I’ve tried it a couple of times since and have found it of considerable value each time. Trying this approach again recently I thought it would only be fair to let you know of the idea, as yet again I definitely got some value from it.

In reality it doesn’t get any more complex than what was described above, you could do this with a team, or with an individual (my recent one was). Simply providing the following description for each of the components:

• The Good – Tell me what I do really well and what I should do more of?
• The Bad – Let me know things that I do that need to be done yet could be done better if I am a little more conscious of this shortfall.
• The Ugly – STOP DOING IT!! i.e. what should I outright stop doing, never to be seen again.

Obviously these can be quite confronting, especially if you’ve just run a hard exercise, made some hard call’s or really just been hard nosed. This process does normally (can’t guarantee) you’ll get something on the other two pages. It is human nature to be task driven, and a blank page under any title will leave them feeling the task is incomplete.

Here are a couple of cardinal rules for this process:
1. Leave the room – you’ll get more honest answers doing this.
2. Read the results at YOUR leisure.
3. Ask (don’t assume) if you can re-visit your feedback with the team/individual at a later date.
4. Ask for at-least one item under each title

That is really as complex as the whole scenario gets. I have received some very valid feedback using this approach, and when you are a mid level to senior manager this sort of feedback is uncommon. So give it a bash - open yourself up to some good healthy feedback.

Cheers

Andrew

The First Strategic Principle

2009-04-03T09:21:00.002+11:00

Amazing, I don't know why I have not posted about this before, especially when I'm looking for things to post about.

This principle relates to the below diagram, and really revolves around the simple idea that as an entrepreneur, business owner, manager, consultant and even in career planning you cannot think or plan strategically if you do not create a gap from day to day operational activities.

The arrow on the right with the black ‘X’ is what I often refer to as the 'Gravity of Operations'. If you operate your group, career or life in this way you will only ever focus on day to day issues, crisis or catastrophe.

Where as, if you structure your group, or even your week to allow you to think in the Strategic-Tactical space (ST) or the Tactical-Operational (TO) space you will have considerably more success.

I observe people operating to the right of this model on a daily basis; in fact it is a conscious effort to keep your-self out of it. I am guilty of operating this way myself. Some immediate examples that come to mind are:

1. A friend running his own business gets tied up in cutting code and forgets to thing about where his business is going?
2. An Operations centre attempting to build enterprise solutions
3. An executive manager attending operational meetings yet failing to manage his calendar (tactics)
4. Managing my own career, I think my output will speak for itself, therefore I do forward think enough, subsequently getting frustrated when my career fills halted.

Gravity of operations is not the only consideration - I have seen groups focus on strategy to the exclusion of operations, which subsequently resulted in a lot of operational gravitas that eradicated any hope of Strategic thinking.

All these examples aside, the key message for a manager of any sort is every group you manage needs to work out how to manage the three strategic horizons. The time span of these horizons are Operational now, Tactical later (anything from the next week, month or quarter) and Strategic six months plus.

The practical application of the STO model (this is how I refer to it, improvement suggestions are welcome) will have the manager focusing on Strategic and tactical needs of the group. Working with their direct reports to develop the tactical plans, with which they will drive the operational considerations of the group.

People will argue that this is not achievable, or pragmatic for all sorts of reasons. That's OK. Let’s say you are a one man band or even planning your career. This is cool, just don't forget to get out of operations occasionally to think strategically and progress your tactical plans.

Please be aware, as a manager, just following this principle will not be enough, management skills such as delegation, 1 to 1's, feedback and coaching will be critical. (Manager Tools covers this in 'the management trinity' podcasts)

As stated at the start of this post, this model can be used in many contexts ranging from your personal management practices, consulting, problem remediation and even organisational design. I have not described the application to this scenario’s here. I’d encourage you to give it a go sometime, it’s simple to draw and can open up a log jammed conversation in an instance.

Hope you find this of interest, let me know in e-mail or comments if you do.

Cheers

Andrew

Imagine presenting this

2009-02-23T11:08:00.001+11:00

This is the winner of the 2009 Best Presentation hosted on Slideshare - I found this presentation and the runner's up quite interesting, and am hoping to take some inspiration from this approach for my upcoming 'Drawing the Elephant' presentation in at the PacRim Conference later this year.

Cheers

Andrew

THIRST

View more presentations from Jeff Brenman. (tags: design crisis)

A Seth Godin Gem - Tribes

2008-12-19T21:55:00.005+11:00

I came across the below Slideshare by Seth Godin on tribes. I found the Slideshow quite interesting, which subsequently had me watching a talk he gave on Vimeo.com. From here I ended up getting the audio book for free somehow?? can't remember how.

Anyway the audio book was so good I've subsequently bought the book - Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

The bonus feature of the audio book is that Seth reads it himself. He does manage to hold your attention and present a number of good points, this is the that I've bought the book.

Hope you find this interesting.

Cheers

Andrew

Seth Godin on Tribes

From: sethgodin, 22 hours ago

Seth Godin on Tribes

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: book tribes)

This is the first revision of Seth Godin's presentation of Tribes. Be sure to check out the notes on each page.

SlideShare Link

The No Complaining Rule

2008-12-19T21:38:00.002+11:00

Continuing the theme of brief posts, I thought I'd throw up a link to an audio book I've listened to over the last couple of days. Maybe it will not be as noteworthy for you, in fact it possibly resonated a little for me considering the career year I have had.

Anyway, it is a good 'Listen' with a good number of simple anecdotes, maybe if you are a bit peeved off with what is happening around you it may help out and give you yet another tool/approach to improve your position.

You can obtain 'The No Complaining Rule' by Jon Gordon from Audible.com

Alternatively if you're not into listening and prefer reading you can obtain the book from Amazon - The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work

Cheers

Andrew

Not Really a Post

2008-12-17T22:17:00.002+11:00

Thinking I should start motivating myself down the blogger path again - don't know when, but to commence the habit here is a quote I came across today from Merlin Mann of 43Folders Fame.

"Apparently, you should pretend to like anyone who pretends to like you. This is called "Networking," and it's why the web smells like feet." - hotdogsladies on Twitter (aka Merlin Mann)

This jumped out at me as I'd just been doing a bit of a career planning map, and I noted that I was not particularly good at the concept of networking!! Interestingly enough I do see a lot of people around me who are remunerated quite well, due to their strong networking skills.

Just an observation - More to come in the future.

Cheers

Andrew

The Art of 'Blurt'

2008-09-30T23:31:00.003+10:00

Often as a knowledge worker you are asked to provide your written opinion on a range of activities or topics. For example over the last year or two I have been asked to provide my perspective of 'Service Delivery Managers', 'Solutions Development in a global environment' and 'Four ways to approaching an organisational change'.

Each of these topics in themselves are quite broad, and could tie me up for ages researching, creating the hypothesis, describing the environment etc... Obviously something I will do (or have someone do) at the appropriate time. What I do find immediately beneficial though, is to simply 'Blurt' out my current perspective on the given topic.

Now by current perspective, I really mean what I know of the topic, the question that has been put to me etc. Keep in mind if you are in this situation they have most probably asked you as you have some 'Knowledge' on the topic. To Blurt simply write, type or use whatever method suits you best to get it out of your head and in front of you, your peers and the person posing the question.

Doing this has a number of benefits, the primary benefit of the 'Blurt' is that you are simply acknowledging it is nothing more than your initial thoughts, and ideas that are there for scrutiny, improvement and challenge. It impersonalises the content and allows everyone to understand it as something that all involved can change.

Interestingly from this point you can decide what medium your communications has to take, be it a 'Slidument', a talk, a white paper or simply a diagram or model for discussion.

Anyway, that's a 'Blurt' on 'Blurts' give it a go, it really is a usefull way of getting things started and doesn't take a lot more than thumping away at a keyboard or scribbling on a piece of paper.

Cheers

Andrew

Reading your own writing

2007-12-11T21:07:00.000+11:00

Occasionally I surprise myself. Over the last couple of weeks the organisation I have been working for has gone through some fundamental changes - in particular the IT Organisation announced some major restructures. The particular significance of these restructures is that they appear to be absorbing the traditional CIO Role into, and making it an accountability of General Business managers. The surprise - well I was arguing this particular point a few years ago in a mini thesis I wrote on increasing the chance of project success.

Second to that one of my graduates asked me this week my perspective on Agile, this is actually the reason I looked this document up in the first place - to see what I'd waffled on about. The pleasant point is I wrote this article in 2004, and here we are on the cusp of 2008 and my observations/predictions are still current. Or is it more scary than pleasant.

Anyway, the above two points, plus my ongoing neglect of this blog and finally the curiosity of publishing a document using "The Google" has resulted in the below link. Enjoy - I hope you find it an interesting read. (it is approx 40,000 words, so consider yourself warned)

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddw4qqk_4wdfmzh

Your feedback and opinions would be of interest to me.

Cheers

Andrew

Crazy Bosses by Stanley Bing

2007-11-18T19:59:00.001+11:00

'Crazy Bosses' is a book I picked from my wife on my inaugural fathers day. Nice catchy title, the blurb on the back of the book uses quotes such as 'fearless', 'sly humor' and 'Bing is Hilarious' - 'Laugh-out-loud'. To be honest I got none of this when I first started the book.

Over a week of persistent reading and the traditional I'll give it to the next chapter to get better the book eventually dropped of my preferred reading list and then sat Dormant. That was until I got my own Crazy Boss.

It was like reading the book anew, sitting down after one more frustrating night with the 'Crazy' boss which included lots of bluster and talk of resignation etc, and the book suddenly had some context. It is a brilliant chuckle, as long as you have someone to compare it to.

Not only is it a good read, when you have the context, it is exceptionally accurate. I was in fact dealing with a 'Bully' Boss and the description of the behavior's, although a little more extreme, and I say only a little more, were spot on.

You are able to breath a sigh of empathetic relief at the fact that this is not a new situation, and that you are not alone, you can also benefit from the differing strategies suggested at the end of each chapter.

Over-all, not a bad book when you have the context in which to read it. I'd suggest this is the sort of book that if you do buy (and don't get a crazy boss thrown in for free) and do not have an immediate use for, put it on your bookshelf, it may be invaluable in the future. My copy is still in use, it has been handed onto one of my peers who is sharing my 'Crazy Boss'.

If you're interested the following link will take you to Crazy Bosses: Fully Revised and Updated

Cheers

Andrew

e-mail Insanity!!

2007-11-06T21:37:00.000+11:00

It's been a longtime between posts, I've got heaps of ideas for articles and not enough time to get them on here. So to get me started here is a very brief and simple point.

Over the last couple of months I've been observing a number of people from graduates through to Senior executives on $300k a year using their e-mail. Very few, if any (besides the people I coach) really have a clear take on the mail application they use and how to get the most from it.

Even worse than not knowing how to use the e-mail as a tool is allowing the application to drive your life. I've even seen one senior executive submit themselves to the good old "You've Got Mail" pop-up. Now I know I receive 60-100 e-mails a day and cannot imagine how disruptive a pop-up such as this could be.

With that example in mind, here are a few simple tips that you could consider to help you with your mail:

1. Turn the Pop-up OFF!! - It may have been fun for Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, it definitely isn't fun when you're trying to focus. (Take the above example 100 e-mails / 8 hours = 12.5 interruptions an hour, or an average of an interruption every 4.8 Minutes - INSANE)

2. Use Mail Rules - this is a great way to unclutter your inbox. I in-fact use mail rules for a number of things - from archiving mail newsletters, allocating tasks to a un-categorised action list through to deleting mails. Learn how your mail application does this. (In-fact - if you've subscribed to something and haven't read the last five e-mails, I'd suggest you could un-subscribe)

3. 4 D's - This is a GTD tip from David Allen at davidco.com. Basically when processing e-mail remember there are only 4 things you can do: Do, Delete, Defer or Delegate, amazingly every single one of these D's should result in the e-mail exiting the inbox.

4. Work to get your e-mail above the fold - that is, actively work to get all of your e-mail in the inbox onto one screen and keep it there. Even better go for "InBox Zero" as told by Merlin Mann of 43 Folders in a recent google Tech Talk.

5. Develop an e-mail checking habit - That is, try and discipline yourself to check your e-mail during your working day as minimally as possible. I normally do this morning, mid day and finally at the end of the day. Trust me - if the building is burning down, the printer jammed or any other urgent matter - They're not going to e-mail you. (In fact people e-mailing an urgent matter in reality are not treating the issue at hand seriously, skulking or being political)

6. Use Filters - Some of you are now (especially those workers with 1000 plus e-mails in their inbox) are thinking I'm full of it, and how could they possibly get above the fold. Learn how to use the filters on your mail application. You can filter by date, subject, sender, attachments, comments, if you're in the too field, share the to field, the cc field, the list goes on and on. Learn your app, use the filters and apply the 4 D's to sort your mail out.

There are dozens more tips and tricks floating around from coloring e-mails through to flagging, tagging and who knows what else. But I'm not going to keep going, this was/is meant to be a short post. You can go learn these yourself.

As a parting comment though, seriously, mail is one of the main applications you use on a daily basis, shouldn't you know how to use it? The benefits of doing this as a busy knowledge worker are phenomenal, even if it is the simple benefit of feeling in control, or even a small sense of achievement.

Cheers

Andrew

TED - Experimenting with Content

2007-09-13T23:18:00.000+10:00

Ok I am playing with content this time around. Bob Thurman is a Buddhist Monk and scholar and is quite an enlightened presenter. What I am hoping to do is have his presentation at the latest TED talks embedded into my blog.

By the way there are a heap of other great talk at http://www.ted.com/talks

This is worth a Listen/watch.

Cheers

Andrew

5 Questions - 30 Minutes

2007-09-11T23:02:00.000+10:00

This is a tool that I developed myself a few years ago when I took over a large team with numerous morale issues. The problem I was really looking to solve was how to meet with 30+ people as quickly as possible and get the highest level of commitment from the staff. In addition to this I needed to get an understanding on the health of the group.

What I came up with was the idea of asking Five (5) core questions by e-mailing a form to my team members and encouraging them to respond on a first come first serve basis. This worked surprisingly well. So well in fact I have continued this particular approach with a number of teams since.

So what is it you need to do. In my case I normally choose five questions that cover three to four core topics:

What is your perspective on what is happening around you?
What are you considering personally, be it impact of change or career considerations?
Any feedback for management?

By limiting yourself to five questions across these key areas you will force yourself to make sure the questions are going to give you the biggest return. As an example I have included my most recent questions, please note these questions were written in the context of a team meeting days before hand:

Based upon what you heard on Tuesday afternoon with Bill, Jane and Pete do you have any questions relating to the topic of Program ABC and the Solutions Management Stream within this program?
Do you have have any questions about what is happening? Be it strategically, tactically, team or process?
Do you feel there is clarity around your role – Do you have any questions about this?
What are your current career/Development aspirations/Plans? (Don’t forget this isn’t just courses)
Do you have any points or feedback to management of this team that you would like us to be aware of?

Now asking these questions without any context or controls in place will also mean you do not get serious commitment up front. My experience to date has been that 90% of team members will take it seriously first time round. By effectively managing the responses and making sure you demonstrate and show commitment to the process you can often increase this to 100% on your second or third attempt. The key here is to make sure you visibly demonstrate and confirm the value you place on this activity.

This in particular means respecting the information you receive through this process, and making sure you identify and agree any actions that need to be addressed, and demonstrably follow through on these.

I have also found that you need to assure your team up front that you will respect there contribution. I have traditionally done this by announcing the process in a team meeting, including the first come first serve principal, and then when distributing the questionnaire ensuring there is a disclaimer/encouragement preceding the questions. Again an example is provided below:

This Questionnaire is simply an opportunity for us to have some structure in our catch-up and provide opportunity for you to express your views. In no way will your answers in this document contribute to your appraisal or the remuneration process. So please feel comfortable to answer freely and provides me with an opportunity to better understand perspective.

Finally the benefit of using such an approach across a group that is broader than your direct reports, and in fact take into account those who report to your team leaders/managers is that you open up a direct rapport with the individual, as well as possibly get some great insights into how their team is running, what/how your direct reports are performing, and finally the overall health of your group.

My advice, if you are willing to take it is to use this process within your appraisal or remuneration cycle. Most recently this meant I was facilitating these sorts of conversations once every six months, as the alternate periods were taken up with mid and full year appraisals.

In the case of the 30+ people mentioned above I spent 15-20 hours on this exercise. The returns I received in employee commitment, insights to problems, leadership issues etc. far exceeded any time or cost considerations relative to the time spent.

I hope you find this idea of value. I would appreciate hearing your feedback if you give it a go.

Cheers

Andrew

Quick Tip - The Manager as a role model

2007-08-21T22:09:00.000+10:00

The ethic of reciprocity "Treat others as you would like to be treated" is an understated gem when it comes to management. To put it into the management context "The way you act as a leader (Manager) will dictate the way your team acts". If you don't run your meetings to an Agenda, nor will your team? If you don't set a consistent example of how to approach problems or scenario's within your group nor will your team.

I've experienced this first hand on a couple of occasions, and have suffered the consequence. On one occasion, shortly before a two week absence I was visibly frustrated with the organisation I work within. By the time I returned from my sojourn, feeling chipper about the situation I had to go into damage control and remediate morale in the team.

With that in mind, if there are behaviours occurring in your team that you don't like. Have a quick look at yourself, you may in-fact be role modeling these behaviours.

Cheers

Andrew

How Win Friends and Influence People

2007-08-21T22:02:00.000+10:00

A very quick review. Dale Carnegie first wrote this book back in 1936, since that time a few revisions have been published and the editors of these books have worked to modernise the stories/case studies on a regular basis. For example the copy I have was last printed in 1999 in the Harper Business Classics series.

Now I have read this book cover to cover, and I can confirm it has some tremendous points in the book. Just that reading the book really did feel like reading one of the classics. It was a bit tortuous at times and as you can imagine written in 1936, it has a very "Gentlemanly" tone to it.

I can recommend buying this book - it is quite an asset to have on your bookshelf. For now though I've included a summary of the principles from each chapter below. Simply considering these principles at face value provides some benefit. Be aware though - putting them to practice is much harder.

Note this summary comes from a Dale Carnegie Page at:

http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/carnegie.html

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
Give honest and sincere appreciation.
Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Six ways to make people like you

Become genuinely interested in other people.
Smile.
Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.

Win people to your way of thinking

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."
If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
Begin in a friendly way.
Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.
Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
Appeal to the nobler motives.
Dramatize your ideas.
Throw down a challenge.

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment
A leader's job often includes changing your people's attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:

Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
Let the other person save face.
Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."
Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

Cheers

Andrew

5 Why's Interview Tips

2007-08-19T22:36:00.000+10:00

Here is something that is reasonably topical for me at the moment, Interviewing! What is the best way to go about it? How about some simple tips or advice in regards to how to handle yourself? As I am asking these questions myself I thought I would share with you some of the answers I have found of late.

To provide this information I am going to draw upon a number of resources ranging form cio.com.au through to TSI (Targeted Selection Interview) and my own personal experience and observations. The point is the tips here are non-specific to any one circumstance. In fact the tips here can be used by both the Interviewer and Interviewee.

That is if you are the interviewer the tips below may give you some perspectives on questions you could ask or the approach to take. Alternatively the tips could help you to identify a way to challenge the norm and really stretch your candidates. For the Interviewee the advice will be quite straight forward.

So what are the key points to an interview that you should be aware of?

Be Prepared. This will involve everything from looking at the company website, annual reports through to chasing context specific Knowledge. In reality the website will give you the public face of the organisation - that is press releases, vision statement, community involvement etc. This public face gives you the opportunity to cast your research a little further afield; a given press release may indicate partnerships or supply relationships that may be of interest and relevant to you depending upon the nature of the role you are going for.

In addition to this there is one source of information that you should never overlook. Your network!! Based upon what you have learnt during your research of the company, check for links to your personal network. Interestingly, and not that I have done it yet this may be where sites such as linked in may come into their own. Go an meet with your contact, openly tell them what you are up to and you will most probably be pleasantly surprised. It goes without saying it pays to pick up the bill in such encounters.

Finally on preparation - don't be overly prepared, or obsessive about it. Going in and showing of your knowledge of the annual reports or any other obscure data isn't really going to help you with your interview. If anything you may cause some concern in your interviewers.

Think of the first 100 days. The first 100 days is when all of your peers form their opinion of you, you'll identify all of the key stake-holders, opinion makers and allies, as well as start to identify your workload. So what has that got to do with the interview? Quite a lot really. Basically you should behave in the interview as you would in the first 100 days. Finding answers to above questions by asking your own:

Who are your stake-holders?
What relationships are important to the role? How are those relationships running today?
Down to detail of the nature of the work and how it is currently carried out?

Interestingly this is a really easy way of breaking the ice. As Dale Carnegie, of "How to win friends and influence people" fame suggests "Talk in terms of the other person's interests". This in fact will put you into a consultative frame with the interviewer and make you both more relaxed.

A word of warning though - don't try to solve their problems during the interview. This will in fact get your interviewer on the back foot and a bit defensive. If you find an interviewer is being a little evasive or unclear, now is not the time to go for the real answer. This is definitely one time you do not want to put the 5 Why's technique to work.

Success Stories. Have them at hand, Martha Heller who inspired this particular post suggests at-least five, each supported by three bullet points. I think this is a good idea, but what should the points be? I suggest aligning your success stories to best fit the job description, and then the three supporting points to align with strengths or requirements identified in the advertisement or as advised by the person who has organised the introduction.

The final step in your preparation is having a clear and constructive answer to one of the most often asked questions in an interview, although it can take many forms. "Why are you interested in working here at company BLAH?". Interestingly, having a great answer to this particular sort of question will allow you to fend off other questions such as "Why do you want to leave your current employer?", "Why did you leave?", "How come your not currently working".

So now that you are prepared, what other things should you think about? What type of interview is it going to be? Is it a free flowing interview, a Targeted Interview or even a technical interview?

Free flowing interviews are most probably the hardest to have a prescriptive response to. They are normally quite a good indicator of how the organisation or individual interviewer operates, and they do offer you an opportunity to lead the way and get your value onto the table. The difficulty is that a good amount of objectivity on the interviewers behalf may be lacking. Therefore make sure you are very attentive to the conversation.

Targeted Selection Interviews (TSI). Personally this approach to interviewing is great, both as the interviewer and interviewee. The questions in a TSI interview traditionally revolve around experience or scenario's. e.g. "Tell me about a time when...." or "If you were to find yourself in... what would you do?". This is where your preparation above starts to become an asset.

The key suggestion here is that the interviewer is looking for detail & insights into your experience and persona. If the interviewer is having to dig to find out the intricacies of a project or scenario you have been involved in, you may come across as vague or evasive. Also do not give text book answers to scenario questions. e.g. "Tell me about the time...?" Well first I would.... You're wasting your time. Give them specifics, talk in the first person, tell them the process you used and finish by indicating the outcome you achieved.

Technical interviews - Conceptually easier as you are not dealing with any of that vague management scenario type stuff. Problem is they may ask you to do things you have not done in a long time. This can be particularly stressful if you have not done your homework and identified the technology or products the company uses. There is nothing more frustrating than being handed a page of code and asked "Tell me what this does".

Of course the Alpha Geek of the office has been at it, selecting the most difficult obscure code they could find and removing any type of descriptive variables etc. Of course we all know this is not how you normally write or read code. In short, if you are applying for a job in a technical role or company, ask your recruiter (or the person introducing you) to provide you with some insight on what to expect. Then go freshen up on the technology or approaches as required.

Finally you've done your preparation, you know the interview style that is going to be used and no-one has ever answered the "work here" question as well as you have planned. What else do you need to know? Two more things!

On completion of the meeting don't go for the Close. You could ask the what next question. I definitely wouldn't go for anything stronger than that. Don't ask how many others are going for the job? who you are up against? how you compare? etc.. Confidently thank the interviewer for their time, let them know that you enjoyed the interview (if you did) and look forward to meeting them again (if you do) in the future. You're job is now done, go and relax.

Finally, remember until you've got the job offer, you've got nothing. Going out with a swagger and declaring success to all your mates can have some painful repercussions down the line. The team at Manager-Tools state this quite clearly in their video "Horstmans first law of interviewing". They make a really good point at reminding you why you've read this post in the first place.

I hope you've found this information useful and good luck with your next interview.

Cheers

Andrew

Apologies - More Soon

2007-08-16T05:47:00.000+10:00

Apologies for the absence of posts at this time. I've been away at the 10th Annual ITSMF Conference in Melbourne.

I will be out with more soon.

Cheers

Andrew

FreeMind - Product Review

2007-08-07T22:35:00.000+10:00

I had the Freemind application recommended to me by a friend as an effective brainstorming tool. He was spot on - it is a tremendous tool. I've been using it in my workplace over the last couple of weeks and have found it a valuable asset not only for creating a broad perspective on a problem I am solving, but a great tool for communicating to others and having them contribute to my thought process.

Freemind is "FREE" software. I can confirm this through the licensing panel when using the software. Of course this means credit should be given to Joerg Mueller and the rest of the open source project team that worked on this product. It really is quite a sweet little application.

So What makes it so sweet? The simplicity and ease of use and in particular the way you can actually use your keyboard to do most things such as expanding and collapsing branches, creating new Nodes or simply navigating around your mind map.

Freemind does not try to be anything else but a straightforward mind-mapping tool. Once you have made a mind map you can then export it into a few mediums e.g. HTML page, JPEG, XHTML or open office writer document. Note I've not had a pressing need to do this at all and have only tinkered to see how it would look. The HTML/XHTML appears to be the most effective approach at the moment.

Another point that has been quite appealing for myself personally is that the freemind application is available in two versions. One for both Windows XP and Mac OS X. This has allowed me use both my work laptop (xp) and home system (Mac OS X) to mature the mind-maps I have been working on.

From a collaborative perspective I have used the application at my desk with peers and also in open meetings with the map projected onto a screen for the whole room to contribute. Talking your way through a mind map also provides a great medium for explaining a broad range of perspectives to your audience, and as it is quite interactive in the participation levels are quite good.

Overall - a very handy application and one that I have already started handing onto peers.

Cheers

Andrew

Note - clicking on the freemind links above takes you to http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Late Addition: Here is a screen capture of Freemind on the Mac.

InBox Zero

2007-08-06T11:29:00.000+10:00

Is your e-mail plagued by an InBox out of control?

It appears that e-mail assumed to be the predominant method of communication in todays corporate workplace. In fact it has become so bad you could start to argue that e-mail is now becoming ineffective. People in fact are starting to walk away throwing their hands in the air.

Merlin Mann of 43Folders has a massive amount of material on this issue with some tremendous and practical suggestions. You can get these at http://www.43folders.com/izero/
The google presentation which is his latest addition is well worth a watch.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=973149761529535925&hl=en

Some of these points have helped me achieve "InBox Zero"

Cheers

Andrew

The Process Approach

2007-08-05T21:07:00.000+10:00

Now this is one of the most useful tools I have come across as a manager. I've used it on a regular basis, from taking over a team in turmoil through to simply thinking through how something should work within my existing environment. I first discovered the Process approach in the appendices of the ITIL Support Services book. As per usual I took it out of the ITIL context and applied it to my own immediate needs.

The Process approach is a simple diagram that identifies some of the high level considerations behind identifying and defining the processes that you may need to work with at some point during your career. It is in no way a substitute for more robust approaches such as Six Sigma, or even Lean Six Sigma. In fact I often use these more robust methods when I have the luxury of time on my side. The Process approach often acts as an input to these more robust considerations.

The Process approach introduces the three core considerations in process design; that is process control, process flow and finally process enablers. By focusing on this approach you will ensure you:

1. Consider inputs and activities beforehand
2. Measure and steer process development/improvement effectively
3. Assess the success of the process and confirm if your needs have been met

As shown in the diagram below each of these sections contain two to three further points.
Process Controls

Often overlooked in process definition is the concept of controls. This includes clearly defining what the process is meant to do, who is accountable for making it happen and how you are going to measure the success of the process. In ignoring this people jump straight into the process flow which may work in the short term but will cause the process to atrophy over a period of time. By focusing on and defining the following three points first you will improve the chance of process success.

Process Owner - This is the person (preferably defined by role) that is accountable for ensuring that the process is running effectively and all those responsible for acting/working with in the process are doing exactly that. In addition to this the process owner would take on the role of periodically reviewing the process they own and driving continuous improvement.

Process Goal - What exactly are you looking to achieve through defining and implementing this process. The goal should be referred back to during the development, the defining of the performance indicators and the ongoing management of the process.

KPI (Key Performance Indicators) - These are the quality parameters and metrics relevant to the operation of the process at hand. Examples may include speed and quality of processing, number of rejects, deviations or even knowledge accumulation.

Process Flow

This is the meaty part of the approach where you actually get to do stuff such as define the activities, flows and all that sort of wizbangery. This is in fact what everyone charges into. My advice is don't, at-least get some of the Process controls defined. Once you have done this you can start to play with the process quite effectively.

Inputs (& Input Specifications) - This will seem blindingly obvious, but as you go through this you will successfully define 80% of your inputs up front. Whilst working the process you may identify one or two additional items or specifications. If it is a physical process you are defining the input's may be easily identified. e.g. building a table. This can be considerably different when defining a knowledge based process. You will find that you may refine the specifications as you proceed. Interestingly considering the inputs may start to help you define some of the resources you need to consider in the process enabler section.

Process Flow - The core activities and subprocesses that make up and represent the core output of using the process approach. Writing good process is key. Some reasons as to why you would create a process flow are:

Describe how activities are being done
Identify where modifications to an existing process might best be made
Investigate where problems might occur
Identify how, when, or where we should measure an existing process to confirm the process goal
Process flows Aid in driving continuous improvement

Teaching yourself how write a good process is critical here. Here are some basic guidelines to consider:

All process maps start with identifying stakeholder needs and end with satisfying these needs
Use either Horizontal or vertical swim-lanes to represent areas of responsibility
Align activities to area of responsibility by placing in the appropriate swim-lanes
Use standard symbols within the Process Flow

Output - This is the final part of defining the Process flow, and is representative of the outputs that are required to meet the overall process goal. These could be stand alone products, resolution of customer issues, or in-fact inputs to another process. The key thing to consider here is that the outputs are most probably closely tied to the Process Goal as well as being one of the key performance indicators, both of which have been defined in the Process Controls mentioned above.

Process Enablers

This final section of the Process approach has most probably been taking form as you have defined the elements of the previous two sections. It in fact is representative of all of the supporting components of a process. These may take the form of an individual role within and organisation through to a piece of mechanical or technical equipment. These two categories become key when starting to implement the process you have defined.

The process enablers consist of the following two categories:

Resources - This is anything from a request slip (piece of paper) through to an computer based system to manage the process. Any physical resource required to support the process is defined here.

Roles & Responsibilities - Roles may be anything from a machinist, call centre agent through to a management role. It is at this point that you detail the role and some of its primary responsibilities.

How to use the Process Approach:

As stated above this is not a completely robust approach and definitely does not substitute for more in depth methods when you have the time. I have traditionally used this within groups when I need to get some quick re-mediation work underway, or to provide one of my team members with some initial guidance on process implementation.

A common way for me to personally use this approach is as a bit of a brainstorming tool, either individually sitting on a train, at a coffee shop, or during a facilitated session with my team. This initial work often forms the basis for more detailed work to be carried out. On other occasions when coaching graduates or wishing to empower team members I have simply walked them through the above diagram and then asked the individual to go away and define the process.

Once you have finished considering the elements within the process approach and put them into your preferred medium - be it a populated diagram through to a powerpoint following the same structure you can start to identify the tasks or activities that need to be undertaken to make the process a reality. It is at this time that the process approach becomes a real asset as it gives you a sound medium for communicating to all of the participants involved with implementing the process.

One further perspective to this is that the process approach can help you achieve a standard documenting approach that can be used as a central point or method for communicating the way things are done within your group. Something which can be an absolute asset when moving on from the role and handing over to your successor.

What next/if/else?

Feel free to copy the above image, or make your own. The process approach is actually a public domain item, as much of the information provided within the ITIL framework is. It is a very simple tool that can you provide you with some tremendous outcomes when used properly. I have used this method a number of times within my career with considerable impact. It allows you to achieve some quick wins using an approach that provides sustainability of process into the future.

I hope you have found this post of interest.

cheers

Andrew

Create & Communicate Direction - a simple tool

2007-08-04T19:29:00.000+10:00

The method/approach I am about to describe is an approach that I came accross during a leadership training course through the company I currently work with. This particular training focused on using the "Create & Communicate Direction" tool for doing exactly that with the team you managed. My finding is they obviously had taken a really handy tool and contextualised it to their local leadership needs.

My view is that this approach can be used in pretty much any communication scenario you can think of. In fact it is really handy when dealing with individuals or groups that are hard pressed for time.

What is the Create and Communicate Direction (CC&D) Tool?

CC&D is an approach to preparing structured communications. This preparation is carried out through answering four simple questions, Why? What? How? and finally So What (Next/If/Else)?

Why are you communicating? Why are you in the room, why did you are you taking up your audiences valuable time? Why is it important that you need to get the message through? What is the detail of the Why? What are the key points you need to convey? The Quality, Cost or time considerations etc.

How do you want you audience to respond to this message. Do you want them to simply be aware of your message, learn from it, make a decision or even pay for it. So What? Is the next activity? what if we don't take the advice or What else do we need.

How do you use CC&D?

I have two uses for CC&D, the first use is my personal use of the tool. This predominantly involves the use of a pen and piece of paper. Divide the page into four sections, title each quadrant appropriately. That is Why? What? How? (Next/If/else). Once you have done this work through and answer each of those questions.
Once you've run through answering the questions you can now decide on the medium that you wish to use to convey your message, is it an e-mail, a meeting a presentation or simply a chat over a coffee. You could also socialise this piece of paper with a peer or other interested parties to mature the message before you decide on the medium you will use with your target audience.

The second approach to using CC&D is as a coaching and consistency tool. by coaching your team to use this approach you will find a number of benefits. Firstly the communications you receive will become more consistent and clear. This approach to communicating within your team will subsequently extend to your teams interaction with other groups, business units, companies and customers.

So What Next/If/Else?

Put the practice to work, experiment within your day to day job. Remember the four questions Why? What? How? and So What? I suspect if you give this a go you will be pleasantly surprised. If you look back you'll find I've eaten my own cooking by applying the approach to this post.

Cheers

Andrew

Getting Things Done!! I’m a Convert!

2007-07-10T21:43:00.000+10:00

I promised a review of David Allen's book "How to get things done: the art of stress-free productivity" (GTD). Now I have to admit I haven't really finished yet. I have approximately 50 pages to go. My perspective though is it is quite a brilliant book, and if I can keep up the discipline required to maintain the approaches proposed it will make a drastic difference to my life.

It's not brilliant in a literary kind of way. It isn't brilliant in an aesthetic sort of way. It is brilliant in the ease with which David presents a solution to a common problem most people have in today’s environment. Quit simply put this problem relates to how to get things done in an environment where information comes at you from all directions and in all shapes and forms.

The initial premise that David explores is the nature of our work today, how it has changed from a task driven environment to one of knowledge work. He quotes Peter Drucker "In knowledge work the task is not given; it has to be determined". I’ve been espousing this difference for some time, but naturally it has taken Drucker’s wisdom delivered via this book to give me a good way of stating it.

It is this principal and what he subsequently does with it that makes this book an absolute asset for today’s managers. Old school time and task management isn't really written off entirely, just that it really isn't directly applicable for today’s environment. Definitely these techniques still have some great ideas and principles; it is just that David builds on them superbly.

So as you can see from my rant above I am quite impressed. One reason for this is that my inbox on my mail client (at work and home) is at zero and has been for weeks. I've completed 133+ tasks in the last ten working days. My team is benefiting from this as I am more present when talking with them, and my wife, LOVES IT!! I have less on my mind and am more present for her on a day to day basis.

As I have pointed out I haven’t completed the book – so how is it that I can rave about it so much. This is because of a very simple outcome I have finally achieved from reading this book. That is the idea of contextualising my tasks. By grouping or categorising tasks into a context relative to your life you can better manage and close off on an item at the appropriate time.

I know it’s surprisingly simple, and you’re probably doing it already. It is the way in which David presents this concept and the process that you go through to achieve this ‘Nirvana’. GTD clarifies the point that we humans can really only manage a number of things internally at anyone time, and it is this small buffer or retention that causes most of us our stress.

Advice guiding you to recognise the need to develop a personal process, and then go through the activity of building and complying with the process is all part of the learning. The tools and catch-all’s that you create become quite a central point to ‘Getting Things Done’.

All of this has lead me to correctly establish my own process, and trusted catch-all’s. I am not entirely happy with how it all works. My partner still picks me up on some things I forget but I am getting better.

Second to this I am already starting to talk to people around me in regards to GTD and will start to toy with introducing this as one of my coaching tools going forward. I can already see it’s applicability in my workplace and coaching sessions I already run.

To close out my very first attempt at a book review I better tell you about my perspective. In a nutshell, a good read, very applicable and most definitely one of the best task/time management books I have come across over the last couple of years.

If you'd like to learn more here are some of the sites I have been gathering information from:

43 Folders: Pretty good site all-round. Merlin Mann the author of this site is in fact one of the reasons I started to hear about and eventually plugged into 'GTD'. his article Getting Started with 'GTD' is a good read.

Of course there is also the official David Allen Site. I've not been around this site to much so far, of course it is on my list of to do's.

And finally - a combination of the two Merlin Mann & David Allen got together for a brief podcast series on 'GTD'. It's worth a listen, I'm going back for a second time round.

You could also click on the link in the top right of this page and buy the book through Amazon.

I Hope you have found this article of interest.

Cheers

Andrew

What! Two Weeks? No Post!

2007-07-02T22:46:00.000+10:00

All I can say - feeble feeble excuses. No broadband for days, kid on the way (Literally Thursday). I will get back into it very very soon.

Be Aware I am preparing to submit a presentation to be given at the 10th IT Service Management Forum in August this year. I am looking to align content on this site with the presentation, that should get me posting.

Cheers

Andrew

"Committing the Insane"

2007-06-19T22:18:00.001+10:00

It is seven days since my last post!! I do have an article in the incubator, honestly.

So what's the hold up?

Work! I am about to dive into a project that has been attempted in my organisation a number of times before and failed. The things going through my mind include; How will I make this successful? How am I going to achieve where others have not?

Interestingly though, what I am being asked to do brings to mind an Einstein Quote "Doing the same thing twice and expecting a different outcome is insanity". Maybe it wasn't that exactly but something of that ilk.

My question is - "If you do the same thing a third time does it get you committed?"

The reason I am mentioning this here at 5 Why's is that this is the situation I am now in.

Some advice I am taking and looking to provide is that it is important that you consider this "Insanity" sentiment in most things you do as a manager. Be it taking over Business Unit or group, starting a new initiative or re-invigorating an old one.

Remember to stop, and learn from the past. Get input from a predecessor, the staff they have left behind or other indicators such as the legacy process and policy. If the past is something of your creation - make sure you objectively consider what you did, and how you could do it better. Involve your team.

Finally, make sure you try something different!! That is "NOT the same as before". This is the hard part, make it a principal of the initiative. Interestingly it can be the little things that make a difference, like focusing on a clear objective or goal, planning up front. In fact simply stopping and thinking could be the differentiator you need.

This is most definitely something I will be keeping in mind over the coming months.

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers

Andrew

"What's in your Toolbox"

2007-06-12T22:10:00.000+10:00

One of the corner stone concepts of delivering benefits via the 5 Why's blog, is the concept of the "Toolbox". Being aware of this concept will allow me to deliver and describe the tools I use in my day to day life, that will in-turn allow you to put them into the appropriate context that will suite you.

The "ToolBox" is central to life as a manager. Much like a tradesman has a tool belt, or a developer has their preferred text editor or techniques for writing and debugging code, a manager needs to have tools and techniques for dealing with day to day issues. Developing your own toolbox and how it looks is one method that can be used to assist in recognising his.

Your toolbox can take many forms, and naturally will evolve as you go along. In my case my toolbox traditionally consists of a combination of books, articles and electronic files. Some of this material has been obtained through academic or professional studies such as Prince2, ITIL and 6 Sigma. A further source has been through organisational training and leadership training, and finally my own experience.

The key principles behind the tools and techniques contained in the "Toolbox" is that they are relatively portable, can be handed out to others to assist with completing tasks, and can even be used personally or when coaching. Second to this, and much like the proverbial toolbox of a tradesman, you may find tools that don't suite, that they are "cheap" or simply downright wrong. These are the ones you'll eventually throw away.

The trick here is recognising the tools or techniques when you first see them and then putting them into an appropriate context that is useful. An example that comes to mind is an event I once attended. This particular event was for New leaders, and the presenter was attempting to explain the concept of "Knowing your values".

Whilst sitting in the audience and looking for a positive thing to take away from this very painful situation, I realised that the technique/process she was describing may be appropriate for a problem I had within my team at the time. In particular I had an individual who was not fitting in, I'd been told by some of my team leaders and manager to get rid of him. This advice of course was accompanied by a list of misdemeanors.

Taking the values tool I sat this person down and had a chat, explored their values and made a world of discoveries. The individual in question had joined the organisation under special circumstances, had special needs and perspectives that needed to be taken into account. Becoming aware of this opened up a world of opportunity for both myself and the person I was working with.

All of this was achieved by recognising a tool, taking it out of the context it was delivered and applying it to great effect. Naturally this tool has been thrown into my toolbox, and gets rolled out when appropriate. All because I was sitting in a forum, looking for a positive aspect to the day.

So how do you do this? As per any good tool, technique or exercise you should be able to break it down into a few simple steps. Here is my attempt:

1. Learn to recognise a tool or technique for what it is - Often you'll attend a course or read a book and think how am I going to do all of this. The fact is you are probably not going to. For example "The 7 Habits of highly effective people" by Stephen R. Covey. Great book, I hear, I'll have to get back to it, but upfront on page 60 Mr Covey made a great point "read with purpose in mind of sharing or discussing what you learn with someone else within 48 hours after you learn it".

This in fact was my main take-away from the book and is central to the concept of recognising a tool or technique. Often long, detailed and hard to execute the tools and techniques you learn about often leave you feeling either overwhelmed or inadequate. The Secret here is to put it into a context that has relevance to you. Look for what is applicable, play with the process, make it work for you.

2. Test it - Literally, maybe not immediately, but definitely keep an eye out for an occasion that you can use the tool, and use it consciously. In fact if it is appropriate and you are working with someone - tell them that you are trying something new. This will open up the feedback loop on the tool in question and increase it's robustness into the future.

3. Refine it - Based upon the feedback from using the tool in action make improvements. One recent example of refining a tool relates to a "6 week approach" approach that we used to complete some critical tasks. Although an informal tool for driving/managing quick outcomes my team and I found that we had to make it a bit more robust on each pass.

Now on pass three the team is looking to make it even more robust into the future (You'll probably hear about this in more detail on 5 Why's in the not to distant future). In fact I'm finding that a lot of my commonly used approaches, if not in electronic form already are fast heading that way. This is refining at work.

4. Make it accessible - As per the tradesman's tool-belt or box, make it accessible, keep it close at hand. I don't mean in your pocket, but definitely somewhere that you can get to within a working day, or the next day at the latest. This in fact can be quite difficult if it is in a book, or article that can only be in one place at a time. If this is the case - do as I do, and convert it into an electronic form that you can readily access.

5. USE IT!! Check it, and refine it. - This is the key to your toolboxes success. My real toolbox the one with the hammers, screwdrivers and stuff in it is actually in quite a state of disrepair. This is due to the fact that I am not a handyman (much to my wife's amusement). My Management "Toolbox" is quite different, it's constantly being changed, updated and reviewed. This of course is primarily achieved through USING IT.

So that's it, that's the concept of the Management "Toolbox". Over the coming the weeks and months, amongst the book reviews, and other things I intend to bring out some of the tools and techniques I use in my professional and personal life. My hope is that you find some of them useful and that in fact you add some of them to your own toolbox.

Let me know if you found this article of interest.

Cheers

Andrew

The Benefits of 'Why'?

2007-06-08T17:58:00.000+10:00

Just a short note, I'll be out with a longer blog in the not to distant future. The quick point I wanted to drop in here relates to the concept of 5 Why's. If you look at Wikipedia's definition of 5 Why's it predominantly focuses on the approach as a method used to explore the cause/effect relationships underlying a particular problem, what it fails to mention is the benefits of such an approach.

Why am I telling you this? Well reading David Allen's book "How to Get Things done - The art of Stress-free Productivity" I came across a nice succinct answer on page 63. As I've referenced David above, let me quote some of the benefits he identifies:

It defines success.
It creates decision-making criteria.
It aligns resources.
It motivates.
It clarifies focus.
It expands options.

David does define each of the points above in greater detail, for the purpose of this post though I simply thought it effectively highlighted the elegance of the 5 Why technique.

Give it a go.....

Let me know if you agree, maybe we'll do something about the Wikipedia entry.

Cheers

Andrew

Why 5 Why's?

2007-06-04T22:06:00.000+10:00

Well, wasn't this a long time in the making, I created this Blogspot account in May '06 and here I am in June '07 starting to write. My biggest consideration was working out the approach/angle I was going to take. So here I am finally launching 5 Why's, a blog that I hope can provide an avenue for me to share some of my perspective on life as a professional IT manager, and provide you with some of the tools and techniques that I use to get me by.

So Why "5 Why's"? The response to this question in the simplest form is that I solve problems for a living and "5 Why's" seemed to be quite a relevant problem solving technique. Wikepedia (5 Whys), actually points to the formal origin of this technique, were as I like to identify it as one of the first techniques we learn and the first we forget.

Who out there has been questioned by a 5 year old kid? What is it they ask? WHY? and they'll ask it time and time again. As a busy adult we may dismiss this questioning or if we are aware of it we may enjoy teasing the kid. But I have to ask, have you ever used it in your adult professional life? It can be quite an effective way of getting to the root cause of a problem.

Why's aside, it is my hope that I can, via this blog, provide an outlet for me to share some of my experiences and approaches I have used to solve everyday problems. This may range from creating and communicating direction for my team, to coaching, career development or on a larger scale dealing with a project off the rails or sorting out performance issues within a high pressure environment.

All of this will be based upon pragmatic application of techniques I have obtained through the professional training provided by my company, ITIL, PRINCE2 and graduate studies at MGSM. The content will include articles on things such as "Dancing with Dilbert", How to improve project success and creating a Mandate. It is also my intention to provide reviews of books I use and their applicability to your work, and the tools or techniques that I find useful in my day to day job.

My personal reason for doing this? To simply try and give something back, to a broader community. I hope you find something useful here over the coming months. Remember I am new to this, learning constantly and would love your feedback as I go along.

Cheers

Andrew