Author: Melinda Harrington

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We Are Always in the Sixth Grade

I spoke the truth. It was about a boy and a girl – of course. What I saw was real. What I said became the focus as if I had done something wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong. I told what I saw to the wrong person. The girl was popular. As a result I got un-friended. This was not in the virtual sense. We didn’t have virtual then. I was un-friended in the real sense. In the “everyone else is invited” but now I wasn’t. Voted off the island. Alone.

Here’s the thing. I wasn’t in the sixth grade. I was in my 30s. It felt the same.

What is different is what I did afterwards. I invited every single woman who worked at the company (there were 20 or so) to lunch. Including that one. She had an excuse not to come.

One of the women cried when I invited her. She said nobody had ever invited her to anything. This was the first time. She was the receptionist and we ignored her.

It may have been a little late to learn this lesson but we are very aware of how much it hurts to be excluded. We are less likely to be aware of who we are excluding. Same as in the sixth grade.

 

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Why a traditional IT project is like an elevator

I have never re-designed an elevator. But the elevators in the building where I work were recently redesigned at the same time that I was working on some website re-designs. It struck me how similar the process was.

The arrow points up; the elevator goes down

Since the upgrade of the three elevators in our building, the indicator triangle above the middle elevator has pointed up when the elevator is about to go down.

The analytics department studying the impact of the button pointing up may determine that the user experience hasn’t been greatly affected. Users, after all, are adaptable. Although a few people may have gone up when they intended to go down, they have adjusted their behavior. Essentially we have all learned that if we push the button to go down and the middle elevator arrives, it will point up but go down. New people may accidentally go the wrong way but they end up going down.

I think anybody in marketing would have no problems explaining that this was in fact a successful upgrade. People just needed some time to adjust to the new, superior interface. Any complaints are just resistance to change.

As a user of the elevator I want to get down five floors as quickly as possible so that I can go home

Experiencing the upgrade of the elevator as a user, I suppose the first thing that strikes me is the lack of consultation with me and – as far as I know – with any of the other users.

Had I been asked, I probably would have said that the elevators provide the core function that I want. They go up and down from one floor to another and I would want to retain that. However, they are prone to stopping in between floors. I think that is a bug that should be addressed since the people stuck in the elevators don’t like it. So if there is going to be an elevator re-design, making it more stable would be what the users would request.

So we got music

Music? Yes, it’s kind of tinny and it kicks in halfway through the journey. Nobody really wanted it and we don’t quite know what to do with it. I don’t know anybody who would have actually asked for the music. But it’s there. We can’t turn it off.

We got the arrow that points up

I did point out to the people working on the elevators that the arrow pointed the wrong way. They didn’t seem too interested. They were just doing what they were told. I suppose it wasn’t in the requirements. Nobody said that the arrows had to point the correct way. Now, the project has been delivered and that will have to go in a future phase. I don’t know if there is a future phase. It has been a few years now.

The doors open really slowly now

You can tell that the elevator has arrived at your floor because it stops. And then for a few seconds you begin to wonder if maybe it’s between floors because nothing is happening. Then just when you are ready to hit the panic button, the doors open slowly.

I don’t know if anybody has any metrics for how quickly the doors opened before the upgrade but they didn’t feel slow. Now they do. We can’t provide any data about the slowness so apparently we will just have to live with it.

So in short

The elevator upgrade is like a lot of traditional projects because:

  • Nobody consulted the users
  • New features were introduced that nobody wanted
  • Critical features that used to work no longer work
  • New issues were introduced that haven’t been fixed
  • The people who sponsored it consider it a great success
  • The work was all done at one time and wasn’t ever revisited.

We’re getting used to it.

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MBOK – A team making themselves agile

“Let Teams Figure it Out” by John Cutler.

https://hackernoon.com/let-teams-figure-it-out-eefbf1a44ae8

This article proposes that a team could launch their own “continuous learning adventure”.

I have to admit one side of me finds this uncomfortable because I like to think that my knowledge and ability to facilitate is useful and if people can do it without me, what is my purpose? However, that is something that I need to get over because I know people come to me for what they need.

So, the confident side of me says “This is actually the way to find out what the team actually wants from you.”

The idea, facilitate an activity.

  1. read the article

Ask the following questions:

  1. “What do members of the team already have?”
  2. “What’s stopping you?”
  3. “How can I help?”
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Pat Reed, Bas Vodde and Brené Brown inspired me this year (2016), here’s why.

I had never heard of Pat Reed but last year I decided that I would average at least one MeetUp a week so I go to a lot of things that I know nothing about. Some are worth it, some aren’t. I try to pick out at least one thing that I learn each time. Pat was a pleasant surprise.

What inspired me about Pat was her humility in spite of her amazing accomplishments. She had an uncanny ability to evoke participation from the audience. I had the exact opposite experience at another MeetUp where a presenter kept saying ‘’I am an expert in presentations.’’  Pat didn’t say that.  She showed it. What I learned from Pat is to let the audience talk. I was preparing a presentation for the following week and I changed my presentation after watching Pat. I added space for people to speak. She only had a few slides. She really listened to what people had to say. She actually walked over and looked directly at people. Even those people who are prone to go on and on didn’t.  Because they were heard. Most of what happened was in the room. Amazing woman, amazing experience. She was one of those people who made me think “Hang on, what am I doing with my life?”

Bas Vodde inspired me because he had walked the walk. His book is based on hundreds of experiments. What he says is, “This is what we tried. It might work for you too. It might have failed for us and work for you.” I absolutely loved the simplicity in his approach. His story about “I want to go very fast in the wrong direction” was brilliant. If you haven’t seen that one, Google “Fireside and Bas Vodde”. The Sydney one was great but he has done the same speech other places.

Brené Brown has one of the most watched TED talks ever. I kind of thought maybe I shouldn’t bother going because I can just watch her online and I don’t have to sit in an uncomfortable chair at the end of a long day. I’m glad I did. You do get more out of it when you make the effort in person. She started interacting with the sign language interpreter on the stage; it was hilarious. Brené takes her own personal experience and combines it with an admirable amount of study and experience. I loved her story about thinking that she had totally screwed up her talk and her husband saying “don’t worry, nobody will ever see it’’.  Of course it now has over 24 million views. After watching her talk I was inspired to be more vulnerable. Those real, human moments are what make her so memorable.

Thanks to all of you for your inspiration.

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Thank God You Are Here

On the “Thank God You Are  Here” TV show, a famous person opens a door. Behind the door, everybody is acting out a scenario where they are waiting for an expert to arrive and save the day. “Thank God you are here, doctor, now what should we do to stop the bleeding?” It’s scary for the actor opening the door because they don’t know what is going on. They have to figure out what is happening and how they can help. For a person like me, scenarios like that are very gratifying. I love being able to help. I want to use my skills to quickly figure out what is happening and to solve problems.

In 1998 I was looking for a job and my brother suggested I try web design. So I got my first job as a Project Manager in web design. I really didn’t know much about the web so I was trying to learn quickly. In my first week somebody mentioned Active X. I asked my brother what it was and I remembered that he said it was platform specific.

The next day I was sitting at a board room table with the client and Active X was mentioned.  “Yeah, but it’s platform specific.” I said.  The techies nodded. Fortunately nobody asked me a follow up question because that was all I had. I like knowing the answer. As a Project Manager, that was an important part of my job.

Years later, when I started at a new job, I was eager to get my hands into one of my new projects. However, I found it difficult to deal with a woman in the meetings who was scathingly critical of me. She was very negative. She shot down any of my suggestions and seemed intent on discouraging me. “You don’t understand how difficult this project is” she would say. Why would she do that?

Now I know why. After I worked at the company for a few years, I detected a pattern. New people would be hired and asked to work on projects. However, nobody talked to the people who were already working on them. The existing team wasn’t asked if they wanted help. No credit was given for the success that had already been made. People would judge their work without asking why it was done a certain way. No attempt was made to ascertain if they felt proud of their work. What impact is there on somebody who takes pride in their work when that responsibility is taken from them without consultation? In fact, they usually weren’t even informed.

As time went on, that started happening to me. As a result, I found myself acting like the woman that I met. I didn’t want to recognise somebody else’s contribution. I was doing perfectly well before you came along, thank you very much. If I am missing something, talk to me about it.  I might have a very good reason for my approach. If I’m overlooking something ask me about it.  Don’t just step over me because you think it should be done a different way.

In an agile environment, the expert scenario is dangerous. Rather than being an expert, you can help the team see what they are capable of. You gently guide us in the right direction. But we aren’t looking for one person who can swoop in and save the day.

Thinking back to the Thank God You Are Here show, why are the people in the other side of the door waiting for somebody to come along and fix the problem? They are the ones who know what is going on. Why aren’t we empowering them to do something? Why doesn’t anybody ask them for suggestions? I guess it wouldn’t make good tv. It does make good work environments.

Those of us who are used to opening the door and saving the day need to learn a new way of working. We need to recognise the skills of the people we work with. This is a very different kind of skill that is hard to master.  It can be done. When we do master the art of recognizing the talents of the people who work with us, do you know what they will say?  Thank God you are here.

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13 Things That Surprised Me About China

I took a small group adventure tour to China so I didn’t do much research. I just showed up with my wheeled backpack and followed along. So everything was a surprise, some things more than others. These are some of the aspects of my trip to China that I found most surprising.

People seemed reasonably open

China is changing extremely quickly. Young people – like our guide – are actually really positive about it. I felt that our guides were sincere and open. We heard a range of opinions from our guides – didn’t feel like a rigid party line.

Luxury Stores

On one of those tourist busses in Shanghai we passed a Prada store. A few minutes later, we passed it again. Actually, no, it was a different Prada store. And another one. It wasn’t just Prada either. Not only is every major luxury brand there, there are multiple stores for each brand.

The explanation I heard was that not all Chinese citizens are allowed to leave the country. So for many wealthy Chinese, Shanghai is where they get luxury goods. Our guide pointed out that while his parents generation is concerned about saving for retirement, the young people are buying luxury handbags.

Pollution

I am sure the air pollution is terrible but it didn’t seem that bad to us. We happened to hit some days with blue skies. Just for the record, I grew up in LA in the seventies so it is all relative. Are the skies as beautiful as Sydney? Absolutely not. Would I worry about raising children in Beijing? Absolutely! But spending a few days there it wasn’t as terrible as I expected.

I know there are environmental disasters in China. But we didn’t see them. In general things were cleaner than I expected

In saying that, I didn’t drink the water.

Hole in the ground toilets aren’t really that bad

Well, let me clarify that. CLEAN hole in the ground toilets aren’t that bad.

I made a few rookie mistakes the first few times but once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Don’t expect toilet paper. Carry toilet paper or tissues everywhere. I found it hard to teach myself not to throw toilet paper in the toilet. Also hard to get used to the smelly bins.

It was rare to get decent sinks with hot water, soap and paper towels. I found myself using antiseptic wipes to clean my hands.

Going to the supermarket by myself was really challenging

How hard can it be? It’s a supermarket! But I wandered the aisles for ages trying to find food for our overnight train trip. It was just really hard to figure out what everything was. I bought some cheese that tasted like a combo of white chocolate, cheese and something fruity. Didn’t eat much of that one. Everything – naturally – was labelled in Chinese and the pictures weren’t always obvious.

Tiananmen Square

We went to Tiananmen Square on the anniversary of the “June 4th Incident” of 1989 but the only evidence of that was our guide asking us not to speak about the protests. One of the people in our group saw a news story abruptly stopped on the BBC channel when they referred to the protests. Other than that you wouldn’t know it had happened.

You have to go through several security checkpoints to get in to Tiananmen Square and sometimes you have to wait a while but I didn’t find that surprising. When we went it was really hot. There is no shade. Just a big, mostly empty place.

Lemon Chicken and Sweet & Sour Pork

I always heard that the dishes we eat in Chinese restaurants in Western countries aren’t authentic. On our small group tour we only went to local restaurants. So I thought we were cheating when we ordered Lemon Chicken and Sweet & Sour Pork. Maybe not. Apparently those dishes are authentic in that region. Food varied a lot in different places. Generally it tasted like – well – Chinese food.

Security on the subway

It was also surprising that they had security checks (airport style metal detectors for your bags) at the train and subway stations. I have a passport bag that I wear around my neck with my passport and wallet. I took a lot of subways and trains and only once did they ask me to take it off. Also noticed a lot of people walk straight past the security without putting their bags on. But it was there.


I can live without Google

Think about that. No Google. One thing I realised is that Google is not just google.com. It’s how I get to all the other websites. I don’t remember the whole URL anymore. I just type some of it in. It’s google that’s completing my words. Google is embedded in all sorts of sites and apps.

In saying that, I didn’t really need google on the Great Wall. Or anywhere else I visited. Instead of using my phone as a constant entertainment device, I paid attention to where I was (novel idea). I talked to people. There was a moment on the train when I realised every one of us was reading a book. An actual book! How retro.

I used paper maps. Actual paper. Pens. I wished I had a highlighter. An actual highlighter.

I did use the internet in hotel rooms. Every hotel we stayed in had wifi but it tended to be quite weak. Without Google, I found myself using Wikipedia a lot. I do have VPN on my iPad but getting VPN and Internet access working long enough to actually accomplish anything was rare. I usually wrote emails off line and just sent them when I connected. The pictures I tried to send just failed.

No Facebook either by the way. I didn’t think I used it much. But I was travelling and I wanted to show off my pictures. I only got one posted on the whole tour.

Infrastructure

I was flabbergasted by the infrastructure. Highways were well designed and had manicured plants along the edges. Subways led to pedestrian bridges and tunnels that got us where we needed to go. Particularly in Shanghai and Beijing, everything worked.

Trains

Seriously, some of the train stations were more modern than a lot of airports I have been to.

In major cities, they add new subway lines constantly. We complained that the maps they gave us at the hotel were old. Turns out the subway line near the hotel had just been added this year. I shrugged and drew it on the map.

The bullet trains were amazing. Our itinerary included a 13 hour overnight train but since a new bullet train was just added, the overnight train was replaced by a 3 hour bullet train.

We did take one overnight train which sounded a bit daunting but we had a great time. It wasn’t new but we had what we needed and we slept well

Planes

Honestly I was nervous about the internal flight we had. I was expecting a third world experience. Instead, I found myself at gigantic, modern airports. Everything was new. New planes, professional staff.

I only thought of Xi’an as a place where farmers found the legendary warriors. We were all surprised to arrive in a gigantic airport. Xi’an is a city of 10 million – of course it makes sense that it has a big airport. Walking through baggage claim was a huge eye opener.

Automobiles

Apparently you can’t register a car that is older than ten years. So much for my 18 year old Honda at home. Not the best environmental decision but it means the cars on the road are new. Our guide told us that one of the things that surprised him about Australia was all the old cars. Go figure.

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Cult of the New Person

Let’s say you are in management and you hand over an idea for the “Galaxy” project to somebody who has just arrived at your company. The response is usually: “yes, absolutely we will figure this out. No problem, leave it with me.”

You present the same idea to somebody who has been at the company for years and they’ll say “yeah, but remember when we tried to introduce the ‘Aurora’ project three years ago and half of the customer service team quit because they couldn’t cope with the onslaught of complaints? And, are you sure the flux capacitor can handle all that data? With the ‘Life Star’ project five years ago, it was brought to a halt and we were up for three days trying to get it going again. There are still some issues we haven’t resolved with that.”

No wonder that management likes new people. They are really positive. They are also usually more expensive which no doubt means they are better.

So the new person forges along with their new project. Well they take a few steps forward confidently. Then, they sidle up to the old person. “I just have a quick question, about that flux capacitor…”

The new person continues and it turns out that they bump into the same kind of challenges that the old person does. The flux capacitor can’t handle the data and the customer service team is overwhelmed with all the complaints.  Over time, they become like the old people. Experienced, skilled and undervalued.

Like most people, I have been a new person before. But I have been an old person a lot more. That’s why I am grumpy. I am really loyal to companies. I don’t just jump around in search of something better. I focus on delivering the best I can where I am. I don’t spend a lot of time telling everybody what I am working on. I just quietly deliver. But I get a bit irked when somebody new comes along and says “we’ve never done this before.” Well, yeah, you haven’t. But we have and we did a damn good job.

New people in positions of authority often want to change things. They want to fix everything. Problem is, people who are already there don’t always want to be fixed. They might actually be doing a really good job. Experienced people have a really good insight on what could be improved. Let’s say you are getting things 90% right. Might make sense for the new person to talk to the 90% people and figure out how to address the other 10%. “Hey, how can I help you with the little stuff?” That’s not usually what happens. Lots of babies and bathwater flying everywhere is what usually happens.

Don’t get me wrong, we have had some fantastic new people join us lately. When you are under the gun for a long time, particularly if you are understaffed, you don’t really have time to look at a better way to do things. Our new people have been able to look around and make a few suggestions that are really helpful.

New people have the opportunity to focus. They aren’t being distracted by the old, messy stuff. They have a blank slate. They aren’t clouded by the complications.

It’s not unusual for a new person to start asking the old people to do something. I had something to do. That’s why we hired you.

The people that matter (management, executive team – whatever) tend to concern themselves with the bright, shiny things. That makes sense. Focus on what is important. Except, of course, that sometimes the existing team is so busy with the not so shiny stuff that it’s really hard to find some time for the important stuff.

The longer you are there, the more of the existing stuff you are still stuck with. They don’t give that stuff to the new people. So you waste people with the most experience on all the dross.

That’s the way it is. Until I decide to be a new person.

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Indicate and Check Your Blind-spot

Years ago I picked a fight with my best friend’s boyfriend because he wasn’t looking and indicating when he changed lanes. “There’s nobody there” he replied. I learned to drive on the LA freeways and I know that in the blink of an eye there can be another car next to yours. You always look. You always indicate. Most of the time you are right, there is nobody there. But that time you are wrong might be the last time.

Fortunately for everybody I am not a driving instructor. I work in software. But the same rules apply. If you are going to pivot, you need to let people know. Don’t assume it doesn’t impact anybody else.

Recently I was working on a re-design that wasn’t going particularly well. There was one area of functionality where we could choose to retain the old design or forge ahead with the new design. There were a lot of edge cases and secondary workflows in this area so different developers had tasks that were impacted by this change.

So I sent out an IM @all to let anybody who wanted to be part of a quick catch up to join us. We ended up with two POs, our QA lead and a few developers getting together to agree on the overall approach so that they could each go forward with their individual tasks. Stick with the old design or continue on with the new one.

Half way through our meeting the Director of Engineering sent us an IM to say that the Vice President had already made that call. The decision had been made to go forward with the new design the week before.

It wasn’t a bad decision. I probably would have made the same decision myself. I think he made the decision assuming we were mostly done when in fact we were only mostly done with the ‘happy path’. Nevertheless, we could deal with the edge cases and secondary workflows and we all agreed the new design was better.

The point is the VP didn’t indicate. He didn’t look to see who would be impacted if he changed lanes. He didn’t update any of the tasks to let the POs and developers know of the decision that had been made. In this case, none of the people working on the tasks knew of the decision that had been made.

It’s not always practical to have everybody in every meeting. Nobody wants endless documentation and discussion but if we are going a different way, everybody needs to know.

This happened early in our Agile transformation.  I’m not saying that it never happens any more but Agile practices are protecting us more now. Agile ceremonies may sometimes seem like overkill but they are actually a good way to indicate your movement to a wider group rather than assuming that you aren’t impacting anybody else.

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I don’t think this way any more

Disclaimer:  I was going to get rid of some of my early writings but I decided to keep them because I realize they show that I have changed. ”Journey” is over-used but I have to remember that I am learning and others are too.  You may be here.  Or you may be reading what I am writing now and smiling because you know I will move on from there.

Scrum principles may seem like a radical departure from how projects have traditionally been run but ultimately the big picture is pretty much the same. Comparing ‘waterfall’ to ‘agile’ often assumes a pure implementation of both when I find my own practice of Project Management to be much closer on the spectrum to agile without being strictly agile.

Methodologies aside, as a Project Manager, I take the requests of stakeholders, distill them into reasonable tasks, list those tasks in order of priority, estimate how long the project will take, agree on how much we are going to deliver and do what it takes to deliver the project by the deadline. During the project, I answer questions, make decisions about the scope and remove obstacles so the team can deliver. If we can’t meet the deadline, we decrease the scope, increase resources or negotiate a later deadline. As a Project Manager my responsibilities can vary greatly as I do whatever it takes to get the project delivered.

Within a scrum/agile framework, when playing the role of PO, I facilitate user stories from stakeholders, arrange them in order of priority (backlog). The team breaks them down into tasks, estimates the relative scale of each task and agrees on what is included in each sprint. During the project, I answer questions and make decisions about the requirements and remove obstacles. We deliver work that is tested and potentially shippable in completed sprints. As a Product Owner, my role is clearly defined.

Throughout my career I have been a Project Manager, a Program manager, a Producer, a Director and a Consultant. Regardless of which title I have, it is important to me to be involved in the strategy – not just ‘what are we trying to deliver?’ but ‘why are we trying to deliver it?’

PS:  How have I changed? Since I wrote this, my thinking has evolved. I now believe that agile is a radical departure from how projects have traditionally been run.

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Why my cat wouldn’t make a good agile leader

Suffering from jet-lag insomnia and thinking about agile, I found myself thinking that my cat is very “command and control.” Equating the fact that I was awake in the middle of the night with the possibility that she would get an extra feed, she started with the loud purring. You would think she would be familiar with the cadence. The sprint ends after about eight hours of sleep. No we are not going to do an emergency release.

Most cats are excellent project managers. They remind and coax and hassle. Would they be good agile leaders? Not so much.

Is she happy to adapt to change?

Depends, she likes to try different places for an afternoon nap. However, a new brand of cat food is generally unacceptable.

Customer collaboration?

I’ll have to give her a free pass on this one since she can’t actually speak and I’m not quite sure who the customer is here.

People over process?

I’m going with no. The process is “feed me now”. Does it matter which person does it? Not really.

“Working software over comprehensive documentation?”

Yep. Well if software = food, absolutely. I haven’t seen her read.

Does she stick to the rules? Not really. We have some large floor to ceiling windows and she often asks me to open them. They are windows, I say, not doors. She doesn’t care, she wants to be let in. So I am going to say she is a good outside of the box agile thinker.

In retrospect, I really shouldn’t judge her.  Agile about is accepting somebody where she is in her journey – even if her journey does tend to be towards the bowl.