JT Pedersen

Constraints Add Color to Your Life

JT — Thu, 10 May 2012 22:30:29 +0000

Last month, I wrote about the topic of constraints (Do You Artificially Constrain Yourself?). The topic’s not discussed that often, so I was mildly surprised today, when I came across two independent discussions of constraints. One was by Chris Brogan (Constraints). A second was by recognized photographer, C. J. Chilvers (www.alesserphotographerbook.com).

Both of their articles, or manifesto in Chilvers’ case, are well-worth your taking the time to read. Why? Because I think most of us do not take the time to really appreciate the constraints we work with in our lives.

It’s not just the constraints but the lack of constraints in some cases.

Chilvers spends some time talking about how he and a friend ran into two other photographers in the wild, while on a photography hike. The four of them started talking about the gear they had, the different cameras, the different lenses they had, why they were in love with whichever…only to notice something. Here they were, four photographers, in the most incredible outdoor photo gallery, pictures ripe for the picking, yet they’re sitting around talking about their gear, their constraints.

Professionally, I know I’ve encountered similar things. Ever go to a business meeting and, rather than discuss the wonderful opportunities in front of you, you’re in the hallway (or conference room) talking about the ‘process’ mechanics you’re grappling with instead? Where’s the value in that?

Chris raises a really good point, as does Chilvers, in that simply having constraints can improve your creativity, challenge you to do your best. In the case of an automatic camera, removing the automation serves to sharpen your focus on getting the picture right, rather than relying on post-processing after the fact.

Allowing our constraints to define ourselves, or the opportunities in front of us, is incredibly common across the spectrum of our lives. For instance, this weekend, I will be participating in an Iron Butt Association SaddleSore 1000 put on by the MSTA‘s Michigan Chapter. In short, this is a ride of 1,000 miles to be completed in under 24 hours.

The SaddleSore is a challenge of logistics, timing, and personal tenacity. Last year, I passed on this event, because my machine at the time was an unfaired, short-wheelbase motorcycle. It would have done the job, but I felt it really wasn’t the right machine for the task. This year, I have a (FJR) machine that will be far more comfortable, more capable. I changed my constraints.

One of my fellow riders this year will be riding a harder-edged (harder than my own bike last year) sport bike. All of the attendees cringe thinking of his constraints. But, you know, his sheer tenacity will see him through (along with some ibuprofen). And, he’ll come out with an extra dose of credibility as a result.

What constraints do you set before yourself? Which constraints in your life, perhaps placed there with intent, make your life more colorful, more rewarding as a result?

Image credits:
Stay On Path
FJR, author

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What I’ve Read Lately: The Innovative Team

JT — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:17:21 +0000

“The Innovative Team”
by: Chris Grivas & Gerard J. Puccio
ISBN: 978-1-118-11571-8

Ok, kudos for the book cover. It’s my favorite color and earned +1 brownie point right off the bat .

The Innovative Team (TIM) is perhaps first and foremost a book on improved communication.

After setting the stage initially, TIM uses a story book form, crafting its message as a short novel, to get it’s points across. Personally, I appreciate business books taking this approach, similar to the late Eliyahu Goldratt.

The Innovative Team makes a valid point. Often, we confuse creativity with innovating. In many cases, innovation is simply being creative in finding solutions to existing problems.

The challenge then is to help our teams be more creative. But something often gets in the way. It can be animosity amongst team players, leaders who don’t appreciate the composition of their team, and/or teams simply being ‘self-aware.’

Appreciating the different components of a team, being aware of how each team member’s preferences contribute to the whole, is why I believe this is about communication as much as innovation.

The Innovative Team does two things. Each person has a particular area within a project where they like to contribute most. These four areas are called out and then exemplified through the novel. In essence, the roles are describes, and then a realistic skit is played out to give you a feel of how the parts work together. Second, even as team dynamics are being worked out, TIM helps illustrate the ‘universal creative process.’

The basic components of the universal creative process, which maps against areas different team members like to spend their time in, are:

Clarifying the Situation
Making sure you truly understand the situation fully.
Generating Ideas
Brainstorming is prominent here with constructive ideas on doing so.
Developing Solutions
Taking care to fully, adequately develop solutions. What if ‘this’ happens, and then ‘this’, and…
Implementing Plans
Time to execute.

One of the areas I thought TIM did very good at, was spending time helping provide mechanisms for keeping the entire team engaged throughout the different stages. For instance, there are team members that just hate brainstorming, coming up with ideas, and leave that phase to others. Then, when it’s time to start separating the wheat from the chaff, the brainstormers get frustrated while others start really warming up. Yet, finally, when it’s time to execute, many people get bored to tears and simply check-out, preferring to leave it to the project manager to drive everything forward.

The Innovative Team takes a unique approach, a fresh approach, toward looking at how to help teams work better as a cohesive whole, understand and appreciate each others’ differences, without boring everyone to tears along the way.

As someone who has dealt with these issues in the past, and expect to do so again in the future, this book will stay on my shelf for a future re-read.

[In the interest of full disclosure, the publisher made the book available to me should I be interested in doing a review. No monetary considerations exist.]

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Deadlines By Fiat, Agile, & Disaster!

JT — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:02:33 +0000

Increasingly, I find that ‘Agile’ is essentially a modern day metaphor for Communication. There are volumes of books on the topic. Strong evangelists and enthusiasts. Devotees to a new process. Yet, if you boil it down, it always reduces to Agile==Communication.

Earlier this week I had the privilege of attending the regular Ann Arbor Agile Groupies event. The focus was fiat deadlines lead to disaster. For two hours, we traded stories of how arbitrarily set dates led to all manner of disaster: destroying morale, missing delivery dates, being massively over budget, and/or delivery crappy software.

We should probably make sure everyone understands what a ‘fiat deadline’ is, so we’re all on the same page.

In software development (elsewhere too, just with different terms) there is a concept known as the Iron Triangle. In short, all projects (e.g. product being built) are subject to the same constraints. They are:

Scope
What you’re going to do. Specifically.
Resources
What you need in order to do it.
Time
How long you need to finish.

The triangle is rigid and within it is Quality. Delivering a quality product demands a tight link between Scope, Time, and Resources.

Scott Ambler writes a good piece, specific to software, in The “Broken Iron Triangle” Software Development Anti-pattern http://bit.ly/Juk4OR

Having laid the foundation then, a fiat deadline, is one set without understanding the inputs required to deliver. If management declares when a project will be completed by a specific time, without knowing or understanding the corners of the respective iron triangle, they have created a fiat deadline.

You’ve Seen It Before
Many of us have seen these situations. A team is working on a new product suddenly a new deadline is set. Or, perhaps the team is halved or scrambled. Or, the deadline stays the same but a ‘bunch’ of new ‘mandatory’ features are added. The variations are infinite. The result is invariably the same though: The iron cross becomes distorted, broken, and projects become late, over budget, and failing to deliver the expected features. Quality, customer satisfaction, and profitability all suffer.

One of Agile’s key promises is for development/engineering to be more responsive to never-ending change, mitigating damage to the iron cross. (A crude overview for those new to Agile…) This is done by working as small teams, in open-space environments, breaking projects into ever-smaller chunks (sprints) of work. To make sure everyone knows what is going on, members frequently (at least daily) do ‘stand up’ meetings, tell everyone else what it is that they are doing at the moment and maybe for the next couple days.

The problems, as this week’s discussion (fiat…disaster) unveiled, even when practicing Agile, all the same disasters can—and do—keep happening. While many crises are mitigated, the magnitude of ‘disasters’ still exist.

Why?
Through all of this, the key to success ultimately lays with frequent, transparent, communication. Product Owners need to let their teams know about what’s going on outside the company, and the potential changes that may occur. Development teams need to accurately forecast their work, and make sure the product owners understand their constraints and ability to deliver. Together, everyone needs to agree, to negotiate, what the project’s scope will be.

Failures to deliver on plan, on budget, as specified, and as promised overall, depends on everyone effectively communicating.

For instance, Agile purists will decry those who do ‘checklist’ Agile. In other words, teams ‘going through the motions,’ checking things off (see, we did it), but not really living in the dream. What’s the dream: For everyone to freely communicate, to minimize or eliminate surprises, so the end deliverable matches everyone’s expectations.

In the end, the team that has more, better, transparent communication, will outperform any lesser team. Whether they practice ‘agile,’ or not.

What are your thoughts? If you’re using Agile, thinking about these issues, then you almost certainly have experiences and an opinion. Leave a comment and let everyone know what you think!

image credits:
Diagram, JT Pedersen
Talking Guys, Rafael Marchesini
Hiding Face, Scott Liddell

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Been Quiet Recently–Here’s Why

JT — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:50:18 +0000

For the benefit of my regular readers I wanted to share why things were a bit quiet of late. The past couple weeks were spent preparing for a series of meetings in Denver, Colorado. Overall, the meetings were very productive and the trip worthwhile.

In some of my spare time, I took some pictures in the mountains to the west. For those not accustomed to the views, particularly my fellow flatlanders, the scenery is simply spectacular.

Following are a few pictures for you. [CLICK images for full-size versions]

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Not Comfy, Feeling Uncomfortable?

JT — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:21:48 +0000

When was the last time you felt uncomfortable? I mean, seriously uncomfortable. And not because your bum itched. Uncomfortable because of a new change at work or being asked to think differently than you have before.

Many of us have areas in our lives where we are very comfortable. It’s a nice place to be. And, there are other places, outside our areas of strength or proficiency, that make us want to skirt them, fly past wherever possible, and return right back to our comfort zones.

As Laurie Hayes points out, “One of the biggest obstacles to succeeding in business or achieving what you want in life is setting the bar too low. Most people don’t like feeling uncomfortable…”

Discomfort, feeling uncomfortable, is one of life’s absolute necessities if we are to continue growing, to succeed.

What has kept you from succeeding, from accomplishing, more than you have already? What keeps you in place where you are? Is it comfort? Or fear of discomfort?

This is certainly something I have dealt with numerous times over the years. If you are struggling with moving yourself forward, leaving your comfort zone for something better, something more, there are two stories I want to share. These two stories led to some of the greatest professional growth spurts in my career. Both involved sizable amounts of discomfort and risk. And, these two cases (not always, unfortunately) also provided great rewards.

The first, involved my becoming a consultant. A Fortune 20 company wrote my CEO a nasty-gram. In short, it said, “…assign a dedicated account team to us, or we’re going elsewhere.” 3 business days later, I had a new role.

The issues in front of us were big. The customer was big. The $$ revenue impact was big. The pressure was big. There was nothing small about the problems in front of my partner and I.

To say the least, my level of discomfort was high as well. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being ‘found out.’ Fear of failure.

One of the major issues to be addressed, required selecting an engineering database as a core solution component. It needed to have the necessary features while also being scalable enough to support ongoing development. There were two in consideration: our own offering, and, a competitor’s.

It was my call…

It was my call which to use. It was a huge risk, not just for me but for all involved: I chose our competitor’s solution. What followed was a short, quiet phone call with my Exec. VP. As he spoke, his tone confirmed the weight I felt, “…are you comfortable with your decision? [pause…] You’re going to own it.”

That moment, and others since, defined for me what it is to be a consultant, an entrepreneur. You work with your team, pull together the information you have time to gather, clarify your understanding and thinking, make a decision, and execute. Every decision is a risk–you can never know it all–and move forward. Being a consultant is to live with significant discomfort at key moments…because your decisions are never ‘absolute.’

Even if you’re a solo entrepreneur, you’ve likely got people you talk with, a ‘team.’

The second lesson (this one’s far shorter): Deciding to leave a ‘Cadillac’ of industry in search of new challenges. After a long career there, consistently growing in my roles, I came to a point where further growth was getting harder. Talking with my wife, I made the decision—not knowing what the future would bring—to leave in search of something new.

That something new turned into a senior product management role in an organization where uncertainty reigned supreme. Not only did I need to ramp up into a new role and new responsibilities, my new home was an organization fresh out of bankruptcy with no time for anyone (let alone the new guy).

Despite, or perhaps because of, the cultural challenges, it was the most uncomfortable I had felt since first starting as a consultant. In some regards I felt more alive than I had in years. I stumbled in places. There are areas I would have liked to have tackled better. The learning curve was incredibly steep—I learned developed more professionally than I had in the prior 5 years.

If I had not chosen to leave a comfortable spot and—gone for it—I would never have reached the new highs that I have attained for myself today. Hopefully, these simple stories will encourage you, if you’re not comfy about being uncomfortable, to take a risk. Put yourself out there, and Go For It!

image credit: Amir Darafsheh

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What I’ve Read Lately: ACTIONS Against Distractions

JT — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:22:28 +0000

“ACTIONS Against Distractions: Managing Your Scattered, Disorganized, and Forgetful Mind”
by: Geraldine Markel, Ph.D.

Available Here (Not an affiliation link)

A few weeks ago, an acquaintance (Geraldine) asked if I would consider reviewing her book. The topic is an item of personal interest. Not sure about you, but I constantly am leading a war against the distractions in my life.

Geraldine is an educational psychologist and coach. Her focus is assisting individuals, leaders, and teams to perform better, faster, and with less stress—at any point in their lives (personal, professional). ACTIONS Against Distraction, is Geraldine’s second book combatting the demons of distraction. She points out she uses ‘demons’ as a effort to be amusing, while also addressing the negative factors we all face.

From the Preface, ACTIONS is focused on helping you:

Discover your strengths and vulnerabilities
Inspire a transition from ‘good intention’ to ‘effective action’
Gain and maintain improved attention, memory, and organization
Enjoy greater peace of mind and life satisfaction*

These are the demons ACTIONS focuses on:

Technology
Others
Activities
Spaces
Stress
Fatigue
Illness/Medication
unruly Mind
Maintenance, Meltdowns, and Peacefulness

Reading the book cover-to-cover, I discovered that Geraldine uses a consistent set of tactics, or steps, for each demon. She starts with a review and description of what the demon is, and it’s consequences. Typically a short story is interspersed throughout.

After making sure you understand the demon, if you didn’t already, she provides a self-check. The self-check is a checklist of symptoms you can check-off, based on your life. The goal is to let you objectively assess, perhaps more honestly than before, how strongly the particular demon’s affliction may be for you.

Ok, I can hear it now. Check-lists, what a waste of my time…I know what my issues are. To which I would respond: Really? If someone were to ask you what your Top 10 distractions were, how long would it take you to build the list, let alone flesh out details underlying each specific distraction? The lists are useful in helping you more fully grasp just what the impact of each distraction may be.

Having constructively defined the particular affliction, she then leads you through a process of defining Positive Outcomes. For instance, if your Technology demon is spending too much time playing games on your iPhone, an effective action may be to schedule a ‘no-tech’ period each day, with the positive outcome of being more productive.

The example may seem simplistically silly. And, I think many of our worst personal distractions are just that. But, when was the last time you took action to address them? It is this process of reviewing the problem, identifying it clearly, and leading you to determine a solution, that delivers the reader value.

Here’s what I found key to getting the most out of this book…

Yes, you can read the book cover-to-cover. I did it in order to do a complete review. However each of us knows what our principal shortcomings are. Your best value is to read the opening chapters, then just focus on the chapters for the specific demons you want to conquer.

The structure for handling each demon is the same. Tackle one demon, then go back for another, and then another.

This is a book almost everyone can gain value from. I thank Geraldine for giving me an opportunity to review it.

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Do You Artificially Constrain Yourself?

JT — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:03:41 +0000

My most creative moments come when there is great peace around me. If writing is the focus, my favorite times are in front of the laptop, fresh steaming coffee to my left, Tig ger resting at my side, and great peace around me. Doesn’t hurt if there’s a ray of yellowed early-morning sunlight streaming in the window either.

These moments, free of distraction, allow our minds to wander freely. The tortoise part of our brain crawls out of its shell. Its thinking is unstructured, even unexplainable, and absolutely runs away and hides when hint of time or stress or constraint is evident. So, moments of peace are paramount if we want to see it.

Unfortunately, even when we think we are thinking freely and without constraints, we are not.

Thinking about my morning writing, the flow of words can come unbidden. Yet the flow of their own creativity is limited. It used to be limited by the physical constraints of the medium being used: a diary, plain paper, or a stone tablet. As I write this, the words flow into a template, shaped to look nice, to minimize distraction, yet a constraint all the same.

When was the last time you truly wrote something without considering the end format, first? If you set out to write a report, you probably thought, “Well, I’m using Word (or PowerPoint/KeyNote…), and ‘this’ is what I can do…” Not even realizing you’ve constrained your creativity before you started.

Readers know one of my favorite activities is Motorcycling. 25 years ago, I began doing annual multi-day motorcycle trips. The biggest constraints were a preference for warm weather (June – August), the number of days available, and the cash in the bank account. On a 7, 10, or (if it was a good year) 15 day trip, each day started the same. Get up 6:30′ish, have something to eat, suit up and head out. That was it.

You didn’t know what was ahead, so you just went and did it.

Every day was an adventure. It might start with dark clouds in the sky, no clouds in the sky, or something in-between. During the day, you might encounter any mix of weather and road conditions. You didn’t know what challenge you might face. The fact you may encounter cats and dogs falling from the sky were what made it an adventure.

Then, the Weather Channel™ was created. What a great thing! Now we could check the weather, see what kind of day we were in for (constraints), and adjust accordingly. Regardless of the prior night’s planning, Weather Channel began dictating when we would leave (wait for that storm to pass, and how long?), what direction we’d head (east, that storm’s to the west), and even when we might stop for the day (let’s quit early, I don’t want to be caught in that).

At motorcycle rallies, it is commonplace to see everyone’s TV turned to the Weather Channel, as you walk back to your room.

With weather tools available everywhere now, with up-to-the-second info in the palm of your hand, riders often stay holed up in their rooms just waiting for the temp to come up 3 more degrees.

Finally, there’s the GPS. Never a more enabling technology have we had that is, at the same instant, among the most constraining. We can freely wander wherever we want, without fear of getting lost. Yet at the same time, event planners create routes, hand them out to attendees, and many feel compelled to do whatever Ms. Garmin tells them. “We can’t go that way, the ‘GPS’ says to go this way!”

Never a more enabling technology have we had that is, at the same instant, among the most constraining.

Creativity, freedom of thought, require that we be aware of the artificial, unconscious constraints that are persistent parts of our lives. I encourage you, next time you’re in a creative mood, to pause and look at your surroundings, the tools you’re using. What might you do, if they weren’t there?

Would you ride down that road?

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How Long, Before You’re Legitimately Experienced?

JT — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:49:30 +0000

This is a question you probably have asked yourself, at some point in your life. Odds are you have asked the question more than once. Once for each new job, each new profession, each new…

The question tends to be ‘professionally’ oriented when it is being asked. How long until you can consider yourself an experienced…whatever it is you are? Bar tender? Manager, Leader, Teacher… The trigger for my comment today was raised by Katherine, in one of the motorcycle enthusiast groups I participate in.

How many years do you have to ride before you can legitimately consider yourself an experienced rider? The responses to Katherine’s question showed it is a very relative, subjective answer.

Mulling it over, I think you might consider yourself experienced, when you find yourself automatically responding in crisis situations without conscious thought. For instance, last week I had come to stop behind another car at a traffic light. A few moments later, I heard this squealing of tires approaching—directly—behind me.

I didn’t think. I found myself having brought the engine RPM up to about 3K RPM, slid the clutch out, having moved about 8′ toward the space between vehicles in front of me, looking in my mirror, ready to bolt. For a moment, I found myself sitting there, legs on the pegs, engine running fast…ready to bolt…but not moving any further. Ready. I saw the van behind me stop (I’d given him that extra ‘bit’ of room he needed). Crisis averted.

When you find yourself taking action, even in non-crises situations, as though it were a natural activity, just like walking, you are probably experienced.

When you can ride as subconsciously as you might walk, you’ve probably arrived. That’s not to say you’ve become ‘master of all.’

Your overall proficiency is driven from experience: a nice balance of diversity; time in seat; as well as frequency. I include frequency for a specific reason. You may have 300,000 miles or kilometers behind you, but if you’ve not ridden in 6 months, you may not be as well prepared for a crisis as the 20,000 mile rider who has ridden weekly for the past two months.

Experience, like respect, is something you never stop needing to develop.

It is easy at times to become complacent, and forget that. Whether you’re riding a motorcycle, managing or leading at work, or operate machinery of some type: Experience, respect, perhaps your very ability to survive, is based on diversity, practice (time in the seat), and frequency of the activity.

Season’s here: Have fun. Ride safe!

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Things Your Children Say

JT — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:47:48 +0000

[My 13 year-old child, working around a current grounding]:

“I’m a child. There’s a loop-hole for every rule.”

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What Does Coaching Do for You?

JT — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:36:44 +0000

Its one of those little unspoken secrets. It’s probably right up there with publicly discussion your salary, an ex-spouse, or venereal disease. Very few people publicly acknowledge making use of coaching.

My expectation is that many fear it will reflect negatively upon them. If you’re a senior leader, perhaps there is fear that to admit coaching is to admit a weakness. Of course, in highly competitive environments, such as in C-suite, it might also be viewed as a competitive secret!

This week Chris Brogan, considering becoming a coach, asked some of his subscribers a few questions on the topic. Having made use of coaches myself, I shared my thoughts with him. I think you might find it valuable too.

Do you use coaches to gain success?
Yes, I have and will again.

Are you investing in yourself?
Yes. Absolutely. The day I stop learning something new is the day I die. While I might find things continue to be tight economically, that merely impacts how much self-investment I can do currently.

I engage coaches for personal development along whatever the path may be at the moment. More recently it has been a search for work. In turn I also mentor colleagues; not ‘coach’ which I view synonymous with ‘for fee.’

Are you finding your way through to your goals by working with someone who keeps you pegged to your commitments?
Not yet. Or, at least not as fully as I might prefer. Two reasons. One is that the coaching, and related goals, has typically been too short term in nature. For instance, working with a coach for 2-3 months with goals that are typically week-to-week. Moving forward I’ve realized my engagement with a coach needs to be much longer duration. Meaningful goals, strategies, tend to take more than a week, month, or two to achieve something meaningful (e.g. major life/style change).

What does coaching do for you?
Coaching is engaging with someone who’s been there, or close enough, they can give me constructive next steps to follow. Or, they can—more importantly—effectively guide me in doing it for myself. A coach is an objective 3rd party (e.g. not my wife, friend, etc.) that will call me on the quality of my execution. The coach helps me hold me accountable to me.

The coach helps me hold me accountable to me.

What would you get coaching in, if you were going to invest in a coach?
There are a few items atop my list. Yours will be your own. *Figuring out my life’s purpose, my ‘dream.’ *Executing against my dream. *Professional execution—as a mid/senior level exec, partner to execute more smartly, more effectively.

What are your coaching experiences, or views?

As I mention on opening, coaching is a very ‘behind the scenes’ topic. Few talk about it. It certainly, in my experience, is not a conversation starter even among friends having coffee. This is your moment. What can you share about coaching? (Note: this is not a solicitation for coaches to make a pitch.)

image credit: enver uçarer