To our readers…As you may have noticed, there has been a delay in new postings. Clayton and I are co-authoring a new book which has taken most of our time. We plan to continue posting but at a lower rate as we finish the first draft of the book. We will be providing more information on the new book's contents in future postings.
You are frustrated because in the last month, three engineers on your team did the wrong things on the most critical project: The first engineer completed his task, but only using an expensive third party software package. The second engineer had three critical tasks to do and only completed one, along with a lot of low importance features. And the third engineer completed the wrong task because she thought something else was more important. So, questions rattle around in your head:
Rather than calling your team together to express your frustration, you decide to take a walk to think about what to do. You think back to how you gave your engineers their assignments…You caught them in hallway when you saw them getting coffee and you were running to a meeting. None of them had pencil or paper handy and you were in a hurry, so you didn’t have time to really talk about each task and they didn’t come back to ask for more information…
Hmm… Maybe the problem isn’t the team after all. Maybe the problem is my not properly delegating the tasks to the team.
Your next step is to look up the notes from the class on delegation you took a while back. You find...
Rules for delegation:
Don’t delegate on the run. The bigger the task, the more time it takes to delegate so make sure you have enough time set aside. Give the person a chance to take notes about the task and answer all of their questions about the task ….
Reading further you find…
Steps to successful delegation:
1. Describe the task in the right amount of detail – don’t over define the task.
2. Explain why you want the task done. This can save you time if they propose a better solution.
3. Describe a what successful result is for this work.
4. Agree on a completion date/time.
5. Explain the priority relative to their other work.
6. Agree on your follow-up method and the timing.
7. Get commitment from the engineer getting the task – they need to agree that they can do it.
Following theses steps, you now know how to avoid the problems you are currently having with your team. This delegation process also ensures that your team understands and commits to the task before they leave the room. And, you will agree on a follow-up process so they won't feel micromanaged. With this review, you now know what you need to do for making assignments for your next step. Your thoughts turn to the future....
This is great – now I know how to make it better for the next development cycle. I will start right after I get some more coffee..
As you get up to get a cup of coffee, your boss catches you in the hall and says: “I need engineering to generate a new type of on-line report by Friday, that shows the full inventory with multiple views. This is for our key customer. Sorry I can’t talk right now, but I am heading for the airport. I might be able to answer email tomorrow after the meeting. Make sure you have it out before I am back. Bye.”
A recent experience reminded me of an older truth – when you are discussing the cost or delivery date of software with your customer:
The first number or date a customer hears is what they will remember.
That first number will stick with your customer and be the reference for any other number you provide them later. When you come back with the real estimate and the number is less favorable than your first guess (it almost always is), then you have a problem. Now you are giving the customer bad news, not refined information.
Consider your customer’s perspective – they have a problem they want your company to solve. Typically, they won’t focus on the technical details of exactly how you are going to solve it – that is what they are paying you to figure out. Instead, they need to know that you will solve their problem, what it will cost, and when they can have it. When they don’t have this information, they can see potential risk. So, some customers will press you for answers before you know them.
If a customer asks for an estimate during a meeting, hold off. Some customers will press you to get a “rough idea” of what to expect – they would like to know if this is going to turn into a big problem. Providing them with a wide range of outcomes often doesn’t help, because selective hearing can happen where only one end of the range is remembered. The best approach is to tell them when you can provide an answer and then deliver. Make sure that your response reflects your customer’s expressed concerns and their desire for a rapid response.
Sales people know how to be careful when setting customer expectations. However, as an engineering manager, you likely have less experience than a sales person in setting customer expectations. Instead, you are used to talking more casually about what things might cost internal to your company - and these internal communications should be free flowing. External customer communications should be more measured, however. So...
Don’t provide quick guesses to customers.
Wait until you have a real estimate prepared before providing any numbers or dates.
I remember a brainstorming meeting a number of years ago where my company was looking for new revenue opportunities for our products. The company president was leading the meeting. I suggested an outline of an idea and the president immediately responded with “we have already tried that before and it doesn’t work”, then moved on to request other ideas. My enthusiasm level went down as I didn’t get to complete my proposal. This continued with a few more people suggesting ideas and the president offering instant negative judgments that killed many ideas before they were explored. Ultimately, the brainstorming session only produced a few ideas very similar to what we had already tried.
Fortunately, effective approaches to brainstorming exist. As important as selecting an approach is getting agreement by the participants to use the same approach. Selecting the approach should be the first step at any brainstorming meeting.
To have an effective brainstorming meeting that generates many new and unexpected ideas, follow this rule: Cleanly separate idea generation from idea evaluation. Do this for two reasons. First, idea generation uses a different part of the brain from idea evaluation. When people are critiquing ideas, they reduce their creative abilities.
Second, separating the two steps helps build the team’s enthusiasm. When the team gets a chance to build on each others ideas and even suggest “crazy” ideas, more ideas come out. In contrast, when every idea is immediately critiqued, people are unlikely to generate the more unusual ideas. What ends up coming out during "instant critique" meetings is generally more of the same - because it is safer.
One approach for brainstorming process that I have found effective follows distinct process steps. Prior to the meeting, email people the topic and require them to come to the meeting with at three rough ideas and at least one crazy idea. At the start of the meeting, let people know what the process will be and stick to it. The meeting can be broken into segments as shown in the following; in some cases multiple meetings can be held covering these areas:
Generation
Building
Everyone can spend time building on ideas that are already up on the board, whether they generated them or not.
Categorization
Discussion & Evaluation
Ranking
Action
An effective brainstorming can produce many great ideas.
Ineffective ones are worse than just a waste of time.
Do you remember in your career when you felt exceptionally proud of a work project or effort? Your may have put in extra hours, come up with a great idea, or delivered a high quality product ahead of schedule. Remember when you were last thanked or congratulated for your efforts? If you felt the congratulations were sincere, it probably encouraged you in your next effort.
As a manager, when was the last time that you praised someone working for you for doing great work? Has anyone done really great work for you lately?
Many managers fall into the trap of accepting great work that is done without a comment and get in the habit only speaking up when somebody makes a mistake. This approach encourages cautious behavior instead of encouraging people to push for excellence.
Part of your job as a manager is to coach people to do great work not by brow-beating people into working long hours, but by motivating them and encouraging them to do their best effort. If you are doing this well and your team is really producing – great!. However, when they do produce, if you aren’t showing appreciation you are ungrateful and undermining any coaching you do.
Next time someone on your team has a big success, let them know personally and congratulate them publicly. If your company/division/area is small enough to have regular meetings, those can be great venues for talking about great work. If not, your group or team meeting is a great place to thank people for their success.
Get in the habit of thanking instead of criticizing people on your team. Thanks shouldn’t only be reserved for those occasions when you award somebody a cash bonus. Sincere appreciation for the great work that people do encourages people to take pride in their work.
If you have worked for small growing software companies for any length of time, you will eventually find your company under the microscope by a perspective purchaser. For some rapidly growing companies, you may find yourself on the other side of the table - examining a company you might want to buy. Either way, technical due diligence is required when you examine a software company to assess its value. Real due diligence requires looking at more than the source code and the product. It requires examining all of the company’s intellectual property.
Intellectual property (IP) describes the data and information that you have spent time and money creating. People who wouldn’t think about not having the proper insurance will take huge risks by not protecting their company’s IP. Many small growing companies are so busy getting products together and dealing with the demands of growth they don’t have time to examine how well they are protecting themselves. Even when IP is valued, managers don’t understand the extent of the IP that they need to protect.
We all get the obvious - protect the source code. However, there are other important items that are engineering focused:
Business focused list:
Much of this information is fragile. You may find some of the information by asking current employees. But as people change jobs and leave your company, information leaves with them as there wasn’t a requirement to write it down in a central location. Even when people stay, memories fade after a year to two. So, stop and build up your list – why wait until you are trying to sell your software company.
Targeting your Companies
Here is the payoff from Targeted Networking: you now know how to network to get to the companies you want to join. The top ranked companies on your list are your primary targets. With these companies in mind, network to find people in those companies and people familiar with those companies.
Ideally, the people you want be introduced to in these companies are managers in a position to hire; If you are looking for a VP position, then the CEO. However, you should especially talk to employees at the company and people associated with the company to get their perspective. This includes:
With non-management contacts, you can find some of the harder to find information, such as: how the company treats employees, company morale, how well the company pays in general, and what are the politics like. Sometimes collecting this information will turn your top ranked company into one that you don’t really want to work at. That is great news – it is much better to find out before you get an offer of employment.
In some cases, you will find an open position at your target company – so an introduction to the hiring manager is ideal. A good way to get that introduction is to be referred to by a current employee. The employee gets credit for the referral and you get a big “step up” through the introduction. Managers spend more time on employee referrals than the unknown resume coming across their desk.
You should use all your networking tools to identify people and get introductions to your target companies, including: contacting your network, asking at networking events, and trying to find connections to you through searches on line. On great on line tool is LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com). It lets you search by company to get a list of people sorted by how far away they are from you by relationships. It is a great way to get introductions into companies where you don’t have a direct connection.
Don’t forget about your 2nd highest ranked companies. Continue to collect information about them. Sometimes, you will find that your earlier information was too negative and you will make them your primary targets.
Although this process is systematic, it isn’t a science. It isn’t about calculating numbers and collecting statistics – just about organizing information to find what you want. Trust your thoughtful judgment of the information you collect to lead you to the job you really want.
You need every possible resource working for you while searching for your next job. One such resource is the broadcast message you use to describe yourself and the kind of job you are looking for as you seek out a specific job opportunity. Similar in concept to effective business advertizing, your broadcast message should be working on your behalf even when you’re not there in person. This general message is used to broadcast your availability and value to those that are looking for someone like you. It should be sufficiently brief and simple so that it can be used easily by your friends and networking contacts to pass on your message to others. Your broadcast message, however, is only intended to help you discover possible jobs. Once you uncover a specific opportunity, you will then want to create a message specifically targeted to the needs of that opportunity.
The concept of a broadcast message is usually discussed using terms which are more commonly used when marketing to businesses: developing a sales elevator pitch, unique selling proposition, value proposition, or brand. While high tech workers in sales, marketing or business development are experienced with such concepts to successfully sell products and services to business customers, they may not have thought of how to adapt these ideas when “positioning” their own personal talents to sell into the “market” of high technology employers. The majority of high technology workers in other functional areas, such as engineers, HR specialists, or support specialists may not only be unaware of the specifics of these business market concepts but might also be uncomfortable with the idea of using them to market themselves beyond their personal, direct control.
The keys to a successful broadcast message are:
Building the company list
Building a company list is the next step in targeting your networking. With this list, you have identified your target companies, so that you can networking into them.
Having read the earlier articles, you should now have an idea of what you are looking for in a job. Ranking each quality as critical, important, or “nice to have” will give perspective as you are looking for companies with those qualities. This information is useful to rank each individual company to build up your target list.
To create the company list, use a spreadsheet. Start by creating a title row in the first row. It should contain: company name, ranking, web address, and information about the company that is important to you. For example, your biggest concerns might be commuting distance (Important), flexibility of hours (critical), salary (important), and an environment with low politics (important). One other note: don’t bother collecting data for its own sake, that is just a waste of effort.
With the title row of your spreadsheet filled out, add in a new row every time you identify a company name in your field and area you could reasonably consider for a job. Enter company names even when you don’t know all of the data you are looking for. You can put in question marks for placeholders for missing data and the overall rating.
Finding names of companies in your area and field is straightforward, but can be time consuming. You can usually find resources at your library and on-line. Also look up your local chamber of commerce as they often have publications by field. You can talk to a local technology group or organization for your area as their membership lists are a great place to start your company list. And as you network, write down names of companies that are new to you.
Find out information about companies the same way: on line, the library, or talking to people. Articles about the company or their products can be great sources of information. As you collect company data, some companies will be your lowest rank. Don’t drop them off your list. Keep track of those that you have no interest in – as you list of companies is large, some names will pop up again that you will have rejected previously but forgotten about. However, don’t invest effort in finding out more information about the lowest ranking companies.
As you build up your company list, rate each company as you collect enough relevant information. A simple rating method is best, such as 1 to 5 or A to F. You can use this rating to sort your list of companies to keep your “target” companies on top. Your rating should reflect how well the company matches what you are looking for in each of the categories. When doing this, evaluate each opportunity as objectively as possible.
Next: how to target your networking to your target companies.