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Category: Tips

  • Two Points and a Poem

    Two Points and a Poem

    I was talking to a senior IT manager the other day when he lamented that younger managers under his charge didn’t communicate effectively. My colleague, a retired Air Force officer, remarked, “They want to give me a dissertation every time they report. I don’t have time for that. All I need is two points and a poem.”

    I was intrigued. “What does that mean?” He replied, “Be prepared, that is, think about what you’re going to say before you enter the room. Be concise. Speak with executive function. Give me the ten-thousand foot view – I trust you with the details. Summarize your points and be done with it. In essence, move with a purpose.”

    To further process this, I did some searches for the phrase and found two sources. The first was a reference to a traditional expression in homiletics (i.e., three points and a poem) that describes the shape of a sermon. Basically, the minister would present three main points of the message and then conclude with a poem or memorable anecdote to reinforce it. This seemed to me a logical etiology of the phrase, but why would my colleague reduce it to two points? Perhaps this was “military efficiency” at work?

    “A poem is a ‘line’ between any two points in creation.”

    ― Charles Olson

    The second reference was a quote from Charles Olson (1910–1970), an influential American poet; “A poem is a ‘line’ between any two points in creation.” While it was unlikely that this quote was the source of my friend’s order, it gave me an interesting thought. By limiting the report to two points and connecting them figuratively with a poem, don’t we create the most efficient metaphorical figure? To my mind, the figure of speech had become a poem itself with mathematical precision and beauty. So the next time you’re reporting a project status to your boss, give her the mathematical elegance of two points and a poem.

    Prepare, be concise.
    Two points and a poem's grace
    Speak with purpose clear.
    -Dain B.
  • Want to Lose Weight?

    Want to Lose Weight?

    The best way to lose weight is to go to confession.
  • Lost Improvements: An Analogy to Defects

    Lost Improvements: An Analogy to Defects

    Defects are not free. Somebody makes them, and gets paid for making them.

    W. Edwards Deming

    To summarize Deming’s teaching on defects, they cost an organization thrice. First, the defect is made, which robs the organization of a “working” product or service. Second, the defect must be identified, which also takes time and resources. Lastly, the defect must be resolved, thus taking more resources away from producing non-defective products and services. If this isn’t bad enough, these costs don’t include opportunity costs which could be mitigated with improvements.

    In manufacturing (and IT ;-)), a defect happens because of a quality failure either at the source or somewhere upstream. Once a defect is built into a product, there are two ways to detect it. First, it may be detected prior to shipping. Second, the customer may see the defect, which is significantly worse from a CX perspective. To draw the analogy to lost improvements, if there is no system in place to record improvements, that’s the equivalent of allowing a defect to get to the customer. Lack of improvement causes more technical debt and operational overhead down the line and will be reflected in much of the work that is done by the organization. These defects will be visible to customers, one way or another. How does an organization create a culture of continual improvement?

    First, an organization must embrace a culture of improvement. According to ITIL4, a culture of improvement requires three things; transparency, managing by example, and building trust (CDS, 2.3.4, 2.3.8). I’ll treat these three topics in more detail in a future post, but suffice it to say that my perspective is that the former are dependent on the latter – that is, trust is the “coin of the realm” and other aspects of an improvement culture are dependent on it. For example, organizations that have a high degree of trust manifest a corresponding high level of transparency.

    Trust is the “coin of the realm” and other aspects of an improvement culture are dependent on it.

    Second, an organization must provide mechanisms for conserving, prioritizing, and executing improvement initiatives. Starting with a Continual Improvement Register (CIR) is a good first step. If systems are too proscribed, or improvement processes not defined, team members don’t feel empowered (or able) to record improvement ideas. Without improvement, the organization will continue to produce defects. Making the CIR accessible at all levels of the organization is also recommended. Appointing a small, dedicated improvement person or team responsible for prioritizing and executing on those improvement opportunities closes the loop. Communicating the status of improvement opportunities creates buy-in from the organization and keeps the suggestions rolling in. In my experience, organizations go awry in the second requirement. They may build a culture of trust and improvement, but that culture must be operationalized to realize the true benefits.

  • To Insure Promptness…

    To Insure Promptness…

    On Tuesday nights, I teach until about 7:30pm and so I go out to eat after class. One of my favorite restaurants is a little “hole-in-the-wall” Chinese place in College Station off of Rock Prairie, T Jin Diner. Watching them work is amazing. To begin with, the food is fantastic. I’ve never had a bad dish there. They have a significant take-out business weeknights in addition to onsite customers and they process orders with exceptional speed and care. It’s like a ballet as they move bagged orders from the kitchen to the front door, seat incoming customers and serve dishes as they come off the line. Last night, I ordered a cup of hot-and-sour soup and Mongolian beef. The soup arrived in less than a minute. I hadn’t taken 5 spoonfuls of the soup before the main dish arrived, piping hot.

    The point is that this is a small independent business that pays attention to details, is fast and courteous, and produces exceptional quality. So when the bill comes, which is a credit-card receipt, I don’t think twice about giving them a healthy tip. I’m glad to give it to them and appreciative of their care.

    Contrast this with recent story in the New York Times on DoorDash tipping practices. “If you don’t add a tip for your delivery person, you might have to wait longer for your food.” Interesting, in light of the fact that the word “tip” comes from an 18th century British custom To Insure Promptness. DoorDash is not-so-subtly saying, “If you don’t tip us, we’ll provide poorer service.” Tipping seems to be an issue for this company especially since DoorDash settled a lawsuit in 2020 over “deceptive tipping” inferring that drivers were getting tips when in fact they were pocketing the money.

    Tipping is really getting out of hand with companies thinking they are entitled to tips. I for one believe that is tip should be given after exceptional service is rendered – exceptional service – not expected, average or mediocre service. Here are my personal rules of tipping:

    • Anytime I serve myself, I don’t tip. This includes fast-food or any walk-up or cafeteria-style restaurant
    • If asked for tip prior to service, I don’t tip. I despise the little turnaround kiosks that force you to select an amount while those behind you look on
    • If proactively asked for a tip after service, I don’t tip. I don’t think its right to ask for a tip because that infers an expectation.
    • If passively asked for a tip after service (e.g., on a credit card receipt);
      • If the service was poor, I don’t tip.
      • If the service was average, I may leave a small tip <15%.
      • If the service was better than average, I’ll tip 15-20%
      • If the service was exceptional, I’ll tip over 20%
    • If the requirements of exceptional service are met and I’m not asked to tip, I’ll try to find a way to tip anyway. At a minimum, I will remark to the staff how I felt about their service and thank them.

  • The Bull is Dead.

    I bet that got your attention. This is the first line from a well-known story that illustrates the difference between pyramid reporting, and inverted pyramid reporting. Pyramid reporting, also known as academic style reporting, is characterized by starting with a problem statement, elaborating on the background, discussing influencing factors and finally stating the conclusions. When the academic approach is used to give project status reports, people who are still awake for the punch line are silently praying, “Please! Kill me now!”

    Contrast this with the inverted pyramid reporting style. In this formulation, the report which begins with the conclusion, followed by the most important facts and, finally, the details. A more engineering-oriented description of these steps, quoted from the article, would be;

    1. Punch line: The facts; no adjectives, adverbs or modifiers. “Milestone 4 wasn’t hit on time, and we didn’t start Task 8 as planned.” Or, “Received charter approval as planned.”

    2. Current status: How the punch-line statement affects the project. “Because of the missed milestone, the critical path has been delayed five days.”

    3. Next steps: The solution, if any. “I will be able to make up three days during the next two weeks but will still be behind by two days.”

    4. Explanation: The reason behind the punch line. “Two of the five days’ delay is due to late discovery of a hardware interface problem, and the remaining three days’ delay is due to being called to help the customer support staff for a production problem.”

    We have all sat through reports that start with all the reasons why something did or didn’t happen. I think we should focus on the inverted style of reporting. It’s more efficient and keeps us sane, even if we have to kill the bull.

  • Two Things To Do When Leading Change

    I was browsing some articles on organizational change and came across this nice summary on Pink Elephant. The statistic that jumped out at me was that 70% of change initiatives fail. The article goes on to assert two main causes for these failures:

    1. The change is not started early enough, or is not well managed during execution
    2. People affected by the change are not sufficiently guided, and consequently don’t adopt or sustain the change

    According to the article, “Many organizations focus on the first reason and totally ignore the second.” When I consider where IT needs work in leading change, #2 sticks out to me. So, how can I effectively guide the agency?

    In my Technology Management Capstone course, one of the models I teach my students is John Kotter’s model of organizational change management, which is arguably the most famous model ever for leading an organization through change. Kotter’s book, Our Iceberg is Melting, is a classic in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Kotter’s model consists of eight steps:

    • Create a Sense of Urgency
    • Build a Guiding Coalition
    • Form a Strategic Vision and Initiatives
    • Enlist a Volunteer Army
    • Enable Action by Removing Barriers
    • Generate Short-Term Wins
    • Sustain Acceleration
    • Institute Change

    Notice that most of the work happens before the the change is instituted. Kotter’s steps are a good way to make sure that the organization has sufficient buy-in and sustainability to carry out the fast-paced changes we have to achieve in IT.

  • Hanlon’s Razor

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Hanlon’s Razor. This adage states that one should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. I would re-frame stupidity to be ignorance that results in poor communication. Indeed, most people, when kept in the dark about an issue that may affect them, tend to attribute nefarious intentions to the poor communicator. But I’ve found that rarely are the motives iniquitous. Rather, it is far more common for the communicator to simply not realize their messaging may be poor, their plans not communicated effectively, their intentions not transparent.

    This is important in many fields of human endeavor, including IT. Followup communication on incidents and service requests frequently fall victim to time poverty on both sides, confusing written (i.e., email) responses, and technical jargon. While IT strives to improve in this area, I’m perturbed that sometimes it seems as if we make little headway to make our communication better and more transparent. It is a never-ending battle.

    Happily, good communication and transparency can be taught – they are skills one may learn. Recognition of the psychological issues are the first step. Assessment, process, and practice are the methods to improve them.

    So, the next time you’re in a poor communication situation, don’t assume the worst. Consider that the other may simply not realize that the message is unclear or has been lost.

    Misunderstandings and lethargy perhaps produce more wrong in the world than deceit and malice do. At least the latter two are certainly rarer.

    Goethe. J. W. (1774). The sorrows of young werther (as translated).

  • Hackers Exploit Post-COVID Return to Work

    As we return to the office, cyber threat actors are changing their tactics as they did during the work from home transition. Here at TTI, we’ve seen a number of these sophisticated attacks that attempt to redirect victims to a site to enter their credentials. But the site is NOT our Microsoft login site.

    The latest scam includes pelting recipients with emails purportedly from their CIOs or other highly placed executive welcoming employees back into offices. Threat Post indicates that the fake CIO email prompts victims to link to a fake Microsoft SharePoint page with two company-branded documents, both outlining new business operations. However, if a victim decides to interact (click) on either document a login panel appears and prompts the recipient to provide login credentials to access the files.

    What can I do to stay safe?

    Whenever you enter credentials in a browser window, be sure that the address of the site is login.microsoftonline.com/… AND that there is a lock icon next to the address, like this:

    When logging on, be sure that the address of the site is login.microsoftonline.com/…