Forecast post

This is a forecast post. It has 2 pieces of forecast, both about Google. 

Prediction One: Chickens will come home to roost 

Within 2023, the Cyber Crime Cell of India will hold Google accountable for misinformation leading to fraud that originates on its website.

Why? 

Google owns 92% of the global search engine market. 

At this time, multiple frauds are based on incorrect service desk numbers published on Google. Unwitting customers dial these fraud numbers to get customer service on their bank/card/product etc. and end up getting conned. 

Google is not held accountable for this in any way. 

 This is even more culpable because the fraud numbers are highlighted separately on the right in the Google Search result. 

The other thing for which Google will be held accountable is listing fraudulent sites on top of the search results only because these companies have paid for search optimisation ads. 

I am sure we all have been conned at least once by the top search result on Google. 

Now, of course, I make it a point to check the reviews of the site before trusting them, but most consumers are not likely to do that. Here is one example: 

As you can see, on the right, the highlighted searches are a website called Perfume Papa. 

The prices are at least 50% lower than those of all other sites. 

BUT, at this point, before we order, we do a simple text based scam check: 

First of all, the reviews come a little after half page is over. Then, as you scroll, you see more and more negative customer reviews. 

Now, consider what is happening here: 

Google is supposed to show the most relevant search results on top. This means that a user can assume, reasonably, that a search result on top is a relevant search result. They do not, at this point, have any reason to doubt the geniuneness of the site because Google has displayed it as a legit site to buy perfumes. 

When a customer gets scammed, they have no way of bringing Google to book. They can only blame themselves for trusting Google. But Google PROMISES relevant results and enjoys 92.2% market share only because of reliability. 

If you told everyone that Google search results are not reliable, do you think Google would still be at that 90%? 

Also, Google directly controls what it shows on its search engine. Therefore, it cannot claim the intermediary benefit. Any fraud that happens on account of organic search results is the responsibility of Google. It cannot hide behind search engine optimisation. 

Prediction Two: Reliability is the new gold 

Within 2024, reliability will become the No. 1 headache of the world. 

Even Google realises that ChatGPT3 is the future of web search. 

As this article and many others state, Google has issued Code Red over Chat GPT. 

However, Chat GP is not particularly reliable on the facts side. Really.  

I have no idea where it gets its fake ideas from, but am guessing from the same place as Google. 

If Google thinks that it is at risk from the format of Chat GPT, that is not it. It is at risk from the reliability of GPT. 

I just tried some controversial statements on Chat GPT and the results this week are different from results last week. Today is a lot more diplomatic, ergo, completely useless. BUT, it had no factual errors this time. 

The new success catalyst for web based search will be the reliability of search results. 

Not the format. The content. 

Example: 

Here is the text query I put on Chat GPT just now (time stamp is important because Chat GP is evolving rather rapidly) 

Search Query: What is the most controversial event of the 21st century so far

Chat GPT 3 response:

It is difficult to identify a single, most controversial event of the 21st century so far, as different events may be perceived as more or less controversial depending on one's perspective and context. Some events that have been widely considered to be controversial include:

• The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which occurred on September 11, 2001, and were perpetrated by a group of Islamic terrorists. The attacks resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and had significant global political and economic consequences.

• The invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies in 2003, which was justified by the US government as a response to the 9/11 attacks and the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The invasion, which was not authorized by the United Nations, led to a long and costly war and the destabilization of the region.

• The Arab Spring, a series of pro-democracy protests and uprisings that occurred in several Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011. The protests, which were fueled by widespread dissatisfaction with autocratic governments and economic inequality, led to the overthrow of several leaders and significant political change in the region.

• The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in late 2019 and has had a profound impact on global health and economic systems, as well as on social and political dynamics. The pandemic has raised numerous controversial issues, including debates about the effectiveness of various government responses and the distribution of vaccines.

Google search results start with Wikipedia! 

Yes, usability is a HUGE issue with Google search results. But notice something else? There is no trustworthiness to what Google is putting out. Wiki is the Kingdom of misinformation and no one has any accountability, again. 

Since investing in Wiki, i notice that Google has been prioritising Wiki in the search results. But that comes at a huge cost to the reliability of Google itself. 

And, if i have to double check everything the search engine is telling me, why do I need the search engine at all. 

Google's results are even less reliable and relevant than distant competitors like DuckDuckGo 

And Yahoo! 

The new gold is not just data. It is fact-checked, accurate data. 

11 Top Tips for New Age Tech Product Companies

 So, this is how a story unfolded: 

We use a cloud-based tech product for a specific part of our work. 

Of late, we have not been using them much. 

We started getting automated CRM messages like, "You have not visited us for a while" etc. But it really wasn't their fault. Our work had changed and our need for their product was less than it used to be. 

But last week, I needed to use the platform once again. Logged in and tried to do something I'd done hundreds of times earlier. 

There was an error message - "<field name> should be at least 30 minutes in the future." I looked for the field. It wasn't there. Which means this was a backend field that was somehow populated by some script running on the page. But I had no idea how to debug for this! 

Looked for a support channel. The only option was to initiate a callback if the knowledge base has no answer to your query. 

I did. 

The callback came. To their credit, in 15-20 minutes. 

I explained the problem. 

Support Desk: Why don't you make a new page and enter the whole information again? 

Me: I don't want to make a new page. I want to reuse this page. Why am I not able to do that? 

Support: Can you send me a screenshot or a screen recording? 

Me: I have given you the text of the error and the point at which this error is getting triggered. You have my cust id. Why do you need a screenshot to replicate the error? Take the record to your test server and do the transaction there, then debug! 

Support: Can you send me a screenshot? 

Me: No. 

But that's not all. After that, I got 2 emails a day with the following text: 

"Dear Customer: 

This is wrt the ticket that you raised. We hope that it was closed to your satisfaction. Please close the ticket if your issue is resolved" 

- with NO link to close the ticket. No email id on which to confirm whether or not the issue was resolved. Nothing. Just a plain text message from an automated sender. There is also no ticketin dashboard for me as a customer after logging in. 

With this, I got to thinking of the other reasons one has left Tech products behind. And here are some pointers 

Zero Defect Product is not an achievement. It is a MVP. 

If you want to run the marathon, make zero defect your DNA. 

************** 

Dear Tech Product Firms: 

• It is not the customer's job to help you debug your product. It is your job to ensure that a zero-bug product reaches the market. Zero tolerance for production bugs needs to be in your DNA if you are a tech product. Those tech bugs come back with big bites. Ask the graveyard of tech firms. 
• Minimise the customer's experience with the error. Have SoPs in place that tell the support person what exactly they need from the user and then get them cracking. 
• Have an accessible support. It goes a long way in increasing NPS, even from attriting customers. 
• Have a brilliant L1 support team. Half the user's issues can be solved by a well-informed L1 Helpdesk. Don't scrooge on them. 
• There are two quotes related to customers: 

                Steve Jobs: The customer doesn't know what it wants, until you show it to him. 

                David Ogilvy: The customer is not an idiot. She is your wife. 

                Trust Ogilvy. 

• Don't give the customer stupid workarounds. The customer is more ingenious than you when it comes to workarounds. You are being called to solve the problem. 
• "I am trying" means nothing to a retail customer. It means less than nothing to an enterprise customer. The correct response format is, "This will be done by <time>. If we are not able to resolve this by then, we will do <Plan B> to get your business in place." 
• Have product managers spend at least one day a month on L1 support desk. Have L1 support desks attend your sprint planning voting on stories on rotational basis. 
• If you have a wishlist, don't make it a Treasure hunt for the user. Have a simple link that takes a signed in user to the feature wishlist. That feature wishlist is your goldmine. 
• If you do have a wishlist, also add the small feature of "+1" in it, so customers who have similar needs can just upvote a story/feature ask instead of typing out the same thing over and over again. 
• Security is not an afterthought. 

How to Manage Client Scope Creep

This post is the result of a good conversation with Abhishek at a recent event. 

He asked how we managed to ensure that there was no scope creep. My projects have usually been on track and within budget, and as Abhishek mentioned, client scope creep is one of the major reasons why large IT projects go out of budget or schedule. 

So, if you are a budding project manager responsible for client management, here is the secret to building great client solution and even better client relationships. 

Most client scope creep comes from 2 areas: 

A. Complex Workflows, where more approval levels are added. 

B. Reports 

The first thing you have to remember when dealing with client scope creep is that they are not trying to trouble you. Their intention is not the squeeze the juice out of you. Their intention is to do the best that they can for their company at the least possible price. 

Surprise! That is your intention too! 

Most vendor PMs do not understand this intention and objective synergy. But when you do, you realise that you and the client PM are on the same side, trying to do the same thing. 

The only thing is, we are using two different approaches to do it. 

So, Step One:

Establish Commonality of Purpose 

Sit down with your client and establish commonality of purpose. Both of you are working towards the same thing: 

A. Create the best possible solution

B. In the least possible time 

C. At the least possible cost

Once it has been stated, it appears intuitive. Yet, until we say it out and put it on the table, it is not so apparent to the other party. In fact, if you wait at the water cooler long enough, you will definitely hear the Project Managers from both sides cribbing. The Client PM usually says one or more of the following: 

• The vendor does not want to do any work or wants to do shoddy work and get away with it. 
• They are not doing enough KT 
• Even for small change they give such a huge estimate, and change request for everything! 
• They just don't understand our business and requirements. I don't know how to explain. 

The Vendor PM will usually say one or more of the following: 

• The Client is really miserly. 
• They always underestimate the time it will take to do something. 
• They are paying us for a cow and want us to make an elephant. 
• They don't understand how the system works. 
• They have such weird requirements! Who works like this? 

So, the step of establishing commonality of purpose is the most important one. It establishes trust and ensures that you row on the same direction, not in opposite directions. 

Once commonality of purpose is established, the next thing is to understand where scope creep is coming from. 

Step Two: 

Diagnose and Guide 

Most scope creep comes from the two areas I have mentioned above. You do your own diagnosis on your projects and understand WHERE the scope creep is coming. And then ask yourself WHY. 

What problem is the client trying to solve by doing this extra work? 

Let's get straight to taming the beast. 

Step Three 

Managing Scope Creep and Making Great Friends 

Here is the most important tip anyone will ever share with you on managing scope creep. It is so important that I am going to write it in caps. 

START WITH YES. 

Whenever the client asks you whether something can be done, NEVER start the conversation with No. if you know that it can be done, start with, "Yes". If you are not sure, start with "We will try to find a way to do this." 

Managing Workflow Complications

Most clients who try to add additional approval and exception workflows are basically trying to tame one beast - Compliance. 

That is the core objective. 

Start the conversation by saying - My work ends with doing the coding. Your work starts after that and goes on forever. So, my work is the shorter one. Let's talk about how this will work after go live in your business. Let's discuss a few scenarios and understand how much additional work it will add for your users, and what you are doing about it now. 

After that, listen. Let them explain all their use cases and exceptions. Understand their compliance needs thoroughly and most importantly, understand how users manage exceptions now. A system that can be excepted by the user in an emergency will eventually be excepted as a matter of course. The user's onboarding learning curve is slow, but their bypassing learning curve for any system is amazingly steep. So, if you make it necessary for users to bypass the system for one thing, they will be bypassing it for most things sooner than you realise. 

After the client has finished putting their requirements on the table, don your product specialist hat (or get your product specialists on board) and design a solution that meets their needs without being overly complicated. I can assure you that most workflows can be simplified. 

Pro Tip: For each workflow step, ask your client: 

• How will this step increase the transaction load of the user? 

Let's understand this with a real life example: 

Let's say that the client wants all travel to go to the department head. The questions we ask then are: 

A. How many travel requests will the DH have to approve in a day? Week? Month? How much time will it take them to approve each (assume reading time). If we go with 5 a week and 5 minutes per TR, that's 25 minutes of extra work per week. For an already stretched executive. 

Next, ask them how they plan to manage situations that are definitely going to arise - the executive on leave, too busy, traveling himself, etc. 

Usually, in such cases, a thing called Delegation of Authority is used. 

Let the client think about that. And then help them understand how to balance compliance with minimum transaction load on the users. 

• What value is this step adding to your process? 

The most frequent response to this is "It gives us better control" or "Compliance." 

Do not resist. After the client says this, sit back in silence and let them think. 

If they do not appear to be making headway, ask gently, "Are you creating a better process, or are you helping someone do CYA? Think about that. If the system can be hacked, it will neither lead to better compliance nor control. Every new control element you put in there is also a hacking opportunity. Think about the real business value of every step. And its real objective." 

Always be mindful of the client's imperatives. 99% of the times, clients see the difference between business value and CYA. But some cultures are necessarily CYA cultures. In those cultures, you can only help the client by perpetuating the CYA culture. Do that. 

And most importantly, NEVER disrespect the client - neither in public with your team, nor in private in your head. A Lot of delivery managers and PMs get together to laugh at clients in private. The client does not know tech as well as you do, and you don't know business as well as they do. Further, respect cannot be faked. Come from a place of real understanding, and you will create synergy. Come from a place of negotiation, and you will create a tug of war. I am still in touch with client PMs who worked with me 15 years ago, and more. 

Managing Reports 

Report requirements are the biggest headache for most PMs. The client wants to extract every element of data being put (or not put) into the system in about 15 reports on average (that's a joke, not a statistic). 

So, how does one tame the report monster? 

There are, once again, 2 simple questions that one asks the client. 

Since I have dealt with dashboard design and report management in another post, will just quickly state the 2 questions here: 

A. Who will enter this data? 

Request the client to go through their entire data flow process (you can use a proprietary methodology I have listed elsewhere on this blog - the Data River Diagram) and have them understand how the data will flow into the system in the first place. 

Is there enough reliability of that data for us to use it in reporting? 

B. What decision will it aid / How will you use it? 

Every pixel on an executive dashboard is important. Every second of executive time is important. If a data element is making it to reporting, it must help the user do one of the following: 

A. Monitor and control 

B. Diagnose and Correct 

C. Predict and Decide 

If the report is not fulfilling one of these 3 objectives, it should not be there. 

Your clients will truly appreciate your trying to create reports and dashboards that are relevant for the long term. 

In fact, invest some time in creating a report library that you know helps other organisations create effective dashboard and reporting interfaces, then proactively share it with clients. Will significantly shorten the cycle time and will also help the client see value in your work. 

So, are there any best practices that have helped you deliver better business value to your clients? Do share! 

An article from 2011: Not betting on Android yet

 

I love the news that Android has overtaken Symbian as the mobile OS. It is, in principle, the victory of the open source.

 

But am not betting on Android just yet. Because, Android is yet to face and successfully deflect a major challenge. And that, is the acid test of a victor. An unchallenged victor is not a victor – merely a figure of preponderance.

 

Sample this: An Android app is created. it appears to be a simple stress buster app that allows you to knock a hammer virtually when you are stressed. Great. A few million downloads happen over a time unit – say a month or so. Its a viral app that is promoted by online word of mouth and because its free, the download is easy.

 

What we do not know is, that underneath the hammer code is another code – malware. It could be anything – a code that surreptitiously handles your data – either obliterating it systematically, or acting like a virus and moving to other phones (not the app section, just the virus section, or monitoring all your connections and forwarding your emails to another address in bcc without telling you, or using your phone to participate in a DDOS attack .. anything at all.

 

The 2 things that stack up against Android as against other OSs are:

1. The easy implementation and the much higher “Viral” impact possible.

2. The more the no. of connected Android smartphones, the greater the temptation for a malware creator.

 

I’d love to see the victory of the Android.. because it puts the power in the hands of the user – because it allows people to contribute and use .. creating a community of producers and consumers. 

 

Which is why, its important for Android to anticipate at least some of the growth pangs, and to plan for it by creating security apps that can be downloaded by users. Am sure someone has thought of it already and its in process somewhere.. just wish we non geeks knew about it.

 

And before we place that Victor crown of olive branches on the Android head, Android will have to prove that it can quash more than one malware challenge. It will take one, exactly one major application based attack to completely kill the Android credibility. And thats one chink in the armour that some competition is waiting to exploit.

 

As i write this, there is, am sure, a programmer somewhere, writing such a malware and smiling to themselves, and there is somewhere, a programmer writing a code that will take care of phone security on Android. Like the African Giraffe and Lion story, we just have to wait and see which one runs faster.

 

Predicting Employee Attrition Using Big Data

 

2 weeks ago, the HR Head asked me a question – I want to know which employee is going to put in his papers – and when.

 

It was one of those rare moments when i was completely, totally stumped.

 

Here is a partial answer- How to use Big(and small) data together to predict employee turnover.

 

Factors that impact turnover

Lets start at the very beginning. What makes an employee quit?

 

When I conducted Exit interviews at our small 700 people IT organisation, i wouldnt ask them, “why are you leaving?” I would ask, “Why did you start looking?” I wanted to understand where the distance began, and why. The resignation is not what we are investigating. That action is the result of a disengagement that began weeks, months, even years before the actual resignation.

 

We are investing that disengagement. And the probability of its resulting in a separation. Two different things.

 

How do we measure something as intangible as disengagement?

 

I believe we may have some ideas here.

 

Pointers to Disengagement

 

• Employee Satisfaction Scores

This one is apparently a no brainer. Yet I am suprised to see that most ERP packages dont have a place to store the employee’s engagement score and compare that year on year. Then check for its correlation with their performance ratings and other behavioral actions. There are pointers there.

 

• Social Media Activity

This is where big data comes in. Have an internal IM program and an internal social media platform like yammer or internal discussion boards? Let your Big Data analysts do quick calculations on how often and with how many colleagues the IM was used. And how often the social media platform and discussion boards were used. Engaged employees will use more “connection points” to connect with the organisation and its people.

Notable Exception: Introverts. Introverts are people too. And they wont use Social Media. The end of this post says “Its the pattern, not the static data.” Read that section to know more.

 

• Meet the Parents

This is one of my favorite metaphors. When they bring the family, they are engaged. No exceptions. This also can be automated. Attendance at the family events is automated and can be fed into the giant supercomputer for automatic analysis. If you know when they stopped bringing the family, you know when they started thinking out.

 

• Access Card Patterns

Another big data beauty which needs individualised reading to make sense. How often was the access card used to go in and out? Whats the pattern? Has it changed lately?

 

Which access cards are used together? Are the breaks in groups, with one or two friends, or alone?

 

• Use of development resources on the learning portal

What kind of courses are being accessed? What was it earlier? Is it consistent with the expectations of the current role? What is the usage pattern?

 

• Correlate with Performance Ratings and the moneys

The higest risk categories are employees who have recently witnessed a fall in the rating, or whose difference from their maximum potential earning is very high. Let me explain. Suppose Mr. Alpha is paid INR 100 at the highest paying company. You are at the 60th percentile as an organisation, so you pay INR 60 for the same profile. But suppose the actual salary of Mr. Alpha is not INR 60, but INR 55, because of your internal compa ratio adjustments. Which means that Mr. Alpha is at a 45% discount from his maximum earning potential. That kind of gap is not sustainable.

 

And lastly, remember, its the pattern, not the static data. Big data will, over a period of time, establish patterns of behavior for each employee. When this pattern of behavior changes in a perceptible way, and for a consistent period, you know you should care enough to investigate more.

 

Does disengagement always result in attrition? Is it worth bothering with if it doesnt lead to attrition? What are some of the other pointers that can be used to arrive at behavioral disengagement? Anything we have missed out in the article above?