The Importance of KTB in RTB, GTB and TTB

 

As IT organisations grapple with budget allocations and portfolio assessments and redesigning the service portfolio to stay relevant in the digital era, they probably feel underequipped and over worked. Perhaps rightfully so.

The weekend ruminations were on helping CIOs deal with the portfolio management conundrum. Of all the ideas that floated, one stood out.

While we talk about RTB, GTB and TTB, and try to use allocations in these areas, perhaps it is time to invest in a crucial component. IMHO, this component is a key input in determining the IT Service portfolio of an organisation and yet one that receives very little attention.

Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting – KTB – Know The Business. Most IT organisations have dedicated staff whose only job is to monitor the latest IT trends in their industry and to map usage to their own organisations. They may be called by any name – Business Analysts, Functional Consultants, Center of Excellence et al. Sometimes, key employees do it as part of their regular JD.

But few, if any, invest in staying updated in whats happening in business trends around the world, and not just the IT trends in that industry. Better still, we do not normally find the IT folks very conversant with the details of how the business is actually run. Consequently, we have a situation where we are trying to decide the IT needs of a business but we do not know what that business is.

Endpoint: CIOs must invest budgetary dollars in ensuring that the entire team, or at least the portfolio management/ budgeting team is aware of how the business is run, and how it will change over the next 2-3 years (not just in IT).  KTB should be a part(albeit a small part) of the Portfolio Management budget.

Assigning the KTB Dollars for Maximum Value

 

In the previous post, we spoke about assigning dollars to ensuring that the IT team understands the business.

Which starts the next question – where should these dollars go for maximum impact.

This answer is based entirely on my experience as a non business person trying to make sense of the business. My knowledge of industries is limited to IT, Consulting and Energy. This may not apply to some industries, or may have to be modified to suit your specific need, but its a good starting point.

Tier 1: The Grassroots: Assign a set of people who do actual delivery and support work for day to day IT ops, to go and see the grassroots part of the business – the factory, the drill, the delivery projects, the warehouse et al. How do people really work. This internal perspective is very important because it will create the empathy that support people must have for their customers.

Tier 2: The Decisions: Next, assign a group of people to work directly with the middle layer to understand the answers to 2 questions:

1. By what process are decisions taken in that department?

2. What are the variables that impact decision making?

Once we know how decisions are taken and what impacts those decisions, we know the movers for our customers and will be able to respect their constraints better. The other thing I have observed is that when I know the variables for my customer, I am able to work with them to generate the most out of our positive variables, while minimising the impact of the negative variables. But not knowing their variables puts our team in a blind spot from where we argue our respective positions, without much benefit to either party.

Tier 3: This is expected. The Center of Excellence or the Benchmarking team should also allocate time to understand how the business itself is changing. This team will interact internally and externally both, participate in industry conferences and not just IT conferences, preferably with a colleague from the relevant unit.

What are your thoughts? As the CIO, would you invest in your team knowing the business? How would you go about it?

Where Gamification Comes From – The Impact of Millennials in the Workplace

 The Background

This morning, I was at a workshop for parents at my child’s school. We were taught how to make spellings fun for our children. The class was very interesting, with activities and games to help children learn spelling.

At one point, the trainer said, “Our children have a very low span of attention. And this generation does not believe in work. So it is our duty to make learning fun for them. They will learn, but we must make it interesting and ..fun!  Our parents just asked us to learn spelling, and we did. But that’s not how this generation works.”

If the reality of the millennials had never hit me, it did now. The teacher was right – this is a generation that has grown up without the concept of “work”. If its not fun, if its not engaging enough, they wont do it. Suddenly, it is someone else’s job to make the workplace “engaging” and to keep them interested. Remember that famous quote ? The world owes you  NOTHING.? Apparently, the millennials skipped that one in their entire education.

Having said that, the generation is brilliant.. they are capable of creative destruction.. and reconstruction – probably more than any generation before them has been.  They have a very supportive social structure – more than any other generation has had since the Victorian age, at the very least.

The Problem Statement

So, how do we get them to contribute to the grinding mill called “normal work” . How do we get them to understand the concept of “work” ?

The Immediate Solution

Perhaps this explains the ever growing trend of “gamification” of everything. Today, we reward the smallest things – there are “tasks” and “quests” and “points (or eggs or coins or gems) to be won, then reused within the game for higher levels, more advanced digital tools and so on. I would like to make special mention of things like office Vibe, which rewards proof of collaborative behavior, healthy living, et al. There are a lot of other apps, websites and even custom developed tools that do the same.

The generation coming after them is not any different. Increasingly, “Work” becomes a dirty word.

As practitioners, we face a unique problem because of that..

The Problem created by the immediate solution

The colleagues who are not millennials, wonder why the new generation is so “pampered” , while they come and do an honest day’s job and are not rewarded as much as, or on par with their work contribution.

Cause Analysis

As I see it, these different generations derive gratification from different stimuli. As workplace practitioners, we try and provide these stimuli.

For the non millennials, the primary source of gratification is, by and large, how much and how well their work is done, the money they get for it, and the recognition they get for it. The output and the recognition for that output. Also, elements of discipline like being on time, communicating according to protocol et al. Make

For the millennials, gratification comes from “fun”, “enjoyment” and “being engaged”. Having control over their calendars, working out of anywhere, and getting recognised for output alone.

(Of course, these are sweeping generalisations being used to simplify and present the problem we are dealing with in this post. )

So, structurally, both groups are getting what gives them gratification.

The problem comes when we try to create an environment that rewards *both* these behaviors at the same time and also when people try to compare their contribution: reward ratio with that of the other groups.

Solving for the root problem

So, the problem is not just that the 2 generations view the idea of “work” very differently. It is also not that organisations are not willing to provide what they need to create a stimulating and engaging workplace experience.

The real problem arises because:

A. We pretend that we are treating all employees the same: We cannot. Because they are not the same. We are giving each one what they need – broadly. If one gets flexi time , it is because they need flexi time. if the other gets higher fixed bonus, it is not because we penalise flexi time and reward adherence to fixed time. It means that money is not the only kind of reward we give. Money is only one type of gratification. Flexi time and shorts at work is another. When we create this myth of equal treatment for all employees, we are also perpetrating the myth that basically, all employees are the same, they need the same things.

Solving for Perpetrating the Myth:  

To solve for this myth, we need to acknowledge that all employees are different and may need different things. Being different does not make them “flippant” or “undisciplined” or millennials”old fashioned” or “stuffy”. We don’t need to label anyone who is different from us. Labeling happens when acceptance is missing. And acceptance has to start with the employer. Acknowledge differences. Stop the “Everyone gets the same treatment” myth. Acknowledge that policies are differential, but the basis of differentiation is the need of that employee group.

B. People compare with each other.

Solving for Comparisons at workplace

Comparisons happen, mostly in linear reward structures – ones based mostly on money as the reward.

Suppose we were to initiate a multi factor rewards environment, where people could pick the things that work for them – flexi time, informal dressing, tele presence, travel, et al. Each element has a cost to company, and it is published.

Endpoint

We are dealing with multiple age groups at the workplace. We keep thinking of ways to make them work together. This is not THE answer. There cannot be one “THE” answer. But the more we work in this area, the more answers we are likely to have.

Visualisation: That crucial element for Agile in ERP

Once upon a time, we wanted to use Test Driven Development (TDD) on a small ERP delivery project. This would reduce documentation by 70% and lead to a time saving of upto 40%. We were very excited.

We ran the familiarisation workshops. Explained how the method will be different – to the customer and to our own development teams. Got everyone’s concurrence. And then we started with a small project in pilot.

 

Except, it didn't take off. But that experience taught me something really important about adoption of Agile in ERP projects. The missing link was simply this – because ERP (even small ERP deliveries) are huge, we were not able to visualise the end product. That is why we could not start with Test Driven Development.

 

Once we had the Root Cause Analysis, it was relatively easy. For the next application, I sat and visualised the ENTIRE application – all user types, with all their screens, and behavior of each button.

 

We didn’t have the luxury of standard screens that most ERP customers have – they know the standard screen buttons available to them and know what they look like. We had to visualise the entire application from scratch.

But here is the important thing – once the wireframing was done, it was much easier to do Test Cases. We simply knew what to expect!

 

So here’s the recommendation – when we try to do TDD, especially on non traditional areas like ERP, spend some time and expense on a soft skills trainer – and do a visualisation, wireframing workshop. For the business owner and users. If they can visualise what they want, the rest of the exercise becomes much easier. Today, I find Visualisation to be a really powerful element in application design.

 

And visualisation is a specialised skill. Usually, it needs to be learnt.

Investment: The Core of a Change Management Program

I play this online city building game. It’s a MMG (Massive Multi player game) which means that you don’t just build a city alone, you also interact with other players, attacking their cities and protecting your own. Obviously, the game rewards you for this mutual destruction.

At level 6, I attacked a Level 22 player, and won! Imagine my happiness. Which was successfully doused when, 2 days letter, I got a threat message from the said player, telling me that my cities will be “destroyed” in no time. I laughed, and wrote back to him, saying that it is only a game, and that he could destroy all he wants. I can walk away from the game in 10 minutes and never look back.

At level 30, when the same player attacked me, I wasn’t so amused. I sent *him* a message saying that I play a solo game, and that he had better stay away from *my* cities.

So, what changed? This: I became more *INVESTED* in the game. Suddenly, there was a stake to protect.

That’s what this post is about. We brought that learning back to the Change Management projects we were doing. The objective of change management is not to familiarise and train. It’s not to remove resistance or aid adoption.

The CORE of change management – is to make your user *INVESTED* in the change. It becomes theirs and *they* have a stake to protect.

In designing change management interventions today, the first question one asks is, “Will this make them invested in the new state of things?”

I have found that this change in perspective has greatly enriched the interventions. It makes it mandatory for us to find what will get them invested. And it has helped me understand that time is a major factor in ensuring this *investment*. Like leadership and parenting, it cannot be rushed, nor squeezed into “quality time”.

The Data Journey Diagram/Data River Diagram

Today, I am going to talk about a tool that I have just created. The tool is here for discussion, but NOT for re-use or re-distribution. Please use your conscience and do not re-use this tool without my permission, (which can be had for the asking).

The tool is called the Data Journey Diagram.

What

Graphical illustration to help users understand the usage of data generated by them, and to help BI designers see the most expected fallacies in their data.

For

Primarily, the tool is for the end users who generate data and the Analytics consultants who design the analytics solution for an organisation. The other stakeholders are the IT department, legal, security and line businesses.

How

The tool is very simple. We put the end users, the MIS team, and the data analytics team in one room.

Then we create a meandering river shape on the board. The Analytics Consultant puts a simple report at the end of the line. Then, he puts in all the data elements that go into making that report.

Slowly, each stakeholder who owns each data point, writes down where each data element comes from – all the processing points, and all the hands that the data element passes through. The river is used as a rough measure of time flow.

For each data element that comes from a different source, at the point of convergence, we draw a separate line to indicate a contributing tributary. Then the journey carries on backwards until we have a river system in place – indicating all the places where the data comes from, how it all comes together et al.

 

Ground Rules

At each stage, ONLY the stakeholder who owns the data at that point, will be allowed to create a “milestone rock” and name it. No one else.

 

Limitations

This tool does NOT:

A. Indicate dependencies.

B. Indicate And/or relationships

C. Indicate mathematical or logical operations. We know that 2 data elements come together, but we do not know if they use averages or totals.

 

What is achieved

At the end of this exercise, end users are able to appreciate, in very simple terms, how their data errors impact decision making at the CEO level.

The Analysts are able to see sources of the data being used in the high end analytics reports, and can talk to the stakeholders right there to find out if there are any anticipated data errors – time lag, fallacy, human error etc. These are VERY important inputs for the analytics design team, because GIGO is as true today as it was when computers were invented. 

So, what are your thoughts?

 

What the Everest teaches us about creating great organisations

If you want to trek up a hill, you can do it alone. And with some practice and grit, do it really well.

 But no one, and no one, can climb the Everest alone. To conquer a mountain, you must climb with a team.

The rules of the mountains teach much. There is no hierarchy. The respect is earned not by who pays whom, but by who knows what and who does what.

The Sherpa who, strictly speaking, is a paid porter, gets much respect. Because he has been up and down that mountain many times, and because he has spent his life observing this mountain, worshipping her. He understands her moods way better than you ever will. When he tells you to turn, you always do. Because he knows better.

What if we spent some time doing that in organisations? Listening to people who have been around a long time.. understanding from them why things failed when they failed, what happened in the past. . it will waste time and bind our thought process. But it will also teach us lessons that we dont need to relearn.

 I can remember a case study that we did at one of the courses. The details are not important, but the message was the same.

Do you think this would work for organisations? Why or why not?

* This post first appeared on my blog on ITtoolbox/toolbox.com on January 28, 2014