Give Generously

I like giving blood. I don't mean that in the sense of masochistic delight in being poked with a needle repeatedly until they find my "deep veins" (even if it is done by a nurse), but it gives me a certain satisfaction knowing that I'm doing my bit for society. Being prone to the odd bout of warm and fuzzies (or guilt), I like to think of myself as a donor. It's been long enough since I was overseas, so it's time.
I like to give irregularly (when I think about it), I have nominated my organs, too, for some other poor sod when I shuffle off this mortal coil - I'll have finished using my bits, so someone can take whatever the vultures leave behind. I give to charities when it's convenient for me - like buying a useless trinket at an exorbitant price, occasionally emptying my pocket of loose silver, collecting receipts for tax purposes. I'm trying to get the band into donation receiver status so that I can buy my own equipment as a tax loss.
It's just the way I am - always thinking of others.
Why is it that I am constantly surrounded by those who couldn't give a rat's? Seriously, if cleaning up after the little pigs in the office kitchen isn't enough, you'd think that someone would have noticed that I'm re-supplying the breath mints from my personal stash - especially when I've gone off on holidays. There's been no indication of thanks, or appreciation for doing something for them. I don't expect it, mind you, but some token of their esteem in the form of doing as I do would go down a treat. I'd like to see the kitchen clean when I go in, not only as I leave it.
Do I expect too much out of people? I blame society. Everyone else does. I mean, what sort of social system are we building when little old ladies are constantly walking across the street unaided? Call me old-fashioned, but where are we going from there? I read De Bono's religion book, and thought "Great, that's for me", and since then I've thought "Hang on, why do we need to put this sort of thing in a book - why isn't everyone just doing it?" He had to justify the religion in terms of how it can raise the self-esteem of the individual. It would be a hard sell to say that the individual becomes a better person (not just feels like one). I weep for the future of humanity. I truly do.
Are people intentionally ignoring situations where they could lend a hand? Are they trained (by society) to not see people in need - like an invisible, untouchable lower class? Or do they intentionally avoid getting involved? They see the problem, they understand how they could help, but choose consciously not to.
That scares me.
Worse, it appals me that that is the society I live in. Worse still is that getting involved becomes some form of self-ostracism. You set yourself apart by helping, by sticking your hand up. That goes to politics especially. Who'd want to be a politician? "The People" elect you, and then complain bitterly about everything you do, come up with no ideas on how to do it better, refuse to do it themselves, and gratefully re-elect you so that they can do it all over again. Sometimes they replace you with the person who can both rubbish you and want to be rubbished in return (attention seekers). No wonder the country is going down the tubes. Then "the Media" - another faceless entity that refuses to do anything for itself, but sits back and watches people in trouble, flaunts your human frailties from a long distance, for the purposes of entertainment and money-making (better ratings means bigger advertising), and ensures that no-one gets too involved in their society, as all such people are exposed as similarly flawed.
What a vicious circle.

I'm going to have to find a way to calm down so that my blood pressure isn't too high when I go to give blood in an hour or two.

The Bet's Still on

The project's going well. Thanks for asking. Sometimes it feels as though I'm going it alone because Arkel seems to think he can borrow my people at will, and I don't mind all that much most of the time. I'm just too nice a guy.
I've got Spin and Owl collecting data like crazy, most of the time, and I've been so involved directly that it's a constant distraction. In theory, I'm only directing the work, but it seems that I'm too efficient at doing it myself, and it's too easy to get going along a path and not be able to hand it on to anyone. My fault. My problem. This is one of those problems about being a manager with a technical background. One will get in the way of the other.
With Axis about to go on holidays, I get Wildman as a replacement. Due to his other duties within Engineering, everything is being pushed back. With no Polo to play politics with, and Gabriel being run off his feet, there's little I can do about it anyway.
Merk's gone - and FO can't find him, because he seems to have fallen off the side of the earth. Dryza will return, which will be a pleasant change. She and I get on particularly well, and I can trust her to do things I would normally be bundled with myself. She may not have the background, but she has the capability.
Meanwhile, Doodles is trying to line up someone for my staff, before I even realised that I had need for them! Given that I've always wanted a 2IC, and Booker, the prime candidate, still won't work more than three days a week for me, I live in hope that this is the one. If only I had the budget to do it. I can see it now - having to sacrifice one of the other girls to achieve it. That's not necessarily my idea of moving forward. Then again, I've never worked to a budget - I spend what I need to, and no-one dares question it.
Maybe that's how the bet came about. FO bet me 10K that I wouldn't be able to finish this little project by the end of the year. Truly, it was the only way of guaranteeing its success, calling my bluff and turning it into a challenge. He needs it as much as I do, and he can only think in terms of money. That's why Dryza's coming back. That's why Merk was here. That's why, the last time Dryza was around, I had two contractors sitting around creating stuff for me. Money - short-term, one-off, non-recurring, under-a-given-value money - works wonders with the accounting-minded. You tell them how they can make it or save it, and they're sold on the concept.
I'm not saying that I caused FO to make the bet. I'm merely suggesting that, if he wanted it done, money was the only way he would be able to see it happen, and the only person who could amke it happen in reality was me. Me and money don't get along, so paying me off doesn't help, which left the bet. Bugger the money. There's pride at stake now!
I've got time. I've got (just) enough resources. What I need is a little luck, and I can make some money.

Love Your Work

Out of the blue, an old friend sent me an email. I haven't seen him for ten years, and he practices law (the two not being related) - well out of my field of interest - I mean expertise. Alfie and I used to hang with a third wheel - Tom. Tom and I then shared a house for a year and a half, but we've drifted apart. Enough of ancient history.
So, I received an email "Daffy! What are you up to?" etc, with an email signature indicating a reputable telecommunications company, but no status within same (that is, how his career was going). We talked for a bit, and set up a lunch date, and I mentioned that I hadn't seen Tom for several years, and it got me thinking - where was he?
So, I started trawling the web (as you do) and found three potential email addresses quickly, and sent off mails to all of them. They were on his personal domain, I might add.
It turned out that Tom took a job where I didn't when coming here - at about the same time. That's the second time we've almost crossed paths - we didn't realise that we'd been working about a street apart for a while until years later. Tom couldn't make it for lunch because he's working a bus and train ride away from here.
Meanwhile, Alfie got back to me with "How's this for coincidence - I want to apply for this job at , and I was wondering if you could give me some tips. I don't suppose you know what external law firm they use ..."
Lawyers are these strange creatures that I use when we have to do something with patents, or the occasional letter with intent, or contract. We aren't big enough to have one full-time, but does. What I would use a lawyer for is quite different to , because they have a lot more brand to protect. I said as much to Alfie. However, within a day, I was reading a trade magazine online and found an article where proposed government regulations might impinge on 's operations, and they had made a submission to that effect, and how it would bring down society, etc.

I passed the link on to Alfie "I don't know who they use, but I know that a good lawyer would be right on top of this."
The reponse was simply "We both know I'm not a good lawyer. But jeez I can hustle."
Love your work.

I'll be Mother

No, this is not some reference to my time in prison ...
In every organisation large enough to have its own kitchen, there is a problem over keeping it clean. When this company was a lot smaller (one room), we used to traipse down to the shared facilities, where a beautifully-maintained cappucinno machine would pour forth its frothy brown delight, and cups would be collected from there by someone paid a pittance to do nothing more than load up the dishwasher and make the place look tidy.
When we left those ideal, but very expensive, surrounds, our kitchen was a cupboard, and we'd go down to the toilets to fill a jug with water (from the basins, that is), and cart it back to the office to our own grim machinery, which I would clean on a regular basis. When Veg joined us, he was the coffee connoisseur, and would tell me when the machine was acting up, but would never take it on himself to do anything about it. Even Beach, who might have considered it her job then, merely giggled her way to my desk to point out that something needed to be done. We were a much smaller collection then.
Now, we've built up this little group from about 12 to 20 in a lot larger office space, with a proper kitchen, our own dishwasher, professional coffee machine, poor little Tutu with the responsibility of operating the dishwasher, and still a reliance on me to handle the coffee machine. This was all well and good when I was one of those who used the machine - twice a day, mostly - but now that I've given up the demon caffeeine (horrors!), I feel less affinity for cleaning up after others and servicing their needs (so to speak).
I spend less time in the kitchen waiting. If the jug just boiled, I make my tea and leave. If it hasn't, then I'll walk away until it has. That's the thing with jugs - they're predictable. Coffee machines could do anything during your coffee. For one thing, the last fool to use it could have left it dry, or the milk frother empty, may have left it full of coffee capsule, or water overflow, or any of a number of such simple problems. I seem to be the only one who notices such things. Maybe I look for them too often with my critical eye. Having once been the height of technical excellence in this organisation, I jokingly referred to it as a part of my job. Now, as the chief of product, I have less interest in other people's.
I don't mind wiping down the cupboards, resealing the biscuit box, taking the empty boxes out to the recycling bin (around the corner), replacing the water bottle; but there's got to be a limit. Someone else must have a clue, surely. When people like Tweet burn toast and wonder why there's a stench in the kitchen, it's for me to say - "Don't worry, I'll be mother and clean the toaster. You go enjoy your lunch."
Then again, if Beach puts up a sign that says "You Mother doesn't work here. Clean yourself up." (I kid you not), then it's also for me to add a "Keep Smiling" directive.

I once worked for a company where they hired someone to keep the kitchen clean (there were over a hundred (semi-)technical staff), clean white-boards, collect print-outs, etc. After a month or two, they made her the CEO's PA, and no-one noticed the difference.

So long ... and thanks for all the clash

It's been so long since I last talked to you that I've got no idea what I've said, and certainly can't recall any of what I haven't. That being the case, this conduit of creativity and consolation has been busy in the interim trying to actually get some work done whilst being constantly distracted by other people's problems. That sums up my life - counsellor to the unconsolable, dabbler in the diabolically disparate.
I keep trying to foist my team onto someone else, as I may have mentioned several times, to no avail. Tweet is still the perfect candidate to be my official 2IC, but I can't steal her completely from Polo (and I think Arkle has dibs on her time as well). Therefore, I remain the main technical support for those I manage - and I even look after Puff because Arkle doesn't have a clue. C'est la vie. FO has decided that the only way he's going to get his project completed is if he leaves it in my hands and bribes me. He has also offered to take off my hands any distractions - not in any sense that might mean him doing the work, but in that I wouldn't have to worry about things. That worries me. Most of what I do is done because I am the only one who takes responsibility for them. No-one supports my team because the only ones who can are Polo's people, and they "don't have the time" - at least they don't have the planning that would allow for it.
The other chief thing I do, as conduit between the customer-focused people and the engineers is so critical, and yet so avoided by others that I can't trust anyone else to do it. No-one understands both camps like I do. This often leaves me the meat in the middle of a mind-game sandwich, but someone's got to be there.
Case in point. Doodles had a requirement, and he brought it to me as urgent, and I did all in my power to move it forward into engineering. He had done some work on his own (always a mistake) and thought he had the solution, and there would only be a five minute job to incorporate his changes. I told him that he hadn't solved the problem, or even come close, but it would take a week for an engineer to re-do his work, and then test it. Two weeks later (yes, there was a delay), we discovered in the field that I was right - the solution wasn't sufficient. The customer had not disclosed their environment to us in all cases, and Doodles now whined about having to go back on his word and ask for more time for a complete solution. It was, apparently, all Gabriel's fault, because he came to me and said that he wanted to avoid another situation where Doodles blamed Engeineering for taking too long to deliver something that didn't work, and another customer was going to be lost.
Putting things in perspective, the customer's threat (if real) was empty - no-one can do what we do. I know the competition. Secondly, Doodles making promises to customers that go against the advice of experts (such as myself) puts the onus back on him with regards failing customer relationships. Thirdly, for Doodles to complain about things not being delivered in a timely manner flies in the face of Polo's complaint that most of the requirements introduced by sales people never get used anyway, so why bother?
Thus, this little black duck being the Exxon Valdeez, pouring oil over troubled waters. Would FO do this for me? I don't think so. The man has the tact of a cave-man and the grace of a cross-eyed elephant on a lop-sided skateboard.
Is this a distraction? Company-sized.
Any suggestions? Usually, you see, it would be me coming up with the solution to such a problem. Now I'm not sure if I'm a part of it, or merely the cause of it.

Polo invades Poland

Our moving into these offices a year and a half ago coincided with Polo agreeing to come on board and work for us. I had somehow convinced him that he could build the sort of engineering team that he enjoys working with, starting with next to nothing. Initially, he and I shared a massive office, and the engineering staff were at the other end of the floor, squeezed into ill-fitting offices. This worked well as Polo found his feet, taking an hour or two of my time each day.
Polo's plan was to start tearing down walls until he had the space to triple the size of the team. At the time, without the possibility of expansion, that meant somehow taking over MadDog's office - the once nearest the new open-plan area. Joining the offices was referred to as breaking down the Berlin walls (or the unification of Germany), and expanding was referred to as invading Poland. This also meant that he and I had to abandon our paradise, and it was split into two offices far too small to do anything with. Think of it as the former Yugoslavia. I think we had seven or eight people in there for the day once, talking strategy. Some didn't want to join the company long term.
Anyway, Polo built his team, and I built mine, and he demanded the right to sit in the middle of his so as not to lose sight of reality. He now has Gabriel to do that, and either Bubble or FO has finally convinced him, in a bid to kill off MadDog, that he take over that office.
Given that MadDog was in the office for all of a few days recently, I wonder if he even knows about the change in circumstances. Admittedly, it is a little silly that he spends so little time here, and yet takes up a well-appointed office with its own meeting space, etc. But then, we don't have a space issue at the moment - in fact, Polo has been getting rid of contractors recently, leaving enough space for visitors from the other office. However, I know what the purpose of those visits is - Bubble thinks it makes good sense to use the cheaper resources there to do the work of the engineering team here. That means that MadDog might be spending his life there, which works for him personally, but makes no sense otherwise. Winding down the resourcing makes us less capable of achieving the goals set, it doesn't just make it cheaper to not achieve them. False economies. I think I've touched on that before. If you put an accountant in charge of anyting, it always comes back to money - how much will it cost us to get it done? - how much can I save if I don't do it?
Money doesn't solve problems; it causes them. It worries me that there are people who think that the world is a capitalistic paradise where time is money and time can be bought, etc. But don't get me started. Some folk around here are artificially inflated enough. The next thing you know, people will have to carry their egos around in wheelbarrows.

Shifting Sands

Sometimes, working between business priorities and engineering priorities is like running through sand dunes. The object of the game is to keep moving in the direction you want to go at the speed you think is safe - sometimes with the sand flowing under you to assist, sometimes going against it; sometimes slowing yourself to go downhill, sometimes going nowhere uphill.
Thus it was yesterday, after a few days of shifting priorities. Last Friday had seen Doodles make an emergency request for functionality; without specifying anything more than "it doesn't work as I promised", it took Monday to work out what he wanted, and I indicated the likelihood that it couldn't be delivered immediately, after talking to Gabriel. A day later, MadDog had made two even more urgent requirements which meant a definite delay for Gabriel's team, which meant that there did appear to be a gap for squeezing in Doodles' requirement. However, by then, he'd come up with another one. He and Arkle had spotted another gaping hole. Actually, it was a known deficiency in the product, whereby we recommend it not be used for that purpose. Obviously neither of these two read the (virtual) warning label.
There was no way that a second requirement from Doodles could also be delivered, and with the urgency of MadDog's requirements, no more delay was conceivable. I was reasonably happy to support Doodles' desires and get a special release done, slotted in after the other three, from a priorities perspective.
After all of the "why does it take so long?" whines, I thought I had it all sewn up and understood. Then FO stepped in and told Gabriel that Doodles could have all he wanted because a delay was possible.
Uh oh.
Seriously? Almost immediately after a meeting I had that confirmed the order of priorities and the necessity of deliveries (agreed between engineering, product management, and customer services), FO thinks he can just break some promises willy-nilly to satisfy others? That makes no sense. Certainly, I had no vested interest in what got delivered when, apart from keeping as many customers happy as possible, but to burn one person's customers for the sake of another's, when there's no priority between them (or possibly the reverse) is suicide.
Fundamentally, it was Polo's problem. He is supposed to be running the factory floor, after all. I had a little chat to him, and discovered that he and I were on the same page in terms of how the priorities should have dictated releases. That means that Gabriel had been backed into a corner and had to agree to too many people's requests. His reaction to the conflict, however, was that MadDog and FO should fight it out, and he'd watch from the sidelines.
This, to say the least, was disappointing. It's not the Polo that I used to know. He may say that he protects Tweet by not allowing people outside of Engineering to make requests on her time, but what about the whole of engineering?

I'm at a loss to work out a go-forward. I'm trapped in a valley between dunes, with sand raining down on all sides, there's a storm brewing, and the glass walls are closing in around me.

Make a Contribution

Yesterday morning, as I walked across from the station, there were people setting up for Pink Ribbon day - Breast Cancer Research, for those who don't know. Eagerly, I went over and asked if they were open for business. I'm a sucker for charities; in particular, badges and stuffed things. Whoever came up with the concept of buying something useless for an exorbitant price with the profit going to charity must be very proud of themselves. What a contribution they made to society! Not just money, but giving a concept.
As usual, I was the only one in the office wearing the badge, although, to be fair, we had a collection jar for Jeans for Genes day. Invariably, people walk around the streets ignoring charities. I know where they hang out, and can spot them a mile away. Maybe it's because I'm a great fan of public transport. Even during the day, though, no-one asked why I wore the ribbon, or where they could get one. They already knew. Veg, for one, is a dedicated anti-charity person. He won't give to charities because he knows that companies representing the charities take the profits for the first two years, or some such. Do I care if he's right? He also believes that all fruit is snap-frozen for months, and that you shouldn't eat fish because of the way they rape the North Sea. He's a pom.
But back to my point - making a contribution. People wander about the office all day, doing what they are expected to do, without thinking about how they can contribute. They then wonder why the things that they've noticed needing to be done don't get any attention. Change the world - but start with yourself. One of my least favourite phrases is "It's not my job". I specifically do not hire people with that attitude. I'm sure that there are some perfectly clever and conscientious people working for the Public Service, but almost every one of them that I have met below executive level (and some over) have had that same attitude - someone else will take care of it, eventually. I think I'll stay in the private sector.
It concerns me greatly, however, that some people will take that attitude regardless. Those that work an eight-hour day (don't get me started on contractors). Those that take a one-hour lunch-break. Those that arrive no earlier than, say 0900. Yes, I am the one who's out of here before 1700 most days, but I'm the first one in the office - every day. My contribution starts with collecting the milk and newspaper from the foyer. It usually continues with cleaning the kitchen cupboards down, setting up the beverage appliances. Work! Work! Work! A woman's work is never done. I'm sure that's why someone called me Mother. I don't think it's too extreme to do that. I don't drink coffee, so I tend not to check the coffee machine anymore, the way I used to every time I went through the kitchen. I think someone else has learnt how to transpose water from sink to receptacle. When Polo hired the new receptionist, Tutu, he made it her job to start the dishwasher when she left the office, and unpack it in the morning.
That, to me, is giving up. You're admitting that people can't change their habits and clean up after themselves. You're also allowing them to stagnate. They're not growing as people, they're not contributing more to the society taht is the workplace. They're not going to contribute more to their job independently of thinking about their other activities. They're just going to get more qualified for the Public Service, or stop eating fish, or not give to charities.
I refuse to follow. There's my contribution - belligerence in the face of conformity.

Nothing to Say

I sat down this morning thinking that I needn't bother writing into the journal because I had nothing to say. Yesterday was similar to the (working day) before, and nothing exciting happened. Life goes on. Product gets delayed. Sales people whine. Engineers look overworked. Product Managers shrug and point out that this is exactly what they said would happen if they weren't listened to. Line Managers complain that being told "I told you so" is no comfort. Machete-wielding systems administrator takes the mail server down with extreme prejudice. Nothing out of the ordinary.
And then I thought - "Wow! What a theme!" It's now Tuesday. I'm about to prepare for one of my weekly meetings - business priorities; getting the agenda out the door as early as possible, etc, and it struck me - "why do I bother?" It was always the case that these meetings, when I defined them, might be non-events, and I've even had one cancelled (and one not happen while I was away), but, fundamentally, what good is the meeting? Does it achieve anything, or are we just all turning up to bitch about having meetings and how busy we are, etc? Some might use it for an audience for their latest foray into thinking, or as an opportunity to attack someone who supports one agenda over another (or a football team, on occasion).
Is this productive? Is the meeting merely a rest break between doing real work, that essential away-from-the-desk time, or stop-strolling-around-looking-over-other-people's-shoulders time, or even that I've-just-had-lunch-and-feel-sleepy time. Any combination of people with these attitudes can be dangerous. Meetings should not be like that.
Neither should blogs. I shouldn't be sitting here looking forward to my morning cup of tea, or else waiting for it to cool, typing away into the ether with nothing better to do. I should be more thoughtful, better planned. There should be enough structure that the introductory paragraph links up with the argument in the body, leading inevitably to the conclusion.
Just like all the other blogs.

Slow Week

It ended up by being a rather slow week last week, especially at the end. Although all the old birds had come home to roost from their trips overseas 'visiting clients', their sole purpose in doing so was to turn up for the dreaded AGM. I've lost interest in attending. It does nothing for me. Reality and a Board of Directors are forces that never seem to have met - or is it that they act in equal and opposite directions? I can never remember - I wasn't very good at physics.
Anyway, due to this fortuitous circumstance and my beligerence with respect thereto, FO was tied up and didn't get to bother me much. Merk, with FO away, found himself very busy elsewhere. Arkle, having succeeded in his attempt to subvert half my team to the dark side (client services) has had no need to come to me and ask for each new task to be assigned. So, I have been trying to concentrate on helping out the engineers with their lack of resources, and simultaneously fob off anything else. This means that, by the end of the week, having sorted out yet another problem for Axis while he was off to lunch seeing off a colleague ("When I looked at the docco afterwards, it confirmed your suspicions about the tool" he said when he came back), I had almost nothing to do in the afternoon.
This is always dangerous. Leaving me with time to think is one of the 72 deadly sins, or something. It usually leads to me making stuff up and then pushing that out to others to implement. In this case, I'd already promised FO I'd go easy on the troops for a bit, and my energies all fell on Doodles. I had nothing to do. He was in his office with nothing to do - he was due to fly back here over the weekend. Between us, we racked up some increasingly heated emails with an ever-growing CC list along the lines:
"This is urgent."
"Why? I've never heard of it before."
"But the customer wants it!"
"That doesn't mean we have to provide it. Nobody else does. It's not a standard feature."
"Others do."
"No they don't (with reference)."
"They do - they just don't tell anyone." (You can't beat that hand.)
"We can only do it if our providers agree."
"These guys are the provider!"
(A quick check - yes, they are the client, and they represent the provider as well.)
"Then, in this case, we might be able to support a special release."
"But it's a small change! It won't take long."
"We should leave it 'til Monday."
"But it needs to be done now!"
At which point, FO came past, back from the AGM, and I deferred further inflamation until a bucket of water could more easily be applied. Sales people too easily get over-heated when deliveries don't occur. They tend to take it personally when their promises aren't met, and still don't learn that the secret to making a delivery is telling someone else that there's a distribution required - preferably before the due date.

"It must be bad - you're still wearing a tie."
"Not my f***ing funeral." he muttered, good-humouredly.

Don't get me started on expletives. It's all well and good to look around, realise that there's someone of the fairer sex present, and apologise, but it's too late. I'm not a prude, but I believe that there's a time and a place. For me, such things don't exist. For others, they should certainly be not around me. Mind you, the odd expletive artfully used is humourous on occasion (the first seven words of "Four Weddings and a Funeral"). In a business environment, though, it is not so much used for surprise or self-reproach, but as a weapon. That's where I draw the line.

Imagine

I am one of those people who believes that anything is possible given enough time and resources. This often gets me into trouble, because I am quite happy to follow up such a belief with the conviction that I can achieve it. Either I do, and those who doubted it get upset, or I don't, and those who relied on me do. The key is to limit the number of such statements you make in a day, then you can deliver on them.
I am, however, surrounded by people who believe that nothing is possible because there isn't enough time , or there aren't enough resources. Things that need a week's notice, several days of planning and estimating, and a schedule date a month away, with generous delivery dates to handle unmitigated risk, may seem on the surface more likely to succeed, but fundamentally there is an in-built assumption that things will fail, and that revelation of the inevitable must be delayed as long as possible. Many a large, long-running project runs over time and over budget because it has a large budget and seemingly a lot of time. When I manage a project, I take the slack out and aim for the ideal. If I finish early, then kudos to the team. If I finish on time, then I know I've been distracted and let the process slide.
There was once a move in management for setting stretch targets, and having bonuses associated with them. That is, defining how would you prove that you were really working optimally, and then being rewarded. However, what often happened is that people quickly realised that such targets were always achievable by those clever enough to use the system, and the incentive was enough to make them the average PM a lot more cunning. What is really needed is a social change that makes those involved in the project want to be stretched for their own benefit. It's very easy to get jaded, or else expect the bonus as part of the wage, and then start sliding.
By stretch targets, I don't mean working all hours and killing yourself to meet a deadline. A simple example is estimating a project, with all the risks involved, all of the time added to estimate when the project is likely to be delivered, and then take these away, and see how hard people work to mitigate those risks creatively, ensuring that they don't occur, or else have less impact. If the people in the team think about what might happen and move towards the good things and away from the bad, because of their social interaction and belief and involvement in the project, then it is destined for success, regardless of its deadlines.
If, on the other hand, people turn up for work, put in their time, strike off a task from the list, go home, and spend their whole time in a daze moving from task to task, then the tasks will never be complete. You'll hear the phrase "I never thought of that" a lot. I don't want to support the commercial enterprise that is Edward de Bono too much, but you have to think creatively. You have to learn how much you're not doing it now, discover how to do it yourself, practice, and then put it into practice in all facets of your life - work and home. A project team is not there to implement a solution. It is there to solve a problem. You can't rely on one or two problem solvers to come up with the solution and then it's all systems go. That's just crazy talk.
Nobody's perfect - not even me! - and therefore a solution creator will not find the perfect solution up front that needs to be implemented. They will find a good avenue worth persuing, and it needs to be pursued. If you're really lucky, they may continue to be a part of the project, and help to redefine the solution as it comes to fruition (as opposed relying on the users to tell you at the end). If you're really lucky, then everyone on the project thinks about the problem, and works towards solving it. A team is not a head with multiple limbs, it is a conglomerate of intelligences (I hope).
Imagine the possibilities.

Down and Dirty

All of this talk about getting things done when engineering is swamped, and everyone and their pet budgie getting involved, and no-one wanting to take responsibility, all came to a head a few days ago, and I'm just beginning to regret that old expression of rolling the sleeves up and getting down and dirty.
Merk, the poor chap, being floundered with the project management (claiming that he hasn't done that sort of thing for ages) has tried to get my help to sort a few things out. I don't know if I helped or hindered, but between us we managed to clear up FO's very poorly written spec (it said everything that it needed to, and nothing useful), and we have a better understanding of what will be delivered and when. Gabriel came crying to me that he doesn't have the manpower to deliver anything useful, so I agreed to do the technical thing and will try and block out some time to do something I've never done before, being the most qualified to achieve this, and with no time to do it. Axis is now my good buddy, and his partially-produced solution is now being re-defined by my involvement. If one person does the work, it's consistent. If two, it needs an interface! I trust Axis to pull it off, though. And poor Spin is so out of her depth in contributing things, that I have to more or less oversee her every move. Again, because I haven't anyone else to watch her, and I've got no qualified resources, aside from myself.
Whinge mode toned down.
You realise what this means, though, don't you? I went away for my well-earned 'rest' when this project began, with the expectation that I wouldn't be involved in it at all. I've come back to find that nothing's been done, and had to inject myself into every facet of it. If the project fails, I will feel personally responsible. I have no choice. It's in my nature. In the same way that I had to get involved to rescue this little beastie, I may end up drowning myself in the process, and I can't stop myself from swimming onward.
Once upon a time, I realised that my chief role in a past company was Patron Saint of Lost Causes. As much as I enjoy the martyr complex, I wish that I could break out of the cycle. I would stand up in management meetings and bemoan the demise of disappearing company culture, the loss of working processes and structures, or the introduction of ludicrous mean-budget-based decisions that removed small luxuries when our largest cost was the people who enjoyed and appreciated those luxuries.
I would prefer to be teflon. Sometimes I get away with that quite nicely - step in, do my bit, chivvy things along, step back into the shadows, smile sweetly as the project gets delivered by someone else, and breathe a sigh of relief that we've pulled off another amazing advance in porcine aeronautics. To me, that is teflon, because maintenance always comes around to bite you on the glutius maximus, and if you don't own the pig, then you don't have to apply the lipstick.
Some people are teflon because they do own the pig, but have managed to disguise themselves with the lipstick first, or quickly bequeath it to their neighbour, or exchange it for their dog - or swap it in the middle of the night when no-one's watching. Enough farmyard metaphor. It must be the mud thing.

Physician, heel!

There are essentially two types of managers - those smarter than those they manage, and those better at managing than those they manage. The third kind are not qualified, and tend not to be effective, so they can be easily ignored as temporary aberrations to the rule. Over time, such people can become politicians.
Having said that there are two kinds, the worst kind is the intersection, because they are not mutually exclusive sets. Managers who have more skills than their reports, more technical expertise or experience in the field, and have superior management skills might be considered the ideal. In fact, they're a plague on society. They know better than all of those who they should be relying on to delegate to. They can't step down, because no-one can do their job better. They can't be shifted around or moved up because they're too good at what they do. The Peter Principle is rarely applied.
When I find myself leaning towards this sort of role, and I mean that as a function more than as a position, I have few choices - act dumb technically, ignore the management function and hope that someone else takes over, or move on.
I do not like any of those choices. I've gotten away with two of the three in the past, and I'm egotistic enough to not try the third.
That's the position I'm in today. It seems to be a natural one. Brain the size of a planet, as I must have, if I stick around long enough, I gather useless information that makes me seem to know everything, and I naturally replace incompetent management with my own, regardless of authority. Yes, I am full of myself, but it's a rare day when I'm proven too full beyond some facets of my work. I've made mistakes, but I've seen others make the same mistakes, and not many people make fewer. That is also my frustration - I'm happy not to be the most brilliant person around, but I don't find much competition. I am constantly disappointed by the lack of brain-power around me (not skills - I can be beaten on technical skills on an individual level, any day).
I remember having a conversation with a consultant we had here for two days. He was a natural language processing expert from the US, headed for a local conference. He and I had a wonderful chat, mostly because I found myself being the only one with the time to spend with him, which was a shame, because he had a lot to say that was useful. Anyway, I passed FO's office, and he asked me how it was going, and I said it was good to talk to someone within an SD of my IQ, rather flippantly.
He remembered that one. I have nothing against FO, but he's a bulk standard accountant who has, through grind and perseverence, gotten to executive level with a large degree of short-sightedness and industrial deafness. He falls back on the old cost-cutting chestnut every time someone mentions a budget. He has some wonderful industry experience, but he doesn't seem to be learning from his current experience. He thinks like an accountant - what worked then must work in the future.
And working with him is like having a yoke around my neck. Let's look at the rest of the executive, while we're at it. Polo, my friend from the past, is so snowed under with technical management that he isn't given the opportunity to shine as a structural manager, which is where I'd seen him in the past. MadDog is so busy building his empire that he also isn't contributing the kind of strategy I know he's capable of applying to this company. Bubble is a waste of space. There - I've said it. The man is useless in all respects, and probably the least intelligent of the group. His purpose escapes me, his core skills are invisible; and I would do everything in my power to assist in his removal, as long as it doesn't cost us an unnecessarily large pay-out.
But that's the pot-luck of management in a smallish company. Sometimes, you're stuck with what you've got because you can't attract anything better, and the alternatives are sometimes worse. Better the devil? Maybe it's just me having a bitch-session. Maybe it's time to look at those three options again.

The Cultural Divide

Always having an interest in social interaction, in both professional and cultural societies, this melting pot I call the work-place is a wonderful centre for observing the behaviour of a variety of species of that common, and yet psychologically elusive animal: mankind.
When I started building my team out of nothing, I was looking for people who I could put to work - people who would accept me as their overlord and bring some intelligence, rather than specific skills, into the arena. It was their innate abilities I was looking to utilise, and the team has an overall feeling of being slightly out of their depth, but coping when given the right assistance. That assistance is me, chivvying them along, and the networks I hope they build over time within the company to help them solve their problems. From a technical, or professional, point of view, my people are not in the same social group as the engineers that surround. However, and this is an interesting point, everyone in the company has a degree (even the receptionist is a student), and so each has some professional standing, they just don't necessarily work in the field of their education.
When hiring engineers (and I have done), technical skills are as important as being able to build a team that works together. I don't think there's any question on that. But what is the reality in a small dynamic company? Is an engineer going to rely on those technical skills exclusively, or even for most of the time? No. Experience counts for more - the knowledge gained from applying those skills, and the wisdom from being exposed to different environments - unless, of course, you do hire someone for a specific task you can lock away in a cupboard. That's what contractors are for.
And so, with my professionals working outside of their field, their experience counts for more than the fact that they are non-technical people in a semi-technical environment. This then comes down to how much experience my people have had as to how useful they are, and I suddenly find a divide I hadn't expected. Anne is significantly older and wiser than the others. She's had some professional marketing experience not only at great variance to what is expected of her here, but also quite useful if we thought about how to apply it. Add to that the fact that she is the only Japanese person left in the office. I know very little about Japanese business or working practices. I know what it means to get an office with a window (it means you have nothing better to do), and I think I understand what it means when work gets taken from you to give to someone else (losing face). As an Australian, it's hard to come to grips with these, because we tend to think the opposite (or is it just me?). A window seat means that you get the natural light! Having a task taken off you can mean either a breather, or else the opportunity to get on with one of a thousand other things that have been accumulating in your in-box.
Anne had gotten quite concerned that some of her requests, which were very important to her (and her personal self-worth) and how she perceived her market, were not being seen to, and she had no visibility of their priority. She was right, of course, and I intend to investigate how I can get that visibility myself; but she also showed her Japanese cultural training - there was a problem, why was it not being dealt with? The attitude in a busy organisation is that prioritisation solves such issues - problems will be solved in priority order. Priorities will change as the business focuses. It's a simple equation based on a few essential, but essentially flawed assumptions - work is a constant stream of activity that should not fluctuate; resources are a fixed pool over which you minimise wastage. If neither of these is the case, then you don't get the problem of 'false' perception that things don't get done. If work is not a constant stream of activity, and is assumed to have peaks and troughs, then resourcing would have to change to cater for that. If resources were not a fixed pool, but a dynamic pool, then using more staff in the short term, or being able to redeploy staff likewise, would allow you to deal with different levels of work. This applies to manufacturing, IT, financial services, wherever.
Of course, this is extraordinarily stupid fantasy, that there is the possibility of having semi-trained people on tap, drifting between organisations whose work-load fluctuates. There are companies providing a service, however, more or less; and I am sure that they are utilised by other companies who've taken that step beyond believing that you can plan for resourcing months in advance. It's a matter of how culturally acceptable they are (company culture, that is). They are contractors. They are consultants. They cost a lot more than full-time employees because they are short-term.
The only caveat to the bad-planning versus accepting reality debate is this: what if the resourcing requirement is actually long-term, can be planned as long term, but will simply not be accepted as a long-term cost commitment within the organisation's budget? Then it's just a management issue.

What you want and what you get

"You can't always get what you want" - The Rolling Stones.
"WYSIWYG" - What you see is what you get.

Somewhere in between is the reality of product management - under some circumstances, you can get what you want, but it never looks like what you expected.
After the "passing ships" discontent with Doodles in this office and me on holidays, I'd sent out an email to the effect that the latest product release had features requested by certain individuals, and it was a part of business acceptance to ensure that the requestor play the role of customer or user.
A few days later, Doodles understood how much I was asking of him, and responded with a "How the *&^% do I test that?" or words to that effect.
I saw red (without unnecessarily quoting Split Enz). How can you have a requirement, and then have no idea what it would look like if it did get delivered on? Sure, if you relied entirely on me to do that work for you, then you could ask me to check if the requirement that I had written was satisfied, which would be easy for me, because I always make sure that my expectations are fully appreciated, understood, and eventually met by happy smiling engineers eager to please. Always. Without Fail. Without exception.
However, that requirement that I produce is not what Doodles might have wanted. It's my interpretation of his explanation, knowing more about the product, how things work in this office, who would go about designing a solution, their personality, their view of the world, and the way to express to them, personally, what I want. What gets delivered would then tend to be something for me to interpret as being the solution I asked for. It might be documented (heaven forbid!) with me in mind (or a customer, if I represented the need so), or have been tested to show the functionality that I emphasised or highlighted as being crucial or difficult.
None of this helps Doodles, who, having something entirely different in mind, but no desire to express it, no time to review my interpretation, no interest in following up the solution at any stage, will have nothing but surprises when it comes time for me to say "So, did you get what you wanted?" several weeks later.

The upshot of this morning's email to the likes of Doodles, Arkel, FO, Puff, and anyone else I could think of who keeps asking for new stuff, was simple: nothing is so urgent that you haven't got the time to make sure that you get what you want. There are no excuses, really (or so Gabriel once told me) for not knowing before-hand that you might be disappointed. You are only setting yourself up for a fall if you expect everyone else to be a mind reader.

Do not abandon your requirement at the orphanage gate and expect to come back to collect a perfectly well-adjusted mature solution. Nurture it throughout the lifecycle. Deal with its needs, answer its questions, embrace its curiosity, and in time it will look after itself, and perhaps even care for you in its old age.

Post-Mortem

I got an amusing meeting invitation from Polo - a post-mortem on a project which I had thought barely underway. Now, I'm all for reflecting on how well a project has been run, and what can be learned from the experience, but I like to wait until it's been delivered. Call me old-fashioned, but up until then, cutting into a project mid-stream is likely to cause a whole lot of blood and guts to come pouring out and have detrimental effects on the patient.
The usual suspects were gathered - me, FO, Merk, Gabriel, Tank, and Axis. The first thing we did was make jokes about not doing any finger-pointing by doing just that. In a way, it lightens the mood, or lets you take out some frustrations. In another way, it makes it clear that that's exactly what everyone wants to do.
Polo, however, started with "I feel that I've had so little to do with this project, having been overseas, that I can Chair this meeting without bias."
A mellowed FO leapt into the fray with "Hang on - over a month ago, I had a meeting with you and Gabriel to ensure that there were resources, so you were involved!"
And you can guess how it progressed from there.
Honestly, it looked like everyone was sitting around that table (almost everyone), willing to accept that they had a part of the guilt, but that someone else had to share it. Even I could stuck my hand up for a bit of it, on the basis that if I hadn't gone on holidays, I would have been around pushing for status and making sure that someone did something. Gabriel admitted that he understood things so little, that he was relying on data from Merk. Merk admitted that he thought he had to produce the data, but didn't know why or how, and was waiting for FO (or possibly me). Tank admitted that he thought he only had to define the solution and hand over to Axis. Axis admitted that he had the definition, but hadn't had the time, and hadn't told anyone. Gabriel admitted that he knew about Axis lack of time, but thought it wasn't important because there was no data yet.
The thing that was missing was FO admitting that he hadn't briefed Merk well enough, and hadn't spent any time himself chasing things up, status-wise.
I think that that's exactly what Polo wanted. He's a clever enough chap, and I know he'd been talking to his people well before the meeting. He didn't need their admissions at the meeting - he needed FO to hear them. He knew what should have been said, and I'm sure he could have planned for it to be said in the appropriate sequence. It was a brilliantly-orchestrated display of unity and shared responsibility that I hope FO treasures for the rest of the month, because it's as close as we're going to get to an understanding between the thinkers and the doers this year, I think.
After the meeting, when the dust settled, we all went back to our cosy little environments and forgot our recent falls from grace, our admissions of guilt, and carried on as if nothing had happened - except for FO, who probably had another peaceful afternoon thinking that everything was sorted, and he had nothing more to worry about. The project was in hand. I don't have the heart to tell him otherwise.
Nothing changes because a meeting makes a resolution. A meeting is like a project. It has a plan, an implementation, and a review. If the plan is not followed, then there's generally no likelihood of a successful meeting, coming under budget or on time. If there's no following the plan, then the review is likely to be little more than "whoopsey" and we straggle on regardless into the next meeting, or just keep going on with the current one. A meeting is reviewed when the participants get the meeting notes and follow up on their actions, and the owner of the results determines that all such have occurred (for a one-off meeting - but for a regular meeting, the next meeting is the follow-up).
If the meeting has no resolutions, then what was the point? Status? That doesn't generally need a meeting on its own. You can post a bulletin or a memorandum. In fact, that's how Axis later described his documentation for the project - not so much a set of requirements as a memorandum of understanding. I would go further, knowing that FO has only cursorily accepted same, and say that it is merely a memorandum of misunderstanding until he signs off on it. Knowing FO, he won't. His email is still broken.

Making a Meeting

FO still can't use his email, and can't set a meeting for himself. This means that when he wants to cause a meeting to happen, he has to enlist some innocent bystander's help, who will then be held responsible for the fact that he won't turn up for it himself, either, because it doesn't appear in his calendar, because he can't use his email! It's generally safer that way, anyway. I even caught him pushing Tweet out of the way yesterday so that he could read his inbox at her machine. I'm sure it was done with tact and apologies, but she's the kind of girl who would never refuse such requests - from almost anyone.
So, FO made a meeting, and it was another one where I ended up using Merk as my sounding board, because Booker was more mouse-like than usual. I am beginning to fear that she has a problem dealing with authority figures, which are effectively any men older than her, or of a technical background. That's all of the males in this company. Most of the females are no older than her, now - except Anne - and that's interesting in itself. There was a time when I was the eldest here, but now there are several who have had more years and less wisdom under their belts.
Anyway, the meeting. I am a firm believer in having meetings with agendas, and we stick to the agenda, get the job done, and all walk away happy. That doesn't necessarily mean that any meeting I call goes exactly to plan, but it means that, barring interference, I can usually do what I say I'll do in he time I believe it should take - exactly like any project I run. I'm quite happy to cut out chunks of a meeting if it means finishing on time, and then not mentioning what got lost. I'm just as happy to tell a joke or make a diversion to fill in the minimum half-hour.
In this case, one of those things that I had hoped was going to have been finalised as soon as I left for holidays (to give Spin a chance of input after her return from holidays) hadn't been done (shock! horror!), and I discovered it was because FO had intervened. He then produced his own personal version (apologies to Merk for thinking he'd had a hand in that), and dumped it on me after I got back - two weeks after the original release date.
Poor Gabriel came to me and asked when it was due, and I kept saying "It's done", and was inadvertently lying. More of this later.
The meeting started without FO, which was good, and I took his input and explained to Merk how we pretty much had it covered in the original solution, with a few additions that I nodded over towards Booker. Just when I was ready to wrap up, FO came in (phone in hand), at first leaning in the doorway.
"Damn, we've left it too late."
He sat down and started ranting about how the work that had been done so far was useless for his project, may never get used in the product, and should follow someone else's outline (outsourcing an idea), rather than that which had been developed over a year in-house. About an hour later, I got him to admit that it didn't actually matter what it looked like, as long as we had one. Although we could change our minds later, what we had two weeks ago was more than sufficient to go on with, and was exactly what Gabriel had been waiting for.
Bad move. I shouldn't have mentioned that. I then had to calmly explain to FO that Tank and Axis had discussed their plans for implementing the next stage, and now FO went off the handle about it being unimportant what the data for the solution was, just that it worked, and that it got under way ASAP. Yes, thinking over their plans, there was no reliance on data, and Gabriel should no longer be pestering anyone for it for a week or so. This is assuming that Axis gets the time to work on it.
Another blunder. "What's Axis doing with it? I thought Tank was doing it??"
Merk jumped in with "I think there was a hand-over."
Whether that was enough explanation, or FO had just run out of steam, I don't know, but it was enough of a cue for me to wrap up the meeting - a little later than expected.
"Well, we're all agreed that the original solution stands for the time being, and we can progress."
FO stormed out, and I noted to Booker and Merk, probably still in hearing range "I told you we should have finished before he arrived."
There are people who turn up to meetings to hear the sound of their own voice. I go in the hope that I don't have to listen to my own - that someone else - anyone - will say something useful that can add to my personal store of knowledge. FO does not achieve this. He adds to the unknowledge. He sucks knowledge out of a room, replacing it with the chaotic confusion of no longer knowing what is right or wrong, which way is up, who said what, or what we're all doing sitting around a table in an artificially-lit room staring at a flickering projector screen full of a screen-saver's colourfully distracting, but ultimately useless images.

The Return of Merk

Merk has rejoined us. I can't get a straight answer out of anyone as to how long for. I treat him as a kind of consultant and sounding board, but FO has worked with him before, and likes to see him as an addition to the team, no matter how temporary. Fo has tried to drag Merk into his own pet project - this will be the third attempt to find a sucker, and the second nomination for Merk.
Failing that, or perhaps because of it, Merk set a meeting for Arkel, FO, and myself to talk about short-term strategy. It was actually FO who was supposed to have set it, but he's now claiming that his email doesn't work - he got Tutu to set the last meeting, and she had no idea what was going on. FO then claimed he was waiting for a phone call, leaving we three to work out what we were doing. It was Merk's idea to start laying out a strategy based on real and expected benefit. I haven't been involved in one of these for ages, and I just go into fascination mode as ideas are collected, and the map just gets bigger and bigger as you enumerate all of the things going on around you, and try to identify their importance.
It was all new to Merk, but Arkel and I plunged in with everything we knew, until we hit the big market, and I begged off as not knowing enough, and Arkel laid claim that it was MadDog's domain, and he wouldn't like to second-guess. It was around here that FO sauntered in, still clutching his phone like a security blanket. He turned everything upside down, so that the markets he knew about and the clients he had contact with were obviously more important. At this point, we were only talking active product, money-generating stuff, not his pet project, which to be honest, has no clear objectives, no real client, and has spent the best part of six months achieving this state. Not my problem.
Then the discussion went into its usual shouting match - FO defending his position before we realised that he was being attacked, and then illogically pointing out that the resources should go to where the money was, without being able to justify that his project had any potential revenue. In fact, with his statement that we didn't need to invest any more resources into the current product because our market position meant that we didn't have to compete on a product basis, merely territory, then it seems obvious that we don't need more product, just better marketing.
Now, as much as I don't along with MadDog, a good excuse for his not delivering is that he knows Sales, but not Marketing, and poor Belle is on her own, without support, without guidance, and generally without content worth making into Marketing material. Given that it takes both Arkel and me to proof-read anything produced from that quarter, I have little faith in the pair.
The other arm is Client Services, which I refuse to call by the misnomer Professional Services. With a staff of one, who are we kidding? Where are the resources? Well, we're a small company, but we are still concentrating on delivering product, without understanding what we need to deliver to satisfy our clients. What we're mostly doing is chasing our tails trying to work out what we're doing wrong when spending all this time trying to work out what we're doing.

As soon as we sit down to work out a strategy - and we haven't had one since most of the executive joined me in this mad-house - an exclusive committee (non-representative of the company's company) makes sweeping general statements based on one dominant voice, and the work is done. Where is the direction? What is the strategy?

Here's a simple one I tried to communicate to FO. We should follow through on something. Anything. It doesn't matter what. Just finish something and move on to something else. We should trust each other, share the responsibility, lead, rather than direct our people, supervise rather than interfere. Let the people whose job it is to find solutions to problems be given the freedom to come up with their own solutions, rather than be told what solution to implement.
OK, it wasn't so simple after all. If it was simple, someone would have thought about it before, and we'd have tried to do it.

Back into the Fray

There's something that can always be said about holidays - they don't last long enough. This can be proven by several observations:

• I don't feel at all rested on my return
• I don't remember the days passing
• People seem surprised that I am back
  
• Nothing significant seems to have happened while I was away
  

Therefore, the holiday must have been much shorter than I had planned for. I will now look for compensation, along the lines of being allowed to occasionally sleep at my desk, put my headphones on and ignore the gentle calling of my name, or just being downright rude to people whenever I like. Yes, it's business as usual.

FO and Arkel avoided me all morning, being the two most likely to have anything useful to tell me in terms of status. Because nothing had changed, I should have guessed that they had imparted all useful information via their absence. My team were not so lucky - I rounded them all up before the lunch-time sugar-crunch and had a catch-up. Five young female faces turned to me in expectation as if waiting for me to fill them with wisdom, as usual; but I needed them to talk. The training is going slowly, and, like chickens, if you don't teach them to talk each day, they forget how to squawk. Tweet broke the silence, and opened the flood-gates. She was also the only one to genuinely ask about my holiday. The others had all just been polite about it. Maybe it's just that I'm more enamoured of her than the others.
Without being overly egotistic, I have always held the belief that nothing ever happens around here unless I instigate it, and then preferably chase it up. As tiring as this is, and also distracting, it gets things done. I get nothing done, but the company as a whole seems to progress, mostly. Everything that Arkel and FO, in particular, asked to help out on, in terms of handing things over for completion, before I left, has been replaced by a new series of requests placed on my team.
In one respect, this is the fundamental problem with the way the business is run - priorities change so fast that it's hardly worth prioritising anything. WHatever decisions are made today become irrelevent tomorrow, and forgotten by the day after. The only way around this is through introspection, audit trails, reflection. These take time, and we don't have the time because we keep changing priorities and everything has to be done yesterday.
I think that the best policy for moving forward is the simplest one. We just learn to say "no". The power in those two letters, when spoken and followed up by action, cannot be underestimated. If sections within this company refuse to do things because it is impossible, rather than buckling under the weight of their own cowardice, then things will be achieved - something will be achieved. If priorities cannot change as rapidly as they have been - are not allowed to change - then they will not. Wasted effort on expected problems that never arrive will be better channeled on planned work.
This sounds idealistic, and also impossible for a small company. However, for a company to succeed, it must have a plan; if plans change, then either it needs a different plan, or else it needs new resources to fullfil both the old and new plan. If it can't get new resources (as a small company), then it cannot succeed with two plans. Logic dictates that it is not possible. To proceed with two plans is to ensure a planned failure, and that is the least desired plan of all.

Thinking in powerpoint

FO did a presentation yesterday. I cringe at the thought. He'd sent both me and Arkel a copy beforehand, and I went through and noticed his dyslexic acronyms, misspellings of names, general rambling nature, and started using the notes section to ask questions as feedback. It was only an internal presentation, and FO had an hour or two to correct it, but he was fluttering about behind me, discussing the finer points of where he knew I would disagree within five minutes of my receiving the draft (with a superfluous 'r').
When he presented, the big screen was filled with my corrected version, and he had my notes in his lap. As satisfying as that seems, it makes me feel a little guilty that I contributed to, and somehow endorsed the whole thing.
He and I have very different styles of presenting, as well as speaking. He tends to ramble, with sentences left incomplete, running into each other, having no point or topic, and just giving an impression that something was said. When I ramble, I complete every sentence - and I don't care how long it takes, but I'm determined to get to the bottom of that topic, do it to death, and get to that full-stop. Eventually.
FO thinks in bullet points. His conversations are slides. They have a title, which somehow related to, or is a reminder of, the intended content. The lines seem to go on forever (he likes to pack 20+ lines per slide), and they end abruptly, with smaller and smaller fonts petering out.
I think in sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes my sentences are paragraphs, but that's fine. They are complete within themselves. When I do a presentation, each slide is a few salient points of note to counterbalance what I'm saying - reminders to me and the audience. If you listen to me, and have the points and understand them, you're in. With FO, if you read the slide, then you've missed what he was saying, and that was the important explanation of what should have been put in the slide.
Am I over-using my co-worker as a bad example of presentation practice? Perhaps. It is a common enough mistake, though. Someone who hasn't been a consultant, or hasn't been a teacher or trainer, or had to present to a wide and varied audience will think of a presentation as delivering an argument, or a brain dump. A presentation is really a way of getting people to agree with you, to think like you, to gain from your knowledge and experience, preferably without a great deal of evaluation on their part. People should nod along with you - not falling asleep - and not have creased brows trying to work out what you're trying to say.
A friend of mine used to offer a Mars Bar for the best question after each of his seminars. At so little cost, he got a lot of attention from people who were more often than not just filling in their lunch hour with some brain junkfood.

Life is not a series of slides, it is an essay, an epic, a series, all punctuated as the writer sees fit, not based on how much can be squeezed into a page without it being unreadable from a certain distance by a myopic audience. Life should be savoured, relished, presented well, and the best moments devoured again and again because they take you back to that time, that feeling. Life shouldn't need animation to attract attention, or sounds to distract, because the imagination that is the audience of life can do all of this, and more, if we let it.

Don't think in powerpoint, I say. Think in grandiose sentences that stretch your communications skills and draw the reader into your imagination, your story, your Life.

Lend a Hand

I can't believe it's been a week since FO hijacked my meeting to spout his draft business priorities.
You'll be pleased to learn that the drones were missing from this now weekly event (that's two weeks in a row, so it must be regular). Doodles was going to be excluded as non-essential, so I didn't bother ringing him. He rang us five minutes in, and we kept talking as if he knew what was going on. He couldn't possibly have done, because my report, which works like an agenda, had only been sent out an hour before, and Gabriel had convinced me to squeeze "just one more wafer" of an item onto it.
Big mistake. FO tore it to shreds. I know he's been ill. I know he's having a hard time of it, but there's no excuse for ripping into a perfectly good idea as if it was the worst thing ever hear.
It was a pro-active approach to dealing with system overload. I'd proposed something similar months ago with zero response, but things have been moving along, and Polo has instigated some work to get the stats needed to determine when we would reach levels of diminished service. I wasn't too happy with how it was going to be implemented, but Tank and I could discuss that over time.
FO said that there had to be something fundamentally wrong with the system that we had to even consider an apporach to dealing with overload. He said that we should bring in someone from the outside - a consultant - to give us some pointers. I told him what the consultant was likely to say, with Tank and Gabriel nodding in industry knowledge unison, and then FO snapped at me!
"You don't know that! They might come up with something we haven't thought of!"
Redundancy is the key. Redundancy costs money for something you don't use. So much for cutting costs.
I know consultants. I've been a consultant. The only purpose in life as a consultant is to consult. You don't necessarily have to do a good job, just continue to be employable. Do something. Sound impressive. Sound certain. Convince the people who, like FO, don't trust the experts around them. Learn about those people. Pander to them. Confirm their suspicions. Leave quickly and send the bill before the dust settles and the internal experts have had time to digest a lengthy report full of meaningless techno-babble and pat statements from an industry study.
It wasn't the career for me. I've met too many people who were essentially unemployable who do quite well as consultants. There are few good ones.
What was fundamentally missing from FO was trust. He has no faith in the technical people because he doesn't understand them. He doesn't understand what they do, and he's afraid that they are cleverer and more knowledgeable than him (not the same thing). He is used to working in an aggressive work environment, where people like Polo and Gabriel, who have no real ambition, should be after his job - not his actual job, but his status. It's not paranoia, just his experience.
I prefer to work in a collaborative environment. If someone gives me an opinion or estimate, I might raise an eyebrow or two, but I trust that
1. They're not trying to stall and inflate that estimate because they want goof-off time
2. They have some idea of what they're talking about
If we don't trust the people who work for us, or the people who work with us, then it's time to take a good hard long look at ourselves and ask what the hell we're doing working in such an environment!

Raise your hand if you can hear me

After yesterday's gripe about having no-one to trust when I run off to the Orient for that well-deserved break from this mad-house, I was approached by both FO and Arkel to say something along the lines of "I'm willing to keep an eye on your girls while you're gone", and I have already mentioned my attitude towards either from a management perspective.
But this got me thinking about one of my pet areas of interest - management theory. Neither of these two chappies has what could be called a management background - they have industry knowledge, professional skills, vast experience, but no formal management training. That could be said for anyone in the company - including me, but I have the advantage of having done some thinking over the years on the topic. Both Gabriel and Polo have true people management experience, but I don't think either really thinks much about it, and, due to their industry experience, it's mostly by luck that they meet with general success (or lack of failure).
In the mind of FO and Arkel, though, management is a process by which you ensure that the people you manage don't waste too much time on coffee breaks, don't sit around reading online newspapers (or blogs) or personal email, and effectively do what they are asked to do as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible, in the way that you tell them. People are a cost. If you are over budget, you must achieve fewer people. If you are swimming in cash, hire more.
How extraordinary! Hello? Are you out of the dark ages yet? I refuse to chain people to desks and get out a whip (or buy a slave to do the whipping for me) unless people are into that sort of thing; and what they do in the privacy of their bedroom is nobody's business until the mpeg turns up on the internet.
Where was I? Management! My people are intelligent, educated, semi-dedicated semi-professionals (none of them work in the 'field' of their training) - they have to be, because I hired them myself. Although I tell them, in broad sweeps, the goals of each task, and I sometimes provide them with tools and technical input to complete same, I do leave it up to them to find a way forward if they can, to complete things at their own pace (rather than by my estimate), and to present the results in their estimation of a reasonable manner.
This reminds me of a boss I once had who asked me to create a presentation for him. It took me half the day to get to a nice draft. We spent the other half of the day with him changing each slide individually because "he wouldn't have done it like that". From cost-effectiveness, he could have spent that latter half-day producing the thing himself, and I could have spent the whole day doing something useful and not getting frustrated.
It's these little moments that I've stored in the back of my mind and thought "I'll never do that to someone in my team", or else "That's a good way to deal with the situation". Although the former thoughts outnumber the latter, those latter are far more precious, and I value the people who can trigger them. Five year ago, Polo was one of those people. Since I dragged him into this company, I'm not as sure.

Running Away

I'm running away for two weeks for what appears to be an annual globe-trotting expedition. Shanghai this time. The largest massed pipe band in China, apparently. I did Edinburgh last year for PipeFest. That was big.
Anyway, enough about me. Two weeks away means two weeks away from this office, these people. Omigod! What are they going to do without me? How will they cope? I'm not being overly egotistic, but my girls rely on me heavily on a day to day basis. I don't just direct them, but I also support their efforts, in their attempt to do what I tell them to. It's a cross between situational- and micro- management. I manage each of them as needed at the time - as long as they're following my orders. I didn't realise that Spin was already off on her holiday this week. I was wondering why she was so late, and Owl reminded me. Oops. We were going to coincide holidays, and I saw that as a relief, but then she couldn't get flights ... Owl and Booker are my three-day-a-week girls, so they don't need as much forward planning. I asked them all to send me an email and work out what they were doing and could do over the period, and so far Booker is the only respondee with "I'll run out of work before you get back". Succinct, but useless. Meanwhile, Anne, who I've been protecting from Doodles' excessive requests, will be my only girl in today. As my only full-timer, I have to worry more about her. We've got time to chat, anyway. I set up a meeting to discuss ideas tomorrow, and I've got a half-page list of stuff that could get done, but I'll guarantee I'll come back to blank faces and nothing achieved. Now I know how Polo felt when he left his people for a week or so.
The other part of the problem is finding someone to look after the girls for me. They need support. They need someone who can solve their problems, or is willing to find someone who can. I've been thinking of senior people all this time - I asked FO, and he was non-committal. I wouldn't trust Arkel, because his staff of one never knows what's going on. Gabriel is too busy. The list goes on. And then I got this brainwave - Tweet. She's an unofficial bit-time member of my team, knows her stuff, can talk anyone into anything (eventually) when she can't do it herself, and she has no delusions of grandeur. Apparently, she wants to get into project management, so this is just another step in that direction. The only other option is Red, and I don't know when he'll be in, so I can't make plans. I'd trust him, but I have no idea if he has the support skills my girls need.
I feel much happier now, having talked it through. I can relax and listen to the crowd shout unintelligibly at the band, hoping that they're saying "Brilliant! Encore!" when they're much more likely to be shouting "Shut off that damned racket!"

Getting an Early Rise

I am an early riser. I make no apology for that. I have been since I was a lad. I used to be one of the first at school (travelling quite a distance by bus), and have lived much farther away from the big smoke, with the necessity to continue the practice of catching half-empty trains. I can only recall Polo beating me into the office once. Nobody else comes close.
They're a weird lot, those who do turn up at what I would call a reasonable hour - apart from my team, who know I'll be here when they arrive. Stripe lives some way off, and likes to leave early; he says "hi" when he gets in, and we usually have a chat a little later over the coffee machine (it doesn't seem to mind). Polo will tend to do a long day, turning up after a work-out at the gym, but still quite early; he eats breakfast here. Hagrid turns up, says nothing, takes his seat, and gets on with his work. Gabriel also tends to sneak in, but is quite happy to accost me early if he wants something. But Bull - he ensures that everyone notices him. He's teaching Stripe a little bit of Spanish, and he keeps the girls entertained at lunch time - although I'm not sure what they talk about. He seems to be the kind of guy who is 'foreign' enough that he could be gay if it wasn't for the fact that he is in a steady heterosexual relationship. You can't not like him; I've never been turned down with a request, but often told that he can't do the work for an hour or two. He's that kind of guy - he'll slot you in somehow.

My girls have to be a little up like that. I almost insist on it. I like smiling faces around me, which is not why I specifically hire young women, but it helps in the interview. Mind you, Anne and Owl both need to brush up on their social skills. Booker is fine - she's just new to the area, and Spin is the kind of girl who should be able to make friends anywhere. It surprised me, then, a few weeks ago, when I found that none of them were mixing with the other teams. I set them a social awareness task to learn things about people I had chosen at random from the staff list.
Here's the interesting bit - Spin was the only one not to take the task seriously enough to achieve anything. She's just started working on finding out who Scruff is (she took two weeks to get him identified), and complains that he rushes through his coffee-making of a morning and won't talk.
I pulled the plug on my little task. There was no fun in it any more.
I shouldn't grumble too much - I've said barely a word to the new chappy over in Sales. I'm waiting to see if he lasts a week or two before I'll expend any effort.
Booker's just turned up, and I don't have my headphones on, so my day has begun.

Don't get me Wrong

Don't get me wrong, Doodles is a nice guy. You're expecting a "but" there, and I thought I could leave it as a rhetorical one, if only there was such a thing. I had to lose a body a few months back because a given market is no longer a company priority. Since then, my remaining body (sorry, I should call her a resource, perhaps even a person) has been supporting that low priority market and not doing her real job - that being, whatever I tell her to do. Poor Anne gets emails from Doodles, forwards to me (if he hadn't) and then shakes in her seat until I notice the email, or until she can attract my attention and ask if she's allowed to do the work for him. The poor woman has kittens, having no ability to make her own decisions, and no desire to second guess me. I'm happy to ignore his emails - his market, not my problem.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a really nice guy - especially to my crew. I make sure I tell them that at least once a week. But I don't think anyone could make Anne feel any more secure in her job. Let's face it, she saw what happened to her former co-worker. We sent him off with an over-sized card in compensation for the amount of remorse. It wasn't my decision. In fact, if anyone had asked which of the two of them I would prefer to have lost, I would have been stumped for several seconds.

Anyway, Doodles, who apparently has no time to do anything for himself, and has a staff of one who spends more time in hospital than most people spend reading emails or writing blogs, didn't beg for my help, he merely dumped it and ran. I've been helping him out because I'm a nice guy (remember?) but no more. I fumed my way off to FO, just to make my feelings felt on a wider scale and because I was ignoring Doodles' email. FO's eventual solution was to gather a scattering of folk around the conference phone to find out what the hell Doodles was really after. Fair enough; I'd just assumed he was talking out of his posterior.
Don't get me wrong - FO has his moments of clarity - but this was just another opportunity for him to waffle. I'd already done my Friday afternoon, post-lunch, avoid-doing-anything-productive-while-your-sugar-level-drops seminar, introducing all my girls to what I used to do when I was a real researcher, and letting them all have nap-time away from the boisterous laughter of the admin staff in the lunch room. Now was supposed to be my time to snooze.
FO finished with a list of objectives (surprise, surprise) written on my post-it notes, with my pen (in his hand-writing), ensuring that Doodles ended up having to do most things himself - somehow. There was talk of him hiring his girlfriend in the short term. There was a general sigh of relief around the table. Arkel, in particular, had kept his mouth shut to protect his offsider, limiting his twitching with a great deal of strain showing on his face.
Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy to do the odd thing for Doodles when the mood takes me, he can find me, and I can't think of anything less demeaning for Anne to do at the time, or quickly enough. I am not, however, going to run his personal work pool from a distance, using my bodies. I've got enough problems ensuring that my empire doesn't shrink. All my girls are being sucked into my research, and I'm trying to get Arkel to lend me his. I've written him an email, but he doesn't seem to be responding too quickly.

Cleaned out

I can't recall why I went past FO's office, but he had the big recycling bin parked in his doorway, his floor scattered with the contents of the boxes usually stacked beneath and around his desk. He was crawling around on the floor, shaking plastic folders and collecting the business cards that fell out. It concerned me somewhat that he was doing this while the company's stock trading was halted. It's a strange time to be having an enterprise-level 'clean out', but then, the auditors had just been through, and this was an opportunity to officially dispose of anything that they missed. I guess I was wondering if something more serious was happening that I should know about, and I don't know which was worse: that I was thinking it, or that I had to ask to be sure.
He looked even more harried than he had yesterday when we were talking about critical survival objectives, as if he'd had some sleep, but not enough. The lingering malady that causes him to cough up an inordinate amount of phlegm at inopportune moments in meetings is unlikely to abate unless he takes a different outlook on life and winds down. In a past life, he took his job too seriously, and it cost him a marriage. He's a serial monogamistic executive, dedicating his life to one company at a time. Sometimes I suspect he's planning a coup, and Bubble had better beware, but at other times he's hiding behind Bubble, ready to leap out and stab someone else in the back - preferably with Bubble's knife. But then, I know who really pulls Bubble's strings, and it's not his wife, either.

Business Priorities

Simultaneous occurrences easily intrigue when they don't annoy. It was my responsibility to gather the cognoscenti to discuss business priorities, so as to present a consistent story to the plebs on the factory floor. It was just my luck that the Board was pressuring FO and Bubble to do likewise upwards.
FO sent me his 'draft objectives' - with a superfluous 'r'. At the top of the list of critical success factors was "cut costs". My knee-jerk, tempered only slightly with the knowledge that he'd stayed up half the night thinking that one up, was that the easiest way to cut costs was to remove the executive. It was taken in a less magnanimous spirit than was intended.
My priorities were going to be along the lines of "who are the important clients?", or in the words of Red, "who do we burn?"
The meeting began after I got Doodles in on conference call. Of course he's got skype. FO smiled at the cost-cutting measure, and I pointed out that it was Doodles' personal skype, and he was not cutting our costs. A little more skyping and we got under way. I knew FO was going to hijack the meeting. We had three little pigs from the floor, plus Gabriel for this first such meeting. It was possibly the first time that they'd been exposed to FO's nomadic diatribe, let alone a business direction.
All well and good. My only purpose, when I got my chance, was trying to squeeze some new work in sideways - for Doodles; nothing I want done has high enough priority. FO's priorities meant that the customer was pretty low on the list, and so we sat and justified why we should push out something else in its place. More delays. Arkel was shaking like the last leaf in winter, but caved in and agreed that his customer would feel the flame. He wasn't happy, but he'll go and whinge about it to MadDog tomorrow, and nothing will come of it. We keep going around in circles, stabbing each other in the back as fast as we patch up someone else.
Suddenly, FO sprang into action - "how come that estimate is so high?"
"Woah there, FO, you can't ask that sort of question here - we're talking business priorities."
"I'm sorry, but I just want to know!" almost shouting, and making Gabriel (sitting beside me) almost jump backwards out of his seat.
"These guys are the ones who have to do the work, we have to trust their estimates."
"But ... but ..." spluttered the formerly formidable FO.
"Anyway, we're running out of time. Doodles has a customer to see, and Gabriel's got another meeting."

I gave FO a few minutes to cool down and went down to his office for a visit. I never sit down in there these days, happy to stand for an hour. It's easier to wave my hand about.
"Look, I'm not defending them for the sake of it, or going against you. I agree about the estimates, but I ask you - How long would it take you to do?"
"Umm ... but if they had a better solution, it shouldn't take long at all. They told me that these sort of mods would be easy."
"How long would it take you to do what needs to be done?"
Silence.
Gold.
"Anyway, you should be talking to Polo about this."
"Yeah, I'll have a word to Gabriel."
"No - Polo is more appropriate. You're scaring Gabriel, and that's unfair."
"But I'm the soft touch! MadDog and Bubble want to halve the engineering staff. They think that's all that's necessary."
"I think it's necessary to double it. Who do you think is more likely to be right?"
Silence.
Platinum.
"Anyway, I came up here to smooth things over, and I was reminded of a joke ..."
And I told him the one about when God designed Eve...

Meandering and Pondering

In the beginning, there was the word; and it was blog.
It was the best of dark and stormy blogs. It was the worst of dark and stormy blogs. Nobody upsets this little blog duck.

Now that lonelygrill12, or whatever that team called itself, has been revealed, it is time for the professionals to take over. Not professional scriptwriters - professional outpourers of the soul. I've been doing this sort of thing for most of my life, and experience must count for something.