Statics, Dynamics, and Relativity

I have a regular meeting with some of the senior technologists on my team.  It’s a small, varied and global group.  They have little in common except their deep technical experience, a readiness to debate, and a strong tendency toward sarcasm (things that seem to transcend national and cultural boundaries among technologists).

During many of these meetings we discuss the barriers to change that Others (it’s always Others ;-) are erecting as we seek to change cause change in our environment.  Sometimes it’s change to help things go Faster.  Sometimes it’s to help improve Quality.  And other times, it’s to lower Cost.

The example last week was around our development process and how the Others were hindering the improvement of Scrum.  (In this case, it happened to be the need to have better quality and depth of product backlog.)  The team had plenty of commentary about what needed to be done and how Others needed to not be resisting the change.

From there, the discussion pivoted toward some work that other team members were doing on an automation platform.  In this case, a team had been working extensively with Puppet to accomplish cross-platform installation and configuration automation.  And (seemingly) “out of nowhere” another team started talking about the importance of Ansible.

The team had been used to hearing about the Puppet vs Chef debate, which seemed to break largely along sysadmin vs programmer lines.  However, they said, Ansible seemed to be swaying previous Puppet advocates due to its agentless architecture…  They added that there doesn’t yet seem to be a clear-cut winner in this debate.

From there, the discussion started to go meta as the participants began to observe that “this automation stuff seems unsettled.”  And then began to wonder “when is it going to get figured out."

Listening to the conversation, I could feel that there were tendencies, lurking just beneath the surface, to “wait and see” before taking on certain automation projects.  There it was... resistance to change.  Just which the team didn't want to see in Others.

And it was then that I realized (or perhaps was reminded) that for all of us, our perception of change is relative.  In the former case, the team felt the environment was too static and change wasn’t happening fast enough… in the latter case, the team felt the environment was too dynamic and change was happening too fast.

So in a time of change, remember that regardless of what side of the times we find ourselves, understanding the Other’s worldview will help to smooth the transition.

The gift of feedback: photos, video, and comments

I had previously spent some time going through our Customer survey responses.  Our survey is like many others:  it asks a variety of questions about our performance, provides an opportunity for written commentary, and is summed up with a question similar to "how likely are you to recommend?".  In addition to the quantitative scores, the survey team performed of sentiment analysis to summarize the intent of the comments.

My reactions were (unsurprisingly) varied: happiness & pride coupled with nearly equal measures of dissatisfaction and regret.

I revisited the survey results this week and the activity triggered personal reflection on the nature of feedback. And how different feedback mechanisms have varied impacts.

Take a stroll through some photos on your phone.  While they are primarily remembrance, they also provide feedback about ourselves and others, exactly as we looked in a certain time and place.  While they are precise and objective, they are perfectly still and quiet.  This allows our minds to use our memories to fill in the rest of the scene.

Video provides richer feedback, with movement and sound to augment the visual scene.  Which means video is also prone to more cringe-inducing moments than photos.  The viewer simply cannot gloss over the video's objective recollection of the event.

The feedback from comments is fundamentally different.  Even when quantified, it's subjective.  Even at it's most comprehensive, it's incomplete.  And it frequently lacks enough context for the recipient  to fill in the gaps.  Further, it's delivered unilaterally, preventing real-time questions and answers.

These differences from other types of feedback do not invalidate the feedback in comments. However, comments do require contextualization to gain the most value from them.  That is, working to place the comments back in the context from which they originated allows one to understand their cause.

Failing to do so makes it easy for us to make excuses for our behavior, actions and words -- or lack of the same -- and prevents us from getting true value from the comments.

It's often said that feedback is a gift.  I think this statement is true in a deeper sense than it's typically said: Like a gift, we need to take the effort to unpack feedback in order to get the true value that rests within.

Getting Outside

As one can tell, this blog has been dormant for some time.  Since this last post, my blogging activity has been confined to the typical internal blog.  And so some reasonably reasonable content has had a largely limited audience.

However, during the midst of a recent Crowdchat, Dan Hushon asked "who's blogging?"... and I answered that my blog was on our internal Jive site.  As it happened, Dan and I were in the same room for the Crowdchat and afterwards he said, "So... why not an external blog?"  A question to which I didn't really have a response.

I said that I used to have an external blog... I'd need to find it... but other than that, I didn't really have a reason.

Dan (and others at CSC) have been talking about the benefits of Outside-in thinking and its importance to both our company and others.  But it's not just about pulling information in from the outside.  To really benefit from the Outside... you have to be there and be part of the information exchange.  Blogging and tweeting are a big part of that.

This year, I've done a reasonable job with my tweeting.  And so as 2014 starts to end, I'll make an early resolution to move my blogging back here.

To know... or not to know

Tonight, as I sit here, I am, for various reasons, pondering the question: Is it better to know? Or not to know?

I'm not sure about the answer to that one... but I am sure about this: I think that there are some goals worth seeking, even though they can't be attained.

It's the jouney, not the destination.

Email as a trigger

In a previous post, I wrote about how email can be interpreted differently than it was intended. Today, I was reminded about how sometimes email can be interpreted exactly as it was intended, but the side effects are far beyond what was intended.

The scenario? Team A and Team B. Staff member on Team A need staff member on Team B to do Some Stuff. Team B staffer is chronically slow (or has chronically bad quality, or chronically bad follow-up). Time goes on and Team A staffer starts to get heat for performance. At some point, Team A staffer decides that it would be A Good Idea to escalate. However, Team A doesn't understand that escalate means to escalate in his chain of command and decides to drop an email to... say... his Team B counterpart's boss' boss... calmly explaining how these tasks are important to getting things done, etc, etc.

In this case, the message was received exactly as it was intended. However, the sender didn't understand the implications. And now, this message has set in motion a chain of events... The big boss is embarrassed... The big boss makes a phone call... who makes a phone call... And very soon the Team B staffer is getting a hide-chewing. Yes, the work gets done.

And in that, and that alone, has the Team A staffer been successful.

So I'll try to remember that when one lobs an email to high ground, it not only makes an impact when it lands, but also when it rolls downhill.

No room for failure

Like most working folks, producing stuff is one of my duties. For me, it's generally thought-stuff. Thought-stuff of varied structure (emails, memos, diagrams, charts, spreadsheets, presentations), size (1 to 100 pages) and difficulty (so how does one measure difficulty?).

Also like most working folks, I communicate with people about stuff. Sometimes about their stuff... and sometimes about my stuff.

Often a presenter (of work product) starts being apologetic about the work product before the reviewer has even had a chance to look at it. I have often heard, "Oh, this is just something that I slammed together." The implication being that he/she didn't work on it very hard and that is why it will be found unacceptable.

I think that regardless of whether or not this is true, such a half-baked apology shouldn't be made. That is, if it in't true... then why are you saying it? And if it is true... then you should be truly apologetic that you are presenting something that is known to be fundamentally deficient.

What is the person doing? Trying to show that there was an opening through which failure could creep. The problem is that failure tends to be the sort of thing that expands to fill the space available.

I've often heard it said that one "leave no room for failure"... and I think I'm understanding that meaning a little deeper... It's often (tough not always) the absence of effort that leaves room for failure.

So I'll try to fill up my tasks with effort... to leave no room for failure.

Email as ballistic text

I use email a lot. Today has been a typical day... I received over 200 emails from colleagues. I sent over 100 to colleagues. (I don't bother counting spam or quasi-spam opted-in emails from companies.) And it seems like every day I observe an exchange (or am directly involved in one) that results in a misunderstanding of some degree.

It's odd, isn't it? Email is text. Text is objective. Not like the spoken word, which can wiggle and twist. Text should be perfect for communication... Text is there on the page, firm and grounded.

And therein lies the rub. The text is immobile... and when it zips through the ether, it is, quite literally ballistic. It's flight vector determined by a few moves of fingers tapping keys.

Text can't look at the reader, sense how it's being received, and then alter its course. Nope, not text in an email. It careens forward... without regard for its context and without regard for its reader. It goes where it goes and lands where it lands. Fire and cringe, if you're not careful.

Static text is great when one wants to preserve some status quo... like a contract... like a law. For communicating a nuanced concept to a person (or group of people), it's not so good.

Of course, given various constraints, I must frequently use email... So what do I do? All of this is all the more reason to take my time and imagine myself as the reader... and then to imagine "what's the absolute worst way in which this could be interpreted?" And then write to prevent that from happening. This can lead to notes that are lengthy and ponderous, all the more reason to practice my writing.

But in all honesty, when I really want to be heard, I do my best to find an opportunity to pick up the phone and talk. (Or even, gasp, go visit... but that's another topic.)