5 Elements of Empathy: Lessons from Design Thinking

Earlier this Fall, I attended the Faculty Workshop at Northeastern University. I participated in the Design Thinking workshop. The facilitator was discussing utilizing the design thinking concepts to frame the problems correctly to extract assumptions and identify solutions. In general, design thinking is composed of the stages, empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test focusing primarily on why the problem is important, who we are designing the solution for, what are we planning to do, and how is the resulting new experience for the person. As part of the small activities among the participants in the table during the session, we discussed ideas on understanding the user rushing to who are we designing the solution for.

During this session, I started writing some thoughts based on the ideas I gathered from the facilitators and the table activities focusing on what empathize meant. I believe I accidentally landed on five vowel elements of "Empathize" meant. I am sharing my thoughts here.

The first step is acknowledging (A) the user's problem. Nothing better comes unless one acknowledges that something is not working as intended or something is missed in the way the solution was developed. One way for us to demonstrate is scheduling a walk-through session or a hearing session with them and opening our meeting acknowledging the problem. 

The second step is engaging (E) directly with the users. Instead of assuming what we thought the problem was, it is better to interview them and ask powerful questions. Some questions that I can think of are the following:

• How do you really want it to be?
• What is the impact of what you are unable to accomplish now?
• What is important about that approach?
• What is already working that you can build on?
• What would a simple solution look like?

The third step is to immerse (I) oneself in the user's experience. Instead of just listening to them, we can ask them to interact with the product and partake in that experience ourselves. This experience is an expression to them that they matter. In lean thinking, we talk about the 3G principles (Gemba - visiting the actual place, Gembutsu - experiencing the actual product, Genjitsu - Gathering the real facts) and this immerse experience is application of the 3G principles. Some questions that I can think of are extending the questions from the engaging step as follows:

• What else could we do?
• What do you think we should stop doing?
• What is stopping you from doing them now?
• What do you think is possible?
• What does success look like for you?

The fourth step is to observe (O) for things not said or articulated. I feel like this is looking for non-verbal communication. These are the spaces between the words and sentences in non-verbal communication. I often call this approach "Listening with Eyes" (Rajagopalan, 2017), where we fill the gap between what they want versus what they need! It truly helps in not only reframing the problem for the persona but also architect the solution with the DfX principles (Paul, Beitz, Feldhusen, Grote, 2007) prioritizing based on the multidimensional risks associated with 'what matters the most.' As a result, X in DfX can stand for manufacturability, production capacity, testability, cost, reliability, etc. These optimization concepts resonate with Taguchi's system, parameters, and tolerance considerations for design (Gopalakrishnan, Jaraiedi, Iskander, and Ahmad, 2007).

The final step is unifying (U) all these first-hand experiences from user interviews, personal experiences interacting with the product in the environment the user interfaces with, synthesizing both the articulated wants and unarticulated observations and framing the problem. This reframed problem statement lays the foundation for the definition stage focusing not only on who we are designing what but also draws the factual insights and feelings to help with risk driven design and development.

What are your thoughts on my approach? Share your observations!  

References

Gopalakrishnan, B., Jaraiedi, M, Iskander, W.H, and Ahmad, A. (2007). Tolerance synthesis based on Taguchi philosophy. International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2(3), 311-326.

Paul, G., Beitz, W. Feldhusen, J., Grote, K.H. (2007). Engineering Design: A Systematic Approach. Germany: Springer.

Rajagopalan, S. (2017). Listening with Eyes. https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2017/04/listening-with-eyes.html

What color is our communication?

Sometime in summer of this year, I was finishing up a project management training session and was wrapping up the importance of project status report as a catalyst for engaging stakeholders as needed. One of my learners talked about using the red, yellow, and green status indicators in project status reports for various project elements like schedule, cost, scope, risk, and quality. Such practices are very standard in project management. Yet, how much do we think about the color of our own communication? 

Until a person that I was mentoring approached me while preparing for the career promotions, I didn’t think about discussing it. After discussions with this learner, a thought came to my mind. As leaders of change through our projects, one of which is owing our personal growth and professional career, how much do we identify color in our own communication to bring awareness of potential inherent bias, labeling, and stereotyping or promote diversity, equity, and inclusivity practices to promote belonginess? This blog is a brief synthesis of my research. 

Historically, literature is full of using color to communicate differentiating the good from the bad, truth from lie, grace from greed, etc. I saw in movies where people used white cloth to indicate piece agreements during negotiation, an inflammation on the head with a red color, villainous characters are wearing dark red or black costume while heroes wear blue and red capes or dresses. If this is not sufficient, take a look at some of the concepts behind deBono's (1999) dysfunctional hats where white hat is associated with facts, black hat is associated with devil's advocate thinking, green hat focuses on creative possibilities, red hat focuses on emotions and feelings, yellow hat focuses on optimistic outcomes and blue hat focuses on systemic managerial thinking.

Therefore, the concepts of communication have been present and widely used. For example, yellow journalism seems to be referring to those writing practices where newspapers published sensational news as though they were facts (Campbell, 2001).  I wonder if the book, "What color is your parachute?" had a reason for choosing color as the differentiator for skills required in networking and gainful employment guidance? Consequently, here are some thoughts to understand how our communication may be perceived by others, because as I always say, "Communication is not about what you said but what others understood." Now, I am not advocating them to be correct or not but only stating them. Just to add a little color, let me illustrate these thoughts with characters from Ninjago!

Black color has been used to indicate bad or evil things. For instance, Lord Garmadon in Ninjago is characterized with Black costume! Even in the computing world, we say "we blacklist the IP addresses" to say certain address schemes exercise adverse reactions. As the concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusivity comes into play, how much does it feel someone of an African American origin to read such a thought? Alternatively, if you used bold black color for emphasis, are you drawing inference in a bad way? 

White color is used to indicate good, peace, and intelligence. Zane, one of the four Ninjas with peace and robotic intelligence, is in white! While practice may suggest that we frequently use white background in most user interfaces and black foreground (like font), white shouldn't be used too often to indicate the absence bad or evil things epitomized in the black color. Therefore, associating white as virtuous and referring to "whitelisting keywords" is against the inclusive mindset. 

Brown color is often a neutral color with areas like dependability, predictability, and comfort with themselves. Sometimes, it is also used to indicate dullness or depressed behaviors. You can see Master Wu wearing brown robe around his waist often with white dress. But, the Dareth, the Brown Ninja, also is in brown indicating a dullness and depression requiring the other Ninjas to save his Dojo! Personally, while I was in Scotland, I was often called in the streets as a "brownie" and I never associated myself with eating the baked good, "brownie". I can't say I am the only one who experienced such issues. So, when bringing brownies or using brown color to indicate time logged by someone in a report with brown bar, are you indicating anything more than that meets the eye?   

The blue color represents both the positive and negative aspects of human emotions and powers. Therefore, blue can be associated with heroic powers, such as Jay in blue costume, or something that may have bad intentions but feel isolated without leadership like the snake, Skales. So, when we use expressions such as, "... bringing blue-collar (manual worker) thinking", "... surprised me out of the blue," or "... required me to explain until I was blue in the face," what are you telling about yourself to others? If other team members are in the same room, how would they feel about your thoughts of them in their absence?" Even the "Blue Ocean" leadership is a reference frame to say how one operates from a tranquil and calm perspective in a strategic decision-making scenario!

The red color indicates an elevated form of human emotions and powers. It is a stronger form of blue. Kai in Ninjago supports the others with both patient pauses required before unleashing powers. Often, red in management context draws attention to the extreme impact in a bad way (one of the reasons why risk is always thought of as a bad word). Variations of red like amber is also frequently used to indicate the same message. So, when we underline something with a red color, or single out a word or resource name in red color, what hidden message are we communicating? Think about red ocean leadership that focuses on strategies with multiple competitors. Is that by itself bad? No, only our interpretation is!

The green color signifies success, rejuvenation, and growth! It also indicates sometimes impatience and reasoning. Can you not see why Green Ninja is the greatest Ninja and why Lloyd wears green? Yes, no wonder we use green to indicate successful sales, successful milestone, successful bid, and renewal of a contract in management meetings. But watch out! I am feeling so green indicates envy and jealousy whereas giving a green light means you are indicating approval!

The orange color is a variation of red. Perhaps reduced intensity but not with any tint of blue positivity. Perhaps, this is the reason why the orange snake in Ninjago was characterized that way. All the energy and enthusiasm relishing small victories but not always working on the correct side all the time. Now, the color itself is not good or bad if the message supports the concept! But please note that if you put orange along the indications of red charts, you are communicating a bad message on a smaller scale!

The yellow color is a neutral color as well but indicates some degree of caution. No wonder, caution is often yellow on streetlights (for the most countries) and is used as 'proceed with caution' messages on project status reports. I am not yet aware of any Ninjago characters in yellow (not caught up on all). While this color may be used for caution in graphical illustrations in status reports and dashboards, in some context, yellow may also indicate limited approval (like a yellow light), uncourageous (yellow-bellied), etc. 

The literature is full of many other colors link pink and purple, and yellow. Frequently, I find these colors not clearly defined. Although in the United States, telling someone that they got the pink slip means they were involuntarily eliminated from the workforce. 

So, thinking from all these aspects, do we even think about the role color plays in our communication? 

References

Campbell, W. J. (2001). Yellow journalism: Puncturing the myths, defining the legacies. Westport, CT: Praeger.

De Bono, E. (1999) Six Thinking Hats, Back Bay Books, New York

Self-Promotion: How to blow your horn correctly?

I was following up with a few people that I had attended my 2-day corporate training workshop on Agile Project Management with Scrum. A discussion came up regarding writing personal self-reflection for annual performance and how that is aligned with Scrum. I view Scrum as an opportunity for the team to ask powerful questions. So, I felt like the team resonated reasonably in asking whether the performance review process fitted within a Scrum process.

However, Scrum is also a collection of cross-functional teams with a working agreement experimenting with value creation and delivery. Such a focused value creation also means there are other organizational commitments like capacity planning, transition planning, and succession planning based on sensing the external and market conditions, legal and regulatory compliance, etc. Within the Human Resources and Employment considerations, several confidentiality requirements exist that are not part of the transparency consideration of Scrum. So, performance assessment for individuals' career growth based on the personal development plan is required and doesn't fit within the Scrum (or Agile, Project Management) considerations. 

The discussion followed further into guidelines on self-promotion in the performance review. Now, based on my experience managing the PMO, I gave some suggestions as follows. 

Any self-promotion should be objective and not be blowing the horn so much that it emphasizes no opportunity for continuous improvement. In fact, the more modest one is in stating the facts, the better the others will blow your horn! I feel that self-promotion should focus on perspective thoughts, purposeful actions, projection of behaviors that can be emulated, and the poise one takes on maintaining emotional connections. 

1. For instance, the thoughts should not only focus on short term deliverable orientation but also long-term scalability. So, talking about how the definition of done was adhered to alone is not sufficient. Instead, the types of documentation created, training promoted, operational excellence addressed, risks treated, and technical debt minimized are all examples of bringing industry practices. Everyone can start thinking in terms of the functions adjacent to their roles and responsibilities and see how they are better off because of their work. 
2. Now, this perspective can also focus on motives that connect with the larger organizational goals. For instance, connecting with upstream value stream activities and evaluate how multiple departments outside of our core work could be benefitting or what organizational processes can be better modified and incorporated are creative and systemic activities. Inviting other business unit leaders to talk about their daily challenges and what we can do to address these challenges builds bridges. 
3. Combined with perspectives and purpose is the behaviors that we would like others to follow. Here is where 'influence' comes in as we model leadership behaviors (Northouse, 2007). Engaging in powerful questions, becoming a mentor, advisor, or coach, and taking on stretch goals beyond what our job responsibilities call for making us allies for other business and trustworthy comrades for others. As you can see, we are projecting our leadership image. 
4. Losing connection to the people's emotion is a downward spiraling path even if we do all the above correctly. Here is where we go back to applying the emotional intelligence, multiple intelligence, and cultural intelligence that differentiate us further. 

How can we practice frequently all the above perspectives, purpose, projection, and poise? The best way to address them is, as I always say, "Don't count the days but make the days count." Consistency is the key to continuously grooming oneself in all these areas so that when it comes to writing this annual reflection, it is a simple consolidation activity. My approaches to doing this consistency are as follows:

1. Use a calendar system effectively to manage yourself. It may be challenging with our multiple roles (worker, parent, student, social commitments) that one calendar can't avoid schedule conflicts. So, use a consolidated calendar to manage "all" your commitments. Let the system be your reminder!
2. In today’s world, there are several tools available. One can use your project management tools to manage your own career promotion as a project as a product tracking your 1:1 meeting, learning, work objectives, and stretch goals. I used SpiraTeam (Inflectra, n.d.) that I had access to in my company to manage my individual self-agility (Rajagopalan, 2012) and my PMO performance objectives based on balance score card using the system to track my commitments.
3. I start every day with "What is a successful today?" Be relentlessly positive and committed to delivering on each day! I am sure a thing or two will slip but recognize it so that you can become better if that is in your control. 
4. Focus on one or two important things. a) Avoid multitasking please, and create routines that work for you. b) Create value, eliminate non-value activities, reduce stress, raise your awareness. These ideas emerge from Blue Ocean Leadership (Kim & Mauborgne, 2017) where you can think of each day as a fresh start to make a difference.
5. Remember to be modest every day! This ensures that others write your performance review each day, week, month to tell the story for your annual performance. If you are not tracking your performance more frequently against the value drivers such as measuring against your commitments or tracked in the balance score card tracking tools, then, your annual performance review should not be a monumental activity! 
6. Celebrate the wins frequently. In managing the teams, the leadership principles advocate "recognize more". The leadership practices approach even value "recognition" (Kouzes and Posner, 1987) through encouraging the heart more than "reward" (Herzberg, Mausner, Snydermann, 1959) as part of the motivation much needed. So, share the team's wins. Spread your love in the status meetings. Don't wait for the lessons learned to recognize others. Recognizing people for their contribution is a boomerang. It comes back to you with sincere appreciation.

References

Herzberg, F., Mausner, B., & Snydermann, B. (1959). The motivation to work. New York: Wiley

Inflectra (n.d.). SpiraTeam. Retrieved from https://www.inflectra.com/Products/SpiraTeam/

Kim, W.C. & Mauborgne, R.A. (2017). Blue Ocean Leadership. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Kouses, J.M. & Posner, B.Z. (1987). The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco, CA: Josey-Boss.

Northouse, G. (2007). Leadership theory and practice. 3rd Edition. Thousand Oak, Londan: Sage Publications.

Rajagopalan, S. (2012). Leading Change: Remote Teams can collocate on the right ALM tools. Retrieved from https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2012/04/leading-change-remote-teams-can.html

The Four D's of Conflict Management

I was engaged in a corporate training pre-discussions for an organization. They were involved in producing small to large scale physical marketing materials like producing custom designed glass shaped in a particular design with text and graphics imprinted on them. In my discussions, I found that one of the major challenges in their organization was timely resolution of conflicts. Since raw materials were acquired and inefficient design or experiments wasted the materials, there were a lot of challenges where ideas were quickly dismissed, or resistance followed. As I structured my training within this organization, I thought about the standard approaches to conflict management approaches. Expanding on these training courses as well as several conflict situations I had personally handled, I approached this training with a 4-D approach to how conflicts progress. 

 

1. Difference

When teams are in the norming stage, they have adjusted their behaviors and have committed themselves to the project objectives. If at this stage, team members have a difference of opinion or an approach to ways of working, that is nothing more than "Difference." This difference is the first D. I view this stage as a precursor to Speed B. Leas’ model (Leas, 1997).

It is essential to understand the reason behind this difference as it is not at all unhealthy. On the contrary, it is very healthy to have "Devil's advocate" thinking and ask questions. Frequently, these conversations could be informal discussions that could often be easily resolved. Such a resolution involves listening to people and explaining the logical reasoning connected with business objectives. The project manager may not be always the decision-maker but a facilitator.

2. Debate

When such differences are quickly dismissed for any reason, team members with strong opinions will frequently engage in a debate. Now, this debate is the second D and is also not unhealthy as it formally brings discussions forward. This stage is analogous to the first level of problem to solve stage. A healthy debate brings alternative views and is only healthy if the arguments are constructive and aimed at maximizing value while minimizing risks.

In project management, we have several techniques like brainstorming, brainwriting, Delphi Techniques, Nominal Group Techniques, and the deBono's dysfunctional hats approach. For instance, when one engages in Joint Application Design (JAD) or Joint Application Requirements (JAR) sessions, all these approaches are effectively used. Due to the formal nature of debate, the project manager may be involved in expert facilitation and mediating solutions frequently in the form of preventive actions. One approach to prioritizing is approaching from the risk management perspective, such as asking what the impact of non-delivery or non-compliance to the business and customer will be.

3. Disagreement

When differences and debates are not addressed, then disagreement emerges. People at this point have subscribed to the notion of "Prove me I am wrong." This is an unhealthy stage as time has elapsed in the management's timely intervention of resolution. This disagreement is the third D and is all about damage control. This stage is equivalent to the second level in Leas’ conflict levels.

Depending upon the time lost or the conviction people have with the disagreement, the level of resistance may also be strong. Often, this is an indication of the project manager losing their grip on the situation requiring escalation to management. It may involve as simple as sponsor involvement, or engagement of Human Resources Personnel, or a more formal governance control documenting the impact and taking both corrective actions and preventive actions (CAPA). Honestly, since prevention is better than cure, we should have called this PACA as having proper norms and plans prevents such unnecessary escalation.

4. Dispute

When this disagreement is spread across the entire organization or impacting multiple business units, then, these differences have now become a dispute. This dispute is the fourth D and indicates an unhealthy stage. It is in this stage, multiple variations may exist depending on the size of the organization, nature of conflict, and the type of thin/thick cultural politics at play. According to Leas’ model, this stage can therefore be the third level (Contest), fourth level (Crusade), and fifth level (War).

Multiple business units, sometimes including legal teams and senior organizational teams, will be consulted at this stage. Emotions run high with the escalations. Most likely, even the original problem to solve is no longer the focus as people have become polarized with their opinions. The projects may be terminated, customers may be lost, and the company's image may be questioned. 

My 4D approach was well received in this corporate training as people were able to relate to the patterns that were emerging. As we brainstormed ideas on how people within the organization could recognize these stages and put checks-and-balances, the participants felt they walked away with a practical guide to conflict management. 

What do you think? Do you relate to them? Have any stories yourself to tell? 

References

Leas, S.B (1997). Discover your conflict management style. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield

Relationship Management as a Chief Experience Officer

I was fortunate enough to receive the PMI Eric Jenett Project Management Excellence Award in 2017 (PMI, 2017). One of the project management students that I was coaching approached me mentioning about having seen the video (Rajagopalan, 2017) and was curious about what the Chief Experience Officer meant in connection with the relationship management in project management. I am capturing briefly my responses to this person. 

When people think of managing relationships with project teams, customers, partners, and other stakeholders, l feel that they focus mainly on the soft skills. I don't feel soft skills is an appropriate term at all as it makes technical skills or analytical skills to be a hard skill. Technical solutions solve a business problem, and analytical skills unearth patterns in both technical and business arena. Such division of domain specific skills is against cross-functional skills. We all understand that technology is critical to business and business supports technology. If such symbiotic relationship is understood, then these skills should be called interpersonal skills. Once we recognize that, we focus our relationship on how we sail ("Solution Agents of Implementing Change") through enterprise environmental factors and organizations process assets. This is when we are becoming the "Chief Experience Officer (CEO).

So, what are the things a CEO (regardless of who you are in the organizational hierarchy) must think through when they suggest any change, implement any work, or experience something outside of the organization (like bringing new knowledge back to the team or organization, lowering total cost of ownership, experimenting a new way of working)? 

1. Understand why this change or task is important. Connect with the business strategy and customer impact. I am sure everyone can understand Stephen Covey's principle of "Start with the why".
2. Evaluate the impact of the pain points we solve (or not solve) for the organization or client. This area is where the concept of "risk management" is non-negotiable. Just like the message "If you see it, say it" in many public places promote everyone to be the 'eyes and ears' of managing order, everyone should be able to understand the main tenets of risk management. The more one can assess the impact, the more it helps with prioritization of efforts. 
3. Ask ourselves how we make clients feel valued. Customers and clients are as smart as we are. Instead of thinking that our clients can't articulate requirements or customers change scope, understand why they did that and pivot accordingly. Always know that "No is not Never" and "Yes is not Now". Be able to rationalize both emotionally and logically with clients. 
4. Every one of us should understand what our unique value proposition is. Just like the candidates are expected to differentiate themselves in the interview where one is different from the other candidates (like "Why should I hire you?"), we should always think of answering the unasked customer's question, "How are you different from the competition?" This question is not for sales but for everyone in the organization as value flows in all directions within the organization to the client. 
5. Frequently, many think they are not salespeople. Yes, sales require a unique set of skills (one of which is handling objections). Nevertheless, everyone contributing to value creation should think of how we market our brand. Now, this marketing is not just about product marketing but how we worked together in value creation. Looking from this angle, we can see that different persona exists in the clients and so adjusting the message according to the person is important. 
6. Trust is a like bank account. It pays interest when we continuously invest in it. It assesses penalty when we don't follow through. Clients trust us because of what we invest in the relationship account. Like reaching out to tell our clients what they can do differently to accelerate time to market or how the competition is performing. They look up to us because we bring 'market intelligence' to them. Recall that "we are the face of the product and process" to them! And that is gold! They appreciate us by coming to us in providing testimonials, acting as references, and supporting with up-and-cross-sales. 
7. It is also important to know that we may develop deeper roots within a client organization as we build on this "CEO mindset". While we may think we have superpowers to connect with different members of the client organization, it is important to understand our 'audience language'. Sometimes, we may be cross-functional with enough knowledge to talk with a technical member of the team as well as the management member of the team. That is great but challenges arise when we don't know what we don't know. So, understanding the audience language also means where we may need to augment our limitations with extended knowledge from other team members. So, relationship management also means we connect other members of the team with appropriate members of the client organization. This approach mitigates risks and builds the 'opportunity' surround sound system.
8. Finally comes the intense focus on the story we want to tell! In each of these above interactions, we should focus on this story of how we started, how we progressed, and where we have landed. Furthermore, where we are going! Feedback is one part of this story telling process but there should be tangibles (like whitepaper, presentation in symposiums, testimonials, case study) should all emerge along with intangibles (working relationships, cross-partnership opportunities, references, etc.) 

To me, this is what is the 2-step plan-do-study-act like cycle like how design-thinking works (double diamond) or the infinity loop is practiced in DevOps lifecycle. 

The student I talked to walked with enough satisfaction! What about you? What do you think of my response? Anything you want to add, refine, or remove?

References

PMI (2017). PMI Eric Jenett Award Person of the Year. https://www.pmi.org/about/awards/winners/past-year/2017

Rajagopalan, S. (2017). PMI Eric Jenett Award Recipient video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kESHH2mVkdk

Influence of Linguistics on Project Leadership

There is a common saying that 80% of the project manager's job is communication. Frequently, many think that this communication is about working with a team and writing status reports. On the contrary, most of this communication is working with both project management stakeholders and project team members. I always say that people's non-verbal communication carries more meaning. With various remote ways of working, it is important how the verbal and non-verbal communication play together in the leading people as the concept of communication is centered on five critical elements - clarity, correctness, completeness, cohesiveness, and conciseness. 

Fortunately, I had my son who was studying linguistics in his college and sharing his thoughts on what he was learning. He mentioned to me that linguistics in a nutshell has five major elements which include phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. It was shocking to me how much language plays a pivotal role in leadership level communication and here are my connections on the influence of linguistics on project leadership. 

Phonology: This area focuses on the study of sounds implemented within a language. It differs from phonetics where abstract sounds that may or may not have any meaning associated. For instance, the letter "s" takes the sound of "z" while saying "cars". Particularly in verbal communication, this is very critical for people to understand each other as it lays the foundation for clarity. Especially when team members are from different culture or a technical communication channel is used with remote team members, clarity may be compromised, and it is important for one to actively listen to avoid the risk of assumptions of what one thought they heard. In project meetings, I often ask people to summarize what their actions items are before meeting again, and this helps me ensure that they heard me right.  

I normally say, "writing is for the eyes and speaking is for the ears." However, even with written reports, if project managers do not think through how the report will sound to others, then, they may risk misinterpretation. Therefore, taking the time to read out the reports aloud eliminates how the report may sound to someone. 

Morphology: This area focuses on the study of words within a sentence. The history of culture itself may influence how words are formed differentiating agglutinative, fusional, and polysynthetic structure. Now, just like morphology builds on phonology, I see correctness in project communication builds on clarity. When relying on bad news such as schedules delays, cost overruns, or resource challenges, the appropriate placement of words in the sentence may assuage fears. In other words, I feel that morphology addresses the "What's in it for me?" types of questions in both ,verbal and non-verbal communication.   

Syntax: This area focuses on the study of sentence formation with words and punctuation. Using an example of a syntax tree, the different parts of the sentence are constructed. I recalled how lexical analysis was integral in computer science in assemblers, interpreters, and finally compiler design in computer science. To me, this syntax builds on morphology for larger level decision-making. For instance, the connections of various elements in project charter, the strategic connections between project charter and the business case, and the connections between business requirements document and functional specifications document are all examples of syntax analysis required for "completeness" in communication through the multiple artifacts. 

Semantics: This area focuses on the study of meaning. Since meaning is interpreted by people, culture comes into play. This culture may not necessarily be limited to geographical cultures (e.g.: Hofstede Dimensions) but also role specific communication. For instance, the type of meaning people associated with words among various people. A business analyst sees "value" to be with customer whereas the same "value" relates to technical stability by a systems engineer. We can see how project delivery members mix up words such as "iteration" from Agile and "sprint" from Scrum. The semantics elements therefore play a critical role in push, pull, and interactive communications because of their use either for dissemination of information (broadcasting) or for alternative generation (brainstorming) for problem solving or decision-making, the concept of semantics brings "cohesiveness" in communication. So, semantics must be considered excessively by project managers to lead others.

Pragmatics: This area is the study of the social aspects of language semantics. All the essential above elements are codified in informal or formal language registers and take on additional focus especially with many areas such as the dialect, age groups, respect, etc. For instance, generational considerations may have to be incorporated in both verbal and non-verbal communication differentiated in informal and formal communication. When conflict resolutions come up, groupthink behaviors may have to be addressed in favor of smoothing and collaboration approaches. During all these interactions, pragmatics avoids unnecessary confusions by focusing on "conciseness."

Interesting to see how much the discipline of leadership is critical for project leadership! What do you see? 

Five critical roles for Career Management

Frequently, people ask about how to manage their career brand and what to do. I can't remember a single professional training that I have already trained in project management, agile, scrum, contract management, risk management, product development, and leadership where one or more members ask this question. Based on some of my experience managing ~50 people in my PMO with numerous products and programs that I have managed or supported through the portfolio function, I have come up with five critical roles. Ask yourself the quality of people you have in your individual career development plan. That will tell how serious you are about your career development.

1. Sponsor(s) – is usually a senior person within the organization who is your supporter.    Ensure that your sponsor is kept updated on your accomplishments and successes – tell your sponsor the GOOD, the GOOD and the GOOD.  Frequently, this person could be your manager or in a projectized organization both the functional and other stakeholders. Do you know who your sponsor is within this organization?

Almost always, people stop right here. Their manager is their world for career development. If one is serious about career development, then, more support is required.

2. Advisor(s) – play an important role in providing advice and guidance.  Note that an advisor can be a peer, a junior person or a senior leader within the organization.  It is normal to have many advisors as it depends on what type of advice you are seeking.  The Advisor role is separate from Mentor and Sponsor roles, however there may be times when your mentor or sponsor end up giving you valuable advice. Frequently, advisor focuses on the performance more than the potential.

I often even recommend that people should develop their personal RACI. In other words, if career development is your project (part of individual development plan), then, having the RACI is non-negotiable. Who are your advisors in your career plan today?

3. Mentor(s) – are a trusted person with whom you can share the GOOD, the BAD and the UGLY. A mentor shares experience (I have been there, done that) and knowledge (Let me show you what worked for me). A mentor focuses both on performance and potential offering guidance and advice, but the perspective is more to develop others compared to advisors within a company. Therefore, while it is perfectly fine to have mentors within an organization, it is also recommended to select mentors who are outside the organization where you work.

A good mentor will have the following attributes:

1. Willingness to share skills, knowledge, and expertise
2. Demonstrates a positive attitude and acts as a positive role model
3. Takes a personal interest in the mentoring relationship
4. Exhibits enthusiasm in the field
5. Values ongoing learning and growth in the field
6. Provides guidance and constructive feedback
7. Respected by colleagues and employees in all levels of the organization
8. Sets and meets ongoing personal and professional goals
9. Values the opinions and initiatives of others
10. Motivates others by setting a good example

Often, it is recommended to have 5-10 mentors both internal and external to the organization. Seek out mentors in fields where you want to grow and not limit yourself to where you are currently.

4. Power Brokers:  are typically very senior, well connected / networked people who can help you in many ways.  People in this category are extremely busy and so it is difficult to get airtime with them.  Power Brokers can provide you with great introductions and other new and powerful connections that can be instrumental in your professional development and success. 

These are not people who are in your social media network! These are people that know you for your career brand and can speak for you in your absence! They open opportunity doors. Do you have power brokers in your network?  

5. Coaches: are instrumental in unearthing things that one may not be thinking of to maximize both personal and professional potential. They help you see much beyond your current 'status-quo' limitations (so limited time spent on past) and support you in coming up with solutions for future.  Whether it is managing personal challenges, life challenges, health challenges, financial challenges, strategic growth challenges, business challenges, coaches are the sounding-board to make you wear multiple dysfunctional hats (hope you are thinking deBono's six hats now). Coaching engagements need to be specific with clear objectives and can come and go as needed so that the engagement is fruitful. Depending upon what areas one wants to focus on, it is not uncommon to have multiple coaches simultaneously. A typical recommendation is to have at least one coach for one main area of growth objective.

How many such people do you have in your network? If you are not having 1-2 sponsors, 3-5 advisors, 5-10 mentors (most of them should be outside your role/department/company), 15 to 20 power brokers (all of them outside your company), and at least one coach, then, you can see how you are managing your career. 

Start that list if you don't have them. Everyday counts!

References

Rajagopalan, S. (2019). What color is our communication? https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2019/11/what-color-is-our-communication.html<

Risk Management in Agile

Extending observations from one of the classes I facilitated on digital project management, I was wondering how to address the impact of risk management in agile initiatives. Earlier this month, I had a family emergency and I traveled to India to meet a family member who was critically admitted to the hospital. As I discussed the medical condition of my family member with the physician, I remembered one of my earlier speeches where I had discussed the notion of ECG waveform as the warning trigger of risk in monitoring one's health daily.

I resonated with the ECG waveform and its principles to agile approaches to project management or product development. The ECG waveform represents the heart pumping a certain volume of blood every fraction of a second (varies from person to person due to many reasons). From a physiological standpoint, the P wave represents the atrial contraction pumping oxygenated blood into the ventricular chambers. The QRS wave represents the ventricular contraction denoting the rate of  blood distribution. Finally, the T wave represents the ventricular relaxation before the heart is ready for another cycle. It is, therefore, no wonder, that one can think of every PQRST cycle as an iteration. The amount of blood consistently bumped represents the velocity.

Now, if this analogy is true, then, we can relate to risk also in an agile iteration. When we contract work to other teams or depend on others to complete the work, the functionality of the other organs (e.g.: respiratory systems) to deliver oxygenated blood without any challenges arising from circulation is critical. It is not surprising, therefore, why project managers always relate to the risk domain when procurement domain is involved because non-delivery per contract or non-performance of contracted work leads to the risk of resource overloading.

When one doesn't take care of their personal health properly by following quality policies (such as dieting or exercise), challenges arise such as a heart attack. The same concepts apply when the team compromises on technical excellence in design or addressing quality by design principles in their workflow. The escaped defect therefore represents the heart attack or an emergency trip to the hospital.

When the team members in the team fail to work together, that leads to failure. For instance, the block within heart system causes to resistance to smooth flow. Similarly, resistance to agile practices and lack of the team's self-organization introduces the risk of failure.

When the team is not self-organized or demonstrating high levels of team maturity, the scope compromises in velocity demotivates the team. Although the heart is much more resilient, overwork or imbalance introduces anxiety and stress, and people react differently. Similarly, lack of product vision or constant changes to iteration backlog compromises the team's ability to deliver. Many business challenges can impede the team's ability to deliver as well and become a high-performing team.

Such challenges, when go unchecked, impact the team's ability to deliver over a longer timeframe. The emergency visits to hospital leads to a loss of trust for caretakers requiring external intervention in the form of medicines or medically recommended rest. Stakeholders can lose confidence in the team's ability to consistently deliver on the strategic product roadmap when costs increase more than the benefits realized. Customer satisfaction fatigue can be seen in the voice of customer feedback and lack of adequate referrals.

In summary, I can see how this simple ECG waveform that we can all relate to proves to be emphasizing how risk is pertinent to everyone's health in daily life. If every day is a project, then, every heartbeat is an iteration which has the seeds of risks. The warning triggers must be understood and appropriately managed even in an agile project.

Thoughts? Please share with me.

Agile Iterations also involve cost

I was recently facilitating a class on digital project management and bringing references to both agile and traditional frameworks. While the concepts of fixed scope within the time-boxing principles was readily understood, many people in the digital media class mentioned that agile projects don't involve cost or have principles of cost baseline! The students didn't resonate with risk management also in agile iterations. These misrepresentations of agile framework continue to surge and are not accurate representations of agile approaches to project management or product development.

For instance, consider that an agile team is made up of 9 team members. The product owner, agile coach or scrum master, and the development team spend time and are compensated by their performing organization. So, when these 9 members spend approximately 6 hours per day (at 75% commitment to the project), they spend 54 hours (9 members x 6 hours) per day. Considering a 10-day iteration, the team has spent 540 hours (54 x 10 days) with one iteration. By allowing this iteration to continue with this agile approach to meet the strategic objective, the performing organization has, therefore, spent 540 hours; this time represents the opportunity cost of the organization choosing to allow these resources to work on this initiative compared to another initiative. So, how could an agile iteration not cost anything to the organization?

Let us drill a little more here. Often, people are unable to come up with the cost of an iteration. Now, this may be associated with the fact that agile doesn't favor big upfront planning. In traditional approaches to project management, we come with the WBS with the breakdown of activities worked on by specific resources and associate resource-level pricing. It is therefore possible to come up with a cost. Similar logic can still be done in an iteration easier because agile is all about team level commitments. Instead of looking at individual resource level pricing (such as what's the hourly rate of product owner?), the agile team can work with the finance department to come up with a blended resource-loaded rate. The financial units within many organizations have such a blended rate and I have received immediate responses to my requests in my experience from the financial department for such a blended rate. Now, assuming the blended rate is $100, one can easily apply this blended rate to the 540 hours in our previous example and come up with a cost of $54,000 (540 hours x $100). So, the cost of an iteration can be found out easily.

Using other heuristics or analogous experience of delivering multiple iterations, one can also come up with a cost of a story point. Now, it must be mentioned that a few iterations should be done before we can come up with a reasonable and consistent velocity as the team matures. Assuming a median velocity of three iterations, if we hypothesize that the team must deliver approximately 150 story points in every iteration, then, the baseline cost of $54,000 can be divided by this hypothesized 150 story points to come up with $360 ($54,000/150). When the team misses out on completing a 3-point story because of not proactively identifying and addressing the risks, managing stakeholder communication, or promoting the daily collaboration between business and technical users, then, the missed velocity in that iteration costs $1,080 ($360 x 3 story points) of non-delivered value.

By monitoring velocity delivered per iteration against this baseline projection, one can evaluate the CPI (Cost Performance Index). Again, extending the example above, the baseline projected velocity is 150 story points (with $54,000 or actual cost). When the team didn't deliver 3 user stories, the value delivered (Earned Value) is 147 story points (147 story points x $360 cost per point = $52,920). Since CPI is computed as a ratio of Earned Value/Actual Cost ($52,920/$54,000 = 0.98). This means the team is not delivering 2% of the committed value. Agile teams compute this as the Burn Rate, which is the reciprocal of CPI (1/0.98 = approximately 1.02). This burn rate represents how the agile team is meeting the projected budget and since it is >1, it indicates the team requires 2% more budget at a minimum for this iteration. Since agile uses time-boxing principles, as each iteration fails to deliver the minimum required velocity, each iteration costs more money towards the end in meeting the minimum viable product (MVP).

Hope these points are clear in explaining why and how agile projects do not exclude cost. It is critical to understand these concepts and subsequently have a plan to quantify value delivery using good return on investment principles.

Thoughts? Please share your comments.

Feedback should be FACT driven

As the impetus for increased levels of communication is felt by organizations, the need for being able to address project failures leading to schedule slips, quality compromises, cost overruns, and scope creeps become the sine qua non for effective project managers! Is this communication effectiveness limited to project management? Absolutely not! Agile approaches to product development and project management also constantly seek people to communicate. Even the recent state of agile claims increased transparency has not resulted in increased software quality and some contributions come from being able to communicate.

It is true that one needs to engage in several types of communication, but communication is a one-way street if there is no engagement from the audience! While I did my doctoral studies, I learned about dialogic communication (Innes, 2007) of staying the ground while holding the dialog but consistently practicing active listening to use experience in knowledge creation. This ability to come up with ideas of one's own is critical without which we only support others (like piggybacking on someone's experience, seconding another person's thought, etc.) This is also the reason why I emphasize communication is a 1-way street whereas collaboration is a 2-way street. 

During corporate training as well as in classroom facilitation, I find that the lack of engagement from the audience makes it difficult for the facilitator or speaker to create a dialog around concepts. Therefore, the collaboration between two or more people is inexorably critical for communication to be effective. And there lies the challenge in continuous engagement because people must be open to feedback.

Recently, I heard in one training that one group (say Group A) was following agile and releasing features for the internal teams. But many of the internal teams asked for features that Group A claimed are already there. When asked for better communication of these updates from Group A, the response was reading the release plan documents or seeing the dashboard. In a world of high-tech dashboards, the need for communicating updates in the language that others understand is equally important! Otherwise, communication has failed. High-Tech is not a substitute for High-Touch and people should be open for feedback.

So, I present my "FACT" driven feedback as a quick check-and-balance. I am not just referring to numbers and stories in the FACT approach. Instead, I am suggesting that feedback be frequent, accurate, constructive, and timely.

1. Frequent feedback means both parties can get incremental updates faster. The context of the challenge is fresh in people's memory to make corrective actions.
2. Actionable feedback relies on evidence-based data rather than opinions that the listener can use to make changes. This element avoids the halo effect from colored thoughts that are not actionable but shifts the focus on the truth with an actionable mindset. 
3. Constructive feedback is focusing on the continuous improvement mindset with actionable outcomes that the listener can implement as either proactive risk mitigation steps or corrective actions to exacerbate the problems.
4. Timely feedback centers around the ability of the person providing the feedback to feel the sense of urgency to elevate the feedback faster than relying on status or standup meetings.

When these four elements of feedback can be learned by both parties in a dialog, then, active listening is at its best. This is when collaboration happens for communication to be efficient and efficient.

Thoughts?

References

Innes, R.B. (2007). Dialogic Communication in Collaborative Problem Solving Groups. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. 1(1), 1-19. 

Requirements Management: A Value Mapping Exercise

The requirement management exercise is very closely related to the needs assessment producing the required artifacts while documenting the decision-making. It is critical to understand how the value, benefit, and output get mapped in a few critical documents namely the business case, charter, roadmap, and benefits register.

In a nutshell, the business case is the first point of entry in the requirement management. In this document, the accountable stakeholders for product strategy or the business strategy justify the company’s decision to take up the strategic initiative and formally declares the benefits expected out of the initiative. This decision is supported by documenting the specific short-term and long-term benefits by executing the initiative, the extent of market research to justify the need for this initiative, the amount of funding and funding schedule required to carry out the initiative, and finally the specific measures such as the payback period, net present value, to justify return on investment and future opportunities.

When such initiatives are rolled out, these initiatives could be done as a program containing multiple projects because of the extent of management and control required to integrate the benefits gathered from carrying out this initiative as an integrated program rather than as a set of stand-alone projects. Either way, this is when the program charter or project charter is created appropriately. This document names the program or project manager confirms the decision to execute the project outlining the high-level outputs and outcomes, and the authorizes the use of the company’s resources to carry out the work.

Now whether one is developing a product roadmap or program roadmap, you can think of the roadmap as a visual, hierarchical and powerful representation of the what high-level functionalities make up that initiative, dependencies among functionalities or projects within a program, and how the product will grow over time, how to acquire the required funding to support the product or program, and how to align the various stakeholders to ensure the required benefits are realized.

Finally, the benefits register is an artifact that lists all the planned benefits expected to be delivered at various points in the releases or iterations or program and its component projects. 

Having talked about value so much, I have come up with my own way of categorizing value. I call these CVA, BVA, TVA, PVA, and NVA.

The first category is the customer value add. For instance, what does the paying customer want? And what exciting things can we add to keep the customer with us?

Then, we move to the next level of business value add. Examples could be looking at the types of documentation required to sustain the business or training needed for internal and external users.

This business value-add can also manifest as a technical value add. Here, we look at technical debt maintenance. On the hardware side, we can look at keeping the infrastructure current to avoid any risk from using any product beyond their shelf-life. On the software side, we can look at ensuring the code is stable, manageable, and scalable by refactoring the code, automating areas that could benefit from automation, etc.

Another way the business value add can manifest is on the process value add. The processes themselves should act as a catalyst for transforming the inputs to outputs but not add too much overhead. The efficiency improvements through continuous improvement and effectiveness augmentation through operational excellence become the focus here. 

If it is not the customer, business, technical, or process value add, then, most likely this leads to a non-value add. The requirements in this category are to be avoided as they are contributing to some type of waste. In lean management, we discuss the uneven demands or overburden of resources that may lead to eight types of waste (Rajagopalan, 2016).

What are your thoughts on this blog article?

References

Rajagopalan, S. (2016). Management Debt: Costs of Non-Delivery. http://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2016/10/management-debt-costs-of-non-delivery.html

5A Principle - A mindset about managing change

As organizations strive to increase productivity and reduce total cost of ownership, the reasons to jump on the “agile” train expecting it to solve all challenges seem to raise. Social media has scores of posts questioning agile practices. In my mind, agility is simply a “mindset about managing change”. At the end of the day, if one is truly nimble about embracing the right change at the right time the right way, then, agility should result in a) increasing value to the customer, b) increasing quality to the product, c) reducing speed to market, and d) reducing cost to operations. To achieve these goals, I propose a 5A principle to truly being ‘agile’ These 5A’s are “Awake, Arise, Adopt, Adapt, and Adept”. These stages are cyclical in nature. Let me illustrate these in the sections below. While reading this, think of the “change management framework” in mind rather than treat this as a methodology to implement agile.

Awake

Change is the only constant today. All the five competitive forces suggested by Michael Porter are a reality today.  The potential entry of new players, competitive pressures of the consumer, global market refinement and product differentiation of existing players, innovative distribution channels, and intense rivalry among competitors are making the famous economist, Schumpeter's notions of "Creative Destruction" a reality. In addition, disruptive innovation suggested by Clayton Christensen is taking industries over with ideas opening new avenues of doing business. Unless we wake up to smell reality, we will eliminate ourselves.

Arise

John F. Kennedy once asked people to think of what they can do to the country instead of what the country can do to them. Most of today's workforce is still expecting their employers to train them and tell them what to do. People fail to take their future in their hands and wait for the right opportunity. An anonymous quote reads, “If opportunity does not knock, build a door.”  Successful people are those that are not only awake but arise by training themselves with the required knowledge and volunteering to gain the required experience for the right opportunity to knock.

Adopt

Many fear that if they will make the right decision and stumble to move forward. If we walk back on our memory lane in the past, are we all certain that we always made the right decision? If we did, we wouldn’t have the expression, “In hindsight, vision is 20-20.” No one can predict what the future can bring. If fear had ruled, would anyone of us now know the depths of the ocean or the height of space? What we are today is the result of overcoming fear and not yielding to it. So, don’t worry about making the right decision but proactively work towards making the decision right. We can do that by adopting individual strategies that meet our goals.”

Adapt

A wise man once said, "Show me a person that has not failed, and I will show you a failure." Life is not about what happens to us but how we react to it. If one has learned from failure and applied the lesson learned from such failure, then, one has turned failure into success. Did you know that Walt Disney was fired from his job for lack of imagination? It was only thousands of failed attempts that got Edison to get us the light bulb. Failure is not when you fall but when you don’t get up again. So, adapt to the trends, refine your approach, and create your voice.

Adept

No matter how much you know there is room for growth. The wise also shares the responsibility to train the next generation. The value of knowledge lies when it is shared. Many people claim luck is the special ingredient available only to the privileged. I always used to say, LUCK is also "Labor Under Correct Knowledge." So, find a mentor to enrich your knowledge, spread your knowledge by training and coaching others, and better yet become adept at being a student of knowledge. The more you know the more you understand how little you know. That awareness awakes you to a new reality where learning continues.

I have used this 5A principle during my training and teaching and have found my proprietary 5A principle is a good reference framework for people to improve themselves personally and professionally.

Share your comments and let me know if you would like to hear more!