I couldn’t have said it better myself:
Triangulation refers to a dysfunction within a team, where team member A complains about team member B to the team leader rather than to team member B directly, so that the team leader is forced to be the go between for the two. Triangulation is a form of corporate infantilism.
Forgiveness: The Intelligent Choice
Richard Stallman was a leading proponent of free software.
However, the concept of free software is similar to the concept of free air, free water, free lumber, and free healthcare. When there is a vast quantity of it, it seems free. When we depend on it, we believe it should be a human right. And software is sufficiently abstract and conceptual that it tempts us to believe it might indeed be free.
Software can be thought of as the fruit of a tree. Often, a tree yields fruit seemingly for free. Yet, we know that significant energy and resources go into the production of fruit, and that environmental conditions have an enormous effect on the yield. Thousands of years of agriculture have taught us how to nurture a tree, how to provide optimal environment and optimal quantities and quality of energy and resources to produce the ideal fruit. There have been countless trial-and-error experiments, including farms that went bankrupt due to mismanagement of environment, energy, and resources.
I submit that agriculture is far ahead of software development (agri-culture ahead of cyber-culture) in this regard.
Trees continue to reproduce by yielding fruit without human intervention, and this can be a source of wonder, but we no longer believe that fruit, especially top-quality edible fruit, is “free”.
Economic factors necessarily create significant costs along the line between conception and productive use of everything that was thought to be (or that was thought ought to be) free, including software. These costs include distribution, packaging, marketing, installation, customization, operation, and maintenance. Human beings necessarily perform some manual activities from conception to productive use of software. There are costs for providing them with life’s necessities.
It is tempting to believe that these costs are “external” or negligible, but it is foolish to believe so. They are no more external or negligible than the costs of providing fertilizer and water to trees in a farmer’s orchard.
I am not saying that free or open-source software should not exist. Indeed, buyers and sellers must question and justify payment for software when open-source equivalents, meeting the same requirements, are freely available. But by understanding why and how those equivalents exist, we can make this justification rationally. (Note: “buyers” does not refer only to end-users of software, but to developers who integrate software–operating systems, databases, web servers, etc.–into new products.)
As hinted by Robert McDowell, Microsoft VP of Information Worker Business Value, in his keynote at Innotech 2010, fear of change is the biggest barrier to productive business process reengineering.
This is why the IT infrastructure must
The late Michael Hammer, in his seminal Harvard Business Review article on BPR, wrote
Reengineering cannot be planned meticulously and accomplished in small and cautious steps. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition with an uncertain result. Still, most companies have no choice but to muster the courage to do it.
I disagree with this statement. Innovation, including process innovation, is less about revolution and more about evolution.
The following add value to a business:
Indirect additional revenue also adds value, but adds risk that must be managed. Therefore, the following are value additions that go together:
The ideal product development effort adds value in each and every way. You build something that multiple customers could use, thereby ensuring potentially large indirect revenue at the (lesser and limited) cost of producing the first instance. By finding a customer who will pay for the first instance, you derive direct revenue, and you simultaneously reduce the risk that a 2nd customer will pay for the second instance.
Custom development does add value in the form of immediate direct additional revenue. Risk is minimal, being limited to risk of non-payment by the customer. Cost could be high, but a minimal margin is easy to earn. However, indirect additional revenue is, by virtue of it being “custom” development, zero.
A manufacturing business will generally have a fixed investment in a factory with fixed production capacity. The business will be wary of adding capacity. Production capacity is always associated with fixed costs (maintenance, rent, etc.). When business is slow, machines in the factory become idle. This is what is meant by excess capacity. The fixed costs continue, and this rapidly erodes the value of the business. Similarly, in a high-tech business, the development organization is associated with fixed costs (salaries and benefits). To avoid “excess capacity,” high-tech businesses will be wary of hiring additional developers.
The choice between custom development and product development is analogous to the choice between a factory producing a low-price (low-value) product or a high-price (high-value) product. Value is maximized if the factory chooses to produces the highest-price product whenever possible. Similarly, value is maximized if the high-tech business chooses product development whenever possible.
In both cases, the choice may not always be available. For example, the factory may be forced to commit itself for a long period of low-value production. During that time, it may miss opportunities to produce high-value products. Similarly, a high-tech business may be forced to commit itself for a long period to custom development. During that time, it may miss product development opportunities.
Options, by definition, ensure choice. A business that possesses options can exploit opportunities. Therefore options have value and the business may have to pay for them. For example, a factory may keep some capacity in reserve. This gives it the option to produce high-value products when opportunities arise, at least in small runs. The cost of the option is the fixed cost of this capacity.
High-tech organizations often have R&D departments actively exploring new opportunities for product development. They represent options for the business. (Regrettably, as articulated in The Innovator’s Dilemma, businesses do a poor job of exercising options, preferring to continue with low-value production at the expense of high-value opportunities.)
Sales personnel are typically given incentive in the form of commission, meaning a portion of direct additional revenue. In an attempt to add value by ensuring immediate direct revenue, the sales organization of a young, immature company will typically close deals without regard to cost.
While at such a company, I raised this issue to the VP of Sales. I said, “I question revenue that comes attached with a high cost.” He smiled knowingly and answered, “Milind, even so, revenue solves a lot of problems.”
I later asked the CEO, “Why do you de-value our products by giving them away for free, while over-valuing our professional services by charging a premium?” His answer was, “Because if we valued things correctly, we would risk losing the deal entirely.”
This is why at some companies, there is a close relationship between sales and professional services. The professional services organization is less likely to walk away from a deal.
Another trap companies fall into, one which they rarely survive, is developing a product in a vacuum and then trying to sell it.
It is a difficult discipline to discover a product defined by a market and then deliver it to that market. It requires your sales organization to sell your product only, to walk away from deals that come at a high cost.
This is the best piece of business journalism I’ve encountered in years…a fresh take on a famous case. The only thing missing seems to be a suitable homage to W. E. Deming, the American who taught the Japanese their methods in the first place.
“Toyota execs believed their system would turn bad workers into good ones.”…and it did.
The Four-Hour Work Week is full of interesting ideas that distill business down to its minimal essence. I had previously blogged about the idea that interested me most.
Now that my company has some successful projects behind it, I’m going to do the following:
This will give me qualified leads. This is a time-consuming exercise, but I think it is valuable for a number of reasons:
Excerpts from Fortune, July 6, 2009
Bill Gates
Well, I’ve gotten a lot of great advice from Warren. I’d say one of the most interesting is how he keeps things simple. You look at his calendar, it’s pretty simple. You talk to him about a case where he thinks a business is attractive, and he knows a few basic numbers and facts about it. And [if] it gets less complicated, he feels like then it’s something he’ll choose to invest in. He picks the things that he’s got a model of, a model that really is predictiv and that’s going to continue to work over a long-term period. And so his ability to boil things down, to just work on the things that really count, to think through the basics–it’s so amazing that he can do that. It’s a special form of genius.
…Warren is so nice to everybody–how does he say no in a nice way? Or how does he think about priorities and have that explicitly in mind? And he turns down an unbelievable number of things, and yet everybody feels great about it. His grace in talking to people where he’s always saying, “You know, you probably understand this better than I do, but here’s how I messed it up when I first got involved in this.” You know, that’s a special talent, and I do find myself thinking, Hmm, how would Warren say this in a friendly fashion?
There was a case at the annual meeting where somebody asked a question about should you sell the stocks that have gone up and keep the ones that have not? And he sort of said, “No, you look at the value of the business.” and then Charlie [Munger] added, “He’s telling you your conceptual framework is all wrong.” Which is in fact what the answer had been, but there wasn’t one element of, “Hey, dummy…”
Jim Sinegal, Co-founder and CEO, Costco Wholesale
…[FedMart’s] founder, Sol Price, taught me a lesson that was pretty simple, but also true: If you’re going to go to the trouble of hiring someone, it’s because you can’t do the job yourself, so you better show them how you would do it.
Tory Burch, Co-founder and Creative Director, Tory Burch
When I worked [at Ralph Lauren], first in public relations and then in advertising as a copywriter, I learned the importance of having a complete vision for the company, from product to marketing to store visuals. My company is an extension of me, so when I designed my stores I wanted people to feel that they were in my home.
Scott Boras, Sports Agent, President, Boras Corp.
…I had hired my formar law professor…He said that if you are really effective at what you do, 95% of the things said about you will be negative. Keep your head on straight, don’t get emotional, take the heat, and just make sure your clients are smiling.
Colin Powell, Former Secretary of State, Retired Four-Star General
There was a brand-new second lieutenant who was very ambitious and wanted to be a general. One night at the officer’s club the young officer spotted this old general sitting at the bar, and he went up and said, “How do I become a general?” And the general answered, “Son, you’ve got to work like a dog. You’ve got to have moral and physical courage. There may be days you’re tired, but you must never show fatigue. You’ll be afraid, but you can never show fear. You must always be the leader.” The young officer was so excited by this advice. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “So is this how I become a general?” “No,” said the general, “that’s how you become a first lieutenant, and then you keep doing it over and over.” Throughout my career, I’ve always tried to do my best today, think about tomorrow, and maybe dream a bit about the future. But doing your best in the present has to be the rule. You won’t become a general unless you become a good first lieutenant.
One area I have struggled with in my work life is the role of discretion. In some work environments, we are expected to follow instructions repeatedly. Individual discretion and variation is frowned upon. In other work environments, repetition is precisely what is frowned upon.
In manufacturing environments, as Deming elucidated, discretion and variation should be eliminated. The more repeatable a process is, the more likely it is to scale. Individual discretion results in variation. As the process scales, variation admits error, meaning the quality of the product goes down as more are produced. A survey of business history will yield multiple examples of professionals who were richly rewarded for sustaining businesses without variation.
In research environments, repetition is considered, for good reason, utterly wasteful. Professionals are expected to discover new things always. Indeed, it is considered an advancement of science to prove that what appears new is actually something old in disguise. Careers are made or destroyed when efforts thought novel are proven derivative.
In software development, the slightest suspicion that a repeated activity might be wasteful is immediately rewarded. The activity is automated and the waste eliminated. Strict adherence to process was considered a counterproductive restriction of personal freedom.
Yet, even large-scale manufacturing systems cannot last forever. Historically, R&D departments were organized to create innovations that were then implemented in manufacturing organizations. The implicit rationale was that manufacturing required a mindset focused on strict repetition, while research required a mindset focused on purposeful variation, and those two mindsets could not exist in a single individual. Yet this model failed so many times that its failure acquired a name: The Ivory Tower. In some cases, the research department lost touch with the real needs of manufacturing. In other cases, manufacturing stubbornly insisted that what worked in the past would continue to work in the future.
Recently, a new model has been adopted which accepts the possibility that both mindsets can exist in the same individual. Quality Circles bring together teams from across manufacturing departments to formulate process changes—purposeful variations, innovations, and improvements. But these are separate from the execution of the processes themselves, which are expected to be invariant.
Agile software development teams are beginning to adopt this model. During the iteration, adherence to plan and process is strict, but between iterations, variations and innovations are adopted or considered. Strict adherence to process actually frees the software developer from being distracted by unimportant aspects of the work, and allows him or her to formulate innovations with greater business impact for implementation on a larger scale.
I’ve been looking for project management software to help run my consulting business. I have a small number of customers and a larger number of prospects. Some of the work is paid and some is unpaid (like moving prospects through the pipeline and developing prototypes and proposals) but in either case, I needed to prevent work from slipping into the cracks. Functionally, I needed, at minimum, the following capabilities:
This seemed like a reasonable set of requirements, considering Microsoft Project had these functions in its first version.
I also wanted it to be
There were a couple of good reasons why it could or should be open source.
My network query (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter) yielded almost nothing. Google searches yielded a wiki page with a long list but a dearth of reviews or recommendations. Which to choose?
Since so many open source projects use SourceForge, I hit on the idea of looking for the top downloads in the project management category. OpenBravo seemed most promising because it has been downloaded a million times, over five times more than the second-place software. It claims to be a full-blown ERP system with accounting as well as project management. It runs on Tomcat. Unfortunately, my hosting relationships do not make running Tomcat software easy, so I decided to look further down the list. (In a weak moment, the engineer in me succumbed to not-invented-here angst, and briefly considered the benefits of converting the code to Ruby on Rails.)
OpenGoo was fairly easy to install, but lacks the task-dependency feature. GroupOffice seemed slightly harder to install, but also lacks this feature. I tried eGroupWare, which has an even more complex install, but I couldn’t get the project management function to work as required. The documentation wasn’t very helpful, having apparently been translated from German.
Finally, I settled on OpenProj, from Serena Software. It is desktop-based, but at least it has the familiar interface and functions of Microsoft Project.