It was such a long time I haven't update my blog because of piling up with the personal project works over the past few months: Becoming an experienced driver - to learn driving, to get the driving license, to buy my first car (2nd hand), to drive everyday.....
Now, I have finished my endeavor in the current stop after four years time and will start a new page at the telecommunication industry tomorrow.
See if I can post further sharing on management/project management of what I had experienced in the past four years.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Nasty Angels & Nice Demons
Internal projects within an organization always face one common challenge: struggling of resources. Project Managers have to fight for resources from functional groups to form project teams. But in this fierce reality, key people in the organization are frequently shared among different projects.
The project manager, in this case, usually approaches those "helpful" colleagues to negotiate/beg for higher portion of participation/dedication to his/her projects. Those helpful colleagues, based on their goodwill (not capability), usually provide positive feedback to the project manager like "no problem, I will try my best to help". In fact, those people are just "nice demons" doing something harmful to the project.
Such positive but no commitment feedback such as "try my best" only posts a false hope to the project manager. Unless those people can commit a measurable input/effort to the project, there is no true commitment and the project is usually doomed to failure because of lack of dedicated resources. The project manager will finally suffer from those helpful and nice "demons".
In reality, resource is limited and there is no superman in the world. If any colleague (resource) can doubtlessly spare his/her substantial effort/time to provide additional assistance to others without hesitation (evaluation), I will first question his/her capability (see my previous article about "the busiest people") instead of simply believing the uncommitted commitment.
In such situation, responsible colleagues should first evaluate the situation (the scope of request, the capability, the resources....) before making any commitment. If they realize that they are not able to help, they should turn down the requests politely and I call them "nice angels". (How to say "No" nicely is another topic; there are lot of books about self-improvement teaching how to say "No". To name one is the classic from Dale Carnegie - "How to Win Friends & Influence People"). I summarize my view about "Angels & Demons" in the following matrix:
Personally, I am not a nice guy. But at least, I still belong to the "Angel" category upholding my professional ethics, albeit at the nasty side.
The project manager, in this case, usually approaches those "helpful" colleagues to negotiate/beg for higher portion of participation/dedication to his/her projects. Those helpful colleagues, based on their goodwill (not capability), usually provide positive feedback to the project manager like "no problem, I will try my best to help". In fact, those people are just "nice demons" doing something harmful to the project.
Such positive but no commitment feedback such as "try my best" only posts a false hope to the project manager. Unless those people can commit a measurable input/effort to the project, there is no true commitment and the project is usually doomed to failure because of lack of dedicated resources. The project manager will finally suffer from those helpful and nice "demons".
In reality, resource is limited and there is no superman in the world. If any colleague (resource) can doubtlessly spare his/her substantial effort/time to provide additional assistance to others without hesitation (evaluation), I will first question his/her capability (see my previous article about "the busiest people") instead of simply believing the uncommitted commitment.
In such situation, responsible colleagues should first evaluate the situation (the scope of request, the capability, the resources....) before making any commitment. If they realize that they are not able to help, they should turn down the requests politely and I call them "nice angels". (How to say "No" nicely is another topic; there are lot of books about self-improvement teaching how to say "No". To name one is the classic from Dale Carnegie - "How to Win Friends & Influence People"). I summarize my view about "Angels & Demons" in the following matrix:
Angel & Demon Matrix (by Gavin Lam, 2007)
Friday, June 08, 2007
Picking the Busiest People
"A Right Project Team" is one of the key success factors to an IT project. This is what many project management textbooks claim. The maxim is well-understood without ambiguity, but this does not mean it can be realized easily.
Several days ago when I talked to my friends about the challenges of managing projects, we all agreed that the maxim is in fact a delusion. In most cases, a project manager has not much choice in selecting his/her project team-members: There is no "superstar", no one from his/her previous projects, but a group of unrecognized colleagues within the organization for your selection. So before the project manager can build a right project team, first of all, he/she has to choose the "right" candidates.
Apart from reviewing appraisal reports or curriculum vitae of the colleagues, one simple and effective criterion can be adopted for the selection: Take the busiest people as the project team members.
I learned this from a book about six sigma (I forget the name of the book) five or six years ago when I was undertaking my MBA degree. The rationale behind the criterion is very straightforward. In many organizations (especially large enterprises where firing a staff is unusual unless the staff is extraordinary incapable over a long period of time), supervisors or managers tend to avoid assigning tasks to less capable staffs. Instead, they are willing to assign tasks to more capable staffs (capable with regard to productivity, reliability, and obedience). Eventually, those capable staffs will become the busiest colleagues in the organization and they are the best choice to be the project team-members.
Having the right project team-members, of course, does not mean a right project team. There is still a long way to go (the usual HR works of team building like forming, storming, norming and performing...).
Therefore, if you find yourself being treated unfairly (with lots of work compared with your colleagues), you may be the one!
Several days ago when I talked to my friends about the challenges of managing projects, we all agreed that the maxim is in fact a delusion. In most cases, a project manager has not much choice in selecting his/her project team-members: There is no "superstar", no one from his/her previous projects, but a group of unrecognized colleagues within the organization for your selection. So before the project manager can build a right project team, first of all, he/she has to choose the "right" candidates.
Apart from reviewing appraisal reports or curriculum vitae of the colleagues, one simple and effective criterion can be adopted for the selection: Take the busiest people as the project team members.
I learned this from a book about six sigma (I forget the name of the book) five or six years ago when I was undertaking my MBA degree. The rationale behind the criterion is very straightforward. In many organizations (especially large enterprises where firing a staff is unusual unless the staff is extraordinary incapable over a long period of time), supervisors or managers tend to avoid assigning tasks to less capable staffs. Instead, they are willing to assign tasks to more capable staffs (capable with regard to productivity, reliability, and obedience). Eventually, those capable staffs will become the busiest colleagues in the organization and they are the best choice to be the project team-members.
Having the right project team-members, of course, does not mean a right project team. There is still a long way to go (the usual HR works of team building like forming, storming, norming and performing...).
Therefore, if you find yourself being treated unfairly (with lots of work compared with your colleagues), you may be the one!
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Japanese Green
I made this shot couple days ago at the street side when I was on the way to learn driving. The bright sunlight was shining on the plants creating a very good view with freshly composition of "green". However, I knew that I was not able to capture such rich color correctly and so I changed my DC's color setting to "F-Chrome" (a special color mode in this particular Japanese brand of DC providing a rich color effect simulating the characteristic of a color positive film) before making the shot. Though the result was still a bit different from what I could see, the green color captured was very vivid and rich compared with conventional color mode (without the need of further photo retouching).
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This photograph recalled my days when I was working for Japanese photographers. Japanese photographers are very serious about every shots they made. They are very attention to detail including picture composition, object fine positioning, subtle lighting and even minor color difference.
Did you notice that couple of years ago when Japan was still the leader in offset printing in terms of techniques/qualities. You would find that photographs on most Japanese calendars were much more beautiful than that of others. This was especially true for nature scenery shots where the green color found on every pictures were extraordinary clean and fresh. The reason was not just because of good creative and photographic skills, but also due to Japanese's attention to "detail". This was also the such minor attention creating the difference between "good" and "better" (or even "the best").
Conventional four color printing (CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black) can never achieve a good green color. Therefore, Japanese utilize "spot color" (green) on top of the four colors to achieve such brilliant results.
Did you notice that couple of years ago when Japan was still the leader in offset printing in terms of techniques/qualities. You would find that photographs on most Japanese calendars were much more beautiful than that of others. This was especially true for nature scenery shots where the green color found on every pictures were extraordinary clean and fresh. The reason was not just because of good creative and photographic skills, but also due to Japanese's attention to "detail". This was also the such minor attention creating the difference between "good" and "better" (or even "the best").
Conventional four color printing (CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black) can never achieve a good green color. Therefore, Japanese utilize "spot color" (green) on top of the four colors to achieve such brilliant results.
Such "spot" color technique is now widely adopted in color inkjet printers where you can find six or even seven colors inkjet printers with two to three special colors inks to achieve extraordinary color rendition output.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Environmental Assholes
Professor Sutton defines "assholes" in his book "The No Asshole Rule" as people with the following characteristics:
One of the causes for creating "environmental assholes" is the out of controlled environment (A Chinese idiom from a renowned author, Gu Long (古龍), best describes this: 人在江湖，身不由己). For example, when a organization is full of "death-march" projects (Note), people tend to act irrationally in order to survive.
I used to work in an organization where it had a harmonic working atmosphere with little office politics and most colleagues were hardworking and ambitious. An effective matrix organization structure was adopted to manage IT projects with project teams composed of different functional groups. In theory, other than the conventional technical challenges, there should be little project problems from "human factors".
However, for some reasons, the departments had to manage a lot of large-scale death march projects simultaneously where most of the colleagues believe low project successful rate. Project team-members faced lots of impractical deadlines. Some of the colleagues left to avoid the lousy situation and these worsened the situation with lesser resources for the remaining colleagues. As a result, the original "cooperative & supportive" modes among members turned into "disunited & self-protective" modes. People looked for the ways to survive (to meet their own deadlines) and they ignored about others' needs, even though they were all working for the same projects. Everyone competed for resources, and declined responsibilities. The old days of the harmonic environment was finally turned into a tough, competitive, nasty working environment. Many nice people became nasty jerks of "environmental assholes". It was an unfortunate situation but nobody could manage it.
Note: According to Yourdon, a "death-march" project is project whose "project parameters" exceed the norm by at least 50% such as the compressed schedule, under-resources, reduction in the budget, substantial increase in the scope. In short, a death-march project is project with more than 50% probability of failure.
- Humiliate others
- Demean others
- De-motivate/de-energize others
One of the causes for creating "environmental assholes" is the out of controlled environment (A Chinese idiom from a renowned author, Gu Long (古龍), best describes this: 人在江湖，身不由己). For example, when a organization is full of "death-march" projects (Note), people tend to act irrationally in order to survive.
I used to work in an organization where it had a harmonic working atmosphere with little office politics and most colleagues were hardworking and ambitious. An effective matrix organization structure was adopted to manage IT projects with project teams composed of different functional groups. In theory, other than the conventional technical challenges, there should be little project problems from "human factors".
However, for some reasons, the departments had to manage a lot of large-scale death march projects simultaneously where most of the colleagues believe low project successful rate. Project team-members faced lots of impractical deadlines. Some of the colleagues left to avoid the lousy situation and these worsened the situation with lesser resources for the remaining colleagues. As a result, the original "cooperative & supportive" modes among members turned into "disunited & self-protective" modes. People looked for the ways to survive (to meet their own deadlines) and they ignored about others' needs, even though they were all working for the same projects. Everyone competed for resources, and declined responsibilities. The old days of the harmonic environment was finally turned into a tough, competitive, nasty working environment. Many nice people became nasty jerks of "environmental assholes". It was an unfortunate situation but nobody could manage it.
Note: According to Yourdon, a "death-march" project is project whose "project parameters" exceed the norm by at least 50% such as the compressed schedule, under-resources, reduction in the budget, substantial increase in the scope. In short, a death-march project is project with more than 50% probability of failure.
Eternal Sunshine
When the day I was young, I remembered that sunny day with clear sky in daily basis was the unnoticeable norm during summer time.
Nowadays, such view is seldom found in Hong Kong and the sky is generally covered by haze most of the time. I made this shot couple days ago at my office window. It was such a nice magical moment of dusk. The used to be "normal" scene has become "rare" now.
Nowadays, such view is seldom found in Hong Kong and the sky is generally covered by haze most of the time. I made this shot couple days ago at my office window. It was such a nice magical moment of dusk. The used to be "normal" scene has become "rare" now.
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Environmental protection is no longer a gimmick, but a necessity now.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
The Pitfall of Email
Email is good, so good and damn good. It's one of the revolutionary inventions of the century changing the entire communication protocol in the world.
However, "email" has its affiliated side-effect/drawback. Misuse/abuse of email posts harm to communication especially in project management:
There is a simple test to verify the degree of email abuse in an IT project: ask any one of your project team-members about the latest technical discussion results during the last design meeting. His/her responses will tell you the severity:
However, "email" has its affiliated side-effect/drawback. Misuse/abuse of email posts harm to communication especially in project management:
- Printouts - In this Internet driven era, one cannot survive without an email account in business. But it is this undeniable necessity catalyzing one of the technology flops - "paperless office". Nowadays, people use email in almost every kind of business communication: memo, notice, announcement, meeting recap (minutes), requirements, negotiation records .......... with the capability of carbon copy to others in a click. The recipients (direct or indirect) have inevitably to "print" them out for reading, archive, filing or records.
- Documentation by Emails - Formal training on software engineering emphasizes the importance of process and proper documentation. But this traditional view should be challenged by new generation of methodologies. Agile Software Development, Extreme Programming, Rapid application development (RAD) stress on the speed. Such emphasises may post misconception to programmers and developers. With the priority of "Speed", adhering to proper process and documentation practice are time-consuming (bureaucratic) and they simply ignore the documentation until the end of the project life-cycle. Emails then became their "information/documentation repository" and their email-boxes have become the pseudo file cabinets. (However, from my understanding, I find this is just an excuse for not doing it in most of the times).
There is a simple test to verify the degree of email abuse in an IT project: ask any one of your project team-members about the latest technical discussion results during the last design meeting. His/her responses will tell you the severity:
- A - He/she gives you the answer verbally but no b/w records.
- B - He/she gives you the answer by referring to his/her email-box archived email.
- C - He/she gives you the answer by referring to the project document repository.
- D - He/she asks you to refer to the project document repository for the answer.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Leadership #02 - Integrity
"Integrity" means a lot to leaders. Almost everyone knows what does it mean and why it is important to a leader (actually to all) and there is no need to further elaborate on this.
I would like to talk about an attribute of integrity: "no double standard". A leader should rule and manage the team, the department or the corporation based on the unique standard (whether on measurement of success/failure/performance/etc.). No matter how good a leader he/she is, his/her reputation or credit as a leader will be completely ruined when he/she demonstrates once in his/her lifetime, double standard in leading others.
However, it is easier to say it loud as a maxim than execute leadership with unique standard. That's why "leaders" are rare. Once upon a time, I worked for a company with full of dissatisfactory employees in my department because of the inconsistent standard of measurement exercised by the leader. Let's call the leader as Mickey. Personally, Mickey was a nice, experienced and intelligent executive. But he leaded the department using double standard. On one hand, he advocated and enforced the best practice of process and control at projects (for better quality) requiring proper process, control and documentation standards. But on the other hand, for some of his preferred projects, he allowed those projects proceeding without process and control, as long as the projects could be completed on time. The so called process and control within the organization became a fake.
This kind of "one organization, multiple standards" from a leader is not only lethal to the leadership, but it also affect the entire organization. On one hand, the subordinates' trust towards the leader will be jeopardized. Besides, such mistrust will spread accross the organization like diease.
In Chinese, there is an idiom about double standard: "只許州官放火，不許百姓點燈" (the rough meaning is: The official is allowed to do what he wants, but not the citizens) , which best describes the case of double standard.
I would like to talk about an attribute of integrity: "no double standard". A leader should rule and manage the team, the department or the corporation based on the unique standard (whether on measurement of success/failure/performance/etc.). No matter how good a leader he/she is, his/her reputation or credit as a leader will be completely ruined when he/she demonstrates once in his/her lifetime, double standard in leading others.
However, it is easier to say it loud as a maxim than execute leadership with unique standard. That's why "leaders" are rare. Once upon a time, I worked for a company with full of dissatisfactory employees in my department because of the inconsistent standard of measurement exercised by the leader. Let's call the leader as Mickey. Personally, Mickey was a nice, experienced and intelligent executive. But he leaded the department using double standard. On one hand, he advocated and enforced the best practice of process and control at projects (for better quality) requiring proper process, control and documentation standards. But on the other hand, for some of his preferred projects, he allowed those projects proceeding without process and control, as long as the projects could be completed on time. The so called process and control within the organization became a fake.
This kind of "one organization, multiple standards" from a leader is not only lethal to the leadership, but it also affect the entire organization. On one hand, the subordinates' trust towards the leader will be jeopardized. Besides, such mistrust will spread accross the organization like diease.
In Chinese, there is an idiom about double standard: "只許州官放火，不許百姓點燈" (the rough meaning is: The official is allowed to do what he wants, but not the citizens) , which best describes the case of double standard.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Improvement by Practice
A true cleverness is determined by both "inborn intelligence" and "learned hardworking". Some people may not believe self-improvement by "hardworking". But from my personal experience, this is true. I can't change the former one and so the only way for my self-improvement is "hardworking".
After completing my part-time study last year, I focused on self-improvement and planned to develop my under-developed right brain. One of the ways is to train my not so frequently used left hand.
Being one of the usual right-handed majority, it was indeed not an easy target to me. But that didn't mean not possible and "hardworking" was the no tricky tactic. With 2 months of continuous "practice", nowadays, I am able to comfortably use computer mouse with my left hand, though it is still not as good as my right hand for some precision works such as graphic drawing. Therefore, "learning hardworking" is crucial to self-improvement, and so the cleverness of oneself.
Having said, first of all, you need a "left hand" ready computer mouse in order to train your left hand (Bear in mind most of the new mouses available in the market are designed for right-handed uesrs; a kind of discrimination).
P.S.: I have successfully trained my left-hand. But I am not sure if it can really help to develop my right brain. Let's see!
After completing my part-time study last year, I focused on self-improvement and planned to develop my under-developed right brain. One of the ways is to train my not so frequently used left hand.
Being one of the usual right-handed majority, it was indeed not an easy target to me. But that didn't mean not possible and "hardworking" was the no tricky tactic. With 2 months of continuous "practice", nowadays, I am able to comfortably use computer mouse with my left hand, though it is still not as good as my right hand for some precision works such as graphic drawing. Therefore, "learning hardworking" is crucial to self-improvement, and so the cleverness of oneself.
Having said, first of all, you need a "left hand" ready computer mouse in order to train your left hand (Bear in mind most of the new mouses available in the market are designed for right-handed uesrs; a kind of discrimination).
P.S.: I have successfully trained my left-hand. But I am not sure if it can really help to develop my right brain. Let's see!
Saturday, May 12, 2007
I Like the Bra - CRM
When talking about "CRM" (Customer Relationship Management). What would you think of? Don't be misled by those IT solution vendors where purchasing a suite of CRM solution (with a huge amount of price tag) can turn a company equipped with CRM. Lots of business entity (no matter MNC, SME to even individual entrepreneurs) are actually applying CRM to their businesses everyday.
One of the common tactics of building customer loyalty is the use of "membership" where members (customers) of a company can enjoy privileged benefits like special discount, early bird big sale promotion, discount or gift coupons during the birthday. Nowadays, people usually are the members of at least one or more retail companies like fashion shops, restaurants, and etc. They should frequently receive different kinds of promotional materials throughout the year. How many of them can really bring your surprise (and so the emotion/incentive to spend your money at them)?
My wife had such a nice experience from a company recently. Being the member of Triumph (the renowned brand of lady intimate apparel), she has received a birthday card from the company as a greeting and promotion. Different from conventional retail companies, Triumph not only sent her a delicated birthday card (nice 3-dimensional design) on time, but a $50 cash coupon was attached providing a solid incentive (I need to emphasis it's a true "cash" coupon, not discount coupon, that can be used in its shops without condition).
I am not sure if this can be a good example of executing a common CRM tactic in an effective manner (quality greeting & solid incentive) or not. But I do know that my wife was glad with the card (& the cash coupon, of course).
One of the common tactics of building customer loyalty is the use of "membership" where members (customers) of a company can enjoy privileged benefits like special discount, early bird big sale promotion, discount or gift coupons during the birthday. Nowadays, people usually are the members of at least one or more retail companies like fashion shops, restaurants, and etc. They should frequently receive different kinds of promotional materials throughout the year. How many of them can really bring your surprise (and so the emotion/incentive to spend your money at them)?
My wife had such a nice experience from a company recently. Being the member of Triumph (the renowned brand of lady intimate apparel), she has received a birthday card from the company as a greeting and promotion. Different from conventional retail companies, Triumph not only sent her a delicated birthday card (nice 3-dimensional design) on time, but a $50 cash coupon was attached providing a solid incentive (I need to emphasis it's a true "cash" coupon, not discount coupon, that can be used in its shops without condition).
In summary, the two success factors I found for the CRM execution are:
- A target focus greeting card (attractive card design to young female customers)
- A real gift (cash coupon to creat the "privilege" feeling to customers)
Friday, May 11, 2007
Acceptance to Criticism
The degree of accepting criticism is declining with the growing age/seniority and this is the key barrier to self-improvement.
By analysing myself, I believe this symptom may be caused by the following reasons:
LATE NOTE:
Just found a good example to reveal the challenge of "acceptance to criticism". One of the recent hot news in Hong Kong about the sex-related pages in the student newspaper (Student Press, CUHKSU) of Chinese University of Hong Kong demonstrates how difficult for people to listen and to accept criticism, regardless of ages.
By analysing myself, I believe this symptom may be caused by the following reasons:
- Stubbornness - the older a person, the more experienced he/she is and so the stronger the will.
- Power blinds people - an unfortunate human nature.
- Self-esteem - another unfortunate human nature.
LATE NOTE:
Just found a good example to reveal the challenge of "acceptance to criticism". One of the recent hot news in Hong Kong about the sex-related pages in the student newspaper (Student Press, CUHKSU) of Chinese University of Hong Kong demonstrates how difficult for people to listen and to accept criticism, regardless of ages.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Objectives
In project management, one of the fundamental elements in initiation stage is clear, well-defined project/business "objective(s)". This is a well understood 101 knowledge.
To my surprise, I found many people always forget this and they perform their works/assignments/tasks according to instructions/directives/orders without asking objectives (and so the completion/successful criteria). That should be fine for operational workers as their works are routine, repetitive basis. But that should not be acceptable to knowledge workers where most of their works have no standard but with many options and alternatives to achieve the same targets.
Such phenomenon may be caused by the abundant supply of so called "methodologies" and "best practices" where well defined working procedures and deliverables and even samples are clearly depicted. In theory, people simply follow (copy) such "methodologies" and "best practices" should achieve the best results. Unfortunately, this is not true.
For instance, I once managed a software project with high complexity in the implementation. In order to mitigate the risk of complexity, I assigned a project teammate to conduct an initial risk assessment during the early requirement analysis stage. The teammate did what I told him: He followed the company's project management framework and adopted the standard risk management template/procedure to carry out the work. At the end, I got a well written report with nice standard company format, plus rich content in full of very generic risk information (applicable to any projects) and there was little usage to the project (to identify and to evaluate possible specific risks in the project for early mitigation). What was wrong with him?
The teammate didn't ask the "objectives" of the assignment and he acted like an "operational worker" to manage the work per standard procedures. He didn't think what information should be required in order to achieve the "objectives".
To my surprise, I found many people always forget this and they perform their works/assignments/tasks according to instructions/directives/orders without asking objectives (and so the completion/successful criteria). That should be fine for operational workers as their works are routine, repetitive basis. But that should not be acceptable to knowledge workers where most of their works have no standard but with many options and alternatives to achieve the same targets.
Such phenomenon may be caused by the abundant supply of so called "methodologies" and "best practices" where well defined working procedures and deliverables and even samples are clearly depicted. In theory, people simply follow (copy) such "methodologies" and "best practices" should achieve the best results. Unfortunately, this is not true.
For instance, I once managed a software project with high complexity in the implementation. In order to mitigate the risk of complexity, I assigned a project teammate to conduct an initial risk assessment during the early requirement analysis stage. The teammate did what I told him: He followed the company's project management framework and adopted the standard risk management template/procedure to carry out the work. At the end, I got a well written report with nice standard company format, plus rich content in full of very generic risk information (applicable to any projects) and there was little usage to the project (to identify and to evaluate possible specific risks in the project for early mitigation). What was wrong with him?
The teammate didn't ask the "objectives" of the assignment and he acted like an "operational worker" to manage the work per standard procedures. He didn't think what information should be required in order to achieve the "objectives".
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Natural Born "Oneself"
During a meeting today, my supervisor mentioned the story of "The Scorpion and the Frog" to tells the truth that "nature" cannot be changed. It's true, something is naturally born and cannot be changed.
One of the suggestions proposed by many books about marriage is "Don't expect you can change the other half. You can only accept him/her or not". This suggestion is in fact also applicable to management.
This recalled one of my recently read articles "Managing Oneself" from Peter Drucker, one of the best masters/scholars in business management. In the article, Drucker realized the same truth and suggested ways to improve ourselves:
One of the suggestions proposed by many books about marriage is "Don't expect you can change the other half. You can only accept him/her or not". This suggestion is in fact also applicable to management.
This recalled one of my recently read articles "Managing Oneself" from Peter Drucker, one of the best masters/scholars in business management. In the article, Drucker realized the same truth and suggested ways to improve ourselves:
"The conclusion bears repeating: do not try to change yourself-you are unlikely to succeed. But work hard to improve the way you perform. And try not to take on work you cannot perform or will only perform poorly."
Friday, May 04, 2007
Black & White Photography
When I was housekeeping my bookshef last weekend, I found my portofilio of my early photographic work. Most of them are black & white photographs.
Remember the day when I first learnt photography was black & white photography based on Zone System, it was a joyful experience as I managed the entire photographic process from image composition, metering & exposure calculation, film development to photograph printing using full manual control (the manual-control camera, the manual film development tank, the manual print enlarger). It was a sophisticated process but I enjoyed the satisfaction of true photography.
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Nowadays, digital photography is so convenient with everything automatic and digitalized. Though creativity is the key to photography and most of the exposure and darkroom techniques are replaced by photo-editing software in computers, I do believe it is necessary to possess traditional photographic skill/knowledge (lighting, exposure, zone control...) so that the maximum enjoyment and achievement can be obtained through the viewfinder.
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Remember the day when I first learnt photography was black & white photography based on Zone System, it was a joyful experience as I managed the entire photographic process from image composition, metering & exposure calculation, film development to photograph printing using full manual control (the manual-control camera, the manual film development tank, the manual print enlarger). It was a sophisticated process but I enjoyed the satisfaction of true photography.
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This photo was taken at "Tung Ping Chau" in Hong Kong, a nice scenic location. It was a rainy day and I intentionally took the picture with low contrast acquiring a moody feel.
Nowadays, digital photography is so convenient with everything automatic and digitalized. Though creativity is the key to photography and most of the exposure and darkroom techniques are replaced by photo-editing software in computers, I do believe it is necessary to possess traditional photographic skill/knowledge (lighting, exposure, zone control...) so that the maximum enjoyment and achievement can be obtained through the viewfinder.
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This photo was also taken at "Tung Ping Chau" with a high contrast image composition.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
"Accountability" vs. "Culture of Fear"
Couple of years ago, I found "accountability" a very good management concept where
With improper use of "accountability", adverse effect could be resulted causing damage to an organization. For instance, according to the book "The No Asshole Rule", professor Sutton points out one indirect example of improper management (misuse of accountability) by assholes:
Note: I didn't say those officials were doing good, but it was pretty sure that those politicians abusively utilize "accountability" for scold most of the time (in order to gain benefit like political status).
- One should be responsible for what he/she did under his/her scope of duties and
- "Root cause" of problems can be uncovered for improvement.
With improper use of "accountability", adverse effect could be resulted causing damage to an organization. For instance, according to the book "The No Asshole Rule", professor Sutton points out one indirect example of improper management (misuse of accountability) by assholes:
"In a fear-based organization, employees constantly look over their shoulders and constantly try to avoid the finger of blame and humiliation; even when they know how to help the organization, they are often afraid to do it."The result, of course, is a "lose-lose" situation to both the organization and the employees where people prefer to devote their energy protecting themselves, not helping the organization (improvement by addressing to root cause of problems). In the case of "politics", the situation is, of course, much more complex involving not just output and performance, but also power, benefit, ethics and morality. With the consideration of "politics", the conventional business management concept may not be applied directly.
Note: I didn't say those officials were doing good, but it was pretty sure that those politicians abusively utilize "accountability" for scold most of the time (in order to gain benefit like political status).
Monday, April 30, 2007
The Art of Communication #02
A good example of the importance of proper communication (especially users):
When I was using the eBanking service from Hang Seng Bank last evening, I found the "transfer" service was not available with only a shocking message shown on the screen:
"This service is not available to your customer segment."
I first suspected that might be caused by client side (my browser). As an experienced savvy in the Internet, I tried the service again & agin using different browsers and separate login session. Then I confirmed the problem was at the server issue.
What happened to me? Was the bank changed their service T&C? Was my deposit classified as "cheap" customer or some hackers changed my account information causing the problem?
From shocking to worrying, I then called to the banking's customer service. After waiting for over 15 mins (twice: first call cut off automatically after 8 mins and second call waited for 7 mins), I finally connected to some human being (from IVRS, one of the stupid inventions in the world) and the customer service officer told me that the system was under maintenance and my service would be resumed to normal the next day.
What a drag! If the bank could use a proper notification message like "Our system is currently under maintenance and the service is temporarily unavailable. The service will be resumed at HH:MM. Sorry for any inconvenience caused!", the scenario would be very straightforward and lots of problems could be avoided.
The bank mistakenly used an improper notification message and it ended up with a series of troubles/complaints:
When I was using the eBanking service from Hang Seng Bank last evening, I found the "transfer" service was not available with only a shocking message shown on the screen:
"This service is not available to your customer segment."
I first suspected that might be caused by client side (my browser). As an experienced savvy in the Internet, I tried the service again & agin using different browsers and separate login session. Then I confirmed the problem was at the server issue.
What happened to me? Was the bank changed their service T&C? Was my deposit classified as "cheap" customer or some hackers changed my account information causing the problem?
From shocking to worrying, I then called to the banking's customer service. After waiting for over 15 mins (twice: first call cut off automatically after 8 mins and second call waited for 7 mins), I finally connected to some human being (from IVRS, one of the stupid inventions in the world) and the customer service officer told me that the system was under maintenance and my service would be resumed to normal the next day.
What a drag! If the bank could use a proper notification message like "Our system is currently under maintenance and the service is temporarily unavailable. The service will be resumed at HH:MM. Sorry for any inconvenience caused!", the scenario would be very straightforward and lots of problems could be avoided.
The bank mistakenly used an improper notification message and it ended up with a series of troubles/complaints:
- Users (customers) were mis-informed causing unnecessary suspicion/worry (hacking, change of bank's service condition....).
- These induced a lot of phone queries to the customer service causing overloaded to the phone service.
- Owing to the overloading calls, the service level of the phone service was seriously affected (I took 15 mins for the call).
- Last but not least, those innocent customer service officers had to repeatly explain the issue to all angry customers and to stopplessly apologize for such mistake.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Leadership #01 - Admitting Mistakes
While I was playing with the TV remote control (channel switching) this evening, I stopped at a channel showing the last segment of the movie "Crimson Tide" (where Gene Hackman & Denzel Washington were talking after the court trial). Washington expressed his appreciation to Hackman's support to his promotion and Gene replied "I was wrong".
The dialogue is very simple but it is indeed very difficult to say "I was wrong". Especially, when a person is in a senior position. (In the movie, Hackman is the caption of a submarine and Washington is the officer).
Being a true leader, one of the necessary characteristics is to admit mistakes. No matter how senior and how experience a person is, no one will not make mistake. The key to admitting mistakes is not about accountability (albeit it is) or blame, but to learn from mistakes for improvement.
Unfortunately, you can rarely see leaders who are willing to admit mistakes.
The dialogue is very simple but it is indeed very difficult to say "I was wrong". Especially, when a person is in a senior position. (In the movie, Hackman is the caption of a submarine and Washington is the officer).
Being a true leader, one of the necessary characteristics is to admit mistakes. No matter how senior and how experience a person is, no one will not make mistake. The key to admitting mistakes is not about accountability (albeit it is) or blame, but to learn from mistakes for improvement.
Unfortunately, you can rarely see leaders who are willing to admit mistakes.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Loyalty vs. Betrayal
In last year's notorious "mutiny" of KCRC's management (where the management team requested the board of directors to fire the chairman), disregard the right or wrong consideration of individuals. It demonstrated a dilemma to many working people: if you find your boss/supervisor is the root cause of the problems, what should you do?
What I mean "root cause of the problems" is not personal. By default, all bosses/supervisors are not lovely as they are the one to assign tons of work to you.
What I really mean is if you identify (truly) the problems you/your team/your department/your business unit/your company are facing are caused by your boss or direct supervisor (for instance, lack of integrity, insufficient capability in terms of management, over commitment to the board and etc.).
In this case, what can we do?
What I mean "root cause of the problems" is not personal. By default, all bosses/supervisors are not lovely as they are the one to assign tons of work to you.
What I really mean is if you identify (truly) the problems you/your team/your department/your business unit/your company are facing are caused by your boss or direct supervisor (for instance, lack of integrity, insufficient capability in terms of management, over commitment to the board and etc.).
In this case, what can we do?
- Talk to him/her frankly with possible suggestion/solution and wish he/her realize the true for change.
- Talk to the boss of him/her with possible suggestion/solution.
- Keep accepting the reality in silence.
- Quit and find a new job (or find a new job first and then quit)
- First one is a "loyal" way but requiring high level of communication skill and patience. The higher the seniority, the lower the tolerance to accept criticism. Bear in mind the fact: good management skill/knowledge/methodology is not something mysterious, but known to most people (including your boss/supervisor). So there must be more hidden issues behind causing such problems (This can be another huge topic to be discussed. See if I can talk about this later on).
- Second one is a way of "betrayal". This is a "lose-lose" approach and is not recommended. In general, if I were the boss of the boss/supervisor, I would trust my direct subordinate (that's why I hired him/her) in the first place instead of the next level down. However, many people would like to use this approach (this was exactly the aforementioned case of KCRC) ending up with unrecoverable results.
- This should be the approach adopted by the majority because of "earn-a-living" basis. The situation would not be changed until incident happened (though this would be too late like 1998 new Hong Kong Airport incident).
- This should also be the practical approach. But bear in mind, finding a new job may just be the case of "going from one hell to another".
The Art of Communication
The more IT projects you handled, the more you find the key success factors (KSF) are mostly not about "technology", but "people".
"Communication" is definitely one of the highest priority KSF in the list. Interestingly, the communication problems I met in project management were not about inter-team or inter-department, but they were about fundamental verbal communication.
Can you believe two people speaking in the same mother tongue could not understand each other's saying after half-an-hour discussion? This is not a question, but my real experience.
There are lots of notations and languages (like UML, SSADM) for use in software engineering ensuring precise, umabiguous information can be communicated. However, I believe Computer Studies courses should also include a subject on "verbal communication" to ensure those IT talents equipped with proper communication skills other than programming.
"Communication" is definitely one of the highest priority KSF in the list. Interestingly, the communication problems I met in project management were not about inter-team or inter-department, but they were about fundamental verbal communication.
Can you believe two people speaking in the same mother tongue could not understand each other's saying after half-an-hour discussion? This is not a question, but my real experience.
There are lots of notations and languages (like UML, SSADM) for use in software engineering ensuring precise, umabiguous information can be communicated. However, I believe Computer Studies courses should also include a subject on "verbal communication" to ensure those IT talents equipped with proper communication skills other than programming.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Management Q&A: Procedures vs. Ownership
Recently, I have faced a dilemma in management: the pros and cons of "Procedures" vs. "Ownership".
In "procedures" driven approach, tasks/works/operations are based on predefined (hopefully, well-defined) procedures. The good side is a solid, reliable, people independent (not reliance on individuals) workflow in place. However, the drawback may be bureaucratic, inflexible, lack of accountability/liability (similar to a gov't operation where officials would be blamed for any fault) and etc.
One of the alternative is using "ownership" in which a particular task, project, service or area of operation will be "owned" by an assigned party (the owner). The owner will have full authority and control to manage his/her owned stuff. This can ensure full accountability and no missing gap in procedures. However, "ownership" may induce the problem of no control (workflow/process) and tasks/works may become people-dependent.
What do you think?
In "procedures" driven approach, tasks/works/operations are based on predefined (hopefully, well-defined) procedures. The good side is a solid, reliable, people independent (not reliance on individuals) workflow in place. However, the drawback may be bureaucratic, inflexible, lack of accountability/liability (similar to a gov't operation where officials would be blamed for any fault) and etc.
One of the alternative is using "ownership" in which a particular task, project, service or area of operation will be "owned" by an assigned party (the owner). The owner will have full authority and control to manage his/her owned stuff. This can ensure full accountability and no missing gap in procedures. However, "ownership" may induce the problem of no control (workflow/process) and tasks/works may become people-dependent.
What do you think?
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