Avatars for Architects

There is a yearly conference for IBM's client-facing technical leaders. During the lean years when money was in short supply for training, being selected to attend this event was especially coveted. For a long time, the only way to be guaranteed an invitation was to get selected to speak at the event. Speaker selection became quite competitive.

I am happy to report that after about four years of trying, I actually got to speak at the 2007 Technical Leadership Exchange held in Anaheim, California.

I am a firm believer in sampling something really off-the-wall every now and then to knock the cobwebs off of some unused brain cells. I saw that a favorite speaker of mine, David McDavid, the source for a previous post The Role of the Business Transformation Architect was giving a talk on the business implications of Second Life.

I naively thought that only a few crazies like me would show up for such a thing. Wrong! There must have been 500 of my peers there to check it out. The entire conference was about 4700 people and you had to arrive by 1PM Sunday afternoon to attend the Second Life talk.

As a speaker, I was privy to the pre-registration numbers. When I sorted the 420 or so elective sessions, the Second Life presentation was the one that more of IBM's technical leaders wanted to reserve a seat to attend than any other. At the session I learned IBM is quite a land baron in the Second Life "megaverse," owning many Second Life "islands".

David talked about how he played around in Second Life and found himself wanting to set up his own place and how he intentionally chose a location with interesting neighbors including a small software company and East Coast artist. He raved about all the interesting people he had met thru Second Life. It began to sound like an endorsement of my unoriginal theory that it is good to check out off-the-wall ideas and hang out with interesting people not like me every now and then.

The message to my readers is that smart people are either taking Second Life and the business implications of it very seriously... or they are afraid they aren't taking it seriously enough and might be missing the next big thing.

I decided I must already be behind the curve. If you log into Second Life and find a boy next door looking avatar named Caleb Schumann who doesn't know what he's doing in the megaverse, it is me fumbling around trying to catch with the train that has already left the station without me.

Me over the volcano that is about to errupt and kill me if I don't do the hula for some character on a training island for newbies.

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions.

What Could Possibly Be Wrong With Corporate Blogging?

Not all I/T Architect-bloggers are as fortunate as I in that my employer actually encourages us to blog. (See my very first post in this blog.) I'll reproduce a quote from the IBM employee blogging guidelines I quoted back then. "It is very much in IBM's interest – and, we believe, in each IBMer's own – to be aware of this sphere of information, interaction and idea exchange."

Obviously, not all corporations embrace this kind of thinking. Dan Gillmore points out two very different scenarios in " Corporate Blogging: What Could Go Wrong? The first is the obvious concern about someone leaking new product information and potentially giving a competitor an early start on catching up. But the second scenario was more interesting. It was about the cost of NOT using blogging and NOT being clear and transparent about problems in the open media. He makes an interesting point about not getting out in front of "bad news" and actually engaging potential customers in solving the problem.

"The real danger is not letting your employees harness the full power of an interactive, edge-in communications medium. If you keep the reins too tight, you won't reap the benefits of informed and passionate readers and users. And sometimes, if you're not communicating freely with your readers and users, bad news can catch them by surprise."

I have to admit I see his logic... especially in the area of product development. If I was trying to come up with the next generation Apple iPod I am sure I could recruit an army of passionate bloggers to help me. But what if client A has a whole bunch of fuzzy business requirements, a hodge-podge of technology accumualted from their merger history, and a minefield of political considerations. How would a crowd on the outside be able to digest all the client-specific nuances of the situation? And would the client even want their client-specific details out in the open?

Still...I've heard of the popular business book, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations devoted to the innovative use of ideas from outside the company. I haven't read it yet, but maybe I need to. I'd be curious to hear if any of my readers have had success in using blogging to make better one-of-a-kind solutions for clients.

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions.

Living on the Bleeding Edge for Fun and Profit

Check out What is Bleeding Edge? by Elana Varon

"Let’s start by acknowledging that bleeding-edge has negative connotations for a lot of people. Just think for a minute about the imagery. Bleeding edge evokes danger. ....Engage in that battle, and you might survive, but you’ll get bloodied in the process. ....But my conversation with a couple of IT executives has me thinking about an alternative vision for the bleeding edge.....until you start messing around with new stuff, you can’t answer the question about whether it might provide a competitive advantage or suggest a new business model.....The implication here is that even a company that is uncomfortable adopting a new technology until someone else works out the bugs can’t really afford to wait to check it out. The bleeding-edge might be your competitive edge. And it starts to look smart, rather than dangerous."

Consumers Wag the Enterprise I/T Dog

Here's an interesting read. What happens when your customers have a better PC and more bandwidth at home than your employees at work? What happens when your teenager's cell phone offers more features than your sales force automation solution. What happens when these people come on board as employees? Will they be satisfied with what your enterprise has to offer them?

Gartner: Commoditization means consumers will wag the enterprise IT dog by ZDNet's David Berlind -- As one of the four major pairs of themes underlying Gartner Symposium/ITxpo here in San Francisco, Gartner research chief and distinguished analyst Steve Prentice explained to attendees why the commoditization and consumerization of technology is not to be ignored an an enterprise's strategic information technology roadmap. Prentice's presentation was given as part of the event's open ceremonies. Companies [...]

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent
IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions.

A Culture of Innovation? Or NOT?

By any measure, IBM is a huge corporation. With around 300,000 employees there is a large number of really smart people covering almost any field of business or technology. As a result we inside IBM suffer from information overload. There are thousands of “communities of practice”, “centers of excellence”, and “knowledge management teams” that regularly publish zillions of pages of information in internal newsletters, intranet pages, and internal blogs,. There is simply not enough time to go through it all.

To cope, most of us who are drowning in information settle on a few sources of information that make to our “short list” of favorite sources. My post tonight comes from one on my personal “short list.”

Every so often I get an internal newsletter entitled “Consultant’s Edge” put out by Peter Andrews of our Executive Business Institute. (Regular readers of this blog may remember a previous post based on his work called “Crisis in Time, Talent, Trust and Transformation.”) I find Peter states business issues in just such a way that it makes sense to my architect brain quickly and helps me figure out how to communicate with that all important “business side” of the house.

The last “Consultant’s Edge” had to do with corporate culture as it relates to innovation. With his permission (Thanks Peter!), I would like to share a diagnostic quiz he developed to help executives assess how their company innovates (or doesn’t innovate). I think any good I/T Architect can see the wisdom in this diagnostic immediately. You’ll see your business users, customers, and clients in almost every word.

Defining innovation within an organization

For the first set of questions below, you may mark down as many answers as apply, writing down A, B, C, D and/or E. At the end, count up how many of each letter you have recorded for questions 1 through 6.

Question 1: What is the perspective of your organization on innovation?

A. Innovation needs to make a return-on-investment contribution this quarter

B. Innovation should continually and reliably improve our offerings and follow a known, accepted process

C. Our innovations include adopting the best ideas in our industry

D. We believe in getting our innovations from everywhere, even if it means we must adapt and re-envision them from other industries

E. Innovation from us should catch everyone with surprise and should occasionally disrupt competitors

It’s not unusual to be able to poke into the corners of your organization and find people who hold all of these perspectives. That’s fine, but generalize which style fits best. The second question is a bit more challenging because it goes from belief to action – specifically, measurement.

Question 2: How do you measure innovation?

A. Innovation proves itself quarterly with standard business measures related to profits, growth and market share

B. Our innovations start from a solid business case, and then must achieve standard milestones along the formal innovation process

C. We measure our innovation by comparing ourselves with the best in our industry

D. In addition to maintaining a solid track record over the years of contributions to the business through innovation, we use specific measures of how we are viewed by the public and the media vs. other innovative organizations

E. We look at our stock price, the requests from others for advice on how to innovate, who wants to partner with us and whom we have disrupted with our innovations

Let’s push things a bit further and look at the results of your activities. Let’s look at the innovations themselves.

Question 3: What do successful innovations for you actually look like?

A. The project gets done on time and delivers the business results we committed to

B. Our offerings are constantly being improved

C. We are quickly able to match any innovations by our competition

D. We have our share of important “firsts” in the marketplace

E. We change how success is measured in our marketplace and our innovations make us the unqualified leaders

Now we’ll shift to an outside perspective, one of the most important ones.

Question 4: What do investors expect of your organization?

A. Our investors expect steady performance, but do not expect much, if any, growth

B. Our investors expect us to fulfill our plans and to grow as well as our market

C. Our investors push us for growth, and we sometimes please them

D. Our investors are focused on our steady growth and improving market share

E. We offer our investors lots of sizzle, backed up by dramatic successes

Now, some of those questions touch indirectly on the investors’ view. That’s intentional. In general, investors looking for achievement do not like you to take too many risks with their money. More and more, they want you to perform within a time period that really puts the pressure on, like the next quarter. But with the right story and a good history, they’ll accept, and maybe even welcome, a longer view. Of course, that view needs to be balanced against what your competitors are up to, which brings us to our next question.

Question 5: In the context of innovation, how would you describe your relationship with competitors?

A. Competitors often throw us off balance, force us to change our plans and sometimes make us miss our financial targets

B. Our competitors often beat us to market and take share

C. Our competitors respect us and know we can match them in most instances

D. Our competitors follow our moves closely and are frequently forced to follow where we lead

E. Often, organizations are dismayed to discover we are their competitors

When we talk about competitors, it’s tough to give an honest answer. We are doing a quick diagnostic here, but you’ll need to move to real business intelligence and a good set of measures to get a more quantifiable view of where you stand versus competitors. Our last question is one that pulls together the others, in a way. But it’s worth asking.

Question 6: What is your organization’s reputation as an innovator?

A. Our organization is thought of as dependable and reliable, but not exciting

B. Our organization is important within its marketplace, but not looked to for trends

C. We are considered to be a competent organization that validates new trends

D. Our organization is looked to for leadership

E. We are lethal to competitors, great to partner with, and people never know what we are going to do next

Really looking at the content of each question and discussing it with your team should lead to some insights and maybe even a sense of the opportunities before you. In the meantime, count up how many of each letter you put down. Each of them point to a specific kind of innovation that has credence within the enterprise you are taking a look at. Here are the kinds of innovation that inspired the questions:

A. Innovation is changing something for the better within our organization

B. Innovation is making incremental improvements within our products and services

C. Innovation is adopting the best practices for our marketplace

D. Innovation is doing something that is new to our market

E. Innovation is breaking into or disrupting marketplaces

If you have three or more A’s, the first kind of innovation is probably happening. If you have three or more B’s, innovation includes incremental improvements to products and services. And so on. You may have all five of these kinds of innovation going on within the organization you’re looking at. Or only one. What you should have depends on your market, your strategy and your real-world business situation. The important thing is to get a more realistic view of what is actually going on and to make sure this is broadly understood.

Identifying existing innovation capabilities

No matter what innovation means, it can only be successful if the capabilities to support it are available. In general, the more challenging the innovation is and the broader the portfolio of innovation efforts, the more capabilities you’ll need. Here is another set of questions to get a start at both assessing and thinking about innovation capabilities.

Innovations are done by people, so that’s the starting point. For questions 7 through 11, record your answers using the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and/or 5.

Question 7: What kind of people does your organization have?

1. Our people know their roles and generally execute with experience and competence

2. Our people are great at doing analysis on new projects, then making sure they stay with the plan and achieve expected results

3. Our people work out the details, but are willing to make corrections mid-project and to take on some uncertainty

4. Our people work on a variety of low and high risk projects, but they all include those who are willing to try new things and push the limits

5. Our people are always looking for the big opportunity and everyone (even our clients) is an innovator

And innovations are never done in a vacuum. They are always tied to real world needs and possibilities.

Question 8: How does your organization detect opportunities for innovation?

1. We watch to see how competitors are getting business value

2. We listen to our customers and pay attention to the ideas our innovators have for which a good business case can be built

3. We scan our industry annually for best practices

4. We look far and wide for good ideas and are particularly driven by innovation successes that are related to our capabilities and our market, even if they come from another industry

5. We not only want the best we can come up with, we want the best innovations possible, so we provide forums for ideas and opportunities for action that include our people, our clients, researchers, suppliers and even competitors

But it’s not just about the payoff. Every innovation effort must be considered against the possibility of failure.

Question 9: How do you view the risk presented by innovation?

1. We manage risk by limiting activities and punishing failure

2. Adherence to our process limits our risk, as does the careful monitoring of milestone achievement

3. We are comfortable with a limited range of risks for different kinds of innovation projects, but look for a record of proven benefits

4. We always include high risk (but high potential) projects among several options in a managed portfolio of innovation efforts because our leadership understands the value of leading our market

5. If the possible benefits are high enough, we’ll bet the company

The ultimate reality check on capabilities in a business is funding. Where does the money come from and how reliable is it? Funding is an action that speaks much louder than any vision statement.

Question 10: How do you fund innovation?

1. Every innovation project must compete with all other projects and show higher value in our budgeting process

2. We have an annual process where research and development organizations get a set percent, then allocate according to our roadmap and commitments

3. We always ensure that some of our funding goes to strategic projects aimed at our maintaining our leadership position

4. Funding for each project depends on the criteria established for its place in the portfolio, and we continually rebalance our portfolio of innovation efforts to maintain an aggressive posture

5. We dedicate all the resources that are needed to ensure the success of our high-impact innovation projects

Finally, there needs to be a process for getting the innovation done. And for any broad portfolio facing dynamic situations, there may need to be many processes.

Question 11: How does innovation get done in your organization?

1. We identify the innovation and manage the same way we would any other important program

2. We have a standard process in place to identify opportunities for improvement, select them, develop them and introduce them to our offerings

3. We have more than one formal way to bring innovation ideas forward and make them happen, depending on the goals

4. Our innovations have been realized through a variety of pathways, both informal and formal

5. We provide time and resources to actively encourage our people to get new things started, then provide opportunities for them to move things along informally before they are finally introduced into formal pathways

That completes a quick and dirty gap analysis of the capabilities available for the innovations to which organizations aspire. Below, the dots between the two are connected, and some labels are provided for the specific capabilities implied by the questions.

A. Innovation is changing something for the better within our organization – so you need “1’s”: Project management, measurement, relevant skill/talent and leadership

B. Innovation is making incremental improvements in my products and services – so you need “2’s”: Planning, defined development process and technology transfer

C. Innovation is adopting the best practices for our marketplace – so you need “3’s”: Business intelligence, strategy, integration and a flexible business model

D. Innovation is doing something that is new to our market – so you need “4’s”: Risk management, research and portfolio management

E. Innovation is disrupting my marketplace – so you need “5’s”: Creativity, communities and informal processes

Evaluating the innovation climate: Motivating people

Developing or obtaining these capabilities is hard work and requires the focused and coordinated efforts of management. This work is necessary, but not sufficient. Even with all the capabilities in place, there still needs to be a good climate for innovation – specifically for the innovations that are desired. Five final questions provide a quick check on the current climate.

Again, innovation begins with people and what they need to be motivated. For questions 12 through 16, record your answers using the lowercase letters a, b, c, d and/or e.

Question 12: What rewards does your organization provide for innovation?

a. Everyone in our organization can name an innovator who left or was pushed out

b. Those who successfully improve our offerings are given bonuses on an annual basis

c. We reward inventors with new patents and those who help us implement new, strategic projects successfully

d. We have a variety of rewards at many levels for those who invent, discover new possibilities, adapt innovations to new situations, nobly fail and help their teams achieve milestones that are appropriate for the kinds of projects they are working on

e. Our organization shares the successes and learns from failures, but we create millionaires every year

The innovators need to be able to team together, often across the organization.

Question 13: How would you describe the status of informal networks and processes in your organization?

a. We don’t discourage camaraderie, especially during holidays, but going outside our established areas or processes is frowned upon

b. We expect people’s primary allegiance to be to their teams and we have good formal process for them to get their work done

c. We are encourage informal communications by moving people into different business units so they can build their networks

d. We always make sure there is some extra time and opportunity for experimentation, and our people have communities of practice and some opportunities specifically designed to encourage cross-organizational conversations

e. Informal communities are where most of our key innovations get their start and we have lots of routes – both formal and informal – to get new projects off the ground

Question 14: How does your organization respond to change?

a. We are reluctant to change, do so slowly and only with difficulty

b. Since most of our changes are introduced gradually, through a well-recognized process, we have little difficulty

c. We have one or more big changes each year and we rely on change management techniques (e.g., leadership, communications) to get us through

d. Our changes are not entirely predictable so we work aggressively at getting the right people involved and devoting resources to manage change

e. We depend on each person in our organization to be ready for change, and this is supported by a great track record in leading change and benefiting as an organization from successful change

Question 15: How would you describe the culture of your organization?

a. We have established processes and rules and our people shouldn’t violate them

b. People know what is expected of them and they collaborate well across the organization through familiar interlock processes

c. We can move people to other business units for projects without major disruptions; competence is celebrated

d. Our people are primarily dedicated to the success of the whole organization, rather than their business units, and we have matrix management and formal communities to help support that

e. We look messy and have lots of tough discussions across the organization, but we have basic belief, a common vision and strong, organic communities that keep us working together.

Question 16: What kind of customers does your organization have?

a. Our customers are low growth, so they mainly push for cost savings

b. Our customers are successful, but they don’t include the industry leaders

c. Our customers expect us to be as good as our competitors and to provide dependable roadmaps for adoption of any new technologies

d. Our customers include a significant number who look to partner with us to do things that are new to our industries

e. Our customers are also our partners and they have high expectations that we will create the next generation of offerings

These last five questions help you do a simple analysis of the readiness of your climate for innovation:

A. Innovation is changing something for the better in my organization – so you need “a’s”: Adherence to processes, focus on results and clear rules

B. Innovation is making incremental improvements in my products and services – so you need “b’s”: Well-defined roles, attention to deadlines, evaluations that are complete and fair and an emphasis on working well within your team

C. Innovation is adopting the best practices for my marketplace – so you need “c’s”: Enthusiasm for change, opportunities for working across the organization, rewards for adaptiveness

D. Innovation is doing something that is new to my market – so you need “d’s”: Tolerance of risk, flexibility, open communications with clients and suppliers, rewards for inventiveness

E. Innovation is disrupting my marketplace – so you need “e’s”: Celebration of rebels and honest failures, rewards for many roles, appreciation of talent, vibrant informal communities

It would not be fair to pigeonhole any one company into any of these styles. However, since organizations are largely driven by their marketplace, some industries are more prone to one model versus another.

Just to help you map the innovation culture styles:

A’s – Regulated utilities may be appropriate

B’s – Airlines may be a good example here. They often try to lead or quickly follow changes in the marketplaces. However, some are more successful and there are clear leaders and followers

C’s – There are a wide spectrum of auto companies but a few obvious industry leader fit into this style

D’s – High tech’s typically fit here and a few leading consumer oriented firms jump to mind as they continually lead and re-invent themselves

E’s – Very few organizations fit here and it would only be unfair to point out leaders like Google (but you already discovered that yourself by taking the quiz)

Going from intent to outcome is never easy. Aligning the climate of your organization to enable innovation is difficult and may take time. Culture is notoriously difficult for organizations to change.

The questions above, however, provide a first step toward understanding what your organization really expects from innovation. And, discovering the gaps – between what the relevant capabilities and climate are and what each needs to be – can be a key step toward the required outcomes.

I must admit that after reading this the first time I wondered what my own level of innovation was. How would I fit in at some small startup? How would I fit in at a "disruptive" company like Google? Is IBM considered "disruptive" to its competitors because of its innovation? or just is size (read $$$). Comments are welcome and encouraged.

Please check out the “Future Value” class that Peter Andrews teaches for additional information and more of his business insight! Check it out so he'll continue to let me "borrow" his stuff for my blog!

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions.

How to Become More Creative in Solving Problems

Over my 20+ year career, I have had the opportunity to observe many different co-workers in fields as diverse as computer programming (business), computer programming (scientific & engineering), solid state physics, antennas, digital logic design, systems integration, customer service, accounting, web design, mathematics, banking, insurance, manufacturing, marketing, databases, acousto-optical signal processing, microwave electronics, management consulting, package-enabled business transformation, radar, security, and enterprise architecture. There are more to the list but I won’t bore you.

It seems that no matter what field, there are always a few people who stand above the rest as being really creative and innovative in the way the solve problems. They’re the ones you go to when you have a really intractable problem.

The solution they select may not always be elegant in the academic sense. Sometimes the “problem” is the project schedule and the solution really needed is something which can be done quickly. Sometimes the solution isn't a technical one either. Perhaps there is a political solution or an idea can be "sold" differently.

I find myself often wondering “Why do some people come up with more creative approaches than others?” and “Is this kind of creative problem solving something innate (something we are born with, a gift) or is this a skill that almost anyone can learn?”

I suspect the answer is a little of both. For the creativity I was born with, I am truly grateful.

As for developing my creativity as a skill.... I am not an expert on how the brain works, but I have noticed that my most creative ideas come at times when I am exposed to new ideas from others. When I hear them express problems or solutions in a way different from mine, it gets me out of a rut. It makes me exercise new and/or different brain cells.

For example, I filed a patent application on an idea I had while listening to someone else’s presentation at a large IBM technical conference. I had this burst of insight when I looked at a particular block diagram in the presentation. As the guy talked, I immediately thought “His diagram is missing the XXX !” (where the XXX was my idea, not to be talked about here)

For any management who might be reading, this (perhaps unoriginal) observation of mine doesn’t bode well for all the emphasis on distance learning which saves money by eliminating travel costs but greatly reduces the chance of accidental discovery of new people and ideas!

I would say that it is probably good for our creativity if we allow ourselves the opportunity to “hang out” with people who are really different from us occasionally. This may mean “different” because they have different areas of expertise (see my first paragraph), personalities, personal backgrounds, employment histories, motivations, hobbies, etc. Me being a conservative preacher’s kid from the Bible Belt, I must admit that I learned a great deal about Object-Oriented Analysis and Design from a guy who liked to hit strip clubs in the evening after work. :-) (If you’re reading this - you know who you are... and thanks for the great mentoring!) Therefore, I recommend developing personal relationships with people on all extremes.

I have gotten similar bursts of inspiration when reading material that is off-the-wall or outside my area of expertise. I had some frequent flier miles on an airline I don’t travel very often that I used to subscribe to some different magazine than I normally read. I found the following to be particularly “different” from my usual fare to get creative juices flowing:

Technology Review: MIT's Magazine of Innovation – This one has lots of stuff on all the cool gadgets, cool ideas, cool projects in corporate research labs, etc.

Fast Company – This one is really focused on business, motivating people, and what makes people tick. Incidentally, I first heard of this magazine during a talk given by the head of IBM Research at an IBM conference in Toronto I attended several years ago.

I can’t prove it but I think learning to play a musical instrument or learning a foreign language will also “wire” your brain to be more creative, though probably most effective if done when young.

I will end my post with a list of links which you may find thought provoking and examples of the outside-the-box kind of thinking I’ve been talking about.

Fast Company Dec 2004 The 6 Myths of Creativity

Fast Company Dec 2004 What Makes Beautiful Minds

Johns Hopkins Feb 2005 Changing Their Tune (entrepreneurship in the field of classical music?)

Wired Feb 2005 – Revenge of the Right Brain

Here’s a book I will admit to only partially reading as it is very long, but it provides a fascinating look at how we mentally name and categorize things in our native language. The book is called Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. The title comes from a classification in Dyirbal, an aboriginal language of Australia. Imagine a culture where the terms women, fire, and dangerous things are thought of as "going together" ? :-)

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions.

Crisis in Time, Talent, Trust and Transformation

I received a great presentation the other day entitled “Four Crises for Business: Time, Talent, Trust, and Transformation” by Peter Andrews at the IBM Executive Business Institute. While this is not exactly an I/T Architecture issue, I think the issues he brings out will show up in the business drivers and business requirements of our I/T projects. We're certainly affected by the these issues in our work environment.

With his permission, I will share a few quotes from his work that I think will resonate with I/T architects.

At a high level, there are no surprises. Executives have been putting the challenges of globalization, cost-cutting, disaster planning, shortened product lifecycles and attracting and retaining the best employees onto their top ten lists for years. Politics, the world economy, technological advances, investor impatience, natural disasters and other drivers of change have been pushing business hard for decades. Once mighty companies have lost their footing, and many have fallen....

Everyone is working harder, but are we doing anything differently? Are radical changes in direction even considered?”....

Consider four crises that thematically sum up our difficult times, and then consider what might be done about each:

The Crisis of Time. Douglas Adams said, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” Most of us have far too many deadlines whooshing by and it doesn’t inspire feelings of affection. Take a poll of your team and see how many of them feel like their task lists are longer and someone has been stealing minutes, if no hours, from their clocks.”....

....progress in interruption management systems are all on the way to help. Think of the effort your business puts into cost cutting and see if you can do the same thing for time cutting – at the level of individuals, as well as teams. But first, think wisely about what you and your colleagues will do with the time savings, and hold onto the time for those purposes. Even if those purposes include taking a deep breath or daydreaming.”


The Crisis of Talent. “Great people make a great company ..... But there aren’t enough great people to go around and we don’t use them well. Part of the problem is scheduling (as can be seen in the Crisis of Time), but part of it is just finding and training them. How do we know who the great people are when our measurements have been reduced to revenue numbers? How do we expose and develop talent when training is just a cost number? How do we get talented people involved in the right projects? How do we keep talented people engaged and motivated? How do we keep them at all?....

And don’t forget training, which may need to take on new characteristics as those who have learned as much from online multiplayer games than from classroom instruction begin to enter the workforce. ....

The Crisis of Trust.

Half of all strategic business relationships fail to meet their objectives, .... Confidence in management is dropping. In a survey of 13,000 employees at U.S. companies, Watson Wyatt Worldwide found only 39 percent trust their senior leaders. And every time a deadline is missed or an offhand comment is misconstrued, a virtual team starts to strain its seams....

And yet, eBay, where most buyers and sellers never meet face-to-face, has an estimated US$23 billion worth of transactions each year. This is possible because the company provides over a dozen trust enabling/establishing services, including security, payment escrow, user agreements, a privacy policy and, most importantly, the input of peers. Feedback, stars, rating the raters – it’s all part of a reputation management system that allows the community to vouch for the individual. Similar clusters of technologies can provide a basis for trust across the organization (and, not incidentally, give your team access to talented unknowns).

The Crisis of Transformation.

You can’t anticipate everything, but you have to be ready for anything. Scenario planning and good backup systems can help with disasters, of course. But flexibility will be demanded of almost all businesses in a world where global outsourcing breaks down barriers and shifts value, where challenging regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley in the U.S. require more accountability, where the viability of channels changes and the ability of companies to cluster into well-positioned virtual corporations creates new, vital competitors....

Intriqued? Check out Peter Andrews' class on Business Futures at the Executive Business Institute... and take your C-Level with you.

Some of my more random thoughts on this. That means don't blame Peter if you disagree me on this. :-)

• I am certainly a victim of “time-cutting”, time wasting, and interruptions. I bet you are too.


• I wonder what the cure is. Will it be “interruption management” systems? Part of me would like to go back to the days when someone in my position had a secretary. A real person who would run interference for me. But, realistically that is nostalgia. I can’t envision that scenario happening. I also wonder if I’m culturally ready to turn over my calendar, phone, email, etc. to an electronic secretary with a mission to keep me from being interrupted.


• Will companies start measuring how interrupted their employees are? Will we be getting software requirements for those interruption management systems in the near future to try to squeeze more hours of productivity out of employees? I wonder if I could articulate the benefits of such a system to someone who actually had budget authority to fund it?


• “Training is just a cost number” More nostalgia. I remember when I was almost expected to go into an online catalog of training classes in various cities across the country and pick a couple classes a year. These were real classes in nice facilities in nice cities with real teachers and real labs and real whiteboards. Those were the days! Now they want us to do everything in some kind of virtual classroom via the internet. Airfare and hotel ? Forget it! And why do I, a person who makes his living on computers, hate the idea of a virtual classroom. I kind of like chatting with the other students on breaks and over lunch. I learn something there too. Is there a way to at least partially reproduce this under today's cost constraints?


• Undiscovered talent / Un-Nurtured Talent - As a senior I/T Architect it is part of my job to develop talent. In the consulting business this is viewed as increasing our capacity to deliver solutions to our clients. Frankly, as I practice it today it is more gut instinct, Golden Rule, and taking advantage of mentoring opportunities as they present themselves. Is this enough? What if I don’t meet those programmers working in romote places face-to-face and don’t have impromptu white boards sessions? What if the time of day that I am all energized and in the mood to play coach and mentor, those remote programmers have already been working all day on their timezone and want to go home?


• Trust - Here I can see some real business requirements and some real value. Imagine looking to see how many stars someone has earned before deciding to use them on your project. Would I really take a “talented unknown” on the basis of their intranet “star rating”? Imagine looking to see how many stars a boss has before accepting a position. Imagine if I could earn a bonus from my stars! And how do we prevent everyone giving each other good grades and the resulting “trust inflation” because nobody wants to be the bad guy.


• Transformation - I am reminded of all the process choreography discussion that goes on around Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). Imagine all those ovals on the whiteboard with service names inside them. Imagine if there were really readily available providers for all those ovals. The company would only exist to wire together or choreograph the process, consisting of these services.


• Could I make more money selling process choreography software?


• If this is for real, how many of us I/T Architects are going to quit our jobs and become entrepreneurs? Anybody ready to create your own company to provide one of these easily plugable services? Want to be in the business of providing the service in one of those ovals on the whiteboard?

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies, or opinions.