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Recommended posts: Toyota IT Overview - Innovation Example - Using Technology to Promote Management Improvement - Usability Failures - Dell, Reddit and Customer Focus - Experiment Quickly and Often
Other Categories: Google - Software Development
What’s driving Toyota Canada’s success? - CIO reveals all
* Cutting down the customer problem resolution from weeks to an average of three days through this initiative alone;
* Early detection of customer dissatisfaction in services
* Reducing detection of product defects (from months to days).
The Toyota Canada CIO talks about the tremendous business benefits from this seamless freeflow of information. “When a defect is detected at the dealership, the next day it would up to our engineering department.” The speed at which information traverses is of immense value – especially when new vehicles are launched. Tien cited an example.
“We recently launched a new Toyota Corolla [model]. If there were a problem with a door knob of the vehicle, the plant would know about it and a fix would be put in place.”
An article well worth reading. Related: Toyota IT Overview - Lessons from Toyota’s IT Strategy - Good Customer Service Example at Toyota - Software Supporting Processes Not the Other Way Around
David Heinemeier Hansson Talk at Startup School 2008 (Paul Graham’s Y-combinator school). It is helpful to appreciate the importance of some simple ideas. Working on web focused businesses people often get carried away with the huge potential and sometimes lose touch with reality. While the ideas are more obvious when looking at web related business their is plenty here for many companies (the second half might be more helpful for many).
In this talk David does a great job of explaining how 37 signals has chosen to work. They are not concerned with becoming large. They focus on doing what they want to do - creating great software solutions (see: Systemic Workplace Experiments). And on making money to allow them to stay in business.
Some tidbits of advice: create great applications, charge people money, make a profit. Yes to those outside the web world this might seem obvious… He discusses a very similar idea to the idea of 1,000 true fans. He mentions to bring in a $1 million, all you need is 2,000 customers paying $40/month. 37 Signals has done well focusing on small business. Don’t be in such a hurry.
Related: Why is 37signals so arrogant? - Complicating Simplicity - Joy in Software Development - Great Marissa Mayer Webcast on Google Innovation
Well, this doesn’t sound very well thought out. Bonuses often distort behavior. Dr. Deming was not against such targets and bonuses because he thought they would not result in bugs being fixed: Dr. Deming on the problems with targets or goals. It is a question of how that will happen. The system being distorted is the most likely result of any such system.
Everyone worked even harder on the third day. On the fourth day, however, the well had started to dry up. The testers ran, re-ran, and re-ran again the test cases, but they could only find a handful of issues. The developers strained the issue-tracking system, constantly reloading the “unassigned bugs” page and rushing to self-assign anything that appeared.
And then something strange happened at lunch. Instead of going out to eat with his usual teammates, one of the developers went out with a tester. Soon after, another developer went out with another tester. Within a few minutes, almost all of the developers had paired up with testers.
As the developers returned from lunch, they immediately got to work. Instead of scavenging for newly found bugs, they worked on “code refactoring” and new functionality. And as soon as they deployed their changes, testers found bugs — minor, obscure bugs that a developer could easily overlook. And just as quickly as testers found bugs, the developers were able to fix them and re-deploy. By the end of the day, developers and testers had earned an average of $120.
I think these orders of magnitude are not present in between people in many jobs. And I think people’s ability to correctly access who are orders of magnitude better is often faulty. But my experience leads me to believe the difference between exceptional software developers and average (not even below average) is very high. High enough that large increases in pay (say tripling would be sensible). Also accommodating their desires is sensible: freedom from dealing with pointy haired bosses and eliminating other such de-motivators.
While salespeople seen as successful can often be rewarded very well, exceptional software developers rarely are. Most managers don’t seem to be able to grasp that software development is a rare field where such orders of magnitude differences are somewhat common (not one in a million, maybe one in a thousand for a random guess). There are other fields where this is true but most for most fields I do not think this is the case.
In many fields interruptions are costly (and multi-taking is wasteful). In software development those interruptions are often much more costly than in other fields. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams is an excellent book on managing software development.
Related: People are Our Most Important Asset - Joy in Software Development - Hiring the Right People - Performance without Appraisal - Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations
A fun read on What motivates programmers?
The tips in the post are worth reading. Yes, real world situation are always more complex but there is a great deal of truth in the post. Also, I will repeat my statement for all managers for all employees: your job is to eliminate de-motivation not to motivate.
If you really want to manage programmers well, read these blogs and take action to prevent yourself from becoming a pointy haired boss: Signal vs. Noise - Joel on Software - Paul Graham - Coding Horror - Scripting News - xkcd
Related: Joy in Software Development - Hiring Silicon Valley Style - Most Meetings are Muda - Metrics and Software Development - Amazon Innovation - Two Screens Are Better Than One
This is a good post on the systemic drivers of complex processes, take the time to read the whole post. I have a bias is against off the shelf software as it often ends up forcing the process to be designed around the software. And with the amazing power and relative ease of web based applications creating solutions that are specifically designed to the organization are often relatively easy. And yet, as indicated in this article there is often a strong bias in the other direction for buying off the shelf software because it is cheaper and/or faster.
Of course, the decision in each case must be weighed to determine the benefits and cost of the various alternatives. Just remember, if you decide you want simple and flexible, to have your decisions reflect that. I enjoy a telling quote from a software vendor on Toyota’s IT expectations: “it demands that the software or technology be flexible and adapt, often by customizing the code, to its business processes, and not the other way around.” They are right.
Related: Agile Software Development - Complicating Simplicity - Joy in Software Development
Copilot is a cool application that lets you control someone else’s computer. So you can receive technical support remotely. You let someone access your computer and copilot takes care of the sometimes very complex task of linking the two computers up (getting through firewalls, etc.). You can use it to fix your parents computer after you move away… or you can can have your kid fix your computer for while you pay for part of their college… (I am not sure which description fits you). Copilot is now free on weekends by Joel Spolsky:
While he doesn’t mention it I am sure they figured out this is a great marketing tool also. If you try this product there is a good chance you will find it very helpful. Fogcreek Software is looking for a Summer interns in NYC. I have posted about Joel many times, including: Management Training Program - Joel Management - The IT Iceberg Secret - Seven Steps to Remarkable Customer Service
Related: Dangers of Extrinsic Motivation - engineering internships
IT talent shortage, or management failure?
But if you leave it to some personnel jockey who relies on buzzwords and resumes, you’ll never hire real talent — and it will always seem there is a talent shortage. What’s difficult to understand about that?
Great post. I agree: the main problem is poor management. Dr. Deming kept increasing the percentage of problems due to systemic issues (which are management responsibility to address), he was saying 97% of issues were commons cause problems (from the system) at the end of his life.
So what should managers do? Read the Curious Cat Management Blog and follow the advise in our previous posts, including: Stop Demotivating Employees (IT employees are especially disdainful of pointy haired boss actions that others tolerate more easily) - Signs You Have a Great Job … or Not - Joy in Work for IT - hiring silicon valley style - Bad Management Results in Layoffs
Mary Poppendieck on The Role of Leadership in Software Development, very nice 90 minute webcast:
via, Leadership is not Obsolete for Self-Organizing Teams!
Once again Mary provides a great resource. This is a great overview. Lean Software Development by Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck is an excellent book on these topics.
Related: articles and webcasts by Mary Poppendieck - posts on software development - more management webcasts
This wonderful cartoon shows the all too common despair in work. Software programmers are more likely to really enjoy what they do. There are many reasons for this not the least of which is that they have a fair amount of control over their careers. If they don’t like what they are asked to do, the tools they are asked to work with… they will (more than others) leave for another job. Some managers get frustrated that such people are not willing to put up with the normal bother everyone else seems willing to accept (programmers are often “unreasonable”). But I see an occupation that is more focused on joy in work than most. And creating joy in work is what managers should be worrying about - not getting troublemakers to fall into line.
Why I Program In Ruby (And Maybe Why You Shouldn’t):
I enjoy programming using Ruby on Rails.
Related: Hiring Software Developers - posts on improving software development - Don’t ask employees to be passionate about the company! - A Career in Computer Programming - IT Operations as a Competitive Advantage - Reddit, a living example of how software coders think - Focus on Customers and Employees - Signs You Have a Great Job… or Not
Bringing ‘Lean’ Principles to Service Industries by Julia Hanna
In their research, Staats and Upton document how the use of lean principles affected the workflow at Wipro. The concept of “kaizen,” or continuous improvement, for example, resulted in a more iterative approach to software development projects versus a sequential, “waterfall” method in which each step of the process is completed in turn by a separate worker.
By sharing mistakes across the process, the customer and project team members benefit individually and collectively from increased opportunities to learn from their errors; the project also moves along more quickly because bugs are discovered in the system earlier in the development process.
Iteration is very important. It is important in proper use of the PDSA cycle - many quick iterations are much better than one long slow one. And for software application development it is an excellent strategy.
I think iteration is even more important in software application development than most other areas (for now anyway) because many stakeholders cannot visualize what they need from software. Therefore attempts to force rigid requirements up front fail. No matter how much effort you put in the stakeholder just doesn’t know until they see it and use it - then they can tell you what they want changed. so design a system that works given this - iteration and agile development work very well.
Related: lean thinking articles - Experiment Quickly and Often - Management Consulting (what does the consultants web site show?) - Indian Firms Learning From Toyota (on Wipro posted here in 2005) - posts on improving software development - Not Lean Retailing
Operations is a competitive advantage… (Secret Sauce for Startups!)
In my experience it takes about 80 hours to bootstrap a startup. This generally means installing and configuring an automated infrastructure management system (puppet), version control system (subversion), continuous build and test (frequently cruisecontrol.rb), software deployment (capistrano), monitoring (currently evaluating Hyperic, Zenoss, and Groundwork). Once this is done the “install time” is reduced to nearly zero and requires no specialized knowledge. This is the first ingredient in “Operations Secret Sauce”.
This is a nice short article discussing startup IT operations. On that topic it is interesting. It is also a good example of how a bit of up front planning can help any organizations. Make plans on realistic options - which often means not expecting everything to be perfect. Expect to have to make do with fewer resources than you would like but are what you will likely have… At work, I use subversion, Ruby on Rails (and practice continuous build and test - I’ll take a look at cruisecontrol.rb) and we are setting up Capistrano. I’ll let our system administrator know about puppet (it looks useful) and take a look at the monitoring options (we have something in place now, I forget the name).
Related: Better and Different - The IT Iceberg Secret - Sub-Optimize - If Tech Companies Made Sudoku
The Google Way: Give Engineers Room
Consider the collection of engineers who wanted to promote “agile programming” inside the company. Agile programming is a product development approach that incorporates feedback early and often, and was being done in a few scattered parts of the organization.
The Agile grouplet formed to try to take this idea and spread it throughout the organization. It did so by banding together and reaching out to as many groups as it could to teach the new process. It created “Agile Office Hours” when you could stop by and ask questions about the process. It handed out books and gave internal talks on the topic. It attended staff meetings and created the concept of the “Agile Safari,” in which you could volunteer to work for a time in groups that were using Agile, to see how it ticks.
Related: Google Software Engineering - Agile Software Development - Agile Management - Managing Innovation - Larry Page and Sergey Brin Webcast - Google: Ten Golden Rules
I have mentioned Kiva before: Microfinancing Entrepreneurs (on our Curious Cat Economics and Investing blog). In addition to being a good cause Kiva really shows some great management strategies. The use of Information Technology to connect people directly is a wonderful example of using IT effectively (understanding psychology).
Kiva lets you loan money directly to an entrepreneur of your choice. Kiva provides loans through partners (operating in the countries) to the entrepreneurs. Those partners do charge the entrepreneurs interest (to fund the operations of the lending partner). Kiva pays the principle back to you but does not pay interest. And if the entrepreneur defaults then you do not get your capital paid back (in other words you lose the money you loaned). I plan to just recycle repaid loans to other entrepreneurs.
I have just placed an additional $150 in loans to 6 business entrepreneurs (in Honduras, Indonesia[2 loans], Tajikistan, Uganda and Ukraine), along with a $100 donation to Kiva (adding to my previous Kiva loans of $350). Since our last post the Oprah Winfrey Show, President Clinton’s newly released book Giving and others have sung the praises of Kiva and made it a challenge to find entrepreneurs of Kiva to lend to (Kiva is working on building their capacity - to keep up with the demand. That seems to have been partially fixed (for awhile the supply of the entrepreneurs was completely exhausted) in last few weeks (though still they limit you to no more than $25 per entrepreneur - in order to allow the large numbers of people that want to lend to at least have the chance to loan something).
If you lend through Kiva, add a comment with a link to your Kiva page and I will add you to our list of Curious Cat Kivans.
Related: Kiva: Microfinance Loans - helping people succeed economically - Thinking About the Future
I started looking at quality management resources online in 1995 (maybe 1994). At the time I was on the board of the Public Sector Network - what would become the American Society of Quality (ASQ) government division. When we started working with ASQ it took something like 2 months from the time I wrote an article until people received it. Now in 1995, the internet (outside of universities) was in its infancy. I was writing a column on the resources online for quality management - these consisted of bulletin boards (that you used your modem to call directly) and “gopher” and “ftp” sites and email lists a very few web sites. Ftp and gopher are internet protocols (as is the hypertext transfer protocol - http - we all use for the web now). Well things changed frequently back then and by the time my article would be published phone numbers wouldn’t work, addresses would be out of date, etc..
So I figured I should post my article online so people could just go there and see the updated phone numbers, addresses, etc.. That wasn’t so easy to do back then. But several of us at a W. Edwards Deming Institute conference decided to create a Deming Electronic Network (DEN). And one of those people was Del Kimbler who worked at Clemson and had access to a web site where he agreed to host the DEN. So I asked about posting the Online Quality Resource Guide there and he agreed.
Del is retiring from Clemson and so we are moving some of the material off Clemson to curiouscat.com. As part of that I ran across this November 1995 edition of the Online Quality Resource Guide. There really was a small number of good online resources for managers back then. We forget how lucky we are today. The first article I can find (right now anyway) is from the Spring of 1995. It listed a total of 2 web sites in addition to a BBS and several email lists. Clemson was listed as a gopher site and web site.
We have recently moved the Public Sector Continuous Improvement Site and Community Quality Electronic Network to curiouscat.com. Some history on PSCI and CQEN.
Related: John Hunter history - Using Quality to Develop an Internet Resource by John Hunter (1999) - Management Improvement History
Yahoo Mail Innovates, Gmail Stagnates
To me Yahoo is really continually improving the service, not innovating. Still an interesting exploration of visible improvement.
Related: Kaizen Online - Kaizen definition -Innovation Examples - Google Innovation webcast -
In Loyal Employees Stay Home, quotes from the Wall Street Journal (behind a iron curtain still in this day and age - oh well):
I agree with the sentiment expressed here. And I speak from personal experience that it does make a big difference to me. I have trouble getting some of my work done in the interruption prone office. Working at home allows me some time to concentrate and focus with fewer interruptions (and ones easier to ignore if I really need to focus). If you wanted to hire me (given what I would be doing) and didn’t offer telecommuting options the odds of hiring me are not good.
Related: Five Pragmatic Practices - The Siren Song of Multitasking - Curious Cat Management Improvement Jobs - performance appraisal posts
The Deming Electronic Network email list 2.0 is now live.
The email list provides some wonderful thoughts on applying Deming’s ideas. It is focused on Deming, and some might find it a bit too focused on Deming’s idea but I think it is a great resource. Jim Clauson acts as a moderator to keep the list focused (in this age of blogs many may forget, but email lists often deteriorate into fairly uninteresting person debates).
Steve Prevette’s message is a nice example of what you can read:
On a related topic Peter Scholtes was awarded the latest Deming Medal by ASQ. Related posts: Curious Cat Deming Management Thoughts - Blog posts on Deming’s management system - lean management portal - articles by Steve Prevette
Once again Seth Godin does a great job of explaining the dynamics of marketing on the web: Seth Godin Video on Web Marketing. In this 6 1/2 minute video he touches on various topics including:
Seth is asked if there is a social network that is good for marketers to help them do their jobs. He says: “Far and away it is having a blog. It’s tempting, if you’re a salesperson to go to Linked In…” I think he is exactly right: Your online brand - Blogging is Good for You. For many a “regular” web site is fine too - post some articles to give a real view of what you offer that is different from everyone else (blogs are fine but they are not the only way).
Related: Better and Different - Why are you afraid of process? - Seth Godin speaking at Google
Data is often displayed poorly, making it difficult to see what is important. When data is displayed well the important facts should leap off the page and into the viewers mind. Edward Tufte is an expert on this topic with great books. If you have not read them, you should: Beautiful Evidence, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information and Visual Explanations.
Smashing magazine has some nice examples of good display techniques in Data Visualization: Modern Approaches. I don’t like all the examples they show but it does provide some help by showing some creative ways to display data.
Related: Edward Tufte’s new book: Beautiful Evidence - Great Charts - Data Visualization Example
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