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Information Technology and Business Process Support

Posted on December 3, 2008  Comments (4)

I moved from management improvement work into information technology work (where I continue to practice management improvement). Many IT practices follow quality management guidelines well (agile software development for one).

I have found it far easier to design and provide software solutions than convince people to change their processes directly. I found it funny that as I delivered new IT solutions, in which was embedded a redesign of the process, those changes were often accepted without any significant debate. But the same changes that I tried to implement without a new IT solution had been impossible to make progress on (all sorts of reasons why it couldn’t be done were raised).

I strove, and believe I succeeded, to implement software solutions in a manner consistent with management improvement concepts. I started doing so in areas where I had been working and I was designing software tools based on my intimate knowledge of the system. And in doing so I tried to use an iterative approach (and the concepts of PDSA, though not really formally doing PDSA) involving those who were actually working in the business system. So I am not talking about just plastering in some IT solution from headquarters on the other side of the continent.

Too often organizations fail to invest enough in IT. The IT department is staffed merely to do what others request (and often not even provided the resources to do that). So then the executives can get what they need from IT. Others can get IT to respond if the manager can elevate the issue and explain how important it is that they get some support. But in general, all sorts of obvious improvement opportunities are wasted because the resources to carry them out are just not available.

In my opinion many organizations would benefit from increasing the resources to IT and shifting the focus from passive supplier to active participant in using information technology to meet business needs. This requires staffing IT with some people that are able to work with others to determine business needs and then determine the best IT solutions and then deliver those solutions. I have found many IT people are well suited to this role (though not all – which is fine those that prefer to focus on technical implementation can do so).

Another reason this often makes sense is how integral IT is to the functioning of the company. Expertise is technology is often very important today (and it is often missing). And getting your proactive quality experts working closing with IT will help them provide more value.

This post presents some thoughts in response to: Does anyone see value in merging Quality and Information Technology departments into a Business Process Management department?

Related: Software Supporting Processes Not the Other Way Around – Information Technology and Management – Using Quality Management Principles to Develop an Internet Resource by John Hunter, Jun 1999 (pdf)

Does the Data Deluge Make the Scientific Method Obsolete?

Posted on September 29, 2008  Comments (6)

The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete by Chris Anderson

“All models are wrong, but some are useful.”

So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago, and he was right. But what choice did we have? Only models, from cosmological equations to theories of human behavior, seemed to be able to consistently, if imperfectly, explain the world around us. Until now. Today companies like Google, which have grown up in an era of massively abundant data, don’t have to settle for wrong models. Indeed, they don’t have to settle for models at all.
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Speaking at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference this past March, Peter Norvig, Google’s research director, offered an update to George Box’s maxim: “All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them.”
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There is now a better way. Petabytes allow us to say: “Correlation is enough.” We can stop looking for models. We can analyze the data without hypotheses about what it might show. We can throw the numbers into the biggest computing clusters the world has ever seen and let statistical algorithms find patterns where science cannot.

see update, below. Norvig was misquoted, he agrees with Box’s maxim

I must say I am not at all convinced that a new method without theory ready to supplant the existing scientific method. Now I can’t find peter Norvig’s exact words online (come on Google – organize all the world’s information for me please). If he said that using massive stores of data to make discoveries in new ways radically changing how we can learn and create useful systems, that I believe. I do enjoy the idea of trying radical new ways of viewing what is possible.

Practice Makes Perfect: How Billions of Examples Lead to Better Models (summary of his talk on the conference web site):

In this talk we will see that a computer might not learn in the same way that a person does, but it can use massive amounts of data to perform selected tasks very well. We will see that a computer can correct spelling mistakes, translate from Arabic to English, and recognize celebrity faces about as well as an average human—and can do it all by learning from examples rather than by relying on programming.

Related: Will the Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete? – Pragmatism and Management Knowledge – Data Based Decision Making at Google – Seeing Patterns Where None Exists – Manage what you can’t measure – Data Based Blathering – Understanding Data – Webcast on Google Innovation
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Management Improvement Carnival #43

Posted on September 15, 2008  Comments (0)

Read the previous management carnivals. I posted on a new tool for finding management resources online, I will monitor the management Reddit for popular new blog posts to include in future carnivals.

  • Where Does Bad Corporate Culture Come From, and Can It Be Corrected? by Tim Prosser – “while it is natural for bad organizational culture to develop, this tendency can be countered and a more positive and productive organizational culture can be produced, though it requires savvy and introspective management.”
  • Toyota’s Commitment to People by Mark Graban – “I’m sure keeping the workers on and training them (with real work, not just letting them sit in the cafeteria) is all about the long-term good of the company.”
  • Consulting is easy by Pascal Van Cauwenberghe – “Real Lean is making use of the collective wisdom of everybody in the organisation.”
  • Prioritizing and Planning for Market Risk by David Anderson – “Matts-Maassen tells us to push back decisions as far as possible and to gather information, create options and understand when they expire. This helps us to optimize decision making and minimum the risk of a decision being a bad one.”
  • An IT Guy Gets Lean by Kevin Meyer – “This isn’t to mean that all software is a problem, and we definitely believe that software tools, appropriately deployed, can create value. But more often than not they mask waste and reduce the ability to change by enforcing rigid processes”
  • 5 Things I am Still Learning about Lean Manufacturing by Jon Miller – “maybe I am only just learning that if you properly take care of the people issues first, the factory will fix itself.”
  • Congratulations. You’ve mapped out the future state. Now what? by Dan Markovitz – “Establishing standard work, understanding limits and leveling the workload so as not to overload people, allowing them to actually create the future state they’ve mapped out — this is a humane, rational, and far better way to work.”
  • The problem with single points of failure – “Companies can’t rely on people like me, or Dr. Hammer, to be their single point of failure. A great process or great ideas must be capable of going on without you.” – I wrote on a similar topic for the Curious Cat Management blog in May: Well Managed Companies
  • Lean Tutorial: Production Capacity Template by Ron Pereira – webcast walks through using a spreadsheet (template included in the post) to manage the production line.
  • Future Directions for Agile Management by John Hunter – “Deliver working systems quickly (with limited features, add features based on user needs)… Build systems that cope well with uncertainty and allow for constant continuous improvement of processes”

Deming’s 14 Points (for software development)

Posted on March 28, 2008  Comments (0)

Deming’s 14 points (for software development) by Jamie Dinkelacker (Geo/Maps Engineering Program Manager at Google Inc. Focus on lean principles and agile practices for software development):

W. Edwards Deming’s work on quality, while widely misinterpreted and misapplied in the USA, was nonetheless a watershed that Japanese companies, especially Toyota, took to heart…
Below are Deming’s 14 points accompanied by commentary related to software development.
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Design quality in, don’t use inspection to find errors. Mistake proof the system.
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In a fearful environment, workers do not operate in the organization’s best interest; instead their energies are by necessity focused on self-protection.
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Mistakes typically come from bad systems not bad workers. Don’t exhort people to work harder or smarter; instead create a more intelligent workflow and system tailored tot he essential nature of software development as human collaboration (not just coordination) such that people can excel.

A good read. Also a good blog on management improvement ideas and software development (though not very active). See my Deming on Management resource where I try to explain what Dr. Deming actually said and meant and dispel some misconceptions.

Related: Dr. Deming’s 14 Points – Deming’s Ideas at Markey’s Audio Visual – Lean, Toyota and Deming for Software Development – Google: Ten Golden Rules

Management Improvement Carnival #30

Posted on February 29, 2008  Comments (0)

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals.

IT Operations as a Competitive Advantage

Posted on October 26, 2007  Comments (1)

Operations is a competitive advantage… (Secret Sauce for Startups!)

The example above is the tale of two Web 2.0 startups scaling to 20 systems during their first three months. The first team starts writing software and installing systems as they go, waiting to deal with the “ops stuff” until they have an “ops person”. The second team dedicates someone to infrastructure for the first few weeks and ramps up from there. They won’t need to hire an “ops person” for a long time and can focus on building great technology.

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

Hiring: Silicon Valley Style

Posted on August 6, 2007  Comments (3)

Interviews on how to hire in Silicon Valley. I especially like Guy Kawasaki’s comment – “the key to getting great people to work for you is to have a great product. That is why Google does so well. That is why Apple does so well.” I agree with the concept that a huge part of hiring good people is offering them a place where they feel proud of what they are working on. This is even more true when you talk about great software developers that have more choice than most in how they choose to earn a living.

via: How Are Companies in Silicon Valley Hiring?

Related: Interviewing and Hiring Programmers – Google’s Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm – Google Exceeded Planned Spending on Personnel

Information Technology and Management

Posted on May 4, 2007  Comments (4)

Dog Eat Dog by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson

The CVS experience is a microcosm of a pervasive trend toward using IT to replicate not only digital goods and services but also business processes. This trend encompasses core activities such as customer service and order management, as well as support activities such as accounting and human resources. Once a company embeds its processes in IT, the processes are executed the same way not only across locations, but also over time. This means, for example, that a company can ensure that no large customer order will be accepted until a specific credit check is performed.

While creating an innovative business process is less visible than developing a new product or investing in factories, our research shows it is actually more important to a company’s success. Intangible process capital is changing the way companies operate and the capabilities they possess. As a result, it also is changing the way they compete.

This is very true. But while on this topic, a risk I see is people seeing adoption of technology as the end rather than the facilitator. The IT solutions should support the organization and help the organization improve performance. The technology should not tie the organizations hands (as it can so easily do when implemented without an understanding of systems thinking, variation, process improvement, sub-optimization, psychology…). I believe in the value of in-house IT resources to create IT solutions that support the organization (rather than buying off the shelf solutions that end up making the organization conform to the software).
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Using Google to Eliminate Some IT Costs

Posted on March 24, 2007  Comments (0)

Computer Science 101: A Case Study In Google Applications:

Sannier plans to shut down the university’s own e-mail servers later this spring. When that happens, thousands more will move over. The portal provides access to other functions of Google Apps, including calendar (which users can now share online, something they couldn’t do before), instant messaging, and search. Within the next two months, Sannier expects to offer personalized home pages and Google’s Docs & Spreadsheets applications combo.

The cost to ASU: zero. The university had been spending a half-million dollars a year on servers and storage for its open source e-mail system, including administrative support costs. More important is the faster pace of innovation. “Now we’re on Google’s development curve, not ours,” Sannier says.

Google’s efforts with Google Apps have fairly quietly become quite significant. I find gmail excellent (and Google talk and Google calendar are good but hopefully will be improved significantly). I must say I find Open Office very good and so don’t quite see the value in Google docs but maybe I am missing something (for those few documents that benefit from collaboration Google’s model sounds interesting – though a wiki seem like the best option in that case). Seems very possible Google Apps are an example of Clayton Christensen’s concept of disruptive innovation.

Joel Management

Posted on December 17, 2005  Comments (3)

Topic: Management Improvement, Lean Thinking

Joel Spolsky writes the excellent Joel on Software blog and runs Fog Creek Software. Recently he has been writing about process improvement of the order fulfillment process for a movie on the experience of interns at Fog Creek Software, How to Ship Anything by Joel Spolsky

Shipping an international order now takes about 35 seconds, down from 3 minutes, and can be done by anyone, whether or not they have SQL and Mail Merge skills. Domestic orders are even faster since they don’t need customs forms. Most of all, it’s all really fun.

Joel is a great writer and tells a interesting story about of how they improved the process. This is one of a series of articles on the process improvement around order fulfillment for the documentary made of “project Aardvark”:
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