Richard J. Bocchinfuso

Identify how attitudes in the workplace have changed throughout the years? (Do not go back any longer than two decades. Consider many factors such as media, events, and generational gaps.) Does this change impact the organizational culture?

My apologies for the late post, substantial travel, predictably poor United Wifi, a 68-hour contiguous work day and 90+ hour work week left me with limited options. My week this week is a true testament to organizational culture, and also to generational gaps. First off it’s hard to work nearly three days straight with no sleep, but myself and as well as eight others on my teams did so as we worked through a critical defect. I flew back from California on a red-eye last night and called my 78-year-old dad from the car on my way home from the airport at 8 AM this morning. Of course, we discussed his week and my week and his comment to me was “Son, when you take the number of hours you work and divide into your salary you make minimum wage”. There is a story to be told here. 🙂

If I am going to identify or discuss how the workplace has changed throughout the years and only go back two decades, essentially looking at the period starting 1998 to current day 2018, in my opinion, there is one place to focus, and it’s the era of the millennial. At the risk of rewinding a little too far without a focus beyond the last two decades. I am going to look back three generations to the Baby Boomers (~ 1946-1964), the post-WWII generation, this provides a little more context for some of my thoughts as well as the ability for me to leverage some of my personal experiences. Following the Baby Boomers we have Generation X (1965-1979), the generation I hail from, then the Millennials (~ 1981 – 1997), the generation which comprises the majority of the workforce which I interact with and manage on a daily basis.

As a Gen Xer, I carried forward many of the traits of my Baby Boomer parents, my Dad was born in 1940, so he is technically part of the Silent Generation, but close enough for this discussion. My parents were dutiful and respectful, and they passed traits and philosophies like don’t question your elders, obedience, being on time, acceptance, work will never kill you, and most importantly the Calvinist belief of working hard and being thrifty. I also think it’s important, at least contextually that I grew up with negative motivation, nothing was ever good enough, could have always done more, worked a little harder, etc… fear was and still is a primary motivator.

As a Gen Xer living in a millennial world, it is easy to become disillusioned, while fear motivates me and I am comfortable with it, this is not the case for the millennial generation. I have learned recent years that millennials are very talented, but a purpose is super important. From my experience, the millennial posses traits which focus on the greater good, culture is critical, and they value purpose over profits. How we communicate with the millennial generation differs significantly from prior generations. Millennials are looking to develop close relationships and receive frequent feedback.
(Myers, 2018) I find this interesting because the need for teamwork and consensus to de-risk themselves, the need for constant feedback, etc… seems to be counter to the need for autonomy. The reality is millennials work well in teams, they organize and communicate well, they are comfortable with team success, and they can produce great outcomes when put in situations which make them feel comfortable. There is no doubt that emotional intelligence is critical when navigating and motivating a multigenerational workforce. (Njoroge, 2014)

While we can look at the impact of social media, world events, etc… as influencers of organizational culture I believe they pale in contrast to the cultural shifts which have been created by generational gaps, specifically the entrance of the millennial philosophies into the workforce. Let me explain, sites like Glassdoor are posted to and read by millennials, they have a significant impact on organizational culture, organizational policy, etc… but I have never posted to Glassdoor. While I am interested in politics and I have political views, my reactions to the political climate once a decision is made, is one of acceptance, focusing on things I have direct control over to make a difference and moving on, this is not what I observe with the millennial generation. Millennials dream big, they believe they can impact massive change, this is all great stuff, but I also have found a fair amount of disillusionment.

All of these influencers have a tremendous impact on organizational culture. I believe that most of the cultural changes have been extremely positive, of course not every change is rainbows and unicorns, but from a macro perspective, the changes have been extremely positive.

References

American Generation Fast Facts. (2017, August 27). Retrieved March 16, 2018, from https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/06/us/baby-boomer-generation-fast-facts/index.html

Glassdoor Job Search | Find the job that fits your life. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2018, from https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm

Myers, K. K., & Sadaghiani, K. (2010). Millennials in the workplace: A communication perspective on millennials’ organizational relationships and performance. Journal of Business and Psychology, 25(2), 225-238.

Njoroge, C. N., & Yazdanifard, R. (2014). The impact of social and emotional intelligence on employee motivation in a multigenerational workplace. International Journal of Information, Business and Management, 6(4), 163.

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. (2018). Essentials of organizational behavior. New York, NY: Pearson.

Response 1

Steve, great post. You make a good point regarding the average number of jobs held in a lifetime. It’s interesting after reading your post, writing a couple myself as well as this weeks assignment, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about organizational behavior, corporate culture, etc… I also focused a fair amount of time on millennials as the lens which magnified an inevitable cultural shift.

As I think about the point you’ve brought up regarding the velocity and frequency with which people make jobs moves, I am reminded that in my field most people are incredibly focused on personal mastery, what they do is a lifestyle, it’s who they are. We all maintain Github repositories; spend hours a day reading and posting on StackOverflow, our day is spent time-slicing between corporate initiatives and contribution to Open Source projects, and we try to align the two as much as possible. The business seems to have less control than ever because they need the developers, but often struggle to quantify their activities. This is such a pervasive movement that books like “The New Kingmakers” have chronicled the developer sub-culture and the control it commands.

“‘GitHub’s Zack Holman suggests that employers should “[i]mprison your employees with happiness and nice things and cuddly work processes.’ GitHub itself does just that with flexible hours, excellent compensation and benefits packages, an enjoyable work environment, an in-house kegorator, and more. The results speak for themselves: incredibly, GitHub has never lost an employee.” (Ogrady, 2013, p. 47)

If you know you have an insanely motivated workforce, the case for “The New Kingmakers” then you just need to figure out how to hold onto them. Easier said than done, companies might want you to do X, Y or Z, all might be reasonable requests, but “The New Kingmaker” will just go next door.

References

Build software better, together. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2018, from https://github.com/

OGrady, S. (2013). The New Kingmakers. OReilly Media.

Stack Overflow – Where Developers Learn, Share, & Build Careers. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2018, from https://stackoverflow.com/

Discuss the different ways management can increase job satisfaction within the organization. Look at unique ways besides simply increasing pay or bonuses.

My apologies for the late post, substantial travel, predictably poor United Wifi, a 68-hour contiguous work day and 90+ hour work week left me with limited options. For as long as I can remember the satisfaction I received from working on puzzles and solving complex problems has always overshadowed the pain endured getting there.

I recently received an email from our VP of Human Resources thanking me for my dedication and leadership. I responded to this email stating the following:

I really love this stuff and I am a very lucky individual. I just spend my days trying to inspire others to love it as much as I do (or to get somewhere close).
Thankful to my parents for that TRS-80 and the acoustic coupler they bought me in the early 80s, the phone bills they let me run up, their tolerance of me sitting in front of the computer for hours-and-hours as a kid and the fact that I grew up in a time where they didn’t take me to a doctor because of it.
Thankful for the latitude I have been given much of my career to just execute.
In reality, it’s pretty easy for me, because I love it, there’s truly nothing I would rather be doing than sitting in front of a computer, I’d be worried if I wasn’t at least OK at it.

I think it’s important to start by defining job satisfaction. “Job satisfaction is defined as the extent to which employees like their work.” (Harter, 2002 p. 27) The text states that job satisfaction and job involvement, the degree which an individual identifies psychologically with their job. (Robbins, 2018 p. 37) I always have used employee engagement as the primary metric for job satisfaction. My belief has always been if I can increase employee engagement then I can increase job satisfaction. To be and remain relevant in my chosen profession requires immense personal investment, without employee engagement, success is out of reach. I believe something called the “Blue Button Moment” (Your Best Agile User Story, n.d.) captures the essence of employee engagement, and how the outcomes differ based on engagement. The “RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us” (RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us., 2010) video also captures engagement when it discusses engagement and the importance of self-direction, autonomy, mastery, and purpose. The video uses the Open Source movement to demonstrate the shift from the profit motive to the purpose motive.

My organization does a number of things to drive engagement.
We leverage gamification and peer accolades heavily using platforms like DueProps (DueProps, n.d.) and HeyTaco (HeyTaco, n.d.) provide incremental rewards, focused on mastery, purpose and peer recognition.
My company has published and well-understood core values and every individual is expected to be aligned with these values. Our core values are: Customer Centric, Accountability, Teamwork, Integrity, and Adaptability. (FusionStorm Culture, n.d.)
We also have a corporate mission statement which is: “As experienced technology leaders we are committed to always executing for our clients. We are passionate about solving clients’ unique business problems through innovative solutions. We evolve, reinvent, and push boundaries of what’s possible through our community of employees, clients, and partners.” (FusionStorm Culture, n.d.)

Each division of the organization is challenged to create a mission or vision statement that aligns with the corporate messaging but also fosters thought and alignment with divisional objectives. The mission statement of my team is: “To operate each and every day with such belief, heart, and grit that it inspires and compels our peers, prospects, and customers to see things our way.” (Bocchinfuso, 2018)

We challenge people with fun team-oriented activities like hackathons and SolveIT Days, modeled after Atlassian ShipIt Days (ShipIt Days, n.d.).
Earlier this month we conducted a team meeting which included a Raspberry Pi hackathon, here a time-lapse video from the FusionStorm Expert Services Kickoff 2018 Meeting. (FusionStorm Expert Services 2018 Kickoff, 2018)
All the prep for the Raspberry Pi projects was done on discretionary time, not much discretionary time exists when you work a job that routine demands twelve to fifteen hours days, but the team was highly committed and driven by purpose and mastery. There was no reward other than personal fulfillment, following the completion of all the presentations we conducted a peer vote to identify who demonstrated the best vision and execution. The top two finishers will attend OSCON 2018 in Portland, OR with me in July for a week of learning and they are super excited, but they didn’t know this until after the projects were done, this was not their motivation.

It has become nearly impossible for unengaged employees to survive in our culture, and we relentlessly pursue a culture rooted in autonomy, mastery, and purpose. These drivers have become pervasive throughout the hi-tech sector and were summed up very well in a passage from an article published in the Winter 2017-2018 issue of 2600 Magazine. The snippet from the article reads as follows:
“If you want to enter the world of hackers, programmers, hardware/software/network engineers and the like as a profession, you better do it with passion and with a mindset that is not of a regular office worker. Live it, breathe it, learn it – build your experience, think outside of the box, tinker, design, test. It cannot be a job – it must be part of your life. If not, there’s the door. Do it as a hobby, or find something different to do. This is not just a job for many of us. It is our world, our life’s work, our passion, our dream that for some has become reality. Don’t devalue it by just making it another job. If you want to treat it as just a job – as I said before – leave! And don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” (Ells, 2017)

References

Your Best Agile User Story. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2018, from https://www.alexandercowan.com/best-agile-user-story/

DueProps. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2018, from https://dueprops.com/

Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L., & Hayes, T. L. (2002). Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: a meta-analysis. Journal of applied psychology, 87(2), 268.

Ells, S. (2017). The Problem with IT Certifications and Their Contribution to the Devaluation of Technology. 2600 Magazine: The Hacker Quarterly, 34(3). Retrieved October 9, 2017, from https://www.amazon.com/2600-Magazine-The-Hacker-Quarterly/dp/B004GB1WF6/2600magazi-20

FusionStorm Culture. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2018, from http://fusionstorm.com/company/culture/

FusionStorm Expert Services 2018 Kickoff. (2018, March 03). Retrieved March 16, 2018, from https://youtu.be/9lwK-nqRMXk

HeyTaco! (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2018, from https://www.heytaco.chat/

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. (2018). Essentials of organizational behavior. New York, NY: Pearson.

RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. (2010, April 01). Retrieved March 16, 2018, from https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc

ShipIt Days. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2018, from https://www.atlassian.com/company/shipit

Professor Response

I enjoyed your response but there are distringuishers between job satisfaction, job involvement, and engagement. Personally, I am not a fan of the term ‘engagement’ as it doesn’t really focus on what is needed for an worker to be involved in the work they do. Engagement means that one has some level of satisfaction and is committed to achieving the goals of the organization; what is missing is the psychological part which raises one’s passions and motivation to tap into their skills and abilities and get the work done. Your organization sounds like it s committed to having happy employees.

As an aside, last year I was seeking some help for some marketing with my business. The high-level person I was meeting with asked me what my bottom-line, end-result was, to which I replied “happiness,’ This person scoffed and said ‘Who would buy that?” Needless to say, I did not return but I think it shows the mentality of some corporate in that happiness is an elusive concept, so more tangibles should be the focus, such as pray or productivity when, really, workers just want to be happy in their jobs. Considering that employees spend the majority of their time at work (the other majority is in sleep), and being with people who are not family or friends, why wouldn’t workplace happiness be the goal.

My Response to Professor

Professor, some excellent insights and I agree that a word like “engagement” is a bit nebulous.  I also think that “happiness” is a great goal, and that happy employees probably produce the best widgets so there is a correlation between happiness and “who would buy that”.  I have always mapped engagement to what one does with their discretionary time.  Working in a highly technical field, it’s hard to be successful if you love cooking and would rather be in a kitchen crafting culinary delights rather than in front of a computer looking at source code.  I’ve lived through the profit motive and in some ways I am still living it, ask some high-level folks within my organization what their goals are and they will respond with “more, more revenue, more gross profit, etc..”, the profit motive is clearly unmoored from the purpose motive.  As a leader, I view it as my responsibility to ensure that those who respond like the individual who said to you “who would buy that”, know that human capital is the most important thing we possess, without the right human capital there will be nothing to sell.  With said accountability should not impact happiness, this is why I think a true passion for what you do is important.  In a high-pressure, fast-paced culture loving what you do makes all the difference regarding happiness, because check out to refuel often isn’t an option.

Response 1

Scott, excellent post, as usual, you always do a nice job of personalizing your point which I enjoy. I think you hit a key point regarding job satisfaction; everyone finds different ways to identify satisfaction, the work, the people, the mission, etc… Sometimes these are tightly couples and other times they are mutually exclusive.

Want to hit on the “I like my job because I like the people I work with” topic because I am dealing with this at the moment, where an individual likes (“loves”) their job because they like the people they get to work with every day, but there is a problem. While this person is being honest and is also well liked it’s unclear if this individual enjoys the work, as time passes this becomes a more significant issue because it’s hard for this individual to invest the time required to perform the level being demanded of them. It’s a challenge. I’ll let you know how it turns out. 🙂

I agree with you meeting point. I have adopted the Amazon six-pager (Jeff Bezos’s Peculiar Management Tool for Self-Discipline, 2017) and the “two pizza rule” (Giang, 2013) approach to meetings.

When I think about work from home I think about flexibility and autonomy; my philosophy is I am where I need to be. I fly 100K+ miles a year, I go to customer sites, the office when required, but if my calendar has me on video conferences all day I am not wasting the commute time, it’s just common sense. Being there is no longer 90% of the battle, there is significantly more nuance to consider when making these decisions. I would argue that with the dawn of the video conference, the smartphone, Email shifting to real-time chat platforms like Slack (Hulick, 2016) and HipChat the idea that remote worker is working less is probably coming from someone who has never been restrained by these technological shackles. When you can’t see someone you expect them to respond because you know they got the message, we’re way past an Orwellian version of 1984.

References

Giang, V. (2013, October 29). The ‘Two Pizza Rule’ Is Jeff Bezos’ Secret To Productive Meetings. Retrieved March 18, 2018, from http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-two-pizza-rule-for-productive-meetings-2013-10

Hulick, S. (2016, February 29). Slack, I’m Breaking Up with You – UX of User Onboarding. Retrieved March 18, 2018, from https://ux.useronboard.com/slack-i-m-breaking-up-with-you-54600ace03ea

Jeff Bezos’s Peculiar Management Tool for Self-Discipline. (2017, Feb 04). Retrieved March 18, 2018, from http://blog.idonethis.com/jeff-bezos-self-discipline-writing/

How can an organization effectively manage diversity? How does this apply to an organization you know well? Consider the various concepts discussed within the chapter when developing this response. Also, I am looking for unique solutions for the difficult problems encountered.

I think at one point or another we’ve all felt discriminated against, to young, too old, not well dressed enough, what’s with the facial hair, etc… These prejudices maybe are not as caustic or polarizing as discriminatory issues associated with race, color, creed, national origin, ancestry, gender or sexual orientation but in my experience, there is no shortage of stereotyping in humanity and as the text states it’s these predispositions that fuel workplace discrimination.

My company mandates training for diversity and other associated topics. Just yesterday I received my annual invite to “Preventing Workplace Harassment Training” hosted by emtrain (https://emtrain.com/about). I love this training, complete with a warning system that resembles the color-coded terrorism threat advisory system devised by the Homeland Security Agency, and the vignettes that seem so preposterous. Then, of course, we hear stories about people like Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose and we realize that the vignettes are actually pretty pedestrian in comparison to reality. Training is one way that my organization and other organizations work to manage diversity. My company and the HR department is also big on Emotional Intelligence, developing Emotional Intelligence can help us to be more aware, understand how what we say and do might be perceived, how our position within an organization can impact perceived intent, etc… Sure there are clear areas of discrimination which are binary, but often intent plays a big role where things aren’t so binary, self-awareness can help us better understand how our intent might be perceived. Tools like 360-degree assessments (aka reviews) can help us better understand our behaviors and how we are perceived, this candid feedback can help us become better leaders and people.

I tend to be a very direct person, but not everyone responds well to my direct approach. I am lucky to work in an environment which is very diverse, I enjoy differing perspectives, but I have a low tolerance for workplace politics. For years I had a general refusal to help subordinate peers work through their issues with each other, I would provide wise words like “you two need to work this $%#^ out because it has no place in the workplace”, yeah, that never really worked out all that well. 🙂 About four years ago we hired a new VP or HR who became active in the day to day operations; this was really helpful for me, I was now able to talk through issues with this person, and they would provide sound objective advice on how to best handle the situation. As an engineer, and not someone who sees focuses on the difference between people, instead focusing on what they have to offer, I did realize that I wasn’t taking the time to understand others and as a leader, this could be perceived as discriminatory.

When I read about things like wage inequality based on sexual orientation (Ozeren, 2014, p. 5) or flat out disqualifying someone based on sexual orientation (Ozeren, 2014, p. 6) it seems mind-boggling to me personally, but we are culturally polarized on this topic like so many other topics, so objectively speaking the facts are not all that surprising.

One thing I started doing a couple of years ago was using an online tool called text.io to write my job descriptions to improve the diversity of applicants and to ensure that I am using words, phrases, and tone that allows me to recruit the best and brightest candidates. text.io leverages big data, machine learning, and natural language processing to analyze and compare job listings with other companies competing for same diverse and talented individuals.

The World Is Flat (great book by Thomas L. Friedman by the way, I highly recommend it), and we live in a global economy; in my opinion diversity should no longer a have to be driven by mandates (e.g – EOE and AAP), because it’s the fuel by which companies will grow in the future. Sadly we still need programs like EOE and AA, but I am hopeful that one-day humanity will transcend race, creed, color, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, etc… and allow us to realize Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream fully.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Much progress has been made since Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail written on April 16, 1963, and the “I Have A Dream” address he delivered in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963, but there is more work to be done. The more diverse our subcultures become, the more diverse our culture becomes.

References

Boyatzis, D. G. (2017, December 05). Emotional Intelligence Has 12 Elements. Which Do You Need to Work On? Retrieved March 09, 2018, from https://hbr.org/2017/02/emotional-intelligence-has-12-elements-which-do-you-need-to-work-on

Ozeren, E. (2014). Sexual Orientation Discrimination in the Workplace: A Systematic Review of Literature. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 109, 1203-1215. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.12.613

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. (2018). Essentials of organizational behavior. New York, NY: Pearson.

Response 1

Scott, love the reference to “Full Metal Jacket”.  I’ll admit I’ve known a few people over the years who may have benefitted from a bar of soap and sock.  In all seriousness what happen to Private Leonard Lawrence better known as “Private Pyle” in the film shows the danger of groupthink in a caustic culture.  Was everyone with a bar of soap in a sock a bad person?  Did Pfc. Louden Downey and Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson wants to carry out the code red on Pfc. William Santiago?  See how I switched films on you there but stayed with the theme. 🙂  While I think that training is critical, leadership is probably the most glaring problem in both of these cases and in most cases where discrimination and harassment are pervasive.  Sure we could say the leaders weren’t properly trained, but they should be the trainers, and of course, the trainers need to be trained but they are in leadership positions personally I expect more.  Then again I find myself let down often by my expectations.

References

Tsai, Y. (2011). Relationship between Organizational Culture, Leadership Behavior and Job Satisfaction. BMC Health Services Research, 11(1). doi:10.1186/1472-6963-11-98

Response 2

Steve, I agree with Scott regarding training, but my question is when does the training begin.  I propose it starts much earlier than when an individual enters the workforce and is subjected to organizational diversity training.  The muscle memory created when I minds are most malleable will likely persist for a long, long time and while these predispositions can be masked the judging and stereotyping that lies beneath the social facade continues to fuel discriminatory behavior.

I read these two articles recently:

• Sheryl Sandberg has a plan for the 50% of male managers afraid to mentor women
• Since #MeToo, the Number of Men Who Are Uncomfortable Mentoring Women Has Tripled

The situations Sheryl Sandberg outline is very real, dangerous and disturbing.  We have to start aggressively training humanity, these are problems that end up in organizations, but I don’t believe they originate there, nor do I believe they can be rectified there.

Discussion

Discussion Question: Bruce’s website development project is nearing an end, and upper management must decide what to do with the resources associated with the project. Bruce’s team met all schedule and expenditure goals, but the product they produced (a video-swapping online destination) has underperformed in terms of ad revenue and visitors. Which form of termination would you recommend upper management consider for Bruce’s project? (p. 420 Project Management Textbook)

Based on the project termination types defined in the text, I believe the best form of termination for this project would be “project extinction”
(Portny, 2008, p. 414).

I believe “project extinction” is the proper form project termination because the website development project is nearing the end (suddenly stopping), and while it met schedule and budget goals the project has a high probability of failure due to revenue and site traffic underperformance. At the termination of the project, there will be resources to be reassigned; there may also be intellectual property and other assets that may have reuse.

References

Portny, Stanley E. (2008). Wiley Pathways Project Management, 1st Edition. Wiley Higher Ed. Kindle Edition.

Assignment

In the video for this week, a risk and mitigation plan was discussed.  Develop a partial risk and mitigation plan for three different risks that could be affiliated with a construction project to add a new facility on a college campus.  The partial risk and mitigation plan need to include the rank, title, risk description, probability of occurrence, impact if it occurs, and the earliest/latest the risk impact could occur.  The other sections of the risk and mitigation plan are not necessary for this assignment.

[google-drive-embed url=”https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JyeHIIJKuOPb8fRxZpXjhsUYuWI9VwwYlEE1eiXJxKs/preview?usp=drivesdk” title=”FIT – MGT 5113 – Week 8 Assignment” icon=”https://drive-thirdparty.googleusercontent.com/16/type/application/vnd.google-apps.spreadsheet” width=”100%” height=”400″ style=”embed”]

Week 8 Exam (#4):  80%

Exhausted, should have done better, stupid mistakes!!

Discussion

Discussion Question #1: Your organization has effective systems in place to track work-effort and expenditures, but needs to do a better job at monitoring quality
How can Six Sigma be beneficial for an IT project?

Six Sigma focused on better understanding project requirements, improving quality and delivery, reducing cost and waste while improving competitive position through continuous improvement.

Six Sigma takes Total Quality Managment (TQM) and Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) to the next level. By leveraging the value of TQM and CQI, and adding customer focus, empirical data analysis systems, financial results and project management. M

Six Sigma is a framework which tackles both organizational structures as well as project methodology. This approach focuses on:

• Continuous improvement, driving towards zero defect delivery, thus improving the overall quality.
• Cost savings by increasing efficiency, removing waste and reducing variations. This practice is often referred to as Lean Six Sigma. With ties to lean manufacturing.
• Streamlined communications, transparency and teamwork.
• Improve the total customer experience.

Agile and Six Sigma share similar principles, but Six Sigma’s focus on process standardization and reducing variances seem to contradict the Agile approach. The emergence of practices like Lean IT and DevOps seek more closely align frameworks like Agile, and Six Sigma with IT use cases. The emerging IT operating models take the best principles from differing structures to deliver a framework which has roots but is even more applicable to the ever-changing IT landscape.

References

Anbari, F. T. (2012, October 3). Six sigma method and its applications in project management. Retrieved February 21, 2018, from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/six-sigma-method-applications-pm-8515

Edmead, M. (2015, July 21). Lean IT and DevOps: The new kids on the block. Retrieved February 21, 2018, from https://www.cio.com/article/2900051/agile-development/lean-it-and-devops-the-new-kids-on-the-block.html

Zucjer, D. (n.d.). Integrating Project Management into a Six Sigma System. Retrieved February 21, 2018, from https://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/project-management/integrating-project-management-six-sigma-system/

Gullo, D. J. (2016, October 21). Agile in General. Retrieved February 21, 2018, from http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2731927&seqNum=3

Rogers, G. (2016, December 16). Why DevOps is the Future of IT. Retrieved February 21, 2018, from https://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/pex-tools-technologies/columns/why-devops-is-the-future-of-it

Williams, P. H. (n.d.). Zero Defects: What Does It Achieve? What Does It Mean? Retrieved February 21, 2018, from https://www.isixsigma.com/new-to-six-sigma/sigma-level/zero-defects-what-does-it-achieve-what-does-it-mean/

Discussion Question #2: Research IT Governance. To begin, here is one link on the topic: http://www.isaca.org/Knowledge-Center/Val-IT-IT-Value-Delivery-/Documents/IT-Value-Special-Compilation.pdf
What are three important IT governance ideas you have for contributing towards a successful IT Project? 

IT governance is a way to align IT strategy and business strategy. IT governance frameworks such as ITIL and COBIT create a structure and best practices to govern various aspects of IT.

The three ideas that I have that contribute to a successful IT project are:

1.  Focus on delivering stakeholder value (aka, be customer centric).

2.  Favor accountability and agility over rigidity and responsibility

This can be a difficult cultural shift; many cultures are overly focused on rigid and detailed maps for success, confused by the idea that there is no play for a fumble recovery, everyone just runs to the ball. Today’s high-performing organizations look at this in two ways

1. They need a framework that is standards-based and is easy for people to understand, something like ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) framework.
2. Culturally everyone on the field needs to run to the ball and hold their peers accountable for not putting in 110% every time.

The importance of a high-performance culture cannot be overlooked.

3. Fail fast and focus on continuous improvement. Quickly determine if an idea or a direction have merit, make a quick pivot when an idea or an approach is not working, rather than locking into a rigid plan that delivers a low yield.

References

ISACA (2008). Enterprise Value: Governance of IT Investments: The Val IT™ Framework 2.0. Retrieved February 21, 2018, from http://www.isaca.org/Knowledge-Center/Val-IT-IT-Value-Delivery-/Documents/IT-Value-Special-Compilation.pdf

Lindros, K. (2017, July 31). What is IT governance? A formal way to align IT & business strategy. Retrieved February 21, 2018, from https://www.cio.com/article/2438931/governance/governanceit-governance-definition-and-solutions.html

What is fail fast? – Definition from WhatIs.com. (n.d.). Retrieved February 21, 2018, from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/fail-fast

Discussion

Discussion Question:  Two team members on the large multidisciplinary product testing team you project manage are consistently late turning in weekly reports. When you spoke with each of the team members individually, they both said, essentially, that you aren’t their manager so getting their reports to you is of secondary importance to them. What are two specific things you can do to encourage these team members to contribute to the project on time? (p. 312 Project Management Textbook)

I have this saying use all the time “agility and accountability over rigidity and responsibility”. For me, the best teams are agile and accountable, while these teams are capable of following the vision and structure created they are also dynamic enough to pivot when required. Contrast this with the rigid and responsible team who is adverse to change, struggles to work as a team or be accountable for that which they don’t have direct responsibility.  In short, build “agile and accountable” self-managing teams.

Project managers have a difficult job, the project manager has to manage diverse teams with limited direct power. I believe that communication and constituency are keys to success, the project manager has to lead by clearly articulating a vision/purpose and getting people on board (garnering buy-in and building a constituency). The text references exploring the “why” (Portny, 2008, p. 218). There is a great TEDx talk by Simon Sinek that I think captures the power of starting with “why”.

Simon Sinek at TEDx: How great leaders inspire action
Sinek also has a book entitled “Start With Why” which further explores the ideas conveyed in the TEDx talk.

The text discusses power and influence, for me influence is power. The question is how to establish influence?  In my opinion, the best way to do this is through contribution, the ability to understand the “why”, communicating the “why” to others and inspiring them is one way to contribute, subject matter expertise is another way to contribute. Regardless of the method of contribution, constituents don’t want to be commanded by you they want to be collaborating with you. In my opinion, achieved power is far more effective than ascribed power.

Given the specific problem with the two team members outlined I think there are two things, the project manager needs to ascertain.

• Is the individual’s direct managers goals aligned with the project.
  • If the messaging from direct management is not aligned with the project goals is is likely a big reason for why the work is being turned in late.
  • If direct management is aligned with the project goals, it might make sense to involve this person in a discussion with the problematic team member so they can realize that their direct management supports the project.
• Assuming the direct line manager is fully onboard with the project and has made this clear to the team member, it is possible that either this is just the wrong person for the team or maybe the wrong role on the team.
  • The project manager should explore if and how they can garner buy-in from this individual.
  • If they can’t garner buy-in they should quickly look to make a change.

References

Portny, Stanley E. (2008). Wiley Pathways Project Management, 1st Edition. Wiley Higher Ed. Kindle Edition.

Week 6 Exam (#3):  90%

Discussion

Discussion Question: You create person loading charts for the three members of a research team you’re managing for the next month. For this project, a full-time commitment is 40 hours a week. However, you find that team member #1 is committed 40, 45, 60, and 30 hours per week; team member #2 is committed 40, 40, 20 and 20 hours per week; team member #3 is committed 60, 40, 60 and 20 hours per week. Assuming your team members are similarly qualified, what are some options you have for resource leveling to avoid over committing resources? (p. 243 of Project Management Textbook)

As per the text (Portny, 2008, p. 218) project managers can use various techniques to level resource and avoid resource overcommitment, these include:

• Allocating time unevenly over the duration of one or more activities.
• Taking advantage of any slack time that may exist in assigned activities.
• Reallocate work from overallocated resources to under allocated resources.
• Add additional resources to the project.
• Leverage external labor (i.e. – vendors or contractors) to offload work from overallocated resources.

I this example resources #1 and #3 are clearly overcommitted.
Resource #1: 40 + 45 + 60 + 30 = 175 / 4 = 43.75 avg/hrs/wk
Resource #2: 40 + 40 + 20 + 20 = 120 / 4 = 30 avg/hrs/wk
Resource #3: 60 +40 + 60 + 20 = 180 / 4 = 45 avg/hrs/wk

Above we can see that between resources #1 and #2 there is an aggregate overcommitment of 8.75 hrs/wk while resource #2 is under committed by 10 hours per week. In this case, the most straightforward solution given that all the resources are similarly qualified is to reallocate work from resources #1 and #3 to resource #2 leveling out the resource allocation across the three available resources.

References

Portny, Stanley E. (2008). Wiley Pathways Project Management, 1st Edition. Wiley Higher Ed. Kindle Edition.

Assignment

Cause and Effects Diagram were discussed on the video this week. Develop a Cause and Effect Diagram that pertain to the development and launch of a new corporate Web site which requires team members to have very specific programming skills.

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Discussion

Discussion Question: Bottom-up cost estimating determines a project will cost $35,000, while top-down estimating determines the same project will cost $10,000. What specifically can the project manager for the project do to help reconcile these two budget estimates? (p. 144 of Project Management Textbook)

Bottom-up cost estimating engages functional teams in the project planning process, including level-of-effort estimation for tasks which they are responsible or possess subject matter expertise. Because functional project teams are often where the subject matter expertise resides, leveraging bottom-up estimating for specific tasks can hone the estimate and reduce risk, but querying the functional subject matter experts and rationalizing estimates also takes time. (Side note: A protracted timeline for developing a project estimate can put a project at risk. A slow reaction time may cause the project to be put on hold, if it’s a competitive situation you may lose the project due to slow reaction time, etc…) Top-down estimating relies on upper management to set objectives and communicate them to the project manager who then translates objectives into a project plan, assigns resources, sets the schedule, etc… Top-down estimating can typically move faster, but effective top-down estimating relies on prior experience and work product which can be used to estimate the current project.

As a project manager, a $25,000 differential in estimates would cause me concern. Given that I have access to both the top-down and bottom-up estimates, in this case, I would examine and reconcile the phases and tasks of the project to identify the discrepancies. As the project manager, I would then have a dialog with both the functional team(s) and/or upper management as a result of my analysis. With the estimations being so far apart something was likely overlooked or misunderstood in the estimating process.

Top-down estimating is a valuable approach to derive a rough order-of-magnitude (ROM) cost estimate quickly. The ability to promptly estimate costs while ensuring that the project goals align with upper management’s objectives and strategic direction has made top-down estimating popular, but many organization leverage a hybrid approach which utilizes bottom-up estimating to refine top-down estimates.

With all that said, the accurate estimate likely resides somewhere between 35K and 10K. Executive and upper management are managing to a budget and outcome while functional team members are conservatively managing time to execute tasks to deliver an outcome. Upper management’s fiscal focus can often lead to lofty expectations which don’t strike a realistic balance time, money and outcomes. Functional teams can often be-be overly conservative on task duration and/or resourcing which drives up the cost of the project (too much time and/or resource = too much money = unhappy executive or a dead project). It’s the job of the project manager to reconcile and manage (sell, especially to upper management) realty.

References

Back to Basics (8): Top-Down Versus Bottom-Up Project Planning. (n.d.). Retrieved January 31, 2018, from https://www.inloox.com/company/blog/articles/back-to-basics-8-top-down-versus-bottom-up-project-planning/

Black, F. W. (2002). Top down-bottom up project management. Paper presented at Project Management Institute Annual Seminars & Symposium, San Antonio, TX. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

Portny, Stanley E.. Wiley Pathways Project Management, 1st Edition. Wiley Higher Ed. Kindle Edition.

Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Project Management Strategies. (2017, June 01). Retrieved January 31, 2018, from https://www.liquidplanner.com/blog/how-long-is-that-going-to-take-top-down-vs-bottom-up-strategies/

What Are the Differences Between Bottom-Up & Top-Down Estimating Approaches? (n.d.). Retrieved January 31, 2018, from https://bizfluent.com/info-8784461-differences-bottomup-topdown-estimating-approaches.html

Assignment 

Evaluate the network diagram in Figure 6–18 on page 196 of the Project Management Textbook.  In each box, the letter on the left is the name of the activity, and the number on the right indicates the activity duration in days. Use the forward and backward pass to figure out the earliest start time, earliest finish time, latest start time, and latest finish time at each activity. What is the critical path in the diagram in Figure 6–18?  What is the duration of the critical path? Check your work against Figure 6–19 on page 197 of the Project Management Textbook

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Week 4 Exam (#2):  95%

Discussion

Discussion Question #1:  Research Agile Project Management Methods and specifically how it can benefit an IT Project.

First off, my apologies for the very late post this week. Been traveling and crushed by the flu.

Two of the most popular project management methodologies are Agile and Waterfall.

Waterfall is a traditional project management approach where phases and tasks are approached in a linear progression. Waterfall is a disciplined approach to project management which maps the entire project and timeline from beginning to end.
While the rigid waterfall approach has benefits around maintaining timelines and budgets, it can be difficult to accommodate changes throughout the project.

Agile is a project management philosophy which was first defined in the 2001 paper entitled The Agile Manifesto. Agile focuses on loosely defined objectives and short, measurable phases called sprints. Sprints are like mini-projects that concentrate on quickly producing a rough representation of the goal, the Agile methodology then iterates to work towards a final product.

Because it can be difficult to define all the needs and requirements of an IT project, Agile has emerged as a popular project management philosophy for IT professionals. Agile is especially popular in the areas of software development and DevOps. The pivot from large-scale monolithic applications with long release cycles to microservices (The Twelve-Factor App), continuous integration, delivery, and deployment has lent itself to the Agile philosophy. Agile focuses on adapting to change and shifting priorities throughout the project lifecycle. Agile is focused on delivering the best product to the user community.
Agile is rooted in philosophy more so than a paint-by-number roadmap, so it often requires dedicated and self-disciplines teams to execute well.

I like “The Blue Botton Moment” as a way to depict the behavioral differences when comparing Waterfall to Agile.

Waterfall Blue Button Moment: https://goo.gl/L1XDLk
Agile Blue Button Moment: https://goo.gl/fFdjnh

I believe the “The Blue Botton Moment” captures the essence of Agile; it also highlights the challenges that can arise from having a team which is not dedicated and self-disciplined.

References

Alex Cowan and the Venture Design process. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://www.alexandercowan.com/

Continuous Delivery. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://continuousdelivery.com/

Manifesto for Agile Software Development. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2018, from http://agilemanifesto.org/

Portny, Stanley E.. Wiley Pathways Project Management, 1st Edition. Wiley Higher Ed. Kindle Edition.

Waterfall vs. Agile: Which Methodology is Right for Your Project? (2017, August 14). Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://www.seguetech.com/waterfall-vs-agile-methodology/

Discussion Question #2:  As the project manager over a virtual team, what communication plan will be put in place for interactions between project team members interacting with each other and project team members interacting with you as the project manager?

Again, I am very sorry for my tardy post this week.

In my opinion, virtual teams have become the new norm, especially in IT. Open Source software is written primarily by virtual teams. As someone who manages and embraces the idea of the virtual team and someone who believes it will become increasingly difficult for organizations who believe that physical presence provides an advantage, there is one word or trait that I think defines the most successful virtual teams, it is purpose. There is no doubt that communication is critical when managing a virtual team but communication is the result of virtual team members who are both purposeful and self-disciplined.

Linus Torvalds commands a virtual team of ~ 10,000 developers, committing ~ 3,500 lines of code each day to the Linux kernel which is already ~ 15 million lines of code. This is a virtual team driven by purpose. Linus conducts this team from a walking desk in his home (https://goo.gl/n46vHp).

There is a video entitled “RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us” does a great job outlining what is different today than say even ten years ago.

The Open Source statistics are truly staggering, and all this incredible software is being built and contributed to by virtual teams across the globe.

With the above said some practices and tools can be used to enable virtual teams. Some of these are standard practice, and some are my personal beliefs.

• Have a defined, well understood and unanimously bought int shared purpose.
• Leverage the technology at your disposal.
• Technology like Google Hangouts, Slack, Gitter, Hipchat, Git, Google Docs, Pivotal Tracker, Cloud9, StackExchange, etc…, etc… These technologies were built for and by virtual teams.
• Integrate gamification and keep team members engaged.
• Conduct a synchronous or asynchronous daily stand-up.
  • What did you accomplish yesterday?
  • What are you working on today?
  • Is anything standing in your way?

My team makes extensive use of video chat, we collaborate using Google Docs, we collaboratively code using Cloud9, we track our projects in Pivotal Tracker, and we frequently communicate on Slack. Everything we do is visible on ChatOps (Slack). Commit code to a Git branch, it shows up on Slack. Kick off a build and deploy it shows up on Slack. Working on something you post what it is on the #the-railroad channel, the system does some analytics and sentiment analysis and logs what it is you are working on, are you happy, sad, angry, etc… sends you words encouragement, etc… The idea here is always to keep people engaged.
We also do virtual standups via Slack. We try to embrace tools and elegantly use them to foster the productivity of virtual teams, realizing some people do their best work between 12 AM and 6 AM while others do their best work between 6 AM and 12 PM.

I often have the conversation about how I would rather have five people always connected via a mobile and capable of doing self-directed work than five people showing up at the office from 9 to 5. For me, the success of virtual teams all comes down to a purpose-built culture. There has to be transparency; everyone has to know what they are working towards and how critical their role is.

References

Agile Project Management. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://www.pivotaltracker.com/

AWS Cloud9 Amazon Web Services. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/?origin=c9io

Build software better, together. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://github.com/

HeyTaco! (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://www.heytaco.chat/

Portny, Stanley E.. Wiley Pathways Project Management, 1st Edition. Wiley Higher Ed. Kindle Edition.

RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. (2010, April 01). Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc

Standup Bot: Running Slack’s fastest standup meetings. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://standupbot.com/

Slack. (n.d.). Where work happens. Retrieved January 28, 2018, from https://slack.com/

Assignment

Develop Gantt chart (by entering in a work breakdown structure) in MS Project for any project (landscaping, construction, information technology, fundraiser event, etc.).  Be sure to select a project that has at least 5 tasks with a minimum of 10 subtasks in the work breakdown structure.

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