David J. Anderson and Associates

Changes @ AgileManagement.net

2009-06-17T22:10:53Z

I’ve been making some changes at AgileManagement.Net to make it easier for readers to find information and follow new posts. I’ve created separate blog pages with separate RSS feeds for Lean, specifically Kanban, and Agile+CMMI.

For now the existing Agile Management blog will continue to aggregate all the content. Later I will reduce it to Management topics only. However, I will maintain the existing RSS feed for both the home page and the Agile Management blog. The RSS feed will continue to aggregate everything that is posted to this site. The new RSS feeds should enable aggregators to be more focused. Kanban sites can pull the Channel Kanban RSS feed while CMMI sites can pull the Channel CMMI RSS feed.

As a result of these changes, some content in the site has disappeared the navigation or the archive search. The articles specifically about the Agile Management book are no longer available through the site navigation. However, they are still in the content management system and still available on the Internet via direct links. Older news articles that do not appear on the front page will also not be navigable but again they have not been deleted and are still accessible via direct links.

I hope that these changes provide a genuine improvement in utility for users of the site and those who value its content. There are yet more changes to come as I prepare my web presence for the next decade and modify it to accommodate my newer interests in Kanban, CMMI, and other newer areas like Real Option Theory, Management, Decision Making, Decision Bias, Neuro-psychology and Risk Management.

Achieving Success with Agile Management

2008-10-24T06:54:20Z

Here is my key note speech from Falando em Agile 2008 in Sao Paulo this week.

[Download Achieving Success with Agile Management in PDF]

I need to thank Barry Boehm, at USC for inadvertently giving me the inspiration for this speech. The first half of it is based on the lecture I gave to his masters degree class last Wednesday. I had to find a suitable level for the Brazilian audience. The key note I’ve prepared for closing the Agile Practices event in Orlando next month wasn’t the right level. Also opening a conference and closing it down are two different problem statements. So I had to write a new one. And somehow I stumbled on it when Barry asked me to lecture on “managing for quality with agile methods.” That was the inspiration, so I wrote a speech that describes how to manage to achieve my Recipe for Success. The first statement of which is “focus on quality.” Technorati tag: Agile, David+Anderson, Falando+Agile, Agile+Sao+Paulo, Agile+Brasil, Barry+Boehm, Software+Engineering, Management

Merrifield in Motion

2008-06-04T12:25:47Z

I want to congratulate my friend Ric Merrifield on the publication of his article, “The Next Revolution in Productivity” in Harvard Business Review this month.

This management approach which looks at capabilities rather than process flows has been around a few years at Microsoft. They used to call it “Motion.” The article doesn’t mention that name so I don’t know whether they are still using it.

Ric tells me that there is a book just around the corner and that he’s really beginning to build momentum around the approach.

One of his co-authors Jack Calhoun has been a big fan of my book for several years. He used to pass out copies at Microsoft before he learned I was working there. One day, I was invited to a meeting with a few folks and Ric and Jack were both present. Jack didn’t put it together until I introduced myself, then I got one of those moments for me, “Ah, you are that David Anderson,” he proclaimed. I get that a lot The curse of a common name.

The Motion heat map approach is a very focused approach to improvement. At Modus Cooperandi, we specialize in focused approaches to change and performance improvement. This makes me think I need to go talk to Ric and figure out whether we should be offering Motion as part of our services. At the very least, we could do with analyzing how the Heat Map approach fits with our Lean, TOC, reduction of variability in the value stream approach. I also wonder if there is a mapping between Motion and CMMI and whether the two could play together nicely? I think I’ll give that one to Oksana to research Technorati tag:Ric+Merrifield, Jack+Calhoun, Microsoft, Harvard+Business+Review, HBR, Management

There is no Customer Service

2007-08-02T21:35:50Z

Recently I’ve taken to walking a block from my office building to get my morning coffee at the 3rd Ave outlet of the Cherry Street Coffee House - actually the original Cherry Street branch is also just 1 block away in the other direction but I prefer the 3rd Ave outlet. While the baristas in the Pegasus Coffee House in our building might be pretty and sexy, the coffee just isn’t as nice (IMHO).

Today I noticed for the first time that there is something else going on at Cherry Street Coffee House. Something that fired off my passion for management and leadership. The owner, Ali Ghambari is a passionate philosopher who is building a business based on values. There was a card stuck to the espresso machine and it read…

There is no customer service because there is no customer.
We are building individual relationships based on
mutual respect and forging a great community
through the fire of love.

You can view the card here. And a whole collection of Ali’s other values here.

Quoting from the About page on the web site, you understand that Ali recognizes that differentiating his business is a vital part of being successful. He has chosen not to pursue the Plus One style of marketing - no cupcakes or radical art work on the walls or tight abdominals, cleavage and belly buttons on show at his shops, just an impassioned focus on community and deep relationships with his customers.

With all of the exceptional coffee houses in our great city of Seattle, you never can stop improving quality and maintaining the highest of standards. The things that make our house special, are first and foremost the true belief that it takes ‘True Love to build Great Community’ and through deeper connections with our community we will capture great energy that no money can buy. Technorati tag: Management, Leadership, Cafe, Seattle

Failing to Manage to the Values

2007-07-31T21:39:13Z

I’d like to take a look a management dilemma posed by Jack Welsh, former CEO of GE. It’s posed as a classic 2x2 matrix (or Gartner Magic Quadrant chart). On one axis is the notion that a manager lives by the values of the organization, and on the other axis is whether the manager delivers results (the numbers). This gives us four outcomes. Welsh states that in three of the outcomes the management decision is easy:

makes the numbers, shares the values - no brainer - this manager is excellent and a keeper
doesn’t make the numbers, doesn’t share the values - no brainer - fire them
doesn’t make the numbers, shares the values - a good manager, well intentioned, needs investment in coaching in order to improve the numbers

However, it’s the fourth type that causes the problem. What do you do with someone who makes their numbers but does so in a way that is out of alignment with the values of the organization? In the short term, eliminating someone like that may mean that the numbers are not achieved and the higher level manager takes a blow to his/her own numbers. How do you explain a J-curve effect period undertaken to fix the values of the organization, in a world where values are about managing for the long term, while the markets expect us to manage for the next quarter?

In software projects, I see these managers as those who deliberately, consciously death march their people to achieve a project date, or deliberately, consciously sacrifice quality in order to make a project date or manage in some other fashion that might deliver results but leaves a sour taste - for example, a manager who suffers 50% staff turnover, rules with an iron fist and has instilled the fear of death in to the 50% who do hang around long enough to get anything done.

It’s all too easy to see managers revert to methods that are not in alignment with agile values, particularly when there is a specific extrinsic incentive for them (and usually not for the workforce.) The war of attrition attitude - deliver the numbers, let me make my bonus, and don’t worry about the casualties! It’s a style that shows that the manger is being narrowly managed and doesn’t have to pay the costs of attrition - that comes from a different budget. In a similar vain, large industries get to pollute our environment and aren’t always taxed accordingly.

My view on this is very simply - knowledge workers are human. You cannot deny their humanity. To invoke De Luca’s First Law, “[It’s] 80% psychology, only 20% technology!” Knowledge workers productivity is directly related to their motivation and engagement in their work. All the process and methods and organization in the World will not fix a demotivated workforce. And hence, I come to the conclusion that living by the values is paramount. You cannot sacrifice the values to hit the numbers in the short term. So for me the Welsh dilemma isn’t a dilemma at all. Managers who don’t live by the values should be removed. Period!

Question: Does your organization have published values? Do your workers understand the values you use to lead your organization? Technorati tag: Agile, Software+Engineering, Management, Jack+Welsh

Management versus Leadership on ‘The Apprentice’

2004-04-17T18:09:34Z

So America sat glued to its TV sets on Thursday night to see Bill, the entrepreneur, win and Kwame, the Harvard MBA, lose in the final episode of The Apprentice. As The Houston Chronicle reports, it is really hard for us in the audience to judge the result due to the shows editing. We clearly didn’t have all the facts. However, it was very obvious in the end why Kwame didn’t win. He lacked leadership. It was a theme over several shows. His cool, unflappable, trained manager, Ivy League MBA style might have been full of delegation and empowerment, but he wasn’t prepared to provide the leadership, direction and example when it mattered. When his team was flustered and confused filled with ambiguity, uncertainty and doubt, Kwame didn’t step in and show them how he wanted it done.

Management is an essential skill in business but it cannot go without leadership. The season of The Apprentice showed us why and how leadership matters. What does this teach us in the software business?

I discussed this once before - my belief that all good software development managers have to have come from a strong coding background, whilst some others believe that the problem with managers in software development is precisely because they did come from a development background and have no management training. I feel The Apprentice has reinforced my belief that leadership is essential and in software to be a leader, you need to carry the respect of the geeks who work under you. To do that you need respect as a technically accomplished individual who can step-in and show them how and why. Managers can be trained. I’m not sure that is true of leaders. I feel leaders are born. So perhaps the correct recipe for a good manager in software development, is to find the talented developer with born leadership skill and train them as managers - coached by a mentor, someone who has learned good management practice and can provide Kwame-like coolness, delegation and empowerment, whilst maintaining the ability to jump-in, analyze, design and architect with the best.

To Code or Not to Code: Leadership versus Management

2004-01-21T22:22:18Z

Recently I’ve been coding!

Back in the days when I worked at IBM as a contract coder - in the mid 1990’s - my line managers were both young and recently promoted to their first management job. The management training involved as many as 5 weeks away from the team and was referred to as “the brain washing” by the former colleagues (now staff) of the new boss. One of the key tenets which was drilled into these young managers was “thou shalt never code again”.

The position of line manager is key in any firm. The line manager is the one who manages the economic engine of the company. Without good line management, there is no business. The transition from individual contributor to line manager is also perhaps the most difficult and the most important for any business. For the first time, new line managers must learn to live vicariously through their staff. They must learn to coach the best performance out of their staff and to accept that some jobs will never be done as well as they would have liked them to be done or might have done themselves. This behavior of accepting life as a vicarious pursuit and learning to accept “good enough” rather than “perfect” is a measure of how well a manager is progressing and something on which further promotions to higher levels are measured.

It seems obvious then that if former developers are to learn to live vicariously, they must never code again. The temptation to “just do it” might otherwise be too great and they will never be good managers - always down in the noise and not defining the governing rules for their systems and the metrics with which to monitor and control them.

However, management is all very well but occasionally the troops need leadership. Developers need to be shown the way. This is particularly likely in new and uncertain territory. The greater the uncertainty - the greater the leadership required. Uncertainty can be caused by the domain - a new market being entered, or the technology, or the tools being used, or the working practices being adopted. In any or all of these circumstances, if the manager has the hands-on experience then it makes sense to lead by example.

When introducing FDD, for example, don’t be afraid to lead a Feature Team as Chief Programmer! Don’t be afraid to demonstrate how to Design-By-Feature by convening a Feature Team and facilitating the drawing of a Sequence Diagram! Don’t be afraid to hold a code review! When developers are unsure of how to implement behaviors such as “blue” <> classes on a domain model, don’t be afraid to pair-program with a developer to make it happen. Pair programming is perfectly acceptable in FDD as part of the early lifecycle of a project whilst the architecture and design templates are being created. Don’t be afraid to fuzzy the line between Step 1 - Build a Domain Model and Step 4 - Design by Feature. It doesn’t matter if you have to go and build a dozen Features to prove a model. If seeing is believing then make your development team believe. Lead them to belief through example. Don’t let “analysis paralysis” bog you down. Don’t let subjective debate and belief cost you inertia and velocity. Lead by example.

It is OK for managers to code when they are leading! Once momentum builds and the team feels comfortable then the manager can quietly slip back into the vicarious life of monitoring metrics.

Craftsmanship, Management and Measurement

2003-12-01T21:57:18Z

Joel Spolsky shows that he really gets it, with this piece on Craftsmanship and why it is too expensive as a method for commercial software development. Joel prefers the Design approach described by Donald Reinertsen. As Don points out in various books and articles, knowledge work is all about creation of information. Once you have the right and complete information, design stops and production begins.

Crosstalk, the Journal of Defense Software Engineering, has a special on management this month. It includes pieces by management bloggers, Johanna Rothman and Esther Derby, as well as a book advertising piece by Boehm and Turner. My eye was caught by “Back to Basics: Measurement and Metrics”. As an exercise for you the reader, you might like to compare the approach discussed here with the simplicity of the model in Chapter 5 of “Agile Management…” - WIP Inventory (number of client-valued functions in process), Lead Time (time to code a client-valued function), average cost per client-valued function and quality (number of bugs per client-valued function). One linked reference looks interesting, “Goal Driven Software Measurement - A Guidebook”. I haven’t had time to read this yet. However, it caught my eye - having just written a book about goal-driven software engineering. However, compare the length of this piece on metrics at 189 pages with Section 1 of “Agile Management” which is about the whole lifecycle process including marketing, at a mere 150 pages.

Welcome to Agile Management

2003-03-13T23:05:41Z

Welcome to Agile Management - the companion website for the forthcoming book by David J. Anderson.

“The Agile Manager’s New Work” is the working title of the 2nd draft for a book to be published in the Coad Series with Prentice Hall in July 2003.

The book uses Eli Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints and its management accounting method, Throughput Accounting, to demonstrate how agile software development methods can be controlled, managed, cost justified and summarized for executive reporting.

This site hosts David Anderson’s Agile Management Weblog and regular updates about the book, related articles and specific book details such as the Table of Contents and sample chapters.