Self Managed - Part 2

It was easy stating to be self-managed. After spending couple of decades everyone can lecture about that but have anyone thought about it while starting work. Any change or new environment brings fear of unknown and dealing with that had never been easy. New job, new team, new work culture, new tools, new policy and new etc. endless count of new except the programming environment which creates New Object using "New" :) but actually old which was practiced in the schools (schools means where we did our grad, under-grad and / or post-grad programs). So million dollar question is how to deal with so many New and be self managed.

I think every work follows a process / framework and series of steps to complete the work. Most of the time we are scared not knowing the framework to complete work. Every work will have unknowns and when unknowns are lot, risk is high - be it a task or project or program or engagement. Dealing with unknowns will eventually lead to be self managed. So, dealing with unknown should start with very first question - what all are expected out of new assignment or new task. This concept can surely scale up to any size of assignment.

Two simple points come to my mind while writing this. One is the fundamental lesson of Input-Process-Output (I/O/P) and the second one 5W and 1H applied in simple form. We have been taught a basic lesson in first few class of computer learning that computer takes input, processes input and results output but the question was what would the input be to process for resultant output - many times clarity around input is completely missing in our world. Most of the time we start from the end where everyone is expected to produce error free result but not very keen to explain input.

Elaborating the same fact with an example - in a typical software factory environment (read software service house) a resource is assigned with a task to complete and expected to get done by X hours. Mostly, it is expected the resource will know the subject matter, can read requirements, can understand design, can code using the required platform and can do testing well. If this is the expectation then the input should be offered to the resource as what is the requirement, where it fits in overall project / product, why this needs to be done, where it fits in the business, where is the requirements, where are the design documents, who will review and explain this, where is the code base, what has been written till now, what are the elements to compile and 100 more why, where, what, which  I can think of before reaching to when and the last one how - very common sense nothing rocket science but really uncommon today. Unless all Ws are clear no one can think of set of input required to process what and how to produce the result expected. Many times we seniors do forget to explain these inputs to the juniors. So, I think it would be the first responsibility of juniors to get clarity on the matter pro-actively and politely :).

Being self-managed you need to know asking right question at right time and clear what is expected out of you. You need to know expected input parameters and you have right to ask that at the time of taking up responsibility but not later. A self managed resource will clarify all input by using W and will do research to understand how to process the input for quality output - does not matter small or big.

5Ws and 1H combined with I/P/O will be a great tool to be self managed. This can be the framework and can even conceptually scale up well when a company is working million dollar RFP. A quick note here about RFP - a RFP (request for proposal) is basically resultant product / service required by the end client - it would be participating companies’ duty to figure out Input and process for the required Output. RFP is a requirement / problem to automate as expressed by the client. It would be duty of the vendors to come out with right questions to understand the requirement to propose a solution with the given resource, time and cost budget. Basically, participating vendors are to clarify all why, where, when and what to work on how.

An exposure of working in an environment where questions are welcome will help an individual to nurture and develop skills of working with unknowns and prepare framework out of nothing to reduce the impact of unknowns. An individual with perfection of this skill will be a true self managed employee who can work as consultant - fulfill requirement of next generation professionals.

I have been working for last many years in such a company named Cybage where we welcome asking questions and get clarity of the matter to nurture self-managed individuals, teams. I have been observing juniors becoming highly self-managed with a lesson on how to catch a fish...

Conflict mismanaged

Typical question in project management interview either with a situation and role playing or direct - have you managed conflict? There are many definitions of conflict and well defined techniques to deal with it. Despite that this is well mismanaged :). I don't think we can avoid conflict in profession and personal life - no way, so it is better to learn how to deal with this in a simplified way.

Root of conflict, I feel, is lack of clarity, mismatch of expectation, eagerness to win, jealousy, scarcity etc. There are many methods of managing / arresting these and those can be found in management books. My idea is not reiterating the same theory again as most of the time those are forgotten in our day to day activities and we mismanage more.

I rely of simple practice in professional management which rotates around planning of work, people, quality, time and other aspects of project management. I also consider the fact conflict bound to happen and my job is to minimize that toward everyone's benefit. Generally, there should be a goal on every project we work on - big or small. Needless to say, there will be some critical success factor(s) too in any project which is / are derived from voice of customer. One of the practical way to handle things ahead to integrating the team towards common goal and offer independent space for each individual to achieve a slice of the goal. Hummm... pretty simple in words but tough to implement. Anyhow, once individual achievement is planned out, alignment of that towards the goal to be verified on regular basis in the framework of management. I am dead sure this would stimulate any individual for contributing to larger achievement than his own small achievement but sense of pride and clarity in his own work would keep him focused than getting into conflicting situation - sort a lakshman rekha (a boundary). Everyone wants to be successful, aspires to grow and add value to the goal so let's stimulate that by identifying right place in the project organization / pyramid. Not that, everything will go smooth but at least it would help better handling by managing the sentiment of doing well. I will advice to focus on interest of the person than the person !!

With basic understanding of above, I go on creating clarity and set the expectation. It is iterative process which tightly coupled with strategic agenda of accomplishing goals. Participation from every member without colliding with each other, is possible when everyone is trying to fulfill the expected outcome set by the lead beginning of the project or work. Let's work on their interest so they are interested to work for common interest rather than someone else's interset to breed conflict - makes sense? However, there should be an infrastructure for handling mistakes which bound to happen. Mistakes are welcome but repeated mistakes are *not* which should be loud and clear and that in turn set the mood to learning. This framework of team management if used effectively, albeit tailored to the need of the work, we would observe less mismanagement of conflict with an integrated team.

So, it is clear that collaborative approach is one of the most effective technique of managing conflict and in fact this approach always improves team productivity by gluing the team to achieve common goal.

I have always been inspired by a famous quote of Colin Powell, I thought it would be good to share if you have not seen this yet. A great leader, negotiator, mentor who managed many conflicts. I think following statement is great to set expectation, bring collaboration and integrating team towards common goal.

“When we are debating an issue, loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I'll like it or not. Disagreement, at this stage, stimulates me. But once a decision has been made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own.”
Colin Powell quotes (Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-93). At present, US Secretary of State, 1937)

Self Managed

I was in a meeting with industry think tanks - VCs. It was constantly stressed that new decade would look for self managed employees, fte (full time resources) more than mentoring folks ground up.

This made me think - what did they try to convey. I personally feel our education system does not teach how to catch fish, they offer fish and let the students eat. Surely, top B-schools do teach catching fish but how many are going through top b-schools to get employed would be a question to ask and think.

Concept of finishing schools are picking up and I think it would be good idea to prepare next generation work force to be self managed to value add from the start of the career.

Now, what is self managed? As a manager I expect an employee would be completely productive from the day one in other word self managed. I am ready to accept not having domain knowledge but I and rest of world would expect the person to be able to understand requirement of work, analyze, dissect, come up with questions, think about implementation, impact on the business, present well, come up with solutions and implement solutions to complete the job. Generally, these come with year of experience and grilling on the job. Basically, what we are expecting is a mini consultant from top 5 consulting firm at the bottom of work pyramid. Would this be possible, would this be easy to accomplish ? I feel yes it would be, if someone is mentored well from day one and if the framework of learning how to catch a fish available. I would advice all junior to mid level executives to think about this, at least in software field. There is a way how to do that and I will try to explain some other time...

My first blogging

I am not so computer savvy - bit weird though as I spent 20 years dealing with computers :). However, in 2010 while driving to office I heard DSK Toyota (Indian arm of Toyota) Executive Director Mr. Mali started a blog... suddenly I felt it is a good idea to try something new this year for mentoring, learning, sharing etc. ... so I strated blogging using blogspot..