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...