What is a Perpetual Team?

Do you recall hearing of “perpetual motion” or “perpetual motion machines”?
Perpetual Motion generally refers to any closed system that produces more energy than it consumes.
When the industrial age was in it’s infancy, several inventors attempted to create “perpetual motion machines”—devices that completely eliminated friction and maintain motion forever through mass inertia.
It was an interesting idea, but unfortunately, the laws of physics made their success impossible.
However—lucky for us—the laws of physics have no effect on the creation of Perpetual Teams.
Think of your team as a machine, where each member is a moving part, constantly pushing the other moving parts forward. As long as each part continues to push the other forward, the whole of the parts will produce more energy than was consumed.
If each team member is constantly pushing the other towards a goal—routinely asking: what can we do to deliver better, faster—then two or more heads will not only be better than one. They will be better than teams triple their size.
Of course, there is one caveat…
When one of those parts stops working, that part must be replaced, before the corrosion contaminates the other parts.
I know that sounds harsh, but it is a reality.
To believe anything else is to fool yourself and damage the morale—and the throughput—of your team.
This is not to say that a part cannot be repaired. The team itself should work to oil and adjust its parts to keep them from failing, and the mechanic—the manager—shouldn't be called until such repairs are beyond the abilities of the team.
Everything starts with a truly motivated, self-managed team.
Successful teams lead themselves, and within each team, there are strong members that will push for improvements.
However, those leaders must not be allowed to dominate, as one persons improvement is often another persons impediment.
You must have strong leaders that counter other strong leaders, ensuring the team is always moving forward and weighing options based on everyone's input, in order to find the optimal solutions to all problems.
Any who sees a problem with current processes should lead the team to improve it, just as they would any other problem.
If a member cannot identify a problem with current processes, it is that member's responsibility to support those processes—continuing to move forward and to push other members to move forward.
Those old tried-and-true words of Thomas Paine are still alive and well today: "Lead, follow, or get out of the way" of those who are trying to improve and/or support the team.
Yea, I know what you are thinking—and you are wrong.
There is nothing negative about this perspective for two simple reasons:

• REASON ONE: The process is a fair one. Everyone has the opportunity to support the team as is or help change the team and its processes for the better. Finding a team where you are a better fit is truly a last resort.
• REASON TWO: The process has proven time and time again that it works!

Here’s something else to keep in mind. If you can build one Perpetual Team, you can build many. Just as one member can push another member forward, one team can push another team forward—creating a Perpetual Organization—an organization that produces five times more than it consumes.
You’ve heard consultants babble on about company’s crossing the chasm from good to great? The only way you’ll really do that is with Perpetual Teams.

Perpetual Teams deliver Perfection

The Japanese word Shibumi translates roughly to "effortless perfection", but this is not the definition of Shibumi as much as it is the goal of Shibumi.
Shibumi is an ancient discipline that disallows stress when obstacles appear—“Worrying is a sin”, grandmother used to say.
Students of Shibumi inspect problems, then improvise and adapt to the best solution presented. If a better solution presents itself later, the students inspect, then adapt again. This cycle continues until one reaches the infinite goal of effortless perfection.
For years, I have described what I termed "The Perpetual Team" and considered this methodology to be my own, but Japanese artists and Jujitsu masters have been teaching the fundamentals of this philosophy for centuries.
If an idea works, you stick with it.
On the Perpetual Team, office politics and the blame game are non-existent. Team-members are committed to the same goals, enabling each member to hold themselves—and each other—accountable for missteps. Each admits mistakes and weaknesses immediately in order to get team advice and address problems by leveraging the collective wisdom of the team.
For a team to achieve Shibumi, they must become Perpetual Teams.
Members of Perpetual Teams push each other to deliver on their commitments. Members are constantly inspecting team makeup and processes, diligently asking, "What can we do to deliver better, faster?"
Like the disciples of Shibumi, Perpetual Teams are constantly identifying inefficiencies and adapting to improve.
If you are reading this and thinking that Shibumi actually translates to "pie in the sky", then you have much to learn about the potential of Perpetual Teams in an organization or even in a family.
If everyone on a team is truly committed to the goal, that team can move mountains.
Commitment happens when team meeting attendance actually synergizes team members.
This synergy manifests when goals are clear and prioritized, and when everyone on the team trusts everyone else to do their best to achieve those goals.
This kind of trust develops when the team believes that everyone else—management included—is being truthful about motives, goals, and obstacles as they arise.
Establishing transparency throughout the team is the key to fostering truthfulness. Everyone must clearly see who is doing what, where, and when, and what problems have or may arise. Teams with fewer than a dozen members achieve transparency with little effort, but dividing larger teams into multiple Perpetual Teams works just as well, if the goals of each team support the goals of the organization.
To ensure this support, Leaders form Perpetual Teams of their own. Just as each member of a team pushes the other to reach the goal, leaders of teams can push other leaders, driving the organization to reach the organizational goal.
The trust introduced by transparency solidifies when leaders stop punishing teams for missteps and learn to improvise, working with teams to find solutions that correct mistakes and to define processes that prevent those mistakes from reoccurring. As Akio Morito, co-founder of Sony Corporation, once said, “Don't be afraid to make mistakes, but make sure you don't make the same mistake twice.”
Does Shibumi translate to “Pie in the Sky”?
At Decade Software, the Perpetual Team concept originated in the Development Department, and then spread to the Design Team and Customer Service. Our company tripled production and elevated quality to the fourth power in less than two years. Where we once released a product annually, today we release new features eight times per year, and we release every product upgrade with zero known defects—a feat previously unheard of in the software industry.
Seriously evaluating the rewards of effortless perfection, a stress-free work and home environment, together with committed trust and transparency between peers and management, another definition of Shibumi becomes clear.
Shibumi is little more than “common sense”.

Customer design or Too Many Cooks Sink Ships

When designers attempt to please everyone, someone always ends up angry. The key to good design is bringing all interested parties together in order to balance interests and find solutions that work for everyone.

In the early days of EnvisionConnect, customer advocates on staff shouted:

“Our users know what they need better than anyone else. Let them design the software and force the developers to deliver exactly as they define.”

Who could argue with that philosophy? The customer knows best, right?

Let’s return to the mixed metaphor of “Too many cooks sink ships,” and let me tell you a story…

There once was a shipbuilder who hired the best engineers, but he sold ships to the government and was forced by contract to design the ship according to specs put together by a government committee.

The shipbuilder ordered the designers to build every gadget and widget the government committee could dream up, and the ship that evolved from the process was beautiful!

On this ship, you didn’t have to take the stairs to go from deck to deck. Everything in the ship was put on one easily accessible deck. And all of the gadgets, widgets, bells, and whistles glistened. It was the most spectacular-looking ship the government committee had ever seen.

When war broke, the government ordered the ship launched. It would sail to the other side of the globe and squash the evil doers.

Unfortunately, the ship was too heavy. It moved too slow. By the time the ship reached the enemy, the war was over. That’s not all that bad really. If every country followed this design model, the world would be a more peaceful place.

The moral of the story is that all interested parties have to be involved in design.

Luckily for us, the world of Agile software design doesn’t work like ship building.

We do insist that users of the software design by committee on the first pass (in industry jargon, the first iteration) but then it’s up to the engineers to weigh the needs of the many against the wants of the few and refine (industry jargon again, refactor) the product into that happy medium that makes everyone happy.

This year, our customers will notice that we’re changing the way we collect customer feedback—finding ways to extract information faster without wasting customer time, and our developers are defining “the how” and restricting customers to defining “the what”. And when some “what” is ultimately detrimental to a more important “what”, it’s our job to help customers understand the trade-off they are asking to make.

Now, you know why it’s taking a while to christen EnvisionConnect 4.0.

EnvisionConnect 4.0 as she stands today is the most beautiful and the most powerful ship in the fleet, but Envision outruns her. As goals go, our next BIG target is making EnvisionConnect faster, even if it means dropping a few bells and whistles overboard.

Watch this space to see how we do.

What Managers Expect from teams

Larry Bossidy’s article,“What Your Leader Expects of You,” provides a thoughtful and thorough list of what managers’ expect from the members of their teams.

This is that list with some of my additional thoughts here and there:

1. Get involved: Bossidy says, “Good managers know when to delegate…but more importantly, they know when to get involved.” I say, “Good managers trust staff to deliver, but they also trust staff to alert management when they’ve hit a brick wall or they’re stuck in quicksand. In other words, stay transparent. From a Scrum perspective, this means update the team, the ScrumMaster  and the SOS Master every step of the way.
2. Generate ideas: Team players should provide ideas rather than playing it safe. Don’t offer random ideas that you haven’t thought about, but ones you’ve considered and have merit.
3. Be willing to collaborate: Team players sometimes work in cross-functional team where collaboration is required.
4. Be willing to lead initiatives: Team players should take initiative rather than avoiding the risky projects for the sake of having a good track record. How else will direct report learn to take initiative on their own if they don’t think it’s of value?
5. Develop leaders as you develop: Good Team players are leaders and teachers, constantly helping others develop. For the good of the company or for the good of the team, leaders and managers coach, mentor, and help team players to be leaders and grow into future managers.
6. Stay current: There’s nothing more embarrassing than seeing anyone not know what’s going on in their own industry, the market, or with their customers. All managers should scanning and watching the environment for opportunities or competitive threats.
7. Anticipate: Team players and their management should anticipate what the industry, market, competitor, or customer changes mean for the company and department.
8. Drive your own growth: Team players should want to learn more and take initiative without waiting for the manager to hand out growth opportunities. Find the white spaces in your job function that allow you to learn something new or expand on existing skills. Take control of your career path within the company.
9. Be a player for all seasons: Business is good. Business is down. Team players need different flavors of the same skills sets for good times and bad times. Action plans against competition when you’re the market leader can be vastly differently when you are not. Be a well-rounded player for any business circumstances.

Next, we’ll look at the other side of the coin: What Teams expect from Managers.

Building a better Vulcan

Outside of the office, I love nostalgia, but inside, I am the first to promote change. Keep the things that work. Build on those things, and throw out the bad.

However, when Paramount Pictures took this approach with Star Trek, I was afraid of the change. I did not trust that JJ Abrams would be able to handle the job.

This was because I was not Paramount’s Product Owner, and their team did not ask me for buy-in, when they gathered requirements to fix something that I didn’t think was broken.

I was wrong. The movie was great, and I learned a lesson I have been preaching to others for years…

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

–Mr. Spock, Wrath of Khan”

This became clear today, as I was reading new words of wisdom this week from Joel “on software” Spolsky…

“Typically, the product owner wants something simple and easy to understand for the users, featuring a telepathic user interface and a 30" screen that nonetheless fits in your pocket, while the developer wants something that is trivial to implement in code.

Lacking a product owner, your garden-variety super-smart programmer is going to come up with a completely baffling user interface that makes perfect sense if you’re a Vulcan. The best programmers are notoriously brilliant, and …have a tendency to get attached to their first ideas, especially when they’ve already written the code.

One of the best things a program manager can add to the software design process is a second opinion as to how things should be designed…

….ideas for how the UI should work, which might be better, or worse, than the developer’s idea. And then there’s a long debate.”

For those of you that speak Scrum, I have substituted Joel’s use of the label “Program Manager” for “Product Owner” to point out that our objectives are the same—the common techniques that work from one software process to the next are essentially the same. Common sense is universal.

Software Engineers know the “how” better than anyone, but the “what” must be defined by those that interact with the customer—or better, by the customer themselves. However, we can’t forget that ancient Decade proverb “everyone doesn’t know what they don’t know”. That’s where the give-and-take and “happy mediums” of good design come from.

Despite what you were taught, compromise is not a bad thing.

In fact, its what makes good teams great. Meeting in the middle has nothing to do with losing ground. It is about everyone coming together to see the big picture and finding the optimal solution for all involved.

Code long and prosper.

I'm sorry I ever suggested changing the Decade logo

The Decade logo has been in use since Kevin started the company. It looks no more dated now than logos of other start-ups of the day. In fact, Microsoft's 1976 disco letters will make you dizzy if you stare at them long enough.

When Decade made plans to retire Envision—likely the most well-known software in the United States for regulating environmental health—and launched EnvisionConnect, we worked hard to be cutting-edge, partnering with Microsoft and leveraging the latest and greatest of their tools.

When we began building our new web presence, Kevin and I discussed the same goal. We wanted the site to be sanctioned by our customers, while reflecting the intuitive, forward-thinking philosophy that guided EnvisionConnect.

Unfortunately, any design I considered using clashed with the company logo.

No problem, I thought, I have graphics training. I'll just grab some books and find out what goes into a good logo design.

I discovered that a great logo should:

• Look as good in black and white as in color.
• Look as good small as large.
• Hint at what you want people to feel about your brand or brand values.
• Make people think of your company without reading the words.
• Be simple, yet memorable and describable.

It seemed to me that our current logo looked:

• Rough around the edges.
• Inconsistent in different incarnations.
• Unpolished by today's standards.

None of these three phrases describe EnvisionConnect, and none describe what we want customers to think of Decade Software Company, LLC.

I went to work, experimenting with various ideas, using the rules above, until I found a look that I felt was presentable to the Decade user community.

In the design, I still wanted to use a shade of teal, and I wanted some form of blocks in a "D" based emblem—thinking nostalgia would trigger memories in those who knew the old logo.

At the same time, I wanted a logo that looked as good in solid colors as in modern "Web 2.0 style" 3D.

Since staff and customers rarely say "Decade Software" and never say "Decade Software Company" or "Decade Software Company, LLC," I believed that "Decade"—how everyone actually refers to us—should stand-out more than the rest of our legal name.

And finally, I wanted the logo to "say" software symbolically, so I subtly overlaid the universal mouse cursor. This works as the professionals say brands with common names should always use a unique symbol and/or distinctive typography to bring the name to life.

Most who commented on the logo loved it, but some just thought any change was bad, and at least one thought that the logo should change but not to the one I designed...and so the debate continues months later.

Sometimes, I wish Kevin had left me to oiling my flywheel. Growing a team is less stressful than growing a company.

About those fad management books

A manager friend of mine said last week…

“I stick with the tried and true. None of those fad management books for me.”

He went on to say that his company was too busy to experiment with new ideas.

“If it isn't broke, don’t fix it. Right?”

Of course, my response was: just because it’s not broken, doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. That’s why my team is always focused on improving processes, asking: how can we be better, faster?

Our conversation started with a discussion of “consumer evangelism”—the belief that customers are filtering out advertising and are more willing to trust word-of-mouth recommendations.

The “fad management books” he referenced were those touting the virtues of building online communities to make it easier for clients to exchange data—and fast track those word-of-mouth recommendations.

Here’s an example from Creating Customer Evangelists: How Happy Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force:

Shouldice Hospital in the city of Thornhill encourages patients to meet and discuss the care they receive. Patients compare notes long after treatment ends, and their feedback has been used to improve hospital care and service since the customer evangelist program began.

The program is an amazing success. Patients meet for an annual ball and banquet that includes dining, dancing, and a free medical check-up.

Today, potential patients are actually on waiting lists to get into this hospital!

As I mentioned, their story is covered in detail in a brand spanking new “fad management book”, but Shouldice Hospital started their successful program in 1947.

My Decade Software?

I promised yesterday to give you a sneak-peek at our new web presence…

In addition to the sleek appearance, the site is a game-changer for Decade Software. It is being designed from the ground up as a collaborative community where customers and staff can exchange opinions and ideas—with a section we’re calling “My Decade Software”.

Among other features, it will provide…

• User Community Forums

In addition to being the home of several EnvisionConnect User Groups, a networking and information exchange tool for clients, and a hang-out for Decade staff, our community forums offer areas of discussion on all Decade products and services and the industries we serve, and—best of all—registered users can subscribe to any forum or topic by e-mail.

• Surveys and Polls

Decade knows that user feedback is essential to making a good product great. That's why residents of the My Decade Software community are routinely polled. For example, you may be invited to participate in an in depth survey asking which classes should be presented at the user conference, or you may be invited to answer a single poll question regarding a product's design.

• Project Central

At Project Central, registered users look under the hood at Decade Software Company. In real-time, clients monitor what work is being done, by whom, and when the work is expected to be completed. They also can report defects or submit feature requests and monitor progress of those requests in real-time.

• Answers

Imagine a knowledge base that housed everything a user wanted to know about Decade's product and services, including information on how other agencies leveraged these products and services. Further, imagine a knowledge base where users could ask or answer questions and where they could tell Decade support what information was actually helpful and what was not. Registered users need not imagine. This knowledgebase awaits them in My Decade Software's Answers section.

• "Did You Know..." Articles

"Did You Know..." Articles have been a key tool of the Decade support team for nearly ten years. These tried and true "tips and tricks" newsletters for Decade products are available and searchable within our Answers knowledgebase.

• Product Downloads

Product installations and documentation are available to registered users, based on the security regulations of each agency. An agency may wish to make these items available to all members of the user community, or they may wish to limit downloads only to network administration. The option is theirs.

• Decade Exchange

Decade Exchange is a popular subset of our Downloads section that allows customers to share various resources, including reports, user-defined forms, page-layouts, SQL scripts, and workflow documents.

• Learning Management Center

Imagine an online school, where you could review lessons and take tests related to Decade products anytime your staff needed a refresher course. That "school" is our Learning Management Center, and it is available right now to all registered users.

• Agency News Authoring Tools

Not an hour goes by today when the media isn't discussing Environmental Health issues and concerns. Now more than ever, it is imperative that Environment Health regulators share information and learn from each other. Our Agency News is authored by any registered user with stories to share.

• Private Messaging

When forums and news posts are not personal enough, My Decade Software users have access to private one-on-one instant messaging with any registered user, including Decade Software staff.

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing great!

I’ve recommended Jim Collins’ Good to Great before. Once in reference to Scrum—and once on the subject of estimates—but I thought the book might be worth summarizing for you wannabe leaders who are too busy to read.

To understand Jim’s thinking, first ask yourself: what goes into a company's transformation from mediocre to excellent?

Using volumes of data, Jim and his team compared and categorized three types of companies:

• Those that went from “Good to Great” and are still growing

Companies like Abbott, Circuit City, Fannie Mae, Gillette, Kimberly-Clark, Kroger, Nucor, Philip Morris, Pitney Bowes, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo produced and sustained great results, evolving into companies that would be around for the long haul.

• Those that directly compare with “Good to Great” companies

Upjohn, Silo, Great Western, Warner-Lambert, Scott Paper, A&P, Bethlehem Steel, RJ Reynolds, Addressograph, Eckerd, and Bank of America are companies in the same industries with the same resources and opportunities as “Good to Great” companies, but they demonstrated no obvious leap in performance.

• Those that looked great for awhile

Burroughs, Chrysler, Harris, Hasbro, Rubbermaid, and Teledyne are companies that made a short-term shift from good to great but failed to maintain growth.

Through careful comparisons of the three groups, Jim’s team identified 23 principals “Good to Great” companies followed that the others did not:

1. Ten out of eleven Good to Great company leaders or CEOs came from the inside. They were not outsiders hired in to save the company. They were either people who worked many years at the company or were members of the family that owned the company.
2. Strategy per se did not separate the good to great companies from the comparison groups.
3. Good to Great companies focus on what Not to do and what they should stop doing.
4. Technology has nothing to do with the transformation from good to great. It may help accelerate it, but is not the cause of it.
5. Mergers and acquisitions do not cause a transformation from good to great.
6. Good to Great companies paid little attention to managing change or motivating people. Under the right conditions, these problems naturally go away. 
7. Good to Great transformations did not need any new name, tagline, or launch program. The leap was in the performance results, not a revolutionary process.
8. Greatness is not a function of circumstance; it is clearly a matter of conscious choice.
9. Every Good to Great company had Level 5 leadership during pivotal transition years. Level 1 is defined as a Highly Capable Individual. Level 2 is a Contributing Team Member. Level 3 is the Competent Manager. Level 4 is an Effective Leader. Level 5 is the Executive who builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.
10. Level 5 leaders display a compelling modesty, are self-effacing and understated. In contrast, two thirds of the comparison companies had leaders with gargantuan personal egos that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of the company. 
11. Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results. They are resolved to do whatever it takes to make the company great, no matter how big or hard the decisions.
12. One of the most damaging trends in recent history is the tendency (especially of boards of directors) to select dazzling, celebrity leaders and to de-select potential Level 5 leaders.
13. Potential Level 5 leaders exist all around us, we just have to know what to look for.
14. The research team was not looking for Level 5 leadership, but the data was overwhelming and convincing. The Level 5 discovery is an empirical, not ideological, finding.
15. Before answering the “what” questions of vision and strategy, ask first “who”
    are the right people for the team. 
16. Comparison companies used layoffs much more than the good-to-great companies. Although rigorous, the good-to-great companies were never ruthless and did not rely on layoffs or restructuring to improve performance.
17. Good to Great management teams consist of people who debate vigorously in search of the best answers, yet who unify behind decisions, regardless of parochial interests.
18. There is no link between executive compensation and the shift from good to great. The purpose of compensation is not to ‘motivate' the right behaviors from the wrong people, but to get and keep the right people in the first place.
19. The old adage “People are your most important asset” is wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are.
20. Whether someone is the right person has more to do with character and innate capabilities than specific knowledge, skills or experience.
21. The Hedgehog Concept is a concept that flows from the deep understanding of the answers to the following three questions:
    • Realistically, what can you be the best in the world at and what can you not be best in the world at?
    • What drives your economic engine?
    • What you are deeply passionate about?
22. Discover your core values and purpose beyond simply making money and combine this with the dynamic of preserve the core values – stimulate progress, as shown for example by Disney. They have evolved from making short animated films, to feature length films, to theme parks, to cruises, but their core values of providing happiness to young and old, and not succumbing to cynicism remains strong.
23. Enduring great companies don't exist merely to make money. In a truly great company, profits and cash flow are absolutely essential for life, but they are not the very point of life.

In my opinion, the 21st item may be the biggest secret Jim has uncovered.

Think about it. The other items may be the effect with the Hedgehog Concept as the cause. If you are doing anything that you care deeply about—and you truly believe in it—it’s impossible to imagine not trying to make it great.

18 definitions that can make you a better leader

When I first took this job, I started jotted down notes, regarding different ways to interpret words. I've come to believe that real leaders have a slightly different dictionary than managers, bosses, dictators, and elected officials.

Here are my top 10 definitions used by real leaders...

Attitude–A state of mind, an emotional and intellectual inclination and predisposition to actions based on what you convince yourself is the truth.

Communication–Refers to anything, verbal or nonverbal, that imparts information, thoughts, or feelings. It is a vehicle than enables leaders and followers to connect with each other and to learn about their respective worlds.

Defensive Culture–A world in which people are more concerned with their image than they are with solving problems.

Desires–Unexpected bonuses or other pleasant surprises. The items that complete a staff member's statement that begins with, "It sure would be nice if..."

Expectations—Refers to perceived entitlements, any deliverable or treatment staff considers essential to happily performing their jobs.

Fertile Workplace Culture—An environment that encourages individuals to grow, learn, and be as good as they can as employees and as people.

Harassment–Selfish behavior by someone who places more value on personal desires and interests than another's right to privacy or happiness.

Leader—A respectful and genuine person who motivates others and builds strong communication bridges by being sensitive and appropriately responsive to others' feelings and desires.

Managing–The ongoing process of developing mutually rewarding and productive relationships with staff.

Mentor–An effective teacher, counselor, or master gardener, helping others improve the quality and quantity of work.

Planned Spontaneity–Knowing in advance what you hope to gain, where you want to begin, and where you hope to end. This is followed by a patient, sensitive, flexible stream of questions and answers that leads from one goal to another.

Problem–A deviation between what is acceptable and what is occurring.

Problem-solving Culture–An environment where leaders trust followers to be responsible and worthy of respect, treating each accordingly and encouraging progress as appropriate.

Quiet Strength–Having a positive influence without making obvious one's methods: being clear about expectations and desires and then supporting staff when obstacles arise.

Risk–The potentially adverse consequences of any action.

Symptoms–Behavioral evidence of a potential problem.

Tone–Emphasis given to specific words or groups of words, created by changes in speed, volume, or pitch of speech.

Weed–A valueless, troublesome, or noxious plant growing wild, especially one that grows profusely or on cultivated ground to the exclusion or injury of the desired crop, detracting from a garden's beauty and using both time and energy that could be spent cultivating those desired crops.

Weeds should always be removed as early as possible.

Meanwhile, in a country called Scrum...

In the country of Scrum, there is a backlog of bills to be addressed, and there is an impediment list of problems to be solved.

These lists are ordered by the Product Owner—and the Vice Product Owner if the Product Owner is assassinated.

The country of Scrum has two teams. Each team has a Scrum Master, who coordinates meetings to ensure that everyone does what is best for the team and the country.The Product Owner is available to answer any questions and provide any support the teams require.

The Product Owner(s) never interfere with the daily workings of the teams.

The goals of individual team members are rarely considered.

After both teams have delivered on their commitments, they come together, adapting and improving their processes, ultimately delivering a country that all stakeholders are proud of—and one that other country's envy.

I once lived in the country of Scrum, but during some quiet coo, I believe that my country was overthrown by the kingdom of Greed.

Truth, Trust, Transparency, and Toy Story

For years, I have touted that management through truth, trust, and transparency is the fastest way to succeed. In an article in this month's Harvard Business Review, the founder of Pixar, Ed Catmull, says I am dead on.

"Talent is rare. Management’s job is not to prevent risk but to build the capability to recover when failures occur. It must be safe to tell the truth. And we must constantly challenge all of our assumptions and search for the flaws that could destroy our culture."

We've proven this works in just a few short years at Decade Software. Pixar has been following this credo for nearly 10 years.

Pixar is the only movie studio in history to rollout consecutive blockbusters and nothing else.

Axosoft OnTime adopts Scrum in a big way!

I have made much noise over the past year related to Axosoft OnTime's advertised support for Scrum and the product's shortcomings in this area. I have also explained how Decade Software has found ways to work around those shortcomings—but soon you will not have to.

Hamid Shojaee made this announcement today...

"OnTime is an extremely effective tool for managing Scrum projects, but I think we can do a far better job in future versions of OnTime. To make sure we fully embrace Scrum for future releases of OnTime, I had our entire team learn about Scrum. I also made sure we had multiple team members attend a two-day workshop with Ken Schwaber to become certified Scrum Masters.

Axosoft has embraced Scrum in a big way and we have made Scrum one of the main focuses of the next major release of OnTime. More generally, OnTime 2009’s focus will be on Project Visibility, which will help every single OnTime customer, not just those using Scrum. But for Scrum teams in particular, especially those hungry for some burn down charts and other visualization tools, you won’t be disappointed."

To be clear, I love OnTime. It has increased transparency throughout our company. My goal all along was merely to hold Axosoft accountable for their advertising promises and help them make OnTime even better.

It looks like that has happened.

Thank you, Axosoft. I am overjoyed at the news, and I am standing by to beta test if you need me.

21 tips for delivering killer presentations

As you know, I worked in radio for 15 years, and I've been speaking publicly since Jimmy Carter was president.

In fact, this month I will be speaking to developers at the Fresno County Office of Education on Scrum.

At the office this week, everyone's getting excited about our user conference, and most are beginning to prepare their training sessions. To assist, I've put together my top 21 tips for public presentations.

1. Know your 15-word summary. Can you summarize your presentation in fifteen words? If not, rewrite it and try again. Speaking is an inefficient medium for communicating information, so know what the important fifteen words are and repeat them often.
2. Develop rapport with the audience. Presentations should be entertaining and informative. The audience expects some appeal to their emotions. Reciting dry facts without passion or humor bores your audience, as does repetitious or unnecessary words. Keep the audience engaged. Interesting talks fly by. Boring ones last forever.
3. Tell stories. If your presentation is lengthy, explain your points using short stories or anecdotes. Great speakers know how to paint mental pictures for the audience, creating emotional connections between ideas.
4. Tell the truth. If someone asks you a question and you do not know the answer, tell them so, but offer to help them find the answers after the presentation, and when you are wrong, say you are wrong.
5. Hold questions until the end. To keep the presentation moving, ask the audience to hold questions until the end. If they have questions not specific to the presentation, ask them to meet with you after the session.
6. Repeat questions. When accepting questions, have the person asking state their name and where they are from. Repeat these details and the question for your audience.
7. Prepare and adapt. Speak to your audience, listen to questions, respond to reactions—adjust and adapt. In case your material is not getting across, be prepared to change strategy. Know what you can (and cannot) omit, and brace yourself for the unexpected.
8. Distribute handouts. Ensure that the audience focuses on your presentation, instead of taking notes. Distribute most prior to the arrival of the audience, and hold additional handouts for late arrivals.
9. Make eye contact with everyone in the room. Sincere eye contact makes everyone in your audience feel involved. Exchange eye contact with many people in the audience for 3 seconds each, and routinely glance at the crowd while speaking.
10. Remember the slide rules. Show no more than 10 slides per 20 minutes with each slide containing no font smaller than 30-point. Using any audio or visual aids, “going large” avoids interruption by making everything easily understandable from the back of the room. Highlight main points within the first few slides, and throughout the presentation, use more words than those on the slides. Also, remember to number your slides (or script pages) in case you lose your place.
11. Never read slides or notes verbatim. Use words as reminders, and spend most of your time making eye contact. Knowing your material makes you more competent and confident—and assures your audience that you are an expert on your subject.
12. Speak with conviction and enthusiasm. With a little practice, you can inject your passion for a subject into your presentations, and enthusiasm is contagious. Structure presentations using logical progressions from introduction (Thesis statement) to body (strong supporting arguments, accurate and up-to-date information) to conclusion (re-state thesis, summary, and logical conclusion).
13. Breathe. Feeling the urge to use presentation killers like ‘um,’ ‘ah,’ or ‘you know’? Replace those with a pause, taking a short breath—in—not out. Allow everyone time to reflect and think. Racing through will leave everyone out of breath.
14. Slow down. Nervous speakers tend to talk fast. Consciously slow your speech down and add pauses for emphasis. Use statements like, “that’s a good question,” or “I’m glad you asked me that,” to buy time and organize responses. Astute guests will know, but it still smoother than “ums” and “ahs”.
15. Never plan gestures. Any gestures you use should be an extension of your message and the real emotions that message conveys. Planned gestures always look phony, because they do not match other involuntary body cues.
16. Arrive early. Never fumble with software or equipment while people are waiting. Scope the room early, run through your slide show, and identify any potential problems. Verify early that all electrical outlets and devices are functioning properly.
17. Practice your speaking skills. Practice instills competence and confidence. If possible, practice with the microphone. Some require that you speak from one angle. Other microphones absorb sound from different directions, but are prone to feedback.
18. Project your voice. Do not yell. Stand up straight and let your voice resonate on the air from your lungs rather than your throat, and you will produce a louder and clearer sound. Vary the tone of your voice and dramatize if necessary. If a microphone is available, adjust and adapt your voice accordingly.
19. Know when to apologize. Apologize only when you have done something wrong. Never apologize for nervousness or a lack of preparation time. Most audiences will not detect your anxiety, unless you draw attention to it. Apologize when you are late or shown to be incorrect. Confidence will promote audience trust, but arrogance will erode it.
20. Be the Audience. When preparing your presentation, think from the audience’s perspective. What might they not understand? What might seem boring? As an audience member, “What’s in it for me?”
21. Know when to stop talking. Conclude your presentation by summarizing your main points. Follow with an interesting remark or an appropriate punch line. Leave your audience with a positive impression and a sense of completion. Do not belabor your closing remarks. If there is time remaining, take questions, thank your audience and sit down.

Let me know if you have any to add!

Lead, Follow, or Get Fired!

After a few false starts, I still have not been motivated to get my podcast up and running, and I am beginning to think I need a co-host. With a team in place, perhaps we can push each other forward.

Afterall, that's what the phrase Lead, Follow, or Get Fired is all about.

Teams must be perpetual—where each member is a moving part pushing the other moving parts forward. When one of those parts stops working, that part must be replaced.

I know that sounds harsh, but it is a reality.

To believe anything else is to fool yourself and damage the morale—and the throughput—of your team.

This is not to say that a part cannot be repaired. The team itself should work to oil and adjust its parts to keep them from failing, and the mechanic—the manager—shouldn't be called until such repairs are beyond the abilities of the team.

Successful teams lead themselves, and within each team, there are strong members that will push for improvements.

However, those leaders must not be allowed to dominate, as one persons improvement is often another persons impediment.

You must have strong leaders that counter other strong leaders, ensuring the team is always moving forward and weighing options based on everyone's input, in order to find the optimal solutions to all problems.

Any who sees a problem with current processes should lead the team to improve it, just as they would any other problem.

If a member cannot identify a problem with current processes, it is that member's responsibility to support those processes—continuing to move forward and to push other members to move forward.

Those old tried-and-true words of Thomas Paine are still alive and well today: "Lead, follow, or get out of the way" of those who are trying to improve and/or support the team.

Yea, I know what you are thinking—and you are wrong.

There is nothing negative about this perspective for two simple reasons:

• REASON ONE: The process is a fair one. Everyone has the opportunity to support the team as is or help change the team and its processes for the better. Finding a team where you are a better fit is truly a last resort.
• REASON TWO: The process has proven time and time again that it works!

So, about my podcast: I need to get a partner who can lead me, follow me, or fire me. This has gone on long enough.

Any takers?

15 Scrum facts that can make or break your team

If you follow Scrum, it can work miracles in your organization, but I've explained many times before that it is far from being a silver bullet. Without making the effort to built and maintain a solid team, Scrum is completely useless.

Scrum is a tool. 

Use it properly, and it will accomplish what is was designed to accomplish.

Abuse it, and you will fail.

To confirm that this is not news to anyone, I offer Scrum Founder Ken Schwaber's text on the subject:

Scrum is Hard and Disruptive!

1. Scrum is a framework for iterative, incremental development using cross-functional, self-managing teams. It is built on industry best practices, lean thinking, and empirical process control.

2. Scrum is optimized for high yield product management and product development. Scrum is particularly appropriate for high risk, complex, large projects and can be used when other parts of the endeavor are hardware or even waterfall development.

3. If waterfall suits current needs, continue using it.

4. An enterprise can use Scrum as a tool to become the best product development and management organization in its market. Scrum will highlight every deficiency and impediment that the enterprise has so the enterprise can fix them and change into such an organization.

5. Whenever an enterprise modifies or only partially implements Scrum, it is hiding or obscuring one or more dysfunctions that restrict its competence in product development and management.

6. The iterative, incremental nature of Scrum puts stress on the product development organization to improve its engineering skills and on the product management organization to optimize the return on investment of every release and project. The phrase, "That can't be done here" really means that it will be very difficult to do so. The gap between current practices and target practices is a measure of incompetence and competitive risk.

7. The use of Scrum to become an optimized product development and management organization is a change process that must be led from the top and requires change by everyone within the enterprise. Change is extremely difficult and fraught with conflict, and may take many years of sustained effort. Turnover of staff and management can be expected.

8. The most serious impediments to using Scrum are habits of waterfall, predictive thinking over the last twenty to thirty years; these have spawned command and control management, belief that demanding something will make it happen, and the willingness of development to cut quality to meet dates. These are inbred habits that we aren't even aware of anymore.

9. The focus of using Scrum is the change from old habits to new ways of doing business. Scrum is not implemented or rolled-out as a process; it is used to foment change.

10. Scrum is not a methodology that needs enhancing. That is how we got into trouble in the first place, thinking that the problem was not having a perfect methodology. Effort centers on the changes in the enterprise that is needed.

11. Iterative, incremental development is much harder than waterfall development; everything that was hard in waterfall engineering practices now has to be done every iteration, and this is incredibly hard. It is not impossible, but has to be worked toward over time.

12. Managing a release or project to deliver only the highest value functionality and not deliver the rest optimizes value [and] is the job of product management and customers.

13. Self-managing teams are extremely productive. When they work closely with the customer to derive the best solution to a need, they and the customer are even more productive.

14. A team consists of people under pressure to do their best. Conflict is natural and the team needs to know how to deal with the conflict and have resources to draw on when needed.

15. The role of an enterprises management changes from telling people what to do to leading and helping everyone do their best to achieve goals. People aren't resources and managers aren't bosses.

A doctor's call on finding new blood for your healthy team

When your organization moves from a command and control environment to a network of self-managed teams, productivity will increase dramatically—as can turnover.

"There’s good fit – like a glove – or there’s bad fit – like socks on a rooster. In terms of an organization, fit has more to do with adapting to, and embracing an organization’s culture."

In a post regarding hiring for a medical team, Dr.Carol Westfal not only defines the problem, but the solution.

"Different personalities can help you define the cultural orientation of your organization. Becoming aware of the importance and value your organization places on these characteristics will help your interview team identify and define its own culture and make it easier to discover the candidate’s relative fit."

Here are some traits Carol says defines an organization’s culture:

• Customer-focused:

· Compassion.

· Access and patient satisfaction.

· Listening and approachability.

· Dealing with ambiguity.

· Interpersonal savvy.

• Process-focused:

· Planning and execution.

· Managing through systems.

· Priority setting.

· Process compliance.

· Focus on quality.

· Models preferred behaviors.

• Performance-driven:

· History of achieving results.

· Driven to achieve.

· Accountability – self and others.

· Self-manages & self-corrects.

· Strong business acumen.

· Appropriately autonomous.

• Relationship-centered:

· Builds relationships.

· Responds to coaching & feedback.

· Integrity and trust.

· Social skills.

· Organizational agility.

· Loyalty.

In reality, there is no magic bullet for assessing a good long-term fit, but careful appraisals of your organization and corresponding explorations of candidates personal and professional traits, will help you locate good cultural matches that will support your team for the foreseeable future.

Scrum Teams: weighing Individual Performance Appraisals

According to a recent Wall Street Journal headline...

“Teams have become commonplace in U.S. Companies.”

Of course, that is common knowledge to readers of this blog.

It is also descriptive of a problem that I am trying to solve this week.

As I've noted before, most performance appraisal techniques are formulated with individuals in mind—they measure and rate the performance of the individual employee. Therefore, with the number of teams increasing in the organizations, it becomes difficult to measure and appraise the performance of the team.

The problem is in defining how to separate the performance of the team from the performance of the employees.

One solution being adopted by many companies involves measuring both individual and team performance. Sometimes, team based objectives are also included in the individual performance plans.

From a software development perspective, I am pondering how this can be applied to a Scrum team.

I would love to hear any ideas you may have.

Only 12% of all software companies leverage Scrum

You might recall my complaints regarding Axosoft OnTime's advertised support for Scrum and its short-comings.

This week, Axosoft conducted a survey and determined that I was right.

"...Scrum is one of the top methodologies getting adopted by teams. At Axosoft, we’ve been very intrigued with Scrum and the philosophy behind it. Scrum is very much inline with our own development philosophy, and we hope to improve OnTime even more so it addresses the needs of Scrum teams even better in the future."

They also discovered that most software companies are not using Scrum.

Now, you understand why Decade Software is surpassing our competition like never before.

No rest for the Scrum warriors

Over at Elegant Code, David Starr seems to be talking about our office...

"Scrum has finally been recognized as an excellent team management model that supports agility. It is also prone to fracturing at large scale and must be held together with more pressure at large size. It takes more than Scrum to deliver on the whole promise."

And about my team...

"Test Driven Development is a wonderfully lean practice that has genuinely matured to a standard engineering practice.

Who can argue with the constant attention to quality? Now that we can agree this is how to do business, we are simply evolving the technique rather than arguing about whether it has value.

Good stuff."

He also offers some warnings that almost applied to our teams...

"I cannot count the number of times people have represented their practices as 'Scrum-like'. I commonly ask, 'Did you start with Scrum and modify it to fit your shop?'

'No,' is the common answer. 'We read the books and picked the parts that seemed to make sense for us.' "

I laughed out loud when I read this, remembering how hard we fought off Scrumbut in the early days with my team—and more recently in our Design and Client Services teams.

However, David's warning is an important one. If we get lazy, if we start sinking back into our old processes, all of our successes could vanish in a heartbeat.

There is no rest for the Scrum warrior. One must be ever vigilant to ensure that the process machine is well oiled and humming quietly.

Thanks for the reminder, David!