This week in the ux-clinic discussion group:

One of the bad habits in my company is the drive-by critique: we throw so much criticism at UI that it’s common for people who show a prototype or new design at a meeting to get pounded on by everyone: tons of questions and criticisms, and downright cynicism. It’s not personal - it’s the flavor of the group, but for folks who have to show creative work it’s just not fun. After a few minutes of critique, the discussion usually moves on to other things, leaving the designer on the floor.

How do you change the flavor of how critiques are done? Or is this just part of working on UI in this industry? We have to show our work to groups, but there has to be a better way.

Posted in Design, UX-Clinic | 3 Comments »

This week in the pm-clinic discussion forum:

In the company I work for, we have personal development discussions between manager and developers twice a year. One part of the discussion is goal setting for the next half year period, and I’m a new manager doing this for the first time.

Obviously, we want the goals to be measurable, realistic, specific, and all that. I am not that interested about general properties of good goals as I am confident (ok, arrogant :) about those. Instead, I want to see real examples of goals that have worked well or well written goals that failed. Not team goals, but individual goals.

The whole personal goal thing is shrouded in mystery - no one ever shows real examples from real reviews for real people, and I hoped pm-clinic might have some people willing to anonymize goals from people on their team, prior teams or share some of their own goals.

I realize that goal setting is dependent on context and I don’t expect that looking at other people’s goals would be transferable as such. Instead, I hope to get new ideas and food for thought in this subject that is new to me, and for that reason good and bad examples (with light commentary) would be valuable. Thanks.

Posted in Management, PM-Clinic | 2 Comments »

Every so often the urge surfaces to replace parts of GUI, like Menus, toolbars and the desktop. This popular demo of BumpTop, from the U of Toronto, goes after the desktop.

First, some history: Back on IE4 in 1996 and again on Neptune (and here) in 1999 we brainstormed, prototyped and evaluated all kinds of radical re-inventions of the desktop (and GUI systems). For a time it was our mission, and we tried, read, played with, or prototyped just about everything that had been done. The conclusion (at least mine): The desktop is a ghetto. People spend so little time there during their day that reinvention doesn’t buy you much.

Certainly not enough to deal with re-learning basic tasks. Unless your reinvention carries over to replace File.Open dialogs and their bretheren too, it’s a low mileage revolution. (Not to mention how you get web-apps to follow your new models too). Especially these days with better search and big storage, people don’t suffer much from their messy, poorly organized desktops. Any UI problems there are noise compared to, say, fighting with web-based e-mail apps or on-line banking sites.

One perenial mistake we made in the Windows group was thinking of System UI (Toolbars, desktops, file folders) as a primary place. We spent so much time trying to build the system as a good experience, when the best thing we could have done would have been to get out of the way (admitidly harder than it sounds). Even then, as now, it’s the web and apps that get 90% of people’s time in any OS.

Now, Bumptop: This is fine research work and a great demo. They got an amazing number of details and subtlties right. It is the desktop metaphor to the max: you can shuffle, flip-through, scale, and crumple, just like things on your real desktop.

It’s certainly cool, but what difference does it all make? It’d be easy to run a baseline usability study, and compare human performance with Bumptop vs. Mac or Windows (A note to anyone else doing other GUI reinventions). Does all the visualization and pile manipulation speed finding things? For newbies or for experts? Who knows, but it’d be easy to find out and would cut the hype.

Even if it does - how much time a day do you spend organizing stuff into folders? If you’re like me, as little as possible. I clean things up when it gets too messy, but generally I avoid my desktop, or any file/folder/maintance, as much as possible.

If you do watch the video and get bored, skip to 3:00 in - more advanced manipulations including stuff I hadn’t seen before. If this stuff floats your boat, check out the Data mountain project from MSR, or Maya’s DEC project. There are tons of other visualization projects from the last 2 decades, but I’m too lazy to dig them all up for this post :)

(And now, since it’s 3pm in the peak of summer in Seattle, I’m going to get as far away from desktops as possible, and go outside to play with the dog - you should too).

Posted in Design, Microsoft | 1 Comment »

For the last half-hour I’ve been jamming on essays at hacknot, on leadership and management in the tech-sector. The essays are somewhere between Joel On Software and Paul Graham in topic and tone, range from ethical challenges, opinion bias, and Delusions of crowds, to critiquing claims of agile methods.

Not sure why but I like finding writers who don’t rush their stuff into daily posts, but wait until they have something solid to say every few weeks and try to say it well.

Hacknot’s latest is a list of Mistakes in technical leadership.

(Link from architect’s linkblog)

Posted in Management, Software/Web development | 1 Comment »

One thing I don’t miss about working at big companies are lame morale events - those weak attempts by bored managers trying to patch over their org’s real problems. Morale events can be great things, but that’s just it - they can be, but rarely are.

I hear so often about trips to the movies, runs to Pizza hut (!), or afternoons at the video arcade that I wonder if people are stuck in corporate re-runs, repeating the same dull tricks until they retire or die. Sure, people are lucky to get these perks at all - but that doesn’t mean they should expect to be continually offered morale, and handed bordom.

The basic rule, where managers get in trouble, is this: any event outside of work does not create morale - it only allows whatever morale exists to surface. Case in point: Take a miserable team out to an amazing meal, they return to misery. Take a happy team out to a horrible meal, they return to happiness. You can’t fix a team, or raise morale, by morale events. Case in point #2: If you consistently gave people interesting projects, stayed out of their way and rewarded them for hard/smart work, you’ll do more for morale than a $100k morale budget ever could.

That said, what good are morale events then? Assuming you do them right, here’s the list:

• Co-workers get a shot at friendship. By letting people play instead of work together, they have chances to build more natural relationships. They might learn that marketing or engineering guy that annoys them is actually pretty cool when he’s on your soccer or whiffle-ball team. They won’t be best friends but odds go up they’ll see each other as interesting people, rather than just the annoying guy down the hall. This is a +5 to human interaction: those relationships are buffers against stress, tension and pointless arguments.
• Inject fun into group dynamic. Good morale events create stories: something crazy Fred did, how Sally kicked the VPs ass at Tekken, or the comeback the boss had for John’s rendition of his boring speech that morning. Create an event that makes stories possible! Those stories live on as a positive force, forever, in your org. Think karaoke, an obstacle course, a scavenger hunt, something with seeds for stories. You have to take risks: even if the day is a complete disaster, guess what? That’s a story! Playing it safe never ever provides stories. We went to the movies. Yawn.
• Experience something new. Crazy, challenging (but non-threatening) morale events work because they force memories - They stand out and define that time for everyone there, giving them all a shared memory unique to their working experience. I can’t remember a single morale event on teams that just took us to the movies (see below) - but I can remember running through every building on campus when Win95 released, the time our team had a manager vs. programmer waterfight outside building 27, and the insane foodfight at the IE4 ship party (I have $50 for anyone who can find that lost photo of me with a pound of guacamole in my right ear).

So how do you do all this you ask? It’s easy:

How to plan a good morale event:

1. Get the number of people down. If you can’t throw a good morale event for 10 people, why try for 200? Smaller is easier. Bringing 200 people to the movies adds zero morale to your team: but giving 20 a great day, that they’ll spread the word about when they return, adds tons of points. Either rotate teams, do a lottery, or dole out budgets to small teams at a time. And do not make morale events family days - that’s a whole ‘nother thing. If people are getting paid for going to the morale event, than it’s a work thing, not a vacation day. Go for 200 only when you’ve got 10 and 50 figured out.
2. Three key elements: fun, interaction, challenge. Movies are the worst morale event in history because they are not interactive and offer no challenge. How can sitting in the dark, in silence, with people you don’t know well, raise morale? And who wants to see movies in a packed house at 10am on Friday just because that’s the only time you can rent the place? Good morale events hit the trifecta, giving people a fun way to interact with others in the course of challenging themselves. Going to sports events isn’t as bad as movies, as you can talk to and see each other, but you’re watching other people do things instead of doing things together yourselves.
3. Pick the right person to design the event. Some people are great at throwing parties, but most people stink: Know thyself. Pick the person, or people, who are the spirit of your organization, or the organization you want to have, and let them organize the day. (Note: these people rarely have any correlation to the hierarchy). Give them the budget, your high level goals, and get out of the way. If you delegate right the first time and the event’s a success, people will fight over doing the organization work next time around. Never ever let the staff of managers, as a collective, design the day. You’ll get three big scoops of boring: a day no one hates, but no one remembers.
4. Think cheap but clever. Money is a distraction. If you’re clever you can come up with creative ways to save cash. If it’s spring or summer do something outside: most parks are free or cheap to reserve. Organize car pools instead of having everyone drive (saves gas and time). See if you can barter your companies services to a place you’d like to rent. Ask around: who knows who, and can call in a favor, or offer one in return? Try to spend budget on food and drinks, two things you shouldn’t ever skimp on.
5. Get away. It’s worth a 20-30 minute drive to wherever. People won’t wander off to check their e-mail at the first sign of bordom, and they’ll be commited to socializing (”Well I’m here, I should stop hiding in the corner and go talk to someone.”). Getting away raises the odds you’re taking them somewhere new and giving them an experience. Rent kayaks at the lake. Do a great BBQ at a really neat park (not the most convenient one). Don’t get suckered in by the convenience of big conference rooms or company spaces: you’ll instantly kill the buzz on whatever clever ideas you come up with. If you schedule wisely, you can dodge traffic both ways. And 5 great hours are better than 8 mediocre ones (and if you go for 5, give everyone the rest of the day off).
6. Make it mildly competitive. If you’re afraid of low participation, or bordom, play on team rivalry. Organize it as the programmers vs. the testers, the website team vs. the management team, Over 30 vs. under 30 - I don’t know - make up something funny. The management vs. thing has potential for venting frustration in a safe, fun way, just be careful your competition doesn’t slide into war. Ask the folks from #2 to drive formulating how to break this down (Maybe it’s 3 teams? 4?). Throwing down a nice prize for the winning team as bait will get people involved if nothing else will.
7. Think grade school games. Kickball is hands down the best no-frills, low-cost, easy organization activity to do. The goofyness of the ball (it’s big and red) equalizes just about everyone - there are no rock stars in kickball. It’s fun and, even for the super-competitive, hard to take too seriously. Throw in some good beer, food, music and a made up rivalry or cool prizes for the winners (that’s where your remaining budget can go), and you’ll have an awesome day. Frisbee Golf is runner up, as you can make courses anywhere, with teams of any number or size. (Whirlyball can work, but this has been a morale event staple for years). Semi-athletic things get people moving and change the hierarchy: no matter what happens co-workers become more than just their jobs.
8. Pull surprises. If you’re in a big org, get a fancy well-liked VP to drop by. If you’re a start-up, make a mystery day or afternoon. But if you go for the surprise, go big. If you say only “bring a swimsuit”, don’t take the team to the pool at the Y. They’ll never bite again at your surprises. But if you take them on a snorkling trip, or out on the lake for waterskiing, they’ll bite every time you offer a surprise in the future.

I’m convinced I’ve got some of the above wrong. There are too many teams with too many different things going on to prescribe morale plans for all of them. But I bet on the spirit: get out of the lame event rut. Take chances and do something interesting. You just might spark a fire, in them or in you, that leads to real morale back at work.

So help me out: What are the best and worst morale events you’ve ever been to?

Posted in Management | 30 Comments »

From Tyler Blain, the Top ten tips on preventing innovation: His list goes further than mine in cynicism, in that it’s actually written as a playbook for squashing the creative life out of orgs. Fun read :) Of particular entertainment value:

5. Treat employees like garbage. Yell at them. Whenever possible, call them at midnight to yell at them some more. They work for us. If they get uppity, make them work on the weekends. Make them dig holes and fill them back up again. Threaten them - especially when they need the job. If you can’t yell, at least be condescending in public forums. Remember we are smarter than they are. Punks.

Posted in Innovation, Management | 1 Comment »

Where do you draw the line for passion?

Watching Mark Cuban’s behavior as owner of Dallas Mavericks, currently vieing for the NBA championships, is a love and hate fest for me. There’s are hints of goodness in him, but it’s lost in his choices of expression. He’s an echo of some tech-sector VPs and managers I’ve worked with: a core of good intentions, misguided by imaturity and self-centric egoism.

His passion and emotion about what happens to his team is real and wonderful to see: he’s not a guy in a suit, he’s personally invested in what happens (Seen at right wearing the jersey of a suspended player). It must be a boost for players to work for someone so visibly passionate and interested in what’s going on. Finding that kind of empathy from managers is rare in all businesses, including the NBA.

But the problem is how those emotions are translated into behavior. Cuban complains, vents, rants and draws more negative attention to himself as if working only from the Billy Martin & Bobby Knight (Mr. chair thrower) playbook. He deliberately violates rules, challenges not only officials but the league commisioner, showing little respect for the game. Drawing heat away from the team can be a sweet management move, but his behavior often seems more about his own feelings rather than driven by protecting the emotions of the people that work for him.

A noble man, with respect for himself, his team, and the game, would find an appropriate forum to vent his complaints, but Cuban lacks restraint: there seems little wisdom between his feelings and actions.

Instead of spending $1.5 million in fines over 5 seasons, he could pay to bring every single NBA referee to a training camp of his own design, or driven by a coallition of (other disgruntaled) coaches. He could find some positive way to both bring other people to support his view, and to effectively be an advocate for positive change. Why not found an NBA referee recruiting program? Work with other owners to boost their salaries to draw better talent? Regarless of whether his complaints are valid or not, there are more respectable ways for handling them.

But as of late, he makes it all too easy to pidgeon hole him as the spoiled rich kid who expects the world to circle behind his wake and give him what he wants when he cries. Whether he deserves this stereotype or not, being percieved in this way can’t possibly serve whatever his true ambitions for Dallas are.

Posted in Management | 6 Comments »

Working out the final details with the fine folks at  Step two designs to teach my workshop on Leading UX teams. More details to follow but tentative dates are:

Sydney, Sept 1st
Canberra, Sept 5th
Melbourne, Sept 8th

The one day workshop will be a crossover between project management and UX design, hiting all the sweet spots folks leading UI efforts often struggle with (including highlights from the ux-clinic list).

If anyone wants to try to meet up for drinks or a bite, leave a comment and I’ll follow up.

Posted in On Tour, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

An interesting link from Reforming project management: Harvard Business school writes about Morning meetings - a daily meetup where leaders meet to get in sync. The essay is ok, but one passage caught my eye:

In contrast, two qualities characterize high-functioning leadership teams: (1) hard conversations happen—difficult issues move quickly from people’s heads to the conference table; (2) accountability is shared—individuals on the top team feel a responsibility to the organization as a whole, not just for their piece of the action.

What a great goal - hard conversations happen. I can’t tell you how many teams are stuck in the 5th level of hell for the single reason that leaders never let hard conversation happen. And the kicker is accountability - nothing more fun to work in a team culture that’s proactively accountable, with everyone taking their fair share of heat when things go wrong - suddenly people spend more time working instead pointing fingers.

Now if only someone at Harvard would write an essay on how to make hard conversations and accountability happen :)

Posted in Management | 5 Comments »

This week in the pm-clinic discussion forum:

I’m a development lead in a high powered web development company. We beat competitors on speed and quality technology, and engineers like me do the closest thing to project management. We avoid specs and docs, working in small enough teams that fast communication is pretty easy. There is a strong anti-management vibe in the company, as well as a hyper proactive “do it now and fix it later” mentality, but those attitudes have served us really well - our company has been super successful.

The problem is that our organization has grown from 100 to 2000+ people in a handful of years. Many engineers work on several projects at a time, including lots of remote programmers. We have a high number of virtual teams and a super flat hierarchy - things that are liberating, but are suddenly annoying at times. The consensus driven approach we have isn’t as speedy as it was.

My dilemma has two parts:

Tactics: I’m more willing to try changes than many of my peers and reports. So how do I add in more management-y things, a little more structure and clearer division of ownership, without rocking the boat and being called a weenie? (Our lingo for fuddy-dutty management types). I fear it’s a one way ride: These things I’ll add will never be removed and it’s a downward spiral of over-management (And my team of engineers fears this too).

Strategy: How do you work to shift the culture the company was founded on and take pride in, when it’s not working as well anymore? I can’t say I’ve worked anywhere that handled this successfully - either the success ends, or people leave, whenever leaders try to mature the culture.

Posted in PM-Clinic | No Comments »

This week in the ux-clinic discussion forum:

I’m an information designer and developer, aka technical writer. I’ve recently been told that the v1 of our new product will not have context-sensitive help. The engineering team lead says “too bad; no one reads the documentation anyhow.”

I believe it’s impossible to design a totally intuitive UI, since everyone’s intuitive is different, and frankly, we’re not perfect as designers anyway. I think this means documentation has an important role - but since it’s my job, maybe I’m biased :)

So I’m curious about how other organizations either include documentation / support as a first order part of the experience, or how they justify depricating it given how often even the best designs fail their users. Is documentation something easily cut on your projects? How do you justify (or argue against) this?

- Help with help

Posted in UX-Clinic | No Comments »

I’m on chapter 4 of the next book and as part of the research I have a tall stack of books with the word innovation in the title. Many have the same theme: Do these 5 things and magic will happen. Your competitors will stumble in your wake. Profits and promotions will be your dominion. Beautiful people will talk to you. You’ll be 5 inches taller and 10 lbs slimmer. And they assume you have enough power, as CEO or VP, to make innovation happen.

But the better concern, the more interesting and cynical question, is this:

Who has the power to stop innovation in your organization?

We’ve all had good ideas die at the feet of the first person with power and motivation to kill them. Whether it’s a feature, a business plan, a project, they are torn to pieces by the innovation killer’s 5 foot radius idea death circle. Books don’t help much with them, unless they’re slim enough to fling across the boardroom, and heavy enough to knock them out when they strike.

We’ve all worked for idea killers - if we could get out ideas past them, we’d be ok, without all the books.

I’m exploring idea rejection and why it happens - here’s a rough list, but as this pertains to chapter 4, I’m looking for more thoughts and opinions - help if you can.

People in power stop innovation because they:

1. Are struggling to manage without worrying about innovation.
2. Don’t understand the new idea.
3. Understand the idea, but don’t see the value.
4. Are afraid of the changes the idea represents.
5. Think the innovation conflicts with the orgs goals.
6. Are generally risk-phobic and panic.
7. Believe they’ll lose control over their organization.
8. Don’t know how to convert the idea into a business or product.
9. Pathologically reject all ideas they didn’t think of.
10. Don’t see how it can help them get promoted. (See how cynical I am? :)
11. ?

(Note: Sometimes rejecting ideas is the right move, and the “idea killer” is just a wise leader - so I am looking for less-cynical explanations than the ones above.)

Q: Does this list ring true? Why or why not? What else is missing?

Posted in Innovation, Management | 24 Comments »