Archive for September, 2006

  • By Scott (admin) on September 28th, 2006
  • 2 Comments »
  • Management

Can we do better than Gannt charts?

Leisa over at disambiguty laments the absence of Gannt charts in various popular project management tools – In a fun post she not only comments on basecamp and the brand new GoPlan, but advises on the wins gained by visualizing schedules.

In comments I ask the question: Why in nearly 100 years haven’t we found a wider set of visualizations for projects?

The ideal designer & project manager

pmdesign1.jpgOne question I’m often asked is what is the ideal designer? – I get this from managers or VPs in tech companies, trying to figure out what’s wrong with the relationship their managers / leaders have with the design staff.

Working with ideals is an interesting exercise: it reveals assumptions and forces opinion as there’s no right answer, and even if there were, this universe rarely grants ideals (at least to me). So here’s my staple answer on ideal roles, followed by some thoughts on reality.

The Ideal PM

The best PMs partner with design in a similiar way to their partnership with programmers. They collaborate (not dictate) with the designers/programmers, perhaps starting with their own seeds, or ones from the business folks, and then delegate as much of the engineering thinking and design thinking as they can. The ideal PM focuses on creating the best environment for all roles to do well: marketers, analysts, designers, testers, everyone. They carefully shift the environment, the power balance, and their direct involvement depending on the project goals, the talents involved, and how far along things are.

Instead of designing, PMs should first use their unique powers to co-ordinate their team with (or protect their team from) management, other project teams, budgets, star-charts, etc. Any other time spent designing should only be: in partnership with designers looking for collaboration/feedback, where designers don’t have time or when quality is low (just like they’d help out test, documentation, or whatever). A good PM is a leader and a results machine: willing to do anything to empower people on their team, including keeping their hands out of the design cookie jar (slap).

The ideal designer

Someone with many design talents and who is a natural thought leader on the team. They not only make wireframes and prototypes, but drive the thinking and tradeoffs behind them, comfortably evangalizing good ideas and staying near the center of important discussions. They are drivers in resolving design issues, solving problems, and making things happen, and people happily come to them for help with decisions. They are communicators and collaborators as much as idea generators, leading design ideas through engineering, marketing and other parts of the process. They negotiate with PMs on when to handoff design leadership and who is best able to represent a decision, a design or a problem to the rest of the team.

Designers should be the tiebreaker in design issues and be granted signifigant authority when ease of use, style and other design traits are important goals. The designer’s opinion on design matters should trump others, just as an engineer or marketer’s opinion would in certain situations. A good product designer earns these powers through the respect of everyone they interact with, as an intelligent, thoughtful, reliable teammate.

The common dysfunctions

I offer these not as inditements of entire disciplines – that’d be stupid. Instead, I can tell you that when there are problems, these are the most common things I’ve seen for PMs & Designers. If what follows pisses you off, find your counterpart: maybe PMs & Designers can at least bond in their flaming hatred for me.

(Hint: Put your lead suits on now)

Common PM dysfunctions

Many PMs know little about design, or worse, believe they know everything – the result is any good designer will be quickly frustrated and turned off by them. Arrogant PMs, particularly from tech-backgrounds, often have limited exposure to designers, or only mediocre, limited role / contracted ones, creating a self-fulfilling loop for their low expectations for design staff. Even if they come across a superstar design talent, the PM will be blind to it, misuse it, or frustrate it to the point that they are rendered mediocre, insanely bitter, or both.

PMs can be tyrants and empire builders (“Here comes Napoleon” is often heard just before PMs enter rooms), comically insecure about their power, who see designers as threats to their fragile sense of power.

Common designer dysfunctions

(Hint: Don’t touch that suit unless you’re adding another layer).

Many designers claim to want leadership roles, but as soon as there is a design tradeoff debate, or a tough business decision, moments where there is an interdisciplinary leadership vacumn that they are primed to fill, they retreat. When their team leaders need to be taught core design principles, brand fundamentals, or any basic concept, some designers sit in gloomy silence, prefering endlessly clever protests in private to stepping forward in mixed company as a true design leader. This kind of passive aggression confirms the team’s perception of designers as (bitter) specialists, and simultaneously reinforces the designer’s frustration with their environment.

Designers often have auteur sized egos without the auteur quality track record of shipped work (At least in the eyes of their team, if not in truth). This gap between how designers percieve their talents vs. how their team values their talents must narrow for relationships to improve, and the designer, in the minority, often has to compromise first but is unwilling to do so.

So how do you fix PM / design relations?

PMs have more responsibility for these issues: so I start there. They are often granted more authority than designers, and have broader responsibility – meaning it’s up to them to delegate authority to design or do whatever it takes to make designers effective. A good PM should see a designer or programmer as both a person and a resource, and their job is to maximize the value of that resource towards the goals. If a PM is honestly trying to make a designer as valuable as possible, collaboration becomes natural and tension evaporates. And if the designer reciprocates (does whatever it takes to help towards the goals), same thing.

But designers have to take risks with their roles – if they want more power or influence that only comes with asking for bigger challenges and delivering: something they have to push for on their own (In old-school Microsoft parlance, you have to step up). These changes make designers feel vulnerable, but growth requires moving out of comfort zones.
pmdesign2.jpg

In groups with no history (or a bloody one) of pm/design relations, it often takes a pilot effort: pick your most compatible pairing of a PM and a designer, define a new set of ground rules, and give them the cover-fire and resources (by their definition) to run with it. In a month when they can show kick-ass results, highlight them to the rest of the organization as the model to emulate. You need local examples of the new relationship working for people with intrenched opinions to change their minds. (Often you need to pick a trio of PM/dev/design for the pilot to work).

Reward models for Designers & PMs

The Pavlovian answer to all these problems is how the senior manager overseeing everyone rewards PM/designer behavior. If designers are rewarded for stepping up and being visible, they’ll do it more often. If you give kudos to the PM/designer pairings that collaborate best, more people will emulate them. So moving a team closer to ideals has more to do with what behavior is rewarded (promotions, raises, kudos, yachts, mansions, etc.) than what’s said or written down. Writing role definition documents is a waste of time if not tied to the core reward system.

One tricky pattern at many software companies (Microsoft included) is how people are rewarded for features: new features, big features, it’s features that drive how visible people are in their organization. (This is the true reason for bloat: people know it’s bad design, but the system rewards it, so someone always does it). To give designers more power in these environments demands shifting the PM reward structure away from feature design, and towards team building & team results, a difficult culture shift.

Notes and caveats

  • Since ideal people are rare, the best you can often do is approximate with a team. If you have 3 or 4 PMs who in conjuction play the roles, you have a virtually ideal situation. In reality this is a better way to use these idealizations that trying to hire perfect people.
  • Often it’s the lead position (lead designer / lead PM) that is closest to the ideal in the role that they play: using their own talents, and the talents of their reports, they are most accountable for using the resources in the best way possible.
  • It’s synergy at the manager levels that makes all the difference. If the overall project manager is sympatico with the most senior design manager, they’ll naturally pave the way for similiarly healthy relationships all the way down. But if they don’t, that gap will cause all of the organizations problems. Until they admit this and solve it, progress is uphill, on ice, in the dark, naked, while chased by rabid crampon wearing wolves.
  • There are many different kinds of design, which means many different relationships and roles. If I knew the details in a particular case (Feel free to offer one) I’d likely offer a modified set of ideals. The roles of visual, interaction, game, and web designers all create unique challenges.
  • Where is usability / user assitance / marketing / VP / me in all this? Hey, it’s just a blog post – can’t cover everybody. If you raise entertaining complaints in the comments, odds go up I’ll write about your favorite role pairing next time.
  • By Scott (admin) on September 26th, 2006
  • 31 Comments »
  • Teaching/Training

How to run a great unconference session

It’s easy to assume that unconferences, the popular trend in tech-sector events, require little thought on the part of session organizers. The myth is that by choosing to do an unconference, special magic will trickle down into all the sessions, blooming into dozens of beautiful flowers of enlightened communal experience.

It’s not true: All unconferences have good sessions and bad. Ask anyone who has attended one – they’ll tell you about dud topics, confused session organizers, and the guy who kept taking the floor to talk about his company in session after session. For all their benefits, unconferences have their bad moments too.

One trick with unconferences is not to bet the farm on self-organization: people running sessions have a job to do, and it’s up to them to make the sessions work. The event planners do carry the heavy burden of setting the tone, creating the environment and inviting the right people, but the session creators themsleves are part of the the front lines for delivering value to attendies (and themselves).

Running a good session is easy – it just take some effort and awareness of what can go wrong.

Things to do

  • Create both a topic and an angle. It’s one thing to say “lets talk about AJAX”. It’s another to go with “AJAX war stories: the good and the ugly of real AJAX development”. It’s the same basic topic, but a theme calls people to action, or opinion. It lets everyone know what thoughts to stew over before the session begins, increasing the odds people will have interesting things to share.
  • Don’t be scared to pick tough topics. The only filter at an unconference is you. One trick is to pick topics you always wished they’d talk about at big fancy conferences, but never do. Now is your chance. Odds are high you’ll hit on surprisingly popular themes.
  • Emphasize interactivity. Make it easy for people to participate, ask questions, and use the group to add to your expertise on the topic. This is called facilitation and its a skill: pay attention the next time you see a meeting or brainstorming session run well. Use the whiteboards if there are any, writing down key points, suggestions or references you know people will want. (Or ask someone to volunteer to take notes at the begining of the session).
  • Be a good host. Like throwing a party, good hosts are friendy, introduce people, and set the tone. Be friendlier and more extroverted than usual, just like you would if throwing a party at your house. If you know a few people in the room, use them to your advantage (tasking them with seed questions or early participation). If you think you’re a lousy solo host, partner with someone to run the session.
  • Take advantage of the unique opportunity. There’s a special mix of experience and opinion in the room and that’s the unconference magic. Throw questions to the floor often, probing for expertise is in the room: “Who knows about X? Has anyone done Z with Y?”
  • Relax and have fun. If you have fun with the session idea, and show up smiling, everything will go easier. Remember: you set the tone. If you’re friendly and relaxed, people will tend to be friendlier and more relaxed. If you’re scared and quiet, people will be cautious and tentative.
  • Continue the conversation. Get people’s names and e-mails and follow up with any notes or photos to help continue the conversations. Often people are torn between two sessions and miss yours despite their interest: post to the conference wiki afterwards, leaving people who missed your session a way to catch up and still make connections (or contributions).

Things to avoid

  • Don’t disapear as the organizer. If you wrote the session on the board, you need to assert yourself if the conversation devolves into a shouting match, a soloiquoy, or dead silence. Be the shepherd – visible, as involved as necessary, a beacon of sanity (or insanity depening on the topic). Put your name on the session board so people can track you down later.
  • Don’t walk in without a position. Conversations need seeds: offer a position, or a set of questions, to get the ball rolling. Many start with a 5/7 minute presentation by the organizer on a topic, followed by completely open and free-flowing conversation and debate. Those 5/7 minutes, if interesting, give enough fuel and grounding for everyone to build a session around. A list of thought provoking questions can be a great, low cost bag of seeds.
  • Never assume people in the room know more / less than you. You never know who you’re going to get: ask for a show of hands on how long people have worked with, or studied, whatever the topic is. Then you’ll know where you stand (expert or idiot?) before you waste everyone’s time talking at the wrong level.
  • Never get bummed that only 2 people show up. If you meet 2 people at a conference who actually share your interest in something, that’s a win, isn’t it? The smaller the number of people that show, the less structure you need. It’s easier to chat and share stories with a handful of people than it is with 15 or 20.

Basic session patterns to copy

There are definite patterns you’ll find at tech-sector unconferences. Even though they’re self-organized, some basic shapes are easy to make and work ok.

  • The group discussion. Someone picks a topic they’re into, writes it on the board, and forms an interesting discussion around it.
  • The semi-talk. Mentioned briefly above, this is a 5/15 minute presentation by the organizer, used as fuel for the session.
  • The show and tell. The organizer has a cool project, demo, beta, or something to show and let people play with. It’s the springboard for all the conversation in the session. Alternatively, individuals are asked to bring their own thing to show and tell (perhaps with a theme), and the session works round-robin.
  • The interactive game or thing. Many sessions are based on social games, or the learning of how to play them. Mafia (aka werewolf) is currently all the rage, but anything goes. Some people do game shows or competitions (e.g. Halfbaked): these are awesome but require some preperation on your part (what are the rules? Who are the judges? Did you dry run it at all before inflicting it on a group of strangers?)
  • Learn how to do X. If you’re inclined to teach, this can be simple and awesome. Teach folks how to juggle, do basic yoga, magic tricks, you name it. Just make sure you bring whatever gear you need, and that you have some plan for teaching 5, 10 or 15 people how to do something all at the same time.
  • The lecture. This is tricky, as the basic format is low-interactive. But if you’re a rock star, or have a big, well developed idea (a book in progress, a manifesto) you can pull this off. If only 10 people show, you should switch gears to something more interactive.
  • Non-session interactive thing. Why be bound to the tyrany of the session? Set up a demo in the hallway. Put a machine you’ve made by the couches. Write up an essay and tape it on the doors to the restroom stalls. There’s no reason you have to run a session at all to contribute. Be creative. These are often the most memorable things at unconferences.
  • Something new. There are other ideas worth trying – but whatever you do, let people know the ground rules in the first 2 minutes. If they don’t like it or had different expectations, give them a chance to bail before they feel obligated to stay.

Basic session patterns to avoid

  • The poorly disguised product demo. Most unconferences I’ve been to are shy about demos – so follow the policy of your particular event. If you’re going to do a demo, make it obvious. “Fooby 2.0 demo” and don’t hide it behind some other topic, making people wonder why you keep steering the conversation back to a product you’re waaaay too excited about.
  • The introvert with a microphone. If you’re really not suited for facilitating a group of 15 people you don’t know, partner with someone that is. Or pick a format better suited to your comfort zone. (Hint: if you are a good facilitator, run a session teaching others how to get more comfortable presenting / facilitating / being in front of the room. Doublehint: If you know a good presenter, ask them to run this session).
  • The zealot with a microphone. If you can’t stand to listen to people who disagree with you, get a talk show, or start a podcast – but don’t run a session. Unless you set the ground rules, or describe the session in a way that makes your stance known, expect people to either challenge you, or leave the room in frustration. More fun: find a zealot with the opposing view, get a moderator, and have a debate.
  • The doing of things best done on e-mail or wikis. Having 20 people in a room making a long list of programming languages / cool websites / favorite bands is a waste of everyone’s time. Very little of that process benefits from being in a room together.
  • The bad rendition of a bad blog post. Rants are great if people volunteer to listen: so if you really just want to vent to an audience for an hour, imply that in the session name. But don’t let yourself dominate a room or force the conversation back over ground everyone else has hapilly left behind. Also, the unconference spirit tends to be more about “60 second rants” where everyone gets to chip in, than it is about geek soliloquy.

More on unconfernces:

Have an unconference tip? More advice on running good sessions? Leave a comment please.

This week in ux-clinic: Designing for novices and experts

This week in the ux-clinic discussion group:

We’re a start-up of veteran designers and software developers, building a cutting edge – home music system (think wireless). One big debate we’re having is how to approach the problem of satisfying both user populations: novice consumers and expert audiophiles. Both user groups are important to us, but their needs, and the assumptions we can make in designing for them, are so divergent, we’re struggling with how best to approach the problem.

Should we:

  • A) Figure out now who is more important, and design for them
  • B) Focus on the happy middle of design problems / features that both groups want done as simply as possible
  • C) Deal with this one feature / decision at a time
  • D) Something we haven’t thought of

I’d love to hear how other folks have dealt with this problem, even if just “we made it up as we went”

- Signed, SPD, split-personality design

This week in pm-clinic: Keeping top talent

This week in the pm-clinic discussion forum:

For about 16 months my big problem. in forming a new team, was finding top talent – but now that I’ve nailed that goal, I have an unexpectedly annoying problem: keeping top talent. The surprising downside to having rock star people is that they know they can easily find jobs elsewhere, and they demand more from me in terms of assignments and the challenge level of their projects than most of the people I’ve managed before.

I’m starting to think I’m overstaffed – my team has more talent than I really need for the kinds of projects we’re going to have over the next year.

Should I:

  • a)  Stop complaining. This is a good problem to have. I should do whatever it takes to hold on to as many talented people as possible, regardless of the circumstances.
  • b) Call the talent’s bluff and let them leave. I’ve over-hired, and if folks feel they can do better I should let them go, working towards a balanced pool of talent to match the more balanced work I have.
  • c) Fight for bigger projects based on the talent level I have.
  • d) ?

Signed, – Trying to keep top talent

  • By Scott (admin) on September 21st, 2006
  • 7 Comments »
  • Innovation

Why Gutenberg is overrated as an innovator

No, not Steven Gutenberg. The other one.

Johann Gutenberg’s name appears on most Western lists of the most influential people in history, often in the top 10, sometimes as #1. In the U.S. most people know him as either the inventor of the printing press, or the creator of movable type: but it turns out neither claim is accurate.

It’s a well established fact that the Chinese had used movable type printing of various kinds in the 13th century. The Chinese also invented paper, and contributed, along with the Greeks, to various inking and writing techniques.

Gutenberg deserves credit for 3 significant things:

  1. Masterful improvements to movable type techniques. The level of craftsmanship he applied to various elements, from inks, to moldings, to a variation on the screw press, was impressive. But he didn’t invent inks, moldings, or the concept of movable type, only variations, enhancements and modifications to them.
  2. Engineered a high quality, efficient printing system. Much like how Edison didn’t invent the lightbulb, but did create the first light/power system, Gutenberg was the first Westerner to make all the pieces work in a functional, affordable, reproducible system. Though sadly for his bank account, he didn’t profit from the system, but did prove it could work.
  3. Created beautiful bibles that successfully combined new typographic and printing techniques. The bibles he printed were aesthetic and functional improvements on previous printing works and were exceptional proofs of concept for the viability of print production.

Gutenberg’s major asset in these achievements, beyond the luck of a well funded partner, was the Western alphabet: movable type stalled in China because their character set is enormous, compared to the 20-26 of most Western languages. This was the conceptual turning point that made his improvements possible. Instead of designing a system to support 150 characters, he only needed to support 23.

Gutenberg’s place in history was not secure in his lifetime – he died relatively obscure and certainly poor. Little was written about him at the time, and our knowledge of his thoughts on his work are extremely limited. There’s no evidence that he had any noble ambitions for freeing knowledge, improving the world or (re)paving the way for democracy.

So for the history of innovation, and the most influential people in the last 1000 years, Gutenberg’s place is well-overstated. He is at best credited with exceptional craftsmanship and evolution of an idea – developments that likely would have happened in the West without him – and his intellectual and creative contributions pale in comparison to Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Pasteur, Tesla, Einstein or dozens of others typically ranked well below Gutenberg on these lists.

Arnold Pacey’s great book on innovation history, The mazes of ingenuity, has this to say in explanation of Gutenberg’s inflated profile:

“The idea that Gutenberg was the sole inventor the printing press grew up at the end of the 15th century, at a time when people had come to think of the work of any great artist, or poet, or inventor, as the product of special creative genius which the majority of ordinary men did not posses.”

And James Burke, in Connections, writes:

Even as we name Gutenberg, the canonical inventor of that technology, the Chinese trump us once more. In AD 1045, a printer named Pi-Sheng did almost what Gutenberg would do 410 years later. He shaped individual characters on the ends of small square clay rods and aligned them face up, in a shallow tray lined with warm wax. He laid a board across the array and pressed it down until each character was at exactly the same level. When the wax cooled he used this array to print images.

Like many myths of innovation I’ve discovered in researching the book, it was socially and politically convenient for Western society to consolidate the development of printing under the heroic image of a local sole inventor, rather than the more accurate truth of printings development by many people primarily from foreign cultures.

The Internet age is filled with similiar conveniences in assigning credit for things like the Internet, the web browser, and the PC.

Who do you think is overrated in their influence today? And why?

References:

« Older Entries |

Scott's Bestselling Books
  • Confessions of a
    Public Speaker
  • Provocative and funny secrets from a veteran speaker, you'll laugh as you learn.
  • Buy now at Amazon Book Details
  • The Myths of Innovation
  • The classic bestseller on how amazing lessons from the past can help you innovate today.
  • Buy now at Amazon Book Details
  • Making Things Happen
  • The classic and bestselling handbook for any project leader, packed with tactics and stories.
  • Buy now at Amazon Book Details
Photos from Recent Events (view flickr stream)

You're reading Scott Berkun, All rights reserved unless noted. You can subscribe here Blog RSS Comments (RSS)