I had a secret. Back as an undergraduate at CMU, I’d see authors visit and lecture in the Adamson wing, this cool auditorium style room in Baker Hall. When bored, I’d imagine what I’d have to do in my future to earn an invite and speak to students in that same lecture hall.

Last week I got my chance. The magic day started with an invite from Paul Gould at MAYA design to stop by their swanky South side office for a tour, and a fun brownbag lunch. They have these awesome meeting rooms called Kivas, which are round, have floor to ceiling whiteboards, and invites the kind of communication and interaction that makes for great design sessions. I met some great folks and got warmed up for my afternoon talk at CMU.

Here’s me in MAYA’s Kiva:

And at the Adamson wing lecture hall at CMU:

The kicker was I got to see David Hounshell, the professor of the amazing history of engineering class I took as an undergraduate, that planted the seeds that led to writing the Myths of Innovation.

And to finish off the day, dinner with friends Faisal, Aleecia, and Eden Fisher, the latter being the prime mover in bringing me out to CMU this year (Thanks Eden for a most special experience).

Thanks to Paul for the photos of a magic day.

Posted in On Tour, Teaching/Training | 6 Comments »

Ok, I confess, I have seen worse keyboards in the world. But this is definitely the worst space bar I’ve ever seen. I found this gem at an Internet kiosk in the Minneapolis airport, on my way back from Pittsburgh last week.

My complaints:

• Do not SPLIT my space bar. The spot in the middle is where my thumbs work their magic!
• Really. I mean, it’s called a bar, not a series of goofy keys.
• Do not make the remaining buttons small, as hitting the side by accident results always in either 0 or 2 spaces.

Anyone else come across evil keyboards in their travels? I want photos!

Posted in Design, On Tour, usability | 7 Comments »

Since my book the art of project management went out of print, I bet your world has been gray. You’ve been unable to sleep. You’ve been nervous at work. You’ve lost interest in food. Your spirits have been so low, at times it’s even been hard to breathe. “When will it end!” you’ve cried. But still, the book has stayed out of print.

Well… your deepest, most secret wish has been granted: it’s here! The universe will be saved! All project management challenges will flee at the sight of this mighty tome in your hand!

Oh, the joys of authorial sarcasm - anyway, I’m proud to say the book is now available and looks great.

Now titled Making things happen: mastering project management it has all the good stuff from the original edition, plus:

• A cover than doesn’t suck
• 120+ brand new exercises
• carefully re-edited and revised chapters.
• improved footnotes (actually on the same page as the text! amazing!)
• A discussion guide for using the book with reading groups
• Tons of suggested improvements from pmclinic rock stars

It’s the definitive edition of the bestselling book. I hope you’ll check it out and spread the word: buying my books helps fund free stuff like the essays and the pmclinic.

Available now on amazon.com.

Posted in Making things happen, art of project management, books | 5 Comments »

The recent Wired article on Apple’s management practices is interesting for the wrong reasons. The article makes several points about the irony of Apple’s popularity in the tech-world given the secrecy, an old world concept in the new open web 2.0 world, with which they work.

This is fine and good, but the big question I had while reading the piece is this: if Apple is so secretive, how can the reporter have any confidence that their sources are any good? Or that the people willing to talk to the reporter don’t have their own reasons for telling less than flattering stories about Steve Jobs? The article says:

Apple creates must-have products the old-fashioned way: by locking the doors and sweating and bleeding until something emerges perfectly formed. It’s hard to see the Mac OS and the iPhone coming out of the same design-by-committee process that produced Microsoft Vista or Dell’s Pocket DJ music player

The old fashioned way? Hard to think of many old fashioned companies making perfect products. And while it’s hard to see the iphone coming out of the same process at Microsoft and Dell, I’m sure there were plenty of design review meetings, executive reviews, and other meetings at Apple that are similar in purpose to what goes on at Microsoft or Dell. Like Google’s 20% time, culture is the overlooked factor in why outcomes are what they are. The same process can arrive at very different outcomes if the cultural values and rewards are different.

Believe me, I’m no Apple flunky defending the mothership - but the article creates it’s own lack of credibility in making judgments about a place described by the writer as very difficult to access, and because it’s a magazine article there’s no burden of referencing sources, or even calling on other Wired writers for context in how product decisions at Apple are made.

Moreso, the article misses the fundamental point: Apple loves its products, and people love its products. If there is any ideal Jobs represents it’s clearly the attempt to make great things, an ideal rare among tech companies, much less ones in the Fortune 500. And with product quality so high consumers are indifferent to whatever management philosophy is behind it.

The best analogy for the description of Apple offered in this piece is the film industry. Where directors and producers drive creative visions, large numbers of experts work hard in service to those ideas, and the entire endeavor is organized with premiums on secrecy and control. It’s just an artistic model for business, not something unique to Apple or that odd for folks who study how great things are made.

Posted in Management, creative thinking | 8 Comments »

Joy of joys, I was asked to do a commentary on one my favorite shows. Marketplace, an NPR business news show, is running a story about the culture differences at Microsoft and Yahoo. Right after the story, there’s a short 2 minute commentary by yours truly (Prepare to cover your ears).

If you’re in Seattle, Marketplace airs on KUOW at 6:30pm today. You can listen to NPR live online here.

Once it’s online, I suspect sometime this week, I’ll post a follow up link.

It’s online now: transcript, summary, and audio.

Posted in Microsoft, On Tour, Software/Web development | No Comments »

I’ll be back at my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University, next week. Last time I spoke there was fun and hope to have another great crowd! I’ll be talking about stories from The Myths of Innovation, but will save lots of time for Q&A. If you’ll be there and have a question, leave a comment and I’ll get to yours first.

I’ll also be giving away a big pile of books to the first people that show up (at least 30). How’s that for a bonus? And yes, the lecture is open to the public.

Thursday, March 27th
4:30pm – Adamson Wing, 136A Baker Hall
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Scott Berkun, Author

Official listing here

Posted in On Tour | No Comments »

One question I hear often is “what can I do right now?”. Well, it turns out there are lots of things to do if you want to become an innovator, and in many cases it’s not very hard.

Check it out:

Essay #58 - How to innovate right now.

(Note: This essay was commissioned by the U.S. State department).

Posted in Essays, Innovation, Myths of Innovation | 1 Comment »

This is one of the greatest stories of innovation and change I’ve heard about in some time.

Note: although there are religious themes here, I’m aiming at the nature of change, not theological debate (Keep that in mind in the comments please).

One tension we all face is how to reconcile respect for the past with the desire to making the world a better place. There is an inherent conflict: we use traditions to honor the past and stay connected with who we were. But if innovation is change, it means breaking with the past to make things better. And rarely do people agree on which traditions should be broken and how to break them, or reinterpret them.

The irony of course is that all traditions, even ones 1000 years old, were invented by someone. And on that day they asked people to break with whatever tradition came before it. The study of any history is the study of change. As Woody Allen said, “Tradition is the illusion of permanence.” However, even if it is an illusion, it’s a powerful one that can bring people together.

Recently the Vatican announced several new lists of behaviors they now define as sinful. The list includes pollution, drug abuse and becoming obscenely wealthy. They also released a curious list of rules for the road, leading to much sarcastic commentary.

On the one hand, wow. For the first time in nearly 1500 years, they’ve released version 2.0 of their list (Note that the 7 deadly sins as we know them do not appear in the Western bible). That’s not an easy thing to do - and it’s fascinating to see one of the oldest and most conservative organizations in the western world demonstrating renewed interest in the pressing issues of the day.

On the other hand, early Christian theology, or at least the Jesus Christ described by the approved gospels, has always been tough on the wealthy and those that take advantage of the weak (The whole eye of a needle thing). And this list can be seen as a call to return to those values - it’s a change, but a change in line with ideas from the past.

But the best way to comprehend all this comes from A.J. Jacobs excellent book, The Year of Living Biblically. In the process of trying to follow every instruction in the bible for 365 days, he learned that the bible has always been a matter of personal interpretation, from what laws apply, to how they’re applied. And when you add the multitude of translations, secondary gospels and other options on biblical law, the conception of there ever being a single definitive, comprehensible, interpretation free rulebook for living seems an impossibility, now or ever.

In this context, what we superficially see as static, say a bible or a religious law, rarely holds together when put into play by millions of different people. We make one tiny interpretation here, or exception there, and naturally gravitate to those who make similar choices, and in this sense, we are all low-scale innovators. Perhaps we do it in private, or in secret, but everyone’s unique nature surfaces even in how we follow the same rules. And of course all religious groups throughout history have had different leaders at different times and each emphasized different rules, beliefs, traditions and activities, while ignoring others (E.g. religious wars generally violate the core principles of the whoever founded the religion).

It seems a smart thing for a religion, or any powerful group, to do what the Vatican has done: to update its rules and guidelines to reflect the changing nature of people and the world. What could be smarter than a tradition to re-evaluate the traditions?

There can be no smarter tradition for anyone than to 1) encourage a questioning of old rules and what motivations their authors had, and 2) allowing periodic changing of rules for the present so they have the greatest value, until they need to be changed again.

Posted in Innovation, philosophy | 11 Comments »

Not sure how to explain it, but while the book has been out of print, it appears to be in short supply. The prices for used copies of The art of project management are hovering over $100 at amazon. And I couldn’t find a single copy listed on ebay. My guess is many folks hold onto the book as a reference, so despite the book’s sales numbers while in print, it’s hard to find.

The updated edition should be in stores and on amazon in a few weeks, so if you wait, you’ll save some cash.

Posted in Making things happen, art of project management | 4 Comments »

The book is on the home stretch - final pass at editing is almost wrapped up and off to the printer. Here’s the cover for the new edition - looks sharp! WooHoo! Can’t wait for this to be out there and to have the book back in print.

The update includes:

• Much tighter writing in all chapters: it’s a lean, crisp read.
• Many corrections, figure improvements, and improved references.
• 120 exercises to help you apply and practice what you’ve learned.
• A discussion guide for forming reading groups and getting value from them.

You may notice that the new chapter I promised isn’t listed. It didn’t make the book for the following reason: it wasn’t that good. It didn’t feel right to cram it in there, and have people think I stuck it in just to draw more sales. Instead I plan to finish up the chapter and post it online, for free.

Stay tuned - As soon as I know when it will be available in physical stores, I’ll let you know.

You can pre-order the book now.

Posted in Making things happen, art of project management | 2 Comments »

Everybody loves to think one little trick can make their organization transform into a super creative powerhouse. With the rise of Google, no single tactic comes up more in innovation circles than their concept of 20% time. Simply put, employees get 1/5th of their time to work on projects of their own choosing.

For the myths of innovation book i spent time studying lots of concepts, models and approaches similar to 20% time, and even talked to a few Google employees about how they see the idea. What follows below hits on most of the erroneous assumptions I’ve heard people make about the concept.

Here’s a short report:

• Google’s 20% time is more of an attitude and culture than a rule. First, hourly time isn’t tracked there, so there’s no way to enforce or even know what percentage of time people are spending on side projects. But more importantly, the entire idea seems to function more as an attitude - that new projects should be spawned by whoever has the best ideas, not who is in what place in the hierarchy, and the culture is based on this fundamental belief. There seems to be way more support for the pursuit of ideas generally than in most cultures, and simply creating a 20% rule doesn’t give you that culture. G-mail, Adsense & Google News are three examples of major offerings initiated by a self-motivated engineer. See Google employee Joe Beda’s blog post for one of better first persons accounts you’ll find online.
• It’s worth noting that people at Google work very hard on their 80% time. It’s not as if every Friday is 20% day and work shuts down on all existing projects so people can do their 20% things. Google culture, much like Microsoft in the early 90s, has a very strong, competitive work ethic, and peer pressure and pride drive many people to work hard. Like many tech companies, the vibe is that, yes, if you have an idea you should follow it, but not to the determent of other responsibilities. Time for 20% projects is protected, but more by individuals than by managers. Managers spend little time tracking engineers (span of control is wide, with managers typically having 10 or more reports, influencing people and code more than “managing their direct reports”). I’ve heard different things from employees in different groups at Google about how this has changed as the company has grown (10k employees and counting) and perhaps the variances in their culture will continue to grow. (Read Steve Yegge’s excellent post on software development process at Google).
• The 20% time concept isn’t new. 3M developed a 15% time rule in the 1950s with the same exact intentions and basic philosophy. Masking tape and Post-it notes are two notable products that were concieved and developed by individual engineers working without formal budgets, plans or management support. I’m sure other companies and organizations in the past have had similiar attitudes about creativity (Edison’s Menlo park lab likely qualifies). For more on 3m’s approach read this short Wired article. Also, the Google founders mention at their talk at TED that Montessori school philosophy influenced their ideas on 20% time (Jump to 8:50).
• Google’s culture has a resistance, or even distrust, of hierarchy - they often use voting, peer review, and debate to make decisions or decide which new projects and features to add. With that structure the 20% time idea makes sense as they want self-motivated creatives putting ideas in the hoper for others to review, evaluate, or contribute to, rather than waiting for executives to spend weeks making big vision documents and marketing plans, dividing things up into smaller and smaller pieces, before allowing creatives to make (creatively constrained) contributions. 20% time complements, or perhaps even depends on, what is a unique culture for a large, 10,000 person company. It’s the lack of dependence on hierarchy that empowers individuals, and this is the thing people at more conventional companies have the hardest time comprehending. 3M also had a strong maverick, anti-structure vibe that made their 15% successful. Giving people time is one thing, but it’s the culture of the org they get that time inside that determines how useful that time will be to the company.

20% time experiment: Atlassian, a software development shop, just announced a serious 20% time experiment, adopting the idea in their culture and blogging about it as they go.

Disclosure: Don’t take my word for it alone - While this is based on some research, and although I have visited Google several times, I have never been a Google employee and if you start with the links above you’ll hear from more authoritative sources on Google management and culture than myself. If you know of others I should read, please leave ‘em in the comments.

Posted in Innovation, Software/Web development, creative thinking | 10 Comments »

The paperback edition of Myths of Innovation is underway. Now is a great time to let me know of any typos, mistakes, oversights, factual errors, or anything else that should be cleaned up.

The current list of typos, research issues and corrections can be found at www.mythsofinnovation.com.

If you give me a typo or correction I don’t yet know about, I’ll send you a signed copy of the paperback edition when it’s out.

Please take a peek at the existing list before leaving a comment or sending a correction in - thanks!

Posted in Myths of Innovation | No Comments »