Thanks to the fine folks at O’Reilly Media, both of my books are now available on Kindle:

Making Things happen (Kindle)

The Myths of Innovation (Kindle)

I think it’s silly that the customer reviews for the regular editions don’t migrate to these kindle pages, but then again I’m still bummed all the reviews for The art of project management didn’t get migrated over to Making Things Happen, as it’s the 2nd edition of the same book.

Posted in Making things happen, Myths of Innovation, books | 7 Comments »

Recently Joel on Software posted about how to be a program manager and he lists UI design as one of the skills program managers should be responsible for. It’s no surprise that people who call themselves UI designers, such as the folks on on the interaction design mailing list, have taken notice and are mostly unhappy.

(Back story: The idea of program managers, roughly a sergeant level generalist who drives projects, is an idea I like.  It’s a job role Microsoft started in the late 1980s . It’s a job I had in the 90s).

Which gets to the question of should PMs do design.

The easy answer is yes, if they are good at it. Most are not. Most do not know this because they’ve never met an interaction designer, someone who does it professionally for a living. Simply because Fred is better at it than his peers, he assumes he is good. It’s not his fault exactly. Most computer science programs and business schools never talk to design schools. Certainly not about how much they need to learn from the other. And most program managers in the world are hired from computer science and business schools.

Anyway, the better teams at Microsoft figured this out over a decade ago. They did one of:

• Hired full time UI designers and usability engineers.  (In 2003, when I left, there were over 400 of these people employed at Microsoft).
• Created a special role called a UI PM, who was the PM good at design who led the UI work.
• Or both.

VPs that cared about ease of use invested in these assets, and just as important, built a culture around ease of use taking priority over other considerations.

However, in most cases the above investments had moderate impact on product quality because these people never receive sufficient power to overcome the other 20 PMs running around. Sometimes all the PMs are ignored anyway by the programmers but they are in denial about it, so it’s moot until that fight for power gets sorted out.

The program manager model is just one idea for diving up work. It’s a good model, but does have it’s problems. On larger teams it’s too easy for PMs to get lost in their egos and self-interests, each one fighting to make a great feature, inside of what becomes a mediocre product.  It’s also a role that depends on culture, you can’t just graft it on and expect it to work as it impacts everyone.

Program management works best on smaller teams, or in organizations where the PM can have significant power. Once you have 15 or 20 of them running around it gets hard to sort things out. Imagine 15 or 20 film directors trying to work on a film together. If you give them enough power, you don’t need many film directors. And if you don’t need many, it’s easier to find ones with all of the talents you want, including the ability to design user interfaces.

The bottom line: program managers are generalists

At the end of the day it doesn’t matter who makes the UI design decisions provided they are good and they ship.  If you’re a PM, your primary obligation is the quality of what goes out the door. If you have someone other than you available who is good at design, your top priority should be to get out of their way, just as you would for someone good at programming, testing, or any other role. Find other things to do to keep busy - I’m sure they exist. The value of the PM, or any manager, is their ability to fight for the best use of everyone’s time, including their own.

If ease of use is truly important in what you’re making, odds are it deserves the attention of a specialist or two who can dedicate their energy to it. If nothing else, they can teach you some of the stuff you don’t know you need to know. PMs can rarely dedicate their attention to anything, as their value is their ability to co-ordinate and lead.

The bestselling book I wrote about program management, Making Things happen, has several nice chapters about how to lead design and customer research, and advocates the above advice.

Posted in Design, Making things happen, Management, Microsoft | 5 Comments »

Been thinking much about what I can do in the face of all that’s going on in the economy (130,000 layoffs so far this month). Losing a job sucks and often triggers collateral suckage. I’m just a writer so I can’t do much in a practical way, but I can give out free copies of books.

The first 20 people who lost their jobs (scouts honor) who leave a comment or send in an email will get a signed copy of the bestseller Making Things Happen. Might help with planning whatever thing you decide to do next. Or make for excellent kindling, depending on much savings you had. It also has pretty pictures, which you can pretend is a very slow television show.

Sorry, but this is U.S. only. Think global act local and all that.

It’s not much, but until I find a better idea, I’m sharing what I have.

Posted in Making things happen | 14 Comments »

In the never ending pile of meeting tips, here are 5 five more:

• Making the meeting rooms 5 degrees colder than everywhere else. First it keeps people awake, second it gives them a biological reason to want to resolve issues and get out of the room quickly.
• Remove the chairs from the room. This is an old one, popularized by SCRUM for their standing meeting idea. If people have to stand they are less prone to rambling, to distraction, and have the sense they are on the way to something else, all good qualities for most status type meetings to have. I’ve always loved the 3 question model SCRUM advocates. Instead of resume length status reports, it’s boom boom boom, next. Love it.
• Have uncomfortable chairs. Just saw this on kottke.org. These are chairs designed to be uncomfortable or difficult to sit in at all, so people don’t want to stay long. The talking head chair is my favorite.
• Pick the right person to run the meeting. Some people are good at being meeting gestapos, and some are pansies. Don’t let a pansy run a meeting, even if the pansy is you. Someone has to put up an agenda, cut people off who ramble too far off the agenda for bad reasons, and keep the show on time so it ends early enough that everyone won’t be late for the next meeting.
• Split announcements from discussions. A meeting between 4 people where they are developing ideas, exploring alternatives and going deep is one thing. That’s a discussion. An entirely other thing are meetings centered on status reports, announcements, and other boring low priority stuff. Make the difference clear. If you’re doing the former, it should be a small group, and the meeting can go as long as it needs to. If it’s the later, it should be a bigger group, and it should be as short as possible (any discussions that last longer than 60 seconds in a status meeting should be tabled to a separate meeting of only the 4 people who actually care). If your team respects your ability to distinguish between these things, they will respect your meetings by showing up, in response to the respect you show them by not wasting their time.

See also:

• the popular post how to start meetings on time (The honest version)
• Chapter 10 in my book Making things happen, is titled How not to annoy people, and it’s all about how to run different kinds of meeting in the right way.

Posted in Making things happen, Management | 5 Comments »

When Making things happen came out in March, I did a few talks here and there to help promote the new edition, including a stop at a little place called Microsoft, in Redmond, WA. They videotaped the talk and it’s now available online.

You need to be running IE, or using the IE plugin for firefox, for the video to play. Sadly it appears to run on Windows only (I know, I know - its not my choice):

Title: How to make things happen

Description: What are the secret tactics used by successful project managers? How can people in any role, from development to management to design, benefit from their playbook?This fun, fast-paced, and interactive talk, loosely based on the bestseller Making Things Happen (formerly known as The Art of Project Management), explains how to make good things happen, and how to triumph over powerful people who are annoying and frustrating. Bring your toughest questions and situations for the Q and A, where Scott gives away signed copies of the brand-new, updated edition of Making Things Happen.

Watch the video for How to make things happen

Posted in Design, Making things happen, Management, Microsoft | 3 Comments »

Recently Steve Ballmer’s FY ‘09 Strategy email was leaked. Out of curiosity I read the thing - and it makes an excellent case study in goal setting (covered in Chp4 of Making things happen).

Is it any wonder things are slowing at Microsoft with goals like these?

Ballmer writes:

Therefore, my priorities are consistent with last year. In FY09 we must continue to:

1. Invest in the right opportunities;
2. Expand our presence with Windows, Office, and developers;
3. Drive end user excitement for our products;
4. Embrace software plus services; and
5. Focus on employee excellence.

These are the same goals Microsoft has had FOR A DECADE. It’d be impossible to know this was written in 2008 if the lead in sentence were removed. Consistency of leadership can be great, but be consistent in vision, not at the goal level.

Worse, #1 and #5 are wastes of goal space. A good goal makes decisions easier to make. How does it help any of Microsoft’s 80,000 employees for the CEO to say “Invest in the right opportunities”? As if there are hordes of managers running around trying to invest in the wrong ones? The #1 slot is the big gun, the first shot, the lead idea, and in this list it’s fired into the ground.

Here’s my take on the other 4 goals:

2. Expand our presence with Windows, Office, and developers;

Windows and Office have been market leaders for years. The big goal for ‘09 is to expand presence? That’s the secret to the future of Microsoft? Getting the last .005 of market share left? First off, I don’t believe Microsoft executives truly believe this is the future, but they really don’t know what else to say. It is still a two horse company unwilling to confess, even inside the company, that all its attempts for a third horse have been qualified failures (MSN, Interactive TV, Mobile, XBOX, etc.) If they’d do a postmortem on these efforts and educate the company and what executives have learned from these efforts, the company would get 20% smarter (yes it’s a made up number), instantly. Microsoft has a ridiculous amount of untapped experience since they hide their failures internally and never share their big, expensive lessons (Bob, MSN, Search, etc.). If every VP and middle manager were forced to write a postmortem and publish it internally, Microsoft would instantly become a dramatically smarter company.

3. Drive end user excitement for our products

This is weird. It doesn’t say make great products. Nor does it say have amazing levels of customer satisfaction. It says drive excitement. If ever there were grounds for calling Microsoft products over-marketed and under-designed on purpose, this is it. Excitement for a thing can be generated in different ways, and only some of those are beneficial in the long term. How about “Make great products that drive end use excitement” or “Earn customer love through making people’s lives better” or some statement that connects a good cause with a good effect? That would clarify the valuable kinds of excitement from the fluffy kinds.

4. Embrace software plus services

Microsoft started talking about software as a service back in 2005, and years earlier internally. It was a big campaign back then and it led to the launch of Windows Update and similar services across the company. So what does it mean in 2008 to embrace software plus services? I don’t know. Haven’t they mostly been embraced already? And besides, an embrace isn’t the best verb to use in a goal. What effect do we want the embracing to have? That’d be a better goal. Any idiot can embrace something (a light post, a stuffed animal, etc.) but that’s not as impressive as doing something meaningful with it.

5. Focus on employee excellence.

Like Goal #1, this is a waste of goal space. Is there anyone actively focusing on employee incompetence? This goal, as written, suggests there is. And the verb, to focus, is not progressive. What if I’m already focused, should I be focusing more? A goal should be a horizon to chase. Words like improve, increase, grow, and develop are all stronger verbs.

If I were Ballmer’s editor, here’s the revision I’d offer of what I think is his message:

1. Make smart investments and evangelize the lessons we learn
2. Create great products that naturally generate end user excitement
3. Combine software and services to provide great customer experiences

Three goals. No fluff. Strong verbs. Clearer direction.

Caveats

• I’m not sure the above would be my leadership message if I were CEO. But it is an improved version of what i think he was trying to communicate in the goals.
• $60 billion in revenue in FY08 is a ridiculous level of success by any metric. Hard to say how long this will last since it’s largely driven by the two horses (Office, Windows), but while it does you can’t pick too hard on Microsoft as a business.
• Writing goals as a CEO for 80,000 company is quite different than writing goals for a 50 person software development project.

Posted in Making things happen, Management, Microsoft, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

One of the frustrating results of renaming a book is the listing on amazon.com for Making things happen doesn’t include the reviews for the first edition of the book. I’ve asked the folks at amazon.com about this, and, by policy, aren’t willing to move the old reviews over.

So as a favor, anyone out there who reviewed the first edition of the book - could you take two minutes minute and re-enter the review for the new edition? The review count for books makes a big difference and I’d appreciate the help.

Cheers.

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

O’Reilly just kicked off some PR for the release of Making things happen with a write-up on their blog a spiffy new press release, and to celebrate they’re giving away a free copy of the book.

All you have to do is head over to the O’Reilly PR site, and enter a comment describing the perfect project manager.

Winner chosen by Kathryn on April 15th.

Posted in Making things happen | 6 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 »

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 | 3 Comments »

Reading my first book is infuriating at times, yet I’m happy about it. How can this be?

Given the unusual task of revising something already published (in this case, a book), there are two likely ways to feel about it:

1. This is great! I don’t want to change a thing.
2. This sucks! I want to rewrite this thing from scratch.

The first case is only superficially good. If I can’t see ways to improve the writing, or to give better advice, then what have I learned about writing (or management) in the last three years? Not much.

The second case, while painful, illustrates growth. If I don’t like it, it suggests I’m capable, now, of making the same points in less words, from a better perspective, or with a clearer structure that’s more fun to read.

In truth, the book is what it is. I’m not the same guy I was when I wrote the thing, and part of what makes the book good is who I was. It has to fit together and I don’t want to wander into George Lucas territory. But it’s fun snipping sentences, tightening paragraphs, updating references, and getting those exercises in there. I get to play my own editor for awhile.

My point I suppose is it’s healthy to go back to old writing and cringe. If you’re a blogger, go back and read your first posts - you’ll laugh and cry, I’m sure. That’s good - you’re still alive and getting better.

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