Category: Delivery

Under pressure; wellbeing in the workplace…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Human Resources, Information Technology, Leadership & Management, Wellbeing

Watching Freddie Mercury belting out ‘Pressure, pushing down on me, pushing down on you…under pressure’ at a Queen concert decades ago was truly memorable. The song, ‘Under Pressure’, is on a favourite Badger playlist and so it often gets played. It’s not surprising, therefore, that these words came to mind when he was recently asked to summarise the human aspects of delivery in the IT industry in just two words! His chosen words were ‘pressure’ and ‘stress’. Those working in IT delivery will know that ‘pressure’ is relentless, that it causes persistent ‘stress’ for the individual, and that being able to cope with the ‘stress’ is crucial to getting the job done on time and preserving one’s wellbeing.

Pressure features in every workplace, and the level of stress it inflicts on people depends on many factors, including, for example, disparities between an organisation’s stated values and the reality of its work culture, the quality and experience of its leaders and managers, and whether there’s enough trained people for the work itself. Early in his delivery career, the Badger learned that when people work in an environment that takes their wellbeing seriously then success happens. Pressure is, of course, a fact of life, and so some stress is inevitable. However, when stressed people feel supported and valued then productivity rises, absence due to sickness reduces, and resignations reduce too. Good leaders and managers, therefore, will always recognise when someone is struggling with stress and take proactive steps to provide the relevant support.

Over the years, the Badger’s seen many capable people take absence due to work-related stress. All of them were good people who found themselves in overwhelming situations with little support from their bosses. They all worried about carrying the stigma of ‘mental health, but all recovered and continued their careers. In recent times, organisations have rightly improved their human resource policies and frameworks to include more focus on employee wellbeing, because this benefits the employer and employees alike. Trained mental health first aiders and confidential Employee Assistance helplines in the workplace, for example, have become commonplace because it’s recognised that wellbeing helps productivity and helps keep sickness absence and voluntary staff turnover at sensible levels.

But here’s the thing. Organisations often have mechanisms that focus on employee wellbeing, but few actually report tangible data about wellbeing in their annual reports. Surely, this must change. Today mental health has become a key reason for a) sickness absence at work, b) staff resignations, and c) the majority of calls to Employee Assistance helplines. Such metrics can be an indicator of some toxicity in an organisation’s culture regardless of its wellbeing policies. They highlight a potential risk to the organisation’s activities, and on that basis the need for factual reporting in annual reports around mental health and wellbeing across the organisation seems a no-brainer…at least to an outsider…

When ‘Smart’ technology dominates mindsets, smart decisions are unlikely to be made…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Leadership & Management, Smart & New Technology, Smart Motorways

The Badger’s kitchen is undergoing some long-overdue renovation. Units and cooking facilities have gone, a brick wall has been knocked down, and electrical and water infrastructure is being changed. There’s some weeks to go before completion, but the Badger’s already adjusted to the new normal that a renovation imposes. The team from the local family business doing the work are very professional and doing a great job. In fact, their ‘can do’ attitude, teamwork, and focus on what needs to be done – rather than on the clock – reminds the Badger of the ethos of the project delivery teams he worked on during his career in the IT industry.

To date, these British workers are far from being culturally lazy or workshy! Far from it, they are hard-working and take great pride in doing a good job. From the outset they focused on getting the requirement, design, and implementation plan right, and now they’re delivering with a ‘do it right, do it once’ attitude, great attention to detail,  and great engagement with their client. The parallels with the Badger’s IT project teams of yore are heart-warming and satisfying. The Badger’s also learned that they are unfazed by ‘Smart’ technology and the digital world!

Yesterday the team lead said something the Badger didn’t expect. They said that ‘when ‘Smart’ technology dominates mindsets, smart decisions are unlikely to be made; smart decisions are made when your mindset has ‘Smart’ technology as just another useful tool in the kitbag’. They contended that the UK government’s recent ‘Smart’ Motorways announcement illustrated the point claiming that poor decisions were made years ago because a fixation with ‘Smart’ technology pervaded the mindset of politicians. It’s a valid point of view, even if you disagree, especially when the team lead asserts that if motorway hard shoulders were a necessary safety feature decades ago when traffic volumes were much lower, then they must surely still be a necessary safety feature today!

The Badger’s renovators are not against ‘Smart’ technology. In fact, they’re pro-technology and use it extensively as a tool. Their smartphones, for example, are as important as any other tool in the toolbox because they provide immediate on-the-job connectivity with their suppliers for the disparate items needed for work to progress. They’re far from workshy, lazy, or technology phobic. They’re lions working hard to make a living in a world with a fair share of donkeys who, for example, once thought it was sensible for junctions 10 to 16 of London’s orbital M25 motorway to be an ‘all lane running’ Smart motorway. That was never a smart decision and always a silly idea, likely driven, as the team lead asserts, by mindsets fixated with ‘Smart’ technology. Fortunately, long overdue common sense has ultimately prevailed; it’s no longer going to happen and M25 road users will be safer as a result.

Walking out of a meeting with a client…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Delivery, Information Technology, IT Project Management, Leadership & Management, Learning, Project Management

‘Meetings, meetings, meetings!’, a delivery leader exclaimed irritably after a session with a client who had given them the verbal hair-dryer treatment about an imminent milestone and its associated payment. ‘They don’t want to pay, even though we’ll have met the milestone in full’, the leader grumbled before berating themselves for not having walked out of the meeting. The Badger smiled. Memories of his own difficult meetings with clients came flooding back.

Notwithstanding the comprehensive training in meetings and negotiations that companies provide, it’s real experience in difficult client meetings that hones your  approach to getting the right outcome. The Badger’s approach developed over the years to have essentially three things at its core. The first was that the client is not always right, and that being in command of irrefutable facts, and using them calmly, consistently, and assertively rather than petulantly and confrontationally, is crucial to getting the desired outcome. The second was mental resilience, to have as much background to the client’s position as possible, and to decide tactics that are unwaveringly focused on the desired outcome, before the start of the meeting. The third was to always have a walking out option in the kitbag as a weapon of last resort, but not for use to assuage personal ego or frustration.

Had the Badger ever walked out of a client meeting, the delivery leader asked? Yes, but rarely. One occasion was some months after a system with a fractious delivery history had become operational with a client’s end-users. The meeting was to a) formalise that the delivery contract’s deliverables had all been delivered, and b) that the client would make the final payment due and close the contract. It should have been a formality, because the client’s staff had already confirmed everything had been delivered to contract and to their satisfaction. Item (a) was indeed confirmed at the meeting, but the client refused, without giving any reason, to pay the outstanding money.

During a break, the Badger and his team agreed we were wasting our time because the client had no intention of paying. After the break, the Badger asked the client to confirm that although no contractual deliverables remained, they would not pay the money due. They confirmed this, and the Badger got up and left followed by his team. The shock on the client’s team faces was palpable. It was not something they’d anticipated!  Payment was received three days later after the Badger’s CEO phoned the chairman of the client’s Board of Directors to complain and threaten litigation if users continued to use the system.  

With a twinkle in their eye, the delivery leader looked at the Badger, grinned broadly, and said ‘I was wise not to have walked out. If I had, the client might have thought I was a petulant, over-sensitive, snowflake with no backbone’.  The Badger laughed aloud…

‘Why haven’t we learned lessons from other problematic projects?’

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Information Technology, Learning, Processes and Practices, Project Management

Early in the Badger’s career, when he was part of a team sorting out a large software and systems project with serious problems, the CEO of the time angrily asked the line manager responsible for the project ‘Why has this happened? Why haven’t we learned the lessons from other problematic projects?’. The line manager’s answers were ill-considered waffle and only served to ratchet up the pressure from, and antagonise, their boss.  

At that time, projects involving anything IT related were notorious for serious timescale and cost overruns. IT was a young, rapidly growing industry, and software development was seen as black magic performed by very clever people. Disciplined software engineering processes were rudimentary, and most programmers were graduates from enormously diverse STEM-subject, rather than computing, backgrounds. The Badger’s first software team leader, for example, had a Civil Engineering degree and a master’s degree in Water (sewage) Treatment!

In the decades since,  IT companies have improved and evolved their management and  engineering policies and processes – their ‘company manuals’ – because it was necessary to stay in business. Today, a continuous improvement ethos that feeds lessons learned into policies, processes, and practices is a norm, and software and systems engineering is more standardised and rigorous. Companies still have troublesome projects, but there are fewer of them, and they are detected earlier and addressed faster.

And so, the Badger’s interest was piqued recently when he heard a CEO calmly ask a line manager the same questions as above. The line manager answered with three points that struck a chord with the Badger’s own experience. The first was that in recent years annual staff turnover of between 12 to 15% had diluted the continuity of knowledge because nearly half the workforce had changed. The second was that clients want the capabilities of evolving innovative technology much faster and cheaper, which means that projects can encounter more skill and experience issues than envisaged at contract signature. The third was that feeding lessons learned into management and engineering policies, processes, and practices and embedding awareness in the workforce needed a greater company willingness for those who had lived the project experience to spend more time as ‘overheads’ rather than revenue earners.

The CEO calmly agreed, and then said something which also aligned with the Badger’s experience, namely ‘Our company’s policies, processes, and practices will never be perfect. If we want fewer project difficulties, then we must get project people to just talk more to each other and willingly share their experience’.  And there you have it. The fastest way to learn lessons is for people to just talk to each other. Projects depend on people, and people have different personalities, motivations, strengths, and weaknesses, and never do quite what you expect! That’s why troublesome projects will never be eradicated completely and continuous improvement is always a challenge.  

Upset your client and spoil your career…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, IT Project Management, Project Management

What’s the saddest thing you’ve see happen o someone you’ve been working with? Bereavement is excluded; the answer must be something the person has inflicted on themselves. A youngster, chatting to the Badger socially, asked this very question the other day. Surprised, the Badger played for time and asked what had prompted the question. They shrugged their shoulders, and simply said that a couple of their project team lacked common sense and sadly seemed oblivious that this was spoiling their career prospects. The conversation was interrupted by someone else, and so the Badger didn’t get to answer their question, but if he had, it would have been along the following lines.

One instance of the saddest thing someone inflicted on themselves comes to mind because it illustrates what can happen when a personality with embedded behaviours gained at one company, proves to be mismatched at another company in a different sector.  The circumstances were as follows. A senior delivery leader was recruited by the Badger’s IT sector employer from a large international defence company to run a major, fixed-price, high-profile IT contract of strategic importance to the client. The printed contract documentation filled numerous lever arch files and the person recruited, who joined the company before contract signature to lead mobilisation and then delivery, insisted on having an A5-size printed copy for their briefcase.  

Grumblings soon emerged as delivery got underway and the individual became the focal point with the client. Tensions within the individual’s team, due to their self-important, patronising, ‘I know best’ personality and an approach to delivery ingrained at their previous employer, also quickly became evident. The team started disengaging from their leader because of their arrogance, failure to listen, and inept people skills. Ever louder grumblings from the client came because the individual reached into their briefcase at the start of every client meeting, theatrically put the A5 copy of the contract on the table, and then referenced or checked it as part of every conversation. Client requests, and those from company executives when the client escalated, not to do this were ignored. A contract is never an irrelevant document, of course, but there’s a time and place for waving it about and it’s not in every meeting! Eventually the client refused to have any dealing with the individual.

Seeing the individual damage their career by failing to recognise that their modus operandi was upsetting the client and damaging the effectiveness of their own team was very sad. They were moved, never ran a delivery again, and never accepted that the spoiling of their career was self-inflicted.  There are always exceptions, of course, but upsetting your client and your team by letting arrogance and self-importance dominate your modus operandi, is almost certainly going to spoil your career. Keep this in mind if you don’t want to spoil your career and be someone else’s saddest thing anecdote…

Wisdom for a first-time Project Manager…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Information Technology, IT Project Management, Leadership & Management, Project Management

A book called ‘There’s a New Sheriff in Town: The Project Manager’s proven guide to successfully taking over ongoing projects and getting the work done’ was published recently, and the Badger, whose career centred on the many aspects of delivery in the IT business, is currently reading it. The book’s lengthy title, as it happens, also reminds the Badger of his very first assignment as a project manager, many, many years ago!

After working as an analyst-programmer and design authority on a number of sizeable software development projects, the Badger’s line manager took him to one side to say that his next assignment was to take over as project manager on a software and systems development project that was completely off the rails. The young Badger had no project management experience and expressed his surprise!  The line manager cited two reasons for why they had no doubt that the Badger was the right person for the job. The first was that the Badger’s character, experience, and latent capabilities were highly suited to sorting out the poor engineering and technical matters at the heart of the project’s problems, and the second was that most aspects of project management were always best learned on the job! Being thrown in at the deep end, they added, was nothing to be fear.  

Somewhat daunted, the Badger chatted to an experienced and consistently successful manager of difficult software intensive projects who gave three pieces of advice.  The first was ‘ You will fail if you fall into the trap of believing project management is about administering the processes in a project management handbook. It’s really about leadership, and showing the character, resilience, vision, drive, and professionalism to get the job done’. The second was ‘Most project management books are not written by people with a software or IT, so most are a distraction and won’t help get the job done or make you real project manager’. Things have moved on significantly since the time when there was a paucity of books about managing projects in the IT world, but the inherent not being overly distracted reading books still has some validity. The third point was ‘If you are replacing a current project manager who has lost the confidence of line management then remember that if you do what they did, you’ll get what they got!’  This was their way of saying be different, be focused, and be aware that you can be replaced too!

So, if you find yourself being appointed as the new sheriff in town on an ailing IT project, and it’s your first role as a project manager, don’t be fazed. Be a leader not just an administrator of process, be motivated to listen and learn, be focused, and know that these days there are books like the one above that can help by providing many nuggets of wisdom gleaned from experience…  

Think differently about your performance appraisal with your boss…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Delivery, Education, Human Resources, Information Technology, Leadership & Management, Learning

The reactions of people who’ve just had a performance appraisal with their boss varies enormously and also highlights how different we are as individuals. Personal reactions, of course, cover a wide spectrum. The Badger’s experience, however, is that while a person’s demeanour and body language says a lot about their reaction, most people share little more than the odd comment about their appraisal with others. There are always, of course, people who think they’ve been treated poorly and say so to anyone who will listen. In the Badger’s experience, such individuals tend to be self-centred, averagely talented, poor listeners, and they normally have egotistic or narcistic personalities.  These individuals, and those at the other end of the spectrum who are just downright lazy, unproductive, and permanently negative,  tend to share their displeasure widely and keep HR functions busy with claims of unfair treatment.

A youngster in their first job since leaving University 15 months ago whined to the Badger this week that their appraisal had been a shock and unfair. The youngster, hungry for rapid career and salary progression, unfortunately failed to recognise that they haven’t adjusted to working life as well as their peers. The Badger explained this, and in the course of doing so remembered some wisdom from a training course he attended many years ago. On that course, a behaviour expert, building on the sport coaching work of Tim Gallway, emphasised that we should think about individual performance using the simple equation ‘Performance = Talent – Interferences’. If someone has 100% Talent, then their Performance is never 100% because there are always Interferences from personal and/or organisational factors. Personal interferences come, for example, from lifestyle, health, family and/or caring responsibilities. Organisational interferences come, for example, from skill set mismatches with work role, adequacy of role definition, relationships with leaders and work colleagues, organisational bureaucracy, and factors like organisational dynamism and workforce stagnation if business growth is poor.

The behaviour expert’s key message was that everyone has Interferences, so no one can ever perform at 100%! Interestingly, they used the same equation to describe the performance of a company. In this case, Talent represents a company’s portfolio of  products and services, and Interferences are largely the policies, processes, and  controls that influence the delivery of the portfolio to clients. Bigger companies tend to have more Interferences than smaller ones, and no company ever performs at 100%, although clever accounting and expectation management often masks this!

So, think about your performance appraisal in the terms above. Your Talent is constant, so your Performance dips when Interferences rise. Eventually Interferences will reach a level that makes you feel like doing something different with your life. It’s very empowering when this happens, because it definitively changes the way you approach your appraisal with your boss.  

Troublesome projects…and Bertrand Russell

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Delivery, Information Technology, Project Management

Line managers always get pressure from senior executives to take swift action when a project they’re responsible for experiences serious difficulty. Line managers, especially inexperienced ones, often assuage this pressure by quickly changing the Project Manager. This often-knee-jerk response doesn’t always fix the problem because although the new appointee may be conveniently available, they may not have the breadth of personal, commercial, delivery and technical characteristics needed, or be properly empowered. One of the Badger’s experiences of being appointed as ‘the new project manager’ by a panicking line manager proved not only to be reminder of the strength and diversity of character needed to turnaround a troubled project, but also a memorable introduction to Bertrand Russell.

The project in question was not meeting its contract with an international prime contractor who was delivering a huge strategic programme for their end customer. The Badger’s remit from the line manager was ‘fix everything’ because the finances are perilous, and litigation is looming. Senior executives from all the organisations involved had met in a last ditch bid to avoid an expensive, embarrassing, catastrophe for all concerned. They had agreed to leadership changes and so the Badger found himself appointed at the same time as a new opposite number in the prime contractor.

Our first engagement shortly after being appointed was at a meeting involving both of our respective incumbent team leads, ostensibly as an opportunity for them to air their thoughts and feelings about the contract’s difficulties. The two teams were polarised, divergent, defensive, inconsistent, and in blame mode from the outset! After a particularly fractious exchange, the Badger’s new prime opposite number called a halt for a coffee break and took the Badger to one side. The badger was asked if he was familiar with Bertrand Russell and two of his famous quotes, namely:   

  • The fundamental cause of trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
  • Collective fear stimulates herd instinct and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

The Badger said no. His counterpart then used these quotes to make the point that if we could both see the problems and resolutions but were full of doubt and worry about being different to our incumbent teams, then nothing would change, and litigation beckoned. We agreed that we were not stupid, not members of the herd, only focused on finding solutions, unmotivated by personal kudos, and that we expected to take  unpopular decisions. Following this conversation, we both did difficult things with our teams and the turnaround started.

So, remember this. To fix a troublesome project needs a focused and resilient character, intelligence and a breadth of skills, and some awareness of Bertrand Russell’s wisdom!Anyone full of self-doubt or worried about being an outsider is unlikely to succeed.

Setting the bar too high…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Delivery, Education, Information Technology, Leadership, Learning, Project Management

In his school days, the Badger was in the school field athletics team because he was good at javelin, long jump, and – rather surprisingly for someone of average height – the high jump. It was, according to the team coach, the Badger’s natural technique rather than any specific physicality that underpinned why he was good at these events. The coach, a resolute athlete who demanded the same dedication from others, had two favourite phrases to encourage team members to train hard and do better. The first was ‘technique is the difference between reliable success and reliable failure’. The second, used especially for the high jumpers, was ‘you don’t jump high unless you set the bar high’. Little did the schoolboy Badger know that he would regularly hear leaders and managers utter this one throughout his working life!

The Badger’s often heard executives say ‘you don’t jump high unless you set the bar high’ when setting an expected, imperative outcome that is challenging, and when trying to persuade their audience that the challenge is tough, but the outcome is within reach. These last few words, however, are crucial because if an audience don’t sense that the outcome is within reach then they will nod sagely, consider argument futile, and only work half-heartedly towards the objective. If that happens then the road ahead will almost certainly be full of disappointment, blame, low morale, problems, and financial under-performance.

For many leaders and senior staff in sizeable organisations, attending an annual gathering at which executives set out the key priorities and targets for the coming year is routine. The Badger’s attended many such events over the years, and whilst fundamentally there’s nothing wrong in using ‘you don’t jump high unless you set the bar high’ to set ambitious targets, two observations crystallise from the experience. The first is that if the audience sense the challenging target is reachable then they will embrace it, fully align their support and activities, and executives will hold onto their jobs. The second is that if the audience feels the bar has been set so high that you need binoculars to see it, then they will pay lip-service to the challenge, gossip about the credibility of executives, worry about the enterprise’s viability, and speculate about whose heads will roll when outcomes are not met.

The point is simply this. If you are the leader in a company, project, programme, or service, then don’t lose touch with reality or your people. If  you set the bar way too high, then you will have an unhappy workforce, people will leave, output and quality will decline, financial forecasts will not be met, and your credibility as a leader will be damaged. The best leaders stay grounded in reality, make good judgements that balance competing soft and hard priorities, set the bar within reach, and communicate honestly and inspiringly. Those that don’t ultimately suffer the consequences.

The power of techies talking to clients…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Delivery, Information Technology, Learning

Those who work in the technical, development, and delivery aspects of the IT industry are highly skilled, productive people often with a STEM-subject background. While some have natural ‘sales’ personalities and attributes, most prefer to focus on their project tasks rather than spend a lot of time interacting with clients. When they do, however, interact with clients, being on the alert for potential new business leads is often not high in their consciousness during their interaction. The Badger fitted this bill  early in his IT career, until a senior client visited the large software and systems integration project he was working.

The Badger’s company bosses arranged for the client and their entourage to spend a whole day with the project. The Badger grumbled because his teams were under schedule pressure but the grumbling, of course, fell on deaf ears and the visit went ahead with the client’s entourage meeting the software, systems, and test teams throughout the day. The visit ended with a client feedback session involving the Badger’s bosses and others from within the project. The senior client was rewardingly positive and asked the Badger’s bosses the following:    

‘Your techies and delivery people are impressive and  ooze knowledge, skill, and commitment. Talking to them has emphasised that your company not only has strength in depth but was also the right choice for this project. However, why do we only see people with account, business development, or sales titles when we want to discuss some of our wider business pains? If we saw and more routinely interacted with those from your engine room, then you would probably win more work from us’.

This opened the Badger’s eyes to the latent power of techies talking to clients and the under-use of the company’s engine-room community in identifying potential leads for new business. The number of staff in this community was much greater than those in formal sales, business development, and account management roles, and so it seemed obvious that more engagement between client and company technical and delivery staff  would benefit relationships and growth for the company. It also struck the Badger that talking to clients was good for the personal and career development of even the most introvert techie. The client’s words also highlighted that engine-room staff are not only the cornerstone of a company’s reputation, but also a powerful force that can influence a company’s ability to generate new business opportunities.

Ever since this feedback session the Badger has encouraged techies to recognise the power of talking with clients and to be attuned to identifying potential leads for additional business. Today wise companies encourage this dynamic routinely, because if they don’t then their competitors will be reaping the benefit of stronger relationships and better business growth.