Category: Information Technology

Big Tech: Is it in turmoil?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Change, Information Technology, Transformation, Human Resources

The Badger joined a local community group on Facebook during the pandemic. This week he left it because postings have become dominated by niff-naff and trivia.  Although it’s been interesting to see how posts to the group have changed over time, the Badger’s now got better things to do than see content that ranges from requests for spare cardboard boxes to cat-sitting!  What’s this got to do with Big Tech in turmoil? The link is subtle, but it’s real; it’s the act of change and leaving.

Big Tech – a convenient phrase for companies that provide online services that the public uses in daily life – has been announcing significant job cuts over the last six months. Meta, for example, has recently announced further major layoffs to take effect by the end of April and May 2023, and, as the Badger writes,  Amazon have announced a cut of another 9000 jobs.  According to Computerworld, the pace of job cuts will rise across the entire tech sector throughout this year. It’s a view that the Badger shares.

Many have commented on the reasons for these layoffs – see, for example, here – but fundamentally it’s really simple. Big Tech is having to change to adapt to a new world, market, and economic reality. Change is painful, just look at Twitter, especially for those who lose their jobs with their employer. What’s happening with Big Tech, however, is just part of the circle of life for any commercial organisation, large or small, in any market sector.

Big Tech is not immune to having to deal with decisions taken during the pandemic on staffing levels that haven’t worked out. Nor is it immune to the cutbacks and changing behaviours of the consumers, businesses, and advertisers that underpin their business models. It’s not immune to ever-growing competition from peers and rivals, tightening regulation, inflation and rising costs, and the need for adopting cleverer automation to keep operational efficiency at a peak. The latter alone drives a need for fewer people. The pandemic, geopolitical events, and changing world markets have made some kind of reset in Big Tech companies inevitable with some employees, as always, part of the fallout.

So, is Big Tech in turmoil? No. It’s just going through a part of the circle of life that all businesses go through. It’s worth remembering that when big oak trees shed their acorns, some of those acorns go on to become new oak trees. Some of those losing their jobs will start new businesses that flourish, and others will go on to spread their knowledge and experience more widely through taking new jobs outside the tech sector. The Badger believes there’s a certainty for those being let go in Big Tech’s reset, namely, that they as individuals will cope. Why? Because as the dominant species on our planet, humans are fundamentally resilient, adaptable, and resourceful.

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‘You are the weakest link’…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Life, Online Services, Web

An email from British Telecom (BT) arrived in the Badger’s inbox last week. It communicated the ‘inflation plus 3.9%’ price rise of the Badger’s broadband in line with a  clause in his package contract. This was expected, but it was hard to take seriously BT’s accompanying narrative for the increase when the Badger can renew today with their promise of a free upgrade to fibre to the premises (FTTP) – if it becomes available during the new contract term – for 30% less than he’s currently paying!  BT, by the way,  appear unable to provide any date for when FTTP might be available in the area, and so the Badger considers their free upgrade promise as simply a marketing ploy of little tangible value.

As you might expect, the Badger’s started exploring the options for when his current broadband is out of contract in the summer. Last weekend, a mobile comms provider’s TV advert triggered the Badger to visit their website to look at their broadband offerings. The Badger didn’t dwell there long, but obviously long enough for their systems to kick into overdrive because over the following three days, there were a series of unsolicited calls from the same telephone number to the Badger’s landline. The Badger, as part of a long-embedded security and privacy discipline, never picks up landline calls from numbers that aren’t in his address book. A quick check of the caller’s number on who called me  revealed a ‘negative’ rating and that callers were, or purported to be, from the mobile comms provider whose website the Badger had visited. The number was blocked and after a couple of days the calls stopped.

There’s nothing particularly unusual about this because it’s a dynamic that many people will have experienced. However, it reminded the Badger to be conscious of the ‘smoke and mirrors’ of marketing, to carefully consider inflation-linked price clauses when shopping for broadband, and not to be complacent because everything you do online provides data that others, reputable or otherwise, will use for their own purposes. It’s easy to become complacent, and there are always consequences from your internet searches and website visits!

The Badger’s wife always blames today’s technology when nuisances like that described above occur. The Badger, however, always tactfully disagrees and highlights that its human behaviour and human complacency in interacting with technology, rather than the technology itself, that is a root cause. He always points out that it’s rarely the technology per se that leaks information to feed the perpetual media frenzies that are a feature of modern life, its people! On this occasion, however, the Badger made a tactical error by reminding his wife that she should be careful when online because ‘you are the weakest link’.  As true and generally pertinent as the phrase might be, it didn’t go down well…

Communications networks; one day the unthinkable will happen…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business Continuity, Information Technology, Life, Online Services, Risk, Smart Meters

Almost two years ago the Badger wrote an item entitled ‘Connection lost, please move your unit closer to the meter’, text which appeared on his home energy monitor when wireless connectivity to his domestic smart meter was lost. Today, the energy monitor and smart meter are in the same locations, the energy suppliers are the same, but energy has become a precious and expensive commodity due to world events. The Badger, like many, has been using his monitor in recent months to influence his energy usage, and he’s noticed that the ‘connection lost’ message has been slowly rising in frequency.    

Is the monitor faulty? Investigation suggests not. After eliminating possible sources of wireless interference, the Badger thinks the message might be triggered as a consequence of remote update activity associated with the smart meter and its communication network. It’s no big deal in the scheme of things, because powering the monitor off and on after the message appears usually re-establishes normal function. The message, however, has prompted the Badger to wonder more expansively about the wisdom of life that has digital communication networks at the heart of everything we do.  These days we seem to take things labelled ‘smart, ‘online’, ‘live’, ‘digital’, ‘streaming’, ‘driverless’, ‘cashless’, and ‘AI’ for granted and forget that they are all critically dependent on unseen communication networks.  What if catastrophe befell these networks? It’ll never happen, you might say, but have you given any thought to the impact on yourself or your family if it did? Probably not.

Our dependence on such networks is ever rising. Today, for example, the Badger cannot just turn up at his local community swimming pool, pay cash, have a swim, and pay cash for a post-swim coffee. A visit must be booked and paid for online in advance, and all refreshment and retail services at the pool are cashless. The Badger and the pool operator are thus already completely reliant on the unseen communication networks that are the ‘critical infrastructure’ of modern life. Most people assume that a truly catastrophic failure of this infrastructure is unthinkable because governments and enterprises know their importance and have policies, processes, and plans in place to mitigate the risks.  However, this assumption may be erroneous because, as events in recent years show, the unthinkable happens and plans may never be quite what they seem.

So, if you have a few minutes spare then give some thought to what you would do if a catastrophic network failure rendered everything ‘smart’, ‘online’, ‘live’,  ‘digital’, ‘streaming’, ‘driverless’, or ‘cashless’ unusable for weeks or more.  The Badger’s no doomster, but a life totally reliant on digitally connected services feels akin to placing all your eggs in one basket. That’s never a good idea because, as sure as eggs are eggs, one day the unthinkable will happen and we will all have to cope.    

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.  

‘Leaders aren’t snowflakes that melt away under pressure…’

Posted on by The Information Badger in Change, Information Technology, Leadership & Management, Learning

A new Group CEO arrived with a mandate to grow the enterprise and take it to a new level of performance and market success. They drove change from day one, quickly gaining a fearsome reputation for being tough, highly focused on business detail,  and being harsh on people. Unpopular change fuelled gossip across the workforce that the CEO was a self-centred, uncompromising bully who fired anyone who underperformed. Against this backdrop, the Badger, a young project manager, quaked in his boots when he heard that the CEO wanted to meet him and review his project.

The Badger quickly realised during this review that the CEO was professional, numbers and action-oriented, and relentlessly focused on achieving success. They could be charming but also very direct, and they demanded a high standard of performance from those they dealt with. They expected everyone to know the performance of their function, business unit, or project in detail. Many people found this intimidating because it was different to the approach of the CEO’s predecessor. The Badger survived the review. He learned that the CEO was not to be feared if a strong individual performance, an action mentality, and a robust grasp of the detail were conveyed. Was the CEO a bully? No, just a strong, direct personality with a difficult job who demanded the best from their staff.

Two weeks ago, the Badger met a forlorn young lady leading a team of software engineers for coffee.  It was her first team leading role on a long running project, and she confided that she felt she was being bullied and treated harshly by her project manager over the performance of her team. The Badger recounted the anecdote above, and recommended  that she consider possible parallels between the CEO and her PM. Last week she emailed to say that she’d upped her game, her dealings with the PM had improved, and that they weren’t a bully!

Yesterday the Badger and the young team leader met again for coffee. She was despondent. One of her team, a new University graduate, has complained to the HR function that she is bullying them. Shocked by the accusation, and concerned about HR’s involvement, she asked for some advice. The Badger told her not to become distracted, to let due process take its course, and to continue to demand high standards of performance from her team. She thanked the Badger for listening, and simply said ‘In the last two weeks I’ve learned that leaders aren’t snowflakes that melt away under pressure, that claiming something is true doesn’t make it true, and that you have to be tough, unemotional, and resilient to make things happen’. This young lady is learning fast from personal experience. She is developing the no-nonsense, resilient leadership attributes that our modern and rapidly changing world will always need.

Software updates and a ‘Smart’ washing machine…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Smart & New Technology, Software

A visit to a nearby UK home appliances retailer to browse washing machines proved unexpectedly fun. The Badger’s 10-year-old washing machine still works well, but groans, knocks, and squeals are becoming more prominent, and so it seemed prudent to do some succession planning. Having searched what’s available online, it seemed sensible to survey appliances in person, especially as there’s an out-of-town home appliances superstore nearby.

After arriving at the store and browsing the computers, peripherals, phones, and digital gadgets close to the entrance, the Badger navigated to the washing machines at the back of the store. It was quickly apparent that there were more costly ‘Smart’ models with network/internet connectivity/apps on display than traditional ones. A salesperson sidled up and drew attention to a ‘Smart’ model on special offer, extolling the conveniences that its ‘Smart’ capabilities provided. The Badger listened politely and asked, ‘How long does the manufacturer support the software?’. This flummoxed the salesperson who said ‘Never had that question before. Give me a moment and I’ll find out’. They disappeared and soon returned with a colleague, who simply said ‘a few years’.  The Badger, who wants a new washing machine to last around 10 years, was rather amused that they obviously didn’t know the answer to his question.

The Badger thanked them for the information and moved on to the TV section where nearly all the models on display were ‘Smart TVs’.  While marvelling at the picture quality of a high-end model, another salesperson asked if he had any questions. The Badger asked, ‘How long does the manufacturer support the software?’ Guess what, the salesperson went to find out and came back with the answer ‘a few years’.  The Badger chuckled and mentioned that an Amazon Firestick was therefore probably much better value! The salesperson swiftly moved to a customer showing real interest in making a purchase.

Software updates have been part of the IT/tech industry since its inception. Over recent decades, however, mobile and internet connected technology has not only put enormous functionality at our fingertips, but also progressively increased the need to keep the security  of connected devices up to date.  The need for, and frequency of, software updates has thus generally risen. But here’s the rub. Manufacturers often stop supporting their software  years before an equipment you’ve purchased is truly end of life.  The recently enacted UK Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) Act, however, is thus welcome progress towards making brands be more upfront about their software support. 

‘Smart’ everything, at a premium price, is becoming the norm, and so if you’re buying devices and appliances in a physical store then always ask about software support and compliance with the PSTI Act. Consider the response you get carefully, and remember, buy something that meets your real need, with your head not your heart.

‘Read Aloud’ is no match for the natural intelligence of the human brain…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Information Technology, Learning, Technology

Somewhere on your tablet, laptop, or desktop you may have created a folder or sub-folder to store general items that you think are interesting and might be of use at some stage in the future. The content may, for example, include information and pictures accumulated over time from websites, items from social media or streaming services, and interesting facts, figures, and slides from presentations given by others. If, like the Badger, you have such a folder then the content probably languishes there rarely used. That’s certainly true for Badger who this week came across a subfolder of old ‘that might come in handy’ items while doing some overdue hard-drive housekeeping.

Most of the subfolder’s old content was moved to the Recycle Bin, but one 15-year-old item from the internet was a reminder of the marvel that is the human brain. That item was simply the following paragraph of misspelt words. See if you can read it.

Fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny smoe plepoe can. I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheeachr at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, mneas taht it dseno’t mataetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproarmtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig, ins’t it? And you awlyas tghuhot slpelnig was ipmorantt!

The majority of people can read and understand this jumble, and the reason why is in the jumble itself. The human brain is magnificent.

On finding this item, and with Artificial Intelligence seemingly everywhere these days, the Badger wondered if the ‘Read Aloud’  function in Microsoft Word embodied ‘intelligence’ that matched his brain’s ability to read and speak the jumbled words coherently and correctly. After turning auto correct off to type the jumbled words into Word, hitting ‘Read Aloud’ on the toolbar resulted in the words being spoken exactly as written, that is in a babble as if they were an obscure foreign language! Clearly any artificial intelligence in ‘Read Aloud’ doesn’t match the natural intelligence of the human brain.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is, of course, a broad field. It’s also a field in which marketeers liberally associate their products with AI when actually it’s an algorithm rather than ‘intelligence’ at the heart of their product. So, what does the Badger conclude from his simple test? Simply that even though AI seems to be a dominant theme at this year’s CES event in the USA, the human brain remains streets ahead when it comes to true intelligence. And long may that be the case…

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.