Category: Leadership & Management

Fun using Microsoft Copilot (Bing Chat with GPT-4)…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Business, Information Technology, Leadership & Management, Life, Online Services, Tech for social good

The 2024 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting at Davos ended last week.  It’s where business, government, and civil society leaders meet to discuss global issues, share ideas, and collaborate to find solutions – according to the PR machinery. The Badger’s always rather sceptical about Davos as it seems to have similarities with the annual senior leadership/management conferences that big corporations hold. The Badger attended many such corporate shindigs during his career, but he always returned a little unconvinced that they really made a difference. The conferences had themes, presentations, speeches, and breakout workshops involving attendees, but, in reality, the most important topics were addressed quietly and privately by a small group of corporate stakeholders behind closed doors. Davos, an event for powerful and wealthy elites with enormous egos, appears little different.

One of this year’s Davos themes was ‘AI as a Driving Force for the Economy and Society.’ The mischievous Badger thus asked Microsoft Copilot (Bing Chat with GPT-4) the question ‘Does Davos actually make any difference?’ The 150-word answer, mostly contextual fluff, culminated in ‘The effectiveness of the meeting is subjective and depends on the perspective of the attendees and the outcomes of the discussions’. Hmm, this is surely validation of the Badger’s scepticism! He then asked, ‘Is AI more hype than substance?’ Copilot’s answer ended with ‘While there is certainly a lot of hype surrounding AI, it is clear that there is also a lot of substance to the technology. AI has the potential to transform many industries and change the way we live our lives. However, it is important to approach the technology with a critical eye and to be aware of the potential risks and challenges associated with its use.’ The Badger smiled; it was the type of benign answer he’d expected.

The Badger’s next two questions were ‘Will AI replace lawyers?’ and ‘Will AI replace software engineers?’, ostensibly because both professional groups are crucial to the functioning of the world today and also relevant to Davos’s ‘AI as a Driving Force for the Economy and Society’ theme. In both cases Copilot answered that AI will likely augment their work making them more efficient and effective, rather than replacing them. Increased efficiency and effectiveness implies the need for fewer people in these professions, but time will tell whether this is the case.

After some fun asking more questions, the Badger sat back and considered again whether Davos makes any difference to life for the vast majority of the global population. No, it doesn’t, because it’s just a talking shop for billionaires and elites and has no executive power. It’s the constant and speedy advance of diverse technology, and AI in particular, that makes the difference for most of us. Davos is, therefore, not the dog that wags the technology tail changing our lives, it’s the other way around…

I read the news today, oh boy – The Post Office and Horizon…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Information Technology, Leadership & Management, Public Institutions

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was playing as the Badger read some of the recent information about the UK Post Office scandal (here, for example). At the heart of the scandal is the Horizon software from Fujitsu and the fact that between 1999 and 2015 the Post Office wrongly prosecuted (and convicted) over 700 sub-postmasters for theft, false accounting, and fraud when there were shortfalls at their branch. The shortfalls were, in fact, due to faults in Horizon. The miscarriage of justice is huge and, in the Badger’s opinion, a national disgrace.

In 2020 a statutory public enquiry was initiated to establish a clear account of the Horizon failings at the Post Office. It’s ongoing, and lots of material from its public hearings can be found here. At the heart of the scandal, however, is more than just software faults, it’s also the actions of government ministers, senior Post Office executives and employees, and Fujitsu, over more than two decades. As the first line of the final track on Sgt. Pepper’s, ‘A Day in the Life’, rang out while the Badger read Computer Weekly’s guide to the scandal, he greatly empathised with the wronged sub-postmasters who must have read the news every day for the last twenty years and thought, oh boy!

The Badger’s maintained some peripheral awareness of this debacle for a long time, not because he’s ever worked with or for the Post Office or Fujitsu, but because his lengthy career in building, leading, and delivering major IT systems has baked a professional curiosity into his psyche. Basic questions about the contract, the software development process, testing, acceptance, readiness for Go-Live and rollout, and the linkage between service desk and fault identification and fix, have long bubbled in the recesses of his mind. The public enquiry might ultimately answer such questions in due course.

But here’s the thing. Software and systems always contain faults. When the Post Office first introduced Horizon for use in 1999, it was at a time when software practices were mature, organisations were focusing on ensuring their systems were ‘Millenium Ready’, and there was significant momentum in outsourcing and offshoring. If the evidence was that Horizon had at that time a large number of outstanding faults, then the professionalism, competence, and motivations of everyone involved in its Go-Live/rollout decision are questionable. This decision, after all, started the ball rolling on the woeful events and disgraceful corporate behaviour that ruined innocent people’s lives over subsequent decades.

Horizon is still in use with the Post Office today. This is a reminder for us all that many systems that make our world function today use software written decades ago. Faults will always happen, and most organisations deal with them and their consequences professionally, responsibly, and fairly. The Post Office debacle, however, makes you wonder ‘or do they?’

Are Management Consultants useful and good value?

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

A recent item about Management Consultants made the Badger chuckle. It’s  worth a quick read to see if anything resonates and makes you chuckle too. The Badger giggled because the narrative struck a chord and made him remember one particular encounter with a ‘management consultant’ while he was leading the delivery of a very large, fixed-price, IT systems and service development contract for his company. This delivery was a key part of an overall public sector programme transforming the workings of an entire industry. Inevitably, this overall programme was mired in politics, resistance from some quarters of the industry, and commercial gamesmanship by some of the parties involved to ensure they avoided blame for any difficulties the overall programme might encounter.

In private, every party believed the overall programme would be delayed. Their public stance, however, was different because the commercial ramifications of being blamed for delay were punitive. Most expected the key, critical path, IT delivery from the Badger’s team to be late. His magnificent team, however, delivered a system of quality on time, and in doing so exposed unreadiness and delay in other key parts of the overall programme. The overall programme’s stakeholders appointed management consultants from a well-known company to review and advise on the situation, and the Badger, in due course, spent an afternoon being interviewed by one of them. He didn’t come away from the session with much respect for management consultants.

As soon as initial pleasantries were complete, the Badger wondered how the expensive, brash, sharply suited, intelligent but over-confident, youngster in front of him could be a ‘management consultant’ when they were just a few years out of university and simply executing a process with a long list of associated questions. They had no real business, project, programme, or leadership experience, but they had clearly read many books, and drafted many reports and PowerPoint presentations. There was no discussion, just questions with the Badger supplying increasingly curt answers. The interviewer’s brash confidence and superficial real experience was irritating, and their credibility as a consultant providing value dissipated with every question. Two weeks later, the programme’s stakeholders received the management consultants’ overall report and supporting presentation. Both were stylish and well-written, but contained little that stakeholders didn’t already know. It didn’t seem like value for money!

You might think from this that the Badger has a low opinion of management consultants? In fact, he has engaged with many over the years and developed great respect for those who have become management consultants after years of important roles in business, industry, or project delivery. They are useful and provide significant value. Those, however, who call themselves management consultants, have expensive fee rates, but do not have such underlying experience are not great value for money. You may, of course, feel differently…especially if you are a management consultant.

Public inconvenience – A tale of a project gone wrong…

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

In 2021, the Badger’s local Town Council proposed a project to build new public toilets at a leafy recreation and community space close to a busy shopping area. The proposed facilities would be modern, environment-friendly, free to use, and aesthetically pleasing to blend in with the area. The need was undeniable, there was community support, funds were sourced from budgets, and the council applied for planning permission from the Borough Council. This was granted in November 2022, and the Town Council gleefully announced that a contract had been awarded to complete the project in February 2023, in good time for the facilities to be used during local celebrations of King Charles’ Coronation in May 2023. What could possibly go wrong?

The contractor completed the foundations, but an inspection found they had been laid in completely the wrong place! They had to be dug up and re-laid in the correct place, which didn’t happen quickly. The Town Council blamed the delays in rectification on the contractor, who in turn blamed difficulties sourcing materials and labour for the work. Eventually the new foundations were ready, and the Town Council announced that the building itself (being prefabricated in a factory 100 miles away) would soon be assembled on site and still be operational in time for the Coronation celebrations. Guess what, the building’s arrival and assembly on site was delayed. The council, pithily noting that they were fed up with being frequently let down by the contractor, was forced to announce the facility would not be operational in time for the Coronation.

When the building eventually arrived in the summer, there was a public outcry because it was very different aesthetically to that originally proposed and expected. The assembled building sat fenced off in its untidy site plot for a long time with no work taking place. In September, under pressure from the community, the Town Council committed to publishing a weekly update on what was happening to get the facility operational. Only three updates were issued, the last of which mentioned that permissions to a) connect the building to public utilities and drains, and b) for the contractor to do the associated groundworks, were still awaited. Since early October there’s been no updates from the council, and no work undertaken on the site. The community has lost confidence that there is a deliverable plan to complete the project and get the facility operational. The Town Council’s credibility is in shreds, rumours abound about the contractor’s track record with other councils, and the local community – the end users – are complaining loudly about management failings and incompetence!

Why tell this tale? Because it highlights that it isn’t just big public sector projects that go wrong, that the root causes of problem projects are fundamentally the same regardless of scale, and that ultimately, it’s always the end users who suffer and are inconvenienced…

Leadership; never, never, never give up…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, IT Project Management, Leadership & Management, Life, Psychology, Training

In May 1940, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister to lead the nation through World War 2. As this old item on leadership highlights, he was a ‘chubby, stoop-shouldered, funny faced man…and political has-been’ whose career in politics had been patchy. Nevertheless, his leadership proved to be just what the nation needed. On this death, his state funeral on 30th January 1965 was watched on television by over 350 million people around the world.  Televisions and global communication at the time was, of course, rudimentary compared with the norm today. A very young Badger was among that TV audience, watching black and white pictures of the funeral with his parents on an old Bush television with thermionic valve circuitry in the corner of the sitting room.

Little was said, but at one point the Badger’s sombre father leant over from his armchair and said ‘Son, remember Mr Churchill’s words – never, never, never give up. They’ll  stand you in good stead through life’. Those words have never faded in the Badger’s memory, and they came to the fore again last weekend when a visiting cousin asked the following over a family meal – ‘Do you think your career as a leader was due to being born a leader, or due to the training you received?’  The Badger told his cousin, a talented artist, that it was both, and that although much is written about the attributes needed to be successful leaders (just Google the subject), there’s no simple answer to whether leaders are born or trained. Psychologists signal that leaders are born with some relevant attributes but always need training to develop others.

An entertaining discussion unfolded, and we chortled when the Badger’s wife noted that Winston Churchill was evidence that you can’t tell if someone is a leader from just the way they look! The Badger’s cousin was interested not only in the Badger’s view of key leadership attributes gleaned from his experience in the IT industry, but also whether they derived from inherent personality or training. The Badger quickly summarised his view of the most important leadership attributes as integrity, rationality, objectivity, an ability to remain positive with a ‘can do’ attitude in the toughest of circumstances, and a focus and determination to get things done in a way which energises others. The Badger added that he felt these attributes come from personality and normally come to the fore from being exposed to new or challenging experiences in life and at work. If you are never exposed to new things, then you’ll never know if you can be a leader! Training alone never makes a successful leader.

Remembrance Day is a few days away. Churchill’s leadership is an apt reminder that you can be a leader and handle any difficult situation if you have an inherent personality and mindset which has ‘never, never, never give up’ at its heart.

Expect the unexpected; when the unexpected happens, respond rather than react…

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

The very first Project Management training course the Badger attended early in his IT industry career seemed of questionable merit. It was a residential course for Project Managers drawn from across all the business sectors in which his company  operated. Attendees arrived on a Sunday afternoon and ultimately departed mid-afternoon on the following Wednesday. At the time, it was common for people to be actively performing a Project Manager role before attending any associated training course, and so everyone on the course was already actively managing software and systems projects under a variety of contractual arrangements.

Most of the course sessions focused on the process and practice of managing a delivery/development lifecycle, risk, finances, and the basics of contracts and change control.  The format was rather dry but provided some useful reminders. At the end of the course, however, most attendees questioned whether being away from their projects had been a useful use of their time. There were, however, two overwhelmingly positive points of feedback, namely a) the usefulness of meeting peers and sharing experiences, and b) the closing, hour-long, Q&A session during which a senior business leader answered wide ranging questions from attendees.

Whilst the Badger came away rather ambivalent about this course, it had provided a useful reminder that Project Management is as much about people, as it is about structure, lifecycles, processes and practices. In fact, the primary thing that has stayed with the Badger from the course ever since are the wise words of the senior business leader in the closing Q&A session. When asked to give one piece of advice that everyone present should take on board, they said ‘Expect the unexpected, and when the unexpected happens, respond rather than react’. They explained that no one can avoid the unexpected, that some people are better at dealing with it than others, and that some people react emotionally, feel anger, panic and fear, become agitated, and initiate  knee-jerk moves to action that compound matters and alienate others.  Others respond rather than react. They stay calm, focus on the facts and what they can control, assess the options before progressing a plan of action, and unify and encourage those around them.  The business leader told the audience to remember to respond rather than react.

Throughout his career, the Badger encountered many leaders and managers who had to deal with the completely unexpected. Many reacted rather than responded ! This was a constant reminder that everyone is different, and that being a leader or manager doesn’t provide immunity to the core traits of your personality. Perhaps that first Project Management course was of more value than seemed at the time, because it sowed the seed of awareness that to be a truly successful leader or manager, then you must learn how to respond rather than react to the unexpected…

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…

‘My way, or the highway’…

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

Many years ago, the young Badger and some others were injected into a major, fixed-price, software development project to turn it around. It was seriously off the rails. Shambolic planning and poor processes meant deliverables were missed or late, some design aspects were problematic, and much of the code produced was poor quality. The large project team was demoralised and in need of effective leadership. The company was haemorrhaging money and the client was considering termination and litigation. In the face of potential reputational and financial disaster, the company decided it must sort the mess out rather than fight a costly battle in court.

Shortly after the Badger and others were injected, the company CEO called us to his office to introduce our new boss, the senior Project Director newly assigned to lead the recovery overall. The Project Director, recently back in the UK after two years in the company’s USA subsidiary, was burly in stature, had a voice that shook the ground when they spoke, and a stare that injected fear. They brimmed with self-confidence and were lyrical about how they had turned around other projects. The Badger thought that his new boss would be a challenge, and so it proved!

The following day the Project Director called the entire project team into a conference room to introduce themselves more widely, talk about their approach to the task in hand, and to answer questions. They spoke for half an hour, during which the atmosphere turned from one of quiet optimism, to one of abject gloom and disengagement. The room full of intelligent software professionals did not react well to the Project Director loudly proclaiming, in finger-jabbing mode, that a) they were a problem,  and b) being told repeatedly that it would be ‘my way, or the highway’ in the future. The Badger, who winced many times while his boss spoke, lost count of how many times this phrase was repeated. No one asked any questions, and as the team left the room afterwards, a software engineer told the Badger that ‘the highway’ seemed a good option, because they’d no idea what ‘my way’ was, and that even if they did, the Project Director wasn’t a person they’d go the extra mile for.

All leaders, of course, have a ‘my way, or the highway’ streak, but in this case the over-zealous public exposure of it turned what should have been a motivational call to arms into a disaster. The best leaders choose their words carefully when speaking to those whose support is needed in order to convert difficulties into successes. Preaching ‘my way, or the highway’  loudly and continuously comes with the danger that the good will needed from a team to overcome problems deteriorates rather than improves. Frequent articulation of ‘my way, or the highway’ is thus simply a marker that there’s danger ahead…and that ‘the highway’ might actually be a good option!

Are optimists, pessimists, or realists the most successful leaders?

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

The Badger was asked many times during his career to engage with delivery and business leaders encountering serious problems delivering a contracted project to requirement, time, and budget. These requests were often initiated by the company’s Chief Executive who simply asked the Badger to ‘chat with those responsible and see if you can help’. They knew the Badger would interpret the request as ‘get stuck in and get the  problems on this contract resolved’. Being aware of the personal traits of the people you deal with, especially those in senior positions, is crucial to interpreting what they really mean when they ask you to do something!

One such ‘how can I help’ conversation with a business leader proved memorable because it spawned a hypothesis that the Badger feels has been validated over the years. Although we knew each other in passing, it was the first time we had met for any substantive conversation. After some initial chit-chat, the business leader quickly focused on describing the delivery, financial, and contractual difficulties of their project. They had, apparently, already spoken to a couple of experienced staff about helping to resolve the difficulties, but neither was, in their eyes, suited to the task. They described one as a cheery but superficial, glass-half-full optimist, and the other as a pedantic, too laid-back, glass-half-empty pessimist. The Badger remembers wondering how he would measure up!

After an hour’s discussion, the business leader asked the Badger to help resolve the project’s problems, adding that ‘you are a realist and you don’t care whether the glass is half full or half empty, only that the glass is a receptacle to be filled with as much liquid as possible’. Their comment spawned a hypothesis in the Badger’s mind, namely that the delivery and business leaders who have the most success, and also the longest careers, are realists. Engagements with many diverse business and delivery leaders over the years have tended to reinforce the hypothesis.

Being a realist means having a personality with a propensity to take measured risks and take measured decisions. It doesn’t mean never demonstrating optimism or pessimism. Those with an optimistic, glass-half-full, leaning tend to be less risk-conscious, while those with a pessimistic, glass-half-empty, leaning tend to have little appetite for risk at all! During COVID-19, for example, glass-half-full characters might have seen themselves as less at risk and taken less precautions, whereas those with a glass-half-empty outlook might never have left their house at all. Realists, on the other hand, would have taken measured risks based on knowing that the virus’s impact mainly depended on age and underlying health.

The Badger’s seen glass-half-full, and glass-half-empty leaders be successful, but it’s the realists who’ve been the most successful and had the longest careers. Is the Badger’s hypothesis sound scientifically? Don’t know, but he’ll stand by it until a proper people expert shoots it down in flames!

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.