Linkedin Influencers & Silent Evidence

This post will be a short one!

Many of us follow influencers on Linkedin, like CEOs of big companies such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. We follow their advice, read their "5 rules to change your life", and share their posts with our community. These people inspire us, and make us want to follow their path to replicate their success pattern in our careers. For example, I personally follow Laszlo Bock, Google's VP of Humain Resources, as I found interest in his advice around resume and job application. 

Nevertheless, following influencers to understand success is biased and can probably lead to wrong conclusions. It is the survivorship bias, or also silent evidence as called by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book Black Swan. He illustrated it by the following story:

Diagoras, a nonbeliever in the gods, was shown painted tablets bearing the portraits of some worshippers who prayed, then survived a subsequent shipwreck. The implication was that praying protects you from drowning. 

Diagoras asked, “Where are the pictures of those who prayed, then drowned?”

Do we know how much people applied the "5 rules to change your life" but failed and never made it to be Linkedin influencers? Until we do, we should stay skeptical, and do not take whatever a top influencer gives us as truth, but rather try to validate it.

IT department organization

During a training, I recently had the chance to meet the CIOs of two big establishments, the first in the French health care industry (10 000 employees) and the second in the field of European air navigation (50 000 employees). They explained to us the governance and the challenges of their IT departments. What I liked the most is the common vision of this department as a dynamic "small company" inside the establishment. This vision is reflected by the organization of the department and the interactions with its environment:

 

The organization is shaped by the demand side, the final users of IT services. Through a team of account managers, the IT department not only understands IT needs of the different internal customers but develops them in order to drive innovation in the business. For example, an account manager will continuously accompany the business unit 1 in its development by providing required services through the service catalog, and by proposing new services (ERP, SAP, BI..) that help the business unit 1 to reach its strategic goals. Account managers play an important role in IT strategic alignment.

The service catalog is somehow the offer portfolio of this "small company".  Each service is subscribed by the internal customer according to a contract, in which service scope, features, SLAs and maybe internal price are agreed upon.

Each service is built with different components. For example, in order to deliver visio-conferencing, visio QoS must be enabled on WAN/LAN, reservation application should be implemented on a server, conferencing equipments must be hosted and help desk must be able to give support on this service. The service manager is responsible of the life cycle of the service, and he is helped by the project managers team in the build phase. He works closely with the account manager to design the required service and then delivers it.

Each component is provided and operated by a component factory. For example the WAN/LAN component is manged by networks team and specific internal software development is delivered by the competence center. A factory can produce the service internally or rely on an external provider. The trend is to rely more and more on external providers in order to focus more on core business and on strategic alignment. 

Finally, some transversal entities may be needed. When the IT department rely strongly on external providers, supplier management is critical to assure quality and minimize outsourcing risks. PMO office can be also interesting to improve project management practices.

In conclusion, IT governance must be well thought because it is a success key for business since business becomes intrinsically dependent on IT!

Optimize your solution by better knowing your service provider

I've been working in presales with a service provider since a couple of years, during which I witnessed different kinds of relations with customers. In this post, I will give my recommendations for improving the relation with your service provider in order to optimize your solution (quality, price..). The following does not apply on one shot providers.

The most important step is to understand well the organization of your provider:

• Understand his commercial organization and the role of each representative (Account Manager, Business Manager..). Is the there any hidden influent positions? who is the decision maker? for example who validates margins and discounts for your account?
  To analyze well the organization of your provider, you should diversify his representatives as much as possible, and try to target the best representative for each specific subject.
• Anticipate any risk due to the organization of your provider and overcome it. For example, if you realize by time that your provider doesn't have an efficient internal communication plan among different actors involved in your complex project, you can play an active role to improve this communication.
• Understand the commission structure of the sales representatives: based on turnover? on margin? on quality? any representative who is not commissioned? This information reveals the development strategy of your provider and its values, and helps you avoid any possible perversion of his management system.
• Understand the sales cycles of your provider: monthly based? or based on trimester? this helps you adapt the phasing of your service procurement to your provider's sales cycle in order to get the best financial offers.

Another aspect, which is rarely considered, is the motivation of your provider's team. It is very important to consider his team as a part of your project team in order to motivate them and succeed your project. Some hints for smartly managing your provider's team:

• Empower your provider's team by giving the complete picture and explaining the stakes of your project in an atmosphere of trust and partnership.
• Try to play the fair game of competition, in order to challenge enough the provider's team, yet maintain it's motivation in the same time.
• Put the right amount of pressure on the provider's team for the same reason as described before. To know what is the right amount of pressure, you must understand well the processes of your provider: how do they function, what is their average delays..

Achraf

The generation Y manifesto

I have recently read several articles on the rebellious behavior of generation Y in the professional environment. I was very intrigued by the exactitude of the this generation's description since I belong to it. Therefore, I decided to write a manifesto of my generation, explaining our professional expectations and our vision of the Enterprise.

I - We simply want to have fun at work! it doesn't mean we are not serious in what we do, because when we believe in something we will do the impossible to realize it. Fun in work means good working environment: interesting nature of work, informal and dynamic social interactions and playful-comfortable office environment.
We haven't built a wall between professional life and personal life. One is the continuation of the other. We don't compromise either one of our lives: we want to continue our boxing and piano courses, spend time with our family, travel the world, but in the same time we aspire continuous professional evolution. The companies who understood this paradox have put in place flexible work environment: flexibility in work time and work place. Of course this flexibility is built on the foundation of mutual trust.

II - We don't believe in pyramid organizations! we grew up on social networks, where organization is flat. Anyone can poke anyone.

III - We want modern working tools. We want a Google like Information System: simple and accessible anytime from anywhere. We want an open Information System: full access to Internet (multimedia, social networks...) and enabled on our personal devices.

IV - We are radical in our relation with our company. In order to be loyal, the company has to prove its investment in this relation: career development, training, promotion, responsibility. Otherwise, we won't wait a lot before starting a new relation with a new company. Nevertheless, when the relation is going well, we are extreme in it, we put all of our energy in it, and we talk proudly about it on every occasion.

V - We are not afraid of asking questions. We don't take everything as a sacred postulate, and dare to ask why.

VI - We want to make the world a better place.

The laws of simplicity

Trying to be simple in my life is a cause I fight for everyday. Simple is the little that means the most, it is this pure knowledge or truth that finds its way directly to your heart and your mind. When I saw a book talking about simplicity in the hands of a work colleague, I couldn't but borrow it and check it out. The laws of simplicity is a book written by John Maeda, a professor in MIT's Media Lab and a famous graphic designer. In this book, the author doesn't go so far in explaining why simplicity should be a way of thinking and a way of life, he rather focuses on how to reach simplicity, by respecting a set of ten laws. Nevertheless, It is clear through the book that John Maeda is convinced by the importance of simplicity in business: Simplicity sells!
The ten laws of simplicity are the following:

1. REDUCE: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
2. ORGANIZE: Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
3. TIME: Savings in time feel like simplicity.
4. LEARN: knowledge makes everything simpler
5. DIFFERENCES: Simplicity and complexity need each other
6. CONTEXT: What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.
7. EMOTION: More emotions are better than less.
8. TRUST: In simplicity we trust.
9. FAILURE: Some things can never be made simple.
10. THE ONE: Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

I found that the first four laws are the most important to achieve simplicity, and the rest of them are to be considered when you feel that you have exaggerated in your simplicity.

The first law, reduce, has reminded me very much of a chapter I read in Rework, a recent business book. In Rework, they underline the importance of reducing features in a product to focus on the essential, reduce company complexity and expenditures to have lesser business inertia (more flexibility). They advice to put pre-constraints on your work (scope, budget, time, material) to avoid complexity and avoid drifting from core business. To respect the Reduce Law, John Maeda proposes to the reader a tool he calls "SHE". SHE stands for Shrink, Hide and Embody.

• Shrink: The smaller an object is, the more it exceeds our expectations and impresses us. The more delicate and fragile it is, the more attention we give it. Ex: an iPod nano.
• Hide: Whenever there is a complexity, just hide it! and give the power to the user to control the presence of this complexity. Ex: Touchscreen smartphones: dial pad appears only when u click on a small icon on the home screen. Ex: in Cloud computing, the complexity of business logic and computing is hidden from the user, as it is put away from him.
• Embody: Now that your product is simpler, you have give it more value in the perception of the final user. This is mostly a business/marketing operation. Ex: The distinctive image perceived by apple products.

The second important law Organize is very inspired from the German gestalt theory of perception. According to this theory, when a set of elements are well organized, they are perceived as less, and thus simpler. The good organization of the iPod's buttons set made it one of the most famous mp3 player worldwide. Once again, the author provides us a tool to Organize: the "SLIP" tool. SLIP stands for:

• Sort: Group items into instinctive groups.
• Label: Label each group.
• Integrate: Merge groups.
• Prioritize: Sort groups by priority.

The third law is about Time. Everything that takes less time is simpler. Here again if we use the SHE tool in Reduce, we can reach simplicity. Shrinking the necessary time for a task to be done, by more processing power, or by smarter algorithms. When it is impossible Hide the elapse of time for example by using a progress bar, and finally embody your product with the value of speed.

The fourth law is Learn, is the fact that the products that demand minimum knowledge, or already existent one, are simpler. A product that doesn't require a manual to be read in order to be used is obviously a simpler product.

The rest of laws enriches the simplicity we are searching for, and limits the drift in simplicity. For example, It is necessary to know that without a contrast to complexity, the simplicity doesn't exist, just like good and bad. A product without emotions is a cold uncomfortable product, and thus not simple. I invite those who are interested in understanding simplicity to read the book and examine the complete set of simplicity laws.

PS: I am not a fan of Apple, but yeah, they know how to elaborate simple yet great products.

Achraf

Rework, a new business book

 Lately I heard a little buzz going on about a new business book, Rework, written by Jason Fried and David Heinemeir Hansson. They are the founders of 37signals, which is a collaborative software company with a few millions of customers out there in the world. I started to read it in the train, between Lannion and Paris, but its great typical-informal-american style of writing, its clear and strong ideas, and its attractive design forced me to keep my eyes on it until I finished it on the road. I will outline some ideas of the book in five themes: Scrum practices, ethical business, good & bad  habits, strictly simple products and culture.

 Through the pages of the book, I noticed that the writers praise alot the agile software development methodology Scrum, without naming it. They insist on the importance of having short term small objectives, and dividing those objectives into small tasks. This way we can build the product by making small "wins", which motivate the employees. Fast meetings are encouraged, and big abstract documents (specs, bla bla..) are highly considered inefficient.

 The second important theme of the book's ideas is the ethical business. According to Rework, the most successful products in the world are those whose creator wanted to solve his own problem (a REAL problem), a product he would use himself, a product that makes difference! Don't copy your competitors, forget them and focus on yourself. Forget all of the traditional marketing techniques, just focus on you product, let it talk for you, let your satisfied customers outgrow you! Stop worrying about growing, this should not be an objective! and specially forget about banks and out-money, try to avoid them to the maximum, because sooner or later they will confiscate the control over your business, and the focus on it, so your business will end up by being ruled by unethical financial logics. Finally, you have to be honest with your clients about your products, about on what can be done and what cant be done, just be your self!

 The third theme is about some good and bad habits at work. Bad habits: Meetings! avoid meetings to the maximum because they are a waste of time; Workaholism! reject working overnights, because it doesnt mean more productivty, but means burnouts; Planning! planning is guessing, so stop planning and start acting. Good Habits: Alone Time! give your self everyday some alone time to avoid interruptions and be more productive; Inspiration Time! start working directly whenever you are inspired, because inspiration doesn't come all the time.

 The fourth theme is about making your product and your company the simplest possible. Simple means less expenditure, clearer, more focus on the core business, on the most important. Simple means less mass, less inertia, more flexibility. This is why the authors advice the readers about working under some prefixed constraints to limit business drifts and avoid complexity.

 The final theme is about the culture of the company. Culture is not some few bla-bla nice words on the walls of the company, its not something that it is decided just after a managers' reunion. Culture is the result of the cumulative behavior of the company through the years. Culture is the sum of all of the decisions of the directors. If we are honest with our clients, our employees will have this attitude, if we are considerate to the environnement, our emplyees will be also. The intersting part of this, is that when you have a company with a strong culture, you never loose your time in taking decisions, because decisions are obvious. A Fair trade label distributor will never take more than 3 seconds to decide whether it should sell a Coka Cola product.

 There are many interesting ideas on other themes, like hiring, identifying by products... but I will not reveal anymore of this book, I strongly recommend you to have a look on it, and as the book cover says: "Ignore this book at your own peril".


Achraf