Agile and Scrum - The "Moneyball" of Software Development

I finally found time to watch the 2011 movie, Moneyball, on television tonight.  It was nominated for awards and it was quite good.  It is a true story about major league baseball (Oakland Athletics) general manager Billy Beane and the 2002 baseball season.  I related the movie to both my own experiences in professional baseball where I was an umpire for 10 years in the 1980s and early 90s and my experiences over the last 8 years with agile software development. Beane was actually a player for the Athletics in 1989 when I umpired professionally and I knew him as a player.

Beane has a big problem after the 2001 baseball season: his baseball club has no money to buy big name players and, in fact, has lost 3 of its most productive and popular players to other teams via free agency.  Beane has to do things radically differently to have a reasonable chance of success in the next season and he knows he cannot pay for top talent.  Of course, he is the single wringable neck as he is expected to produce quality product fast (this probably resonates with anyone who develops software products) in the manner of winning enough games to be a contender for the World Series.

In his quest, Beane learns of the use of a radically new method to analyze player performance called sabermetrics and recruits an analyst, 25 y/o Peter Brand (the real life person was Paul DePodesta, who had a degree in Economics from Harvard and worked for the Cleveland Indians before Beane hired him away to work for him) who works for the Cleveland Indians and has a degree in economics from prestigious Yale University.  Peter knows nothing about playing baseball, but he knows a great deal about this new data analysis process that was created by a security guard at a pork and beans factory, Bill James, who had an affinity for baseball statistics.  Sabermetrics, coincidentally enough, has its own manifesto:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabermetrics.

Beane hires the Peter away from the Indians to the A's and together they build a team of players who have really solid performance statistics in categories that all other teams ignored.  It was thinking "way outside of the box" and it brought wrath to both of them from inside and outside the Athletic organization.  They were accused of ignoring the traditions of baseball, the "proven success" of the old ways, and being dangers and threats to people's jobs and even to the integrity of the game (this may also resonate with people who have brought agile into an org.)

Beane and Peter bring has been and no-name players onto the Oakland team and the field manager and others in the organization are incredulous about what they view as the total insanity of the strategy. The team gets off to a slow start and then Beane makes some major changes in players through trades to change the team chemistry.  The team begins to perform as Beane and Peter anticipated and, in fact, wins 20 games in a row - a record.  Ultimately, the team is beaten in the post-season playoffs, but it finished the regular season with 103 wins against 59 losses, tied with the New York Yankees for best won/loss records in baseball that year.  The difference: the Yankees had a player payroll of $126,000,000 and the Athletics had a payroll of $41,000,000.  It cost the Yankees $1.22 million per win and the A's $400,000 per win.

There are a number of areas in the movie where a person with agile experience in a traditional organization can relate to the reactions people have towards Beane and his "whacky" ideas and the angst they exhibit. One telling moment is at the end of the movie where Beane meets with the owner of the Boston Red Sox, John Henry, and Henry says to Beane:

I know you've taken it in the teeth out there, but the first guy hrough the wall always gets bloody, always. It's he threat and just not the way of doing business. In their minds, it's threatening the game. But really what it's threatening is their livelihoods, it's threatening their jobs, it's threatening the way they do things. And every time that happens, whether it's the government or a way of doing business or whatever, the people who are holding the reins and have their hands on the switch will bet you're crazy.  But, anybody who's not building a team right or rebuilding it using your model will find that they are dinosaurs. They'll be sitting on the sofa in October, watching my Boston Red Sox win the World Series.

 

When I heard that, I thought Henry could have been talking about nearly anyone who has brought agile and agile ways into the work place!!  Indeed, the Boston Red Sox have used Beane’s methods (and they have more money in their budget for payroll) and won the 2004 World Series, their first since 1918 and won it again in 2007.  Beane turned down a contract offer from Henry of $12.5 million to become the general manager of the Red Sox and remained with the Athletics and they continue to win.

I could relate to the various emotions and tribulations that Beane endured.  Baseball is a ruthless game and I saw, experienced and endured the familiar brutal events I saw in the movie (including a phone call that I was no longer going to be retained as an umpire.) I’ve never experienced similar vicious actions or consequences in bringing agile into the company I work for, but I’ve tolerated lots of hostility. ambivalence, and skepticism there.  Resilience is a good trait to have in those circumstances.

Howeve, the metaphor here isn't about the money and not about failing to win the World Series (the A's still have not won a World Series since Beane became GM), but how Beane thought and acted completely differently from the traditional mantras in baseball.  I can imagine that Scrum co-creator Ken Schwaber felt a lot like Beane did when he first entered organizations during the infancy of Scrum to introduce and advocate for its use (and I bet others have likely felt similarly when introducing and incubating Scrum and agile in orgs, but Schwaber talked in pretty extensive detail with me about his experiences and we often talked baseball metaphors since he really enjoyed the baseball stories I shared with him.)   

One thing that became apparent to me is that Beane acted very much like a Product Owner.  He wasn't the owner of the club (Steve Schott was), but he was responsible for delivering a valuable product.  His backlog was comprised of players and he was constantly evaluating and prioritizing them based upon ROI (even sabremetrics delves into this.)  He even got rid of some of them to improve the overall performance of his product (the team.)

Also, In many ways, Art Howe, the A's field manager, acted like a project manager and impeded Beane. When Beane tells Howe to play another player at first base (who reaches 1st base 20% more often than the player Howe starts), Howe says bluntly: "I disagree with you,  plain and simple. And moreover, I'm playing my team in a way that I can explain in job interviews next winter."  Like many PMs, Howe was looking beyond his current project and was willing to do whatever it took to preserve his stature and reputation among managers.  The situation between the two of them climaxes with this scene:

Beane:        Art, you got a minute?
Howe:        Yeah. Take a seat.
Beane:        You can't start Peña at first tonight. You'll have to start Hatteberg.
Howe:         I don't want to go fifteen rounds, Billy. The lineup card is mine, and that's all.
Beane:        That lineup card is definitely yours, Art. I'm just saying you can't start Peña at first.
Howe:        Well, I am starting him at first.
Beane:        I don't think so. He plays for Detroit now.
Howe:        You *traded* Peña?
Beane:        Yeah. And Menechino, Hiljus, Tam are all being sent down.
Howe:        You are outside your mind.
Beane:        Yeah. Cuckoo.

That's basically what I was called when I first used Scrum in my little company.  I ran into Art Howes in my org. And into Grady Fuson, the traditionalist scout that Beane fired after a very funny exchange that struck right at the core of the baseball I knew (and those who defended the status quo in my org.)  We are often no better at predicting the success of a project than baseball scouts are at predicting the success of a prospect and doing things the "old way" simply perpetuated the insanity:

Fuson:    Now you're gonna declare war on the whole system.

Beane:   Okay! Okay. My turn. You don't have a crystal ball. You can't look at a kid and predict his future any more than I can. I've sat at those kitchen tables with you and listened to you tell those parents 'When I know, I know!  And when it comes to your son, I know'.  And you don't. You don't know!

Fuson:    Okay, I don't give a sh** about our friendship, this situation, or the past. Major League Baseball thinks the way I think. You're not gonna win. And I'll give you a nickel's worth of free advice. You're never gonna get another job when Schott fires you after this catastrophic season you're about to set us all up for. And you're gonna have to explain to your kid why you work at a Dick's Sporting Goods.

Beane:    I'm not gonna fire you, Grady. [Grady puts his hand on Billy's shoulder and Billy pushes it off]

Fuson:    F*** you, Billy!

Beane:   Now I will.

By the way, the 2012 opening day team payroll for the Yankees (#1 in MLB): $198 million.  A's 2012 opening day team payroll (#31 of 32 teams and just ahead of San Diego by $130k): $55.4 million.  Billy Beane is now a minority owner in the ball club.
 

In my future CSM classes, I’m going to suggest that class attendees watch the movie and read the book.  I will ask them if doing Scrum will challenge the culture and traditional structure of their company.  If so, they might learn a few tricks and lessons from Billy Beane.  As an aside, the Anaheim Angels won the 2002 World Series (beating the Yankees, Twins, and Giants in the postseason.) The Angels payroll was $61.7 million in 2002, right in the middle and the Angels were a "wild card" team finishing  second behind the A's in the West Division.

A Tribute to My Friend, John Wicks, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Montana

It is often those we care about the most who elude us. Even now, when I look back on the Montana of my youth, I long to understand what happened there… and why. Eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it…On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops.  Under the rocks are words, and some of the words are theirs.  I am haunted by waters. Norman Maclean – A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

Regrets naturally occur over one's lifetime, but one of the greatest is the missed opportunity to see and visit with a friend one last time.  So it is with the recent death of my friend, Dr. John Henry Wicks. Dr. Wicks was an economics professor (a fixture, really) at the University of Montana Economics Department for well over 40 years and his indelible influence has infected many friends and students over that time.

I arrived at the University in the fall of 1976 a naïve, rambunctious and (perhaps at best) only half serious freshman.  It was the noxious seventies where the counter culture was still alive, an 18 y/o could drink legally, and the fallout from the Vietnam War was still fresh.  The campus social atmosphere was ripe for fun and like many of my peers I had few solid aspirations of what kind of work I might actually do when and if I graduated.

In the third quarter of my freshman year in March 1977, I found myself sitting in John Wicks’ Econ 201 class listening to the good professor digressing into all things economic.  I was more fascinated and mesmerized by his style and quirkiness than by the subject matter. I was especially amused by his insolence towards those who used the irritating idiomatic phrase “you know” at the end of spoken sentences.  He would simply say “Ding!!”  At first, I (and others) could not relate the phrase to his penal utterance, but soon it resonated with us and our amusement and delight grew with its frequency.  Of course, some of those victimized by the experience exhibited resentmen towrds himt, but the good professor never wavered.  Immediately, I found a growing fondness of him!

On the first Friday of class, John invited all students to FART.  You could hear a pin drop as he surveyed the class intensely and as I looked around, it was apparent that everyone was waiting for his follow-up punch line.  He appeased: “That stands for Friday Afternoon Recreation Time, which will start promptly at 4 pm at the Press Box Pizza and adjourn when in it is Pumpkin Time.”   “My god,” I thought, “I have to see this.” 

And so it was by accepting his invitation to FART that I commenced a friendship with this enigmatic man for the next 35+ years.  I was  increasingly intrigued and impressed by John’s ability to relate to everyone and to make economic principles relational to almost everything in life.   For the next many Fridays that quarter, I participated in FART and came to know this man well.  Eventually, the weather warmed enough that we moved FART to the Clark’s Fork River on rafts in a version deemed “Sea Duty” where we routinely landed our rafts on “Wild Asparagus Island” near the UM campus (the name and discovery of said island attributed by John to Greg Ingraham) where all who needed to exercise biological relief could do so among the island's high weeds. To my knowledge and John's, wild asparagus was never actually found on the island.

Ironically (and perhaps subliminally on purpose), I received a D in Econ 201 that quarter.  I did retake the class the next school year from John and received a B, much to John's pleasure. I then took a number of other Econ courses over my tenure at the school from the good doctor.  Our friendship evolved over that time and we shared a passion for hiking and fishing.  I stayed in Missoula the summers before and after my senior year and John and I took numerous outings to some of his favorite fishing haunts.  We always rode in John’s “empirical cruiser” – an early 70’s Chrysler if I recall correctly.  His peculiar habits always made me smile – one was to tap the horn as he was passing another car, noting to me that such a signal was part of the law of the Montana Code Annotated (which I confirmed years later.) 

My last class in college was the incomparable 2-credit “Edible Wild Plants” (in which, incredibly, I received a B.)  For my class project, I brought in John’s home brew he christened “PP” (its origins traced to John’s stint at Western Colorado College.)  This was 1980 and home brewing was certainly a rarity.  John brewed PP in a garbage can in his kitchen and it tasted…well, rather bitter to be polite.  But, it was a novelty and a hit with all in the class except the instructor, which is probably why out of 20 students, only one B was given and the rest received A’s. However, John beamed in pride at the warm reception given to PP by the class.  Seeing his pleasure was worth the B.

After I (surprise!!) evntually graduated, John and I stayed in touch.  I set off to become a Major League umpire and I lived and worked in Missoula for a few weeks in the fall of 1984.  I frequented FART again, this time as an alum, and I enjoyed hearing familiar things I had heard 8 years earlier. and John and I also managed a couple of weekend fishing excursions.  I saw John intermittently over the next dozen years after that – mostly at Grizzly homecomings - and we always traded Christmas cards where hs affinity for riding trains was a persistent theme in them. 

I never saw John after 2001 when I stopped  in Missoula and visited briefly with him on my way moving from Seattle to Bloomington, IL.  I never returned to Missoula thereafter. but we emailed each other occasionally and always traded Christmas cards.  Children came into my life and the activities of family and the labor of work made time fly.  I mentioned to him in a 2009 email exchange that I had done some work at the University of Illinois and he was excitedly recalled to me that he had earned his PhD there some 47 years earlier. He also talked of still hosting “seminar” – an exploratory quarterly (later semesterly) independent study which he had perpetually held since the 70s (regrettably and despite his frequent invitation, I never participated in it.)

John will be sadly missed by many of us who called him friend.  Though he was a life-long bachelor and lived in the same small house on South Higgins the entirety of his life that I knew him, he was never without his many friends.  He was an anomaly at the University – politically conservative and almost absurdly practical and rational.  If economics did not satisfactorily explain something in life, then fishing, hunting or hiking (or something related to them) did.  However, personal differences never stood in the way of John liking someone and he liked most every everyone as far as I could tell.  I was never as close to him as people like Greg Ingraham, Bob McCue, John Bulger, Otis McCullough, Nick Kaufmann, and many others. 

Bob was there for John throughout his life and especially in his final days.  Their friendship represented the unending bond John formed with many students over his years.  Bob established a Facebook site for John, The John Wicks Club, and many people have been added to it.  I smiled when I read that a celebration of John’s life will be held on April 28 at the Doubletree in Missoula.  I suspect that was planned intentionally to give people sufficient time to find the time, plan their travel, and find reasonable airfares.  It helped me and I will be there. 

A few professional tidbits about JW (a fairly detailed profile was done about John in the summer 2011 UM Dept of Economics newsletter.)  His “Official Biography” in 2004):

John Wicks  is Professor Emeritus in the Economics Department of the University of Montana. During his career, he has specialized in household economics and state and local taxation. Wicks received his undergraduate degree in Government from the University of South Dakota in 1957 where he graduated summa cum laude and was a Phi Beta Kappa member. He received his masters and doctorate (1962) from the University of Illinois in Economics. Professor Wicks has taught at Augustana College, Western State College of Colorado, Ohio State University, and since 1964 at the University of Montana. Although officially retired, he may be found at his university office and teaches undergraduate and graduate seminars in empirical research design each semester. He has been an author of nearly 50 publications, primarily articles in academic journals such as the National Tax Journal and the Review of Income and Wealth. In addition, he has been president of the Western Social Science Association and the Missoula, Montana City-County Planning Board and a director of First Citizens Bank of Polson, Montana. When not working, he rides trains on as many lines as possible throughout the world. Like most Montanans, he also hikes and fishes a lot.

Field Of Study: Household Production and Leisure

Published Works Include (partial list):

·         “An Application of a Stated Preference Method to Value Urban Amenities” Urban Studies, 2010, vol. 47, issue 2, pages 235 - 256

·         “The Marginal Effects Of Consumer Characteristics On Internet Channel Choice” Journal of Applied Business Research  2007 Volume 23, Number 1 pages 43 – 54

·         “Mothers' time spent in care of their children and market work: a simultaneous model with attitudes as instruments” Applied Economics Letters, 2006, vol. 13, issue 8, pages 503 - 506

·         “How Much Is Leisure Worth? Direct Measurement with Contingent Valuation” Review of Economics of the Household, 2004, vol. 2, issue 4, pages 351 - 365

·         "Valuation of Household Production at Market Prices, and Estimation of Household Production Functions," Review of Income and Wealth, June 1996, 165 - 180.

·         "Market Valuation of Household Production," Journal of Forensic Economics, 5(2), 1992, 115 - 126.

·         "Measuring the Value of Household Output: A Comparison of Direct and Indirect Approaches," Review of Income and Wealth, June 1990, 129 - 141.

·         "An Empirical Comparison of Government and Private Productive Efficiency," National Tax Journal, December 1974, 653 - 656.

·         "Administrative and Compliance Costs of State and Local Taxes," National Tax Journal, September 1967, 309 - 315.

·         “A Model of Commercial Bank Earning Assets Selection” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis

1966, vol. 1, issue 02, pages 99 - 113

·         “Discussion” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 1966, vol. 1, issue 01, pages 53 - 55

Your friends are what will matter in the end and when you die, if you’ve got five real friends, then you’ve had a great life.

John had many friends. RIP my friend

Where Does This Track Take Us??? Transformational Change in Today's World

When I was a teenager growing up in Montana, we occasionally would set out on Saturdays with our .22 rifles to “go shooting.”  That usually meant adventure and fun and we were responsible enough that we resisted the temptation to shoot road signs and other illegal targets (including each other.)  One destination was to walk railroad tracks, and like in the movie Stand By Me, we would whimsically dreamed of having to dodge a train or perhaps of finding something really cool (besides a dead body.) 

Nothing so dramatic ever happened, but on one excursion, we did find a train tunnel and ventured into it.  Naturally, it was dark and foreboding and we had no flashlights, but none of us would admit to any cowardice or dare shy away at the taunt of a peer, so we foraged forward into the black abyss.  The tunnel curved slightly, so at one point we lost sight of the light at our entrance and we also could not see the light at the other end.  That was the point where our fears confronted our bravado face-to-face.  Fear, or perhaps its second cousin, common sense, prevailed and we turned around.  It’s odd how long even a rather short train tunnel seems when one is faced with the prospect of walking some portion of it without either egress being visible.

So, where am I going with all this? Well, I know a company that is metaphorically going into this kind of tunnel of change right now and without any light.  The company initiated a huge program late last year on which it is pretty much betting its future and that work will encompass several years.  The “light” that is needed is “working differently” according to its management.  The senior manager of the IT department recently wrote about it and used Eastman Kodak’s recent bankruptcy filing as a springboard for his message: Technology enables us to revolutionize the way business is done. Technology can help us leapfrog the competition. It can also be the way we are taken out of the game altogether.

He then reiterated an oft-heard mantra (even now considered a bit of a platitude around the organization): to make this change happen we need to work differently.  The change of which he writes is vague and in my discussions with various people in the organization, many express that there has been little clarity offered about the meaning of working differently.  Of course, they offer their speculations and opinions about what that phrase might mean, but the fact is that there has been little guidance from management, especially senior management, about what they believe it means.  One thing that does resonate across the workforce is that management does not appear to be working or behaving any differently than before this edict and the sense is that workers are being demanded to do things differently, but not management.  That doesn’t bode well for either the workers or the management.

Whatever the term change actually means to the management (and it is critically important that management have a common understand of what it means), change in this context will involve what author Robert E. Quinn calls transformational change, described in his acclaimed book, Change the World – How Ordinary People Accomplish Extraordinary Result.  Quinn describes this kind of profound change as a body of principles based upon seed thoughts of masters of transformation that reflect the simplicity from the other side of complexity. 

He contrasts this revolutionary change with normal (aka incremental) change that occurs almost constantly in organizations.  This change gives rise to another frequently used cliché variation: the only constant in our business is change. The difference in the change types is that Incremental change is actually “normalized” in that it typically conforms to or at least does not disrupt the behaviors, norms, and culture of the organization.  It is rarely very disruptive and it often occurs as the result of management decrees and instructions.  This can also  be termed intrasystemic change because it is encapsulated in within the culture that is organic to the organization’s system. 

Transformational change is typically catalyzed by a person (or sometimes persons) who become the masters of the transformation.  This kind of change is extrasystemic because it is often seen as very radical and a perturbance to the status quo.  Quinn uses Ghandi, King, and Jesus as examples of people who were masters of transformational change. They were catalysts of great change that endured beyond their lives. 

Normalized change tends to come about from telling people they need to change through reason and argument and by forcing change (where the presumption is that people usually resist change and must be told to do it.)  This actually formulates into a 2-step process for incremental change: first, communicate the reason for change and then force the change if the target audience resists and fails to adopt it. This kind of change will fail if it is significant - i.e. transformational.  The company of which I speak has taken this approach so far.

Transformational change requires a participative strategy where people collaborate and embrace change on its merits.  They do so because it will be good for them, for others, and for the institution.  The US civil rights, women’s rights, anti-war movements, India’s independence and the end of apartheid in South Africa are all examples of successful transformational change that resulted from collaborative activity.  Such change events are often termed ‘movements” because of the change brought about enormously impactive change.  While violence can be associated with such societal change, equivalent organizational change rarely involves violence.  However, the change is still enormously uncomfortable for many people and they often actively and passively resist it because it threatens the entrenched culture and authority and related norms, behaviors, conformity standards, power structure, etc.

Quinn goes on in his book to describe the framework that can enable transformational change based in eight transformational seeds:

1.    Envision the productive community

2.    First look within

3.    Embrace the hypocritical self

4.    Transcend fear

5.    Embody a vision of common good

6.    Disturb the system

7.    Surrender to emergent process

8.    Entice through moral power

Interestingly, much of what Quinn describes is also part of the calculus for Steve Denning's radical management as described in his book, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management - Re-inventing the Workplace for the 21st Century.  Denning describes seven work principles that organizations can leverage to do well in the modern economy:

1.    Focus first on delighting the customer

2.    Utilize “real teams” that self-organize and self-direct

3.    Deliver value quickly to clients through incremental delivery of product

4.    Involve the customer directly in the development of the product

5.    Make the organization and its work transparent

6.    Apply kaizen in all aspects of the organization – a culture of continuous improvement

7.    Communicate directly, succinctly and effectively (apply crucial conversation skills)

Near the end of his book, Denning talks about implementing such change if these principles are not already embedded in the organization.  For many companies, that change will be wholly transformational.  It won’t come from edict, cajoling, or coercion.  It will require masters of transformation.  Those will be ones that put light in the tunnel so everyone can collaborate and make such change realizable and magnetic.  There has been much discussion about Steve's book and about how people might go about helping an organization undertake such radical management change.  A group met in Stoos, Switzerland about it in January.  Out of that gathering came the Stoos Network. An examination of the list of attendees reveals some familiar names in the agile community. Leaders of that gathering, Peter Stevens and Steve have collaborated and created a workshop to help people search and discover ways to change.  They have workshops scheduled through May.

The company has a mantra about being remarkable in its service.  It describes remarkable as simple, personalized, and caring.  That is exactly how it should approach this change it seeks.  That will mean transformational change for the management, and the master change agents have to step up to the plate.  Simply writing about it won’t suffice; it has to be demonstrated and involve the active participation of everyone.  Open Space events would be one robust approach to involving many people, especially those who care.  Such change will require relinquishment and abandonment of the rather tired management principles and practices of old.  What was learned in business school 20, 15, or even 10 years ago is insufficient today.  But, who is going to step up and turn the light on in this train tunnel?  Do they even know they need to do that?  Those and other questions are burning right now. 

In the future, I’ll talk about how the traditional change models are inadequate today and we need to leave ADKAR at home in favor of models such as those embodying the family therapy principles of Virginia Satir. 

The Beating Will Continue Until Your Performance (and Morale) Improves

A very nice benefit of interacting with many people in the broader agile community is the opportunity to make friends, share experiences and try to help others.   People from across the world are part of this community.  We don’t always talk just about agile philosophy and frameworks; we share the trials and tribulations we encounter in our work and our organizations.  And it is in that vein that I mention my friend, Bubba.  Bubba is not his real name, of course, but a colloquialism that fits the inner innocence of his persona like a favorite sweater.

Bubba is a kindred spirit to me and I suspect that we may be alike in many ways.  It seems, like me, he can find himself in some pickles at his work as a result of brashness and impudence.    He seems to survive in a fairly steady work environment and until fairly recently was doing very much what he wanted to do in his work – training, coaching and helping people in their endeavor to work better and with more satisfaction, mostly through the use of Scrum and similar frameworks.  But, in a conversation with me a while back, he described a vicissitude that rattled him to the very core of his soul.   It originated as the result of a rather obscure platitude that by virtue of an innocent event became the stage for the travails he described to me.

This story really begins many years ago when, like me, Bubba introduced Scrum into his company.  His company is steeped in conservative culture and tradition.  Its industry has been around for dozens of decades and the company is over 50 years old.  Bubba has been a bit of an enigma – he told me he was once described as highly regarded by the production workers in his IT shop, but a bit detested by a fair number of his manager peers.  He attributed this to his advocacy of self-organization / self-direction among teams and minimization of management oversight and intervention.  He strongly promoted the adoption and use of agile-based software development principles and practices and this was also viewed with suspicion by some of his management peers.  He trained, coached, and helped many teams and while some managers doubted his intentions and motivations, his cause was seemingly supported by the senior management of his IT department.

Then, there seemed to be a change in the heart of the executive leadership at his company and they backed off of support of the adoption of agile practices (at least by that name.)  His influence began to wane as he was removed from influential participation with the department’s coaching group.  His direct management was also starting to exert pressure on him to take a less aggressive posture in his encouragement of use and adoption of the practices.  He had heard that a monthly agile newsletter distributed widely to the department was to be discontinued.  He didn’t like what he heard and suggested to the person who had published the newsletter that he would seek to take it over and perhaps even publish it in some covert way.  In a very Dilbertesque event, the person who had been publishing the newsletter inadvertently sent Bubba’s email to the newsletter’s broad internal agile community distribution list.  This list included several senior management people.  The poor editor could only respond to Bubba with an “Oh Shit!!!” in an email.  But, the damage was done, though Bubba had no idea how ludicrously malevolent that reaction would be.

The first indication was a response from an IT VP who admonished both Bubba and the newsletter editor for their insolence in sending such an email to the entire agile community mailing list.  Bubba responded to the VP that the editor had sent the email by mistake and that the intention of communication between Bubba and the editor was to find a practical way to keep information about agile practices coming to the community.  Bubba thought that should likely be the end of it, but was he mistaken!  A day later, Bubba’s manager summoned him to the manager’s office.  Bubba was in grave trouble according to the manager, possibly in danger of being removed from his position.  To Bubba, this seemed the ultimate over-reaction, but there was little doubt about the gravity of the situation from the solemnness of his manager.

A few days later, the manager delivered a letter to Bubba detailing among several items, a “lack of confidence in your ability as a leader in our department and reflects your allegiance to agile principles and disregard of department direction…Current consequences consist of our performance discussion and the associated impact your midterm performance evaluation, which is now set at unsatisfactory. We expect immediate, visible, and consistent display of actions and behaviors that align with company and department expectations.”  The letter included a list of 14 activities which Bubba was “restricted” from participating in, which included several facets of agile engagement – training, coaching, mentoring, etc.

“Wow.  That is pretty harsh!” was all I could initially muster in what had to appear to be the ultimate understatement to Bubba.  “They really have marginalized you.  What is most appalling to me is that they have applied the company performance rating system in an arguably inequitable and egregious manner that might actually be dishonest.   Do you have any recourse?” 

No.

“Well.  You might be better off leaving.”

At that point he explained that he is only one, maybe two years from retirement at his firm.  They are one of the few companies left in America (it seems) that still has a full pension plan available to vested employees that can be commenced upon retirement from the company as early as age 55.  So, Bubba feels trapped and it is not an enviable position.  Ironically, the use of the performance rating system as a stick in this case, rather than a carrot, demonstrates reasonably well the fallacies and despicabilities of these systems as described by W. Edwards Deming in his seminal book Out of the Crisis.  Deming writes Traditional appraisal systems increase the variability of performance of people.  The trouble lies in the implied preciseness of rating schemes. What happens is this.  Somebody is rated below average, takes a look at people that are rated above average; naturally wonders why the difference exists. He tries to emulate people above average. The result is impairment of performance.  

That isn’t the only result.  The fear factor naturally sets in and pretty soon horizontal violence becomes evident.  The disparate power structure also has other hideous and incestuous behaviors that can further demoralize workers.  These and other reasons are why Deming listed performance appraisal systems as #3 of his 7 deadly diseases and obstacles that stand in the way of company transformations for the better.   Performance management systems create an environment for game playing and they inhibit the ability of people to have “crucial conversations” where issues can be discussed in a healthy way.  Bubba told me that trust no longer exists between him and his manager, and he does not see a way to rebuild it.  There could be a way, but this rather bizarre reaction to a non-event has solidified the unequal power structure that surrounded the relationship.  I asked Bubba if there were other issues identified in the letter and he described a few others.  None of them seemed to rise to a level where such remedial action would be deemed necessary. 

This event took place several months back and I asked Bubba what awaits him at the end of the review cycle, which is approaching.  He isn’t sure and he seems resigned to whatever comes about, satisfactory or not.  What is apparent to me is that Bubba, a 20 year employee of the company, has been reduced to simply sustaining for some remaining period of time.  He is not a broken person, but simply derailed.  I know of his capabilities and contributions to the agile community at large, and it saddens me to see this happen especially since it did not need to happen at all.  I hold out hope for him, that he will find a way to survive this.  If anyone can, it is likely my friend, Bubba.

We Appreciate and Respect Demming, Except When We Don't

Spoke with my friend, Levi, the other day via Skype.  That is a wonderful communication tool.  We visit frequently and he brought up his company's IT department planning message for 2012.  In that message, Levi’s IT department states that it wants to provide solutions to better meet its customers’ needs and desires, grow and be profitable in its business areas, and develop its people.  These all align with his company’s 3-year goals (i.e. focus on its customers, manage its business effectively, and develop its people.).

Such annual messaging is routine in many if not most US businesses; it is intended to provide a map for the next year and align the actions with strategic goals. An interesting anomaly in Levi’s company is something it calls its 2015 Vision.   According to Levi, its 2015 IT department visions are:

·     Be a provider of solutions

·     Build a skilled, passionate, and loyal workforce

·     Achieve operational excellence by leveraging data

·     Use technology to effectively build the company brand

·     Redistribute people to grow the company (Levi says the company uses the term  “resources” rather than people, but he knows what is meant)

These are separate from its company’s goals. So, its IT workforce is expected to contribute towards the fulfillment of its 3-year goals and demonstrate behaviors that align with its 2015 vision. The focus of Levi’s discussion with me involved the last of the 3-year goals – develop people – and its goal to build a skilled, passionate, and loyal workforce.  On his IT department’s website is a statement it categorizes under the Skilled Workforce section of its 2015 Vision.  It effectively states that the company must invest in people who have a “willingness” to align with the company long-term strategies and the people must also be willing to work in technologies that are “high value.”  It then states that meeting “performance standards” is an expectation for “continued employment opportunities.”  Translated: you have to be skilled in the technologies used by the company and you cannot be a slacker, whatever that term means.

And it is here that the rub with Levi rests.  A number of managers in his company tout an admiration of W. Edwards Deming, the famous quality and management guru.  But when Levi points out to them that performance management systems are one of Deming’s “7 Deadly Diseases” (i.e. severe barriers to company improvement), the tenor about Deming changes to “Well, he was misguided in that area.”  Now, Levi’s company has even brought in Six Sigma training, which evolved from Deming’s philosophy of Total Quality Management (TQM.)  So, Deming is seemingly appreciated and respected at his company…except when he isn’t.
It’s worthy to review the #3 item on Deming’s 7 Deadly Disease list (which comes from Deming’s book, Out of the Crisis):

Personal review systems, or evaluation of performance, merit rating, annual review, or annual appraisal, by whatever name, for people in management, the effects of which are devastating. Management by objective, on a go, no-go basis, without a method for accomplishment of the objective, is the same thing by another name. Management by fear would still be better.

Deming goes on to ridicule these systems (more accurately, to eviscerate them) in his book.  He writes on page 102 of Chapter 3 in Out of the Crisis:

[The performance measurement system] nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes teamwork, nourishes rivalry and politics…It leaves people bitter, crushed, bruised, battered, desolate, despondent, dejected, feeling inferior, some even depressed, unfit for work for weeks after receipt of rating, unable to comprehend why they are inferior. It is unfair, as it ascribes to the people in a group differences that may be caused totally by the system they work in (my bolded emphasis.)

Deming defends his position and argues the logic of his reasoning for several more pages in the book.

Back to Levi and his IT department.  He shared with me the department’s philosophy about developing its people:

Our ability to be a provider of solutions relies upon every employee. We must improve and strengthen the performance of our workforce. [Management] must get better at setting the performance expectations of its people and engage in constructive and straightforward conversations about how people can differentiate and elevate their performance. We must create a positive and productive atmosphere of collaboration that allows employees to question [management], provide feedback [to management about people], and give input [about performance measurement.] [Management] must recognize the need for learning agility and adaptability. Each employee must be engaged and committed to exploring new technologies and generating ideas for continuous improvement. Everyone is accountable for maintaining relevancy and competitiveness and for evolving to fit the needs of the organization.

Sounds inspirational and appropriate – no?  However, Levi mentioned many of the shortcomings and fallacies that infuse performance management systems, especially as applied to technology workers (knowledge workers.)  As Deming has stated, the process must be highly politicized because there is no way to account for the system portion of so-called performance.  Also, many of the measures are arbitrary and behaviors will adjust to be normative towards the measures.  It reminds me of Wally in Dilbert when, upon learning that his performance will be measured by the number of lines of code he writes, declares “I’m going to code me minivan!!!”  The worst part of these systems is that they stifle teamwork and teamwork is acknowledged almost universally as a key ingredient in the delivery of technical products.

So, Levi is despondent because he knows any performance management system is highly subjective and tends to measure just about anything but personal performance, but the so-called 2015 Visions have placed even more emphasis on it.  My, oh my…

Levi commented to me:

“I don’t know anyone who has ever had “constructive and straightforward career development conversations.  Who do you have those with – my manager?  I’ve tried and it’s like staring into the abyss.  My belief, perhaps naive, has been that if I have to tell someone how good of a job I am doing then I am not really doing a good job.”

He continued, “This is just the opposite of how we really assess performance and career development at work.  Case in point: the cynical but all too real, ‘I am going to write me a top rating!’  Too many people have tooted their own horn just to make themselves seem like they deserve better than others.  And this behavior is encouraged by management.  Just recently, my manager told me to change my performance document to make it sound like I was doing certain things and I was the standout.  The reality (which is how I wrote it and he even knew it without reading it) was that I worked with other people, team members, etc.  Yes, there are plenty of folks who could be adding value and being more productive if they were in different situations at work.”

“But, again, this is opposite of the assessment and career development structure in place.  I’ve seen too many analysts with the delusions of being management or architects who just go through the motions of a given position so they can get out of it as quickly as possible and climb the ladder.  I’m sorry, but this neither adds value nor contributes to better productivity at work.”

I responded:   “What I sense here is the notion that your management wants everyone in Lake Wobegone to be (way) above average.  Of course, that cannot happen and they fail to appreciate that people bring diversity of strengths and talents to the table, and some (many??) may work in a capacity that does not even leverage their greatest strengths.  And they cannot overcome system constraints.”

“I know a person who actually may be a good example – he is an admittedly an average worker in his role simply because the traditional expectations to be a highly rated worker in his role repulses him.  So, he essentially evades demonstrating or promoting the very “skills” and “competencies” they desire in his role.  He is an enigma to his management because the projects he has worked on have been vastly successful.”

“But the reasons for his successes cause his management to get grumpy – such as his advocacy of self-directed and self-organized teams, for instance.  Also, his emphasis on coaching and training the people with whom he works to operate independently of traditional project managers is contrary to the culture.  Those are not the skills or competencies found in the project manager role descriptors.  Now, if they actually asked him what he really wanted to do and let him do it, he would be training and coaching full time, I expect.  Of course, they don’t want him to do that because that is not what he is paid to do in their eyes.  So, he is in a pickle and his management is in a quandary.”

“You and I can both think of lots of people who are not doing what they want to do or what they are good at doing (and usually those are one in the same, but not always.)  Even you may categorize yourself in that boat.”

At the end of our conversation, he grimaced and shook his head.  I couldn’t offer much more than my hope that his department might come to its senses.  He ended with “I think it will take a revolution – perhaps a mass exodus of good people who just are fed up with it all in the end.”  Perhaps…that might be a good thing for those people and sad thing for this company.

Maybe They Will Believe a 9 Year-old???

I was sitting at the kitchen counter this evening when I received a call from a colleague who works for a prominent consulting firm.  He is a lead on a project that is customizing one of his firm's tools for use by another company.  We discussed the status of his project tonight – actually the status of “his side” of the project (his client has people working on "their side" of the project, too.)  He is concerned because a wicked technical problem may throw a wrench into their ability to meet delivery promises that have been made by his company. 

I turned to my 9 y/o daughter who was eating dinner next me.  “Lindsey, if I asked you to complete a very difficult jigsaw puzzle in a week, what would you tell me?”  “Well,” she paused, “I would want to know how big the puzzle was and how complicated it was – what was it a picture of?”  “What if I told you that it was 1000 pieces and it was a picture of a castle and that was all I knew?” 

“Hmmmm…” she pondered, “I would tell you that I don’t know if I can get it done in a week, but I would try my best.”  I lowered the boom: “What if I had made promises to very important people that you would get it done?”

“You shouldn’t be making promises for me.” she said.

“Exactly," I said, "What if I told you to work on it day and night for a week until you finished it?”  “You mean without going to school, or playing, or anything?” She asked.  “Yes.  You would work it on it unless you were sleeping."  She thought a moment, “That would be a very mean thing to do, Daddy.  I would have to say no."

It surely would be...and good for you, Lindsey, for having the smarts and courage to believe you would say no.  And maybe those who were demanding completion of the puzzle might believe you and accept your answer...maybe.


In these situations that confront my colleague, where promises are made by those not actually doing the work on behalf of those who are doing the work, discussions, negotiations, and agreements are hatched between two organizations without really understanding the true and complete nature and complexity of the effort.  True understanding of the work and its complexity emerges in technical product development through exploration and discovery along its development path – almost every person with just a limited amount of experience in the technical product development field soon learns and accepts this (or suffers a terminal dose of denial.)

However, date and cost commitments are often made on behalf of the yet-to-be-assembled development team by the people who are not actually going to do the work but nonetheless have a considerable stake (often financial) in the on-time and on-budget delivery of the product.  They make such promises with sincerity and good intentions, but with little or no reliably predictive data to back up their estimates now turned promises of delivery within a predicted time and budget.

So, the innocent team then assembles, begins to investigate the work and build the product, and its discoveries soon reveal at least one and often times many wicked problems that require great thought, effort and even application of the scientific method to solve.  The complex system reveals innumerable possibilities of solutions, each of which may cause more problems through the interaction of multiple agents. To top it off, Mr. Murphy lurks about and inevitably shows up.   And so, the best laid plans begin to go awry and unpredictability and uncertainty sets in.  People become nervous and anxious and demands begin to come forth – “just work harder” and “get to the root causes” are some of the refrains heard.  Telling the truth soon becomes unfashionable, or perhaps there is an inclination to tell the truth in some "correct way.”

As the time gets shorter, tempers start to flare and blaming soon follows, especially when it is apparent that the team will likely deliver “crap” in order to make the date.  Perhaps someone will actually courageously surrender their political virginity and career aspirations by proclaiming that the product will have to be delivered late to actually be qualitatively acceptable.  Either way, unpleasant fallout occurs and people suffer – the team, the customers, those who made promises, those who believed the promises, and those who were expected to deliver on the promises.  This whole process can fit into a Dilbert comic strip and it is repeated again and again with the notion that the results will be different.  Total insanity!!

Lindsey finished her dinner. “Daddy, do people really ask people to do those kinds of things – work really long hours to do things other people promised?”  “Yes, they do, at least sometimes.”  She shook her head, “I don’t think I want to work in a place like that.”  Good for you, my daughter.  Neither do I.  Neither...do...I.