Is the MBA worth it?

October 9, 2011 By in mba, Motivation, QuakeAware Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I received an e-mail from the Dean of the Business school after our convocation ceremony yesterday. Here was the introduction….

“Congratulations on your graduation from the Beedie School of Business. This is a significant achievement and a major milestone for you in your life and career. You have succeeded in a program that combines academic rigor with practical application, has notably high standards, and most importantly, provided you with opportunities to meet new people and confront challenging ideas.” That is certainly what I hoped for when I joined the program. This was not quite my experience though but more on that later.

It seems to me that the benefits of an MBA depend a great deal on who you talk to. Many successful entrepreneurs consider the program a waste of time. They believe you are far better off to actually do\create a business or a product rather than learn from academics. Many professors are incredibly intelligent but lack real world commercial experience and\or have successfully run a business. From a corporate perspective an MBA can be an important “enabler” for more senior positions later in your career. Completing the program shows a drive to gain valuable experience and acquire new skills needed in executive life. I think there are merits to both points of view.

The MBA “gravy train” for major academic institutions is being disrupted by innovators like the University of Phoenix who are offering similar content delivered online for a fraction of the cost. I think business schools obsessed with their brand in light of this very stiff competition are misguided and have lost focus on their core mission. I thought Tony Hsieh of Zappos had a very profound insight when he said that brand is a lagging indicator of culture. His point was that organizations need to align their employee and customer experience to achieve outstanding results. Established universities need to deliver world-class education, foster an entrepreneurial culture and supportive ecosystem to truly differentiate their products and services from their online competition.

A couple of thoughts in terms of my personal experience as an MBA candidate:

1. If students choose not attend most lectures and rarely participate in group assignments how valuable can the MBA credential be?  This suggests to me that as long as you pay the “substantial fees” you earn the credential\brand. This is not rigorous or high standards. I think this is one of the reasons why MBA’s are not as held in as high regard as they used to because of perceived grade inflation. Obviously there are a lot more people with the credential now as well.

2. To charge higher prices established universities need to deliver premium instruction, preferably original research or at least the latest research from talented and engaged professors. The problem from a prospective student is you only find out how good the instruction is after you sign up for the program. My experience was that lecture quality was very inconsistent. It’s fine to tell me about the world-class academics on staff but if I am not taught by many of them frankly who cares? Some professors had little grasp of technology even though it was an MBA with a technology specialization!  One course had content was quite dated with examples that were relevant about 1o years ago. Fortunately many courses were excellent, taught by dynamic professors or incredibly experienced veterans with compelling stories and connections to boot! I would have paid a lot more for some courses and not at all for others had I known what I know now.

3. I was really impressed with the efforts the Beedie Business School make to provide a supportive eco-system for students to develop business ideas. They offer a variety of incubator programs for new ventures and provided free passes to the excellent BC New Venture Competition lecture series. I was fortunate to work with a great group of students that developed an iPhone app called QuakeAware as part of the program. A great way to make your MBA count is to apply the learnings to an endeavour as part of the program. Without a doubt working with this team on our pet project was the highlight of the program for me. I regret not making more of the incubator resources the University offered.

4. Burnout becomes a real issue the further you progress in the program. I became a father towards the end of the fourth semester which made a tough schedule occasionally unbearable. While my wife rapidly lost weight after the birth I continued to expand because I was eating junk food and drinking coffee late into the night on a regular basis. Needless to say this was bad for my health and not sustainable in the long run. Fortunately I was not alone. :) Many other members of my cohort joined me in the “pleasantly plump” brigade. My patience for “light lectures” of questionable value wore thin towards the end as the personal sacrifices I needed to make and the price I paid was not certainly not worth it far too often.

5. I really enjoyed the safe environment for students to share their perspectives on their professional challenges. Most lecturers made a point of encouraging discussion which was often insightful and thought-provoking. I learned that the challenges in my organization were not unique by any means and that in many instances Sage was ahead of the curve in our industry. I highly doubt I could have had these type of conversations over an e-learning or online course as it takes sometime for students to get comfortable with each other to share what they really think.

Was it worth it? All in all I think so. I have a broader perspective on business. I have a solid platform to move from the technical to the business side of my organization. The program has already proven beneficial to at least half the cohort. Many have moved up in their organizations or moved on to new employers already. The MBA is as much a test of endurance as it is a test of intelligence. I promised myself I would do this and now I have. I am pretty proud of myself actually!

My son won’t lick a glass door because he’s hungry

October 2, 2011 By in mba, Personal, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I went out for a drink with a friend I worked with around eight years ago during the week. We have exchanged a few e-mails over the years but had not spoken since then. Our worlds have changed quite a bit in that time. We are both fathers now. Our outlook on life and career is quite different than we first met. We spoke about life in the US and Southern California in the good old days before the conversation turned to the challenges in today’s environment. He is on the road a lot now which is tough on his family. I know what it is like to make sacrifices having recently completed my MBA which had proven tough on my young family as well.

Although we live over a 1,000 miles away from each other our work environment is remarkably similar. Many people are working very hard. Many are not working very hard. Those that work more typically have very little to show for it in terms of the pay they bring back to their families for their extra effort. Keeping your job is an achievement in these tough economic conditions. It’s a lamentable state of affairs with little hope for improvement in the short run. As bad as it is in North America it is not nearly as painful as the situation back home in Ireland. My personal view is that the economic environment is going to get a lot worse fairly quickly. My friend complained that many of his colleagues were “checked out“, doing the minimum to get by and were miserable in their jobs. When the economy improves he predicts a mass exodus of employees from his employer.

I am not so sure. Here is the catch 22 for many people who feel this way. If they do not work hard how do they really improve their résumé to take advantage of new opportunities that open up at a later date? Will they be able to perform at higher levels when they move to an organization that demands more from their employees? Are they undermining their future employment prospects by not investing in new skills now? Perhaps people need to find a way to reconnect with their jobs and their employers? If they just hurt their career that would be bad. Many don’t realize they risk severely impacting their personal lives and loved one’s also.  I read an interesting book called “We” which highlighted the spillover and crossover effects of a bad job. Basically your emotions at work, good or bad, spillover to your personal life and cross over to those around you.

I know all these things are true but that does not stop me from becoming discouraged occasionally with my career as regular readers of my blog will know. {I actually have a few I promise! :) } If you work hard and get good results you hope your contribution is recognized or why bother? It’s hard to be upbeat if your colleagues are miserable as my friend pointed out earlier in the week. That said, I heard a sad story during the week that changed my perspective on my current situation. We have decided that Min Chi will stay at home to take care of Liam until he goes to school. It is a big financial hit to a young family. We believe it is worth it though. A young mother whose daughter plays with Liam a lot was telling her that has to leave her 9 month old daughter at an unofficial\illegal daycare so she can go back to work. Apparently the daycare centre takes care of 15 babies. The centre has 5 high chairs and 3 care takers. 10 babies get to watch the other 5 eat through a glass door until it is their turn to eat. She saw a young baby that looked really hungry start “licking” the glass door but still had to leave. Can you imagine how heartbreaking this must have been for the poor mother?

My initial reaction was rage, then despair as I thought about the young children in this daycare centre. Then I thought about how fortunate I am to have a great partner who is willing to stay at home and take care of our little terror. Then I thought work is tough but if I get to provide for my family my extra efforts are not in vain. Recognition and rewards for my hard work from my employer are nice. Providing a good life for my family is much more important even if my “tyrant” costs me a fortune and won’t say thank you until it’s his turn to be tormented!

Managing change fatigue

September 18, 2011 By in Change management, Leadership, Management 4 Comments

It has been many months since I have found the time to update my blog. My life has changed substantially in that time frame. I have completed my MBA. My son is almost 1. My marriage is getting better now that I have more time to put into it. I have started to lead a more healthy lifestyle again. I exercise more and eat good food. I have had a series of minor injuries as I try to get back in shape but these shall be overcome!

My professional life is another matter entirely as we undergo yet another transformation at work. Many executives have decided to leave. Others were pushed. I expect that further changes are around the corner. These changes no longer faze me which is a good and bad thing. I am suffering from change fatigue. I question is it really worth it to try to become an executive where I work. This was once my dream and I have invested heavily to achieve it!

It seems to me that political skill can often trump practical accomplishments in executive life. Many executives work 100+ hours per week. Many travel 2-3 weeks of the month. This incredible dedication counts for little if you are too closely associated with a former leader who has left the business. Other executives don’t align themselves correctly in the organizational warfare that is inevitable as part of radical transformation and lose out as a result. It’s tough at the top! I blogged before that excellent advice in a book called Career Warfare is to back as many horses as  you can. This is a skill that must be mastered in an organization addicted to re-organization.

The other challenge that I see for large organizations is that many have been unable to figure out a way to reward top performers in challenging economic conditions. What is the point of making huge extra effort when colleagues who barely put in a 40 hour work week and are checked out receive the same raise you do? Why not invest the extra time in a quality home life instead? It kills motivation and morale when low performers are rewarded the same as high performers who put in extra effort to really drive change in the organization.

That said with change comes opportunity. As my former mentor David van Toor tweeted recently “If you are not riding the wave of change you will be swept beneath it.” Our new CEO is very impressive. He has a very different way of looking at our business which is refreshing. It is intriguing to consider the possibilities with his vision. Every time I have heard him speak I have thought about the issue discussed in a new way afterwards. I really enjoy listening to his perspective even though I don’t agree with everything he says. No one has any doubt that Sage will be very different under his leadership.  There are plenty of opportunities to drive change for those who have the courage and energy to step forward. Is it worth it? Time will tell…..

In the meantime my focus on a more balanced life has proved very rewarding. By sharpening the saw I can watch events unfold confident that I am ready for the next challenge that comes my way next whatever it may be. Come to think about it I may just read Simon Covey’s classic the 7 habits of highly effective people again. If you have not read this book I highly recommend it. It’s a classic.

The ethics of job obsolescence & overtime

May 7, 2011 By in Employees, Leadership, Management, mba, Motivation Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I aspire to bring out the best of the people I serve as a manager. I try to be supportive but I definitely want the teams that I work with to be the best they can be. Most team meetings I begin by celebrating the very real accomplishments made since our last meeting, identify any opportunities for improvement I see and then ask the team to aim even higher. For me to justify my salary as a non technical manager the team needs to demonstrate improved performance. My view is that if they don’t, the company should hire another developer or a manager that can help the team achieve their potential.

I was very unpleasantly surprised when a developer I work with advised me that I was the most demanding boss he has ever worked for earlier this week. I quickly conquered my initial reaction to justify my management style and realized this employee was doing exactly what I challenged the team to do, share feedback constructively! He had two points. The first was that he was grateful that I pushed the team and the team regularly received recognition for their accomplishments at various levels of the organization. By starting with the positive I was better able to receive the second piece of feedback. He then went on to say that the only way the team could possibly meet the request for even higher performance was to work extended amounts of overtime! In a nutshell, “Donal, your words come across as very reasonable but your requests suggest you are not. Which is right?”  (My language not the employee’s)

As we discussed the matter further to clarify his perspective I came to two conclusions. The first, was that if he had this concern the other developers probably did as well. I had not communicated my expectations clearly despite my best efforts. The second was that there was a key truth in their insight. Although I don’t necessarily expect employees to work more overtime to get the project completed faster I do believe they have a vested interest in spending time outside of their core work hours to upgrade their skills. Why? This segues nicely to the title of this post. I have attended an ethics course this weekend with Dr Mark Wexler. He suggests that employers of knowledge workers are only required to provide fair compensation, benefits and decent working conditions from an ethic‘s perspective. The onus is on employees entirely to ensure their skills remain relevant in the market place.

In the old days a manual laborer or factory worker received their pay and were rehired the next day. Although modern knowledge workers enjoy better employment conditions the reality is that we must continue to invest in our skills outside of work hours to continue to earn salaries comparable to those we earn today. Technological innovation demands we master new technologies faster than ever before. Although employers may not be ethically required to invest in their knowledge workers skills I explained in my previous post they have a powerful interest in doing so. Core capabilities become core rigidities in organizations with legacy skills which limits their ability to compete.

I decided to speak with the rest of the developers on the team after a very productive 1 on 1 with the employee. I wanted to communicate my perspective differently armed with the new insights from my previous conversation. Here is what I tried to say. At times in a software project there may be times when we need to do overtime to meet project deadlines. This should be the exception not the rule. Work-life balance is important and typically leads to better performance in the long run. My focus is not for the team to work harder on the project per se. I do ask everyone to foster a supportive, collaborative environment and to provide constructive feedback to colleagues. I truly believe building this higher level of trust is a powerful enabler of high performance. Our ability to improve is directly proportional to our ability to solicit and improve based on this feedback. People don’t like doing this because giving feedback that can be perceived as negative is incredibly hard. This is why (from my perspective) I originally thought I was not asking employees not to work harder.

The developers were right too though. I am requesting they take the time to upgrade their skills mostly on their own time. This is additional work. To me this is about employment security though. The best workers with the skills in the latest technologies in demand will continue to earn high salaries and have their pick of employers.  The reality is that development work for mature products that are increasingly becoming commodities will continue to face compelling cost pressures from outsourced development centers.

I believe I have no right to ask employees to work overtime to acquire new skills. I sincerely believe I am responsible though to identify the future technical trajectory of our products and the market. This gives employees the opportunity to align with them to maximize their professional success. Take control of your career. Why worry endlessly about outsourcing? Take the chance to become more valuable in the market. Then it’s up to employees. (It really is) We make a choice every day how we spend our time. Upgrade or obsolescence, the real choice for the knowledge worker with all the possibilities or consequences that comes with whatever choice we make eventually…….

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Human Capital

May 4, 2011 By in Agile Development, Employees, Leadership, Management, Motivation Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

As large organizations continue to delayer and eliminate middle management more and more responsibility is being transferred downwards across the organization. It never ceases to amaze me to observe the rigorous criteria organization’s enforce to ensure the ROI on capital expenditure. In comparison how much are most companies are willing to invest for training in their front-line management or key players who manage the most valuable capital of all, human capital? My experience has been not nearly enough…..

For most organizations their workforce is their best opportunity to deliver an extraordinary customer experience to provide that all important and often elusive competitive advantage. Think about it, I know of organizations where any capital request over $10,000 must be reviewed by a committee of C-Suite executives. This meeting alone must cost at least a couple of thousand dollars to the company. Executives typically review a pitch from senior managers on why the investment is worthwhile. This same company has developers that make an average of $80,000 in various locations across North America but cannot find the budget to regularly invest in management training. You could buy a very nice BMW or Mercedes for the kind of money their employees are paid! Are we focused on the return of the right assets?

This may offend some people but company’s deserve a similar return on their investment in terms of high performance from staff on premier salaries. The fact is we are now competing in a global environment. If company’s don’t get the results from employees making three or four times as much as a developer somewhere else it can make sense to outsource to cheaper locations. This is why front-line management serve such a vital role for both their employees and their employers. We need to help our employees be the best that they can be to remain competitive, enjoy their jobs and make a meaningful contribution to their organizations and fellow employees. And make no mistake, for the companies that can afford to pay a truly engaged, well-trained, experienced and talented developer working on a high performing team locally, they will typically receive higher quality software faster and more predictably.

I am fortunate that the company I work for has a generous tuition reimbursement policy. What a great opportunity for employees and managers at Sage. It is vital that everyone takes the initiative to upgrade their skills on a regular basis to remain relevant in today’s workforce. It never ceases to amaze me how many people still believe that the company owes them a job even after the great recession. The onus is on the employee and the employer to invest in each other for future success. Employers who don’t invest in their staff are unable to respond to new market opportunities as quickly as they like. Their core competency becomes a core rigidity. Employees with the latest skills have more employment security as they are more valuable to the market. What happens if no one invests. You have employees who can’t move because they won’t make the same money somewhere else but are not able to improve at the rate needed to keep the company competitive in the market. In the end, everyone loses.

That said, it’s undoubtedly tough at the top, the middle and the bottom of most organizations hierarchy’s these days. Many people’s span of control has broadened considerably due to reorganizations over the past few years. For the most part this is wonderful. Daniel Pink suggests that autonomy, mastery and purpose are three critical elements in maximizing satisfaction and productivity at work in his wonderful book “Drive“. (If you have ten minutes to spare I highly recommend you watch this excellent video explaining his ideas in more detail.)

Empowerment is wonderful. It is incredibly powerful but can be dangerous if not used wisely. Empowerment has changed the nature of the relationship between employees and managers fundamentally. When employees\people taste autonomy and are given the freedom to choose the best way to proceed this often can bring out the very best in them. With power comes responsibility though which is often overlooked. Many senior talented employees now find themselves in “unofficial” leadership roles as well. It seems to me that these new leaders are often intimidated by their new responsibility and don’t quite understand how to act sometimes. This may sound critical. That is not my intent. We need to invest in more leadership training for these new leaders as well. In many ways they are just as influential as the frontline managers. If managers are trying to change the culture or change direction in a project and the unofficial leaders are not on board managers lose the “war” when they are not in the room.  It is very tempting to try to manage this by “staying” in the room. This actually makes matters even worse…..

Challenging but exciting times. Are you continuing to upgrade your skills for the next set of challenges and opportunities? Are you ready to take advantage of them? Is your organization?

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Buckets of stuff

February 13, 2011 By in Management, Strategy Tags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Where to spend your R&D $'sI had the good fortune to attend the first Product Camp in Vancouver this Saturday. I was delighted that Sage was a sponsor for this event.  We have a pretty low profile in BC considering we are one of the largest technology employers in the province. The quality of presentations was a little mixed but I will definitely sign up again next year. For me the pick of the bunch was a session I attended on categorizing R&D spend by a VP of Product Management at McKesson.  This post is my interpretation\understanding of some of the key ideas in the presentation “Buckets of Stuff.“

The two key hypothesis from the presentation were:

1. If you can effectively explain how much money the R&D work will cost you are far more likely to secure the funding you need to be successful.

2. To maximize the productivity of your R&D spend you have to a solid understanding of how much of your money you spend in various categories.

He identified several key categories you need to know about:

Really new stuff

This is the amount of your R&D revenue spend that you allocate to work on innovation or new products. His example was that Apple may not spend more as a % of total revenues on R&D than their competition.  They do spend a much higher % of their R&D budget on new product development though. The result, a series of innovative and user-friendly products that helped them become the largest tech company in the world. The corollary of course, is that if companies don’t spend enough on innovation or new product development they risk losing access to new exciting growth markets that constantly emerge in the hyper competitive technology world.

Stuff to keep your existing user base

This is the amount of your R&D revenue spend that companies allocate to keep your existing customers. For example, a key strength of Sage is our massive install base of 2.3 million small and medium size customers in North America. We need to make sure we continue to deliver new features in strategic products. For customers on sunset products we need to deliver robust and easy to use migration tools to strategic products.

Stuff to keep selling your existing products

The SMB business solutions software market like many others is becoming increasingly competitive. We need to invest in compelling new features in strategic products in our portfolio to attract new customers. A great example of this is the new Connected Service Strategy currently being evangelized by senior Sage leaders. These new services up in the cloud allow customers to maintain control and leverage the deep functionality of our on-premise desktop applications like Sage Accpac. The first of many connected services for Sage Accpac is Sage credit card processing is scheduled for release imminently.

Taxes

What most people outside of R&D do not realize is the amount of money and resources (taxes) required to compete in the market. Great examples of these “taxes” include operating systems upgrades or compliance issues. Once Windows 7 is released the perfectly reasonable expectation of our customers is that Sage will deliver products to run on this platform (amongst several others). This is more expensive particularly in terms of QA testing resources than most realize. QA can never test all aspects of a mature product on any operating system. A comprehensive audit is required to ensure the product performs at an acceptable level and is not released with a plethora of bugs that would undermine the brands promise of superior quality. After the financial meltdown of 2008 there has been an unprecedented surge in regulatory requirements which keeps customers on software assurance contracts but is also becoming increasingly expensive to maintain in terms of R&D resources.

Integration\OEM stuff

This can often be another form of stealth tax for R&D organizations. For a variety of reasons many integrations or OEM products do not deliver the revenue projections promised. The net result is that costs continue to be incurred to maintain this “stuff”  in future releases without the revenue to support them. R&D departments face a prisoner’s dilemma type challenge. R&D leadership must often choose to absorb the cost of ensuring quality of this “stuff” meets the quality of the core product because the “other player” does not have the incentive or technical capacity to do so OR take the hit to the brand and accept lower quality. (I don’t mean to suggest this applies to all OEM\integration products)

My personal conclusions

  1. The stereotype that many folks in R&D are trapped in the inward looking “not developed here syndrome” exists for a reason. It is often true. It is often not though. We (R&D) don’t do a good enough job of surfacing the “taxes” and hidden costs in our work when we have legitimate concerns.  The more R&D pay in taxes the less resources we have available to go after the high growth opportunities.
  2. R&D folks need to move past the “entitlement” mentality as well. We are not owed a job. Our focus must be to deliver value to the business that pay our salaries. A great way to do this is to understand our company’s strategy and upgrade our skills to maximize our productivity. ( Staying relevant in the technical labor job market happens to be a huge bonus incentive as well!)
  3. We need to do a better job of highlighting the opportunity cost of technical and quality debt. R&D’s ability to rapidly respond to market pressure is severely restricted the more debt we are carrying.  A principal developer recently sent me a blog called Bad Code isn’t technical debt, it’s an unhedged call option which explains this concept well.
  4. We need to work closely with and support PM identify the really attractive opportunities that will bring in the big bucks. R&D developing products in isolation without a clear understanding of the potential profit is a recipe for self-destruction. No profit opportunity, no R&D budget to justify…….

New CEO pays a visit

January 16, 2011 By in Employees, Meetings, mba Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I often avoid writing about my work at Sage to ensure I have the freedom to speak my mind on this blog. Serendipity invites me to try a different approach this week. Pascal Houllion from France; our recently appointed CEO of Sage North America came to visit our office in Richmond. His visit coincided with my first cultural intelligence class in my MBA program. I was fascinated that almost everyone I spoke to who met him used the words “different culture” when sharing their perceptions of Pascal’s comments and interactions with him.

For example,  he appears to have strong views on the work environment. I have seen pictures of the Sage offices in Dublin and Paris. It seems to me the offices are designed to foster collaboration and an egalitarian environment. Both are very open, with low cube walls while very few managers have offices. Introducing similar changes in North America would definitely shake things up if implemented. Office size and location are considered by many as a sign of greater rank and influence in the company while employees typically prefer higher cube walls for privacy to work uninterrupted.

In meetings I was told Pascal was  a “straight shooter”, willing to share his first instincts on the issue at hand with whatever information was available to him. I find this approach refreshing.  This style has its risks though from a cultural perspective. Last year I blogged that the perception of what our CTO had requested often appeared different from what he intended when I had the opportunity to ask him questions directly. It took me several years to adjust to the communication style in North America. My experience is that open dialogue is typically reserved for smaller group meetings and that hierarchy is taken much more seriously in North America than Ireland. Discussions with, or opinions expressed by senior executives are sometimes interpreted as decisions by employees. This can have significant consequences in terms of morale and productivity if a decision is questionable. (Even though many times a decision was not made!)

One other very positive perception that emerged was  that management experience and qualitative feedback will play an increasing role in decisions going forward. This works well for me! Data is important, a key tool in a manager’s toolbox for sure. An excellent book “Made to stick” makes the point that we need much more than data to deliver a message that resonates and inspires a team to action though. We need a compelling message that is easily understood to make the idea sticky with the target audience.

Many who met Pascal got the sense that big changes are in store for our business over the next few years. I sincerely hope so. This comment could easily be interpreted as a criticism of the local leadership. It is not. Sage North America has made huge progress in the past few years. Finally, some tough decisions have been taken from a portfolio perspective in the mid-market business division.  Indeed at the 2010 Sage Insights conference the executive team themselves acknowledged that our investment in R&D had probably been spread across too many products in key-note presentations. I once read our plethora of product offerings described as similar to a ransom note by a former leader in the company to an industry analyst!  My point is simply that many times it takes someone outside of the organization to highlight dysfunctional aspects of a culture or emotional attachments to a product line and position to do something about them. Laurie Schultz, our General Manager has proven she had the courage to make the tough decisions in Sage’s mid-market portfolio. We need a similar approach and new growth strategy for our entire business that customers, employees, partners and shareholders can buy into.

I read an interesting post from Wayne Schultz recently about our latest re-org in Sage North America. Wayne made a good point that it typically takes a year or so for a new leader to ramp up on the business. He wrote “Maybe Pascal will jump right in and begin leading without any need to study the North America operations – but I wouldn’t bet on it.” I will go out on a limb and place a different bet. He will! Everyone I spoke to in Richmond is very impressed with our new CEO’s knowledge of the SMB market. I am confident Pascal will exceed Wayne’s expectations!

I would be delighted if Pascal can exceed employee’s expectations as well. Sage’s ability to deliver an Extraordinary Customer Experience requires a highly motivated and engaged workforce. An interesting article in Business Week discussed a study of 61,000 employees by the Corporate Leadership Council. The data showed that one out of four employees was disengaged.  One of the main causes of this disengagement is directly linked to the massive change employees have experienced when it comes to their Employment Value Proposition (EVP)—or the value that employees gain by working for a particular organization. EVP has trended downwards across the western world due to reasons such as layoffs, organizational restructurings, and shifts in managers. An interesting and scary thought from the article was “the reality is that the anticipation of future organizational change is more detrimental to EVP than the change they have already gone through“. Sacré bleu!  Here we go again but change we must! Our future depends on it.

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2011 Targets

January 9, 2011 By in Building teams, Employees, Motivation, Personal Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Personal:

  • Spend more quality time with Min Chi
  • Learn to be a great dad
  • Spend more time with my family back in Ireland
  • Reconnect with some old friends

Blog:

  • 10,000 hits
  • 50 personal posts
  • 2 guest posts
  • 25 comments

QuakeAware:

  • Setup a non profit organization
  • 25,000 downloads of the App
  • Redesign the website
  • Expand into at least one US city
  • Explore open source model for global presence

Professional:

  • Build 2 high-performing agile R&D teams
  • Bring out one hidden talent or maximize a known one for every employee I work with
  • Become a better presenter
  • Attend networking events monthly
  • Raise my performance on R&D management team

Health:

  • Eat better
  • Loosen up – stretch more
  • Drop 15lbs
  • Vary my exercise more
  • Play soccer this summer

Study:

  • Complete MBA with 4.0 GPA average
  • Write an excellent business plan for my final project
  • Write one more plan by the end of the year for practice
  • Attend BC New Venture Series this summer

2010 in review

January 2, 2011 By in Uncategorized Leave a comment

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,600 times in 2010. That’s about 6 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 25 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 29 posts. There were 53 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 5mb. That’s about 1 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was March 7th with 55 views. The most popular post that day was Hire in haste. Repent at leisure..

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, smist08.wordpress.com, lmodules.com, WordPress Dashboard, and linkedin.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for donal de paor, tuckman’s model, donal de paor blog, advisor, and trusted advisor.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Hire in haste. Repent at leisure. March 2010

2

About me November 2009
9 comments

3

Do you understand your company’s strategy? May 2010
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Videos March 2010

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What motivates you? February 2010

Culture change

November 21, 2010 By in Agile Development, Building teams, Employees, Management, Motivation Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I have been fortunate to work with many teams over the years in a variety of functions including Customer Support, Operations, Project Management and most recently R&D. The most exciting time in a team’s turnaround is when they start to sense the possibilities of what high performance could really look like. It’s intangible but very real. I got that feeling this week in Accpac R&D after the management team hosted a week-long internal conference for our department to discuss agile best practises and how we plan to organize ourselves for our next project.

In hindsight we provided insufficient training to our staff when we originally transitioned to Agile. This cost us dearly in terms of effectiveness and productivity. As I have mentioned before agile is really a set of principles and best practices rather than a rigorous methodology. The focus is always on self-improvement or Kaizen to use the Japanese term. With this in mind, we have acknowledged our mistakes and adjusted accordingly. The management team has invested heavily in training for our staff in 2010. For example, over 50 employees have become certified ScrumMasters; 30 have become certified Product Owner’s this year. Training is scheduled to help staff better test in Agile in December. Most importantly we will ensure that regular training opportunities are available to staff as part of operational rhythm in 2011. Everyone’s hard work, energy and commitment have ensured that the team’s understanding of agile has risen to a new level and provided a solid foundation for future learning.

Funding training opportunities sounds great but what is the ROI for the company and the employee? Put another way, why is training so critical for change management? Have you ever heard of “competence compulsion?” At work, we are all compelled to act and to make sense of every situation in a way that ensures we appear competent to ourselves, and we appear competent to others. Unfortunately, when we are learning, we can appear less than competent. An important premise in Agile is that the team are self-managing and empowered. It is a big ask to expect employees to lead effectively when most have only experienced working in a command and control environment as subordinates. The change is even more difficult when they everyone is unsure of their new roles and the “right way” to proceed. Needless to say management found the new environment ambiguous and challenging as well and struggled to provide employees the support they desired in the transition.

Training is often expensive in terms of money and time. It can be hard to justify pulling key resources off a project (especially when you are behind schedule) to take training. My experience has been that management and employee’s commitment has paid off and the payback has been huge in our department in 2010. For example, armed with new insight and confidence 20 staff recently attended the local Agile Vancouver conference. These folks (many of whom are key change agents) subsequently played an important role in bringing back many excellent suggestions to the team. Although management organized many supporting events the focus of last week was really on the employees. Employees presented their insights and ideas many of us were not familiar with. They offered personal recommendations on how we should organize ourselves. Different opinions and ideas were debated by the department together. The quality of conversation and level of engagement seemed unimaginable not so long ago.

I believe the team has acquired a new core foundation of knowledge (in Agile). This has enabled many to unleash their potential and seek out more advanced ideas to further improve individually and collectively. There is a palpable desire for change and demand from employees for more say in how our R&D organization is run. Energy is higher than I have ever seen it. There is a culture change taking place. I am proud to be a part of it and support the team in any way I can. This is what management is all about!

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