Performance Appraisal

Appraisals are an opportunity for us to lean back and look at what we did for the last period, and how we fared against the goals that we set out with. I would not be surprised if some of it is a revelation to ourselves. It always helps to write down the assessments against the goals, as it makes us articulate better, and drives us towards being objective in our thinking.

When we fill the assessment, many of us normally start with the rating, and then write down why we think that rating is justified. I think it’s better to do it the other way round, i.e. to write down what you did well and what you think could have been done better, against each goal. Only after that, fill in the ratings. This, in my view, will help us be more truthful to ourselves and closer to reality. When you start with a rating, you will be biased by what you are capable of doing, whereas by writing down the details first, focus shifts to the contributions that are tangible.

'Customer' is not monolithic

We were building the next generation product for a UK based customer. It was a one year project, with a milestone delivery scheduled every month. It was a fixed bid engagement.

First two milestones went well. As we completed the third milestone, we started getting feedback on functionality which we thought were essentially Change Requests (CRs). Although first few CRs were signed off by the client Product Manager without much hassle, we started seeing pushbacks after that. We would hear the typical “No, this is not really a change”. We would have to then escalate to the CEO (project sponsor) and present the facts and artifacts to get it signed off. The relationship with Product Manager started going south.

Team was unable to understand why the Product Manager’s behavior ‘changed’. When I visited their office around this time, I asked this guy what really happens on his side when we present a case for CR. He then explained that the CEO has allocated a fixed budget for this project, for which he is responsible. So every time we raise a CR, he has to go back to his sponsor and seek an approval. Now, who would be happy going to their CEO every 2-3 weeks and ask for additional budget, sometimes as small as £500 (This was a £300K project) and try to justify why that requirement was missed in the first place? Moreover, this was an administrative overhead and a painful exercise.

In the following QBR, we emphasized to the customer that for a product of this size, it’s practically not possible to cover every scenario when writing up the use cases. It’s natural that as you see a module functional, there will be ideas for enhancements and improvements. We proposed to their CEO to create what I called ‘CR Bucket’. This would be in hours rather than pounds. It would have a pre-approved 300 hrs effort in it, which the Product Manager can consume without having to seek approval from his CEO. He would have to go back only if the CR bucket depleted, to ‘refill’ it.

The Product Manager now got greater flexibility on approving CRs. We did not have to face rampant pushbacks. The sponsor could look at business value delivered over each milestone to make up his budgetary decisions. This was a win-win for all.

We tend to look at ‘customer’ as monolithic entity, which is not the case. They are also a set of people, having their own KRAs that they are accountable for. They too have specific capabilities and limitations, just like it is on our side. If we understand how things work at their end, we can make them be more effective in what they do. That makes our job easier as well!

emails emails everywhere

Do you get bombarded by barrage of emails everyday at work, most of which is not of much use?

Here's my prediction - emails will be gone in less than 4 years from now... we need something better!

Innovation

Here's another piece I had written earlier...

One word that we hear quite too often these days from the managements of the corporate world, cutting across industry segments, is ‘innovation’. What does it really mean? The thesaurus defines innovation as novelty, modernization, improvement, advance, originality. Now, no wonder organizations would love to have this word in their vision statement. In fact, I would say it is a necessity, even to sustain an organization!

Generally, we tend to think that innovation is something big and needs huge investments. On the contrary, most innovations that have enabled ailing industries turn around are small steps that improve efficiency of its workforce.

I have often quoted this example of a Japanese manufacturing company where the workers assembling a product part had to place a spring under each of the two buttons. The workers, doing this all day, would often miss putting in a spring. This was effectively addressed by a small change in the process – the operator had to pick up two springs from the lot and place them in a tray before staring an assembly. After assembling the part, if there were any springs left on the tray, the worker would immediately know that he/she missed putting in a spring. This simple innovation in the process completely eliminated the problem!

Each one of us needs to spend some time analyzing the work that we do, and see how best we can optimize it. The top management of an organization can provide a strategic direction, however, such innovation has to come from within each of us, to ensure that we stay ahead of our competition.

Quality First

A piece that I wrote up around 3 years back. Thought this is still relevant, hence posting it here...

Couple of years back, I was going for a walk one afternoon along with a client from the UK, on a road that had got fresh tarmac and the footpaths were laid afresh. He looked at some of the spots on the footpath where the blocks were not properly fit in place, and said “Why would anyone leave these pieces unfinished, when they pretty well know that they have to come back and fix it later?” Well, why would anyone do that? The immediate explanation that came to my mind was “That’s the way we are!”

Not much has changed in the two years since. We see such things almost everywhere around us. We are just used to it. I have often seen this reflect on the way we work as well. We do some real good work, but fall short on packaging it to showcase its true value.

It‟s all about the way we think – “Let me first make it work, I will come back and do the cleaning up later!”. Why do we do this? I have seen that we generally value time and cost over quality. All we need, I think, is a slight shift in our point of view - Quality First. With a bit of discipline, time and cost aspects will automatically be taken care of!

Aristotle very aptly said “Quality is not an act, it is a habit.” We will have to cultivate and nurture that habit. This, I believe, will push us to be more innovative, we can be proud of our work, and above all, we will start enjoying what we do!

Accountability Simplified

It's my observation that people in Software Industry are often not clear on their core areas of contribution on a project. People end up stepping on each other's toe, and even worse, managers end up not being able to clearly define the accountability on the right parameters.

Here's my simplified version of roles and corresponding parameters that a person is accountable for, with each successive (or say, progressive) role being accountable for all preceding parameters -

Role	Accountability
	Productivity
Team Member	Quality
Lead	Effort
	Schedule
Manager	Cost and Margin (Bottom Line)
Business Head	Growth (Top Line)

In my view, any other factor, ones that we often come up with when setting objectives, would roll up to one of the parameters above.  

Next on how we can measure objectively on these parameters... any thoughts?