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BooksFeaturedLeadership

Are You Hiring What You Need

by IPowerIdeas

I had a recent interview and it made me think of the ideal characteristics we want in our employees and colleagues.

 

These characteristics are key to success and provide a culture of positive collaboration, increased morale, and high performance.

 

I highly recommend buying the book Ideal Team Player and learning about the three incredible characteristics discussed in the book. They have proven time and time again to be valuable during the hiring and assessment of team members.

 

Here are some great insights and artifacts to get you started from this site:  The Ideal Team Player

 

Enjoy!

Buy The Book
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FeaturedLeadershipPersonality Discovery

How Can You Make Storytelling a Habit?

by IPowerIdeas

Read all the posts about storytelling.  They are part of a series of adding and/or strengthening the tools in your toolbox.

 

 

Storytelling is not only a skill, but also a habit.  A habit that can help you communicate better, connect deeper, and inspire action.  But how can you make storytelling a habit in your daily life?  Here are some tips to help you practice and improve your storytelling abilities.

 

Identify your stories

The first step to make storytelling a habit is to identify the stories that you have to tell.  Stories are everywhere, in your memories, experiences, observations, and insights.  You can use a journal, a voice recorder, or a note app to capture your stories as they come to you.  Try to be specific, descriptive, and emotional when you record your stories.  You can also use prompts, questions, or themes to spark your imagination and creativity.

 

Structure your stories

The second step to make storytelling a habit is to structure your stories in a way that engages your audience.  Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but they also need a hook, a conflict, and a resolution.  A hook is what grabs your audience’s attention and curiosity.  A conflict is what creates tension and suspense.  A resolution is what delivers the message and the lesson.  You can use different frameworks, such as the hero’s journey, the three-act structure, or the STAR method, to organize your stories.

 

Tell your stories

The third step to make storytelling a habit is to tell your stories to someone.  This can be a friend, a family member, a colleague, or a stranger.  The point is to practice your storytelling skills in a real situation, where you can get feedback, reactions, and emotions.  You can also use different platforms, such as podcasts, blogs, social media, or videos, to share your stories with a wider audience.  The more you tell your stories, the more confident and comfortable you will become.

 

Listen to stories

The fourth step to make storytelling a habit is to listen to stories from others. Listening to stories can help you learn from other storytellers, discover new perspectives, and expand your knowledge.  You can listen to stories from books, podcasts, TED talks, documentaries, or live events . You can also ask questions, show interest, and empathize with the storytellers.  Listening to stories can also inspire you to find and tell your own stories.

 

Adapt your stories

The fifth step to make storytelling a habit is to adapt your stories to different contexts, purposes, and audiences.  Stories are not static, but dynamic.  They can change depending on the situation, the goal, and the listener.  You can adapt your stories by adjusting the length, the tone, the language, and the details.  You can also use different techniques, such as metaphors, analogies, humor, or emotions, to enhance your stories.

 

Repeat your stories

The sixth and final step to make storytelling a habit is to repeat your stories.  Repeating your stories can help you refine, improve, and master them.  You can repeat your stories by telling them again to different people, by recording them and listening to them, by writing them and editing them, or by reviewing them and memorizing them.  Repeating your stories can also help you create a personal brand, a signature style, and a loyal following.

 

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

I know we have all heard it before, but two things come to mind that work every time.  One, tell a joke.  It helps you relax as well as makes the audience focus on you and your story.  Second, start off with a hook, such as a question.  It engages the audience to pay more attention as you will answer the question later in your presentation.

 

If you had any thoughts, let us know.

 

Hope you enjoyed the post.

Original Article

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FeaturedLeadership

Empowering Yourself as a First-Time Leader

by IPowerIdeas

My first job out of school was not in a leadership position, but through observing, it was a pretty good orientation for first-time leaders.  I watched many people doing a lot right, but I also saw people being asked to speak and behave outside their comfort zone; I watched many without support.  When I took my first leadership role and became a CEO, I built these lessons into my approach.

 

Here are nine ways I learned to empower myself as a developing leader:

 

  1. Understand that everyone has a role to play

Despite the bad examples of leadership, one really good quality that leaders in my first job demonstrated was how they viewed individual contributors.  They understood that, while not everyone was going to necessarily be a manager, leader or change agent, the value of each contributor was still sound.  If someone decides, “Staying at this level is my path, and I want to stick to it,” working for a company that recognizes that will result in a better experience for everyone.

 

  1. Never work for an insecure person

Insecurity permeates everything—for leaders, it infiltrates their decisions and impacts the ability of others to work for them.  This was one of the biggest lessons my first job taught me.  A little bit later in my career there, leadership awarded me a title not beyond my competency but probably beyond my experience.  I ended up managing people who were 20 or 30 years older than I was.  Fortunately, they were confident and secure in their jobs, so, despite my age, they accepted my leadership.  If they weren’t, I might have suffered my insecurities and had a harder time being their leader.

 

  1. Look for support

Seek out a supportive environment and culture where you can make mistakes.  My first time with success in a leadership position was when I worked for someone who truly had my back.  He watched over me and stayed aware of my decisions, giving me a lot of rope but never enough to let me hang myself.

 

  1. Seek out fun

Rather than the career offering the most money, first-time leaders should follow their natural gravitation toward fun.  A leader needs the skill sets that make others want to buy into their ideas and follow their direction.  To be successful in leadership, we need to enjoy leading and feel gratification at someone choosing to follow us.  That energy from our enjoyment and buying into what we offer as leaders is what people follow.  Unless we can have fun leading others, we can never succeed.

 

  1. Management builds leadership

Sometimes, our path to leadership includes enabling others to be good leaders as managers. This means getting our hands dirty and being willing to do the grunt work that comes with straight managing.  Never surprise your boss—even well-intended surprises can undermine them—but help them look good.  Groom yourself to take that step up into leadership by helping your leaders demonstrate the best of their abilities.

 

  1. Do up rather than out

First-time leaders who want to prove themselves by taking on more than their share should remember to work vertically rather than horizontally.  It can be easy when we see work not getting done to step in and cover for our peers. I went through it.  Instead, we should do the work that will get rewarded by working up, not out, and doing it well.

 

  1. Nurture partnerships

I have family members who are military officers who rely on their wives to take care of the rest of the family, especially during deployment.  Business partnerships are not the same as marriage, but being a leader often means turning to partners within the organization for support.  Partners in HR, for example, can help support interactions with direct reports and their families.  Leaders should nurture opportunities to create strong partnerships across the company from different divisions for a variety of support.

 

  1. Remember your scope of responsibility

In military leadership, one person responsible for four soldiers may report to someone in charge of 30 soldiers, who then reports to someone overseeing 500 soldiers.  That person at the top sees their responsibility as taking care of 500 families.  As a leader of a company, I often think down through the channels of leadership about the families who are part of my scope of influence.  As we move through our leadership journey, never forget the responsibility for that pyramid of resources.

 

  1. Leadership is earned, not given

It takes more than someone else giving us a title to make us a leader.  We have to earn that title, both vertically and horizontally.  With buy-in up the chain from our leaders and across from our peers, we have an easier time convincing direct reports underneath us to buy into our leadership. S ome may see it sooner, but rather than expecting others to take our ability to lead for granted, we can work on demonstrating it.

 

Taking on a position of leadership can be frightening.  Those who will succeed as leaders are willing to accept that challenge because of the personal gratification they receive from serving in that position.  Step up and step forward to earn and nurture the personal gratification from leadership, and the outside gratification will follow.

 

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

One of the most important aspects of a good leader is having self confidence.  There are several blog posts regarding the benefits of self-confidence.  Here is one – READ IT.  Doing it alone is also very hard and as the article highlights, surround yourself with people who have your back (even when you are not in the room).  The last point I want to highlight is “fun” and showing your team you recognize their efforts and their wins. 

 

One memorable thing I did for my team was I just picked a Friday and rented a Slupree machine in the middle of the summer – they loved it!  It went around the company like wild fire and every other department came by to get a Slurpee and ask why we were doing it.  A small effort had such a big impact for not only my department, but within the company.

Original Article

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BooksFeatured

Stories for Work – The Essential Guide to Business

by IPowerIdeas

To keep with the theme of the I Power Ideas site, this will not be an in-depth review but rather selecting highlights to pique your interest in the book to go pick it up and read and understand the concepts in more detail.

 

When things go badly, those who survive move away from the emotion of fear and towards a state of resolve.

 

Growth mindset.

 

Humor and laughter.

 

Be creative.

 

When we give greater autonomy, responsibility, trust, and unconditional support, they make more conscious decisions.

 

Old school pen and paper slows us down to process and be more mindful.

 

Car and Driver test showed 6x longer to react when reading or texting.

 

Martin Luther King, “If you can’t be the sun, be a star. It isn’t by size that you win or you fail. Be the best at whatever you are.”

 

“Nourish our people first – put teams first, will go to great places.”

 

 

 

Buy the Book

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

A quote that resonated was this quote from Martin Luther King, “If you can’t be the sun, be a star. It isn’t by size that you win or you fail. Be the best at whatever you are.”

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BooksFeatured

How To Stop Caring What Others Think: For Real

by IPowerIdeas

To keep with the theme of the I Power Ideas site, this will not be an in-depth review but rather selecting highlights to pique your interest in the book to go pick it up and read and understand the concepts in more detail.

 

“It’s not if you’re smart, it’s how you’re smart.”

 

Shift thinking to focus on personal value that relates to our internal essence, our core values, and character development.

 

Take ownership over your self-value by shifting your mindset to focus on nurturing and developing yourself.

 

Don’t define yourself on how much you or your friends have – focus on and measure by kindness, generosity, patience and effort.

 

So what makes you you, it’s your internal essence.

 

Unemployment often causes people to question their personal value.

 

Focus on what you can control and not what you can’t control. When things are difficult, remind yourself, it’s something we cannot control.

 

Self-development doesn’t just feel exact, it lays the path for greater external success,

 

External criticisms are like there are really saying is “we don’t like you.”

 

When we focus on achieving internal success that’s when we become truly happy.

 

 

 

Buy the Book

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

One of the best notes I had from the book was this: Silver is always valuable in its existence. But when it’s polished, you get to really see the shining at its best. Enjoy the book!

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BooksFeatured

Quiet Voice Fearless Leader: 10 Principles for Introverts to Awaken the Leader Inside

by IPowerIdeas

To keep with the theme of the I Power Ideas site, this will not be an in-depth review but rather selecting highlights to pique your interest in the book to go pick it up and read and understand the concepts in more detail.  Enjoy.

 

“Leader = Listener”

Steve Jobs (quote)

 

Remove negative thoughts and focus on what you are going to say (when you get nervous).

 

Try not to take yourself so seriously.

 

Philippians 4:13 – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

 

Donate time and/or money as makes you go out of your comfort zone.

 

“Dare to be different and dare to stand out”

 

“Always do your best and never worry about what anyone else thinks about it.”

 

Being an introvert is not the problem.

 

“Doubt self – constantly worry about what other people were thinking about me.

 

Shonda Rhimes, Warrant Buffett, Albert Einstein, Elon Musk, and Steven Spielberg were all introverts.

 

Warren Buffett said,

“Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy”

 

If you don’t say anything then people will miss value and feel you weren’t needed.

 

Abraham Lincoln was quoted as saying,

“Better to be quiet and considered a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

 

What makes me unique?  And how can it benefit others?

 

Focus on needs of those you are talking to.

 

A good leader makes informed decisions.

 

“Bad news doesn’t get better with time”

 

Along these lines, check out the book “Radical Candor” – a great read and goes deeper into how to make touch conversation more effective and easier.

 

What happened to “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?”

 

Accountability – “things did not work out because I did …”.

An I Power Seed is, use “I statements”.

 

A sports player was once heard saying, “Success is on the team, failure is on me.”

 

Strong desire to be accepted – be authentic self.

I Power Seed add:  also be genuine.

 

“If you are sitting in a room and you are the smartest person there, then you’re in the wrong room.”

 

Strong team will free you (and your team) from pressure.

 

Team and delegation.

 

 

Buy the Book

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

This was an excellent book for those fellow introverts who want to improve their leadership skills be becoming more confident to be less of an introvert.

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Happy leader
FeaturedLeadership

What NOT to do as a Leader

by IPowerIdeas

Here are some insightful views on what leaders must avoid at all costs. As you become a leader or hone your skills as an effective leader, these might seem apparent of what not to do, but we don’t always consistently practice them. From my experience, if you consistently keep them out of your daily practices, you will create a culture of trust and teams that are results-driven.

 

Enjoy.

 

https://youtu.be/Xy2_75ckF0Q?t=24
Bad Leader vs Good Leader

Become infatuated with yourself.
Some leaders believe everything is about them, and whatever they say is right. When you become self-absorbed or have an exalted ego, you create your own sense of reality and it is impossible to get other team members to trust you. Trust is an essential (see 5 Dysfunctions post for more on trust). Without it, leaders are unable to generate buy-in from team members at any level of the organization.

Divide instead of unify.
A true sense of community is necessary to move a health system forward. Everyone must be willing to put their shoulders to the wheel together, and that is impossible when animosity festers among team members. Some leaders think a highly effective, motivational tactic is to encourage competition among members of their C-suite, but you would be hard pressed to find a successful sports team that thrives on this dynamic. The greatest teams in any sport come out of the locker room ready to fight for each other, and they understand that resentment undermines any chance of success. The same holds true for healthcare organizations, and leaders who think otherwise are doomed.

 

Choose the wrong people.
Being a leader requires putting yourself under a microscope, which can be difficult and uncomfortable for many people. The worst way you can react to those feelings is by surrounding yourself with sycophants whose best quality is their affirmation of your insecurities. Some leaders would rather create a circle of unqualified “yes-men” than team players who have the courage to speak their minds and disagree with their boss. Don’t demonize those who disagree with you. And remember that ideological alignment is not the basis for effective team building, so don’t let a need to be liked cloud your better judgment.

 

Never saying you are sorry or wrong.
In keeping with my previous point, while all leaders need to be confident, they also need to be open-minded and willing to consider opposing views. Excessive self-confidence can lead to the unfortunate and often-disastrous consequence of believing that you are always right – even when the evidence shows otherwise. Taking accountability by admitting failure and acknowledging it is a strength, not a weakness. (see The Ideal Team Player post for more on humble, hungry, smart)

 

Blame your predecessors.
Rather than take responsibility for the state of their organizations, some leaders would rather blame their predecessors. While they think this clears their plate of any blame and gives them the air of infallibility, all it does is establish a culture absent of accountability, where blame passes from one employee to another. “Success,” as Winston Churchill so aptly stated, “going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” All leaders make mistakes and all decisions have downsides. To burnish your own reputation by ignoring the accomplishments of those who came before and excessively focusing on the negative avoids an essential element of leadership – taking responsibility.

Take communication style for granted.
Some leaders think content trumps communication, but how you spread a message is as important as the message itself. Make time for face-to-face interactions with team members at every level, and don’t be afraid to engage people through technology. However, never hide behind technology as a means of avoiding in-person interactions.

 

Lower the bar on civility.
Leaders set the example for how employees should treat each other, and must be able to apologize to people they may have wronged, which demonstrates the value of humility. If leaders do not embody these positive values, the bar for civility will be lowered for all employees, and the results can be toxic and destructive.

Original Article by Michael J. Dowling

 

 

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The-Phoenix-Project
BooksFeatured

Seriously? You Have Not Read It Yet?

by IPowerIdeas

The Phoenix Project

Are you looking for a book that breaks apart from the mainstream content and one that provides a fresh change on how a management and leadership book is written?  If you excitedly said “yes”, then this is the book for you.

 

When someone recommended this book to me to read, I was a little hesitant as I was looking
for a book to continue my learning mindset, currently focused on increasing my leadership knowledge and skills.  This book was not a typical management or leadership book; one that is filled with facts, statistics, studies, etc.  It was a fictional story.  What kept my initial interest in reading it was my hope it was going to be as interesting, engaging, and informative.

 

To say the least, I was thoroughly engaged and took away numerous ideas and thoughts and
immediately incorporated several of the concepts into my daily routines, activities, and how I manage and lead.

I Power Ideas Warning:  The following contains a glimpse into the book.  For those of you who avoid spoilers at all costs – alert – read the book before reading the following.  For those who can handle a preview and some takeaways, keep on reading.

 

The book contains fictional situations that will resonate and stick with you and you will find yourself reflecting back on, again and again.  I found myself several times having “water cooler” conversations about the characters in the book which elicited lots of laughs and meaningful meanings at the same time.

 

You will really dislike Sarah and you will see the constraint of Brent within your own organization.  Pay attention to Erik, he has some excellent insights.  Ok, I have said too much – go get the book!  (even the audio is excellent, I recommend it) So, if you have not already done so, read this book!  You will not regret a single minute’s reading (or listening).

 

It is an easy read and thus a quick read. It left deep impressions on me and evoked several “ah-ha!” moments.

 

 A few I Power Seeds based on The Phoenix Project

Ockhams Razor

They took a lot of time to dig down into the root cause of a problem they experienced – they asked what was done that could have caused a significant outage.  They could have come to the same conclusion if they had just asked what was done throughout the organization/business units.  This does not always work, but many times it does.  For example the authors offer a comparison to Occam’s  Razor.  Occam’s Razor is the problem-solving principle that essentially states that “simpler solutions are more likely to be correct than complex ones.”  When presented with competing hypotheses to solve a problem, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions.

 

The lack of most of the character’s positions of being proactive caused other issues (domino effect) with the company.  They did not follow up on work in progress (WIP) or implemented changed from other business units (should have used systems thinking and the inter-dependencies), such as the possible hard drive failures on the SAN.  This is a great example in the book and once you read it, you will be able to better recognize the same issues or inter-dependencies within your own work environment. 

 

From the story, Erik explains there are 4 types of work.  They appear to be common sense but they all play an important part.

 

1. Business Projects
These are business initiatives, of which most Development projects encompass. These typically reside in the Project Management Office, which tracks all the official projects in an organization.

 

2. Internal IT Projects
These include the infrastructure or IT Operations projects that business projects may create, as well as internally generated improvement projects (e.g., create new environment, automate deployment). Often these are not centrally tracked anywhere, instead residing with the budget owners (e.g., database manager, storage manager, distributed systems manager).

 

3. Changes
These are often generated from the previous two types of work and are typically tracked in a ticketing system (e.g., Remedy for IT Operations, JIRA, or an Agile planning tool for Development). The fact that two systems exist to track work for two different parts of the value stream can create problems, especially when hand-offs are required.

 

4. Unplanned Work or Recovery Work
These include operational incidents and problems, often caused by the previous types of work and always come at the expense of other planned work commitments.

 

Why Do We Need To Visualize IT Work And Control WIP?

From the book:  “My favorite (and only) graph in The Phoenix Project shows wait time as a function of how busy a resource at a work center is.  Erik used this to show why Brent’s simple thirty-minute changes were taking weeks to get completed.  The reason, of course, is that as the bottleneck of all work, Brent is constantly at or above one hundred percent utilization, and therefore, anytime we required work from him, the work just languished in queue, never worked on without expediting or escalating.

 

Here’s what the graph shows: on the x-axis is the percent busy for a given resource at a work center, and on the y-axis is the approximate wait time (or maybe more precisely stated, the queue length).  What the shape of the line shows is that, as resource utilization goes past eighty percent, wait time goes through the roof.”

One of the memorable concepts I took away was regarding constraints and work in progress (WIP).  With constraints and too much WIP, you are not focused and thus it’s like chasing your tail.  If you have so much WIP and you have no time in your schedule for unplanned work, then things will continually get put on the back burner and your backlog will only continue to grow.  That is one of the powerful examples written in the book and once the characters finally identified the constraint(s) and resolved it, only then did the backlog begin to shrink.  This is what the Japanese saw in production and found ways to keep the work in progress (WIP) while removing or bypassing the constraints.

 

Another example that is provided in the book is changing focus of programmers  and how it wastes brain cycles to constantly refocus (context changes) and is considerably less productive and causes one to be more tired and fatigued.  There are many recent studies I have read that strengthen this that multitasking is significantly less productive than just focusing on one thing and getting it done.

 

Another great point highlighted in the book is how to find ways to automate and deliver simpler chunks.  We know that, for one example, this was key in the auto industry (Ford and Toyota).  We also see it in the technology world with scripting and how it automates processes to be significantly more efficient.  And smaller chunks or work is a Scrum concept and rather than a legacy process of waterfall development, smaller simpler projects (stories) are put into place making the go to production significantly faster, more efficient, and with consistent results.

 

There is so much more in the book.  Get it, read it, learn from it, and implement its concepts.  You will see results right away.

 

Leave comments and share your thoughts and ideas.

Short video with Gene Kim

Synopsis from Amazon:

 

Bill, an IT manager at Parts Unlimited, has been tasked with taking on a project critical to the future of the business, code named Phoenix Project. But the project ismassively over budget and behind schedule. The CEO demands Bill must fix the mess in ninety days or else Bill’s entire department will be outsourced.

 

With the help of a prospective board member and his mysterious philosophy of The Three Ways, Bill starts to see that IT work has more in common with a  manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined. With the clock ticking, Bill must organize work flow streamline interdepartmental communications, and effectively serve the other business functions at Parts Unlimited.

 

In a fast-paced and entertaining style, three luminaries of the DevOps movement deliver a story that anyone who works in IT will recognize. Readers will not only learn how to improve their own IT organizations, they’ll never view IT the same way again.

 

Buy the book on Amazon

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The Checklist Manifesto
BooksFeatured

The Checklist Manifesto

by IPowerIdeas

You Will Not Want To Put It Down!

 

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande – a leadership-style book that is an excellent and engaging read.

 

If you have not already done so, read this book! You will not regret a single minute’s reading. It is filled with information and ideas for incorporating them into your personal and professional experiences.

 

It is a page-turner and thus a quick read. It left deep impressions on me and evoked several “ah-ha!” moments.

 

A few I Power Seeds based on The Checklist Manifesto

warning

Warning: The following contains a glimpse into the book. For those of you who avoid spoilers at all costs – alert – read the book before reading the following. For those who can handle a preview and some takeaways, keep on reading.

 

The book contains vivid true stories and situations that will stick with you and you will find yourself reflecting back on again and again. One story has to do with an emergency operating room, a critically wounded patient who was the victim of a stabbing and root cause analysis.

 

Seedlings:

We Don’t Know It All

  • Regardless of our knowledge and length of time in our professions, we don’t know it all. Many challenges are now more complex and previous go-to solutions or fixes are often inadequate or obsolete.
    • We all need to work well together. Even high-level specialists, rely on others across the team to complete their time-sensitive and critical functions as part of the holistic solution.
  • The days of ‘general surgeon’ are long gone.
    • Now surgeons focus within a particular specialty. Current technology is another example of complexity. Coding, servers, and networks 15 years ago were much simpler than today’s evolved and significantly more complex technologies providing services in today’s technology industry is much more complex too. For example, a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) now has numerous specialties.

Checklists and Solutions

    • Traditional methods or practices are not always foolproof.checklist
    • The simple suggestion for implementing a checklist in an operating room was initially not welcomed, even overlooked. Later, it was credited for saving lives.
    • Timing is everything. Administering a surgical patient an antibiotic within 60 minutes of the first incision reduced infections by 50%. Even giving the same antibiotic 30 seconds before an incision showed significant effectiveness as well. Wait longer than 60 minutes and the antibiotics could ware off and be ineffective.
    • The book highlights a statistic that is incredible – half the patients in one study had to have their surgeries redone or fixed as a result complications or errors from the original procedure. How many times do we have to go back and fix something caused by errors that could have been avoided by utilizing a checklist? What comes to my mind is the old, nearly fool-proof, saying, “measure twice, cut once.”
    • There are many steps to complete complex solutions.
    • Major advances over the past several decades are attributed to tracking and communication. As an example, buildings are built safer, now a .0002% failure rate and are constructed in a third of the time due to mandatory and detailed checklists.
    • The author asks us to identify our personal tolerance levels relevant to “acceptable.” Incentives play a significant part in goal achievement. (I think this is something we all know, but maybe overlook.)

Root Cause (example)
The book highlights the example of Dr. Snow related to his work in tracing the source of an outbreak of cholera in London, in 1854. At the time everyone thought cholera was airborne. Dr. Snow went on a hunch. He felt it was something else. He was creative and looked outside the norms to map it out leading him to discover the source was a water well that had a cesspool leaking into it. He found the root cause which inspired the adoption of fundamental changes in water and waste systems. He is credited for a significant improvement in general public health around the world.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Snow)

washing hands with soap

Always Use Soap (example)
•  Another example in the book was the availability and use of hand soap to help rid the geographical area of illness and disease in Karachi. Diarrhea, pneumonia, etc. fell as much as 50% in one year by utilizing soap with an antibacterial agent in it. The sad part is the residents had soap, but they were poor and wanted to “save it.” Handing out free soap resolved that part of it.

•  The second part came down to instruction on washing significantly more, routinely, and properly. The free soap smelled and felt good, even better than the soaps they were saving, so it encouraged them to use it more frequently and longer, thus reducing illness causing bacteria.

•  So much of our common knowledge and many of the practices we take for granted today were unknowns in previous times.

 

Speak Up and Listen (example)
Another example in the book has to do with a surgical assistant who did not speak up and a surgeon that the assistant worked with who did not like to listen to and accept observations from others. The author provides examples of where speaking up could have prevented failure and/loss of life. The author also provides other moving examples on the importance of speaking up and listening.

 

Final thoughts on Checklist Manifesto
Many of the doctors in the studies highlighted in the book were change adverse as were many of the hospital administrators who did not want to enforce a checklist policy, but when 24 people from one very small study survived because of the proper use of a good checklist the results speak for themselves. As a patient, wouldn’t you want the team treating you or your loved ones to utilize a simple checklist?

 

Short-term thinking people complain about checklists as they say it adds time and effort to sometimes chaotic timetables and schedules. What they fail to realize, is that checklists actually reduce gaps in wasted time and resources and often mitigate touching things twice.

 

Many think checklists are beneath us, or that they reflect weaker minds. We have had a strong held belief that the great minds don’t need notes or checklists. Sound familiar? Checklists remove human egos, especially when highly skilled and experienced people are working together. A checklist removes the subjectiveness and interpretation between people.

 

This was a great book that I could not put down. Go get it and read it – you will really enjoy it.

 

Please leave any comments on the site.


Here is a demonstration of a failed attempt to use the WHO Safe Surgery Checklist. This clip shows how implementation of the Checklist without obtaining buy-in from clinical staff and providing appropriate education in the checklist use.

Please also watch the video on how to use the checklist in a fashion that improves patient safety:

Here is a summary of the book: 

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Scrum Team
FeaturedFrameworks

Creating a Highly Effective Scrum Team

by IPowerIdeas

 – Everything You Need to Know

 

What makes up a Scrum team? Who does what? And how can you strengthen your team so it gets to ‘Done’?

 

These are some of the questions asked when setting up an effective scrum team. I have consolidated an informative summary – I Power Seed – along with other helpful articles on scrum teams.

 

As a side note, I have taken parts of the Scrum framework and use them in other parts of my leadership practices and have made a significant difference. Try it yourself and you will see and experience that the Scrum framework is proven and effective.



I have also included some additional resources at the bottom of this post.

 

Who Constitute the Scrum Team?
The Scrum team is a well-structured team dedicated to delivering quality results or products to the customer. They work in a certain time frame that is comprised of several sprints (time-box duration of less than 30 calendar days). After each sprint, the Scrum team should have completed a product increment until the very last sprint, in which they should have delivered a complete product that meets the customer’s expectations.

 

The Scrum team is made up of the following:
– Scrum Master
– Product Owner
– Development Team

 

The stakeholders are the people outside the Scrum Team but have a specific interest and knowledge in the product.

 

The Scrum Master
This person is primarily responsible for promoting and supporting Scrum. As the name suggests, they have the expertise and knowledge on Scrum methodology – its theory, rules, practices, and values . If anyone has questions about the Scrum process, they seek help from the Scrum Master. This person also works with external people (such as the stakeholders) to understand which of their interactions are helpful and which are not.

 

The Scrum Product Owner
The Product Owner has the sole responsibility of managing the Product Backlog. He has the expertise and knowledge about the product that has to be delivered and closely works with the stakeholders and the customer in order for the Scrum Team to understand the specifics of the project and the results they need to achieve. The product owner has a solid understanding of users, the marketplace, the competition, the client’s desires and expectations, and the future trends of the system or product being developed. To sum it all up – the Product Owner does whatever is necessary to build the best product possible.

 

The Development Team
The development team is composed of professionals who have the skills, background and capability to carry out the items from the Product Backlog so the Scrum Team could deliver a potentially releasable product increment at the end of each sprint. It is important to note that the development team is are self-organizing. Meaning, neither the Scrum Master or the Product Owner can instruct them on how to perform their task or carry out the backlog items. They are also cross-functional, possessing all knowledge required to deliver a working product. As to the size, the development team is small enough to stay agile but big enough to complete the sprint.

 

The Stakeholders
Again, the stakeholders are not directly involved in the Scrum Team. But they have a specific interest and knowledge over the product. The stakeholders are represented by the Scrum Product Owner.

 

What an Ideal Scrum Team Looks Like
The three components of the Scrum Team have to work together to get to ‘Done’. Each of these three roles, while remaining independent as to the tasks and scope, should synergize. After all, they are a team.

Taking into account the following qualities and characteristics should help you establish a highly efficient Scrum Team:

  • The Scrum Team members share the same norms and rules.
  • They are empowered. It is only when the team is empowered could they work with the highest level of motivation and performance.
  • The team is small and has no sub-teams. During the sprint planning, a very important matter that the Scrum Team discusses is the capacity of the development team. They should have enough people to perform the tasks/backlog items.
  • They should be co-located. The Scrum team revolves around collaboration. Ideally, they should meet daily, face to face.
  • The members work full time as the sprint has a very limited time period.
  • They take time to learn to work together, learn together, and make changes together.
  • They are transparent.
  • The Scrum team is cross-functional. They have to be multidisciplinary. The members of the development team are not differentiated by their skills or profession. They are all called “Scrum Team Member”.

 

If you want to read more, check out the original article by Luís Gonçalves

Additional Resources:

The Ideal Scrum Team Composition for Agile Development

Identify the Members of the Scrum Team

The 5 + 1 values of highly effective Scrum teams

6 Must Have Skills to Become a Notable Scrum Master

The Scrum Guide

https://youtu.be/vLd6xIrlNvI?t=36
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Leader-vs-Boss
FeaturedQuotes

Difference Between a Leader and a Boss

by IPowerIdeas
Theodore_Roosevelt



“People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.”
– Theodore Roosevelt

Not sure if you are a boss or a leader? Here are a few I Power Seeds to offer insight.

 

From the article “Leader vs Boss – The 6 Major Differences”

 

Difference #1: The focus
A boss the end objective is profit


A leader is focused on changing people and the organization

 

Difference #2: The driving force


The boss, the motivation stems from the focus on standards


The leader is driven by the values they hold dear

 

Difference #3: The approach to work and objectives
A boss approaches work in an administrative fashion
A leader approaches the work through innovation and collaboration

 

Difference #4: The source of authority
The boss gets his or her authority from the position
The leader receives his or her authority from an internal place

 

Difference #5: The way to communicate and delegate
A boss uses communication as a way to delegate tasks and responsibilities among his or her subordinates


A leader uses communication that is more participatory, collaborative, and provides positive feedback

 

Difference #6: The level of accountability
A boss delegates responsibility and therefore, places accountability on the shoulders of the person performing the specific tasks and the emphasis is on having someone accountable for the failure, not so much the understanding of what went wrong


A leader the full accountability is on the leader’s shoulders – the ethos of learning from mistakes is at the heart of the leader’s strategy.

 

Original Article

I found this infographic that I really liked.
From Volaris

Couple of articles that are helpful:
Management and Leadership Like a Bike?
Leadership is more Than Leading – Show You Care
Difference Between Boss and Leader from Villanova University

https://youtu.be/YT_bEHqbuTU?t=11
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Exceptional Employee
FeaturedLeadership

Ten Ways To Spot A Truly Exceptional Employee

by IPowerIdeas

I enjoyed this article as it was concise and offered some good insights to help ensure you spot and hire exceptional employees. I know I want the right people in the right spots (as I look for those who are Humble, Hungry, and Smart).

 

We spent a lot of time on technical skills, experience, and knowledge but we are finding solid evidence that emotional intelligence (EQ) is actually more important.

 

In my 20 years’ experience I have fond that I can teach someone with basic aptitude and technical skills all day long but cannot teach someone nearly as much or as deep on emotional intelligence (EQ).

 

This is an excellent article that will help you identify and hire exceptional employees. Employees with excellent emotional intelligence (EQ) to help you get the right people for the right jobs. (the “I Power Seed“)

 

Here are a couple links to additional resources to assist you in learning more:

 

Books:
Emotional Intelligence 2.0
Emotional Intelligence: Improve Your EQ For Business And Relationships – Unleash The Empath In You
Reading People

 

Articles:
Blob Tree and the “What and Why”
Why Attitude Is More Important Than IQ
DISC Profiles Overview
The Ideal Team Player
5 Dysfunctions of a Team

 

A recent international study surveyed more than 500 business leaders and asked them what sets great employees apart. The researchers wanted to know why some people are more successful than others at work, and the answers were surprising; leaders chose “personality” as the leading reason.

 

Notably, 78% of leaders said personality sets great employees apart, more than cultural fit (53%) and even an employee’s skills (39%).

“We should take care not to make the intellect our God; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.”
– Albert Einstein

 

The problem is, when leaders say ‘personality’ they don’t understand what they’re referring to. Personality consists of a stable set of preferences and tendencies through which we approach the world. Being introverted or extroverted is an example of an important personality trait.

 

Personality traits form at an early age and are fixed by early adulthood. Many important things about you change over the course of your lifetime, but your personality isn’t one of them.

 

Personality is distinct from intellect (or IQ). The two don’t occur together in any meaningful way. Personality is also distinct from emotional intelligence (or EQ), and this is where the study, and most leaders for that matter, have misinterpreted the term.

 

The qualities that leaders in the study called personality were actually emotional intelligence skills. And unlike your personality, which is set in stone, you can change and improve your EQ.

 

Exceptional employees don’t possess God-given personality traits; they rely on simple, everyday EQ skills that anyone can incorporate into their repertoire.

 

Leaders don’t need to go searching for these skills either (though it doesn’t hurt when you find them); their duty is to help everyone on their team harness these skills to become exceptional.

 

Just consider some of the EQ skills that leaders and managers commonly mislabel as personality characteristics. These are the skills that set exceptional employees apart.

 

They’re willing to delay gratification.
One thing an exceptional employee never says is, “That’s not in my job description.” Exceptional employees work outside the boundaries of job descriptions. They’re neither intimidated nor entitled; instead of expecting recognition or compensation to come first, they forge ahead in their work, confident that they’ll be rewarded later but unconcerned if they’re not.

 

They can tolerate conflict.
While exceptional employees don’t seek conflict, they don’t run away from it either. They’re able to maintain their composure while presenting their positions calmly and logically. They’re able to withstand personal attacks in pursuit of the greater goal and never use that tactic themselves.

 

focus_employees

They focus.
Student pilots are often told, “When things start going wrong, don’t forget to fly the plane.” Plane crashes have resulted from pilots concentrating so hard on identifying the problem that they flew the plane into the ground. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 is just one example: The flight crew was so concerned about the landing gear being down that they didn’t realize they were losing altitude until it was too late, despite alarms going off in the cockpit. Exceptional employees understand the principle of “Just fly the plane.” They don’t get distracted by cranky customers, interoffice squabbles, or switch to a different brand of coffee. They can differentiate between real problems and background noise; therefore, they stay focused on what matters.

 

They’re judiciously courageous.
Exceptional employees are willing to speak up when others are not, whether it’s to ask a difficult (or “embarrassingly” simple) question or to challenge an executive decision. However, that’s balanced with common sense and timing. They think before they speak and wisely choose the best time and place to do so.

 

They’re in control of their egos.
Exceptional employees have egos. While that’s part of what drives them, they never give their egos more weight than what is deserved. They’re willing to admit when they’re wrong and willing to do things someone else’s way, whether it’s because the other way is better or it’s important to maintain team harmony.

 

They’re never satisfied.
Exceptional employees have unparalleled convictions that things can always be better—and they’re right. No one is ever done growing, and there is no such thing as “good enough” when it comes to personal improvement. No matter how well things are going, exceptional employees are driven to improve, without forgetting to give themselves a healthy pat on the back.

They recognize when things are broken and fix them.
Whether it’s a sticky desk drawer or an inefficient, wasteful process affecting the cash flow of the entire department, exceptional employees don’t walk past problems. “Oh, it’s been that way forever,” simply isn’t in their vocabulary. They see problems as issues to be fixed immediately; it’s that simple.

 

They’re accountable.
If you’re a manager trying to decipher a bungled report, “It’s not my fault” is the most irritating phrase in the English language. Exceptional employees are accountable. They own their work, their decisions, and all of their results—good or bad. They bring their mistakes to management’s attention rather than hoping no one will find out. They understand that managers aren’t out to assign blame; they’re out to get things done.

 

They’re marketable.
“Marketable” can mean many things. Inside the organization, it means “likeable.” Exceptional employees are well liked by co-workers. They have integrity and leadership skills (even if they’re not in an official leadership position) that people respond to. Externally, it means they can be trusted to represent the brand well. Managers know they can send these employees out to meet with clients and prospects without worrying about what they’ll say or do.

 

They neutralize toxic people.
Dealing with difficult people is frustrating and exhausting for most. Exceptional employees control their interactions with toxic people by keeping their feelings in check. When they need to confront a toxic person, they approach the situation rationally. They identify their own emotions and don’t allow anger or frustration to fuel the chaos. They also consider the difficult person’s standpoint and are able to find solutions and common ground. Even when things completely derail, emotionally intelligent people are able to take the toxic person with a grain of salt to avoid letting him or her bring them down.

 

Very funny video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VRu8V3zhGs

Original article by Dr. Travis Bradberry

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ITIL 4 Foundation
FeaturedFrameworks

ITIL V4 Foundation Changes

by IPowerIdeas

Are you ready for the new changes?

 

New changes are here for ITIL 4 and being a Certified ITIL Practitioner I wanted to know what was changed as well as provide a quick and high-level summary of changes (I Power Seed).

 

Hope you find the summary helpful.

 

Two Quick Points:

  • The focus in ITIL 4 is on service management principles, concepts and practices, rather than processes. This gives service providers more freedom to design tailor-made processes that work for the organization.
  • ITIL 4 also reflects recent trends in software development and IT operations, and includes advice on how to apply philosophies such as Agile, DevOps and Lean in the domain of service management.

What’s New In ITIL 4?  Here is a short video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPYV9fpK1Yg

Here the Axelos book – ITIL Foundation 4 Edition

8 Things that Stand Out in the New ITIL Practitioner Guidance Book

 

Standout #1: Let’s Start with the ITIL Practitioner Authors
Standout #2: The Acknowledgement of Enterprise Service Management
Standout #3: ITIL Practitioner’s Nine “Guiding Principles”
Standout #4: That CSI is Front and Center
Standout #5: There’s a Deep Dive into Metrics
Standout #6: That the “Continual Improvement of Metrics and Measurements” Is Included
Standout #7: The Organizational Change Management Chapter
Standout #8: Practical Advice and a Practical Toolkit

Here is a Really Good Summary Article:
10 Key Changes in ITIL 4 (and My Take on Them)

 

Change #1 – The ITIL v3 processes are now ITIL 4 practices
Change #2 – The ITIL service lifecycle has been replaced with the ITIL service value system (SVS) and the service value chain within it
Change #3 – There’s now a focus on the “co-creation of value”
Change #4 – The nine guiding principles of ITIL Practitioner are now seven
Change #5 – There are now even more ITIL 4 practices than there were ITIL v3 processes
Change #6 – The 4 Ps of service management are now the 4 dimensions of service management
Change #7 – CSI has changed
Change #8 – Governance now has a proper seat at the ITIL table
Change #9 – A brighter light has been shone on automation
Change #10 – Enterprise service management is and isn’t mentioned

Here is another video: Capgemini Academy – ITIL 4 vs ITIL 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V77xAPD7JB4

Here is One Way for Training:
Lynda (.com)
Link: Preview of course for ITIL 4: Service Value Chain

If you have an hour, here is a deeper dive into the new changes: ITIL 4: The Changes, What’s New and How it Impacts You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MIRQa8JGhk
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FeaturedLeadership

Why Managers Should Care about Employee Loyalty

by IPowerIdeas

Loyal employees are a major asset for a strong company.  Many businesses think that employees are automatically loyal just because they’re getting a regular paycheck.  The truth is loyalty isn’t for sale.  Loyalty has to be earned by the way you treat your employees.  Transforming your business isn’t easy.  You can’t do it alone.  Without the cumulative drive of a dedicated team, your business won’t last long.

 

How you Treat your Employees will Determine the Fate of your Company!

 

Often poor management lies at the heart of an employee’s departure.  People don’t leave jobs, they leave managers.  The manager is the company’s first point of contact with an employee, if that contact is bad, the relationship with the company will be bad and the employee won’t stay long.  If companies are going to excel, they need two things: Loyal Employees and Loyal Customers.  The link between employee satisfaction and productivity is long-established.  Research has found that happy workers are 12% more productive than their less satisfied counterparts.  Loyal employees = Loyal customers.  Loyal employees are worth more than their weight in gold.  They uphold your brand and ensure the sustainability of your business.  They go the extra mile.  They make it possible for you to win.

This is why progressive companies like Apple, Google, Amazon create excellent managers.  In my current position managing 30+ engineers, it is critical to have loyalty as it is an integral ingredient to the growth of my team and the success of providing value to our customers.  With trust and loyalty, the engineers go above and beyond to take care of our customers – brining value and creating longer term relationships with the customers.  This loyalty also fosters their desire to look for other opportunities and value for the customer.  Take a look at your own team – is there loyalty?  Do you provide an environment where they want to be loyal or do they just want to punch in and out and get a paycheck?  In my case, their loyalty has grown our business and our reputation.

In the present environment, it becomes a necessity for the organization to have a strategy for retaining their best employees.  Your competitors are waiting at the door with “treats” to lure away your top performers.  If you keep treating employees like they are easily replaceable, you will be paying the price for this.  According to data drawn from 30 case studies taken from 11 research papers on the costs of employee turnover, it costs at least 20% of their salary when an employee leaves.  These costs reflect the loss of productivity from the departure, the cost of finding a replacement, and the reduced productivity while the new employee gets up to speed.

 

Beyond the more tangible losses, it affects the teams stability and causes other employees to reconsider their loyalty towards the organization.  Additionally, poor employee loyalty can also damage a company’s image.  Sites like Glassdoor and Indeed offer employees a platform on which to air their true feelings about their employer.  Fortune bases its “100 Best Companies to Work For” ranking on employee reviews of company culture.

 

In my current company, we could save money by reducing or removing all the little perks we provide but we know the extra things we do shows our team that we care and how important things like working from home, flexible schedules, free snacks and drinks, fun environment (video games, chili cook-offs, etc.) are to them.  And they reciprocate by doing a great job.  An old saying, but goes a long way, still holds true:  “Penny wise, pound foolish.”  These small parks do not cost us a lot considering the rewards we get by providing them.

 

Tips To Help You Keep Your Best Employees

 

When employees feel disconnected, undervalued, and unappreciated, it doesn’t take long for them to jump ship and look for another job that will recognize their contributions.  The only thing that can stop a high employee turnover is to give employees a reason to stay, or, even better, multiple reasons.  Here are some tips to help retain your best employees:

 

  • Don’t treat employees like machines – Employees want to know that their employer understands the need for a work/life balance and respects their personal time.
  • Create opportunities for growth and development – Always make sure there are ways your employees can grow and can do work that inspires them.
  • Reward Employees’ efforts – An open company culture with room for recognition and appreciation is very important. If you want the best, you must pay the price for the best.
  • Don’t micromanage – Trust employees. Give them autonomy and breathing space to get their work done.
  • Provide adequate training and support. Training demonstrates a company’s commitment to employees in terms of personal and professional growth.
  • Show Empathy. Very few bosses show empathy towards their team members and showing empathy helps improve overall team morale and performance.

 

Ultimately having a culture that promotes open communication, fairness, teamwork, camaraderie and a family atmosphere helps to retain good employees.  Focus on building quality relationships.  Employees with strong bonds to those they work with, are usually the most engaged and tend to stay longer at companies they work for.

Good luck, try some of these tips and leave comments so we can learn from each other.

 

 

 

Read Original Article

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BooksFeatured

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

by IPowerIdeas

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams.

 

Kathryn Petersen, Decision Tech’s CEO, faces the ultimate leadership crisis: Uniting a team in such disarray that it threatens to bring down the entire company. Will she succeed? Will she be fired? Will the company fail? Lencioni’s utterly gripping tale serves as a timeless reminder that leadership requires as much courage as it does insight.

 

Throughout the story, Lencioni reveals the five dysfunctions which go to the very heart of why teams even the best ones-often struggle. He outlines a powerful model and actionable steps that can be used to overcome these common hurdles and build a cohesive, effective team. Just as with his other books, Lencioni has written a compelling fable with a powerful yet deceptively simple message for all those who strive to be exceptional team leaders.

 

Overview and purchase from Amazon

 

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team:

Dysfunction #1: Absence of Trust
The fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents the building of trust within the team.

 

Dysfunction #2: Fear of Conflict
The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles the occurrence of productive ideological conflict.

 

Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment
The lack of clarity or buy-in prevents team members from making decisions they will stick to.

 

Dysfunction #4: Avoidance of Accountability
The need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding one another accountable.

 

Dysfunction #5: Inattention to Results
The pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the focus on collective success.

The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team

 

There are my thoughts. They are nuggets or seeds to get you started.

 

This was one of the books that sparked the flame to really explore my leadership style as well as look at things from a deeper and different set of lenses.

 

Results should be primary goal. This goes without saying as you ready the book – as you go up the model, that is the primary goal.

 

We need to work as a team
•  Less egos – all have them but win as a team in most important.

Here is an example:
Basketball team can be full of people with large egos, but if only one of them is a good player, they may want the spotlight and show off their 55 points, but if the team loses, what is the goal? What was achieved?

Consider a football team. On a football field, a scoreboard focuses on everyone’s efforts on one thing: winning.

 

It doesn’t display defensive statistics or offensive statistics or even individual player statistics. It provides unambiguous information about how the team is doing, and how much time the members have left if they want to improve the final outcome. That leaves little room for individual interpretation.

 

Imagine the quarterback of a team that is losing by 14 points with 3 minutes to go in the game saying to the coach, “Well, I feel pretty good about thins. I mean, my performance was not bad, and my stats look good.”

 

The coach would be furious. He wants that quarterback and everyone else on the team to be focused on one thing: winning (or results).

 

Meetings – compare to movies. What is the single ingredient that makes movies interesting and keeps us motivated to watch them – conflict. This is what keeps us engaged and interested.

 

Conflict
“Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think.”
Patrick Lencioni

 

These are other key words and/or thoughts:
•  Positive Debate
•  Positive Confrontation
•  Communication
•  Lack of debate
•  Discomfort in challenging each other
•  Willingness to participate
•  Trust
•  All need to be engaged
•  High standards of behavior and performance
•  You have brought up great points and put on Park List (create page)
•  Look for opportunities for people to get out of their chairs.

 

This is by far one of the best books I have read and highly recommend it. It provided me a great foundation to enhance my journey as well as created many new directions to take my thinking and learning. Read the book!

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro0NBgHo_a8
Great Summary Video
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Patrick Lencioni
FeaturedLeadership

Patrick Lencioni – 5 Dysfunctions of a Team

by IPowerIdeas

Patrick Lencioni has provided us some amazing books.  When I read the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team I was hooked.  He has a writing style that is easy to understand and more importantly one where we can easily relate to.

 

The book is written for a management team so I had to tweak it to use it for my department of non-managers.  It took some trial and error, but over a course of a couple months I saw some real progress.

 

Dysfunction #1: Absence of Trust
The fear of being vulnerable with team members prevents the building of trust within the team.

 

Dysfunction #2: Fear of Conflict
The desire to preserve artificial harmony stifles the occurrence of productive ideological conflict.

 

Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment
The lack of clarity or buy-in prevents team members from making decisions they will stick to.

 

Dysfunction #4: Avoidance of Accountability
The need to avoid interpersonal discomfort prevents team members from holding one another accountable.

 

Dysfunction #5: Inattention to Results
The pursuit of individual goals and personal status erodes the focus on collective success.

 

Please check out my book summary for more details and insights.  Book Summary

 

I highly encourage everyone to read the book.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro0NBgHo_a8
Great Summary Video
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Agile-Scrum-Tools
FeaturedFrameworks

Agile or Scrum Tools – What Works For You?

by IPowerIdeas

Are you looking for Agile or Scrum tools?  I did some basic research and looked at a number of sources to provide a high-level summary of several tools that were suggested or recommended by Agile and Scrum users.  This is not by any means a detailed summary nor do I want to make a recommendation (as I have used many of these tools).  This site is about planting seeds, I Power Seeds, to provide basic information to the reader providing a foundation to get you started in the direction that is right for you and your company.  Empowering you, or the “I”, with information and knowledge.

 

Good luck and please leave comments, feedback, or suggestions for Agile or Scrum tools.

 

Asana

Generally a 4-4.5 starts (out of 5)

 

Asana is a web and mobile application designed to help teams track their work. It was founded in 2008 by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and ex-engineer Justin Rosenstein, who both worked on improving the productivity of employees at Facebook.

 

Asana is web-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) designed to improve team collaboration. It focuses on allowing users to manage projects and tasks online without the use of email. In April 2012, Asana released its application programming interface (API) to third-party developers. Asana is integrated with productivity tools including Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, Zapier, Harvest, Instagantt, Jira, Zendesk, and DigiSpoke. In May 2013, Asana launched Organizations, which enables companies to adopt Asana at enterprise scale. Organizations added an Asana Team Browser, a user dashboard, employee auto-join and IT administration abilities related to provisioning and permissions. In January 2015, Asana released its native Android app. In November 2017, Asana released the app in French and German. In March 2018, Asana announced a new interactive feature called Timeline, which business can use to visualize and map out their projects.

 

Reception
Asana received a 4.5 / 5 from PC Magazine (October 13, 2017), which named it an Editors’ Choice and called it “one of the best collaboration and productivity apps for teams.” The article remarked on Asana’s “thoughtful design, fluid interactive elements, and generous member allotment.”

 

Asana

 

Trello

Generally 4.5-5 starts (out of 5)

 

Trello is a web-based project management application originally made by Fog Creek Software in 2011, that was spun out to form the basis of a separate company in 2014 and later sold to Atlassian in January 2017. The company is based in New York City.

 

On January 26, 2017, PC Magazine gave Trello a 3.5 / 5, calling it “flexible” and saying that “you can get rather creative,” while noting that “it may require some experimentation to figure out how to best use it for your team and the workload you manage.”

Trello

 

JIRA

Generally 3.5-4 starts (out of 5)

 

Jira is a proprietary issue tracking product, developed by Atlassian. It provides bug tracking, issue tracking, and project management functions. The product name is a truncation of Gojira, the original Japanese word that was anglicised to Godzilla, itself a reference to Jira’s main competitor, Bugzilla. It has been developed since 2002. According to one ranking method, as of June 2017, Jira is the most popular issue management tool.

 

According to Atlassian, Jira is used for issue tracking and project management by over 75,000 customers in 122 countries around the globe. Some of the organizations that have used Jira at some point in time for bug-tracking and project management include Fedora Commons, Hibernate, Twitter, Skype Technologies, NASA, the United States Department of Defense, and The Apache Software Foundation, which uses both Jira and Bugzilla. Jira includes tools allowing migration from competitor Bugzilla.

 

JIRA

 

Rally (scrum) – Now Agile Management

Generally 4-4.5 starts (out of 5)

 

The Rally acquisition brings to CA leading agile software and services expertise to help businesses consistently and quickly develop high-quality software. Not only do Rally’s offerings complement and expand CA strengths in DevOps and Application Lifecycle Management, but they open up a whole new range of opportunities in a world driven by software. The powerful combination of Rally and CA will help organizations deliver value faster and make confident, agile decisions as a matter of everyday business.

 

Rally-Scrum

 

VSTS

Generally 4-4.5 starts (out of 5)

 

Visual Studio Team System Profiler is a commercial profiler offered by Microsoft, available as part of the Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) suite and the Development Edition of Visual Studio. It can work either in sampling mode, in which the snapshot of the program state is recorded at certain intervals, or in instrumentation mode, where statistic gathering probes are injected at entry and exit point of functions. While the instrumentation mode allows more accurate statistics to be gathered, it also makes the program run more slowly while being profiled.

 

The VSTS profiler helps to optimize performance of code targeted for the .NET platform or natively compiled Visual C++ code. Modern versions of the VSTS profiler can be used to profile both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows programs. The profiler reports performance characteristics for methods which are called during a given run of the profiler including the number of calls to the function and the call stack when the function was called.

 

From within the profiler, the application is launched and executed normally for a period of time. When the user decides to exit the program, the profiler gives a summary of the number of times that each function was called, the elapsed time of each function, and the memory consumed by objects.

 

A standalone version of the VSTS profiler can also be installed from the Visual Studio Team System DVD, and is also available for download on the Microsoft website. While the standalone profiler can be installed or used on any platform, the results it collects can only be analyzed in a version of Visual Studio which includes the profiler.

 

VSTS

 

Axosoft

Generally 3.5-4 starts (out of 5)

 

Axosoft (formerly OnTime) is a proprietary project management and bug tracking system developed by Axosoft, LLC. The system is available as hosted or on-premises software. Project managers and developers are able to visually see each task, requirement, defect and incident in the system on individual filing cards through the Scrum planning board. Axosoft operates as a web application and has the capabilities to integrate with Microsoft Visual Studio and TortoiseSVN.

 

Axosoft, LLC was founded on August 1, 2002 and is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.

 

Recognition
In November 2010, Axosoft OnTime was named the Microsoft Visual Studio Magazine 2010 Readers Choice Award Winner for the Collaboration, Project Management and Agile Solutions category.

 

Axosoft

 

Agilo

Generally 3-4 starts (out of 5)

 

Agilo for Trac (formally known as Agilo for Scrum) is an open source, web-based Scrum tool to support the agile Scrum software development process. Agilo is based on Trac, a widely used Issue tracking system. It is programmed in Python and is distributed under the Apache Software License 2.0.

 

Its development was started in January 2007 by Andrea Tomasini while at agile42 and the first public version was released in January 2008. Since August 2011 it has been named to Agilo for Trac to emphasize its binding with Trac.

 

Agilo is used in agile software development projects in all economic sectors who use the Scrum framework. The python application can be downloaded and used either as source tarball, python-egg, SaaS, a VMWare Virtual appliance or a Windows Installer.

 

Version 0.8 is based on Trac 0.11, later versions on Trac 0.12. Starting from release 0.9.15 (1.3.15 PRO) Agilo for Trac is based on Trac 1.0.11.

 

Agilo supports Scrum-Teams, ScrumMasters and Product Owners in running and coordinating agile software development projects.

 

Reported users of Agilo include groups at Volkswagen, AT&T, Siemens, eBuddy, and Oracle Corporation.

 

Agilo

 

Scrumworks

Generally 4.5-5 starts (out of 5)

 

CollabNet is a software development and delivery solutions provider headquartered in South San Francisco, California. All of CollabNet’s solutions and services are used to improve the ways and means of software development. They fit in the industry categories covered by DevOps, application lifecycle management (ALM), and application release automation (ARA).

 

About
CollabNet TeamForge is an ALM platform used to organize complex, distributed teams and projects from a single platform. CollabNet DevOps Lifecycle Manager (CollabNet DLM) is an enterprise DevOps product used to help organizations integrate DevOps toolchains for tracking and reporting of the entire software development lifecycle. The company also partners closely with Clarive Software, which provides a release management solution to automate software deployment and releases. CollabNet offers Clarive solutions directly to customers. CollabNet also has a long history in the Agile space and is one of the industries’ largest Scrum trainers. It also provides Agile consulting and training services to supplement its product offerings.

 

CollabNet customers span finance, healthcare, government, high-tech, and other industries in 100 countries. CollabNet partners with technology providers such as HP and Microsoft, solutions providers and systems integrators including UNICOM and Hitachi Solutions, and resellers such as Carahsoft and Code Experts. The company also partners with #YesWeCode, a Dream Corps initiative designed to bring free technology training and industry connections to 100,000 young people in communities of color and increase local talent for the technology industry.

 

Scrumworks

 

 

Most of this information was taken off Wikipedia.

 

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FeaturedLeadership

There Is Always Time for Courtesy and Professionalism

by IPowerIdeas

This is a really good article and it reminded me that many times we are constantly working and thinking in the weeds and overwhelmed with work that we don’t always pay attention, or that we are not in-tune, with how we are acting or behaving as well as what our body language is displaying.

 

We can all take a moment, every day, and stop and smell the roses and remember we can be courteous and professional. These are our team members, our peers, our staff, our colleagues we as posted in other posts, we need to show that we care. As manager and leaders, our team members look to us for strength and control of our emotions (or how we display them). Most of all, they look to us as an example. If we act kindly, genuine, courteous and professional, it will breed like an “infection” to others in your team (and those around you). And we all want to work in a happy and healthy environment.

 

I know with my staff, I routinely remind them to take one hour out of their day to respond to emails, phone calls, and tickets, but most of all to get outside the “work” and build relationships with those around them – those they work with and those they serve – with kindness, sympathy, understanding, and now adding courtesy and professionalism. So far, the feedback I have received has been incredibly positive and reflective of what we talk about every month in our team meetings.

 

Enjoy the article below and I hope you stop and reflect on the meanings in the article and implement the ideas in your work place.

 

 

Happy-People-Talking

Author:
Molly McGee Hewitt

 

There’s Always Time for Courtesy, Professionalism …

 

We’re all busy. I get it. I’m busy, too, and so is my staff. Every member leader of CASBO is busy with their jobs, their lives, their families and their responsibilities. While our calendars and activities may ebb and flow, we’re all busy.

 

Even though we have deadlines, reports and a wide variety of assignments, we always have time for courtesy and professionalism. They are a choice we make each day when we come to work. We can be an asset to our organization, or we can allow our personal issues to take us off course.

 

In one local education agency where I worked, one of my colleagues refused (yes, I said refused) to say hello or good morning or, basically, to have any social interaction with colleagues. Apparently, before I arrived, there was a feud between departments, and this person took it very personally. Their way of dealing with the issue was to become discourteous, sullen and unresponsive. The tragedy for me was that their supervisor allowed this to continue! The entire division was considered rude and unprofessional — not a description that I would want applied to myself or any of my colleagues.

 

Some folks excuse their behavior with statements like, “I’m having a bad day,” or “I have way too much to do,” or “I do not get paid to be nice.” Each of these statements has a ring of truth to them. You may be having a bad day. We all do. It’s when your bad day turns into multiple days, weeks, months and years that I begin to worry. Even on your bad day, is it OK for you to negatively affect your colleagues and coworkers?

 

“I have too much to do” — true, most of us work hard. But is that a valid reason for not being a professional with good social skills? “I don’t get paid to be nice” — huh? Do you get paid to be a surly public servant with no self-awareness or understanding of your effect on the team? I think not. Customer service, both inside and outside of our organizations, is part of every school business official’s job.

 

We live in a world that’s experiencing many divisions and disagreements. For the first time in my life, I find it hard to debate or discuss with some folks any issues that we don’t agree on. I don’t understand where this failure to communicate and share our differences and reasoning comes from. It’s almost like the old Hatfield and McCoy feuds. You’re either on one side or the other, and you refuse to listen to or consider another side.

 

Along with this division comes bullying, name-calling and a derisive attitude toward anyone who challenges or questions authority or motives. Instead of sarcasm being used for comedy and light-heartedness, it’s used as a weapon! How can this be happening in 2018?

 

For years, I’ve worked to adhere to the cliché, “Disagree without being disagreeable.” Critical thinking and strong leadership demands that we consider all options, opinions and concepts before making a decision. It empowers us to make better decisions and lead with dignity. Joining in mudslinging or name-calling doesn’t advance our intelligence or our society.

 

It’s as true today it has been for centuries — respect breeds respect. If we’re courteous to each other, that level of civility creates a positive environment. The very simplest things — like saying hello, thank you, please, nice to see you, how can I help you, or simply acknowledging the presence and effort of others — make an enormous difference. When they’re not present in the workplace, many folks will say they’re in a “hostile work environment.” While that phrase describes an uncomfortable situation, it’s actually a legal term that does not refer to climate!

 

How do you feel when you enter a place where you are not welcomed? How do you feel when someone slights you or fails to acknowledge you or your efforts? Would you want to work for someone who is discourteous or unprofessional? Would your colleagues describe you as courteous and professional?

 

The reality today is that the only way we can change our workplaces or homes is to change ourselves. We need to make sure we’re part of the solution and not part of the problem. We need to keep our bad days in the parking lot and not bring them into the workplace. We need to be beacons of courtesy and professionalism. It all starts with us. Will you join me?

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FeaturedFrameworks

Scrum – Software Development Framework

by IPowerIdeas

There are several (or many) frameworks specific to software development. In this post I want to introduce you, my “I Power Seeds“, to Scrum.

 

I will also be posting other frameworks and models. The goal is to plant seeds or introductions to these frameworks and models for you to then dive deeper into the one that fits into your goals or those of the company you are with or looking to join.

 

I will be pulling in some details from resources such as websites, videos, and training workshops.

 

What are the Benefits of Scrum?
• Better visibility and efficiency
• Empowerment and autonomy
• Focus, improved productivity and forecasting

 

From Wikipedia

Scrum is a framework for managing work with an emphasis on software development. It is designed for teams of three to nine developers who break their work into actions that can be completed within fixed duration iterations (called “sprints”), track progress and re-plan in 15-minute Daily Scrum meetings, to collaborate and deliver work on every sprint.

 

Key ideas
Scrum is an iterative and incremental agile software development framework for managing product development. It defines “a flexible, holistic product development strategy where a development team works as a unit to reach a common goal”, challenges assumptions of the “traditional, sequential approach” to product development, and enables teams to self-organize by encouraging physical co-location or close online collaboration of all team members, as well as daily face-to-face communication among all team members and disciplines involved.

 

A key principle of Scrum is the dual recognition that customers will change their minds about what they want or need (often called requirements volatility) and that there will be unpredictable challenges—for which a predictive or planned approach is not suited. As such, Scrum adopts an evidence-based empirical approach—accepting that the problem cannot be fully understood or defined up front, and instead focusing on how to maximize the team’s ability to deliver quickly, to respond to emerging requirements, and to adapt to evolving technologies and changes in market conditions.

 

Note on capitalization.  Many of the terms used in Scrum (e.g., scrum master) are typically written with leading capitals (i.e., Scrum Master) or as conjoint words written in camel case (i.e., ScrumMaster). To maintain an encyclopedic approach, however, this article uses normal sentence case for these terms—unless they are recognized marks (such as Certified Scrum Master).

 

In the literature, this is occasionally seen in all capitals, as SCRUM. While this is incorrect, as Scrum is not an acronym, it likely arose due to an early paper by Ken Schwaber which capitalized SCRUM in the title.

 

History
Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka introduced the term scrum in the context of product development in their 1986 Harvard Business Review article, “New New Product Development Game”. Takeuchi and Nonaka later argued in The Knowledge Creating Company that it is a form of “organizational knowledge creation, […] especially good at bringing about innovation continuously, incrementally and spirally”.

 

The authors described a new approach to commercial product development that would increase speed and flexibility, based on case studies from manufacturing firms in the automotive, photocopier and printer industries. They called this the holistic or rugby approach, as the whole process is performed by one cross-functional team across multiple overlapping phases, where the team “tries to go the distance as a unit, passing the ball back and forth”. (In rugby football, a scrum is used to restart play, as the forwards of each team interlock with their heads down and attempt to gain possession of the ball.)

 

In the early 1990s Ken Schwaber used what would become Scrum at his company, Advanced Development Methods; while Jeff Sutherland, John Scumniotales and Jeff McKenna, developed a similar approach at Easel Corporation, referring to it using the single word Scrum. In 1995 Sutherland and Schwaber jointly presented a paper describing the Scrum framework at the Business Object Design and Implementation Workshop held as part of Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages & Applications ’95 (OOPSLA ’95) in Austin, Texas. Over the following years, Schwaber and Sutherland collaborated to combine this material—with their experience and evolving good practice—to develop what became known as Scrum.

 

In 2001 Schwaber worked with Mike Beedle to describe the method in the book, Agile Software Development with Scrum. Scrum’s approach to planning and managing product development involves bringing decision-making authority to the level of operation properties and certainties.

 

In 2002 Schwaber with others founded the Scrum Alliance and set up the certified scrum accreditation series. Schwaber left the Scrum Alliance in late 2009 and founded Scrum.org which oversees the parallel professional scrum accreditation series.

 

Since 2010, there is a public document called The Scrum Guide that defines sort of an official version of Scrum and is occasionally revised.

 

Download the Scrum Guide:    2017-Scrum-Guide-US

 

Here are my I Power Seeds

Here are some key points and terms.
Roles
○ Product Owner
○ Scrum Master
○ Development Team

Artifacts
○ Product Backlog (PBI)
○ Sprint Backlog
○ Product Increment

Events
○ Sprint Planning
○ Sprint Execution
○ Daily Scrum (product increment)
○ Sprint Review (inspect and adapt)
○ Sprint Retrospect (inspect and adapt)

The retrospect is continuous improvement (CSI in the ITIL framework).

Teams should be no more than 3-9 people and contain cross-functional members so the team can do it all (this includes designers, architects, testers, programmers, etc.)

 

Scrum Master – Scrum is facilitated by a scrum master, who is accountable for removing impediments to the ability of the team to deliver the product goals and deliverables. The scrum master is not a traditional team lead or project manager but acts as a buffer between the team and any distracting influences. The scrum master ensures that the Scrum framework is followed. The scrum master helps to ensure the team follows the agreed processes in the Scrum framework, often facilitates key sessions, and encourages the team to improve.

 

Has no management authority over the team.

What you need in a Scrum Master:
• Empathy
• Knowledge
• Passion
• Communication skills
• Guidance and coaching (not telling)

Scrum Master

(image from CBT Nuggets)

Sprints – the iterative steps.

 

Product Owner – oversees the Product Backlog Items (PBIs)
• Clearly expressing the PBIs
• Ensuring it is understood by all members
• Making sure it is visible and transparent
• Prioritizing the PBIs
• Refining
• They do not assign tasks

Product Owner has management over the scrum team, but a Scrum Master does not so they should not be the same person.

There are no Project Managers in Scrum, there is an overlap of skills, and a benefit is there no micromanagement.

 

There is a very strong recommendation to never have the same role as Scrum Master and as the Product Owner. The roles are different and need to be different people to have a successful Scrum process.

 

Need only one Product Owner – decisions by committee takes too long – Scrum is agile and quick. This is key. How many times have we seen projects delayed or stalled because of “death by committee” – Scrum removes that and while it is very agile.

 

There are also no sub-teams and no titles – everyone is a “Developer” – such as there are no team members who only test, that way everyone is in the Scrum process from start to end and everyone has a wide breadth and depth of skills and experience to encompass all facets from coding to testing to deployment.

 

This type of teams or groups are small and everyone is focused on team work rather than “my work”. This model keeps everyone more engaged than other software development models.

 

Within the Scrum framework, the teams are cross-functional and self-organizing team members. The teams need to have members who are responsible to self-organize and the Scrum Master will help them stay on task.

 

Product Owner tells the team what needs to be done. The Scrum Master does not do this, they are there to coach, encourage, help reduce or mitigate distractions. The team itself tells each other what needs to be done – tasks, etc. What a concept right?!

 

An example of a key role of the Scrum Master is to mitigate distractions from the development team to ensure the sprints are effective and efficient. This is critical to agile and fast development

 

I will give you an example of a similar instance that I put into place with my development team. The company I joined allowed the end user to contact the developers directly to offer suggestions and report issues. I changed that process by hiring a development manager (Scrum Master) and I was the Product Owner. The development manager coached them, offered ideas, and kept them on task by having short meetings. The users were directed to let me know what suggestions and concerns they had. Even though this was not a formal Scrum framework in place, it was similar in nature and I saw immediate results. Development time was decreased by as much as 75% as the development team could solely focus on development while the manager coached them and resolved issues immediately and I took care of the Product Owner responsibilities. In the end, the end-users and my staff were engaged and happy with the pace of software development.

 

All team members are equal which makes it easier to collaborate and share – TRUST and ACCOUNTABILITY are high. (two facets of a successful team)

 

Others in the team help out to complete the overall goal versus one person moving along to something else.

 

PBIs – Product Backlog – these are the list of changes or requests needed or requested.

 

Feature has to have Value (like ITIL). This is a key concept, there must be value. Scrum is agile and if you add a bunch of bells and whistles, that might never be used, is slows down development (opposite of agile development).

 

List of requirements in Scrum is flexible, plan-based approaches are fixed.

 

Product Backlog Items (PBI’s can include anything and are added from the Process Owner)

 

Sprints should not be longer than 4 weeks and the Scrum Master enforces this with the team.

 

Everyone in the team attends, not necessarily all the stakeholders
• Process Owner brings the Sprint Goal
• Sprints should be sustainable

Sprint – start with highest priority PBI’s.

 

Sprint – use Task Flow Board much like a Kanban (see other post for more details).

 

A Sprint is completed or done when the Product Owner and Developers agree upon.

 

Daily Scrum – has to happen every day, same place, same time – time boxed and lasts only 15 min – just to touch bases. It should include just the developers with the Scrum Master orchestrating it but not dictating assignments. The Scrum Master must keep things on pace if the Process Owner sits in.

 

Developers pick a time for each Sprint – such as 2 weeks – but can change depending on what works for the team. But then once changed, stick to it so it does not keep changing. Short and consistent Sprints is key as it helps keep focus on priorities that the team set for each Sprint.

 

Scrum Execution – working Product Increment comes out of it – what will be done over the next “2 week” Sprint.

 

Sprint Review – about 1 hour meeting for every week for the Sprint, should be no surprises, demo what was done, informal and collaborative.

 

Sprint Retrospective – held after each Sprint to look at the Scrum Team and should be less than 1 hour per each week of Sprint where the team comes up with an action plan or plan for improvement, action items, and is a way to help the team feel better about improvement. This is a time-boxed inspect and adapt activity for the Scrum Team to examine their processes, relationships, and tools.

 

5 Scrum Values:
These core values of Scrum are really important to understand. They keep the software development going in a fast pace while providing encouragement, engagement, sustainability, and producing significant results.

Scrum 5 Core Values

Resources

CBT Nuggets
I really enjoy this format and it works for me as they are short videos with a short quiz after each video. I personally like this format as it gives me short bits of information and provides me time to take notes and reflect and research further on what I learned in the 6-8 minute videos. I noticed I have learned and retained a lot more in this format then watching one long video or even doing an online live course.

 

 

From Amazon

Scrum QuickStart Guide: A Simplified Beginner’s Guide To Mastering Scrum, by Ed Stark


Really good introductory book to get you started.

 

Here are some images from the web:

Scrum Sprint Process

Scrum Sprint Process 2

 

Blog post from LinkedIn

 

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BooksFeatured

The Ideal Team Player

by IPowerIdeas

This is another fantastic book by Patrick Lencioni. If you have not guessed it yet, I truly enjoy his books and after reading each book I realize I have learned a lot as well as been inspired to continue my research and journey to be a better manager and leader.

 

In this book, The Ideal Team Player, he focusses on the individual. Whereas his book, 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, focusses on teamwork. Here is a link to my post on The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team.

 

To summarize:

5 behavioral manifestations of Teamwork:
• Trust
• Conflict (healthy)
• Commitment
• Accountability
• Results

 

If you want increase your knowledge and your set of tools, you need to read this book.

 

Think of a single sports player who thinks s/he is better than the rest of the team and this player thinks they are what makes the team win and how that thinking and attitude affects the rest of the team. Would you want to be part of that team? How hard would it be to manage that player? Or how harder would it be to lead the team? And the list of questions goes on.

 

Here is an older, but a good example of a well-known and popular player, Scottie Pippen, that highlights this issue:

 

The backdrop to the story:
• It is the 1994 Championship game between Kicks and the Bulls.
• Both teams had a team with a lot of big-named players.
• Score was 102-102.
• There was only 1.8 seconds left!
• Coach pulls team aside to the bench and calls a play designed for someone else than the “most popular player” – in this case that would be Scottie Pippen
• Everyone on the team, but one person, was excited and all in for the newly designed and chosen play.
• One player uttered negative words under his breath so only his teammates could hear
• They encouraged him to get on board with the new play, he refused
• The rest of the players were united as a TEAM
• They had faith in their coach and his decision as the coach (trusting he knew more than the players at that moment)
• This decision could have lost the championship game for them – a single play.

 

What do you think happened?!

5 Dysfunctions of a Team focuses on how a group of people must interact in order to become a cohesive team. This book focusses on an individual team member and the virtues that make him or her more likely to overcome the dysfunctions that derails teams.

 

The Ideal Team Player is all about the makeup of individual team members while The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team are about the dynamics of teams getting things done.

 

When team members improve their abilities to be Humble, Hungry, and Smart, they’ll be able to make more progress in overcoming the 5 dysfunctions on a regular basis.

 

Book Summary:

Bob is in construction management and has to figure out how to keep a company running when the owner/CEO goes out on medical leave and they have two significant projects coming up and they need to hire a lot more people and they want to hire the best employees (at all levels) to ensure the outcomes or results of both projects are successful.

 

The three executives in the fable ultimately come up with three traits they feel their team members need in order to be successful within their company and company culture: “Humble”, “Hungry”, and “Smart”.

 

These three traits they felt were critical and were to build off the “team work” concept they had learned about a year prior but let the commitment to those changes and practices lapse over time and they needed to go back and build on the foundation of teamwork they had learned and now focus more on the traits of the individuals that were going to make up their team.

 

Here are just some of the highlights – what I call “I Power Seeds” – to get you interested and thinking.

 

When you keep toxic managers or leaders around, non-toxic and great employees leave. Many times we as managers keep toxic employees on our team as it can be hard to remove them, but we also lose great employees because they do not want to be part of a team or work for someone who is toxic.

 

The executives in the book’s fable use a term “_ack_sses” and they realize that not only do they lose good employees, but these toxic managers hire more of the same kind which continues to proliferate the traits and practices they did not want within their company (nor should you). This exacerbates the poor behaviors which makes it continually harder for changes to be made as the number of toxic employees will increase.

 

I give you one example of my own. When I put together a hiring panel, I always make sure those members of the panel are thinking and looking for the same things I am in the candidates, which is that they are Hungry, Humble and Smart. I also ensure and ask if these panel members can envision themselves working with this person every day. This practice has significantly changed who we hire and how my team has been changing/improving over time.

 

The most unhappy people are the ones who don’t fit the culture, the ones who don’t belong – they are miserable as they know they don’t belong.

 

Bob put on a white board those employees with bad behaviors and wrote down adjectives about each one to find common denominators between them.

 

I would add to this exercise and look at the employees over time and ask questions such as, “Were they always like that? Did the continued and negative culture change their attitude?” I think looking at it over time provides a 3D look and recognizing this could potentially keep good team members. They will only stay if the culture was changed to a positive and cohesive one, which included – Trust, (healthy) Conflict, Commitment, Accountability, Results.

 

The management team came up with the denominators:
• Ego   (Humble) – being unpretentious
• Hard work   (Hungry)
• People   (Smart) – how to act, what to say, what not to say

 

They used a Venn Diagram and put the names of their current staff closest to the traits they felt they had or did not have (Humble, Hungry, Smart). Here is an example of a Venn Diagram, where the very center is the “ideal team player”.

Venn Diagram

What Humble, Hungry, and Smart brings is results – which is the top of The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team pyramid (inattention to results).

 

Great team players are Humble, Hungry, and Smart.

 

The executive team help an interview with each person about humble, hungry, and smart and asked them to self-assess themselves. I think this was a great idea – gave each person a little insight into themselves. How many times do we not see something until we look at it from another direction or a different perspective and you end up having an “ah-ha” moment? Great stuff!

 

Humble, Hungry, Smart – it is not theoretical or touchy-feely.

 

Patrick Lencioni calls Humble, Hungry, Smart as “3 Virtues” and humility being the most important. Humility also meaning deflated sense of self-worth – when you don’t speak up even though you have great ideas.

 

Take quote from P157, first paragraph:
“In the context of teamwork, humility is largely what it seems to be. Great team players lack excessive ego or concerns about status. They are quick to point out the contributions of others and slow to seek attention for their own. They share credit, emphasize team over self, and define success collectively rather than individually. It is no great surprise, them, that humility is the single greatest and most indispensable attribute of being a team player.”

 

Be careful not to pigeonhole people, but better understand what constitutes an ideal team player so we can recognize and develop them on our teams.

 

I share a personal story that when I was interviewing for a VP position at a large company I had gone through the barrage of interview panels and one-on-ones with key stakeholders like the CEO and CFO. But they also recognized the Humble, Hungry, Smart model and wanted to ensure I had these virtues. So one of the key members of the IT department “casually” asked me if I wanted to meet for lunch. Of course I accepted and we had a really good conversation, but was clear he was trying to get me to let my guard down and show my true self and did I truly possess the virtues of Humble, Hungry, Smart and would I fit into their company culture. Which I did, and out of 600 applicants, 300 having IT experience, I got the job.

 

Here are some interview questions I took from the book.  There are many others really good ones.

 

One note he brought to light, which I have done, is within the interview questions, ask the same question in a different manner later on. This will help you validate what they have said for important or key areas that are important to you and your department or company culture. Such as:
• How would your colleagues describe your worth ethic?
• How would your manager describe your relationship with your colleagues?

 

What are your most important accomplishments of your career?

 

What was the biggest embarrassment or biggest failure and how did you handle it?

 

What is your greatest weakness or what would you change about yourself or better yet what would your friends say you need to work on?

 

Tell me about someone who is better than you in an area that really matters to you?

 

What is the hardest project you worked on?

 

What do you like to do outside of work?

 

How would you describe your personality?

 

What kind of people annoy you the most and how do you work with them?

 

Would your former colleagues describe you as empathetic? Give an example where you demonstrated empathy to a teammate (how others feel)

 

Interviewers need to ask themselves, “could I work with this person every day?”

 

Let your reference checks reveal to you if the person would thrive in your culture.

 

Key is: the process is aimed at improved vs. punishment.

 

Have a 360 feedback program.

 

Many people do not seem to realize how their words and actions impact others.

 

Book recommended within “The Ideal Team Player” – “Good to Great” by Jim Collins

Good to Great by Jim Collins
Resources
https://www.tablegroup.com/books/ideal-team-player

 

Book Summary from Amazon
In his classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni laid out a groundbreaking approach for tackling the perilous group behaviors that destroy teamwork. Here he turns his focus to the individual, revealing the three indispensable virtues of an ideal team player.

 

In The Ideal Team Player, Lencioni tells the story of Jeff Shanley, a leader desperate to save his uncle’s company by restoring its cultural commitment to teamwork. Jeff must crack the code on the virtues that real team players possess, and then build a culture of hiring and development around those virtues.

 

Beyond the fable, Lencioni presents a practical framework and actionable tools for identifying, hiring, and developing ideal team players. Whether you’re a leader trying to create a culture around teamwork, a staffing professional looking to hire real team players, or a team player wanting to improve yourself, this book will prove to be as useful as it is compelling.

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ITIL and ITSM
FeaturedFrameworks

ITIL and ITSM Brief Overview

by IPowerIdeas

For those who want to expand your knowledge, I highly recommend learning about and getting ITIL certified. I learned about it from LinkedIn as I saw a large number of professionals with the certification. So I began my journey into ITIL.

 

As I worked through the vast amount of information during my research and how to become certified, I began to unwind all the terms, frameworks, models, and so forth and the list continued to grow and expand. As I am often told by my wife, I am a geek. I was instantly thrust into a tremendous amount of information where I became enthesiastic and excited to learn all I could. My OneNote on ITIL exploded with new notebooks, tabs, and pages filled with all the information I was gathering and learning about.

 

To that end, I will start by the basics of ITIL within this post and will expand on ITIL and other subjects in other posts. This post is to just introduce you to ITIL and ITSM.

 

I can tell you now as a ITIL Certified Practitioner, it was well worth the time and energy. Enjoy your journey no matter where it takes you.

 

ITIL on Axelos – find out more information regarding ITIL/ITSM and certifications

 

Background on ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) and ITSM (IT Service Management)

 

ITIL
ITIL, an acronym for Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is a set of detailed practices for IT service management (ITSM) that focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of business. In its current form (known as ITIL 2011), ITIL is published as a series of five core volumes, each of which covers a different ITSM lifecycle stage.

 

ITIL describes processes, procedures, tasks, and checklists which are not organization-specific, but can be applied by an organization for establishing integration with the organization’s strategy, delivering value, and maintaining a minimum level of competency. It allows the organization to establish a baseline from which it can plan, implement, and measure. It is used to demonstrate compliance and to measure improvement.

 

Since July 2013, ITIL has been owned by AXELOS, a joint venture between Capita and the UK Cabinet Office. AXELOS licenses organizations to use the ITIL intellectual property, accredits licensed examination institutes, and manages updates to the framework. Organizations that wish to implement ITIL internally do not require this license.

 

I will also post some good videos regarding ITIL so check them out.

 

 

This information some if you want more, please visit Wikipedia

 

ITSM
IT service management (ITSM) refers to the entirety of activities – directed by policies, organized and structured in processes and supporting procedures – that are performed by an organization to design, plan, deliver, operate and control information technology (IT) services offered to customers.[1] It is thus concerned with the implementation of IT services that meet customers’ needs, and it is performed by the IT service provider through an appropriate mix of people, process and information technology.

 

Differing from more technology-oriented IT management approaches like network management and IT systems management, IT service management is characterized by adopting a process approach towards management, focusing on customer needs and IT services for customers rather than IT systems, and stressing continual improvement. The CIO WaterCoolers’ annual ITSM report states that business use ITSM “mostly in support of customer experience (35%) and service quality (48%).”

 

This information some if you want more, please visit Wikipedia

 

What is ITIL – from CIO

 

 

Introduction to ITIL

There are 5 Stages and 26 Processes

5 Stages

1.  Service Strategy
2.  Service Design
3.  Service Transition
4.  Service Operation
5.  Continual Service Improvement

26 Processes

Service Strategy – 4 processes

  1.  Strategy Generation
    2.  Financial management
    3.  Demand management
    4.  Service Portfolio management

Service Design – 7 processes

1.  Service Catalog Management
2.  Service Level Management
3.  Availability Management
4.  Capacity Management
5.  It service Continuity Management
6.  Information Security Management
7.  Supplier Management

Service Transition – 7 processes

1.  Transition Planning and Support
2.  Change Management
3.  Service Asset and Configuration Management
4.  Release and Deployment Management
5.  Service Validation and Testing
6.  Evaluation
7.  Knowledge Management

Service Operation – 5 processes

1.  Event Management
2.  Incident Management
3.  Request Fulfillment
4.  Problem Management
5.  Access Management

Continual service improvement – 3 processes

1.  The 7 improvement process
2.  Service Measurement
3.  Service Reporting

ITIL Service Lifecycle Model

There are some excellent images and charts that were an incredible help to me as I am a visual person.  Here are a couple examples:

ITIL Service Lifecycle Model

ITIL Components

ITIL Overview

I took several professional training courses from New Horizons and I highly recommend them. Their instructors are people who are or were active professionals in all kinds of business, they were not just book smart, so they offer tremendous insight and real-world examples that you can easily relate to. Their real world examples tie in the book knowledge to something you can relate to which really helps to understand the concepts, not just memorize them and regurgitate them to pass the certification(s).

 

https://nhlearninggroup.com

 

ITIL Videos

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp2wfoVRMDE

 

 

Here is a useful consulting resource:

ITIL Consulting – Pink Elephant

 

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bike and management
FeaturedStories

Management and Leadership Like a Bike?

by IPowerIdeas

Bike Analogy

 

I recent heard and analogy of how a bike is like management and leadership. I wanted to share that with you and leave you with some thoughts.

 

The rear wheel is like management – it gets the job done. It is what pushes the bike forward and is driven forward, or in other words – results happen from other parts of the bike – the pedals, the crank, the chain, the brakes, the burrs, the shifters, etc. In summary, management is about moving forward and getting things done through others.

 

The front wheel is leadership. It turns or shifts the direction of the bike based on a number of factors. The front wheel is critical to ensure you and your team (the entire bike and all of its components) get to where the goal is (the vision). There are significantly less parts on the front wheel that help guide the direction of the bike versus the driving wheel which has a lot of components to make it work and work efficiently. The front wheel is again critical to results or reaching the destination.

 

If you are a manager, keep strong and consistent. If you are a leader, provide a clear direction where you are heading and have a memorable journey.

 

 

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