We are…..LUCRUM!
July 15, 2008
This weekend LUCRUM employees and some of our friends participated in a fundraising event for the Epilepsy Foundation in Dayton, Ohio. The event, called Mudstock 2008, raised $85K for the organization and brought over 2,400 people together all in the name of mud…Mud Volleyball that is!
Since I was bringing the mack daddy of all tents, an 18′x22′ white monstrosity of a tent, I started off at 6am and got to the fields at 6:30. Lucky for me, because I could drive the SUV right into the field and to a good people watching spot. This saved me from trekking all the poles and stuff all the way from the parking lot.
We all had a great time and talk about team bonding! All your ideals and character assessments go right through the window when playing mud volleyball. I mean, how dignified can your Vice President be when he’s covered head to toe in mud?
Between games we’d play cards in our huge tent (next year we’re charging admission), or nap….oh, and we played LCR. But without money or drinking involved it only lasted a few rounds before we needed new entertainment. With 2,400 people all around us that wasn’t hard to do. We pitched tent right next to the showers so it was fun to see folks shuffling up to the water covered in mud.
There were a few bands that played, plenty of food and drink. I’d say the organization did a top notch job of keeping it all together.
Next year we’re definitely dressing up. We saw a team in cowboy gear and another with viking hats. Some dressed for prom with tuxedo shirts.
Thanks to everyone who participated and I hope to see more of you out there next year!
InOneWeekend – Raising Up A Leader…In 24 Hours
July 14, 2008
Ever read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team? What a great, quick read on understanding the problems that surface in a team. And what a great study of a leader who can bring order and alignment to a dysfunctional situation. The team’s work with InOneWeekend, our effort to bring together 100 imaginative and driven individuals to create an idea and standup a full-fledged company in three days (July 11th – July 13th, 2008), could easily have suffered any of these dysfunctions. Somehow we didn’t. The group policed itself, shutting down any threat knowing we only had three days to get this done.
Sure, the folks at Neyer Holdings organized the event with Elizabeth Edwards as the primary cheerleader. Steve Boord provided some semblance of order with a booming voice from time to time, but he didn’t bark orders at us. They brought in Jeff Stamp to unlock our creative juices and Roy Gilbert to motivate our sense of destiny. JB Kropp spoke to us on the life of an entrepreneur. Still, none of them explicitly told us what to do. My guess is that they came in with a plan, which is the right approach, and then quickly threw away the plan as they handed over direction to the rest of us.
We split ourselves into a number of groups: Management and Ops, Tech, Sales and Marketing, Finance, Branding, and Business Strategy. In each group a leader bubbled to the top. We spent Saturday and Sunday working together in our teams, coming together from time to time in town hall meetings to update the group on our progress.
I worked on the Business Strategy team where Craig Froehle slowly (relatively) became the obvious choice as our leader. Not that we weren’t looking for a leader quickly, but no one took the proverbial bull by the horns. And not that credentials don’t help, but Craig’s background as a project manager, business owner, and associate professor of business ops lent credibility to his contributions to the team. Craig directed our efforts, helped us all develop an action plan, and then begin plugging the holes in our research. By Saturday’s end the team had established Craig as our leader.
Having others grant a leader authority makes a team much more effective than a leader taking and establishing authority. In fact, Kouzes and Posner in The Leadership Challenge describe the most effective leader as having characteristics of establishing a clear vision, trustworthiness, and competence. It is fairly easy to cede leadership to someone exhibiting these characteristics. Craig quietly established himself this way on the Business Strategy team. His influence was clear to anyone walking into our room. Unlike many of the other rooms, when you walked into our room you could hear a pin drop. We each had a small job to do, and we each worked diligently to get it done. Then piece by piece the picture became clearer. We knew what our product had to do to stack up against the economic and technological trends, and more importantly, against our competition.
The influence of the Business Strategy team permeated much of the work on the other teams as we became the research group finding answers that would allow other teams to complete their pieces. Craig didn’t come to the table with all the answers, rather, he brought the ability for our team to get almost anything done for any other team to the table. And our team eagerly followed Craig. By mid-day Sunday, the entire group backed Craig as he was not so much appointed as he quietly assumed a spokesman role for the entire weekend. Craig helped compile the final presentation to launch our product, *************, and when he presented we all cheered with delight.
Watching this process unfold amazed me. All together – all 100 of us – we all made this possible. I think our chances at the beginning were 1 in 1000. We hit the 1. Amazing. I’m honored to have had this opportunity to work with such a fantastic group of people. Here’s to our public launch in a few days.
- Andy
Putting your baby to bed :-(
July 10, 2008
Well, not a real breathing, baby food eating, diaper filling baby anyway. What I’m talking about it is retiring a system that you were also responsible for creating and implementing.
In the beginning, there was a problem. The problem was the client’s inefficiency in closing the financials and reporting said financials out to the masses. Enter LÛCRUM. LÛCRUM has a long history of solving complex data problems. LÛCRUM delivered an enterprise data warehouse that allowed integration of various financial systems into a single repository with a common vocabulary that facilitated timely financial reporting to the organization.
Fast forward 4+ years. The data warehouse keeps on chugging. It performs monthly financial closing processes admirably. Data is still integrated from numerous sources. People still depend on the “numbers” that come from their financial reporting. Enter “change”. The client has been acquired by another company. The buying company also has a data warehouse and decided to integrate the two together.
Before we can decommission the data warehouse, the financial processes need to be migrated. The buying company handles the development aspects of the migration to the new architecture and BI toolset; however the existing support team is the SME with respect to the existing system. Discussing, detailing, and discussing again the AS-IS requirements with the development staff explaining what has to be re-created, the certain business nuances to be aware of, performance and tuning considerations, and other “why’d you do it that way” discussions.
As with all systems reviewed in retrospect, you’re going to find some things that you’d might change if you could have a do-over, however for the most part, LÛCRUM’s EDW has stood the test of time and required very little enhancements/rework. Here are some observations that I believe resulted in a stable, high performing and well accepted data warehouse:
1. Implemented Ralph Kimball’s methodology.
2. Shielded the data warehouse from source system changes based upon SLA’s between the two parties. When the source systems underwent changes, they were responsible for maintaining a standard data submission format.
3. Shielded the BI tools from the underlying database tables. All interaction was through database views thus allowing the data warehouse to make modifications along the way that minimized downstream impacts.
4. Utilized an enterprise job orchestration tool. This allowed for interaction of various upstream and downstream systems in a packaged application capable of communicating with various system platforms.
5. Due to large data volumes, special attention was made to insure high performing interaction with data.
6. All “heavy” lifting of data was performed at ETL time resulting in simple SELECTs from the BI toolset. This prevented the client from being tied to a BI toolset.
7. An online meta data repository was utilized to allow users to understand what data was in the data warehouse and/or what a particular business term meant.
8. Visual production support processes were implemented that permitted the support team to be proactive in working through issues rather than being reactive to problems.
9. Extensive testing was performed during development and implementation. Unit, String, Regression, Performance, and User acceptance. Almost an obnoxious amount of testing, but well worth it in the end.
10. LÛCRUM built it! (Come on, you saw that coming didn’t you?)
Next steps are the decommissioning project. We are figuring out what data needs to be archived for potential future reference. Where will this subset of legacy data reside? How might it be accessed? What dependencies exist with the server architecture? What parties need to be involved (server operations, UNIX team, storage team, dbas, etc.)? How quickly can it be done?
All good things must come to an end. I am proud to say that I was a part of this initiative at the start as well as at the end. Our solution solved a problem. Now it’s someone/something else’s turn to reach up to the bar that has been set.
Time to start singing a lullaby…
Dave
And here I am!
July 9, 2008
My name is Jacinta and I am the latest addition to the LUCRUM team. I kinda jumped off a cliff and took a risk. That risk paid off with a cool job in LUCRUM’s marketing department.
I wasn’t really job-hunting at the time, it was a half-hearted effort at best. I liked to describe it as Company Hunting. I wanted to find a company whose culture matched my zesty personality. Yes, you heard right…zesty. I have a lot of WOW and POW and a whole lot of interesting flavors to my personality and my current circumstances were bringing me so down that you could only describe it as, let’s see…BROTH! Watery, bland and unexciting broth. That was me until I happened across Andy Erickson’s LinkedIn profile, which then brought me to his blog, which then directed me to the LUCRUM employee blog.
At that point, I had no idea what LUCRUM did, all I knew was that I had to work for this company. When you read LUCRUM’s blog, the passion and excitement of the employees just jumps out at you. I envied them; I wanted that, I had to have it back in my life.
In my first email to Andy I told him I would hop in my car and drive downtown to take him to lunch. I just wanted to meet him. As luck would have it (and I don’t have good luck, an old boyfriend said I had a dragon curse), Andy called me and invited me to lunch that very day. It was a great lunch, he was very easy to talk to and made me laugh. I even offered to work at LUCRUM for peanuts, filing paperwork or whatever. I think my husband would have killed me if I did that but I wanted IN.
My luck continued and I interviewed with Jodi Heflin and Henry Noble for a consulting position. In my thank you letter that I sent like a good job hunter, I included a Starbucks gift card and a request to fill out a survey from Survey Monkey. I wanted to see how I did in my interview and get feedback on how I could improve. THAT creative follow up led to interviews with Doug Dockery and David Bowman for a new marketing position they were creating. And so here I am, the newest cheerleader of the team.
I’m already working on some exciting things here at LUCRUM. A few of my main projects so far are to help create a Customer eNewsletter, a LUCRUM Speaker’s Bureau, and contribute weekly to the company blog. The Speaker’s Bureau will allow LUCRUM employees to present on a wide variety of topics ranging from new technology to social media to collaboration. There are so many talented, smart people in this company who really know their stuff. I’m proud to work for a company who takes it upon themselves to share that knowledge with the business community.
I’ve started immersing myself into the world of social media and all its various forms. Blogging, Podcasting, Twittering, Plaxo….all these things that I never heard of before coming to work here. I now have my own personal blog, which is still a work in progress, and I have a Twitter id. All done in the name of marketing and making sure LUCRUM is out there and people know about us.
My friends know me to be a social networking queen so a job in marketing, at least this type of marketing, was like a light bulb going off.
YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’RE CAPABLE OF…a quote from Dave Novak’s book “The Accidental CEO”.
Part 2, Collaboration “It’s not about technology” – expanded! (Statement 2)
July 9, 2008
If collaboration was about the technology, then…
We would be focusing on how to support collaboration’s needs, when collaboration was meant to support our needs. Our organization ends up working for the ‘collaboration implementation’, when in fact the implementation’s entire existence was meant to work for the organization. It is completely upside-down. We have all felt that pain, when ‘systems’ miss their mark – While they do bring lots of change to the organization, its in the wrong direction!
As an IT group, we are now relegated to simply supplying a service/product and not partnering with the business. Anyone can sell and supply a service or product – this is a commodity. Sure there is some value here, but far greater is the value that a partnership brings. Don’t miss out on those partnership opportunities that can align an organization’s strategy and tactical plans. These are the opportunities that can separate us from our competitors!
We miss the big picture when we focus on technology first. In my post “Part 2, Collaboration Tactical Verticals – expanded! (Statement 10)”, we see that collaboration is an entire buffet of technology options and configurations, and just like making a good salad, we need to add the components that work for us – not someone else. Abstracting technology out of collaboration allows us to focus on the need, then to develop strategic initiatives for the different “domains of collaboration”. The best strategy for instant messaging may be to simply turn it loose in the organization. But, that same strategy doesn’t hold up for work flow where we may want to introduce a common enterprise taxonomy with rules and metadata integration. This abstraction of technology from collaboration also allows us to better match the value and return on investment with our efforts and the impact it brings to the organization’s culture.
Thinking about technology and making decisions in this upside-down context, will lead us to a situation where we are constrained to the features that exist in the product that we chose. For in this context, we consider first the features and then the need – we are thinking of the solution prior to identifying the problem. We are hammers and everything looks like a nail. Throw any analogy out there you want, at the end of the day, we put all our focus on the solution and try to force fit it to a ‘problem’. What we should be doing is looking at the business problems we are faced with. We need to spend time understanding people, teams, and our culture.
The key is not to loose business agility; by having a true collaboration strategy, we keep this agility – responding quickly to the ever changing marketplace by applying the best solutions at the right time.
It’s always easier to first seek technology, to get that initial shot of momentum. But what is it worth to you. Technology connects our strategy to tactics!? If you think of it this way, we can develop our strategy over time with the business leaders without regards to the complexities of technology. Then at the appropriate time, we consider the impacts of our strategic directions with our technologists. This way we have the business people driving the business and the technologists getting us there. This abstraction allows leaders to lead on both sides of the equation. The business leaders will benefit by not being constrained by the dependencies on technologies and are set free to vision us to the future. The business person will say “Don’t tell me what I can’t do…just let me set our direction”! And the technologists will benefit by having the clarity of a strategy without the burden of business strategy development. Then the technologist will say “Don’t tell me how to do it…just tell me what you want”! It’s a win/win situation.
Now the magic is to meet in the middle and develop that partnership! Click here for my 13 points regarding collaboration.
~ Scott Felten
LUCRUM Radio, Episode 2: Joel Suggs
July 3, 2008
Christy Rollyson, one of our Account Executives recently wrote about her first experiences on the golf course and how golf relates to business. I asked PGA member Joel Suggs to join me and Christy in a discussion about conducting business on the golf course, how to approach the game as a novice, and how to ensure a lifetime of continued improvement.
Joel is Southern Ohio’s only PGA Master Teaching professional. Golf Range Magazine has rated Joel one of the Top 50 Instructors in America, US Kids Golf recognized Joel as one of america’s Top 50 Kids Instructors, and Golf Digest ranks Joel as one of the Top 5 instructors in Ohio. Joes teaches at the Meadow Links & Golf Academy and can be reached at JoelSuggsGolfSuccess.com.
Listen in and let us know what you think.
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Part 2, Collaboration Value Alignment – expanded! (Statement 6)
July 3, 2008
“Ready, Fire, Aim!” is all too often the norm. Yes, we were ready and yes we fired, but without aim, what are we hitting? Activity does in fact breed productivity, but we need to be focused.
Statement 6, “Collaboration Value Alignment!”, Make sure that you revisit with the sponsor(s) often to ensure that the value they expect is in fact the value you are working towards. Business changes; adapt your strategy and plan accordingly!
Did you ever hear that quote, “Don’t just sit there, do something!”? Well, regarding collaboration it’s more accurate to say “Don’t just do something, sit there!”. It’s that ‘sitting-there thinking’ that is the key. In my post today, I will talk about the missing part – alignment. Alignment (or focus or aim) depicts and agreed approach; where everyone is pulling the same side of the rope. It’s both establishing the goal AND getting that goal shared by others (sponsor, senior leadership) at a deep level. When we approach anything of a complicated manner, its best to do so in an iterative fashion. With collaboration, we need to take advantage of that iteration cycle to ensure that we are still on track.
Collaboration is not an overnight installation. Rather, it’s a cultural change, a transition. Transitions take time. It is not a light switch that we suddenly switch to the on position. This transition time must be reconciled against many factors, such as:
- Competition requires the business to make changes. What was once true today, may not be valid a month or quarter from now. In order to compete, the business must make these changes. So, a risk for a collaboration effort is to be acting on ideas, goals, objectives and expectations that grow stale. Understanding the value that collaboration brings in the context of meeting and surpassing our competition is core to establishing a strong practice that really delivers.
- The political landscape ebbs and flows. Strong leaders are vital to momentum within an organization. This momentum can be used for collaboration. However, as we all know, tactics are born of strategy and strategy is an outgrowth of leadership. So, a risk that we must mitigate around this potential political change is that we don’t solely hitch the collaboration effort to the current political momentum. Yes, we need to take advantage of the ‘current momentum’ that is riding within our organization, but make sure that momentum is monitored and that our collaboration efforts are loosely coupled to it.
- A technology is not the substitute for collaboration, it’s not about technology at all. The danger here is that we use the words collaboration and collaboration technology synonymously. We need to abstract technology away from our collaboration strategy. (When we add it back, it becomes tactical.) If we tie those two concepts together, one risk is that our strategy will be killed when technology changes. We need to have a real strategy that hold without specific technology. This way, we can make strategic changes at a place where it makes it possible to keep our senior leadership focused on strategy, value and direction and not burdening them with the complexities and intricacies of technology… This way senior leadership tells us what they want and not how to do it.
Bringing these few points together leads me to my conclusion about alignment and collaboration value. The value that collaboration brings today may not be the expected value of tomorrow. To ensure that we are always right on, we will need to set up a method of keeping our value proposition fresh. Fresh vegetables sitting around rot. The same thing will happen to the best collaboration strategy – if it sits around, it will rot; decay over time to something that is both not desirable and not useable. Eventually, one will have to simply throw it away. This is why the best produce is purchased daily. We need to have this same mindset in our relationship with senior leadership. How do we keep our stuff fresh? How do we match their value to our strategy?
- Work with senior leadership to develop a value proposition that is expressed in measurable terms. Depending upon your organization, you may have to set a vision (but let them own it) or drive their vision or take notes and direct/confirm their understanding.
- Plan a strategy that stands without technology (actual products). At a high level, get directional support from your senior leadership (governance, sponsor, CxOs).
- Formulate a tactical plan by completing the future vision, adding products and services.
- Put together an internal marketing plan and begin to socialize the message. Make sure you know your audience and state it in WIIFM (what’s in it for me) terms.
- Iterate through the plan. Break the plan at strategic points along the way. Use this opportunity to communicate with your senior leadership both what has been done and what is ahead. Create trust by being vulnerable. It’s precisely at this point in time that you need to reach deep to extract from them their value expectations. Don’t hide anything here, we are all-in together! The right conversations must take place at this time. We need to ensure that we are all committed to a common course of action. Listen to the things that you don’t really want to hear. Make adjustments.
- Update your strategy to reflect changes in value expectations and proceed to step 3, tactical planning and so on…
Remember, it’s not enough to establish value and conquer. It will serve no one to ignore those changes that we see or hear about, hoping that we can keep on our current course. We need to add that ‘sit there’ break point where we open up to senior leadership and get real vulnerable. Of course no one enjoys that potential course change. But who does it benefit if we set the original course to Hawaii when at some point everyone thought we were heading on an Alaskan cruise!
Alignment is the art of frequent and vulnerable communication with a constant reaching for understanding and direction by all. When leveraged around collaboration value, we will bring our organization to new heights! Click here for my 13 points regarding collaboration
Dress appropriately; we are going on an Alaskan cruise!
~ Scott Felten