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Team Journey: Steps from people to real team results!

July 16, 2008

I sat down with LUCRUM’s Eric Duell a couple of years ago and talked about the value of teams. Eric is a principal consultant and specializes in executive alignment sessions - but is the guru of communications. The truth of our conversation has never left me. He tied together results of a team through proper leadership and stepped me through the teams ‘ascent’. This talk of ours was so powerful, that a couple years later, I chose to work at LUCRUM.

I don’t want to steal Eric’s thunder but there are dependencies that are really worth noting. I’ll just highlight them below:

Step 1: Show each person that they are part of the team and that they can contribute to the success and problems of the team. This expectation should be set from the beginning - this gives them the freedom to move to the next step.

Step 2: People need to feel that their contribution is part of the team’s success. Sure, the ownership is on that person to ensure that they are ‘engaged’ with the team, but it’s also on the leader - to make sure that the person has the right avenues to contribute. Ensure that contributions are appreciated…publically.

Step 3: Once these contributions are shown, this build trust within the team. This is a key point because without trust the team is guarded and people don’t share. A solid foundation of trust is necessary for any team that wants to be highly successful.

Step 4:  Now that we have trust, the team can have honest and open conversations. Debates are not win/lose, rather they are healthy and passionate. This level of communication reveals the right data for the team to act upon.

Step 5:  The leader now has the foundation to have a commitment by each member to the team. Here we are focusing on a common course of action, the holdouts, cowboys and dissenters are not present…for the team’s value is realized and we think of the team success first.

Step 6:  Now that we are committed, we can be accountable. Too many times this foundation is shortcutted and we have tentative accountability; one foot here and one foot there. But, this team is now in a position to expect real accountability and forms the right partnerships to help each other.

Step 7:  Once we are at this level of accountability, we are ready to do what the team was designed for; looking for the best solution with a focused team. Here is where the power is and this focus is how to concentrate the talents, passions, desires and energy of the highly successful team!

So, you see, this progression from person to maximum results is framed by real team development and leadership - but must progress through clearly defined stages. This is a strategy we strive for at LUCRUM. When you peel back all that extra baggage, we are left with real people who contribute within real teams to focus on real value for our clients with a real focus.

Imagine a team with a missing piece. What if we did not expect a team member to perform? What if we did not appreciate contributions? How would it be if the team could not have open conversations and the real data was hidden for fear of rejection. Could the team be committed if we could not talk openly? If people were not accountable and not held accountable, could we succeed? Any missing piece above would cause the team to focus on their own agendas and not on finding the best possible solution.

This model was truly one of the reasons that I chose LUCRUM to take my career to the next level. The commitment to teams is core to what we are all about.

~ Scott Felten 

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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

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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:

  1. 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. 
  2. 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.
  3. 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?

  1. 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.
  2. Plan a strategy that stands without technology (actual products). At a high level, get directional support from your senior leadership (governance, sponsor, CxOs).
  3. Formulate a tactical plan by completing the future vision, adding products and services.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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

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Part 2, Collaboration Tactical Verticals - expanded! (Statement 10)

June 17, 2008

Highly optimized teams perform at high levels - their productivity exceeds the sum of the parts. Moreover, each member contributes at a higher level and becomes more productive. Of course they also feel more committed and take pride and ownership of accomplishments. If done right, the team is the vehicle to bring game-changing, record-breaking innovations to market!

It’s no wonder that the investment in teams is the single best investment!

Gartner predicts that “by 2008, 50% of individual performance will be determined by the individual’s participation in projects and other collaborative work. This will cause an accelerated demand for collaboration, informal project coordination, social networking, expertise location and social process support technologies.”

It is now a business minimum to monitor activities on an almost 24/7 basis - just watch your spouse on vacation try to put away that blackberry! With travel costs soaring (gas prices), we are now relying more on mobile technology, web conferencing and high-resolution videoconferencing - especially as our virtual teams become the norm, expanding across time zones, and national, linguistic and enterprise boundaries.

The needs are real, very real. And if not met properly, shadow IT steps in to fill that need. The result…email grows out of control to morph into some kind of collaborative document repository, and source for best practices and even stretching to perform workflow. There are also non-coordinated initiatives in play that lead to multiple standards and duplication of costs and efforts. At some point, these will need to be reconciled. It is not different then the company that allows master data management to consist of enterprise level spreadsheets to hold data in a persistent manner. Yikes!

Lets start by stating the need that your success will depend upon the appropriate standardization and scoping of the collaboration stack. I view it as a 2 dimensional thought. The first dimension is strategic - it’s the enterprise level (horizontal) of collaboration. This is the level that everyone (knowledge workers, that is) in the organization is aware of and has come to depend upon. This builds upon the intranet concept, bringing to the organization additional corporate-wide tools. This is a good step in changing the corporate’s culture - but that is another blog yet to be written. The second dimension is the title of this blog “tactical verticals”. This is the ability to scale collaboration services ‘when the time is right’. Better said, when initiatives exhibit different configuration of characteristics, then there is a corresponding configuration of collaboration services. Hopefully, these are kept to a few in number and truly driven by need.

It’s always good to start at the foundation. So, lets group collaboration a couple of ways and list out our potential services. There are web-based and non-web based technologies”

Web-based collaborative technologies: Email, Web Conferencing, Team Sites, Document Versioning, RSS Reader, Forums, Chat, IM, Surveys, Shared Calendaring, Social Software, Knowledge Mgt. Systems, Blogs, Wikis
Non-web based collaborative technologies: Telephony, Faxing, Voice Mail, Video Conferencing, Workflow, Project Mgt. Systems, Code Control

But, lets group them by functional capabilities:

Electronic Communications

PC Based eMail
Mobile eMail
Wikis
Community Sites
Team Sites
Document Versioning
Blogs
RSS Reader

Electronic Conferencing

Forums (message boards, discussion groups)
Online Chat
Instant Messaging
Internal Survey Tools
Web Conferencing

Collaboration Management

Electronic Calendars
Workflow Systems
Knowledge Management
Social Software Systems

What are your next steps…? There are many angles to consider, but for this blog (tactical verticals), I would suggest:

* Take inventory of your current toolsets
* Determine who owns ‘collaboration’
* Decide upon a horizontal enterprise-wide standard
* Develop tactical vertical attributes (when do you need IM, voting, work flow, wikis, etc…)
* Configure a collaboration stack for each scenario
* Perform a gap analysis (what do you need that you don’t have)
* Determine standards (products/technologies/best practices) for each

Take the next steps…look at:
- Value
- ROI
- Current Culture
- Transitioning
- Marketing
- Etc…

Having tactical verticals ensures that you can scale your collaboration stack when you need to - the goal here is to match the team’s need with the appropriate technology. Simply allowing everyone access to everything may introduce the wrong controls and lead to chaos and confusion. You have one shot at this - you can’t un-ring the bell! Once these tools are embedded in people, processes and technology, they are hard (if not impossible) to remove. The key to consider is to keep your options few, so that you don’t end up with a dozen different configurations to manage. Click here for my 13 points regarding collaboration

Good Luck!

~ Scott Felten

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Part 2, Collaboration Definition! Expanded. (Statement 1)

June 17, 2008

“Consensus is the lack of leadership!” - Margaret Thatcher. I am in total agreement with that statement. As a matter of fact, I absolutely love it and have lived by it for many years. Question: Is collaboration simply a way to gain consensus? If so, then is it valid to say that “Collaboration is the lack of leadership”? I say, yes…and no!

Definition “People working together on creative, non-trivial issues that requires deep thinking and an exchange of ideas in an iterative and cumulative manner by domain experts.”

I will try to state this as simply as possible and demonstrate why “Collaboration may or may not be the absence of leadership”.

But first we need to understand teams. So, let’s look at team dynamics (attributes of a team). If you have read any of Jon Katzenbach’s books (The Wisdom of Teams and Peak Performance, as well as Real Change Leaders and Teams at the Top), you will walk away with a better understanding about the various aspects of teams.

There are 3 dimensions to any team.
• The Challenge – Business problem to be solved
• Work Style – Type of work, level of communication
• Leadership Approach – Applying the right leadership style

The type of business problem dictates the work style and leadership approach for the team.

Coordination-oriented Teams.
Is the business problem familiar to the organization, is it based on a known process and is it time sensitive? This dictates a team of highly specialized experts in their domains, working individually on their part of the solution and time is the driving factor. Coordination is key for this type of team. It is lead by a leader that coordinates individual contributions. In this case, the collaboration level is not as deep. It may be a common repository for terms and reference documents as well as the place where final deliverables are held and project plans are maintained. Often times the implementation of this level of collaboration is tactical – the company sets up a base set of collaboration features for ‘any team’ – its just the standard corporate collaboration configuration.

In the case, collaboration is simply a minimum level of service offered by the organization - a strategy set awhile ago. Here, consensus may in fact be the lack of leadership; as the type of business problem and work style demands a high degree of individual leadership. Here the leader needs to be the main broker of communication; keeping track of the project’s schedule and deliverables. Here the leader would make decisions (of course a good leader always seeks advice). I would agree that on this end of the spectrum, collaboration may be the lack of leadership. In this case, poor leaders may fall in to the trap of allowing the group to lead.

Collaboration-oriented Teams.
However, if the business problem you are trying to solve is unfamiliar to the organization, it is likely that your team will need to invent new processes. In this case, while time is certainly a factor, the best solution takes priority (implementing a poor solution in this case is disastrous). For these team attributes, collaboration is key. This type of team often shares in the work and often rotates leadership responsibility as domain experts lead discussions. Here the team is mission lead. All team members work collectively and share information at a high velocity. In this case, the collaboration level is deep. It may have custom designed work flows and voting/survey tools. Each member is available via online chat. Document management with versioning and edition features are enabled. There is a high velocity of meetings handled by web conferencing. Also the use of wikis and team electronic calendars are priority 1 – so that the mission continues!

In this scenario, collaboration is tactical – it is deployed because the business challenge demands a high velocity of collective work – a high degree of communication and thought sharing. In this case, the role of the leader rotates as people. Here collaboration is not simply gaining consensus, rather here collaboration is leadership!

I have painted both ends of the spectrum. The truth is always in the middle. Keep in mind that during the different lifecycles of a project, your team dynamics will ebb and flow from individual coordination to team collaboration. The trick is to choose a level of collaboration that will scale to your need! More to follow! Click here for my 13 points regarding collaboration.

Happy Collaborating!

~ Scott Felten

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13 Statements about Collaboration - each less than 143 characters!

June 11, 2008

I was thinking about two things today…Collaboration and Microblogging. So, I mashed them up a bit here. I outlined in 13 parts, my thoughts about collaboration. I pasted them here in a microblogish format and they form an outline. Over the next couple of weeks, I will post a blog dedicated to each “Part” - for those of you interested in one person’s experiences. Feel free to comment me up! Here goes…

Statement 1, “Collaboration Definition!”, “People working together on creative, non-trivial issues that requires deep thinking and an exchange of ideas in an iterative and cumulative manner by domain experts.  Click here for part 2 of “Collaboration Definition!”

Statement 2, “It’s not about technology!”, Technology is simply a dimension around an implementation method-they come and go. A great idea is to slice your bread - who cares about the toaster, until you want toast!  Click here for part 2 of “It’s not about technology!”

Statement 3, “Collaboration Success!”, Real Success - The art of understanding your corporate culture and how to transition them to a focused sprint of collaboration to solve the problem extracting real value.

Statement 4, “Collaboration Transition!”, Transition your company’s conduct, habits, culture and management. Encourage the deeper level of communication. First expose the real business goals and objectives!

Statement 5, “Collaboration Accountability!”, Establish a clear level of accountability - one person who is tasked to demonstrate the value that collaboration brings. So, IT and Business alignment is mandatory!

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 plan!  Click here for part 2 of “Collaboration Value Alignment!”

Statement 7, “Collaboration Attributes!”, Choose attributes; re or pro action, rich features or limited set, centralized control versus distributed, technology controlled behavior or community managed.

Statement 8, “Collaboration Scope!”, Apply collaboration to the enterprise, LOB, business unit, workgroup, or even a business process. Suggestion: Horizontal Strategy + Tactical Verticals.

Statement 9, “Collaboration Horizontal Strategy!”, Determine an enterprise level of depth that addresses higher level issues across the organization. General company dialogs at this level promote a culture change.

Statement 10, “Collaboration Tactical Verticals!”, Analyze your company and look for deep level collaboration needs. They usually center around master data items, governance groups, departments, teams or initiatives.  Click here for part 2 of “Collaboration Tactical Verticals!”

Statement 11, “Collaboration Business Processes!”, Setting up collaboration at the business process level provides maximum value because its focused on a real need while cutting across the enterprise to involve others.

Statement 12, “Collaboration Business Processes - warning!”, Make sure to determine the right-level collaboration strategy before actually embedding it into the business process, least they become dependent upon one another.

Statement 13, “Collaboration Business Processes - Challenges!”, Different locations and time zones, clear exception handling, management coordination of shared processes and working across political boundaries.

Cheers!

~Scott Felten

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Taxonomy: It sits in the critical path of …

June 9, 2008

Where is the excitement around this issue?

It seems that “Taxonomy” was my word for the week. This is my third post about it within 7 days. It’s not that I am in love with the word, rather, it’s just pretty darn important! With any big initiative, the first thing we look to is a solid foundation for communication. Think about it, we usually address taxonomy anywhere from casual discussions to formal governance groups for many initiatives – dare I say any initiative that strives to bring real change to an organization begins with taxonomy (either consciously or subconsciously). Thinking it through, here are some of my top-of-mind game changers that require a solid taxonomy:

• Master data management. By definition this is really an enterprise taxonomy that is the official reference data for an organization.
• Metadata management. Tagging data with information is best performed only after a taxonomy is well-established. Else, with-what-shall-I-tag-it plagues the process.
• Business Intelligence. Without a proper taxonomy, how do we bring together people from diverse business perspectives together to understand data from a central and enterprise viewpoint?
• Data Management. Well, of course we can’t properly manage data without knowing where things are in a hierarchy or what context the data should exist in.
• Data Quality. Here we are really measuring data against the taxonomy; whether implicit or explicit.
• Governance. Strategic decisions are made for specific purposes and they need to rely and depend upon a socialized and accepted taxonomy.
• Data Stewardship. This is the process of holding someone accountable for making tactical decisions to implement strategic direction.
• BPM. When we look to manage business processes, they depend upon real information. So, having a taxonomy to base these data points is crucial.
• SOA. Reusing software components and exposing them at the enterprise level demands a highly accepted understanding of the organizations data. Sure, this view is exposed as a group of web services that are published in a repository that is self aware – but without a canonical data model as your underlying foundation, consistency is not reached. A canonical data model is highly correlated to a mature taxonomy.
• Strategy, Solutions and Architecture. It’s near impossible to calibrate these three without a friction free flow of communication. Let’s not talk about what should’a, could’a and would’a – but let’s focus on the business problem at hand. Having a living taxonomy that is socialized, accepted and part of our DNA is key to gaining quick momentum as we put distance between us and our competition.

These are just some quickies that I bubbled up. What other initiatives need a solid taxonomy? Thinking about taxonomy, when you look to bring real change to an organization, what happens? From my experience, there are two choices:

1. Address taxonomy early and often. Realize that there are some things that are so important that we need to establish, socialize and enforce them.
-OR-
2. Jump to build a solution. Then realizing there are terms misaligned, misused and duplicated, go back and either fix the data models (and all subsequent diagrams and code – this rarely gets done) or create a lot of code to hide these issues. When we do this, we establish a short term brittle foundation that breaks when the next change comes or we end up with a bunch of custom spaghetti that tries to tie things together but really ends with just a lot of confusion.

Bottom line
• Embrace taxonomy within your natural collaboration style. When something is unclear, pause, ask, record, check for understanding, agree on the outcome and move forward. It’s not a development phase, don’t sell it to senior management. No one cares about it. It’s an expected minimum of doing business. Add it to your culture’s DNA.
• Don’t underestimate the issues when terms are not aligned. It wrecks havoc to your foundational infrastructure and the costs (both hard and soft) can be big. Know it is there and plan for it.
• Scope your risk. If you are working within a group or team, the risk is small. Plan for it and cross it off your list as you develop it. However, if you are aligning silos or working across divisions or bringing others into alignment, or working cross-culturally, or introducing new teams, these issues can be big. Again, plan for it – put someone in charge of its care and feeding.
• Use it as a way to create excitement and ownership. Once you work together, it is always good to look for accomplishments to celebrate. Depending upon your scope, it can also be a way to generate a new level of buy-in. Manage the group right and they walk away with the justified feeling that they had part in it – that they created it and it reflects their slice of the business. Trust me here – then they will socialize it and ensure that its followed in their domain!

Now that is exciting stuff!

~ Scott Felten

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Taxonomy: How can I get one of them?

June 3, 2008

“I’ll have one Taxonomy, a Diet Coke and some fries please!” Today things are fast-paced, sometimes too fast.  Ready, Fire, Aim! is all too common.  However, when building a taxonomy, it needs to simmer for a bit and let all the flavors come together.  We are building something of substance here. So, where do we begin? Here is a little prep work to consider before you begin.

As in anything of substance, look towards your ancestors! Before beginning new journeys, look at the travels and teachings of the ancients. Once upon a time, in a land far far away, things were very expensive and the littlest of changes translated into huge dollars. The ancients lived in those lands and had to navigate through the treacherous waters of high hardware costs, outrageous communication costs, high people costs, massive lines of expensive code and hidden dependencies. In this land, things were new and every notion of business had to be created. In this time, the people who inhabited that land had to use their brains, all the time. There was no drop and drag. There were no visual approaches and pre-established templates. Things had to be thought through in great detail and time was spent on foundational issues…because if we don’t do it right from the beginning, it will be bad, very bad.

So, pull out that old book in your company and turn to that portion that equates to Leviticus – read about your Moses, who came down from the mountain with the law…what was good, what was not. Listen to those stories of old and take stock. It is said that history repeats itself. Why not leverage what’s been done and what’s been done with a rigor that I would say is not the norm of today.

Turn around right now and look at the shelf behind you. There, in the corner, you see it? There’s a book (or two) right there – yes, it’s the 3” black binder that has dust all over it. Take it down, offer a quick thanksgiving and open it slowly. Spend some time with the ancients and understand where you came from – you may just stumble upon truths so great that they make your hair white. At the very least you will walk where the great ones walked and who knows maybe you can point the way to the Promised Land!

You never know where you will find gold – roll up your sleeves and start digging around!

~ Scott Felten

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Taxonomy: When you take the ‘text’ out of ‘Context’, you are left with a ‘Con’!

June 3, 2008

I have a friend who is a true genius. He has a PhD from Harvard University in Organic/Inorganic Chemistry. He also taught there for awhile. He met and married a very intelligent scientist from Mexico and they had three children. They thought that they were going to have developmental problems with their oldest - or at least that is what the doctors told them. You see, their oldest son did not speak right away. As a matter of fact, when their son was 1, then 2 then 3 years old and not speaking - they would take him to the doctors and the prognosis was the same, he was developmentally behind.

Then while he was 3 years old he spoke his first words. His mother told me this way. So, it was lunch time and ‘my son’ turned to me and said…now remember, this was his first words… “Mommy, may I have some lunch please”?  She was shocked and of course very relieved. At the next doctor’s visit, she told the specialist the story. After looking at all the facts, the doctor described things as… Well, you son is very bright and a perfectionist. He was living in a multi-cultural home where both English and Spanish was spoken. Before he chose to communicate (with words), he had to fully understand the framework of grammar and its nuances. Then, he had to work through the process of selecting his base language (will it be English or Spanish).

Fast forwarding the story a few years finds ‘their son’ in first grade. Upon completion of further testing, they found that he was in the top 99.999 percentile in math - among college aged men and women.

This story is not much different than some of the issues we face each day with our clients. More times than not, each team, group, department speaks a different language. I’ll never forget the time where I was asked to develop a strategy for a recognized revenue solution - where they wanted to better align revenue, cost and time to properly manage cash flow and reporting. I was working directly for the CFO and one of the requirements was a report that grouped data as follows, she called it ‘The Region Report’:

  • New Business
  • East Division
  • West Division
  • Canada
  • P&G

The solution was an education on taxonomy. As mature as this company was, they did not operate with a known taxonomy. Much like my friend’s son choosing not to speak until he fully understood what the framework was and how a taxonomy carried made the context known to both sides, I worked to help define the common taxonomy. Once we did this, we were rocking. This application became on of the strongest points in the organization, because we built a foundational canonical model around a true taxonomy that we socialized. This really became the hub of all data points and drove both master data efforts as well as metadata disciplines.

Looking back, it seems obvious and if you did your job well, this should be the case. Can you guess as to the structure in my oversimplified snippet of a real issue?

The above was decomposed to:

  • Country (is a parent of region)
  • Region (belongs to Country and is a parent of SVP)
  • Senior Vice President (works within a Region and is the parent of a VP)
  • Vice President (works for a SVP and owns one or more clients)
  • Client (is owned by one or more (many to many) VPs and has a status of Type)
  • Type (describes the client and consists of either ‘New’ or ‘Established’)

Also, we have the notion of a date for transactions as well as a time-based dimension for SVP, VP, Client and Type - so people, clients and type can reflect ownership movements.

It might seem painful to go through the rigor and discipline of establishing and socializing a true taxonomy, but its worth it. It’s not much different than building a house on solid rock…why rush and build things on sand. Don’t fall for a ‘Con’ - make sure your text resides within the proper context!

Happy Building,

~ Scott

 

 

 

 

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BI Maturity: You can’t get there from here!

May 20, 2008

I spent last weekend fishing with my father, brother and nephews. Since they live in Connecticut and I in Ohio - we decided to meet half way - somewhere in “The Alleghenies and Her Valleys” to quote the brochure. While I usually rely on my trusty Magellan GPS, I had given it to my oldest daughter to borrow as she was driving south where the weather is warm. So that left me driving through the mountains and her valleys around midnight. Driving through a small town on a small road, looking for a very small park proved more than a challenge. Since I have three daughters and one wife, I have learned to swallow my pride and ask directions. I did, but on my walk in to the “Sheetz” gas station, I was thinking they might give me that response…”Well, you can’t get there from here - you gotta go somewhere else, then loop back around to get there.” However, I received perfect directions! Thank you Mr. Sheetz!

But that got me thinking as I stumbled upon a poster from the TDWI folks that spoke about BI maturity and adoption. It was a few years old, but some things are so true. I was excited to see that old friend and took some time to write up my thoughts on the matter - as well as capture their context. You can visit their poster ‘2005 BI Maturity Model’ at http://www.tdwi.org/publications/display.aspx?id=7288.

In case you are wondering how I am going to tie the first two paragraphs together, here goes. From my experience, when senior leadership learns of the value that BI can bring, they really want to ‘get this thing going’. They want to launch a large, comprehensive, enterprise-wide, based-on-the-new-tools, BI innovation that will hit home runs and win ball games. Well the problem is that you can’t get there from here. :)  There is a progression that must happen. Farmers can’t just throw seed on the ground and expect to make a profit - there is work to be done to prepare the soil correctly, then lots of care and feeding, praying for rain (but not too much rain) and then F  I  N  A  L  L  Y  –> the harvest!

TDWI states that “Most organizations go through six stages when evolving their BI environment from a cost-center operation to a strategic resource that drives the business and shapes the market.”

Using their framework, here is how I break it down…

1.     The Beginning (TDWI calls it ‘Prenatal’):  Since this is mostly financial, there are a medium amount of standards and not much flexibility. The control is dictated from finance or finance needs. Causal users account for most activity. Power users may make use of this type of information and leverage it into their own ‘shadow’ systems. The problem is that there is a large IT backlog for these reports. The problem here is the information gap - we get the information after the decision had to be made. This decision latency could contribute to the wrong direction as the data it is built on is often not fresh. However, at this stage, a general ‘awareness’ exists - there is at least the existence of the correct information. To get here, there is a larger initial investment and costs are high as economies of scale are not yet a reality.

  • Architecture: Management Reporting
  • Scope: System
  • Type of System: Financial
  • Analytics: Paper Report
  • User: All
  • BI Focus: What Happened?
  • Executive Perception: Cost Center

 

2.     Army of One (TDWI calls it ‘Infant’): Lots of flexibility and not any standards to speak of - other than what is negotiated from one user to another. People think local and resist any global initiatives. Causal users use decline, while power users step in to take advantage of this new information. Still, power users are reliant on IT to set the stage for their data and IT continues to struggle with a backlog of requests. As we extract the right data and manually assemble it to address business problems, there is an understanding of what factors are leading to what business results. Cost are somewhat low as analysts are using their own tools and working with certain data sets extracted by IT.

  • Architecture: Spreadmarts
  • Scope: Individual
  • Type of System: Executive
  • Analytics: Briefing Book
  • User: Analyst
  • BI Focus: What Will Happen?
  • Executive Perception: Inform Executive

 

3.     Working as a team (TDWI calls it ‘Child’): Flexibility is somewhat high, but at this point is waning as people within the department begin to work together. But still not many standards to speak of - other than what is negotiated from one user to another or driven from within the department. People still think/act from a local perspective and resist any global initiatives. Causal users use starts to trend up to take advantage of some individual benefits provided to them at the department level. Once the organization deploys data marts based on the emerging standards, the BI environment becomes a self service type, where the bottle neck that once existed within IT has been removed. At this stage, an understanding of why things have happened is occurring because knowledge workers are using analytical systems to extract data to their own needs and using that data to draw conclusions about business events. Costs begin to creep a small amount as some technology is purchased, but overall not a big factor.

  • Architecture: Data Marts
  • Scope: Departmental
  • Type of System: Analytical
  • Analytics: Interactive Report
  • User: Knowledge Worker
  • BI Focus: Why Did It Happen?
  • Executive Perception: Empowers Workers

 

4.     Thinking bigger (TDWI calls it ‘Teenager’): Flexibility starts to fade as division wide standards arise. People see the need to work together and are driven by common divisional goals. Here there is an atmosphere of negotiation and consolidation as these standards are built out. Now causal user use is on the rise, as the wide standards lead to increased reliability on the data available within the BI ‘system’. Power users use remains flat; but their ideas are rolled back in to divisional solutions; they are seen as subject matter experts and are often tapped to provide leadership and direction for their domain.  The focus here is customized delivery at the divisional level; dashboards, scorecards, report cards and the like.  At this stage, managers are making use of the divisional wide dashboards and are given real time information that is actionable - what is happening right now.  Costs are rising as we work within the division to develop standards and customized delivery.

  • Architecture: Data Warehouse
  • Scope: Division
  • Type of System: Monitoring
  • Analytics: Dashboard
  • User: Manager
  • BI Focus: What Is Happening?
  • Executive Perception: Monitor Processes

 

5.     Mature (TDWI calls it ‘Adult’): Standards are formed at the enterprise level. Governance groups are now formal processes with the proper structure and sponsorship. Senior level support is solid. Although flexibility takes a dip at first as the organization learns, flexibility then trends up as efficiencies and learnings are gained. Truly people are planning globally to act local at this stage. At this stage, executives are also onboard as the mature BI environment serves to align all players within the organization.  The causal users use the system to help them understand what they should be working on and how their efforts affect the organization as a whole. The delivery mode transitions from a divisional perspective to the enterprise but is also balanced; balanced or cascading scorecards are the focus of the organization and serves as the single point of truth to answer the questions about our goals and progress towards them.  At this stage, executives are using the BI environment as a communication tool to both align the organization on goals and objectives as well as communicate the results and current situations. These pivotal points are balanced all the way through the organization and are socialized in a manner that is equal to business strategy. The balanced or cascading scorecards open up alternative decisions as all indicators that lead to a ‘score’ are actionable. Costs rise again because of the enterprise level investment and collaboration, but the value should increase dramatically.

  • Architecture: Enterprise Data Warehouse
  • Scope: Enterprise
  • Type of System: Strategic
  • Analytics: Cascading Scorecards
  • User: Executive
  • BI Focus: What Should We Do?
  • Executive Perception: Drive The Business

 

6.     Harvesting Relationships or Partnerships (TDWI calls it ‘Sage’): Leveraging the mature BI environment  by opening up that business service to clients is the last stage. Here standards and control continue to be formed, but originates from client relationships. Flexibility is also harvested as new ideas, thoughts, concepts are embraced by the mature BI environment. At this stage, our BI environment can now be thought of as a BI Utility for our customers; helping them to solve their business problems by making use of the organization’s rich and focused information in the form of customer focused solutions deployed to help build or bind relationships, thus increasing the value proposition to them by the organization. At this stage, the BI Utility becomes a needed part within the customer’s infrastructure (whether it be for a single customer’s need for specific and unique information or for a company with complex business processes). Costs take a dip, the data/information infrastructure is in place and the capital expenditure has been amortized. Tools already exist to develop rich applications.  The value increases exceedingly abundantly here, as a very narrow scoped application brings a deep penetration of partnership.

  • Architecture: Analytical Services
  • Scope: Inter-Enterprise
  • Type of System: Business Service
  • Analytics: Embedded BI
  • User: Customer
  • BI Focus: What Can We Offer?
  • Executive Perception: Drive The Market

 

Now that you know… Where do you see your organization? How can you actualize the next stage? What are some value statements that you can take to senior leadership? What business problems can you address? What type of socialization strategy will work best? Where should you invest and what will the return look like? Who can you trust to help you get there from here without shortcutting the maturity journey - proper growth is built on a series of solid foundations. These sucesses are the underpinnings of the needed BI elements; Trust, Vision, Focus, Value, Momentum…repeat.

Happy Maturing!

Scott Felten

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