Last Friday I took a class titled "Getting Work Done Without Authority." The class taught us how to use different methods to reach our goals depending on who we're working with. (In fact the instructor said it applied to ex-spouses and children too.)

We were taught about the trademarked "Influence Edge" system which breaks "influence" methods into three groups - Push methods (e.g., making suggestions), Pull methods (e.g., asking open ended questions), and Push/Pull methods (e.g., offering incentives). We identified which methods each one of us use and practiced the methods that we don't like to use.

The process to reach your goal is to 1) you figure out your goal and who needs to help you reach it, 2) figure out how you think about it, 3) figure out how the person(s) and organization think about it, and 4) figure out the right method to use. Then you have your meeting, apply the method and ta dah--it's done!

I know it sounds hokey but right now I'm trying to rationalize how I work with others so it was useful. I particularly liked the prework which consisted of me sending surveys to coworkers asking them about how I used push, pull, and push/pull methods and if they wanted me to use each method more or less. The results were generally okay but they did want to use more of the methods I don't like to use (e.g., summarizing).

The instructor was great. When she heard I had to miss the last 90 minutes of the class she called a break and talked to me for tweny minutes about the last part of the class and about what I'd learned.

I have to work harder at having and communicating clear goals for my meetings and do better at listening (understanding), summarizing, and asserting what has to be done. My past practice is sloppy and works out if everything falls into place but I deal with a lot of people on all sorts of projects and I can't just expect things to work.

I've also requested an online PMI class that should get me ready for the test prep class for certification. I hope that gets approved soon.

Over the last five years I've written some screenplays for short films. My film partner, Kubrick Jr., and I made two short films and we are talking about (but not yet doing) another one about insomnia. I think it's great but I wrote it.

What I've been thinking about lately is a longer screenplay I wrote. The film is about one day at a tech company--the day a bunch of people are laid off. I really like it--it's a funny tech comedy (except for the layoff part) with a lot of shots at tech management, HR, outsourcing, FPS games, and more. I wrote it a few years ago and put all my tech experience into it. I think it's good but it's too short and lacks drama.

Now I know what to do with it! I'll just set the film on the day after the tech company finishes working on the Olympics. Everyone has been stretched to their physical and mental limits after three weeks of odd shifts, long hours, and catering to the erractic demands of a national TV network whose programming isn't being watched. Instead of grateful exhaustion that it's over, everyone is worried about the next batch of poorly thought out projects that are hanging over their heads, as well as the last batch of problem projects that were never finished.

The film is about the tech people who work in the basement of a typical, suburban office park, nondescript building. It tells the story through the experiences of a young, guy programmer (a probationary hire) and a lower-middle manager. The programmer has tried to help out during the long crunch by doing things beyond his knowledge and experience. Unfortunately there were no requirements/rules/written descriptions for his projects and there was no one assigned to help manage the ambiguity, so he wound up doing and redoing the projects until his life was a blur of red eyes and Red Bull. The lower-middle manager has spent weeks scrambling to cover piles of tasks while being glared at by his manager. He is worried by the addled certainty of the company's decision makers but can do nothing to affect what they do, only be increasingly frustrated when he's told to somehow make everything happen.

In the new story management is making appreciative noises (because HR tells them they have to) and they are paying some bonuses out of the large pile of cash (large for the tech company anyway) that the network promised them. BUT in their hearts the top management is considering delivering more value to the shareholders (themselves mainly). They think "If we could do ALL of these projects AND the Olympics, we could get along with less "resources" after the Olympics and create some more value for the shareholders." That gets me to my original screenplay about the layoff.

This is, of course, not intended to describe past, present, or future events at any company, real or previously described in fiction. The layoff plot reflects pieces of my experiences at Not Big Blue and at some factory jobs.

I like it. I'm going to start revising the old screenplay tonight!

Olympics Yet?....Not Yet

Today we had a "cultural presentation" at our group meeting. A guy from the Indian outsourcing company came to give us his perspective on Indian culture that would make it easier to work with his people.

Unfortunately, it was a Powerpoint presentation and there was no food, so he had two strikes against him. He also told us it wouldn't be a very worthwhile presentation if we didn't ask questions, but when people asked questions he was very curt. Strange.

Anyway, it had some interesting moments. First, he said to get to India, imagine getting on I-90, driving 8,500 east and arriving in New Delhi. Next he briefly explained the many differences in culture across India, touching on architecture and language.

At that point he talked about the educational system. Someone asked how much education costs, especially college. He replied that there were 40 rupee to a dollar and so it was cheaper there (Huh?). I asked what languages are used in education since there are eighteen official languages. He said you could learn in Hindi or English in primary school but after that it's strictly Engish.

Then he told us that the time difference between here and his home city was 11 and one-half hours. "Why is there a half-hour in there?" people asked. He mumbled something about longitude then said "It's so we don't have the same time as the Pakistanis." I guess it was a joke but I don't think the Pakistani guy in our group thought it was funny.

Then came the stereotypes section. Americans are like this, Indians are like that. The biggest thing we are supposed to watch for are Indian people on-site who smile and agree with everything we say--he said they just agree even if they think we're totally wrong. No wonder I thought I was brilliant whenever I talked to the Indians doing QA work.

My favorite point in this section was about the use of the word small. He said if an Indian tester says there is a small problem, something is seriously wrong. Likewise, if an Indian tester says he/she has a small suggestion, it means they have a major solution to all the problems. I have to remember that one.

The presentation wasn't gripping and some of the group were nodding off all through it. I thought it was worthwhile but it would have been even better with some Palek Paneer or an ice-cold Taj Mahal. If I head down to I-90 and start driving now, I'll make it back with the refreshments in time for next year's cultural presentation. Here I go!

A Small Town

(The Olympics final entry is still in development. My thoughts are still with those people working around the clock to keep that going.)

I just wanted to talk a little about how working in a complex with over five thousand other people is like being in a small town. How you ask?

-- We sit in neighborhoods. For example, I sit in the Tech Services neighborhood. I know where the necessities (printers, supply cabinets, break areas, restrooms) are and I know where to find the people I talk to most and where the meeting rooms are located. I also know that if I go to a different neighborhood I'm going to have to wander a bit to find someone, kind of like driving down a street looking at house numbers until you see the right one.

-- There are all kinds of people in the town. I haven't tested this yet but I think if you walk into a crowd downtown they would look just like the crowd I walk into if I stray into the cafeteria at noon. People are of every type. Dress ranges from the techie jeans look to three piece suits on the corporate types (but there aren't many of them). People range from extraverts in the business side to mild-mannered law librarians. If you wander into the manufacturing area it's real blue collar work and a union crowd.

-- You get to know a few people well, be friendly with a lot of people, and be strangers with most. Some people feel uncomfortable if they don't know everyone (or something about everyone) but I'm content to have a variety of relationships and also to be able to just walk around anonimously.

-- Of course there's culture. I saw a violin quartet from the Saint Paul Chamber Orchesta last month and on Friday I missed (because of my new employee orientation) a performance by the Mixed Blood Theater of their Jackie Robinson play.

I can't remember much more about small towns so I'll stop here.

Olympics Postponed

I'm going to finish the Olympics series tomorrow night. I hope that doesn't inconvenience the guy who asked me why I worked at Widgets. That person is my most loyal reader and likes to ask everyone if they've read my blog. Thanks for spreading the word! I would like to talk instead about my orientation day last Friday.

Imagine my surprise when a few weeks ago I got an email invitation to a Technical Organization new employee orientation. Hey, I've been there for months! Apparently, they haven't had one in a while so this was a catch up session.

The session lasted all day and included snacks, lunch, and some swag. We heard presentations from not one but two Chief Technical Officers, had a question and answer session with some long-timers in important positions, had the head of employee engagement encourage and challenge us and then finished with a presentation by the head of global projects. Amazingly the presentations were all interesting and all the speakers answered any question that was thrown at them.

I thought the most important point they made was that my organization is the technical center of a larger corporation. The research and development for the corporation is being done in my building and the rest of the company is adopting the new technologies. They really stressed the opportunities to move into new areas as they open up, both here and around the world.

People at my company are always forthcoming with information. I asked a question at the panel session about the potential use of Akamai at my company. The head of procurement gave a detailed answer with all the pros and cons of the situation, probably more than I really wanted to know. At Widgets keeping secrets was the main communication method--wait, that doesn't make sense!

The executives also used their presentations to challenge people to make the most of the opportunities at the company and find jobs that we really like and that make coming to work fun and challenging.

I got one of those insulated lunch boxes for asking a question at the global business presentation. I wanted to know if we were moving into the China market and got a maybe. There are a number of people in my building in the global projects group that are working weird shifts so they can manage projects with team members on three different continents.

I also had a small world moment. At a receiving line at lunch I came face to face with a familiar looking guy. He looked at me and said "You're from Not Big Blue, aren't you? I was in the Blah Blah Blah group." Sure enough, he was a lead technical guy at the time and is now a vice president at Lawyers R Us.

That was a nice day. I do appreciate the company's desire to show how committed they are to making everyone successful and their patience with new people. One of the VPs ate lunch at my table and talked about how hard it is to learn all the acronyms and groups and said we should speak up, ask questions, and take the time to learn all we need to know.

Take my time? I can handle that.

Olympics Part Deux

Last entry, I stopped at the point when we finished the Athens Olympics with a wonderful technical performance on the web site. Sales were very good for the first try at a global event site but page views weren't since no one thought about marketing the site. No one upstairs said thank you to the basement dwellers like me and I was depressed for several weeks because even though the hours were ridiculous during the Olympics, there was a real adrenaline rush to keeping that site working round the clock. I was also depressed that I had gained four pounds eating large portions of Egg Bake every morning at 6 a.m.

The Torino (Turin) Olympics were only eighteen months away when we finished Athens. A well managed company with good planning and staffing policies would have created a calendar for those eighteen months with milestones for beginning work, hiring people, etc. A company with a sense of organization would have made sure that everything that was done during the games was carefully documented so it all could be easily repeated.

Nah. We launched into some other projects that absolutely had to be done that very minute and forgot about the Olympics for a while. I'm sure no one could name one of those projects now. We would pull it out, we were pros now!

The results coding did start well ahead of Torino because the company supplying us data said that's when they were going to start. We took a trip to FL (very nice but short), set up a good process for working together, and started. The results work went well through the winter and spring.

But what about everything else. Well six or seven months were spent on design, a lot of it on creating lots of little widgets that rotated, changed content, and did other coool stuff. We went to meetings about the site all that winter and said "we'd love to start coding that stuff but we have to relaunch the Kane network first...don't worry, we'll be starting Olympics soon." Ha ha.

Six months later we were still launching the Kane network--we had done nothing on the Torino site because "key resources" had to make tricky changes to the Kane sites that we were told to do by people upstairs who "changed their mind" or "just didn't think things through" the first time. Before we knew it, it was Fall, we were still relaunching the Kane network and the OLY site was not started yet. Uh oh.

At this point I was asked "Why do you work here?" by my you-know-who and I knew I had to leave, not because I was scared of the work ahead, but because the stress and paranoia of working with that management team was making me ill. The situation was tough but I thought the team would pull it out with the help of the excellent people on the Tech side that had pulled it out last time.

Unfortunately, at this point The Network Who Shall Not Be Named obviously decided that it might be fun to make a little company in Minnesota squirm or maybe writhe would be a better word. Okay, it probably wasn't a malicious conspiracy by The Network, but it was a perfect storm of several new half-thought-out projects. The Network said all these projects must launch in December--the same time as the Olympics site!

This is where it gets really bad. Next part tomorrow.

The Olympics Again....oh the horror (Part 1)

You'd think it would be really exciting to work on the official Olympic web site for the Network Who Shall Not Be Named (henceforth called The Network). You would learn so much about the sports and about reporting on a global event. Your company and The Network would make you feel like you're a part of one of the most important events on earth. When the web site performed almost flawlessly your company would generously reward your work and The Network would gratefully flood your workplace with swag. And if you did the web site again it would be easy because everyone would know how hard it is and staff accordingly and you'd have all that documentation of how to set things up, etc.

NOTE: Widget employees that are sensitive to criticism of their company should stop reading NOW!

I'm a survivor of doing an Olympic web site for The Network and I'm watching, even as I write, my former coworkers struggle through the games that begin next week. Part 1 is about the last Olympics.

The first time it was a challenge that we proudly took on. Working with The Network is a bit like hacking your way through a jungle (take a step, get stopped, whack your way through, take a step, etc.) so setting up the hardware and software side of the site was difficult. On my side we were doing things with XML and XSLT that no one had done before.

That was cool, trying to do something really hard. Unfortunately, the company didn't want to invest much money. Oh, they hired some very high priced consultants to tell us what to do. They also fought paying on-call pay for people that were going to be....on call...for seventeen days and complained about bringing in food for people that weren't allowed to leave the building. There was no encouragement, no swag, and only threats from management and The Network.

For the eighteen days of the Olympics I worked twelve hour days (6 a.m. to 6 p.m.) five days a week, less time on the weekends, and took phone calls at night. I worked for 24 hours the first day when we anxiously watched to see if our system would actually work. I worked because I felt responsible. When I wasn't mad about the way we were being threatened instead of enouraged, I was excited.

It worked. We delivered. The site stayed up, features worked correctly, sales were correct, and results hit the web site within seconds of the event ending on live TV broadcasts. Yes, there were things that weren't perfect and we fixed them as fast as we could because we knew it was important, not because someone in Greece was yelling over the telephone. Sure the page views weren't that great but they didn't market it. As far as I was concered it was a tremendous success.

When it was all over we got....nothing. Well, we did get the hundred dollars of on call pay and the food. Yay. What about the celebration that our grateful management put on? Nope. I had to ask an executive to come and tell my group that they did a good job. The Network said...I really don't know what they said.

I left Widgets months ahead of the Olympics web site launching when we were already falling behind on our build schedule but I'm painfully aware of what's gone on. That's for the next entry a few days from now.

Outsource, Insource, ....Othersource?

I've done a lot of talking and thinking in the past few months about the things companies do to cut their expenses. First, a relative by marriage is now selling outsourcing to banks and sent me interesting article about how to successfully outsource. Second, I work at a company, in fact in a group, that does a lot of outsourcing and follows the developing trends in other-sourcing. Three, I've talked to people at Widgets quite a bit about their new outsourcing scheme.

I've actually been involved with outsourcing for years. At Widgets I regularly sent web site testing work to a very nice bunch of Ukrainians (Hi Yuri!). There wasn't much method to my outsourcing, just minimal test plans that they somehow interpreted. They did a good enough job and they were cheap. We were lucky.

But there is a method to other-sourcing or at least a company needs to use a method to make success more likely. The work needs to precisely defined and surrounding standards need to defined and explained so they’re really understood. All necessary information needs to immediately accessible to the...uh, other-sourcees and any decisions they need to make should be of a yes/no nature. If there's any ambiguity, they are either going to stop work or give you something that’s probably not what you want.

There are new trends in outsourcing. You don't have to go to India to save money, just find a company in rural America or, in some cases, a blighted American city. You can also have onsite people from an other-sourcing company who help with coordination but can also get you 24 hour coverage.

Will outsourcing make Americans poorer by stealing our jobs? Probably, but there's no way to stop it from happening in this business culture where a bad quarterly profit can tank a company. I do think there are more or less ethical ways to handle it, however. If a company lays off people and replaces them with outsourced resources, they suck and will probably suffer in the end if that other-sourcing doesn’t completely live up to expectations. If a company tries to replace growth with other-sourcing, it's still stifling hiring and career development of American workers but at least no one is losing their jobs. The least harmful way seems to be other-sourcing as a way to handle periods of peak demand and to provide around the clock work for short fuse projects or major projects with minor budgets and short time line.

What do you think?