An old dog teaching new tricks

I don’t know what it’s like in your home, but in ours we seem to have a constant flow of stuff that we’re getting rid of. Keen to not let anything go to waste, we use a combination of eBay, Freecycle and local Charity Shops. When selling things often it’s less about the money as you don’t often get much (although it always helpful) and more about ensuring that the item we no longer have any use for goes to a good home where it will be valued and appreciated.

Last week we finally sold a cot-bed that had been on eBay for a long time. It’s a lovely bed that was at my parents’ house for when their grandchildren (our kids and my niece) came to stay. I had dismantled it quite a while ago and listed it but there were no takers. And then out of the blue last week someone made an offer and I accepted. They paid online and we arranged a time for them to collect on the weekend.

The couple turned up, with the baby due in just over a month. Now I know that you don’t typically put the baby in the cot-bed straight away. They usually sleep in something considerably smaller for their first few months. But given that life was about to get quite hectic for them it made sense to get as much sorted before the baby was born.

The cot-bed had been stored in a shed for a while and had a few marks and a little discolouration. The expectant mother was a little unsure about their purchase now that she had the chance to look it over. Her partner was saying all the right things, about cleaning it up, and the orientation of the cot-bed in the room it’s going to be installed in. But we could tell that she was still unsure. My dad gave her a way out, saying that she doesn’t have to take it if she doesn’t want to – that it was entirely her decision. He also explained what a bargain they were getting – given how much it would cost to buy it new. This was all whilst her partner was loading the disassembled cot-bed into their car.

Once everything had been securely loaded, my father handed her a bag containing the bolts, saying something similar to: “if you’re going to take the bed then here are the bolts.”

After a little more discussion they decided that everything was OK and off they went.

Later in the day, my dad (who has been in sales for his entire career) asked me “When do you think the deal was done?”. I didn’t really understand the question – explaining that they had already paid for the bed before they collected it.

He explained to me that the deal was done when the woman accepted the bag of bolts from him. By taking the bag she unconsciously indicated that she had decided that the cot-bed was going to be OK for them.

And there I was thinking that there was nothing more that my dad could teach me!

A new approach to the success invoice

Who would have thought I’d find it so hard to make time to complete a success invoice every day? I guess a combination of work and family pressures meant that I missed a few days last week. So I’ve decided to do a weekly success invoice instead. At the start of the week I’ll post my plans, and at the end of the week review how well I did.

What difference do I want to make?	Support a Smarter Buildings meeting with a client – help to align client requirements with IBM and partner capabilities. Produce a client innovation success story Progress updates to our Innovation Masterclass course Continue to mentor the Extreme Blue team I am working with – in particular help them to keep focussed on the specific data requirements our client specified last week. Start to plan an internal idea online generation event focussed on bringing Agile practices to part of the business.
Successes this week	Completed a Taste of Agile course, which has inspired me to encourage the teams I work with to approach innovation in a more agile way. Completed a client innovation success story ready for internal publication Learned about Watson for Technical Support services – will look at how we can help clients benefit from this innovation
Value I’m adding	Provided a collection of innovation examples and resources to a colleague who is working on a proposal for a new client. Helped the Extreme Blue team gain clarity on some of their work and effected introductions to some people who can help them make further progress.
Key contribution this week	Ran a successful smarter buildings client workshop and gained agreement to define a Proof of Concept to be run in one of my client’s offices.
Who is benefiting from what I’m doing?	A student who is spending his summer with IBM shadowed me at the Smarter Buildings meeting – I think he learned a lot from this client meeting. Helped a colleague with her plans for a major client project

Success Invoice – 4th August – plate spinning can become a full-time job!

What difference do I want to make?	Help to make progress on an internal data analysis project Write-up a success story for an innovative cloud & security project some colleagues delivered for a client.
Successes today	Completed the success story – almost ready for publication; just needs a final review Agreed the scope & content for a Technology Innovation Exchange presentation.
Value I’m adding	Provided feedback about the members of a team I’m working with to their manager to help with their development & progress evaluation
Key contribution today	Agreed a plan for the internal data analysis project – and successfully logged-in to the server where the software will be installed (small victories!)
Who is benefiting from what I’m doing?	No immediate benefit today – however I expect that many colleagues will eventually benefit from the insights we gain with the data analysis project. Similarly, I hope that the success story will benefit many colleagues as & when they need to design similar solutions.

Success Invoice – 3rd August 2015 – a morning of progress and an afternoon of agility

What difference do I want to make?	Support the extreme blue team so that they have a successful client presentation. Share insights into Agile adoption
Successes today	Gained client agreement to take a proposal to the relevant business leader for their support. Agreed with a client that the Extreme Blue team can borrow some technology for their project – this will help make the demos more real
Value I’m adding	Shared some ideas and insights on Agile with a team who have a mission to help their client’s CIO to enable his team to become more Agile
Key contribution today	Supported the Extreme Blue team in their client show & tell session
Who is benefiting from what I’m doing?	The Extreme Blue team The client account team I was discussing Agile with

Success Invoice – 31st July – aiming to inspire and build confidence

What difference do I want to make?	Inspire a team of architects and specialists to start innovating
Successes today	Presented “What is Innovation and how to get started” to a team of architects & specialists Agreed with a Business Development colleague that he will accompany me to a client meeting on Monday to discuss taking a joint research project into production Produced a draft success story for an innovative cloud & security project that a client team recently delivered
Value I’m adding	Helped the Extreme Blue team to finalise their preparations for their client sponsor presentation on Monday
Key contribution today	Created a framework for a presentation that a senior colleague will be delivering at the next Technology Innovation Exchange
Who is benefiting from what I’m doing?	The architects & specialists I presented to The Extreme Blue team

Success Invoice – Thursday 30th July – a day of Extreme Blue

What difference do I want to make?	Help the Extreme Blue team I am mentoring to make progress with their project, and prepare for the client presentation next Monday.Host a colleague from Loughborough University, with whom we are conducing some joint research – make sure that he has everything he needs to gather the information he requires.
Successes today	Had a good planning session with the Extreme Blue team as well as a 1-2-1 mentoring session with one of the interns.My colleague from Loughborough had a very useful day observing the team interactions and conducting interviews. Agreed proposed definitions with some colleagues for a new internal innovation accreditation system
Value I’m adding	Provided the Extreme Blue team with insight into the most suitable presentation style for the meeting next Monday.Made some (hopefully) useful suggestions to other Extreme Blue teams to help them progress their projects
Key contribution today	Identified that the team were (understandably) nervous about the presentation; explained that these particular clients were very friendly and positive. Also coached the team on how to receive feedback.
Who is benefiting from what I’m doing?	The Extreme Blue teamLoughborough university research team

Success Invoice – Tuesday 28th July – a day of mentoring and planning

What difference do I want to make?	Support the student I am mentoring to help her with her academic and career choices Establish how we can collaborate effectively with a business partner so that our mutual clients can benefit from their technology. Share the approach I use to track the progress with our clients’ innovation agendas so that it can be aligned to other management systems
Successes today	Met a business partner and learned about the technology and services they offer. Agreed to include them in client innovation workshops where appropriate. Also suggested that some education be provided for colleagues to broaden the understanding within my organisation. Agreed a scope and plan for the demonstration of a new service at our next Technology Innovation Exchange (TIE) Agreed a plan for the TIE team to buddy with the presenters to help them prepare for their presentations and demos Learned about a new management system and explored some ideas about how to align it with the innovation management system.
Value I’m adding	Helped my mentee with her thoughts about career plans and developing professional relationships.
Key contribution today	Sharing the innovation management system with business operations colleagues
Who is benefiting from what I’m doing?	My mentee; the TIE attendees (in the future); internal business operations colleagues

Success Invoice – Monday 27th July

Recently I have found that there are so many demands on my time. This has caused my focus to be dragged from pillar to post. So I thought I’d use Robert Holden’s success invoice approach to help me concentrate on doing the things that really matter.

What difference do I want to make?	Support a colleague in deploying some sensor’s in a client’s retail store for a PoC of some location sensing technology. Gain agreement from various colleagues to move forward with an internal text analytics project Share IBM’s approach to innovation with a client to help them see IBM as an innovation partner
Successes today	We managed to get the sensors installed and some data flowing – but it’s not working perfectly – the challenge of working on bleeding-edge technology! We have a plan to work with the development team to find out what’s going on. Gained clarity on two related projects to perform some data analyss – along with the support of influential colleagues. Delivered my presentation on innovation and believe it was well received.
Value I’m adding	Mostly driving things forward – often I am a facilitator rather than a subject-matter expert. This leadership is often invaluable as without it things just don’t progress.
Key contribution today	Facilitating the installation of the sensors. It did involve climbing ladders and getting my hands dirty – it’s good to be doing hands-on work!
Who is benefiting from what I’m doing?	I reviewed the requirements document produced by a team of student interns. My feedback should benefit the students and the client for whom they are delivering the project. The development team for the sensor system should benefit from seeing the live data flowing – to help them improve the technology.

What do traffic lights in Munich have to do with IT programme governance?

When I was 15 I went on a 2-week school exchange to Germany. For those not familiar with such a program it provides students with time in a foreign country to help improve foreign language skills. You stay with a family and then host one of their kids later in the year so they can improve their English.

One day when we were in Munich city centre I noticed some displays above the traffic lights with numbers on them. According to one of the German students they were showing the speed you had to drive at to go through the next set of lights on green. I haven’t found much mention of this system – save for this random blog post. It seemed like such a good idea to me I was surprised not to see it take off in other cities. Who wouldn’t want to go through the next set of lights on green instead of sitting at a red stop light?

More recently, I have been talking with two of my clients about governance of IT programmes. Often people interpret governance as putting barriers in the way of projects, which need to be overcome. These are sometimes called gates. Typically they would take the form of periodic reviews, filling out forms, and presenting progress to a bunch of decision makers (governors?).

I think there is a better way – it requires more effort on the part of the governors but the end result is quicker and better quality delivery.

The premise of governance is that certain standards, methods and approaches need to be followed otherwise chaos will break out. And whilst chaos can be fun once in a while it doesn’t do much for successful delivery.

So I used the traffic lights in Munich as an analogy for good governance: take the time to work with project teams to help them get through each gate as smoothly as possible. The reviews should ideally just be confirmations that everything is running as it should be rather than a review that takes huge amounts of preparation and results in lots of rework before the project can proceed to the next stage.

So if you find yourself in a governance role – for example as a member of a Design Authority or Programme Board – please make sure that in addition to attending the required meetings that you take time to work with the projects you are governing to help them make smooth and steady progress.

The importance of rapport, listening, flip-charts, and having something useful to say

Yesterday was my first meeting with a new client. Coincidentally one of the people worked for a former client of mine, where we built an excellent relationship. This provided a great opportunity to get down to work rather than having to build rapport from scratch. What’s nice about rapport and credibility is that it can be passed on – because I had the trust of person A, it appeared to automatically be passed on to person B.  No doubt this was because persons A and B trusted each other. So I guess I had trust and rapport by association! Rapport is absolutely critical to gaining real insight into peoples’ challenges; without rapport a relationship can only be superficial, which means that exploring the issues can rarely be anything but superficial. You can see the symptoms but not necessarily the causes. Working in a very technical environment I find that people often delve straight into the technical detail. This works OK until a difference of opinion appears. Without rapport it can be a lot harder to resolve this disagreement. This must all seem quite obvious and self-evident. But that does make me wonder  why people still skim over building relationships given how important we all know them to be?

As this was a first meeting there was lots of listening for me to do. This isn’t just about sitting there, ears open and mouth closed. It’s certainly very important to be listening and not talking, but you have to ask questions too, to help everyone in the room explore the background and current situation. One of my favourite books about this topic is Time to Think. I recommended it to a friend who has a lot of knowledge and experience in coaching. She found it all quite obvious; however when I first read it several years ago, I found it made some fundamental differences to how I listen. As my coaching friend found nothing new I see this as a good thing – it reinforced what she already saw as being good practice.

If all I had done is listen then the meeting could have been seen as a success. I would have gained a good insight into a new client as well as building a relationship with a new person and strengthening another. But I like to make a little more progress than that. So where I felt appropriate I volunteered some of my own ideas and experience from working with other organisations with similar challenges. This involved showing a few diagrams that I happened to have on my laptop. But it also involved drawing diagrams on a flip-chart. The humble flip-chart is one of my favourite tools to enable listening and thinking. It enabled me to illustrate some of my ideas, such as organisational structures and process frameworks. But what is also did was enable everyone else in the room to do the same. Once I started drawing then the others joined in. No longer were we having a conversation; we were working together to explore issues and propose solutions.

Success Invoice – Friday 5th November 2010

What difference do I want to make?	Listen! Give my clients time to talk through their issues and think about them in a safe environment. Provide my insight and ideas on how to help my clients address their issues.
Successes today	Built a relationship with a new client Proposed some tangible next steps for us to collaborate on
Value I’m adding	Knowledge of the money saving opportunities of server consolidation. Ideas about how Enterprise Architecture could help my client gain some control over their IT infrastructure and define a technology strategy.
Key contribution today	Whilst I provided lots of ideas, I think my key contribution was listening, clarifying and challenging. People don’t often have an opportunity to think out-loud in a safe environment, which inhibits clarity of thought and deep analysis of issues.
Who is benefiting from what I’m doing?	My clients