Don't play telephone

Do you remember a game called “telephone”?  You know, the one where a group stands in a circle and one person whispers a message into someones the next person’s ear, then they into the next until it gets back to the first person?  The message changes… sometimes folks add in parts on purpose, and sometimes they just mis-understand what they were told.  The end result, however, is the message changes in (hopefully funny!) way.

In the game, that’s the point!  It’s fun to see what happens when multiple people are in the middle since you never really know what will come out the other side.  When you’re at work, however, this communication drift causes a LOT of problems.  This lesson will go over how to identify when you’re in a game of telephone and how to constructively resolve it.

There’s three things you want to do in these situations:

1. Get in direct contact with the person impacted

2. Let the reporter know you’re reaching out the impacted person 

3. Educate both parties on what to do in the future

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Step #1 - Connect

Getting in direct contact with the person impacted can be harder than it seems, as sometimes there is more than one person between you and them.  Frequently I see 2, 3 or sometimes more people in the chain, all “helpfully” passing along a message to someone else.  Unfortunately, as our game showed us, each node in communication introduces a chance for an error to be introduced, and the drift from the original message only increases each time it’s passed along.  To help with this, the first question I ask myself when I get a new request, whether it’s an email, instant message or ticket, is “who is this REALLY coming from?”.  For example, if one of my data analytics partners sends in a request to get a new team member setup with access, that new team member is really the person how needs help.  In that case, I’d connect directly with them to understand their needs, versus the perceived needs that are being reported.

Frequently the folks in the middle also don’t fully understand the request; they are, after all, filtering it through their own experience and ideas.  This can result in your understanding of what needs to be done being drastically different from what is needed.  Identifying, and connecting directly with, the originator of the request helps mitigate this risk substantially.

Step #2 - Update

Once I think I’ve identified the person impacted, I’ll connect to them directly, and also let the reporter know what I”m up to.  That second bit is critical; if they are unaware I’m helping they’ll keep coming after me.  Some quick examples:

• If it’s an email - I’ll move the reporter to CC or BCC and email the impacted person directly.

• If it’s an instant message - I’ll either let the reporter know I’ll be in touch with the impacted person, or get both of them in a group message

• If it’s in person - Similarly to an instant message I’ll let the reporter know what I’m up to, then connect with the impact person directly.

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Step #3 - Educate

Keep in mind the reporter is just trying to help their colleague out, they’re not intentionally making things harder for you.  This makes these situations great learning opportunities.  As part of your communication, you can let the reporter know how these situations ideally should be handled.  While the exact approach will differ by organization, I prefer for the person impact to be the one to report the issue.  Sometimes this isn’t possible, maybe they’re on vacation or unavailable.  That’s totally OK.  In those situations someone else should report it, but clearly indicate they’re passing along a message and include the impacted person on the email, message or thread.  This makes it significantly easier to follow up, and ensures everyone is aware of where they are.

Some examples of language I’ve used:

Example #1

“Hey Tim, thanks for letting me know Rebecca is having login issues.  I’m going to connect with her directly.  I appreciate you forwarding in her request, but please encourage folks to use our help desk (link here), it makes it a lot easier when they reach out directly”.

Example #2

“Hey Tim, Rebecca let me know you’re having problems running your TPS report.  More than happy to help out, but it would be helpful if you report these directly in the future.”

Being better at technical communication

I’m sure you can think of a discussion or email thread that you couldn’t really follow due to its content.  Maybe it was with a software engineer describing their code, or a lawyer explaining the complexities of labor law.  Regardless of the topic, parts flew over your head and you had to spend a good amount of effort going back to understand what happened.  This confusion is a breakdown in communication; specifically technical communication.

Technical communication is just communication around specialized or technical topics.  In addition to all the rules and guidelines around normal communication, it has the added complexity of needing to convey specialized knowledge.  This is particularly challenging when the audience doesn’t share the same background concepts or ideas (such as when you’re trying to explain how your system works to someone who’s never used it).  This is further compounded by the specific terms and acronyms that are used in different fields.

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I see many individuals running into challenges when they either don’t know how to apply technical communication skills, they apply them at the time or in the wrong way.  When this happens one, or both, parties, will miss important details of the message (at best) all the way up to damaging their relationship with that team.  More frequently this results in poor communication that requires additional followup to clarify what is meant.  I can think of many email threads that simply. Wouldn’t. End. because one or multiple individuals on it were not able to effectively translate their technical concepts.

In addition to needing to apply technical communication during synchronous communication - phone calls, zoom calls and the like - technical communication also needs to be applied to asynchronous communication - emails, documentation and bulletin boards.  Asynchronous can be more challenging since the reader only has the text that’s in front of them and  there’s no chance to clarify questions.  In general the approach I take is to write my documentation so someone with NO background would be able to follow along.  Assuming that my audience has no clue what I’m talking about helps me avoid assuming they’ll know background ideas and makes it a lot easier to include the right level of information.

Some other things that help with technical communication

• Define acronyms immediately - The first time you use an acronym, either spell it out and put the acronym in parenthesis “Three Letter Acronym (TLA)”, or do the opposite “TLA (Three Letter Acronym)”.  This gives the reader a good reference.

• Identify and define specialized terms - Depending on the format this could take the form of a glossary, an appendix or just some lines at the top of an email.  For example “Active Directory is a system we use to manage access and data about our users”.

• Include Reference Material - Depending on the audience and format I also like to include links, attachments, photos etc. to help provide more context. This could be a general systems diagram so everyone knows how the systems interconnect, a vendors documentation, or anything else to help your audience understand what you’re talking about.

On Perseverance

Perseverance, the ability to keep going despite hardships, is a very important skill to learn, and something I recently had a chance to practice.  On Friday I took what should have been a 4 hour exam… which lasted 5.5+ hours.  Instead of starting this (stressful) exam that I’d spent 8 months preparing for immediately, I was greeted with a black screen and a spinning beach ball.  Despite figuring out how to get help, I ended up waiting on hold for tech support.  For 2.5 hours.  Talking to chat bots. In circles.  At several points I considered just calling it and rescheduling (something that would set me back another two months).  

Instead, I took a moment to breathe and figure out my options… Everything basically amounted to waiting on hold for chat support… or phone support… or chat support again… and again and again.  I figured if I could just get the RIGHT agent on the phone, I’d get in and could take my exam.  It just took my not giving up.  Eventually, 2 hours later I found that agent, and my exam started.  8 questions in it immediately broke.  Again.  This was another chance to give up.  I’d already spent half my allotted time not answering questions, and who knows how much longer it would go on for.  Instead I chose the perseverance route; apply my previous strategy of reaching out again. And again. And again.

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This was not as easy as it sounds. Whatever chat system I was tied into would automatically send me a message “from the agent” every 3 minutes. It was something like “Thanks for your patience, I’m still looking into your issue”, that just repeated. After 40 minutes of non-responses I began asking if anyone was actually there, and they could type in literally ANYTHING other than the stock message to let me know. Eventually I hung up on that chat and opened another, and kept doing that until I found someone who could help me. The same thing happened to me on the phone; after 30+ minutes on hold an agent would pickup, tell me they’d fixed the issue, then hang up. I even asked one to stay on the line until I could confirm the issue was resolved, but they said they couldn’t.

Long story short I ended up passing that exam…. But not after getting a hands-on lesson in perseverance.  In this case it expressed itself in not giving up, in not saying “I give” and quitting, in continuing to look for an answer despite every avenue being non-helpful.  This is hard stuff… it would be SO much easier to just reschedule or do it later, but it wasn’t worth it to me.  Not only would I have to go through all the anxiety of prep AGAIN, all the waiting AGAIN, I’d have wasted almost 3 hours of my life on hold.

Situations like this crop up all the time.  We’re in meetings that we’re bored stupid in.  We have to work on projects that just… never… die.  Something fails and we lose several hours of work that we have to re do.  The challenge is not to get stuck on how annoying/stupid/etc the situation is, but instead of focus on what’s important; being present, completing our work, solving the challenge.

Domain Expertise

In the tech world we tend to focus on learning the tech.  Those of us working on any given system or tool want to drill into how it operates, what features it has and when they should be used.  This is true for NetSuite, or AWS, or InfoSec.  And there’s nothing wrong with making technical skills a focus of our job; after all we ARE the systems folks!  

Learning technical skills, however, shouldn’t (can’t!) be all we focus on.  We also need to stretch ourselves to understand the domain our systems exists in.  For SalesForce this would involve learning how sales teams operate.  What does any given Sales rep need to do or know on a monthly/week/daily/hourly basis?  Why do they (dis)like any particular aspect of SalesForce?  What policies does the Sales team have to follow?

While certainly not directly related to the system, questions like this help inform WHY and HOW the system can be used.  We don’t need to know as much as our customers about their process, but the more we know, the better we’ll be able to support them (personally I became a license health care broker to help accomplish this).  

Gaining Domain Experience

There’s many ways to help expand our domain expertise.  The simplest is simply through osmosis.  As we work on any given system, we’ll naturally learn a bit about the domain it exists in.  Working in NetSuite, for example, will expose us to charts of accounts.  SalesForce will expose us to a closing process.  Workday will expose us to hiring.  This is a natural first step for many folks since it’s basically impossible to miss; you can’t learn the system without picking up SOMETHING.  That said, this is only the beginning.

Getting to know your customers is another way to improve your domain knowledge.  Get them involved in testing, or have them show you how they use any particular screen.  Sit in on their team meetings and get a feel for how the team behaves.  This first-hand experience has several advantages, including giving you more domain expertise, but also helps build connections and puts a face to everyone.  Knowing Jimmy in sales is much more impactful than knowing some random user has problems.

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Training like your customer-base takes this a step further.  Go and get whatever certification or accreditation they need (like my example of becoming a certified benefits broker).  This will not only extend your baseline knowledge of that particular area, it will help you see things the way they do.  In the care of a credential or training you’re also rounding out your own experience and possible exposing you to new concepts.  This has the added benefit of (generally) getting you some street-cred with your customers.

Going even deeper you could even BECOME your customer.  I very rarely see folks taking this path since it is very intense and time consuming… but it does offer the most in-depth way to gain experience.  For example a software engineer might choose to implement a live customer, or a Salesforce rep may take some inbound calls.  While this does crank up the intensity a bit, it will really help show you what’s important, or annoying, or impactful for your customer base.

While there’s nothing wrong with not taking these steps, I find they help individuals make better informed decisions and allows them to develop better solutions to challenges.  Flexing ourselves this way also has the side-effect of helping us build better relationships, and learn something new about our tool.

Broken Comb Skillsets

A broken comb skill set refers to the shape a comb with missing teeth makes - some vertical lines and a horizontal one (and certainly doesn’t suggest the individual is broken!). They’re essentially an extension of the “T” skill shape, multiple in-depth areas with a (potentially) broad general base. This type of skillset is very interesting to work with, as they have multiple areas of expertise. While this is not without its challenges, broken combs can be very flexible and bring immense value to a team.

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The upside of a Broken Comb

Broken comb skill sets offer the advantage of multiple focus disciplines.  Due to these areas they can potentially reduce the need to bring in additional team members, or negate the need to bring in outside help.  By excelling in multiple areas they provide a lot of flexibility and are able to make a big impact on projects.  This is especially true if their areas are related (your tax and finance systems, for example) as they are able to easily support thos areas and understand the interconnections between them.

In addition to their areas of depth they are also similar to how a “T”-shaped skillset with a broad skillset of more general skills.  This general knowledge helps them bridge gaps between areas (even their own), and allows them to get a better handle on the big picture.  The mix of focus areas and general skills can make for some very versatile individuals, capable of not only handling technical areas, but also “softer” skill sets.

The downside of a Broken Comb

While not a rule, despite a Broken Comb shaped skill sets offer deeper expertise in multiple areas, it’s likely their depth isn’t as great as an “I”, or even a “T”.  This is simply due to not having as much time to dedicate to each one as those other types.  This may result in overconfidence, or stretching too far in those areas.  Have multiple focus areas can also detract from their overall impact as they may get pulled in too many directions to be truely impactful.

Similarly, the breadth of general skills may be limited as a lot of energy is put onto the areas of focus.  This leaves less capacity to developing general skills, or to developing them deeply enough to be at least minimally effective.  This can result in broken combs having narrower general skillset than their “T” shaped counterparts. 

Managing a Broken Comb

Understanding what any given Broken Comb’s focus areas are is important to fully using their talents.  Take time to understand where their interests lie, and what areas they choose to focus on.  This will not only allow you to be utilize them on projects, but also help the continue to improve their focus areas.  Knowing how wide (or narrow) their general skillsets are is also important.  Their wide range of skills can make it seem like they can handle anything, but knowing where the edges are is critical.

Broken Combs can also fit in incredibly well between teams, especially if there are folks with I-shaped sklil sets on either side.  A Broken Combs multiple focus areas allows them to (relatively) easily translate between groups as they share an understanding with each side.  This can also open opportunities to expand someone else’s skillsets and the Broken Comb can relate to them, and the new skill.

If you’re a Broken Comb

Take time to understand where the edges of your focus and general areas are.  Knowing your areas of depth allows you to further exploit and build those skills, and knowing your general areas will make it easy to see how things connect.  It will also help you better communicate to your team what you can do… and help avoid situations where you’re expected to be an expert but really don’t know.

Having multiple focus areas (plus generalized skills to round you out) will make you very popular. Be careful that you don’t get pulled into too many different directions. Take an active approach in shaping what work you take on to best maximize your interest and impacts.

T Shaped Skillsets

If an “I” shaped skillset is very deep in one area and not much else, a “T” shape is a skillset that’s deep in one area (the vertical part of the T) with some general knowledge of others (the horizontal part of the T).  Generally these folks have a broader range of interests or responsibilities than someone who is “I” shaped, resulting in a broader skillset.  These individuals may also have been on the path to be an “I” shape and made the conscious (or not!) choice to broaden vs. deepen their skillset.

I find “T” shapes to be good at putting together a broader picture, or investigating new areas (think a Business Systems Analyst, project manager, etc).  Their broad skillset allows them to more easily interface with other groups and understand new topics at a higher level, while their single deeper skill can have them either leading or assisting where an “I” shape would be.  These individuals can take the place of an “I” in some areas, but you need to be careful since the depth of the “T” tends to be shallower than that of an “I”.

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The upside of a T

T-shaped skillsets result in an individual to have one area of in-depth focus.  It also results in them having at least a passing familiarity with other areas of the business, systems or processes.  This allows them to dig into one area of expertise, while also making it easier for them to flex into other areas or to draw from their other experiences.  This more rounded approach can result in more novel solutions to challenges, or help break out of challenges than an “I” shape may get stuck on.

“T” shapes also tend to be more open to exploring new areas or learning new skills.  This makes them useful in situations where different teams or groups have to come together as they can “talk the talk” of both sides.  In addition, the depth of the “T” can have them serving as the technical expert as well, eliminating the need to bring in more resources.  While each individual and situation will have it’s own requirements, having someone who is more flexible on the team can be a huge help.  This deeper expertise also makes it easier for them to work with “I” shaped individuals in a similar field; they’ll very likely share many concepts, skills and ideas.

The downside of a T

While a “T” shape does allow for some in-depth expertise, it is uncommon that it will be as in-depth as an “I” shaped skillset.  This is generally due to the “T” shape drawing energy away to build the general skillsets, however, may also relate to the interest an individual has in any one area.  Some folks simply aren’t interested enough to learn EVERYTHING about a particular area, so use the time that would be spent drilling deep to expand into other areas.  This can be detrimental as the “T” shaped skillset may not be able to handle the complexity of some scenarios, requiring more resources.

While “T” shapes have a breadth of skills, the depth of many of them may be lacking.  This could be due to a lack of need (e.g. “I know enough project management to get by”), lack of resources (“I never got formal training) or lack of interest (“I started learning XYZ but got bored”).  This may result in situations where a “T” quickly gets in over their head.

Managing a T

As noted “T” shapes offer a lot of advantages.  Not only do they have a single deep skillset, they have many other skills that can be applied.  This makes them great for throwing at problems that relate to the area of interest as they’ll be able to apply multiple tools or ways of thinking to the challenge.  This may also be hazardous since they may end up over their head.  Unless they’ve learned to raise a flag for help (or are closely watched) this can quickly lead to big problems.

The depth of a “T”’s area of focus may also not be as deep as you need for any particular task.  While they may seem to know enough, they can quickly get blind-sided by some obscure or specific thing that they don’t know how to handle.  While this can be mitigated by their broader skills (e.g. knowing how to ask for help, how to research the problem, etc.) it can lead to project delays or other challenges.  Until you’re at a stage where you can gauge their comfort, it may be beneficial to regularly check in to see what support they need.

You can support a “T” by learning if they want to deepen their focus, or expand their range.  Deepening their focus may involve getting them more specialized training, pairing them up with an “I” (or another “T”) who has the same focus, or letting them take on more challenging work in that area.  This will give them a deeper focus, but may also reduce their breadth.  Supporting their range could involve assigning them to work on projects related to their focus (e.g. if they’re a lawyer put them on something just outside their speciality), or embedding them on other teams to learn how they work.  This will increase their breadth, but may reduce the depth of their focus.

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If you’re a T

Understanding where your focus is and how wide you want your breadth to get is important to being a successful “T”.  Knowing the limits of your focus is critical to knowing when to ask for help or call in support, and will also help you learn where you can expand (if you choose to).  Knowing how wide your skillset goes will help you avoid flinging yourself off the deep end.

You may also end up being the swiss army knife on your team - the one person who can be counted on to assist anywhere.  Clearly communicating those boundaries to your team will also help you avoid situations where you’re expected to perform but have no clue what’s happening.  While your interest and skills may be broad, they do have limits!  That said, these can be great opportunities to expand your general skills since they’ll be new.

"I" shaped skillsets

Individuals with an “I” shape of skills have one focused their time on delving deep into a single skill.  This means they’ll know everything about a specific tool, concept or area, which tends to make them excellent resources for those topics.  This focus can, however, lead to other skills not being as strong as they could (or should) be.  For example, a technical resource who is incredibly knowledgable about yoru system, but cannot effectively communicate, or a lawyer who knows everything about their area but is incredibly abrasive in interpersonal interactions.

“I” shaped skillsets may not be very common in smaller environments, if only because the level of challenges that crop up on a regular basis don’t necessitate their skills.  Frequently this results in these individuals working as consultants or contractors so they can stay busy.

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The upside of an I

Folks with I shaped skillsets are incredibly important to successfully completing large and complex projects.  This is mainly due to their in-depth understanding of the topic at hand, which tends to allow them to either foresee challenges before they crop up, or deal with them if they do.  While “T” shaped folks or “broken combs” may also possess some amount of skill in those areas, they rarely get to the depth that someone with an “I” shaped skillset can delve.

This means folks with an “I” shaped skill set are great to throw at large, complex problems that fit in their wheelhouse.  Their experience and background will give them a good idea of where to begin tackling the problem, and since they’ve done it all before they’ll know what steps need to be taken and when.  Their innate desire to learn about that topic will also result in them continuing to sharpen their skill set, either through formal training, experimentation or networking with others in their field.  This makes them a great resource for trying new things and getting the most out of their work.

The downside of an I

Given the immense amount of time and focus it takes to develop a single set of skills this deeply, “I” shaped skillsets tend to leave folks lacking in some areas.  When unrecognized this can lead to some severe challenges with projects, as this individual will keep chugging along their path without realizing other areas may need attention.  For example, understanding the need to communicate changes to a project’s scope is incredibly important, however, if I’m entirely focused on a technical buildout I may not share that information in time.

The extreme depth of skillset an “I” shape offers also can make it hard to find one.  This is less a challenge for that person, and more for someone seeking those skills.  This can lead to increased market demand, as well as scarcity (think back to how hard it can be to find an expert in some smaller fields).  The focus on one particular area may also blind this individual to learning about other areas, potentially leading to not fully understanding how their work interacts.

Managing an “I”

Managing an I

The best advice I can provide here is to learn to identify when someone has an “I” shaped skill set and where that skillset ends.  Theres a number of signs that will help indicate an “I” shaped skillset:

• Long history with one technology, concept, etc. - Individuals who have specialized over a number of years in one field may tend to be “I” shaped.

• Disinterest in other areas - Not expressing interest in other disciplines, ideas, etc. while focusing entirely on one is also a good indication.

Knowing where these edges are allows you to find ways to support them, whether it be through integrating them with a team of “T” or “broken combs” to help fill out the gaps, or someone skilled in managing “I” shapes.  You can also look for groups of “I” shapes and have them work together.  This can result in multiple folks with deep skill sets playing off each other and performing great work… you just need to be careful they all aren’t blind to each others areas.

Being direct, and repetitive, with communication can help avoid potential problems as well as folks in the “I” shaped bucket sometimes end up assuming others will fill in the gaps, or simply forget to take specific actions (e.g. communicating updates).  Consistently connecting with them (or putting them on a team that’s stronger in those areas) can help maximize their impact.  Helping ensure their schedules are cleared can also be helpful as it allows these folks to focus their time.

If you’re an “I”

Similar to someone managing an “I” the best thing you can do is to be aware of where your skill sets end.  Knowing this boundary will help you work with a team (since you can call out where someone else needs to step in), and where you can choose to improve.  Knowing the depth of your skill is also important, as many folks will turn to you for all the answers about a specific area.  While you may be a super-expert, there’s always *something* you don’t know… and know that edge is just as important and knowing everything else.

Asking for feedback on how to improve your overall performance is also a great (if not uncomfortable) idea.  There’s no expectation that you master other areas or take on more work, but there may be some simple and straight forward things you can do to help keep things running.

Skill Shapes

Everyone is different (citation needed).  This part of our reality impacts every aspect of our interaction with folks, but in this particular piece we’ll look at how it impacts our work.  There are many different ways to try and quantify or qualify our differences, from things like MBTI personality assessments, to background degrees, to more.  Here, we’ll focus on our skillsets, and how our understanding of others (And our own) can impact our work.

One straightforward way to look at skill sets is to group them into “T”, “I” and “Broken Combs”.  These three classifications are useful to understand where an individual’s strengths lie, and how they can be best utilized to tackle any given challenge.  They can also be used to dig into past projects or events to better understand why things went the way they did.  I’ll start with a high-level of each of these, then dig into them more in the coming weeks.  Note that none of these is necessarily better or worse than any other - they’re just tools to help understand people a bit better (yourself included!).

Skill Shapes

I-shaped people

I (like the capital I or lowercase l) shaped people tend to have one deep skillset… and not much else.  These individuals are valuable where in-depth knowledge is needed for a particular area - specific programming languages or systems, business processes etc.  In my experience I-shaped people tend to be a bit more senior in their career or area, and likely ended up choosing to focus on a particular skillset because they find it interesting, or have a particular talent for it.  Note that this extreme specialization can make it challenging for them to adopt new concepts/ideas, which may lead to blind spots developing.

T-shaped people

T-shaped individuals are similar to I-shapes, in that they have one specific skill they’re much better at (the vertical line in the “T”), however, they also possess at least a passing familiarity with several other skills (the vertical line in the “T”).  This broader exposure of skills allows them to more easily flex between assignments, or to more easily interface with other groups as they may know some background concepts or parts of their systems.  Note that because they also possess a broader skillset, their in-depth knowledge may not be as deep as someone who is “I” shaped.

Broken Combs

Like T-shaped people, broken combs possess basic knowledge in a broad set of skills.  They differ from T-shaped people because they will possess at least 2 skills in more depth (this is where that name comes from… imagine breaking most of the teeth out of a comb).  This allows them to be subject matter experts in several areas, while still maintaining general knowledge of others.  Similar to a T-shape, however, their depth of knowledge in those areas may not be as great an I shaped person.

Each of these shapes offers its own insights, and I will be delving into each of these shapes over the next few weeks. Like many concepts these are not intended to limit or restrict an individual… instead they’re intended to be used to better understand how an individual or team will act (or to explain how it got to a specific situation).

On Forests

While it can be incredibly gratifying and satisfying to immerse oneself in details, keeping an eye on the bigger picture is also incredibly important to success. Not only does understanding how your contributions fit into the grand scale help you understand your work, it also helps you identify and correct potential problems. The challenge is remembering to look up every once in a while and seeing what the spread looks like.

Zooming out

One pitfall many folks fall into is assuming that your manager/director/leadership will be the ones to handle the big picture. They do, after all, sit behind a Bigger Desk. In many ways this is not a bad thought or approach; it’s literally their jobs to concern themselves with the big(ger) picture. This, however, doesn’t excuse those of us working on the details from also understanding, at least to a small degree, that larger picture as well. This expectation also goes both ways; those leaders are also expected to understanding, at least to some degree, how the details work.

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Ensuring everyone involved is at  least aware of the greater picture has a number of benefits - 

• Seeing how your contribution fits in - Knowing that the really boring and tedious spreadsheet work you do will help drive down cost, or make someone else’s life better makes it MUCH easier to accept that work.  Not having this knowledge can result in you internalizing negative feelings around it.

• Avoiding potential problems - Knowing where a project should be headed ,or what it is intended to do, can help you sniff out potential problems before they show up.  This can take the form of helping you rule out specific approaches, altering leadership to specific things and more.

• Broaden skillsets - Most of our time is spent in our specific areas of focus (which is good, it’s why we’re there!).  Getting exposure, and awareness, to the greater picture helps us expand our skillsets, understandings and connections.  This, in turn, rounds us out and helps us be better at our specific area of focus.

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Finding ways to keep an eye on the bigger picture can seem daunting… after all, most of the we’re just focused on our small area of the project.  There are some easy ways to see what else is going on at other levels:

• Just ask - The simplest way I’ve found to learn about the higher levels is just to ask.  Ask around your team and see what you can learn about your project.

• Get involved - Similar to asking, get involved with other aspects of your project. If you’re a sales specialist maybe get time with the operations team to see what they’re doing. If you’re on the tech side, talk to Finance. Something as simple as attending one of their status meetings, or asking them to show you their system can give you a great idea of how they operate.

Annnd a bit further

While learning about the greater forest does take some time and energy, the return is more than worth it. Not only will you get to expand your own skillsets and knowledge, you’ll also help keep the project moving in the right direction. So go ahead, take a moment to stop looking at the trees and see the forest.

On trees

Details are important, it’s where the devil is (citation needed). Details are what allow a plan to come into focus and and idea to have impact. Without them we cannot fully shape what we’re working on, and can never really be sure we’re done with our task. Despite this, we frequently fail to fully understand the details on what we do. We embark on tasks without taking the time to fully examine the minutia that defines our work. Instead, we focus on the higher-level portions - concepts, ideas - that rely on the detailed work to really stand out.

On one hand I can completely understand the desire to avoid really getting into the details… it’s tedious.  It can be boring.  It takes time… and there’s SO much of it.  Even what seems to be a “simple” project contains a ton of details when you zoom in.  Asking questions like “who do we talk to about X”, or “what specific steps are needed to complete this task” makes those “simple” projects seem more complex… after all, we started with just installing a new piece of software, why does that have more than one step?

While it is true getting into details can make projects seem to stretch out, the time is more than worth it for a number of reasons.

• Understanding the whole picture - Taking time to understand the details helps flesh out the entire picture you’re looking at.  It’s similar to looking at a painting and noticing something new… suddenly you understand a new perspective on what the artist wanted to capture.

• Avoiding pitfalls - Knowing the trap is there is the first step to avoid it, and investing energy in the detail work will help uncover potential problems that may have otherwise remain hidden.  While identifying and planning for these challenges adds more time to your calendar, it will pay off by avoiding the need to fix those problems later.

• Improving your skills - Getting into the details also helps you expand your skillset.  You’ll find things you didn’t know were there, or connections suddenly become obvious.  Like any skill, over time you’ll also get better at defining the detailed work, which will reduce the amount of time it takes to reap the benefits of this exercise.

On the other hand, however, I find it baffling when folks consciously avoid the details.  I’m not suggesting that everyone involved in a project needs to be at the most granular level (indeed, executives need to exist at a high level and tend not to have time for detail work), but the project as a whole needs to be aware of details.  Even something as simple and double checking settings on an email account should not be taken for granted (unless you want the whole company to see what’s in there…).  

You can always take 15 minutes to kick around your projects details with your team.  Ask them what’s missing from the plan, and then go find that devil.

On Negative Examples

To preface this piece - negative examples are about finding attributes, outcomes, etc. that you choose to avoid, not necessarily things that have failed.

Frequently we look around a good example of what we want to do.  We find some project, or team, or event that was insanely successful and point at it as a model to follow.  This is a great approach since we can learn from that things success, and then build on it.  It is, however, also important to find negative examples - things that didn’t go the way you want, or things you don’t want to do - to learn from.  These both teach you what can go wrong, but also help provide a better definition to the shape of what you want.

Filling in the edges

Just like how negative space in artwork can define interesting shapes (or even the artwork itself), negative examples at work help us define our outcome.  They allow us to look at another project/outcome/team/whatever and make more informed decisions on how we want to operate.  As noted above, this doesn’t necessarily mean those projects/outcomes/teams are not effective or working properly… just that you choose a different route.  Some examples:

• Methodologies - Agile project management makes a lot of sense…. In certain circumstances.  Many projects, however, will not benefit to the same degree, and some may even suffer.  Watching another project struggle with the wrong methodology can serve as an example for your work, and what to avoid.

• Team structure - How teams are setup differs widely, both between and within organizations.  Looking at other orgs will help you determine the shape of yours.  Maybe the People team has a great structure that’s super successful for them, but for some reason wouldn’t work in Engineering.  Noting that difference, and being able to point out why it wouldn’t be good for your team, will help avoid

• Documentation - While there are some more standardized ways to document material, at some point it comes down to specifically how a team operates, and choices they make in cataloging information.  Understanding why another group’s decisions wouldn’t be the best for your needs will help you better shape what would be best for you.

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When finding negative examples it is important to keep any judgement of good/bad or any blame out of your assessment.  The intention is to help identify what the best solution for your particular need, not to pass judgement on how someone else operates (which may be best for them).

Planning to (not) Fail

Failing to plan

is planning to fail

It’s a rather straightforward idea, and I’d bet most of us have heard that quote at some time, but it seems like many of us don’t really understand it, or at least we don’t put as much energy into it as we should.  Planning is one of those things where you can do TOO much of it; indeed, many daily tasks don’t really need much, if any.  That said, anything bigger, or more complex, definitely benefits from more planning.  To help keep things simple, I try to break planning into three areas… from smaller to bigger - my week, projects and my career.

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For your week

Before the week begins (generally on a Sunday) I take time to review what’s coming up.  This involves going over my calendar, project tracking system (e.g. Asana, JIRA, sticky notes, etc), emails, etc. to see what’s coming up.  I spend a bit of time reviewing my recurring meetings (one on ones, team meetings, etc) just to ensure I’m up to date on the agenda and plan, but I particularly go through my non-recurring meetings.  These can sneak in over time, so I’ve found it’s very important to dig into them.  Where possible I rearrange things to make better sense of my time, for example I cluster 30 minute meetings to give me more blocks of time to work, or I bow out of things I”m not needed for.  This helps me better focus my time during the week, and lets me identify areas that need particular help.

For a project

Individual projects also get their own planning attention.  This can range from scheduling out meetings with vendors, to thinking through how to handle various stakeholders, to mapping when deliverables are needed.  While it can be annoying and a bit time consuming, the energy spent on continually improving project plans has consistently paid off in terms of better outcomes, less stress and avoiding mistakes.

I make a point to put project planning onto my calendar on a weekly basis as an event.  This ensures I’ve got the time blocked off, and also lets others know I value and prioritize this work.  I also send out weekly project updates (depending on the project these can be as short as a one-line update or as long as a page).  Writing these not only keeps everyone up to date (assuming they read them!), but also forces me to look at my portfolio and really understand what’s going on.  Time time helps support my overall project planning as I’m constantly examining what’s going on

If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” ~Yogi Berra

For a career

Planning where we are going in our career is one of the longest things we can plan for.  These types of plans generally span years, if not decades, and can seem very daunting to put together.  I try to break them down into very distant, fuzzier plans, and slowly bring up the clarify and focus as I get closer to today.  I tend to not get any closer than 1 year from now, as project or weekly planning can handle that time frame, but understanding the bigger picture is critical to the rest.  How can I decide which project to go after if I don’t know where I want to be in a year or five?  Having that knowledge gives you a lens to focus your efforts, something that helps sort through everything and provide guidance on what you should do to attain your goals.

Bring Solutions

“Don’t bring your manager problems. Bring them solutions.”

We’ve all been in situations where we’ve found something that needs to be done/fixed/corrected/etc.  Our kneejerk response to finding these things is to point them out, to tell our manager/coworker/spouse that we found a problem.  This isn’t a bad thing... After all, we’re flagging a problem for others, and that’s the second step to getting it solved (number one being identifying there’s something wrong at all).  Indeed, many folks don’t even take the first step of identifying things that need fixing, which itself is a fascinating topic.

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The weakness with this approach however, is it’s passive.  We’re telling everyone “Hey, I found something broken”, and nothing else.  There is certainly value in this, since now others are aware of the thing, however, you’re basically just making work for other people.  Now that it’s a known problem, your manager/team/parents/whoever, need to figure out what to do about it.  Suddenly someone else now has move work on their plate… work that you basically gave to them.

Bringing solutions

Instead of pointing at a thing and saying it’s broken, instead point out how you’re going to fix the problem.  For example, instead of “We scheduled the wrong flights for our vacation”, try something like “I noticed our flights were for the wrong dates, I’ve already emailed the airline to get them changed”.  Or how about instead of “All of these new hire records have the wrong hiring manager”, try “I’ve found that 54 new hires have the wrong hiring manager, here’s a list of their correct ones that I’d like to update”.

I always try to think through what I would like to get if the problem was brought to my attention and work backwards from there before I send out any communication.  Is there background info I should be including?  Are there statistics or other numbers that would be helpful (e.g. the total number of errors, people impacted, etc)?  Are there other folks that should be informed or brought into the discussion?  These questions help me shape what I pass along, and help shorten the time from “see thing broken” to “thing is fixed”.

What’s in it for you

This approach lets others know about the danger, and also demonstrates you’ve thought it through and have a fix in place.  You’re both saving them time by presenting a fix, and also demonstrating your initiative/skill/etc in fixing it.  By presenting both at once you’re also giving them an opportunity to weigh in… maybe they have a different fix in mind, or some new approach they could teach you. Regardless, you’ll end up in a more positive spot overall… either having solved the problem yourself, or gaining something valuable as a result.

You Gotta Ask

“Better to be thought a fool for a moment than to remain ignorant for your lifetime”

I’m not 100% sure where I first heard that quote, but it has helped me immensely both in my personal and professional lives.  We’ve all had those situations where we’re not 100% sure what someone said, or what they mean… or even if they’re talking to US.  We’ve all also had that lingering thought of “well, I don’t want to sound stupid….”, so instead of asking a question, we keep our mouths shut.  And we’re lesser for it.

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Our ego’s are incredibly annoying things.  While they do have some positive qualities (helping us acknowledge when we succeed, being a CLEAR signal for failures, etc), here I’m more interested in their negative qualities as it relates to the quote above.  Specifically, our fear that our ego will be hurt if we ask a “stupid” question.  There’s many thoughts on “stupid” questions (see if you can figure out which one I ascribe to based on the quotes), ranging from “there’s not stupid questions, only stupid people” to “there’s no such thing”.  Regardless of one’s philosophical approach to them, however, we still fear asking one, because it can change how others perceive us.

Speak up

This perception is heavily influenced by the culture of the group we’re with (e.g. teams with higher psychological safety will likely perceive less threat by asking questions), but that inner fear can still exist.  Knowing how to overcome that fear is an essential skill, that not only helps you get better at asking questions, but can avoid some amazingly terrible situations.  In each of these examples (and by no means is that a complete list!), taking a few moments to speak up can avoid a world of hurt.

For example:Not getting clarification on what someone needs from you… then delivering the wrong thing.

• Not asking for follow up information on a potential risk… and then having to deal with that risk.

• Not asking how to take your medication and taking the wrong dose.

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In addition to help avoid potential downsides, speaking up and asking for clarifications also helps improve how others perceive you.  Asking questions about the topic at hand tells others you’re paying attention to what’s going on.  (While I’d like to think everyone always pays attention in meetings, somehow I don’t think that’s the case).  By extension, this signals you’re interested in the topic, which is always a good thing to show.  

Asking questions also helps others understand your level of comfort and experience with the topic.  I’m not suggesting that asking questions will make others think you’re inexperienced and a fool, but rather the questions you ask will help them know where you best fit into the solution.

Personal Growth

Questions will also help you expand personally.  Not only will you learn something new (or avoid potential problems), you’ll get valuable practice asking questions.  This sounds silly, but the more you ask clarifying questions, the more comfortable you’ll get with asking questions.   This in turn, will give you more access to knowledge, and help you improve overall.  So ask away, you can never chase away too much ignorance.

Keep communicating until they tell you to stop

Communication, like breathing, is one of things that humans must absolutely do in order to survive (citation needed).  Since we’re born until we die we’re constantly communicating something, in some way.  This means we’re effectively practicing this skills all the time… which only makes it more interesting that we’re all (generally) so bad at it.

90%

They (PMI in this case) tells me that 90% of project management is communication.  I would further this, and say that 90% of our jobs, and general existence in reality, is communication.  We tell our loved ones we miss them.  Our children communicate that they’re hungry.  Our co-workers communicate status updates.  Even NOT communicating can be perceived as communicating (after all, ignoring someone tells them something…) (also, if you don’t notice someone is trying to communicate, you’re effectively communicating to them you’re oblivious).

On the plus side, we use this skill ALL the time.  This would suggest that we should be getting better at it as we go.  On the downside, we’re rarely consciously trying to improve this skill, meaning all that practice time is effectively wasted.

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Shooting free-throws in basketball is a great analogy.  Once approach would be to just continually shoot the ball again and again and again.  Another approach would be to shoot the ball, then stop and honestly think about what you could do better (or not do at all).  The first approach might get you more repetitions, however, the second will give you conscious improvement.  Sure, it’s a bit of a pain to stop and critically examine yourself (not to mention ego-brusing at times), but the feedback gives you much better results.

Communication is no different.  Many of us get TONS of reps in during the week… but many of us also fail to stop and think about how we can make those reps better (When was the last time you asked yourself if you’re communicating the right way?).

Repeat

One of the best pieces of advice I got on how to improve communication is to simply keep doing it until someone tells you to stop.  Need help with a project?  Keep bringing it up in different ways at different times until you get help.  Need to let someone know when you’re available and you’d like to talk?  Keep talking/texting/emailing until they get the point.  This doesn’t mean send them an email every 10 seconds, but keep up the communication until you’re heard, and you know they heard you.

The good news is this skill is relatively easy to practice.  The next time you need to communicate something you feel is important, pick at least 5 different times (and ideally different ways) of communicating that.  One example of this:

1. Bring up your idea/need/etc. During a team meeting

2. Send a followup email immediately after the meeting.

3. Drop a slack message to folks the next day

4. Two days later send another followup email

5. The day after that bring it up in your meeting again

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The point here is to ensure others received, and more importantly, understood, your message.  By hitting them at different times in different ways you help ensure you cut through the noise (e.g. the 10000 other emails they have), and solicit any questions.  And if all else fails, at the very least you have a great “paper” trail of your attempts.

Flexibility

In any given day I find myself coaching team members, managing projects, investigating bugs, being blindsided by new asks, and many many other things.  Looking back, any given day represents a crazy mix of things, and juggling them all is certainly challenging.  Despite the insanity of it all, I only really find problems when I try to control the flow things, or when I push back directly and reject doing something.  Fortunately the best approach to this isn’t to just accept ALL work that comes my way, but rather to be flexible in what (and how) I accept.

Many roles these days are anything but specific.  Job descriptions provide a rough outline of what a role is, but they can never fully capture what you’ll be doing if you get the job.  Even if they’re fairly well written, they tend to include something like “duties as assigned”, which leaves a HUGE amount of room for other responsibilities to creep in.  This craziness isn’t even touching the randomness that is smaller companies and/or startups!

Handling multiples

The wide range of randomness heading our way requires that our approach shifts from one of “I only do XYZ” to “I do a range of things”.  The trick to finding a good balance within this range isn’t to remain rigid in how we accept things, but rather to be more flexible in what we accept, and more importantly, flexible in how we reject things.  This may be further compounded by who is asking us to help out… for example if a VP is requesting help it can be a smidge harder to dodge that than someone else.

Being flexible in what work or responsibilities we accept has several benefits.  Exposure to new areas/teams/ideas helps improve our overall skill sets.  This can make our current jobs easier (by providing better context, resources, etc), and also opens doors that we may otherwise not have looked at (e.g. cultivating an interest in a new area of the company).  Flexibility also improves our relationships, either by exposing us to people we wouldn’t otherwise work with, or by giving us time to deepen existing relationships.

Being flexible in how we reject work is equally (if not more!) important.  There are times when you’ll decide you can’t/don’t want to take something on.  When asked (or “asked”), straight up saying “no”, while direct, will likely be seen negatively (e.g. “you’re not a team player”), potentially damaging your reputation but also reducing the likelihood you’ll get help in the future.  Instead you need to find a way to bend out of the way.  Suggesting alternatives (“Did you consider asking so-and-so? They’re really good at this”) and pointing out better ways to do the thing (“Instead of manually doing this, did you consider automating it?”) are great approaches that avoid the need for YOU to do the thing, while still helping ensure it can get done.

Flexibility also means being open to changing how you operate.  Especially now with many folks working from home we’ve had to change up how we work.  Resisting the need for video conferencing is basically impossible, so instead of fighting these, flex, and use them.  Sure, it requires some effort and creativity to find new ways to operate, but by making time to update team norms, meeting schedules, and other aspects of work you’ll avoid the discomfort of trying to fight the tide.

Make Time to Connect

Frequently I find myself either directly involved in, or watching, a chain of emails/texts/messages going in circles.  One person asks a question, which is misunderstood or requires followup, which leads to more questions and goes around and around and around.  It is incredibly easy to keep that chain going… after all, we know the other end is reading them, and we think we can get to agreement if we just. keep. emailing.  

Unfortunately this is rarely the case… At best, this results in wasted time as it takes several cycles to get to mutual understanding.  At worst, it results in damaged relationships.  A much quicker (and simpler) approach is to break the cycle and connect - pick the phone (or jump on zoom) and take the 5 minutes to explain things in person.

Tangled

Communications technology is a weird thing.  It allows us to instantly send messages, but weirdly this results in us being further apart instead of closer together.  This could be due to the asynchronous nature of text communication (there’s no way to tell when the receiver will read it), in the static nature of the communication medium (sarcasm, for example is REALLY hard to pickup ion text), or in the assumption that other folks will “just get it”.  Regardless, email or comment wars frequently crop up, with individuals endlessly sending messages hoping ONE of them will make sense to the other side.

We’ve all read a response from someone and wondering how the heck they didn’t understand our message.  We took so much time carefully crafting our message, only for them to somehow miss the point.  So we take more time to carefully craft a response… which is received in a similar manner on their end.  This chain eventually becomes self-sustaining and will continue indefinitely unless someone breaks the cycle (the worst I’ve seen was a ticket with 150+ comments on it running in circles).

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The problem with these cycles isn’t that the folks involved aren’t smart, or well intentioned, or anything about the person.  It’s about the medium and some assumptions we make about it.  Tools like email, slack and @ mentions are great for quickly sending a message around the world… unfortunately they also fail to capture a great deal of information.  Tone is hard to encode in text… so is sarcasm, body language, and basically all of our body language.  We tend to not see verbal communication run in as many circles because we get that additional information… we can see if someone is confused, or more easily pickup on frustration.

We also make assumptions about how we communicate and how others will interpret what we say.  On our end we assume that our message is understandable.  For ourselves this is (hopefully!) true, after all, we wrote it.  For someone else, however, this may not be as correct.  We all filter communication through our own experiences, and others rarely, if ever, have the same experiences we do.  This ties directly into how someone else would interpret our message.  Over time we get more familiar working with folks, but even WITH experience we can send a confusing message.

Finding Clarity

The trick, then, to breaking the circle of endless text communication is to step outside of it and use a different method.  Getting back to a place where non-text information is shared (phone, video chat, etc.) will reduce or eliminate many of the problems pure-text conveys.  By making communication more real-time we also provide immediate opportunities for the other parties to ask clarifying questions or point out challenges immediately.  By both reducing the feedback loop, and providing a richer communications environment, we can make our connections much more impactful.

No Extra

Extra, in some cases, is good.  Extra guac? Please.  Extra time to sleep in? Sure.  Unfortunately on a project, extra can be bad.  At best adding extra to things distorts our view of the request and makes it easy to lose sight of what is actually needed.  At worst it totally derails a project and diminishes its value to your customer.

Adding extra into our work does several things… some obvious, others much less so.  I find that instead of making things better or providing a better output, these additions detract from my deliverable.  Here’s several ways how:

Energy drain

Working on extra stuff that is “better” than our objective distracts us from what we should be doing.   We can tell ourselves we’re helping, or that we can make up the time, or that the actual request is easy to do, we’re just making it harder to complete our objective.  At best we end up putting less energy into our objective, which results in risk that we missed something important, or that the product isn’t as strong as it could be.

Diffused Focus

Working on extra necessarily pulls our focus away from what we should be doing.  Instead of critically examining our request for potential flaws, we’re day-dreaming about something unrelated.  This split focus allows us to make mistakes we otherwise would catch.  Even worse, this can result in less time to figure out the “extra” we thought was so valuable… so instead of delivering what was asked we deliver one thing that was asked that may or may not work, and another thing that wasn’t asked for of questionable use.

Missed Target

Working isn’t done in a vacuum, and we as individuals (and sometimes teams) can’t know everything.  When we make a choice to add extra to a request we’re gambling that we know what’s “best” or “right”.  While we might get lucky and deliver something that is, in fact, useful or valuable, what happens if we’re wrong?  Suddenly we have to explain why we wasted time NOT working on what someone wanted to build something that’s useless.

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I find it fascinating how hard it is to only do what is asked, and nothing more.  It should be an incredibly easy thing to do, but the allure of making it “better” is very hard to resist.  As funny as is it to say, it takes discipline to stay inside the lines.  It is true there will be times when we can push on those lines, and sometimes help redraw them, we need to be very careful not to wander outside them.  Doing so distracts us from our objective, and instead of building us up, only tears us down.

Self-Awareness

Being aware of ourselves is one of the most important skills that we can learn.  That said, from my experience it also happens to be one of the harder skills for people to learn.  Figuring out a new technology or sales technique is easy - we attend the training or we tinker with the tool.  Figuring out how YOU work, what makes you frustrated, what your habits are, however, doesn’t have a class or a seminar.  It’s not something you can REALLY tinker with or take apart.  Instead, it requires a level of critical thinking and truthfully examining yourself. This is, to say the least, a bit daunting.

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On the up-side, there are many versions of things like the Meyers-Briggs (you know, that one that tells you what color you are, and how your color interacts with other colors?) test to help teams uncover their inner operations.  (Or maybe that’s the MBTI, I always get them mixed up…).  These types of exercises are useful, however I find they usually can’t get deep enough in some areas to really dig into self-awareness.  These exercises help point out how an individual may interact in a professional setting, but it ‘s up to the individual to figure out how to apply that across the board.

This makes sense, since many of these assessments are intended to help groups of professionals work together.  They both provide a common language with which to discuss how people work (“you’re an WRST? I get it now, I’m a BEST!”) and also some general guidance for the individual on how to operate.  This works great for groups that all take it together, however, I’ve found them a lot less useful for individuals.

Choices

Work presents an interesting version of this since we can’t really choose who our co-workers are… we’re kind of stuck with whomever’s there at the time.  This differs greatly in our personal lives.  We are, to some extent, stuck with family, however, we do have a great deal more control over those relationships, and who we choose to socialize with.  This makes understanding how, and why, we will/do react in specific ways even more important… we’re consciously choosing to be with these folks instead of being ‘forced’ to.

The same techniques teams use at work to improve themselves can be tweaked to help out in our personal lives.  Some ideas include:

• Regular Retrospectives - Make time each week to reflect on the week and any areas you want to improve.  How did certain conversations go?  Do you understand why you get easily annoyed at something?

• Focus Time - Set aside specific time to take a deeper dive on one area of yourself.  I find journaling is a great approach for this; something about writing things down helps get them out.

• Active Feedback - Find someone you trust to talk over what a blindspot might be or how to improve something.  This helps break down any mental preconceptions of yourself you have, but does require a lot of emotional trust in whomever you speak with.

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This isn’t to say it’s easy… even admitting something to yourself (let alone someone else) about how you think/feel/act can be hard.  That said, it’s certainly worth it.  Getting a better handle on how you will behave in any given situation both makes you more effective and also reduces any surprises on your end.  Over time you’ll also learn more about yourself, in turn making future improvements a little bit easier.

Three Doctors

There’s a parable I heard at some point that’s always stuck with me.  The more I’ve mulled it over, the more I see parallels to work (especially in my field, IT):

A parent had 3 children, all of whom became doctors.  

The youngest was a good doctor, and could cure a disease after it ravaged its patient.  Due to their skill their name was known throughout the country.

The middle child was a better doctor, and could cure disease at the sign of its first symptoms.  Due to their skill their name was known all over their county.

The eldest child was even better, and could cure disease before the patient even knew they were sick.  Due to their skill their name was known throughout their hometown.

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I particularly enjoy the inverse relationship of skill to outcome and the correlation of reputation to severity.  Everyone would agree the eldest child is the best doctor - who wants to get sick?  Despite their immense skill, however, only the people in their home know who they are.  Everyone would agree the youngest child is the most well known doctor - we all know the names of folks who’ve put out massive fires.

Skill vs. Outcome

I heard at some point that a bored IT department is a good thing.  It means everything is working as intended, there are no outages and everyone is happy.  (Think about it, how often do you go hang out with the IT folks except when something breaks?...). (Go hand out with the IT folks more).  While it is possible IT is bored because they’re totally oblivious to problems, it’s also possible they’re incredibly good at planning and preventing problems from cropping up.

You can’t complain about a problem that never happens.  The “problem” with that approach, however, is no one knows that you’ve done anything.  There’s no visible action you’ve taken that helps folks… so they don’t know who you are.  IT can, however, take steps to change that.

Many IT departments publicly release metrics on things like system up time, number of tickets resolved, how long it takes to solve tickets etc.  These metrics help tell the story that may be invisible - how many issues are avoided.  Many groups also proactively reach out to partner teams to inform them of what they’re up to.  Systems updates aren’t as impressive as putting out fires, but they do keep the house from burning down.

Reputation and Severity

Everyone knows someone who is a “fire fighter”, that person who can come into a terrible situation and somehow fix it.  These folks are certainly necessary as bad things happen… but it’d be much better if those problems never happened or were avoided entirely.  Dr. Fauchi is a good example of this.  He is handling an immense task with incredible skill… but in another reality COVID would have been contained and we’d never have heard of him or learned of his skill.

Personally this correlation drives me nuts since it suggests all the preventative work we do is essentially unknown.  Even worse, folks may get rewarded for reacting to problems instead of preventing them from happening (that said, to the best of my knowledge it’s impossible to measure things that don’t happen).

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While I have never found a single “best” solution to this challenge, I’ve found a few things that do work:

• Be proactive with messaging - Ensure your partner teams know what you’re up to (at least at a high level), and that they understand the value to them. Patching a server sounds REALLY boring, until you realize it prevent a massive data breach that just hit someone else.

• Help your team understand the importance of diligence - It feels good to be the firefighter… everyone knows who you are and how good you are (at least at putting out blazes). It can be hard to get folks to shift to prevention, but make the effort to help your team see the value. (Lower blood pressure, for one).

• Culture of sharing - Fires sometimes spring up when someone doesn’t feel comfortable raising a concern or admitting a mistake. I’ve found that calling out my own mistakes in our team communications has helped de-stigmatize this a lot (it also helps others avoid the same problem). Encourage others to do it as well, and soon folks won’t feel as bad if they do make a mistake.