Last minute seat sale! Certified Scope Manager (CSM) workshops Apr 27-May 1, 2009 TAMPA FL

Dear colleague,

A few months ago I conducted a series of webinars on Scope Management and the Certified Scope Manager (CSM). Now our scheduled training is fast approaching, and for loyal blog readers, we're having a seat sale!

In just over 2 weeks, (April 27-May 1, 2009!) we are conducting Certified Scope Manager workshops in Tampa, FL. As a blog reader here, you are entitled to a 20% discount for any single or multiple workshop - so register today! (Simply indicate "BLOG" beside your name on the registration form and we'll adjust the total for you.)

Please visit http://www.qualityplustech.com/CSM_training.html to register. Purchase orders and payment arrangements can be made for this seat sale. Register today and make a difference in your organization and your career!

We hope to see you in Tampa April 27- May 1, 2009.

Have a nice week!

Regards,
Carol Dekkers
Carol Dekkers email: dekkers@qualityplustech.com
http://www.qualityplustech.com/
http://www.caroldekkers.com/
Contact Carol to keynote your upcoming event - her style translates technical matters into digestible soundbites, humorously and forthright.
View also Carol Dekkers' general blog at http://caroldekkers.wordpress.com/ ============Copyright 2009, Carol Dekkers ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ============= Posted by Carol Dekkers Labels: Communication,

The more things change... the more they stay the same

As I was perusing through about a year's worth of industry journals accumulating as they do in a pile in the corner of my office, I was hit with a flash of deja vu. Some of the journals hidden in the corners had actually been there for more than 24 months, and I was amazed to discover that this depression/recession/financial crisis we are in is not new. In fact, for the majority of years in this new millenium - we've been in a downturn!

This continuing trend - Information Week headlines from 2003 declared job hunting woes were in full swing back then - has been going on for years - albeit not in as dramatic as today - but the situation is not strikingly new. It's just taken us the aggregation of a pile of small things (and big things such as the Wall Street collapse) to realize the full gravity of the situation.

Having said this, there are two major thoughts that come to mind when we apply this same trend to software development:

1. This too will pass (it always does); and
2. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Let me explain:

"This too will pass" - in the heat of our current crisis where software development budgets, projects, contracts, have been curtailed and layoffs announced, companies have reacted in the typical cocooning mode by burying their heads and cutting out any "superfluous spending" such as training, travel, conferences, process improvement and measurement. Yet, again and again, we know in our hearts and minds that this current crisis will pass and that this is the IDEAL TIME to invest (wisely) in just that very training to upgrade our workforces, exchanging information at conferences with best-in-class organizations, and investing strategically in process improvement and sustainable measurement initiatives so that we are ready, lean, and mean when the current situation passes (as it will). Corporations simply do not seem to learn, and instead of truly relying on the ingenuity and innovativeness of the America we know and love, they fall back on the scrimping and saving mode (like hiding money between mattresses) that worked for our forefathers but which has been proven to worsen (not improve) the competitiveness of a corporation when we come out of the current temporary crisis.

2. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

What I mean by this is that the more an industry finally embraces a particular concept, methodology, or newfangled approach, the more that nothing really changes. For example, take the current case of the adoption of agile methods of software development. While the proponents tout statistics based mostly on intuition and gut feel (proclamations such as agile is the only way to develop software today, bar none), the contrarians proclaim that the approach does not progress the industry but rather takes us back a step. They profess that agile is imperfect for all applications, do not provide a trail of quantifiable measurements, do not provide adequate documentation or commented code, and do not provide a solid system architecture to sustain the functionality into the future.

So what happens next? Following in the historical cycle, the current agile methods will begin to crumble (and be torn apart by some of the early adopters who now see the folly in some of the less disciplined aspects of the methodology), a "new and improved and evolutionary" approach will be devised and introduced, and the masses will go back to the tried and true (waterfall methodology) that does not work when agile is needed - and a new convincing and influencing cycle will start to convince the software development industry to try the new and improved "whatever approach".

So the more that things change, the more they seem to stay the same. Interesting culture of change n'est-ce pas?

This week I am facilitating a different set of workshops on Global Projects with Cultural Diversity and the question arose about the changing of a country's culture (such as India or China) based on the amount of outsourcing that is happening. While the pace of technology change can be rapid and pervasive, the change of a culture is extremely slow - proving again that the more things change, the more things stay the same.

Stay warm this February wherever you are (or cool if you are in Australia facing this month's record high temperatures of +40C!) - and have a good week.

I'll be back next week with more of the same - and a little bit of different! Happy development.

p.s., Here's a humorous photo from the icy streets of Santa Fe, NM during New Year's week this year. The Danger sign was missing a few letters.... Enjoy!


Regards,
Carol Dekkers

Carol Dekkers email: dekkers@qualityplustech.com
http://www.qualityplustech.com/
http://www.caroldekkers.com/





Contact Carol for your keynote and speaking needs - she translates technical subjects into easily digestible soundbites - in a humorous and forthright manner. See http://www.caroldekkers.com/ for details of topics and opportunities.

View also Carol Dekkers' general blog at http://caroldekkers.wordpress.com/

============Copyright 2009, Carol Dekkers ALL RIGHTS RESERVED =============

What we have is a Failure to Communicate

I don't know if you 've been following the technology trends of the past year or so, but a few disparate headlines keep surfacing and are not easily dismissed:

• The Percentage of Females entering Computer Science and Engineering Falls to an All Time Low (mainstream newspapers)
• Is there a link between Asperger's Syndrome and Social Skills in IT (SEPG conference presentation)
• Communication is the Bigger Part of Project Management (frequent presentations on soft skills at PM conferences)
• Innovation and Communication are two of the Areas not easily Outsourced (citing Thomas Friedman's book "The World is Flat")
• Barely 1/3 of IT Projects are Successful (Annual CHAOS reports by the Standish group)

Taken individually these topics seem harmless enough, but as I speak internationally on the topics of IT measurement, global software development (and the accompanying cultural issues), and the future of project management and quality in IT, I am struck by the common chord that permeates all of these headlines: we in computer science and engineering are stereotypically lacking in social and communication skills.

I can hear it now, anyone who's been in software and systems development for more than six months is saying, "No ****! Say something we don't already know!" I know from personal experience that few students enter engineering or computer science to gain people skills!

Recent research illuminates that computer science related professions - and in particular IT development - are so devoid of gratitude and basic human appreciation that women in particular find the environment uninhabitable over the long term. Gosh, it sounds like Mars - and in many ways, in many organizations, an IT career in software development is often like life on Mars may turn out to be. I do realize that there ARE places that are on the top 100 list of companies to work for in IT - and I applaud those companies who nurture their employees, take a solid interest in making sure that their technical experts don't burn out, have ample opportunities, and a lifelong career. But, this is not the norm - at least not amongst the worldwide cadre of corporations represented at software and systems engineering conferences at which I speak. When I routinely ask "How quickly do you find out when you've done something wrong at work?" the answer is solidly quantified by minutes. However, when I ask the same question about doing the right things or going the extra mile - the answer is met with puzzled reactions that range from "NEVER!" to "if we're lucky, maybe after a few months".

What's wrong with this picture???? We're the same human beings that interface with parents and kids at soccer games, go out socially with friends, run governments, manage companies, you name it - the professionals involved in IT have the same lives as non-IT'ers - the need for friends, socialization, families, contact, movies, money, you name it - yet when we cross the threshold of our offices, it all goes out the window. (Yes, there ARE other professions that do this as well, but I'm talking about IT right now...)

One presentation of note at an SEPG (software engineering process group) conference of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in the US a few years back, conjectured that perhaps the dysfunctional communication and appreciation in the IT field could be attributed to "Asperger's Syndrome" a form of early onset autism (for which the syndrome and accompanying diagnosis was not identified until 1972) - in which its sufferers lack the emotional empathy for others. In the presentation, the speakers were careful to caution audience members from labeling their co-workers who lack social skills as being autistic. But, it raised an interesting point - the room was filled to capacity and everyone seemed to be taking notes that they mentally could attribute co-workers to. I've never attended any other conference where professionals were eager to pin a lack of social skills of co-workers so readily on a medical condition. (A sidenote of interest was the research that showed a marked increase in the occurrence of early onset autism in Silicon Valley families where both parents worked in IT ).

Putting the SEPG presentation aside, still leaves the fact that soft skills are typically learned by osmosis or treated as "fluff" in IT (and engineering) despite the huge cost to our industry. During my engineering education, it was commonplace for colleagues to question why anyone would befriend non-engineers or attend non-engineering functions (which I did as a matter of course) - thinking that everyone else was either inferior (as if everyone in the world aspired to be an engineer!) or boring. Computer science wasn't much better and the cirriculums were often devoid of communication courses. Yet, in IT those very skills are the most needed and missing. Software development is a human endeavor for the most part.

What can we do about changing our world? Say a kind word, thank someone who goes the extra mile - and make it a conscious effort until it becomes a habit. As Clint Eastwood said "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

I am of the firm belief that if we put people first and technology second in our IT initiatives, and we concentrate on truly listening and learning about each other from a human perspective, our IT programs will succeed more often. And isn't process improvement and success what we need more of today - AND appreciation of the same?

Happy weekend!

Carol

http://www.caroldekkers.com/

http://www.qualityplustech.com/

-----------COPYRIGHT 2008 Carol Dekkers ALL RIGHTS RESERVED------------------------