thingamy

thinking: only for sissies, not for monopolistic telecoms

I've got an iPhone. I live in France. There is only one telecom supplier for iPhone in France: Orange.

Now I have a certain interest in the new iPhone, rather obviously. So I choose the one and only website in the entire world for me to find out about the new plans and so forth, only 17 days to go now.

In Safari, on my iPhone, I follow the links to iphone.orange.fr and get: "Télécharger le plug in Flash."

Translation for the language challenged: "We at Orange are so useless that we created the main website for all things iPhone so it cannot work on iPhone."

Anybody out there that could lend me a Nokia or something so I can see the iPhone site?

Meetings - a silent sigh

Meeting of minds are core to our existence, and almost always a pleasure (except for that chance brush with a surly parking meter overlord of course).

But there is another kind of meeting, mostly an intracompany phenomena: The project workflow node par excellence, the book-ends of any process snippet in our daily Barely Repeatable work day.

Check out the way your own office is organising a project, do a workflow diagram including milestones on a piece of paper. What are the milestones called? I bet you that they're meetings, or sign-offs. The very framework used to organise any BRP flow are centred around meetings - gather all hands on deck, discuss results so far, distribute tasks and set next node, eh, meeting. Rinse and repeat. Check, control and allocate.

If my cycling club were to organise the Sunday group rides accordingly we would regroup every four kilometres, wait until all are assembled, give individual progress report, dole out the route for the next four kilometres and mount our bikes again.
Luckily it's not like that; we all know where to go, having no problems in finding our most efficient pace for the long slog, constantly cheered forward by our cycling buddies interspersed by the occasional bout of friendly competitiveness when approaching a crest in the road. A damned more efficient and a whole lot more enjoyable process I would add.

So why don't business do the same? Old habits and no other useful work flow framework I'm afraid. (But of course there is, you just have not implemented it yet ;)

Typical project meeting.

(I challenge you to source a suitable "meeting" image from your favourite stock photo supplier - a few absent looking faces, somebody nodding off or hiding an urge to yawn. Yeah, as if, nothing but smiling faces and handshaking by fresh looking well dressed models. Somebody is trying to gloss over reality, fishy, very fishy.)

Big Company Innovation

I believe that Business Innovation is all about innovating processes.

Obviously product innovation is a given, but think of a product as in two parts - physical incarnation and process delivery - and there I think the process component is more important: The processes that the product generates internally and what processes it takes the customer through.

If this holds true, then all innovation has to be process focused. Processes must be allowed to be changed, not an easy task if organisational hierarchies and transactional enterprise systems cements it all. With a culture of rigidity all around how can one expect to think freely when it comes to innovate processes for the customer? Process innovation starts at home.

In any case: How much is product innovation, how much is process innovation? How much of a product is process?

Quite.

Let's pick some of the most valuable companies in the world and see if the success is about physical product or process innovation...

Of the top ten you have six financial institutions and three oil companies - all delivering physical products that have not seen much innovation, perhaps not since the creditcard was invented. All their products and innovation is about process - distribution and services.

Add some of the ones that have arrived lately among the highly valued corporations, i.e. those who must have innovated a lot - Walmart, eBay, Google, Amazon, Dell...

Any doubt there? Distribution process efficiency, new distribution channels, logistics, user driven sales, lots of direct user process baked in. The physical products, not much different from before. Then the expected question; with the success, do they still innovate processes or have they glued them to the floor? I'm afraid that they might have applied some glue.

Let's look at another which on first sight seems to be all about physical product, Apple, who makes one great physical product after another, no doubt.

They have chosen to deliver both hardware and software unclogging the support channel - just imagine how much support at MS is about disparate hardware drivers! - and unclogging the user experience. For me a holistic process focus - their process on how and what to deliver, but perhaps even more, the process that their customers experience.

Plugging in my iPhone the first time into my MacBook Pro is uncanny, zip zap click click and I'm registered and all mail settings, all bookmarks have been cloned. A process I could only love, and for Apple, a process-as-a-product that eliminates much of the usual support and delivery process needs.

When I'm in London with the kids the Apple store on Regent street is always the first "sight" we do. Again, a holistic view on the whole distribution process - gives me a "whole" experience and makes their distribution process rather efficient.

In other words, I would suggest that process is where the focus should be and that:

Process Innovation requires flexibility so you can experiment. You need to be able to prototype any idea.

Process Innovation means that you have to know your customer's processes intimately. Same applies to your own processes, all of them. Both requires a culture where processes are not a given but something dynamic.

Process Innovation requires that you can build processes from strategic ideas and not only from tactical needs.

Process Innovation requires provocation to start rethinking of any or all processes.

To aid and abet such innovation you need a flexible system to run your processes.
But you would be much better off with a process oriented "tool" beyond the mere operational; a process modeller for real life use that provokes process thinking, that is flexible enough to accommodate tests and trials and that is sturdy enough to put new processes into life.

Funny enough, same requirements as for a system that runs BRPs...

SAP Influencer Summit #3 - SAP missing the biggest opportunity ever?

I believe that SAP is missing an opportunity to more than double their market, in the same space with the same customers, still for business processes, in a new market segment that is amazingly virgin with virtually no competition, and where the customers are only waiting for the first products.

Why do I believe that? Well, allow me:

A Business Process is any process, sequential work or activity, that happens in an organisation. Some are repeatable and linear, others happens in unstructured ways and are hard to model.

Let me keep it simple and divide process types into two groups:

1. The Easily Repeatable Process (ERP for me)

Processes that handles resources, from human (hiring, firing, payroll and more) to parts and products through supply chains, distribution and production. The IT systems go under catchy names like ERP, SCM, PLM, SRM, CRM and the biggest players are as we know SAP and Oracle plus a long roster of smaller firms.

Known to be rigid, but handles events and transactions with precision and in volume. Systems delivers value through extensive reports and full control over resources.

Resource oriented, transactional, event driven systems. Delivered by system vendors with roots in accounting using up to 25 year old technological solutions.

A mature market segment where an upgrade from version 7.0 to 7.1 would not deliver much in productivity growth for the customer so much of the vendor growth stems from finding new customers for the same solutions.

2. The Barely Repeatable Process (BRP)

Typically exceptions to the ERPs, anything that involves people in non-rigid flows through education, health, support, government, consulting or the daily unplanned issues that happens in every organisation. The activities that employees spend most of their time on every day. Processes that often starts with an e-mail or a call. A process volume, measured by time and resource spent at organisations, probably larger than for the Easily Repeatable Processes. 

These are mostly handled and organised - frameworked - by systems like paper based rules and policies, e-mail, meetings, calls and now in more modern organisations by wikis and other collaboration systems and methods.

Known by extensive loss of information (e-mails residing on HDDs), little knowledge acquired and reused (typical research says 70% of problems solved before without being known) and most of all, untrustworthy processes (oops, forgot to send that mail). In other words not an iota (well almost) of business process thinking or methodology applied to this huge untapped area of business processes.

Requires a different conceptual representation of the processes and data than the transactional linear processes so this would require a technological shift from the current.

A truly virgin market segment where even installing a humble wiki would increase productivity measurably. And most important, a market where the customers are yearning for solutions.

The big question: Why does not SAP spend almost all of it's R&D funding in the BRP space? It would make utterly, completely, undisputed sense.

Now folks, this situation puzzles me so much that I need some help; is there a glitch in my logic? Good folks at SAP, prove me wrong or right!

[Sidenote: Obviously BRPs is what thingamy can handle nicely, but I'm not afraid of some competition at all so come on ye big enterprise software vendors, I'm waiting! ;)]

[Update: Should have been a question mark in the title really, as afterthought, added that]

SAP Influencer Summit #2 - the message

Have you ever been to a car show? If not, imagine for a moment a wife and husband spending a Sunday browsing the current crop of gleaming machines.

Bill the husband sees a slick black wonder, muscular curves and wide tires and drags his wife over. The well dressed representative greets them, seeing Bill's obvious interest in the magnesium rims, the air intakes, and coaches him over to the bonnet that slides open with a "psshh".

"This engine uses the latest double injection, preheated booster turbo technology producing a whopping 600 Nm at 2,000 RPM." the salesperson goes.
Then nudging Bill into the driver's seat switching on the ignition so the graphical displays gently lights up doing a dance of little information distribution wonders before settling into the usual speed and RPM mode while Bill smiles and goes "Oooh, cool!".
Mary his wife tries the back seats, and even though she's rather petite her knees touches the front seats. Pushing a button a wide armrest slides forward disclosing a set of more buttons that Mary have no idea would be for. Rather impractical she thinks being the one delivering and picking up three kids every day.

Armed with a stack of brochures from exhibit number one they plod over to the next exhibit; slightly higher, slightly less aerodynamic, but looking slightly more purposeful in the transport department.

This time the sales person opens the rear gate, pushing a button initiating a sequence of "psshh"s here too. This time two comfortable looking seats magically appear out of the floor. No big fat armrest to separate the passengers, but a console with a large space for loose paraphernalia and deep wells for drinks and bottles. "Hmm, interesting" Mary goes. Bill likes it too seeing the fastening mechanism for his bike in the rear compartment.

The salesperson goes on: "Given that your kids will start learning to drive soon we have already built in snap on extra mirrors and a full brake mechanism overriding accelerator in the hand-brake, accessible from the passenger seat. Taking into consideration that you might try other sports, men in our age often do, the bike mounting can be replaced with diving compressors, shoe dryer and... here's the list of available sports that you might consider."

"Never thought of that" Bill thinks, adding "but that's pretty darned cool, I wonder if I should try paragliding next Sunday... hmmm".

Back to reality. And enterprise software.

Late afternoon on Tuesday, our first day at the SAP shindig, following six keynote speakers, four fireside chats with executives and a couple of in-depth workshops some kind of demurring feeling started to emerge.

Composition layers, stacks, service layers, SOA, SOA, five year plans for the technology, and more technology. Sometime a slide or two on the business user's benefit of course, but still a sense of technology rules. And never doubt it, they have amazing technology, and they're darned proud of it.

But I started to feel like Mary at the first exhibitor above. Amazingly cool, solid technology, powerful - but what does their buyer get out of it, what about the business value for the buyer? It's there, no doubt, and the user, the corporation installing it, was given time and slides so it was slightly hard to pinpoint why I had this Mary-esque doubt in my belly.

It's about focus. All about what comes first. What the driver is. Is it horse or carriage first in every presentation, in every discussion, in every answer, in between the lines... I think I heard carriage first most of the time.

If a five year plan lists technology steps and version releases - then it's "me and my technology", that is the focus.

If the 2008-10 roadmap reads More functionality, Open business process platform, All sizes, All roles - a tad "me and my technology" again methinks.

The theme of the Influencer Summits last years: Netveawer, Business Process Platform, Ecosystem, Deliver value of enterprise SOA... pretty much "me and my technology".

Innovation is high up there this year, and during one of the executive fireside chats Brian from our EI group suggested SAP in an "innovation" grid as delivering enablement, not necessarily for breakthrough innovation nor ideation. That sparked immediate protest by the executive, mentioning some examples of SAP's latest products and technologies as breakthrough innovation.
Sure, he was right, but the question was about innovation at the customer's; enabling him to innovate - not about the innovativeness of the product itself. We simply had different frames of mind and the arguments passed each other mid-flight there. Innocent as such, just another brick in the wall.

A further executive fireside chat, now about the CRM product: "I almost never see a CRM system configured to take care of existing customers, it's always about prospects and new sales" said one of my fellow EIs. And I think we all know that, once signed most big corporations shifts from charming to ignoring. The CRM induced existing-customer-invisibility-cloak.
Bob Stutz, chief of all CRM in SAP and as knowledgeable as any in this field sighed loudly and said that "I fully agree, and our product is built for taking care of existing customers as well, but the user adds a function at a time and tend to stop after having added the prospecting feature". And Bob's probably right.

But, if SAP really, really is 100% focused on the business value for the customer, they might have done what the second car manufacturer above did; pre-enable the existing customer handling, or in some other way make it clear that "even if you're not aware of it, Cluetrain and social media and whatnot give the existing customers immense power that will only increase! Accept that as a given, add other features later".

And do not get me started on the number-of-employees method to target customers. Why not target and conceive products according to business value drivers? What on earth makes anybody think that a 1,000 employee candy producer is driven by the same values as a 1,000 employee hospital? Yes the number of employees to be handled by their HR system would be the same, but certainly not the dynamics and needs they'll face in four years.

Hang on a second you will say, beyond size there is verticalisation; specified systems for one and the other industry segment. But again, would not some in very disparate industries or services be closer to each other value-wise than to fellow verticals?

It should not be about "what product you deliver", it should be "what your product delivers"!

Let me stress that this is a lightweight observation from a humble outsider, albeit I did sniff around and aired this with other attendees and even SAP employees, and nodding ensued in the corridors and elevators - I was not alone in having this feeling about the overall message. The perceived company focus more than the specific bullet points from the messages as no PR or marketing strategy will ever be able to hide the real love and focus of any firm.

Being the proud owner of a spanking new iPhone I tapped around and found the "Stocks" application. If you have one, try the 2 year curve for the stock price of SAP and ORCL!
The latter one looks like one side of a mountain, the left side, a nice ascending curve. The SAP 2 year curve looks like the alps in silhouette...

It cannot be the sales, the market share, the financial performance, the new product pipeline - SAP excels in all departments. Could it be too much focus on their own tinkering inside the garage?
I'm sure SAP know their customer's needs, and hopefully what they think their customer's will be needing in five year's time - that is and should forever be the engine, so why not bring that back onto the stage so nobody looses sight of it?

If I'm ever invited again I'd love to see slide after slide of "what drives and will drive the business value at our customer's and what will we create so they can deliver even more value."

I'd like to see the same enthusiasm and love for the amazing value their customers will be able to deliver as I see today for the amazing solid technology.

I would love to hear about the technology also of course, but now played down and delivered as "and obviously we have the very best technology, never doubt that". They do carry a big technology stick, no need to speak loudly about that. It's the business value vision that rules at the end of the day, that is what the market buys, that is what makes customers return, that is what makes business interesting, that is what could transform the alps silhouette into an ascending ramp!

[Bonus: Paul sent me this link after reading above :)]

framework for decision making - understand complexity

Harvard Business Review has an article by David J Snowden and Mary E Boone in their November issue titled "A leader's framework for decision making".

The theme (in short) is the need to shift management methods (they use the word science, but I'll leave that alone for now) from the usual simplification of an assumed structured reality to accept and assimilate a complex reality.

Good is that, have noticed that complexity exists, and am reminded about that frequently when discussing enterprise systems with some of the big enterprise software vendors. That said I mostly see such uttering as an alternative to arguing.

Allow me to quote a part from their article:

"Today, advances in complexity science, combined with knowledge from the cognitive sciences, are transforming the field (scientific management) once again. Complexity is poised to help current and future leaders make sense of advanced technology, globalization, intricate markets, cultural change, and much more. In short the science of complexity can help all of us address the challenges and opportunities we face in a new epoch of human history."

Promising much, lots of science involved I see.

Then they add some of the characteristics of complex systems (to which I agree fully, here the short version):

• Large number of parts.
• Large number of relationships.
• Non-linear relationships, ripple effects, dynamic.
• System has a history.

Good. Or?

Although I agree heartily that assimilating complexity is of utmost importance, there is a small bump in the road:

Today we represent reality's parts and relationships in any recording method (paper or IT) by a roster of event and/or transaction reports.
Want to "know" a widget in the warehouse? Prepare to flip through folders - order sheet, shipping papers, transaction reports, reports, more reports. Parts represented by a stack of event reports, relationships by transaction reports (aka accounting) - in other words increasing the parts in the model (or record) far beyond the parts and relationships that exists in the reality. Bad move.

Allow me to put it more succinctly:

"How in Earth's name do anybody really think they can get a grip on complexity when the add complexity to complexity, usually called complicating things in the worst and most elaborate way??"

Sorry to say, quite the normal way to approach an issue - do not check the fundament just add "science" on top of any wobbliness. Start with the fundament first please.

(If you wonder, thingamy represents one-to-one for parts of any complex system and have precise multidimensional dynamic relationships. It's all about singular things as we say...)

p.s. Next time meeting my friends at the big enterprise systems developers and hear the "remember that business operations are very complex, leave that to us big chaps" I'll smugly retort with "selber schuld!" (your own fault!).
Will behave though when here at SAP's influencer summit in Boston, they again graciously cover my travel costs and they are really nice people.
But after all, what is not friends for if not to tell the truth? ;)

kids, leading and managing

Or why spending a month working in a kindergarten should be obligatory for MBAs.

Nice Cotê d'Azur airport, departure hall, eight thirty in the morning:

A small chap, about two years old, discovered that one of the flower beds was full of small and round stone pellets. Breaking into a huge grin he grabbed what his little hands could hold and plodded over to the middle of the hall where he happily spread his spoils.

His mother leapt to her feet, rushed over and started to pick up pellets while shouting "no Robin, no, no!" to Robin who was over at the flower bed again. He turned to his mother and smiled broadly as you could see his thoughts "ah, mother wants to play too, great!".

When Robin arrived carrying a second load for his mother to pick up her orders were stern; "absolutely not, no, no!" grabbing his hand to give it a quick slap.

Robin's face changed immediately, "hey, what's this, mother wanted to play and now she slaps me??". Robin was confused and quite disturbed by this surprising turn of events.

Sitting a few feet away I was itching to send the mother away as I had a different plan:

Go over to the loose pellets, happily turn to Robin and show him how much fun it is to chase loose pellets and gather them one by one then walking them back together for some noisy pellet distribution in the flower bed.
Wrapping up with some "ah" and "oohs" over the return of order in the departure hall.

Or something along that line while fully embracing his game, then developing it towards a direction that would gain us both. Giving leadership a chance.

It is truly amazing how easily adults revert to command and control mode, aka managing, when surprised. In particular when they know they're scrutinised in departure halls and supermarkets, "Oh gawd, everybody sees how bad a parent I am, how little control I have, must get in control immediately!"

But toddlers do not understand being managed, such efforts are met with tears and tantrums, and later when they're teenagers they tell you to your face while at last becoming adults they swallow hard and feel miserable.

Toddlers understand leadership, somebody they respect showing the way, teenagers expect leadership while adults work better under real leadership and no managing.

Every MBA course should have a section where the students are responsible for little people, in a kindergarten, for at least a month.

[Bonus: Alfred did a post here (comments limited to Windows Live ID, so comment is here).
He suggests kindergarten is too easy, let CEOs try last year high school students! Have to agree to that having spent all my student vacations being a substitute:

If the first subject with a new class was one of my favourites (maths, physics etc.) I earned respect immediately, a respect that lasted. If the first subject was one of my weak areas (geography say) I got no respect and could never turn the back to the class without risking flying apple-cores and other missiles ;)

Perfect bio-feedback on leadership abilities I'll say!]

mindless stuff and leadership vs. management

I've got kids. Three teenagers.

Have you tried managing teenagers? Ordering them around? Believe me, a complete waste of time, and counter-productive at best.

Hard as it is, there is only one way, aka leadership:

1. Explain the reasons and purposes and values we live by, down to why dirty dishes needs to find it's way into the dishwasher. Each time.
2. Be the perfect example, all the time, never let down your guard as teenagers have an uncanny ability of spotting discrepancies between what you say and what you do. And trust me, it takes milliseconds before you have to face it. Did I mention that this part is the hardest and where I fail all the time?

Mindless stuff you might need to manage - sheep for example.

Mindful persons who know what to do, why they do it and the value of it all can organise themselves. In other words, leadership first then get out of the way.

There are only two instances where "management" and "people" are in the same sentence:

1. When you need to organise disorganised bits and pieces like flight, rental car and hotel for your next trip so it all coincides.
2. When the people do not know the whys and the values nor do they see the good examples that transfers such information.

Then why is "managing" still on the agenda in enterprises? Why did I go to "management school"?

Are the enterprises disorganised?

Do many not really know the whys and the values, having only been trained in the hows?

Or is it the fact that leadership is damned hard while herding sheep seems so much easier?

Methinks that all three are to blame.

Leading is hard, very hard, and requires a full time state of mind - business at it's best. Managing is often a matter of dishing out orders, burstyness at it's worst.

(Hat tip to James for "business" vs "burstyness", very useful indeed.)

leading or managing - chairpersons versus CEOs

Had the pleasure of browsing through the latest World Business magazine over my morning coffee wherein I found a wee article about the tasks of a chairman - The top chairs.

Actually it was more of a book review for an upcoming book by Andrew and Nada Kakabadse, "Leading the Board: The Six Disciplines of World Class Chairmen".

What piqued my interest was the obvious: While the CEO is mired in the command & control structure and thus focused on managing, the chairman has to rely on pure leadership without managing (except getting the board members to be on time and get somebody to write the minutes of course).

And as you might have gleaned from a few earlier posts I'm not fond of managing and it's mother; the command & control hierarchy. Leadership on the other hand, well, that we need. More of that and less of the former please - but that's not easy, leading is harder than ordering.

The book's six disciplines are three too many for my short attention span, but three I could easily see as result of the others.

That left three important ones, here slightly skewed by my attitude:

Sensemaking.

Clarify the whys, communicate and champion the strategy and values. The values being the framework and the strategy the map - without absolute clarity and thorough understanding throughout an organisation the rest is moot. That does make sense does it not?

Live the values.

Without trust and integrity no leadership will happen, and with no leadership nothing happens. And as I often say, trust equals transparency - and in this case transparency would be rather counterproductive without integrity. One could easily say that this requires a matching personality - strong sense of values, integrity and transparency. That's a tough set of requirements, requires some self confidence that.

Influence outcomes.

Convince, communicate and focus. No "orders" allowed, the meaning of the ideas must be clear, the important questions shall be identified and the value of the actions must be plain. One is working with free will here.

Note the argument that the chairperson historically had a more important role than generally perceived today given the widespread visibility of CEOs. But now it seems that the chairperson's importance is increasing again, if the roles are split at all that is. And split they should be in my humble opinion.

Methinks that the increase of a chairperson's importance is a result of the slow erosion of the rigid organisational hierarchies thanks to the ubiquitous networking, like blogs and wikis and the rest of it. A shift from managing to leadership again, makes me happy that.

corporate confidence

Last autumn I was invited by SAP to their TechEd conference (as I've been this year too, all paid in fact so keep that in mind if I go overly gushing).
With a "blogger" badge on my lapel I wandered the halls, and lo and behold nobody stopped me anywhere. Talked to executives, customers and of course my favourites, the developer community where I learned, talked, and listened.

What hit me more than anything was the confidence the company conveyed. Self-confidence in fact.

As a human I know when I'm confident, I can jump high fences, I'm ready to stick my neck out and I am not afraid to embarrass myself. Life is excellent.

Self-confidence, perhaps the most important basis for any human being - allows me to interact, open up, listen and take a chance. I also think it will be hard to be really happy and content without self-confidence.

That's the stuff we parents see as the most important job - instil self-confidence in our children so they're prepared to strike out on their own.

I think the same applies to corporations.

Without it the corporation cannot trust me, the customer / supplier / employee, and thus I cannot trust the corporation.

Without it the corporation would be hard pressed to risk innovation and deliver a long term value even if they have the technical/creative ability.

I find that the level of self-confidence is precisely what I look for, consciously or not, when I meet a corporation.

What's the ad message, the corporate body language so to say?

Am I met with an NDA before I open my mouth?

Do they slap DRMs, clickwrap and shrinkwrap license in minuscule text on every package and download?

Do the software require "Insert your original CD into the drive now" every time I need to change the IP address?

Do they send me a mail every time I touched their services to check if all is OK (actually this is a ruse to try to push more stuff my way)?

Do their support people use some rule out of a manual to deny me support three days after the warranty expired or do the chap say "sure, no problem we'll fix that!"?

That's why I lost confidence in Dell when they started calling me after I ordered, don't they trust me to choose the right parts?

That's why I repeatedly have to tell WebEx to strike me from all their mail-lists (that company must be built on CRMs).

That's why I come back to Apple after some support person helped me even if some rule dictated otherwise.

That's why I like IBM after meeting bloggers from within that talk openly about what they're up to.

That's why I like a certain investment bank in London (you know who you are) when the IT leadership all handed out Hughcards instead of the boring corporate title-heavy ones.

That's why I downloaded Solaris from Sun after seeing Jonathan Schwartz talking with Robert Scoble openly as friends.

And that's why I like SAP.

Folks, I think that corporate self-confidence is as important as personal self-confidence. And that an entrepreneur's most important task is very much the same as a parent's.