In contrast, a many-to-many medium of communication such as a discussion or clinic provides an environment in which knowledge, ideas, and solutions can emanate from, and be received by, anyone.
I am not advocating replacing presentations with discussions. Rather, I am advocating an optimal balance of the two. Where this optimal point falls will depend on the group.
We are all familiar with presentations, so I will mainly talk about discussions and clinics here, and what they offer that presentations do not. First I will talk about discussions in general, and then clinics in particular.
It’s rare that a single person possesses all the knowledge in the room. When anyone can speak, we are more likely to get more high quality information. (Of course, we are also more likely to get more low quality information but the group can usually recognize and neutralize it.)
In a presentation, the information is assumed to be flowing in one direction, from the speaker to everyone else. Any discussion is normally for clarification of that unidirectional information flow.
In contrast, in a more conversational medium, people are more likely to participate, resulting in greater depth and breadth of the information flow, as ideas bounce from person to person.
There is a synergy in discussions that is absent in presentations. In discussions, one person’s contribution can raise other questions or responses that can provide better information or lead the discussion to a valuable place that would not have otherwise been visited.
Even if a meetup includes two presentations, the topics covered are narrow. Including discussions even for, say, fifteen minutes, makes it more likely that people will find something in the meetup that is more relevant, and therefore more interesting, to them. Imagine, for example, the beginner who attends their first meetup, encounters specialized presentations that they do not understand, and then never returns, concluding that the meetings are “not for them”.
People who may have not uttered a word in months of presentations may feel more comfortable doing so in a discussion. They should be actively encouraged, even if it’s to ask a question.
There will likely be “wizards” in the group, members who are recognizably much more knowledgeable than the others. It is natural for the others to feel intimidated and refrain from speaking. Wizards should step out of the way frequently, and the facilitator should encourage everyone to take part.
From discussion springs familiarity, and from familiarity springs friendship and community (not to mention jobs sometimes). It even enhances productivity, in that a relationship has formed such that people will feel more comfortable consulting each other outside of the discussions.
The clinic is a specialized form of discussion where people share their problems, challenges, and discoveries.
The key benefit of the clinic is that participants are likely to receive the information that is most valuable and helpful to them at the time.
In addition, the entire group is involved in finding the solution. Everyone is “on call”. This can result in greater engagement and energy.
I describe at the bottom of this article my experience facilitating an internal organization Ruby clinic.[1]
The clinic can be totally free form, but I recommend a meta-discussion at the beginning where people describe the topics they would like to discuss, and the group plans the discussion schedule. This is kind of like the opening of an open space conference but on a micro scale.
It can be helpful for the group to propose topics in advance of the meetup. This has the following benefits:
It’s helpful to have a shared screen. This is automatic if you are using collaboration software, but if you’re in a physical room together, you’ll need a projector or large shared monitor to be most productive.
Whether you have a single machine which will be shared by everyone, or everyone uses their own computer, I recommend bringing a wireless keyboard and mouse to the clinic; it lowers the barrier for other people to take the driver seat.
One of many great things about clinics is that they require zero preparation. The group may want to propose topics in advance, but it’s not absolutely necessary.
At minimum, clinics can be used as a fallback activity when unable to find a speaker. However, I would argue that having a clinic for part of every meeting would be valuable and interesting for most groups.
There is no real minimum time, nor a need for its own sake that the time be consistent from meeting to meeting. For example, if a meeting normally has two presentations, the clinic could be limited to fifteen minutes. If there is only one presentation, the clinic could be expanded to fill that missing speaker’s time slot.
Clinics aren’t good only for meetups – they can be even more valuable for development teams, where in addition to the shared languages and frameworks, they work with the same organizational code base and environment.
There is a risk that the clinics would gravitate towards beginner issues that would bore the more advanced users, or advanced subjects that would be incomprehensible to the more beginning users. Facilitators need to keep a close eye on this. If it’s a short clinic this might be fine, but if it’s a substantial portion of the meeting, it could drive people away. Other options could partially replace the clinic, such as a supplemental beginners meeting once a month.
The topics chosen (if there are enough to select from among them) could be selected to balance against the presentation. For example, if the presentation is very advanced, then the the more beginning clinic topics might be selected for discussion.
Darin Wilson points out: “The Q&A format can be good, but I think you have to put some effort into managing group dynamics. The trouble with any Q&A session is that they self-select for folks who are comfortable speaking out loud in a group setting. The larger the group, the more pronounced this effect will be. Also, if you have one or two individuals who really like to hear themselves talk, they can end up dominating the discussion. If you have a smallish group that already knows each other, this can be easier to manage. But if you have a larger group and/or folks don’t know each other very well, the moderator will probably need to make some extra effort to make sure that everyone feels welcome to participate, and that the discussion isn’t dominated by the over-talkers.”
I agree that this is definitely something to look out for, but more applicable to general discussions than clinics. If the goal is to provide solutions, then there may indeed be a couple of experts who possess most of the relevant information. The facilitator needs to balance the need for solutions with the need to cultivate universal participation.
Joseph Glass says: “I’ve found clinics to be very engaging but they also require more “crowd management”. With a well-prepared presentation, the quality largely depends on the speaker, and will be pretty much the same wherever it’s presented.
“Clinics on the other hand depend on the quality of the participants. It might turn out to be a fantastic conversation of people sharing expertise and forming connections. Or maybe one over-talkative participant will hijack the conversation into irrelevant tangents. It can be a bit of a gamble unless you know the community you’re working with or have a really good moderator.”
Indeed, a really good moderator is the key. Perhaps that is a whole ‘nother article. Anyone want to write it? :)
I suggested experimenting with this clinic format to the organizers of the Philippines Ruby Users Group. They agreed, and roughly half the meetup was allocated for it.
It turned out that only one person had a question, and several people answered it in complementary ways. Then there were no more questions. What to do? We morphed it into a general discussion. It was all engaging and interesting. Sometimes things don’t go the way we expect. That’s ok, we can adapt.
I describe in this article a formula that has worked for me, but of course there is an infinite number of combinations of attributes of a clinic, and your optimal mix may differ from mine. Any discussion can be engaging and informative, but for me the essentials of a clinic are:
Presentations definitely have their place. There really is value in someone who has deeply researched a topic sharing their knowledge with the group. However, meetups can be improved when the one-to-many information flow is supplemented by the many-to-many flow provided by discussions in general, and clinics in particular.
[1]A few years ago I was working at a network services company. At the time, they were automating their software testing to use Ruby and Cucumber. There were whole teams of software testers new to those technologies, and even programming in general. They were provided training, but after that training they were on their own. In addition to my own assignments to write software, one of my tasks was to help them get more productive in their programming.
They would sometimes come to me when stuck, and when they did, I dropped what I was doing. It felt great to help them, but I knew they needed more than just firefighting to be really productive. I was unable to get authorization for us to devote the time we needed for more intensive collaboration, so I scheduled weekly Ruby lunchtime “clinics” on our own time. People shared their challenges, questions, and conquests. We met in a meeting room with a large shared monitor. I brought an external keyboard and mouse with me for use by whomever was “driving”. At the beginning we had a discussion of topics to cover. That gave me the information I needed to optimize the use of our hour together.
I encouraged them to show things they had learned, and to help each other. As time went on, their knowledge grew, and to my delight this happened more and more often. These sessions were my fondest memories of working there.
]]>Once upon a time I joined an ongoing software project. Our software was supported on Mac OS and Ubuntu Linux. As part of my onboarding, I (of course) needed to install it. This installation was nontrivial, and in the process, I got stuck several times and needed to ask for clarification.
Figuring that others too might have this problem, I asked if it would be helpful to clarify the installation process, and we agreed that it would be.
In the course of this work I installed the software on one Mac and three Ubuntu Linux laptops. The output of this process was a clearly written Markdown document detailing the required steps for Ubuntu Linux installation. In addition, some related incidental issues were discovered and addressed.
For reasons not interesting enough to mention, it was a very short sprint, and this was my main contribution. At the end of the sprint, our team lead recognized us all for our contributions. There were specific descriptions of bugs that were fixed and features that were added, but when it came to my contribution, it was one word: “Documentation”.
Instead, it might have been described as “…produced a repeatable and clearly documented procedure to install our product on a fresh Ubuntu Linux install, to minimize time and effort required for developers and production to get up and running.”
…but it wasn’t. I felt undervalued. However, my team lead was super competent, attentive, and helpful, and I knew that any slight was unintentional; and upon further reflection, I realized that I too might have described my task this way.
Undervaluing documentation, and the people who produce it, is widespread in our industry. It is a prejudice many of us share.
The result is that:
The resulting reduction in the quality and quantity of documentation will then cause:
There is certainly a possibility of too much documentation, where it is made for its own sake, or is otherwise redundant or unnecessary. However, we should elevate useful documentation to the high level of respect it deserves.
]]>In 2009, when I was still writing Java software, I decided to start a monthly lunch group of Java developers in my local area. I figured it would be enjoyable, educational, and I might make some connections that would be useful in my career.
There was already an online discussion group for Java developers in my area, and monthly meetings, and I was quite active with both, so it was a simple matter of merely making an announcement on the online group and see who responded.
More than anything else, it turned out to be the beginning of new friendships. Ten years later, we still meet. Many of us have moved on to other languages and activities, but the connection remains.
As a return on investment, the few minutes a month I spent getting us together were wildly successful. The great thing about lunches like this is that there is virtually no preparation involved. Nor is there any cost, other than the cost of your lunch.
Why do I bring this up? Because there have been many times when I’ve heard stories such as these:
1) My spouse had to move for his/her education/career so we moved to city X. I don’t know anyone here. It’s lonely and I miss the technical community I had before.
2) I’d really love to go to the monthly meetups but I live far from them and due to the traffic it’s not practical for me; and yet I would love to partake in some kind of technical community.
3) All the meetups are in the evening when I have take care of my children. Is there no other way to meet my colleagues socially?
4) I’ve been working on technology X, and have not found any technical community around it. I don’t have the time and funds to start a meetup but I’d love to meet other people also working on X.
5) All the meetups in which I’m interested seem to center around alcohol, and I’m not comfortable with that.
6) I work remotely, alone, and need human contact!
Here I will share with you what I’ve learned about what has worked best for us.
The venue can make or break the gathering. Here are some things to consider when deciding on a venue:
Here are some examples of places that have worked well for us (we are in the Reston/Herndon, Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, USA):
Santini’s - not expensive, high quality food, reasonable prices; order and pay at the counter; serves pizzas, calzones, sandwiches, salads; has long tables and is never too crowded for us to all sit together
Wegman’s - a supermarket with a huge variety of high quality prepared foods sold by the pound; expensive, but tables are far from the commercial area and people can bring their own food or not eat at all; very plentiful seating
Mediterranean Breeze - a Greek restaurant with plentiful seating; not expensive with even less expensive lunch specials; Greek and American offerings; very willing to give us separate checks
If you have a really hard time finding a venue, it’s time to start thinking further outside the box – a hospital cafeteria, a public park, a train station, a group member’s home or backyard…
Unless it’s all about your ego (and hopefully it’s not), don’t measure success by your group size. Large groups are unwieldy and can be logistically unworkable. My favorite group size is 6 - 8.
I like at least 6 because I find it more interesting to hear a greater diversity of experiences and thoughts.
I like no more than 8 because any larger size invariably results in multiple simultaneous conversations and less interaction. This kills group unity. I don’t want to miss hearing about what’s happening in the lives of some of my friends, and I feel that each of us deserves the attention of all the rest of us.
However, sometimes, someone near me will pull me into a side conversation against my will; or it is not me who is addressed, but I am forced by my location into the side conversation. When this happens, I might say something like “excuse me, but I don’t want to miss what the others are saying”. If I am not a direct party of the side conversation, I might add “should we have one conversation, or would you be willing to switch seats with me so that you can continue your conversation?” I’m not shy about this, and encourage you not to be either.
Of course, if the group decides collectively that it’s ok to have multiple conversations, then that’s their prerogative.
If your group size is greater than 8, I suggest moving to other places at the table occasionally if practical. Why wouldn’t you want a chance to interact with everyone who attends? Don’t be afraid to get up, go somewhere else, pull up a chair, and say “So, what’s been happening with you folks since the last time we saw each other?”
In addition to enjoying each other’s company, we like to be helpful to each other.
It’s perfectly ok to ask “hey, folks, could I ask you about a problem I’ve been having lately?”. Unless it’s a life or death issue, though, it should probably not dominate the entire meeting.
Job searching is another common subject of discussion for helping each other.
A “weather report” is a short report from each person as to what they’ve been doing, important events that have occurred, issues needing to be resolved, and/or thoughts that have been dominating their mind lately. It’s called a “weather report” because it’s a report that should probably be no longer than a couple of minutes per person.
Different groups will have different preferences as to format and formality, but I like going around the group and getting weather reports. (To clarify, we have rarely done this but I have enjoyed it when we did.) It guarantees that each of us will have a chance to participate (on the giving side) and that each of us will be able to know what’s going on with all the others (on the receiving side). It doesn’t take too much time and can give clues as to anyone especially needing support or discussion, or having experiences of special interest and/or benefit to the group.
Sometimes the actions of a facilitator may be needed, to ensure that the meta is in sync with the wishes of the group. By meta, I mean observation, discussion, and, if necessary, realignment of the discussion itself.
There doesn’t necessarily need to be an assigned facilitator; these responsibilities can be shared by all.
Here are some examples of situations that might require facilitation:
someone insists on discussing the same subject long after the others have wanted to move on. It’s usually easy to see the discomfort of the others by the body language. There have been times when I’ve said something like “I see you’re really passionate about this, but we only get to see each other once a month and there are other things we’d like to talk about too.” That should work, but if it doesn’t, a more assertive approach might be necessary.
participation is very lopsided and two or three people are doing all the talking; and/or there are people who want to participate, and would have much worthwhile to contribute, but are not comfortable inserting themselves in the conversation. I might kiddingly say “we’ve heard a lot from [person x] and [person y], what do you others think?”
one person in particular is very quiet, but you have a feeling that they would like to participate, and their contributions would be valuable. I will sometimes point the group’s attention to that person by asking directly “do you have any thoughts about this?”. This has been very effective in helping quieter people feel part of the group, and elevating the quality of the conversation.
politics - unless you’re sure that everyone shares the same political opinions, discussing politics is risky. Passion turns to anger and the camaraderie of the group can be blown to bits. Be very careful about this.
Forming a lunch group requires so little effort but can be so rewarding. I hope you’ll give it a try.
]]>I do admit I enjoyed it too (I am a baby boomer), but I’m saddened by the ease with which so many people degenerated into condemning the entire age group for the actions of a few.
Before coming to conclusions, we should always ask ourselves “what would the other person say/think/feel?”, because chances are our mindset is biased and our knowledge incomplete.
A while back my parents’ generation condemned my cohort for its love of Starbucks coffee and bottled water. Here are some simulated conversations about it:
They: Why would you go to an specialty coffee shop for coffee when there’s so much other coffee available for less? You must be doing it out of snobbery. Me: I go to these places because the quality is reliably good, and they are places where I can relax and do my work at the same time.
They: Why would you pay $1.50 for a bottle of water when you could get it from the tap for free? You don’t appreciate the value of money, and you’re foolish to waste it on something totally unnecessary, not to mention adding more plastic trash to the environment. Me: I only pay $.20 for a bottle because I buy them in bulk, and I’m trying to get myself to drink more water for health purposes, and the tap water doesn’t taste as good; and I recycle the bottles.
I’m not sure my reasonable answers would have changed their minds, but at least the dialog provides the opportunity for clarification. These days, most of us (on all sides) don’t bother to check out our assumptions with others who might reasonably correct us.
Similarly, we older folks need to step back and think about what we think of the younger generation. Sure, there are slouches and dullards, but we have those too.
Today’s millennials include soldiers, scientists, teachers, journalists, doctors, nurses, and so many others, many of whom worked their butts off to become great at what they do and serve the public — and all of us are the beneficiaries. And this isn’t even counting single parents, who toil not for their careers but to nurture the adults of the future.
And what do the younger ones think of we older ones? We, who by focusing on our self interest, ushered America into a degraded tatters of a democracy, and the world into an era of multiple existential threats to humanity? We are hardly qualified to talk.
We should all get off our high horses, forgive and thank each other for our respective sins and contributions, and start working together for a better future — there’s so much to be done.
]]>The human condition is one of contradictions.
We enjoy and celebrate the successes of science and technology. We honor acts of selflessness, goodness, and courage.
And yet, unfortunately, we human beings also see behavior in each other that appears to spring from a being without a brain, or a heart, or sometimes both.
How much worse when we find that we ourselves have displayed insensitivity, arrogance, or malice.
One of the highest forms of nobility we as humans have is the willingness to acknowledge our imperfections and work to change them. We do this for others, and for ourselves.
So much of our waking time is spent working. And so much of our happiness during that working time depends on our working relationships.
The times when I have worked on teams that have a culture of friendliness and helpfulness have been my happiest ones. Working in toxic environments where nastiness was tolerated and practiced were my most miserable ones.
There’s something I call radical helpfulness. I mean by this thinking outside the box…extending yourself beyond your comfort zone and/or beyond the realm of your responsibility, to be helpful. I talk about it more in another article on Medium here.
Since I want to be treated well, I need to do everything I can to model the kind of treatment I want to receive.
Here are some questions I ask myself, in the spirit of radical helpfulness, that may be helpful to you as well.
Here are some examples of my attempts at radical helpfulness.
1) I once attended a meeting where two coworkers were discussing a new software module. They spoke and spoke, and when anyone else tried to speak they cut them off. Finally I couldn’t take it any longer and said “you know, we’ve been listening to you guys talk for over a half hour. X and Y haven’t said anything until now, and now when they did, you cut them off. I’d like to hear what they have to say.” To their credit, when this was pointed out to them they realized what they had done and corrected it immediately. Think about how X and Y felt. Have you ever felt that way? Or ever made someone else feel that way?
2) There was one time at work many years ago when two of my coworkers were yelling at each other. I stepped up to them and asked “would a third party be helpful here?” They each told me their grievances and we defused the situation.
3) Another time, there was a guy who was being let go from our company. There was a rumor that he had done something quite inappropriate, but not something that had caused anyone physical or emotional harm. He was being shunned by everyone. I felt bad for him. I wanted him to know that I acknowledged his value as a person, and we talked from time to time. He was an interesting guy, very curious and inventive. We were talking on the phone once after he left the company, and he told me he had been experimenting with explosives at his rural home. Nothing ever happened. But if no one had ever connected with him, would it have?
We need to cultivate in our minds a radical helpfulness bot that’s always watching our lives and asking us ‘what can you do to make this better?’ at opportune times.
How wonderful that we [Rubyists] work in a community where MINSWAN (“Matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto, principal author of Ruby) Is Nice So We Are Nice”) is a guiding principle; but we are just a microcosm of the world.
When our human species is studied by future species, what will they see? Will they see an animal implementation of the weed, who overtook the planet on which it lived to the point of making it uninhabitable? Or will they see a noble species who worked really hard to overcome their default modes of thinking to save, nurture, and support each other, and the other beings with whom they shared this planet?
The answer to that, my friends, is up to us.
]]>I recently had lunch with three of my coworkers. Among them was Charles, a quiet and mild mannered man most noticeable to me by his strong southern accent (Louisiana, to be precise). Towards the end of the lunch, Charles mentioned something about traveling and I asked him where he’d gone. His answer blew me away. On his most recent trip, he spent four months solo backpacking in southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and Iran.
I have traveled to several continents, but comparing his courage and adventurousness to my relative timidity had me wanting to bow and exclaim “I’m not worthy” three times à la Wayne’s World.
Learning about this side of Charles gave me an appreciation of him as an individual I would never have gotten by merely conversing with him about work at his cubicle. How much we miss when we fail to delve beyond the exteriors of the people with whom we work every day!
Some organizations are so large that most people know only a tiny percentage of their coworkers. Departments other than one’s own appear to be black boxes whose opaque boundaries consist only of unfamiliar email addresses and occasional cross-boundary announcements. Navigating the bureaucracy is done best by those who have been immersed in it for years. Most people are strangers to each other. How unfortunate.
Here’s an idea that might help address this problem. It works like this:
Everyone who’s interested submits their name to a list, with days, times, and possibly places that they’re available. For any given time slot, the names of those who are available are selected at random in groups of four. Each group of four meets for lunch.
I can’t really come up with a name I like a lot, but maybe something that begins with Flash, Random, Surprise, or Friendly, and ends with Four or Band.
That number is not strictly required, but it’s a good number, because if it were fewer than four:
…and if it were more than four:
The optimum size of this kind of event depends on its duration, so while four might be ideal for a lunch hour, six to eight might be fine for an afternoon or evening outing. Of course, larger outings can be good for team building, but probably not as effective for getting to know strangers, since most people will gravitate towards those whom they already know.
Although this is an informal and optional gathering without any oversight, a little bit of structure may be helpful. Specifically, each person could be encouraged to spend a few minutes talking about him-or-herself — only briefly about their role in the organization, but mainly about things that are not work related. Examples could be:
Participants should be careful not to dominate the conversation, and to gently solicit participation from those who might otherwise be too shy to speak up.
When expressing your opinions, it’s important to remember that others may not share them. We want to focus on what unites us, not what divides us — so be tactful and respectful.
This is a great opportunity to challenge our stereotypes and discover the value and merit in people with whom we might not otherwise have sought to meet.
We may not be able to create world peace, but in our tiny microcosm, by challenging our mental rigidity and getting to know each other, we can become better people and make our workplace a closer community — and this will result in more trust, motivation, creativity, productivity, and collective accomplishment.
This is just a first pass at the idea. Do you have any suggestions to make it better?
]]>I recently spent two days with other students in a Kanban class (see Wikipedia’s definition of kanban here). An effective kanban system minimizes the degree to which any part of the process needs to wait for input from its predecessor (called blocking), and maximize task completion. Loosely associated with kanban is kaizen, which, in the western business world, signifies a process of continually improving operations based on feedback and experimentation from people at all levels of an organization.
During the mid-afternoon break on the second day we were invited to go next door for free ice cream (!). I arrived to find a substantial line. (Backlog!) The process was quite inefficient. Each “customer” stepped up to the ice cream bar, took a scoop from a metal container filled with water, scooped his or her ice cream, and returned the scoop to the metal container. Making matters worse, the ice cream bar was located in a place that was ill-suited for this flow, so entering and exiting the scooping area made it take even more time.
Seeing this, Sam the kitchen manager came over and offered “I can do this for you much more quickly.” Strangely, the person about to scoop ice cream ignored him. He may not have heard Sam. The second person also ignored Sam. I was the third person, and I enthusiastically gave him my bowl and said “Go for it!”
It must have been frustrating for Sam watching us flounder like that because when he finally got the go-ahead from me, he dove for the scoops. Like a sheriff in the wild west picking up his six shooters, he lunged toward the metal container, grabbed one scoop in each hand, and plunged them in two ice cream tubs at the same time. Then he did it again with the other two scoops and tubs. Hmmm, there were four scoops and four tubs, what a fortunate coincidence (not!). This was a brilliant application of kaizen. I was pretty excited to share this story with the class, and eventually had my chance.
After relating my story, Ken, the instructor offered his own. I’m paraphrasing, but basically he said “Did you notice that yesterday and today, the lunch line was really long, and it took forever for some people to get their lunch? The lunch table was placed against the wall so that only one line could pass. From a throughput point of view, that’s the worst place it possibly could have been.”
Doh!!! Epic fail! We could have halved the time it took to get lunch (which felt like 15–20 minutes for some) by merely sliding the table over a few feet. We like to think of ourselves as pretty smart, but sometimes, um, not so much.
So I thought to myself (cough, retrospective, cough), why did this happen? Why, in a room full of professionals, many of us engineers no less, did no one think of this? Here are some possible answers.
It is common for us to assume rigid lines bounding our responsibilities, and focus our energies inside those lines. This is, after all, the basis on which our value is judged; no one ever got a raise or promotion by picking up someone else’s garbage. And while there is a legitimate weight for this, in its extreme it is selfish.
What if I make a suggestion and it turns out to be a silly one? Or what if the person responsible would be angry if I moved the table, saying that I should mind my own business?
If I just wait my turn, I can avoid the effort of embarking on this mental journey to solve the problem, and avoid the social effort required to enlist the support or permission of others.
I’m not good enough to figure out a solution to this problem, so I won’t bother trying.
Most likely, it doesn’t even occur to me to try to solve the problem.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that this alternative had already been considered and rejected for good reason. I’ve found that sometimes when I’m sure I know better, I don’t — and that’s another opportunity for growth, but outside the scope of this article.
I attended a conference in Toronto a few years back, and a false fire alarm sent everyone out into the street. There were probably a hundred people waiting a pretty long time for the hotel to call us back in. Two parents and their children were standing there in their swimsuits, obviously quite cold. I found a hotel employee, pointed to the family, and said “those folks look pretty cold, is there anything we could do for them, maybe get them some towels?” A couple of minutes later they had towels around their shoulders and smiles of relief on their faces. Though I may be projecting, it occurred to me that they were happy not only to be warm, but from the nice feeling that we get when we receive (or give) help.
Why wasn’t the hotel staff scanning the crowd to see how they could make their customers more comfortable? And why didn’t it occur to the parents to ask for help? Sometimes the best window into ourselves is that which we notice in others. What would I find if I examined my mind to see if I share those self-imposed limitations? How can I train myself to go beyond them?
At one of my employment positions, I noticed that the procurement process was dismally broken. The system we had in place was this: When you run out of stuff, go to the store and buy it. No inventory. One time a presentation to a potential customer almost didn’t happen because a blank CD couldn’t be found, and someone had to race out to the store to get one in time.
I remembered the admonition not to complain about a problem without proposing a solution, so I put together an email message outlining a system I thought would work well for us. I sent it to the guy in charge.
In contrast to my polite and respectful tone, he replied with what was probably the most vitriolic email message I’ve received in my entire career. He accused me of inventing fictitious problems, and told me to mind my own business and stick to software development. (My coworkers confirmed my statements.)
Given reactions like this, is it any wonder that so many of us do just that, mind our own business, ignoring opportunities to further the collective goals?
This is why it’s so important for a work group, department, or organization to show by their actions (words are good, but by themselves not enough) that they require respect and fair play; otherwise, how can they complain if their people lack initiative?
It was late at night a few years ago, and I was driving from San Francisco to my friend’s place about an hour outside of the city. I was getting sleepy. Suddenly I heard a siren, and noticed flashing lights in my rear view mirror. I pulled over. The highway patrolmen told me I had been weaving, and asked if I had been drinking. I hadn’t. Since I had no recollection of weaving, or anything, before being pulled over I’m pretty sure I was asleep. If I hadn’t been stopped, I might have died that night.
How did they know, was it coincidence? Did they just happen to be driving near me? Since then I learned that anyone can call #77 and be connected with the local or state police appropriate to that location. It’s possible that a good Samaritan saw me and notified the authorities.
Since then I have called #77 many times, once for a car fire, several times when people were weaving (including trucks!), and many times when I encountered a road hazard such as a box on the highway.
Is it my job to do so? Not really, but how boring would my life be if I only did things I had to do? And besides, what nobler thing could I possibly do with my life than save another’s?
In the book “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”, the great physicist Richard Feynman relates (among other things) his experiences as a child working at a hotel run by his aunt on the beach. His playful uber-geeky brilliance is a fun read as he relates his incessant ill-fated attempts at process improvement at the hotel and the angry reactions of his elders. In his defense, it would be unfair to judge his inventions by the very first iterations of them, and he didn’t get the opportunity to refine them. You can read this online at pp. 25–30 of the book (go to http://books.google.com and search for “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman”).
The lack of initiative so often found damages productivity in the workplace, but if we extend it to the broader human experience, we can see that much suffering has occurred due to apathy and selfishness. Edmund Burke said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” It is natural for us to think of ourselves and our families first, our wider groups and nations next, and “the rest of the world” last. We’re wired that way. But it would also be prudent, helpful, and good to acknowledge how much damage and suffering that self-centeredness has caused, and work to mitigate it.
Gerald Weinberg says in his book “The Second Law of Consulting” that “No matter how it looks at first, it’s always a people problem.” We want to be part of the solution, not the problem, right? So here are some questions we can all ask ourselves:
What other questions would you add to this list?
]]>You can download it here or listen to it using the player below:
In the first part of the interview Corey tells us about his inspiring and unconventional journey, which began with, of all things, being fired from his job. He immediately picked himself up and planned his next move. Thinking outside the box, he set out to teach and learn from his colleagues in the technical community, starting with David Chelimsky of RSpec fame. That is, he literally set out, visiting them for up to a week at a time, sleeping on couches, absorbing their wisdom, passing it on to the next people and offering some of his own. Corey is now an internationally known and respected member of the Ruby community, leading code retreats all over the world.
In the second part Corey shares his observations about organizations, teams, and individuals in the workplace. Here are some of my favorite quotes from it:
“…most of the companies that I really admire, they don’t call it agile, they just call it software development, so for the techniques that XP has, they wouldn’t dream of not doing automated testing, because that’s irresponsible for your client. Now, they do it and they learn about it, they find pain points with it, and instead of abandoning it, they inspect it. Are we potentially doing it wrong, are we potentially doing it in an immature fashion, are we doing it in a way that we can fix, and so they’re constantly inspecting.”
“You can bring inexperienced people in, but don’t put them in a corner and have them sit there hacking out code. Bring inexperienced people in and treat them as equals, treat them as people that you’re mentoring, treat them with respect, and they’ll strive to do that, and if they don’t you cut them. If they’re not that kind, then you get rid of them and you bring in the people who are of that nature.”
“I think the most effective way [of collaborating], which does not mean it’s the only effective way is big open room, big huge monitors, live input devices for everybody, so two keyboards, two mice on a machine.”
“The companies that ate together that would either bring lunch in or people would go out and bring it back or they would go out in groups of six or something, but if you eat together, it just was wonderful because you got in in the morning and it was your family that you spent the day with…those places I loved. It just breeds that excitement about it, and it breeds responsibility, and the better you know your teammates, and the more affection you have for them, the less you want to let them down, and you’re willing to work on your own skills to that you don’t let them down.”
(Q: “In the places you’ve encountered that have been the most productive and successful, what are the leaders like?”) “I think they all seem to be very engaged, they all seem to like the people, they want the people to be happy, and they tend to be engaged in the day to day stuff. Either they’re actually sitting on the floor with people working, or they are in there a lot, or they are in the meetings a lot, but they tend to be very engaged, and have a good philosophy about both software and people.”
…and my favorite one:
“Software development is a very social activity.”
I hope you enjoy listening to this interview as much as I did (several times).
- Keith
00:20 – The adventures of Corey Haines and traveling around the world
02:00 – Tendencies to work in a very insulated community
03:05 – Finding people and having them find you
12:30 – All of the above stemmed from a “negative event”: getting fired
16:25 – Establishing a reputation within the Agile community
19:40 – Corey and Ruby
23:50 – Different ways of doing things/insights
28:07 – Hiring the best people for a job
29:45 – Effective ways of collaborating
32:15 – Who to pair with and when
33:35 – People who resist pair programming
37:06 – Leadership
38:08 – Learning new technology to do your job
44:40 – Where is Corey today (as of interview, August 2011)?
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