October 2008 Archives

When I was young, things were easier. Today, millions of hard-working fluent English speaking graduates from around the world will enter the search for work/money/status with no expectations of anyone "giving" them anything and having to make it themselves by motivation and ability. So what advice can you give home grown grads starting out in work when it's getting tough out there?

My father (94) who's seen all types of times is on the money,' Forget about taking a year off. Don't spend your adult years finding yourself. When you are poor, don't try to live like a rich person. Invest your time and money in your future'.

My son (28) also has the right attitude. 'You'll only worry yourself if you look around at what's going on outside your orbit as there's nothing you can do to change it. So focus on what you do and do it well.'

As we accept that globalisation means people everywhere are competing for our jobs, my view is that the marketplace for fun jobs will be ridiculously competitive. So if you know people that want to become a writer, actor, comedian, athlete etc they should calculate their probability of success in these glamour fields before starting out. The cult of celebrity is fed by the failures of others. 

Even if you are entering IT take nothing for granted. Develop skills and talents that will make you globally competitive. Keep upgrading and changing your skills and talents to fit the needs of an ever-changing marketplace.

A friend at Friends of the Earth tells me that while they are thrilled that the economic downturn will take pressure off the planet climate wise, the downside is that it makes fundraising difficult.

It's that old conundrum - Once a job is done why do you need to exist? Procreating man has been having to deal with that problem since the 80's

With the world in flux, the basis of power is moving from organisations to networks that have the ability to mobilise quickly, accomplish their goal, and then disperse. How do we respond in a world where funding is going down, money is tight but the social need is going to go up? How are these needs to be met?  Our contribution can be by empowering more social networks and not clunky, bureaucratic organisations.

Many industries are woefully inefficient and siloed. Now it's time to change. There are huge inefficiencies in the way organisations manage workflow internally and also how they collaborate. One-to-one communications like email remain king. One-to-many collaborative tools like wikis, internal blogs and micro-blogs are still not in widespread use. We need to break down walls by ushering in new tools in that enable employees to connect with each other. Now is the time to become more efficient, open and collaborative.

If you like good conspiracy theories try this one for size. The world economic collapse was brought about deliberately by political force in the face of overwhelming concern about the environment. With the trend in climate change much closer to the tipping point than previously admitted, 'the powers that be' had to take a radical and dramatic step to stop consumerism from exacerbating the problem.

With the rich and powerful secure in their bubble and able to take advantage of any downturn by buying and consolidating assets on the cheap, it was considered the right time to put the brake on, bringing, at a stroke, consumer spending to a halt, a cut in energy consumption and much reduced air travel.

It's the Bowling Ball Theory. If you go into any mall, shop, or commercial district and could roll a bowling ball without hitting anyone, no one is out spending - the plan has worked. What could never be done by consensual politics has been achieved by a machiavellian strike. 

Many of the IT departments I've worked in or consulted to, do not have a communications or marketing program. In the history of business we're a young part of the mix. Our strategic value is vague and rarely articulated clearly. Many of us talk about things in technology and not in business terms.

If the belt is being tightened, having someone at the strategic planning table able to put forward cost saving or investment ideas that will help the organisation survive is critical. Start off by getting away from your desk and do some 'management by walking about' to find out from other departments how you can support their initiatives or ease the pain.

Once you've got the intelligence, get your team together and brainstorm some options to help the enterprise. Get the help of the best marketeer you know to advise you how to communicate these in business terms and then market the ideas round the organisation.  You'll then be seen as a valued strategic partner and not just the department to die by a 1000 cuts.

P.S. If you need help with marketing, phone up one of your suppliers and pull in a favour by running ideas past their new business manager to get commercial input on your initiatives. 

I've previously blogged about the effect that spreadsheets had in creating the credit crunch. Will presentation software drive us further into the mire? From the number of 'Surviving the Downturn' presentations posted on the web by highly self-regarding professional firms it seems probable.

For example, the following apple-pie advice came from a major global consultancy. If you are facing a market in recession focus your teams' efforts on winning new business. Winning new business creates a feel good factor in itself and undermines your competitors by removing business from them. Similarly, this drivel came from a 'world beating organisation', Banks tend to under-perform when the economy is weak: they are under pressure now.

Slideware reduces the analytical quality of presentations. Presentations usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. If you are one of the PowerPoint users that turn out trillions of slides each year and are going to give a presentation, turn of the projector. It will reduce both your carbon and bullshit footprint.

I sat next to a global fund manager at lunch yesterday. Far from being gloomy he sees the UK banking sector coming out of the current crisis quite quickly. I pressed him on when and how. He gave me the why.

He'd just come back from a round-the-world trip. London, he said, was the only town where there wasn't an overpowering sense of gloom. Was this the British 'muddling through' spirit, I asked? The answer was revealing. In other towns no-one was prepared to make a joke of the current situation. Without being prepared to see the funny side of things the gloom gets gloomier.

London, however, is such a cosmopolitan place, that people working here from abroad get infected with the English facility for self-deprecation. As the fund manager put it, 'It's worse than divorce -- I've lost half my wealth but I've still got the wife'. The answer to London's future success is its ability to dust itself down and not to dwell.

There's always opportunity in turbulent times. However, executives are often scared of placing bets on big projects in a fast-moving, chaotic economy. So now is the time to come up with a "portfolio of initiatives;" particularly ones that utilizes untapped skills and assets. Such IT projects, especially if they harvest some of the 'low hanging productivity fruit' that's always around any organisation, will let your execs see how you are helping while limiting any downside risk.

To start with, dust of any shelfware that you have purchased but never used. Shelfware is thought to have soaked up a staggering 20% of IT expenditure so there is plenty about!

For example, amongst the bundles of add-ons that come with your key applications there will be some utilities that may make people's lives easier. If rolled-out cleverly they will make staff see a business that's experimenting, an IT department being proactive and, if the app is neat enough, give them something to take their minds off the news.

Job titles have seen a bubble of their own - has it burst too? The inflation of simple job descriptions by an exaggerated nomenclature may see a crash as people revamp their business cards to hide their responsibility for the recent debacle.

The trend started when the Accountant becoming Chief Financial Officer in the search of a seat on the Board, A trend that permeated every department - Personnel became Human Resources, lavatory attendants became Sanitization Officer.  Who now, would want the title "Credit Risk Derivatives and Exotics Manager"?

Looking through the technology recruitment sites our industry may be just as culpable "Software Development Manager - Risk Management" - guilt by association?  So let's look forward to back-to-basics - I do what it says on the tin - business cards. I just hope your next one doesn't read "Job Seeker."

As the dust settles from the current crisis and the adrenaline wears off an overwhelming weariness may overcome the affected -- which could be most of us. We may well be suffering from the exhaustion of delusion i.e. having to come to terms with having lived with the belief that the world is one thing only to find out it is another.

As recovering delusionists we will have to face up to some hard truths. However, IT professionals may be better prepared than most. After all we have been promising much and delivering little at enormous cost for so long it should save the banker's blushes. With the Conservatives pledging cut-backs on HMG IT projects (if or when they govern) and with Gartner's predicting a reduction in IT spending.

The HBR's Management tip of the day suggests appealing to people's hearts, not just their minds in an effort to combat the complacency that can kill a key change initiative?

It recommends such tactics as bringing in emotionally compelling data, people, and images depicting what's going on in the industry, its markets, and the competition -- and showing that the company must alter course to survive. 

It stresses demonstrating your own sense of urgency in every meeting, face-to-face exchanges, and written communication. While this is all good stuff, it's important  your sense of urgency doesn't appear as panic - panic is so last week :-)

Dust off your skills - Cometh the hour, cometh the man, cometh the software.

Following the UK's near nationalisation of the banking industry, government now has greater access to our financial identities (an idea being picked up in other territories). With the astonishing cost to the taxpayer being spun to us as 'public ownership' how can we be sure the powers-that-be don't get access to our personal financial details.

With 'money laundering' legislation used more for tax avoidance reasons than terrorist or drug dealing prevention we should shake-in-our-boots at the thought of banks being in the hand of politicians.

I am no conspiracy theorist - more of a believer in the 'law of unintended consequences - but big brother just got bigger.   

With the UK PM doing his old job as Chancellor rather well (he'll have to return to PM'ing soon) it shows that if you've got a good idea and the means of disseminating it others will pick up and run with it.

At lunch over the weekend a City head-hunter, postulated the idea that much of the appalling risk and debt management by financial institutions was due to the ubiquity of invalidated or non-compliant spreadsheet data.

A logical step in a downturn is to cut and cut - be it staff and services - even abandoning operations. During such times there should be guidelines and options for austerity initiatives.  Management by spreadsheet alone without regard for long term impact on customer habits and overall asset and/or brand value is a bad choice. The following check list is a place to start before you start deleting cells.

1. Honestly analyse your business' economic health.
2. Identify internal weaknesses.
3. Develop a contingency plan.
4. Create a worst-case scenario cash flow forecast.
5. Review the terms and conditions of your bank loan.
6. Write an opportunity-based business plan.
7. Search for acquisition opportunities within the industry.

The market meltdown is no reason to take your eye off the energy crunch. However, it may have a fringe benefit. With all the 'consolidation' gong on in the banking sector and job losses in the 'City' there may be an easing of data centre restricions .

This time last year it was increasingly difficult to get extra rack space and additional power in key UK, European and US data centres. While integration and downsizing will take its time, speak to your centre manager and check out what might become available - could be there'll be some 'big iron' going cheap.

I've just been reading maturity level training material on managing projects. They're based on Prince2. [Link corrected; thanks to commenter Jay Gao.] One module looks at communication skills. A key area it focuses on is ensuring that the end-users of the project's outcome are as committed to its success as the client.

It is critically important when starting any collaboration project to make sure that, while people buy-in to a project, they actually have the time to support their intention. My experience in rolling-out collaborative applications is that their time allocation (be it testing, training or data input) is the hardest to pin down. While you can schedule, plan and book time people's diaries when it comes to the crunch the pressure of 'work' (occasionally a euphemism for laziness) is their way of getting out of what is arguably a boring task.

This leaves collaborative applications being run out untested and unproven with the inevitable consequences; allowing 'users' to run back to the standalone spreadsheet applications they've developed while waiting for the 'killer collaborative app' to be delivered. 

Communication is the key to this. And that's not just the project team informing people what's going on but critically, listening to what people mean when they commit to your project. You've got to be sure they are not just saying yes for an easy life now to let you down later. You can throw people and money at a project but you can't throw time.