lidenskap.blog

Consulting is the art of influencing people at their request. People want some sort of change, or fear some sort of change, so they seek consulting.

What are some of the Gerald Weinberg's secrets?

• In spite of what your client may tell you, there is always a problem, and no matter how it looks first, it is always a people problem.
  
  
• Remember that once you eliminate your number one problem, you promote number two. The ability to find the problem in any situation is the consultant's best asset. You must give up the illusion that you will ever finish solving problems.
  
  
• Things are the way they are because they got that way. You never start with a blank slate. There were, at the time, good and sufficient reasons for decisions that seem idiotic today. Study for understanding, not for criticism.
  
  
• When you point your finger at someone, notice where the other three fingers are pointing.
  
  
• The name of a thing is not the thing. We have a tendency to attach a label to every new thing we see, and then treat that thing as if the label were true and a total description. Each person sees a part of the whole and identifies the whole with that part. The true expert can see multiple aspects of a situation but the novice sees only one thing.
  
  
• Deal gently with systems that should be able to cure themselves. Repeatedly curing a system that can cure itself will eventually create a system that can't. And remember that every prescription has two parts: the medicine and the method of ensuring correct use. If the treatment stops too soon, the disease springs back.
  
  
• Nothing new ever works, but there is always hope that this time will be different. Accept that the new will fail. If it can't be perfect, how can you use it so it will be better than the one you have today? Improvement is easier than perfection.
  
  
• You can make buffalo go anywhere, just so long as they want to go there. You don't make people change when you more interested in what you want than in what your clients want.
  
  
• If we want to learn anything, we must not try to learn everything. When you stop learning new things, it's time to move on. You are hired for knowing what others don't know, so a consultant that stops learning soon decays in value.
  
  
• Give away your best ideas. Do everything to encourage your clients to take over your work. This increases the chance they will give you future business, or recommend to you others. If you try to have an answer to every question, you drive your clients away. The best marketing tool is a satisfied client.
  

"Secrets of Consulting" and "More Secrets of Consulting" by Gerald M. Weinberg

As understanding deepens, the strategist seeks the crux - the one challenge that both is critical and appears to be solvable.

A diagnosis of the situation. Figure out what's going on here and understand the challenge you face. The challenge can be to deal with change and competition, it can be triggered by a large opportunity or it can be internal like outdated routines, bureaucracy, or lack of collaboration.

A guiding policy, i.e. what will you do and what will you not do with the challenge. It is "guiding" because it channels actions in certain directions without defining exactly what shall be done.

A set of coherent actions that will carry out the guiding policy. This part is so easy to leave out because people like to think of strategy as a high level conceptual thing. Strategy is about action. There must be enough clarity about action to bring concepts down to earth.

When deciding what you will do with the challenge, find your source of advantage. Do you know something that others don't? Do you have a skill that others don't have? Do you have a reputation, brand or existing market system that others cannot replicate? Do you have scale, technology, experience or other resources that others don't have?

A bad strategy is fluff and fails to face the challenge, it lacks the diagnosis. If you don't frame the challenge it is difficult to assess the quality of the strategy.

Another mistake is to treat goals as a strategy. Many bad strategies are just statements of desire rather than plans for overcoming obstacles. Good strategic objectives are the outcome of a strategy, not its input.

Bad strategy is the active avoidance of the hard work of crafting a good strategy. One common reason for choosing avoidance is the pain or difficulty of choice.

Good strategy requires leaders who are willing to and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests.

Strategy is not mysterious. It is about solving the most important problem you are facing. You need to be focused on something doable and be consistent about it.

When we are going to do something we have done before, we know what we don't know. 

We know where and why delays are likely to occur and we usually know what to do if something goes wrong. We can plan the steps ahead. In this world, clarity and process optimization is good.

Wicked or complex problems on the other hand are different. There is no one right answer. There are no agreement on what the problem really is. 

You face many stakeholders with conflicting objectives. No solutions are right or wrong. You can make the outcome better or worse, but you are never done. Forcing clarity in this world will inevitably hinder innovation.

Getting married is not complex, but having a happy marriage is. There is a manual for getting married. But there is no "best practice" for a happy marriage. It's the sum of many small parts which makes it difficult to make a detailed plan. You cannot copy someone else's work and expect the same results because no two complex problems are alike.

All the analysis, plans and methodologies used to build a car are useless if your problem is car traffic. A car slowing down will cause ripple effects in the traffic difficult to predict. The issue with traffic is not the cars, the buses, the bicycles, or the pedestrians. It is in the relationship between them.

Building the Titanic out of LEGO bricks is not complex. You can simply follow the instructions. The whole equals the sum of the parts.

What about development of digital products that you haven't built before, either at all or in your context?

Market conditions change. Technology is changing. People's behavior change. We don't quite know how we are going to do it. We don't know what people want. You don't know what you don't know until you do something and get feedback. That's when the actual development starts.

Leading in complexity calls for something other than plans and best practices. Sense what's happening. Get some data. Take small actions based on the data and see what happens. Learn from it. Do more of what works, and less of what don't. Find the small changes that have a large positive effect.

Easier said then done. We are humans and we fear uncertainty. When we face uncertainty, we often manufacture excuses for not getting started. We don't start walking until we find an approach that's guaranteed to work.

It's hard to say to your stakeholders that you don't know exactly if it will be a success, when it will be finished and what it will cost.

What we can do is to deliver something early and often and let people try it and give feedback. 

We can also share what we believe (our hypothesis), what we will do to verify it, how we will measure it, what we observed, what we learned from it and what we will do next based on that.

In complexity, how do you measure success? You get what you measure you know ...

In our team workshop last week I shared some technology beliefs, principles or statements (don't know what to call it).

They help me approach (digital) technology in this uncertain, complex and fast-moving world.

All technologies serve a purpose. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes you must dig deeper to discover it and it can also change over time. Find and understand the purpose.

Technologies cause new problems for every problem they solve. The problems of today are caused by yesterday's successes, and the technical solutions today will cause the problems of tomorrow.

All technologies are combinations of existing technologies. Look for surprising innovations and benefits in the combination and remix of different technologies.

All technologies come from social interactions and exchange of ideas. Not the lone genius. Go out and observe and talk with different people.

Technologies thrive in ecosystems of highly interdependent technologies that support each other. The success of one technology often depends on the success of others in a mix of collaboration and competition. You see this with all the partnerships and collaborations being established by tech companies. They compete in one dimension, but collaborate in another because their technologies benefit each other.

The more powerful a technology is, the more powerfully it will be abused.​ Unfortunately, new technologies will also unleash new ways to lie, cheat, steal, spy, and terrorize.

We tend to fit all new technologies into the old frame we already know.​ It's just harder to imagine how the known and comfortable frame can and should change to exploit the benefits from new technologies.

Nothing is as easy as it looks like. Period.

Technology in the future will be a series of endless upgrades. Nothing is finished. Nothing is done.

No matter how it looks first, it is always a people* problem (* = process, people, organization). Yep, usually the things that make or break technologies are process, organization and people challenges.

Successful technologies are the ones we only notice when they don’t work. They have become invisible. We don't even call them technologies anymore. Just look around you in the room you are sitting in now.

The coolest and most disruptive technologies of all have not been invented yet.

What do you think?

Problems typically have multiple causes and can be addressed in many ways.

Frame the problem. Write down the problem you are trying to solve and list the people who are involved. Is the problem clear? Is a solution "baked into" the problem framing? How do you know the statement is true?

Then start to look outside the frame. What's missing from the current problem statement? Look beyond your own expertise. Avoid framing a problem to match whatever technique you are most proficient in. Look to prior events. Did something happen before the period of time you are looking at? Look for hidden influences. Are there higher-level, systemic factors at play that influence the people involved?

Rethink the goal. What is the goal you are trying to achieve and why? What would success look like? Are you pursuing the right goal? Is there a better goal to pursue? Are key assumptions actually true? What is the goal behind the goal?

Examine the bright spots to identify positive exceptions that can give you a new perspective on the problem, and even point you directly to a viable solution. When do we not have the problem? When was the problem less severe? Have the problem already been solved at least once? Who else deals with this type of problem? Who seems not to have this problem, even if they are in a similar situation? What are they doing differently?

Take a look in the mirror. What is my role in creating this problem? Is it possible that my (or our) own behavior is, on some level, contributing to the problem? Scale the problem down to your level. Is there a part of the problem I can do something about?

Take their perspective. Invest time in understanding other people. Discover how they see the world - and in particular, how they see it differently from you. What's their needs, emotions, and general point of view? What are their problems? Goals? Beliefs? What information do they have? There is often a reasonable explanation behind the actions of other people: something that you might have done too, had you been in their shoes.

Move forward. The last step in the reframing is to validate your framing through real-world testing. Describe the problem to stakeholders and get feedback. Get outsiders to help validate your problems. Test and find out if the problem is real or important enough for your stakeholders to really want to solve it.

At the end of a reframing, schedule time for a new one. 

The problem change over time. Repeat. 

Create routines and practice the mindset.

"What's your problem?" By Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg