Roman's miles

Evolving from a software engineer to ...

Our biggest experiment in life is our life itself - "life has no rehearsals, only performances". A huge part of it is our career. Non necessarily in terms of climbing a career ladder and reaching boss positions but rather as the longest project of ours, where a rollback operation may be very expensive.

Ten years ago when I started my career my future plans were very clear and precise. I knew that from a software engineer I could become one day a developer, and then an architect. To climb the highest position of an architect with all likelihood I had to become a team leader - that was (is) a standard practice and a relatively common way to get more interesting job, more responsibility, and usually more money. That was a career path for a techie. At a pinnacle of one's desire there could be a position of CTO. That was all.

In this primitive evolution path a question on what to do next (what position to wish, what skills to obtain, what new things to learn) wasn't quite a question. Moving around in the world of engineers was akin to driving a trolleybus: your have some place for maneuver on a line (let alone a huge number of lines) but only as soon as the poles allow. Questions start if one thinks of mixing in business or managerial ingredients to the career. Then the driving turns into driving a bike, or a track, or even a F1 bolide - you gain much more diversity in your routes but it comes with a risk to get not where you hoped to. I admit that this analogy sounds silly and didn't mean to claim that the pure technology world is way too simple comparing to its business parallel. I meant to say that if you get off the technology track then the variety of options for your career is such infinite that this fact demands from you more thinking, planning (both long- and short-terms), and more caution; it also comes with more risks and less known.

I've got off the solely technology track about two years ago when I joined SAP ans shifted from software development (actually a code-generating group) to a group dealing with anything but coding. I feel like I've changed the profession and to go forward I need to answer a few questions:

• what do I want to do now (near-term view)?
• what can I dream of doing in 3-5 years (mid-term)?
• what do I leave for myself to think about in 10 years from now (long-term)?

I wrote about similar questions some time ago but looking at them through the prism of transitioning from a tetchier to a business guy/manger I see other questions very relevant too:

• how can I shift to a new position without starting from scratch and without loosing my previous experience?
• how should I invest in new skills/experience so that if I change my mind the investments will be still valuable?
• how to climb the career pick in a more pragmatic and less harmful way?

I'll be sharing my thoughts on the topic in coming blogs and will try to answer the questions as I perceive them now. I must confess that I have no answers yet. I rather will contemplate different options weighting positive and negative aspects and invite you to participate in the discussion.

Update: Counting options is the second blog in the series.

Update: Building the path is the third blog in the series.

Technorati tags: career, shift, change

Why and how to love lost deals?

You lost a deal. That happens. The more you try the more lost deals (in absolute numbers) you may have. It doesn't matter whether the lost is to a competitor or a prospect decided simply to freeze the deal - you didn't get a sale. How do you react to it on a practical level? Do you see it as an unfortunate even or as an opportunity to learn? Are you waiting for loses or afraid of them?

Lost deals are inevitable and they're only the symptoms of a disease that can fall out of the blue. You have if not to love them but at least be ready for them. A few ideas on how to organize a lab of studying infections on early stages of diseases.

• Don't let emotions prevail pragmatism. When a deal is lost squeeze all productive information out of this sad fact. Naturally, human  beings rush to forget sad stories and sales folks are not an exception. But from a pragmatic standpoint it's a huge opportunity to see what's going wrong.  Talk to the prospect or offer an option to leave feedback. Find out motives and reasons of the lost. Whether you do it in personal meetings or online have a system in place to collect and later analyze the data. Will Hermann has a distinct blog on how to make a lost analysis in direct sales.
• Found a system to research the collected data. Be ready not just emotionally to collect the data but technically too. Have a system with questionnaires, guidelines on how to collect interviews, metrics to measure, aggregate, and analyze the information. Measure not for the sake of numbers but seeking for answers - adjust the system as the company's experience grows, add/clarify the questions to better address reasons, incentives, and circumstances of lost and won deals.
• Collect win data too. Try to minimize questions you should guess to answer. The more complete and accurate your data from the fields the better.  If you know why you lose don't you deserve to know why you win? Besides this merely practical factor there is a bonus here - collecting information about won deals is a much more attractive task.
• Measure everything. It's not actually about lost deals or a practice in the sales department. The sales folks have an obvious advantage over a group professional services,  R&D, marketing, operations, or any other. The advantage is it's clear what to measure when a patient is death (read - a deal is lost). Although lost deals happen in consulting too they're less natural and typically a real failure. Hence you should research and analyze the situation in other departments on much earlier phases by still conducting interviews with various groups crossing with the analyzed group. Any repetitive activity can be measured, recorded, and monitored.
• Assign a lost manager. When you sell as planned, studying lost deals is a kind of a side activity: it's always great to check on what to polish to sell more. But if the situation is worse than expected finding trends and tendencies is not enough. You should get an analysis with concrete recommendations, and probably a resolution. Here a lost deal manager with enough authority and power to change the situation should be assigned. Of course, it's applicable not to sales but to all the groups we mentioned above.

Interesting how rare management sees "lost analysis" an activity worth to invest time, resources, and money. But when a clear picture is desperately needed it's usually too late to come up with metrics to measure, systems to track, and experience and knowledge to analyze.

I'm starting MBA!

I applied a couple of months ago to an MBA and yesterday got a letter that I'm accepted! It's a form of an executive MBA of Georgia State University - Professional MBA. The classes start at January and the entire learning program will take two years. The schedule is quite acceptable for me: every other Thursday evening and full days of Saturdays and I hope my intensive travels won't make me missing many classes. Now a few thoughts that drove me to looking for an MBA and to applying to PMBA of GSU.

• Why MBA? Starting a transition from technology to business I felt a heavy shortage of business knowledge (let alone experience). Not disputing a version that everything can be learned on your own I still believe that interactions with professors and in-class discussions are very valuable. Networking with classmates and an alumni network stand on the second place of MBA attractions and a formal line in the resume stands on the third place.
• Why executive? Theoretically speaking there are few options in choosing MBA: online, part-time, executive, and full-time. I didn't mention that though I decided to shift towards the business area I don't want to change the profession: no desire to work in McKinsey or a top financial company. Hence the importance of full time MBA wasn't so relevant for my case. Going to the other side of the MBA spectrum I excluded the online option. It's too similar to self-learning and the value of a diploma is arguable. The part-time route was opted out for two reasons: a long term of completion and relatively fresh students comparing to executive MBA. The latter fits my objectives great: enough communication with students and professors, relatively short program, and experienced classmates to learn from.
• Why GSU? Even among executive MBA there were quite a few options. Criteria for choosing candidates were trivial this time: proximity and cost. Living in Atlanta I couldn't consider attending Kellog's MBA every other week so the options squeezed to a few where either schools were in Atlanta or a schedule was modular (consisting of week-length modules split by a few-month self-learning periods). I had on the list: Duke, Emory, Georgia Tech, and Georgia State with corresponding tuitions in neighborhoods of 130, 85, 60, and 35 grands correspondingly. In hi-tech companies there is very little attention paid to a diploma of MBA so from a financial perspective investing $100K to MBA won't stand a test of return. I chose GSU since it's a solid school with strong curriculum, mature students, convenient schedule and location, and acceptable price.

It won't be an overstatement if I say that I'm happy to be accepted and to become a student after 12 years again. The next two years will be hard years for me and my family but I'm excited by the challenges and hope we'll all get dividends later. By November I have to take 4 online preparation courses and then we have a 5 day boot-camp. The first semester starts in January. I've started a new category on the blogs so stay tuned:-)

Technorati tags: MBA, GSU, PMBA

Kiko's death, Web2.0, and product strategy

Many have written an account already on why Kiko's train didn't fly - outsider's views were presented widely and two posts of Kiko employees (by Justin Kan and Richard White) added to the debriefing picture.

The huge interest Kiko's collected while being alive and quite the same, if not bigger, at its funeral procession is partly explained by big names among its fathers/founders (Y Combinator, 37Signals) and by the fact that Kiko was one of the first babies of Generation-W2.0 (bootstrapping, Ruby on Rails, Ajax, blog-based PR).

Reading the posts and the comments as a user still seeking for a good public calendar here is my impression on its failure and suggestions on how I think I'd overcome them.

• The strategy of Web2.0 "release early, release often" can't be taken so literally. The guys shot all their powder too fast and too early when the product hadn't gain yet maturity and had been in a state when it couldn't make a "wow" effect. People that saw it instantly figured out lacking features and didn't want to come back later and check again. The idea of releasing early is to amass feedback from real users so the compromise between releasing to hear feedback and not scaring our new users is to do it in small groups of selected users (early adopters and evangelists).
  
• All mentioned the mantra "stay focused" and the product wasn't designed (or at least declared) as one pursuing clear market niche (offer an alternative to Outlook in small ventures, a calendar for private events, a calendar for mobile users, a calendar with integrated services). When the product gets to its 10th release you can combine and merge but the very first couple of releases have to be absolutely focused.
• As a consequence of the first two the lack of clear understanding of demand from the users. The guys said they changed the focus and replaced lots of planned features with the new ones (delaying release by two months). If you know what your users want it's harder to miss the expectations. Propose a limited number of features you can implement in following releases (as part of "release notes" of every release, including the very first) and let the users prioritize them. This exercise can work only with the group of evangelists selected very carefully and representing the yet to come masses (see the first item).
• Google didn't kill Kiko: "One of our biggest traffic days was when Google Calendar was released because we were mentioned in all the new stories as one of their top competitors" - Rick says. I wonder how many new users they got at these days, not how many clicks. He continues "30Boxes came out of nowhere" along with "Screenshots of Google calendar were leaked and posted all over the Internet". So GCal is not the only killer (maybe not a calculated) but 30Boxes (both calendars still seriously lack of features allowing me to consider switching from Outlook). It seems Kiko got into a direct competition with another running application and an application-ghost from a strong brand. Strategy and niche is all about a product. Technology, publicity, nice UI can't win the battle (especially if you don't know upfront who the competitors are). A strong trump plan can work only if  supported by a plan-B scenario.
• Execution on the plan didn't shine. Justin tells terrible stories about wasted months and too convenient (in an opposite meaning to productive) environment. No comments, execution is the mission of the boss.

It was a bright example of a not yet successful startup. Probably it's another prove that the old good common sense overweights any modern approaches and nothing may be taken for granted.

The team did their first shot and openly and honestly shared with us their experience. A failure is not to fail, it's not to try after a failure. Koko team, I wish you all the best with the ebay project, your future ventures and waiting to hearing from you soon.

Technorati tags: kiko, startup, web20

My blogroll

Here are the blogs I read.

How many of your folks will be working for you in a year?

David Maister links to a very interesting article of Rachel Beanland where she lists 10 thought that a newly-hired grad had in mind about the job. As many on David's site pointed out in the comments I agree too that the topic is not about a generation's view or a view of less experiences employee. It's quite relevant for all of us - simply for people staying at the start of their career it's more dynamic and swift. Let me bring here the 10 thoughts along with my brief comments on how it relates to the hi-tech world.

1. The grad you just hired didn't have a hard time finding a job.
   I don't know the PR world but today for a programmer seeking a job the questions are  Where and What and How Much instead of If. Very relevant for the hi-tech realm and the relevancy grows along with the experience.
2. They know they're underpaid, and they won't put up with it longer than they have to.
   Maybe more aloud for newbies but definitely exists for mature people and definitely in hi-tech (where changing job once in 3-4 years is a kind of a norm). As a boss, keep your people paid well.
3. It's not taking them long to grow bored.
   I guess it's more relevant in the world of software and applicable for all ages and all levels of experience. A great boss must address this task as one of the foremost if she wants to retain the employee and make him excited and creative.
4. Even when they're happy, they're looking for another job.
   Probably this one dims with ages or experience. But seeking from good to better is human nature so the boss again should care and worry about making the employee not looking outside.
   
5. Their bosses aren't their mentors.
   That's universal. As I said, the ideal boss must know the balance between coaching and mentoring and what else can make one wanting to stop looking outside if not a desire to remain with the best boss?
   
6. Getting thrown into the work force is turning them into experienced pros before their time.
   In hi-tech they become quite experts even before earning a degree and finding first job. All they need to get a jump in salary is the formal stage or experience. The boss (just pragmatic, not even the ideal) should to take this step proactively and make review better sooner than later. The younger the employee the sooner think about that.
   
7. Some don't feel their universities prepared them for  the blending of public relations and marketing in the workplace.
   Hard to compare. In hi-tech practical experience means a lot and it barely strengthens the above reasons.
8. They're looking to find a balance between work and their personal lives.
   Here I doubt it's so similar. Yong geeks tend to spend all free time with computers anyway so I guess we have one threat less:-)
   
9. Many of them would love to become independent practitioners or start their own firms one day.
   Not sure that the independent is the key word in our realm. Even if an employee dreams about opening his own company one day it may help his boss to address #3 and offer new challenges that may enrich the employee's horizon and prepare him for future ventures.
10. They think they’ll stay in the communications profession, but not necessarily in public relations. 
    We probably have an analogy to this item with a comparison of startups and big corporations. Rather I would merge this item with #9.

As Rachel outlines, it's naturally for PR young pros to look outside and the 10 reasons are very real. I found it's concurring with the hi-tech world but am sure that a good boss can preventively mitigate most of the threats and make her employees happy and working rather longer chunks of time for the company.

Technorati tags: boss, job, career

Half-truth or full truth. What to reveal talking to the customers?

I'm sure you know the feeling of broken expectations and hopes. Every now and then we buy a product promising to contain a feature or functionality that in fact is not complete (or as complete as we expect). We buy services that are promised to include stunning offerings but reveal additional fees. There is an old recipe here - read footnotes and don't trust the ads but is it the right way to build relationships with customers?

I think many of today's producers simply run a The Feature Arms Race not fair enough, they craft pompous marketing messages lacking of clarity, and, sometimes, simply telling half-true either by changing the original (and expected) meaning or hiding a feature's weak aspects (such as limited implementation or incomplete functionality). The reality of nowadays is that customers gave up trusting any word of the product description unless they check it by themselves  or make the company prove it. I think, on one hand, it's pragmatic behavior (from a customer perspective). On the other hand, the company loses trust and gain instead a reputation of a dodger.

Why in place of an impressive feature list of a new product not to publish along with a list of limitations? I don't recall release notes listing next to each "it can" a small "but" clause (correct me if I'm wrong). Why do we assume that such straight honesty has only a negative influence? In some cases it can bring a detrimental effect to a deal, especially when a customer makes its decision based on a feature-list comparison. But we gain a reputation of an honest player. It costs a lot!

The trusted advisor as a philosophy doesn't play solo for service companies. It is, indeed, an approach (with the accent on the word trusted) of any business and why a software builder should be an exception? I'm hungry, as a user, of offerings telling me full truth in plain language. I'm tired of half-truth and I'm scared of running across new disappointment soon after starting using a product. Tell me, Mr. Producer, what you can do and what can't in a language I understand. I'll appreciate your honesty today even if I don't buy your product immediately. But if you sold me the product but cheated "a bit" I would very like not to buy anything from you next time. I feel that a company striving to be absolutely honest with its customers can quickly earn a "competitive advantage" simply because there are very very few of them today.