Are we falling or flying ... and will we ever know? » steve jobs

Scrum IS Fun.

andi — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 07:43:05 +0000

I’m now a Certified Scrum Master (and certifiable ;) ) - and really look forward to implementing the Agile Development framework into my work and my daily life … more on that to follow after I finish designing and implementing my personal scrum based task board. Stay tuned.

In the mean time, thank you Tobias Mayer & Matt Smith for opening this door for me and others in our CSM class.

Systems Thinking in the Real World

andi — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:17:19 +0000

The more I read about Steve Jobs, the more I want to work for Apple; except for the work | life balance, he really, really gets it, and on so many levels – about people and about products.

The good and bad of thinking in terms of systems is not many people view the world that way, even though the world is a very large system; if/when one component changes, that change will influence other components within the system. Innovation does parse a leader from a follower. Not enough people value quality, are not used to an environment where excellence is expected, and then don’t try.

I thought I could change the world by helping hiring managers hire A+ players; and to some extent, the world did change, and in a good way; “the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.”

This year I began the journey to move into a technical project management role. Now I’m learning and integrating many new business rules, best practices, processes, methodologies, and tools to enable me to GTD on a more global scale, and from the business side.

I earned my PMP certification in June; now I’m heavily focused on improving my requirements engineering skills; becoming a certified scrum master (CSM); and refreshing my knowledge of SQL and XML (which needs to be a seperate blog posting; watch for the upcoming “Getting By With a Lot of Help From My (new and old) Friends”).

Last week I was fortunate to learn requirements engineering from Earl Beede of Construx Software; and highly recommend Earl, Construx Software, and its Requirements Bootcamp. I learned a lot from Earl: best practices; new methodologies; and tools and techniques. Equally valuable was his insights and advice for implementation and change management; including the heuristic “it’s not a technology problem, it’s a people problem.”

I think Steve Jobs best captured this key to project success:

“Hiring the best is your most important task.

No major work that I have been involved with has been work that can be done by a single person or two people, or even three or four people. Some people can do one thing magnificently, like Michelangelo, and others make things like semiconductors or build 747 airplanes — that type of work requires legions of people. In order to do things well, that can’t be done by one person, you must find extraordinary people.

In most things in life, the dynamic range between average quality and the best quality is, at most, two-to-one. For example, if you were in New York and compared the best taxi to an average taxi, you might get there 20 percent faster. In terms of computers, the best PC is perhaps 30 percent better than the average PC. There is not that much difference in magnitude. Rarely you find a difference of two-to-one.

I noticed that the dynamic range between what an average person could accomplish and what the best person could accomplish was 50 or 100 to 1. Go after the cream of the cream. You can then build a team that pursues the A+ players. A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players.

After recruiting, it’s building an environment that makes people feel they are surrounded by equally talented people and their work is bigger than they are. The feeling that the work will have tremendous influence and is part of a strong, clear vision — all those things.

Recruiting usually requires more than you alone can do, so I’ve found that collaborative recruiting and having a culture that recruits the A players is the best way. Any interviewee will speak with at least a dozen people in several areas of this company, not just those in the area that he would work in.

When you’re in a startup, the first ten people will determine whether the company succeeds or not. Each is 10 percent of the company. So why wouldn’t you take as much time as necessary to find all the A players? If three were not so great, why would you want a company where 30 percent of your people are not so great? A small company depends on great people much more than a big company does.”

I really, really want to spend an afternoon with Steve one day, do a Vulcan mind-meld, then integrate and build upon his really great ideas.

In the meantime, I just ordered Leander Kahany’s book “Inside Steve’s Brain.” But don’t worry, I promise never to wear a black turtleneck.

Customer Experience, Part II

andi — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:12:53 +0000

A t-shirt popular within the Apple Computer team building v.1 of Quicktime read “Apple: 80 hours a week, and loving it!”

So much for work | life balance.

At the same time, I think Steve Jobs gets a lot of things right – including not making decisions for the short term without fully understanding the long term implications of those choices.

Jobs also knows loyalty is a two way street; customers and employees will forgive an occasional misstep or two if they feel a product and company are worthy and relevant for the long term:

The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament.
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.
Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.
You hire good people who will challenge each other every day to make the best products possible.
When I got back, Apple had forgotten who we were. Remember that “Think Different” ad campaign we ran? It was certainly for customers, but it was even more for Apple. That ad was to remind us of who our heroes are and who we are. Companies sometimes do forget. Fortunately, we woke up.

I’m not yet ready to move Cupertino, especially since I think the Northwest can – and should – do better. After all -we’re also

“…the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Or – innovate or die.

We Need Innovation. Now.

andi — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:01:32 +0000

Yes, times are tough. I no longer watch the broadcast news, it’s death and dirge every day, I need a little hope and sun in my newscasts.

My next laptop will be a MacBook; and while I’m not sure I’ll ever want to sign up for an Apple employee job – aka “80 Hours a Week, and LOVING IT,” I think Steve Jobs gets a lot of things right:

Steve Jobs on:

On Hiring:

Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the needles in the haystack. You can’t know enough in a one-hour interview.

So, in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged? I ask everybody that: ‘Why are you here?’ The answers themselves are not what you’re looking for. It’s the meta-data.

On Firing:

We’ve had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren’t going to lay off people, that we’d taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place – the last thing we were going to do is lay them off.

Management:

My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects. And to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be.

On a CEO succession Plan:

I mean, some people say, ‘Oh, God, if [Jobs] got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.’ And, you know, I think it wouldn’t be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple.

My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that’s what I try to do.

On Product Strategy:

It’s not about pop culture, and it’s not about fooling people, and it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t. We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do.
We just want to make great products.

On Leadership:

So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it quietly, and, you know – just explore things.

On Evangelism:

When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself.

They’ll want to do what’s best for Apple, not what’s best for them, what’s best for Steve, or anybody else.

On Focus:

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.

On the User Experience:

Our DNA is as a consumer company – for that inpidual customer who’s voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That’s who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it’s not up to par, it’s our fault, plain and simply.

That happens more than you think, because this is not just engineering and science. There is art, too. Sometimes when you’re in the middle of one of these crises, you’re not sure you’re going to make it to the other end. But we’ve always made it, and so we have a certain degree of confidence, although sometimes you wonder.

I think the key thing is that we’re not all terrified at the same time. I mean, we do put our heart and soul into these things.

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs

Putting a Dent in the Universe.

andi — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:08:00 +0000

Steve Jobs has been a driving force within technology for almost 25 years; and highly quoted, too:

“If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” – Steve Jobs

“I want to put a dent in the universe.” – Steve Jobs

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” – Steve Jobs

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” – Steve Jobs

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” – Steve Jobs

“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” – Steve Jobs, Interview, 1995

“I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.” – Steve Jobs, Apple Confidential 2.0

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” – Steve Jobs, Fortune, Nov. 9, 1998

“Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.” – Steve Jobs, Business Week

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people‘s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” – Steve Jobs

“I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year…. It’s very character-building.” – Steve Jobs, Apple Confidential 2.0

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” – Steve Jobs

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” – Steve Jobs, Stanford University commencement address, June 12, 2005

“We used to dream about this stuff. Now, we get to build it. It’s pretty neat.” – Steve Jobs

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” – Steve Jobs

And One More Thing…

Guy Kawaski’s Corollary on Hiring; or, How Work Teams Go Bad