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I’m sure a lot of us have pondered on starting our own business.  Tired of the “ignorant idiots up top” continually making stupid & blind impulsive decisions time after time and disregarding you or your team’s input.  But for a lot of us, this just is not feasible.  Not because we don’t have the business sense, the passion, the drive, and the persistence to wake up each day with the desire but rather other variables that block it.  Some may be the wife, money, kids, time.  For anyone who is passionate about starting a business, you know fear is not one of those reasons.  For me, starting a business is like the lottery.  I most likely will day dream about it simply because of one of those variables.  And simply because I do need to focus on my own current job because one of those variables will ultimately prevent me from starting my dream. 

Now, a lot of us could simply stop working and get a nice loan or backing from an investor.  But again that depends on other variables (wife doesn’t like the risk, etc.) and sometimes you have to respect those variables no matter what.  Believe me after seeing so much chaos in IT and just organizations as a whole across many departments and many types of businesses and sizes, it’s enough for someone like me to puke and want to start a business of my own NOW.  So for me, again I will dream about this because I don’t know if it’s feasible due to time and wife.  And it’s not her fault, it’s because I love her and respect that she doesn’t like the risk.  If we had 500k to invest I’m sure it would be feasible but this is the path life has chosen for me for now.  I personally would be willing to take out a loan for 200k and start.

I’ve worked at a LOT of places in my career in IT.  And I’ve seen so many wrong things that CEOs, VPs, and IT managers do and so many employees get so frustrated with it.  Some decisions or actions are so stupid, you wonder how the hell they can even figure out how to brush their teeth in the morning and how the very business you’re working for makes money at all.  A lot of it is dumb luck or just a good business idea, and it’s not because the guy high up is smart.  So with what I’ve seen and just how I am driven (process oriented, not just $$), I know I would probably be a multi millionaire by now if I did have my own business.

Now obviously I do still think about this all the time and this is what I’m doing here, day dreaming in this post like a lot of us do.  I don’t spend time on it because I have a job to focus on at the moment.

But back onto my day dream.  Running a business means thinking about inventory, resources, yada yada but I’m here today to talk about people and process.  By understanding how to effectively manage and run a business and really utilize your best resources (people), your business will grow and you will be happy.  It’s not about $$ and cents 100%.  Well it is in sense, but if you undermine the people aspect and the process aspect, you’ll eventually fail.  You may not be failing right now and have done very well, but you will eventually if you run it “like a cowboy”.

Well, for a start, here’s my thoughts about people and business in general.  It’s just a start and sure I’m not an expert on it but I don’t believe you have to be an expert.  You  just have to have common sense, smarts, drive, and ability to communicate and listen.  What I can tell you is how I’d approach it if I did and I think it’s a good approach.  Who knows, maybe some day I’ll have that opportunity but for the long term, probably not.

With that, here is my “philosophy”:

1) Know Your Employees

    Do you even know about the people your managers have hired to work for you?  Do you know what their past experience was?  For example you’ve just hired a developer who has a breadth of experience and has seen a lot of different environments and processes probably even bigger than your IT department.  Worked for even big fortune 500 companies to mid-level software shops who were effective, to even mom & pop (all of these).   If so, you just hired a gold mind because they’ve seen it all.  They have seen what works and what doesn’t in that particular area of work.  If you do not even know what they do or what they do or have done in past positions, you should not be running a business.  If you do not listen to the ideas they might have, you are shorting yourself as an owner.  You’re ROI on that person is going down the drain. 

Take a look at their resume.  Think about those environments from which they’ve been and think wow, this is something I need to really tap into with them.  If you don’t know, sit down and talk to them and listen to their thoughts and ideas.  They will respect you.  And you will benefit greatly from this experience.  Humble yourself as an owner and know them and what they could possibly bring to the table.  Mind them as if they were data.

2) Communication and Respect is key

    If you hire managers and they do not communicate effectively with their employees, fire them.  What is effective communication?  This is what I’d expect of my management team:

• Do not micro manage your team.  Give them breathing room
• Keep Politics out of your team or around them
  • Stomp it out.  This doesn’t just mean an “open door policy” either.  Stop making decisions based on politics instead of what you should be doing which is making decisions based on reason or good process.
  • Your employees know when you make ignorant decisions.  So choose and make them wisely before you go off on a tangent making changes or decisions for your team.
• Do not play favorites
• Be a mentor
• Understand that you do not know everything and they may know more than you..be humble and learn just as you teach them
• Respect them and lift them up
• Understand there are variables outside work that affect your team and your projects
• Do not take someone else’s idea as your own.  Give them credit in your conversations with others

3) Agile Corporation is key

Now, I know Agile is a term abused by so many corporations for an excuse to “code & run”.  And that most think Agile is a term only for a “development” department.  That is not true, Agile can be applied organization-wide.  But you need to understand what it truly is first.  Read books on it.  Understand it before you preach it to your customers, potential hires, etc. 

It should and can be applied all departments within an organization.  Code & Run can be anything from “Marketing & Run”, to “Manufacturing & Run”, you name it.  It means you’re developing products without a controlled environment, scope, iterations, or priorities and therefore producing chaos in your organization and poor quality products for your customers.  It means you’re going to fail on those deadlines.  That’s why they have Lean Manufacturing, Lean Programming (which is part of Agile), and more to give sanity and organization to a business so you can see results without whipping your employees. 

And if you don’t have an inkling of what it is to have priorities and organized structure to your business when you create products, and you’re a cowboy running the shots, you’re lucky that your business has grown or been stable.  It is pure luck because you have no clue of what’s going on or what your underlying departments are doing or who is working in it.  This is what breaks a business faster than anything and degrades employee moral.

Agile has to do with not only having a good process but both people and process. 

    Agile Enterprise-Wide is in part these aspects:

    1) Communication is key.  Face to Face meetings is key.  Do not live in your email

    2) Having well defined chunks & which means obtainable sprints and iterations per department is key

• This also synchronizes departments into nice controllable pieces within your company.  Having a Work Breakdown Structure  (you know, defining all possible tasks, resources, etc. in a project management tool such as MS Project or other) is absolutely key to help defining the iterations and scope of work.  If you do not do this, you’re promising the business failure and if you’re on the CEO side, you’re expecting your team to deliver something of a black hole.

    3) Understanding that fixed-price contracts are a recipe for failure with your departments

• Be able to Negotiate with your organization as an owner.   Do not force feature after feature and still automatically expect that iteration to get accomplished by your teams.  You’re pushing failure and broken promises here on your organization! If you come in with new features that you want to add to an existing scoped sprint, you must know as a business owner that you are impeding on the process.  You must be prepared to wheel and deal.  Know that you have to be able to possibly expect that to introduce new additions to a sprint or iteration that:
  • The schedule might have to be extended
  • The team says to you that no, we can’t add anything more to meet the already agreed deadline.  We can however swap out something but no, we can’t handle that in the existing small chunks that we previously scoped out with you.  Be able to stop your pride, your ignorance and accept this trade.
• If you are expecting results without reasonable and obtainable scoping of projects from your department, you will be very disappointed and it’s your fault.  Stop expecting the “impossible deadline” and start creating solid business plans and understand that that quality comes before speed.  Understand that your employees do not have 24x7 to work for you.  That should make you desire a solid process when you think about deadlines.  That there are always unexpected variables that come up with any iteration. 
• That a product is always evolving and never completely “done”.  Sure, you can get certain features done, and those are chunks of that product and should be done in iterations that are achievable by your resources, not ones that are forcing a chaotic environment and sweatshop which produces bad quality products because everyone is running to create your features.  Iteration task lists are to be prioritized and scoped.  If you do not do this, all of your departments will fail to deliver because your expectations are based on NOTHING.  No substance, no priorities, and no realistic and obtainable deadlines based on the resources you have

     4) Testing, Testing, Testing

• If testing your products (again does not matter what department here) is not part of a defined iteration, you’re running chaos.  I would be sure that all departments have adequate time to test in my organization because I know the product will be reliable, extendable, maintainable, and produce far better ROI than an environment with fires later on
• Testing does not happen at the end, but during the entire phase of an iteration
• You should complete the work (in development environments we have a formal name for this called “code complete”) far enough in advance to allow QA, Engineers, or others enough time to test it well

      5) Investing in Your Existing Team

• Your team has skills.  They have experience, did you know this?  It’s amazing how many CEOs neglect this because they think they know it all or are too busy to invest in who they already have that is capable to help them grow the business.  Your employees are a gold mind.  Tap into this, don’t ignore this
• Your employees are not just worker bees, they are a lot more than this.  Stop treating them like just workers and invest in their ideas and what else they have to bring to the table.

      6) Letting your Customers Make the Decisions

• Grow your products and feature set based on continuous and frequent customer feedback.  Seems like common sense right?  After all, they are who you are trying to please and sell to.

      7) Measuring Real Progress, not Unobtainable/Unrealistic progress

• As new tasks are introduced, you need to adjust the list of tasks.  Either remove one to fit the new one in, or move the scheduled date.  Do not produce iterations that are unachievable due to the “Get the impossible done at an impossible due date”.  Setting yourself up for failure and unrealistic expectations by your teams does nobody any good.
• Keep department iterations simple and in manageable chunks.  This means again, keep features and dates obtainable so that you see continued progress and hit deadlines.

      8) Justifying the process, technique, or technology you wish to use or are presented with

• Do not just buy into a new system because of some savvy marketer or sales person who came to your door step stating that this “can do the world for you”.  Question the backend of it, question the process, question the future and maintenance of this and validity to your business.  And same goes to every department.  First listen to what they are explaining to you.  Don’t rush to negate or to approve.  Listen.  Understand it first.  See the value and justify it then.  If you’re a cowboy making decisions by impulse, again what the hell are you in business for?  Every business owner knows this is the worse thing you could do for a business.  Yet I’ve seen so many business owners do this, so many VPs do this and we wonder why America business is failing
• If nobody is able to question things as a team, your team is ineffective because you are not letting them hone in on what could be better for the business

      9) Stop micro managing your business and let the people you hired figure it out 

• Empower them and you will see return on ROI like you’ve never seen.  Do not miss this opportunity.  Stop hiring consultants and tap into them and empower them.  Stop tapping into endless salesmen or consultants who stop at your door and ask your employees if that product or person makes sense in your organization

These are just some common sense practices of an “Agile Corporation”.

3) Understanding that Your Employees Have a Life is Key

Even though to stay in business you have to “be ahead" of the game”, I’ve seen many organization who are so far behind of the game and this is because they don’t understand people let alone process.  They have no process, controls, bad communication and their expectation is to deliver x product in 2 days.  “I want it now syndrome” and it’s plain ignorance.  If you don’t know what goes into a product and you expect immediate results, you should not be in business.  What you you want instead is controlled delivery.  You want tested delivery, and you want extensible and maintainable delivery of your product.  Expecting shit done in 2 days is well, ignorance because you’re expecting your employees not to be able to

• Learn some new things while they do it.  They have no time but to hack some process, design, or whatever it is together
• Spend time outside of work living normal. If you can’t allow your employees to live, your business will DIE.

So what I’m saying here is, you can’t slave drive your employees like this.  You’ll wear out the engine and all of its parts will either fly everywhere or eventually fall out (people will leave).  I don’t care how much you keep saying that you need to deliver results, if you burn out your workforce, and do not understand that they have kids and they need time for this and that their life is NOT going to revolve around YOU and your organization 100% of the time, then again then you’ll fail and also cause health problems for your employees and their families.   You’re expecting YOUR business to be their life and that’s not reasonable.  They did not go into business YOU DID.  You can expect hard work, passion, ok but then stop.  Relax and also enjoy your life also on the weekends or you’re going to worry yourself or make yourself sick as a business owner.  I’ve seen it from my very own uncle.  And you don’t have to see this.  How many CEOs die of an early age because of this micro managed, slave driven craziness?  Stop slave driving your business and making expectations that seem to come out of thin air due to your dangerously impulsive tendencies.

One word: “Work Life Balance”.  If you’re an owner and you don’t walk this walk, you’re setting your business up for failure and setting up health problems for not only you but your employees because you are totally disregarding what’s “normal”.  Many organizations preach it but then their expectations are so unrealistic, that nobody can obtain or practice it in their workforce.  Not good.

4) Expecting Your Managers to Practice “Balance” in Managing Their Staff is Key

This goes back again to micro management.  Your managers do not need to hound their subordinates to the point of irritating them.  If they feel they have to be in every aspect down to every hour of an employee’s work day, they need to be fired.  They do not understand the balance of managing a workforce because they typically encompass the following traits which effectively ruin a team:

• a workaholic
• overly paranoid about everything
• driven completely by “self”, not by “team”
• do not trust or take advantage of the skill set of their team for which they hired which causes resentment and frustration to the team because they feel and probably are undervalued
• Constantly feels he/she has to know what’s going on every hour or else they’ll have a heart attack.  Let me tell you, you are interrupting and your getting in the way.  By doing this, your team cannot concentrate and neither can you! 

Chill.  Wait.  And you will see that your team can handle it if you’ve put in the proper controls, process, and standards.  If you do not see results and have to continue micro managing, then you should not be a manager and you are hurting the business and its employees.

5) Listen to The People You Hired and Utilize Them First is Key

How many times have you seen managers or owners hire completely competent employees to help drive the business and give great ideas based on their own experiences but never utilize this.  And what they do is go off the deep end and micro manage them rather than ask them for ideas and let them help drive the business?  Stop underutilizing your internal employees that you already have especially if they have been many other places and have a LOT to give you advice and expertise on.  A CEO should not be the end all.  Good CEOs use their employees and their ideas, not always their own.  Any CEO that has been successful would tell you this guaranteed and any management course will also tell you this.

The business is a “we” not an “I”.  Trust your employees and utilize their past experience.  Don’t go off and introduce chaos or fail to utilize them.  Don’t introduce variables that start a feeling as though you’re completely bypassing what they have to offer to the company and to the team.  What do I mean?  I mean sit down an listen to the ideas they have and empower them to help YOU drive the company.  You can reject some ideas but you better do so by understanding the problem domain, listened to what they said (really listen!) and then you can reject but don’t be a jackass and completely close yourself off and deny everything that your employees are trying to tell you.

6) Stomp Out the Politics in Your Organization When You See it is Key

Don’t be blind to the politics happening in your own organization.  Observe people.  Don’t just observe $$ and inventory.

Sure, in larger organizations this is harder to control.  You can’t be everywhere as an owner.  But, you can be there.  And you can stomp out politics as you see it at various moments.  When your management starts to be  political, stomp it out and remind them that this is a team.  This is not about you, not about them, it’s about working together so watch your tone.  If I hear decisions made without research, without my managers listening and instead talking trash and making lose decisions based on non-process oriented techniques or based on playing favorites then I’m going to stomp that out and have a talk with my manager(s) in those situations.

Politics ruins departments and team effectiveness and team enthusiasm.

7) Promote Internally Based on Ability, Contribution & Potential; Not based on Political Reasons is Key

How many times have you seen someone become a manager because they are a kiss ass?  Well I can tell you that if I run my business, I will have a good hard look at if a promotion makes sense when a manager of mine suggests it.  I will drill them with questions, pretty much interview that manager to make sure he has made a sound decision on this.  Does that manager have solid reasons behind it?  Does that employee that this manager want to raise up:

• know how to stay out of politics themselves?
• able to lift others up?
• Doesn’t have to be a genius but still smart and capable of becoming 3x better over time -  may not be doing everything now, but has great potential?
• understand that micro managing and slave driving is not how to manage?
• have confidence and believe in what they preach?  In other words are not always a follower but lead by giving solid ideas?
• able to listen to others before mouthing off or making decisions?  Take advantage of their own team’s internal talent and grow that existing talent?
• have a good background even from other companies where they can really take off and help my company with things I’ve never even done before?  In other words, can I utilize their talent as a business owner?

these are the reasons to promote

8) Invest in Their Learning is Key

    If you do not invest in improving your employees in every department, how can you expect your overall business to continually improve?

    What do I mean specifically about how to improve them?

     a) Team learning sessions by the managers of those teams.  Might not hurt for the managers to have brief training sessions or group sessions where even individuals on the team can train the rest of the team.  Everyone has something to teach each other so collaborate and meet just to do something like this once in a while.  Example on the development side since I’m in IT would be for me to train the rest of the guys on the team some cool jQuery stuff.  I may not be a manager but doesn’t mean even my manager or others can’t learn from me.

     b) Bring outside training in.  Have a day of training.  Whether that be HR related, Programming related, whatever, but enhance their skills.  And do not bring in lame training. Bring in something that really gets to the gut of things and brings tools to their plate that they can start using immediately in your organization.

     c) If they want books on management, personal development, programming, marketing, etc. invest in those books or other online training resources.  If they’re willing to take on the initiative to help train themselves, shit you can’t ask any more motivation than this!

     d) If they want as a team to go to an event that relates to the job function let them!  Invest in that time away form work.  Stop the worry about deadlines all the time and let your managers take their teams to some effective day events (trade shows, etc.).  It’s less time you have to take to attend them as well and when they come back, USE YOUR EMPLOYEES and what they learned there.

9) Stop the Bullshit is Key

What do I mean by this?  Stop the prep talks, stop the fake corporate talk.  Be real and be a friend to your employees.  Tell it how you feel and listen to them.  Don’t tune them out.  Don’t give them cheese talks.   Understand that your employees are not stupid and they can see right through bullshit.

10) Gestures are Key

Ever see a CEO, VP, ect. walk around like they think they own you rather than respect you?  I have.  And for example one of my friends was talking about how a CEO with whom he worked closely with related to development projects one day in the bathroom totally disregarded he existed when this lead developer tried to say hello to him.  Because this lead was leaving the company on good terms, the CEO felt that he was no longer valuable.  Let me tell you that this does not show character of a CEO, VP, or manager.  Even if that employee felt that this place was not for them, always respect them as long as they did not do the company harm in some way or another. 

If you walk down the hall, put a smile on your face at times.  I’m not expecting everyone to always smile because that’s bullshit also but let me tell you if an employee says hi to you, let them know that you’re not a robot.  Say hi and engage them in a friendly conversation not even about work.  Talk about real life!  Ask them how their family is, ask them how they like it here so far.  Be real!

A CEO should be respected, not feared.  A CEO should be part of the team, not distant.  A CEO should be someone anyone feels comfortable talking to no matter if it’s someone from the shop floor, the maintenance worker, a secretary, or anyone else.  Because how you act will trickle down to your managers and employees.  What you present is the atmosphere that will likely trickle down.  And you want your company to reflect positive tones.

Well I must stop here for today.  I could go on and on.  But this is my personal philosophy as I see it (brain dump from my experience and beliefs).  This is honestly how I would run my business and I feel this is just being a smart human, reasonable human, and one who can successfully run a business in the long run.