"What did they say?"

How often does this happen to you? You're flipping through some notes of a meeting that could have been a week or two ago. As you try to interpret the hastily written scratching you try to remember, "What did they say? What was the context of the meeting when I wrote that down?"

Or it could be you're with a project stakeholder who told you one thing two months ago and they're now changing their story. "No, that's not what I said. What I've been saying for months is...."

My talented and insightful colleague Payson Hall recently shared one of his favorite new tools with me. It's called Livescribe. Here's how it works:

• While you're in a meeting (or class or any other context where you're taking notes while someone else is speaking), you use this special pen which has an audio recorder built-in.
• You take your notes on a special notebook that has uniquely identifiable markings encoded every millimeter or so--so small you don't see the markings. The pen understands where you are writing because of this encoding so it can sync your notes with the audio.
• Later on when you review your notes, just tap on the note and you can hear the accompanying audio. Imagine that project stakeholder's reaction when you can play back what they said!

Beyond that functionality, you can transfer your notes to your computer, organize them, and even search for words within the notes allowing you to find what you want in seconds. They even have the ability to transform your notes and audio into interactive movies.

The notebook and pen refills are reasonably priced, not to mention the very high cool factor. Looking for a new tool to help you manage your notes and stakeholders? Check out Livescribe on Amazon!

Labels: managing stakeholders, requirements, tools I love

posted by Andy at 4:04 PM  

Oversimplifying the issue

“Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.”
John Galsworthy, English novelist and playwright

A customer recently shared this quote with me based on a topic we had covered prior to a break. I had to share it with you… Have you seen Galsworthy’s wisdom in action?

We are a culture that loves the sound bite. Wrap the concept up in a 10 second blip… that’ll do just fine. From a cultural standpoint, think about how we oversimplify issues. For example, you’re either a liberal or a conservative. You’re either for saving the lives of millions of people through embryonic stem cell research or you’re a religious whacko. It would appear there’s no middle ground or shades of grey.

In business, think of how many times training classes or articles state we need to “do the right thing”, “put the right people on it”, “ask the right questions”. A recent article recommended that prospective leaders make sure they “do the right thing at the right time”. Uh, thanks for the insight.

At 30,000 feet, everything looks pretty simple. As Galsworthy states, “Idealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem.”

Think about projects that, once you dig into the requirements, are not as simple as they might have seemed on the white board with the sales & marketing folks. How about an employee who is struggling with his performance but has some real world challenges going on in his personal life? Or maybe you can think of processes that are a good idea but require changes to the culture to allow for acceptance?

Start digging into issues a little deeper and we’ll often find there’s less black and white and more shades of grey. It becomes more apparent that answers aren’t quite as easy as we may have thought.

For example, the whole stem cell debate has caught my interest. Did you know that while the politcally active mud wrestle about funding of stem cell research, adult stem cells are being used to treat over 67 diseases... today? And there’s promising research (here’s one example) that may make embryonic stem cell usage irrelevant some day.

In business, the reality is some things are black-and-white. There are generally accepted accounting principles that need to be followed. It’s not all shades of grey. Also, we need to simplify at times. In fact, I’ve found many an aspiring leader who failed to influence a situation because they presented too much detail to their executives. They should have provided more headline, less encyclopedia.

We can often win when we do a good job of simplifying.

But oversimplifying can be deadly. This blog entry is a call for you to be wary of oversimplifying.

Suggestions:

• Spend some time in the mud. If you are not spending enough time managing by wandering around, your idealism might be unfounded.


• Check yourself to see if you too often speak with the “right ______” phrasing. If you catch yourself saying, “We need to do this the right way” or “use the right tools”, let that be an alert that your altitude may be causing you to not appreciate the reality of the situation. Is it really a matter of right and wrong? It might be! But often it’s a matter of trade-offs.


• Surround yourself with people who will tell you the truth. You need people around you who will tell you the truth, not just defer. Though it can drive me crazy at times, I purposely develop relationships with people who look at the world differently from me to make sure we’re not all sharing the same Kool-Aid.

Labels: culture, idealism, illusion, planning, project management, reality, requirements

posted by Andy at 3:18 PM