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November 27, 2005
Partisan Perceptions and Ingo Gunther’s Globes
A term often used in the modern theory and practice of conflict resolution is “partisan perceptions”. To some it carries a ring of academic jargon, but in practice it’s at the very heart of creating mutual understanding between parties in conflict, a vital step in moving toward resolution.
Partisan perception refers to the fact that we all have unconscious and sometimes hidden biases about how we see the world, which drives our sense of “the truth”. These biases exist because “what we see” is shaped in large measure by the lens through which we view a situation. This lens is determined by our personal history and our beliefs, among many other things. For example, how might you see a rainforest? It may have one reality if you’re an ecologist or climatologist. But it’s entirely another if you’re a Brazilian land developer, a coffee grower, or a timber executive. (If you looked at a project deadline, what does it look like if you were a senior executive in charge? A project manager, someone in marketing, or a venture capitalist/investor?)
Ingo Gunther is someone who directly challenges people with the question of how they see the world. He is described as an artist, correspondent, and author. Ingo lives in New York, but was born in Germany, traveled throughout Africa, is an accredited correspondent at the U.N., and has worked in Japanese television South America and Asia. He also founded the first independent TV station in Eastern Europe, nine months before the reunification of Germany. Ingo is someone who has seen the world through many lenses. (An interesting interview from a writer in Japan is here.)
Here is an example of a globe from Ingo’s “Worldprocessor” art exhibit. This one is called High Tension / Crisis Zones. The highlighted areas indicate where political crises have developed military aspects. When you look at information presented this way, you get a different perspective about our world and along with it, a different feeling.
Ingo’s globes are illustrated and painted in ways you would never have imagined. At night, about 20 of them lit an eerie presence heading into a dinner event at the POPTech Conference in Camden Maine. In the dark night, their glow gave us a feeling of being giant space aliens walking though the solar system, looking at this planet Earth and seeing its multiple realities.
I don’t know that Ingo had the theory of partisan perceptions in mind when he created these sculptures. And I don’t imagine that professionals in the technology field would have an analog quite like Ingo’s globes to remind us that our perception of facts and truth are profoundly governed by just that – our perception, and the pool of data that may be available to us that shapes our inferences and associated biases. (Think WMD...)
All I do know is that I have this reminder in my head of this reality, ever since meeting Ingo for lunch last month, seeing his art and hearing his speech. After the conference, Ingo and I wrote to each other. I told him that I would blog about the globes, and it was a way of revealing that those glowing orbs got stuck in my head. He said “Yes, you must blog the globes.” It’s not that I wrote this entry just to fulfill a promise; it’s that the thought of these crazy things won’t leave my mind, and it’s a good thing.
Last week I was locked into a rigid mindset while arguing about something with my spouse. I thought of Ingo’s globes out of the blue, and realized that we each digging in while seeing the situation through only our own reality. I reminded myself of how it might look, if I stopped and looked through the eye’s of “the other”. It was enough to shift how I saw the situation, led my partner to do the same, and as a result it change the outcome.
Maybe that’s what Ingo’s globes are designed to do: Change the way that we “see.” A link to Ingo's images is here. Take a virtual stroll and see if it helps in your next argument with a spouse, friend, or co-worker.
Posted by Mike at 07:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 22, 2005
Fortune 500 Executives Reconsider 24/7
"Working 24/7 may seem good for companies, but it's often bad for the talent - and men finally agree. So businesses are hatching alternatives to the punishing, productivity-sapping norm." - Fortune magazine
Fascinating statistics abound from the Nov 28th cover story of Fortune magazine. A new survey of Fortune 500 male executives reveals:
84% would like job options that let them realize professional aspirations while having more time for things outside of work.
55% are willing to sacrifice income.
50% wonder if the sacrifices they've made for their careers are worth it.
73% believe that it's possible to restructure senior management jobs that would both increase productivity and make more time available for life outside the office.
87% believe that companies that enable such changes will have a competitive advantage in attracting talent.
The younger a male executive is, the more likely he is to say he cares about this. Another quote from this piece: "Men are willing to talk about these things in ways that were inconceivable less than ten years ago."
The biggest roadblock to reform: FEAR. Even though most senior-level men want better options, nearly half believe that bringing the subject up with the boss will hurt their career.
Posted by Mike at 10:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 06, 2005
Tom Demarco and Impossible Zones
Recently, I had a wonderful dinner, one-on-one, with a mentor I am most fond of, Tom Demarco, at his lovely home on the coast of Maine. Yes, Tom's of Maine (different Tom). When I visit Tom, I playfully call him "Godfather".
Tom, as many people know, has written several fabulous books on technology. In fact, one of his first books, Controlling Software Projects, was among the first to describe the statistical existence of what Larry Putnam called "The Impossible Zone". It is the absolute limit beyond which projects simply have not gone any faster. Tom described the first time he saw a graph of projects, where the edge of the zone - and beyond - was delineated. He came to the conclusion that at the time, he had spent most of his professional life living in the Impossible Zone.
I find that many senior managers will have none of this talk about projects being "impossible". That would wake up their tired, huddled masses to the realities of unrealistic deadlines and corporate denial. So I don't say that this area is the Impossible Zone.
I say that when you look at a graph of real, factual, historical data, the zone is simply - "Where No Project Has Ever Gone Before", in Star Trek terms. In many of my speeches, I ask audiences, "How many of you are given a project deadline first, before anything else?" All the hands go up. I then ask, "If your deadlines were plotted on this chart, how many believe they might be in the Impossible Zone?" All the hands stay up. Tom still has a lot of company.
Lately it seems I've been consulting on more projects that are in time-trouble. It's no surprise that according to a Standish Group Study published in the June 2003 issue of Computer, that as many as 80 percent are late and over budget, and that 40 percent are abandoned. (These figures are even worse than similar measures taken 10 years ago.)
My experience on this (since I've been consulting in the IT and software field for over 18 years), isn't that projects as a whole aren't exhibiting very high levels of productivity. They are! What we can do today VASTLY exceeds what was possible 10 years ago, and project data that my partners at QSM have been gathering proves it. It's that the deadlines are getting even worse with each year. Just 2 weeks ago, I consulted to the management team of a very high-pressure, date-driven project. A forecast for the most likely estimate scenario was given to their BigCheese. BigCheese was not happy. He admonished the hapless manager reporting to him as follows: "The date is unacceptable. Change the date."
To what, might I ask?
This organization is exhibiting defects at twice the industry average. My mentor Tom Demarco, in his book Slack, Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency talked about projects working at breakneck speed. There's a reason why they call it "breakneck". See my Cutter Consortium article here.
My point to this diatribe is, that when teams attempt projects at breakneck speed, we can guarantee that high defects will be the case. Not just 50 percent more. It could be 200 percent more, like the company just described. It could be 500 percent more, which is the norm, when you try to compress the date by even as little as 20 percent. It's non-linear, which is why as many as 40 percent of projects are cancelled, to the tune of $80 billion to $100 billion per year in write-downs and losses. This is costing us dearly.
I guess what it really comes down to is that high-defect, poor quality software in our industry, is these days more of a fait accompli. I would like that to change. I think about this when I am conscious of the amount of software that do things like run our medical systems, control our automobiles, manage the power grid, and fly our airplanes. Life in high technology isn't just about the hands of the clock at the moment we turn on the systems that we've worked so hard to build.
Posted by Mike at 07:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack