Saturday, March 9, 2013
Performance Evaluation
In our CSS 350 class, we did performance reviews for our teams. We used a scale-based system incorporating a comment system along with it to give feedback in different categories. Then we gave each of our other team members a flat score which was added up and combined to form a total 'grade' for the evaluations. The Tucker book talked about ranking employees within the same position. While we didn't publicly post our scores, anyone in group had access to them and with only having a group of four, it was inevitable that we discovered scores for the teams. This is way different than how it is at work for me. I work at retail, and you can very easily view the detailed breakdowns of how each worker is doing. My supervisor is currently trying post a daily/weekly/monthly report of this breakdown for our whole department to see at anytime. While I enjoy seeing how I am doing, being publicly ranked can be quite demeaning if you have a bad performance and it is highlighted for all your peers. I wouldn't be offended or worried if they were posted, but I know a few of my coworkers that would and it's currently driving one of my coworkers to the point where they are ready to quit. I think public ranking can have its place, but should be done only in the right situation.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Interview with Bruce Hennen regarding teams and communication
For my Teams and Communication interview I decided to interview my father, Bruce Hennen. Currently, he is working as a project director for a real estate development firm based in Indonesia. To provide a little background, he has worked in the region a number of times over the past two decades on the project management for a number of successful projects. The interview was conducted over Skype, and the audio is linked at the bottom of the post. It's not great quality (audio and interviewing), so the answers here are tightly paraphrased to keep this post concise.
1. What position do you hold?
BTH: Project director on a real estate development project. In the hierarchy, this is second from the top, behind the company owners.
2. How many people are on your work team?
BTH: My core team consists of about 10 people who I speak to almost daily. In the core project management team there are 15 people, one of whom manages the remaining 50 people in the project management team.
3. What is the largest team you've been a part of?
BTH: As for a team where we were all direct equals, probably when I was working in San Francisco as a structural engineer with 8-10 colleagues. Otherwise, the current project management team of 65 is the largest.
4. Do you manage any employees directly? How many?
BTH: I'm currently directly managing 7 directors of the different departments on the project.
5. How would you define effective communication
BTH: Effective communication is all about clarity, when topics and problems are shared and understood. Defining the task is the first step, and collaboration to solve the problem is the next. Delegation of responsibility and establishment of clear time goals are also important to success.
Me: In one word, the most important trait of effective communication?
BTH: Clarity! Definitely the most important thing. It's not very easy to find here in Indonesia, because of cultural reasons. It's one of the reasons why most westerners have a lot of trouble here trying to work in management roles.
6. Do you consider yourself to be an effective communicator?
BTH: With people that speak English, yes. With people who speak Indonesian, no! *laughs*
Me: What about Indonesians who speak English? Can you bridge the culture gap?
BTH: Yeah, most of the Indonesians I work with I've worked with for a while. The hierarchy is well recognized and respected so things get communicated and done, but you need to follow up on some things.
7. Have you ever been on a team with someone you consider a 'bad' communicator? How were they bad?
BTH: Absolutely, yes! The person was upstream of me, so an owner of the project I was working on. He never respected people's time, number one. Number two, he was always late to meetings and required rehashing in order to get him up to speed. He was also took a dictatorial approach to things.
Me: What about other forms of communication, such as e-mail?
BTH: We communicated rather efficiently this way actually. I could write communications in forms looking for yes or no or go or no go, and get his decision with little discussion or trouble.
8. In your team, what are your primary methods of communication?
BTH: In the core team right around me, probably half e-mail and half in person, since we're in the same office. With external teams, 99% email. In person meetings are expensive and rare and are generally reserved for important negotiation or decision making. Text messaging is more or less synonymous with e-mail in this context. All e-mails are formal, as they're generally prescriptive instructions of some sort.
9. How is your team structured? Hierarchy or self-managed?
BTH: Definitely a hierarchy.
10. How open is your manager (if they have defined leadership roles) to input on projects?
BTH: I directly report to the CEO of the public company. He happens to be involved in this project directly but normally he's overseeing many projects and takes a very superficial view.
Me: What about budget issues? I remember you mentioning those before.
BTH: No issues at the moment, but the budget started too low. We were supposed to build a 5 star hotel, but the budget was for one or two stars lower. I did make it clear up front that the budget was too low and they accepted my input, but they still decided to go forward with the project. Usually the owners start to realize the budget is too low when we're in the middle of the project, and then adjustments have to be made. It's an inefficient way of doing things, but it seems to be the trend with this group, anyway!
11. How often do you receive/give feedback?
BTH: We do have performance reviews every 6 months using the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) system. It's a rather new addition to the company conducted by the HR department.
12. If you had critical feedback to give, how would you deliver it?
BTH: I would do it directly, but casually. I try to be as immediate as possible when bringing the issue up and frame the conversation as trying to solve a problem rather than a simple critique.
13. Have you ever needed to mediate between team members in conflict?
BTH: In the early stages of The Peak project in 2007, I was on a three person core team. We were all more or less equal in the hierarchy. The other two members of this group did not like each other! They never came to the meetings together and tried to undo each others work. My biggest challenge was getting them into the same room together to make a decision.
Me: What characterized the communication in these meetings?
BTH: When they came to the meeting together, I would usually make a direct effort to make sure that both of their opinions were known. I would invite the other person to give their opinion to basically say 'Give me your comments now because I don't want to have to work through them after a decision has already been made'
14. In your opinion, what distinguishes a high performing team from an average team?
BTH: Synergy. I always try to build on people's strengths when delegating tasks to them.
Me: What about in terms of communication?
BTH: I think that as a team works together we begin to understand our shortfalls and strengths and weaknesses, and we understand each others' personal nuances to improve communication. At first this project was a bit difficult because all the people but one were new, but that goes away after a while.
15. What does or what could your organization do to enhance team productivity?
BTH: Being an effective communicator. Almost all the problems we've encountered on this project were due to insufficient or unclear communication.
Although we used the term 'team' throughout the interview, 'group' seemed like a more appropriate word to describe the 15 person core team he mentioned in the interview, as they don't actually share any specific functions, and spend most of the time delegating to and managing people lower down in the hierarchy, and communicating upwards. Even so, it is abundantly clear that clear, concise communication is still key to getting tasks done and problems solved efficiently.
1. What position do you hold?
BTH: Project director on a real estate development project. In the hierarchy, this is second from the top, behind the company owners.
2. How many people are on your work team?
BTH: My core team consists of about 10 people who I speak to almost daily. In the core project management team there are 15 people, one of whom manages the remaining 50 people in the project management team.
3. What is the largest team you've been a part of?
BTH: As for a team where we were all direct equals, probably when I was working in San Francisco as a structural engineer with 8-10 colleagues. Otherwise, the current project management team of 65 is the largest.
4. Do you manage any employees directly? How many?
BTH: I'm currently directly managing 7 directors of the different departments on the project.
5. How would you define effective communication
BTH: Effective communication is all about clarity, when topics and problems are shared and understood. Defining the task is the first step, and collaboration to solve the problem is the next. Delegation of responsibility and establishment of clear time goals are also important to success.
Me: In one word, the most important trait of effective communication?
BTH: Clarity! Definitely the most important thing. It's not very easy to find here in Indonesia, because of cultural reasons. It's one of the reasons why most westerners have a lot of trouble here trying to work in management roles.
6. Do you consider yourself to be an effective communicator?
BTH: With people that speak English, yes. With people who speak Indonesian, no! *laughs*
Me: What about Indonesians who speak English? Can you bridge the culture gap?
BTH: Yeah, most of the Indonesians I work with I've worked with for a while. The hierarchy is well recognized and respected so things get communicated and done, but you need to follow up on some things.
7. Have you ever been on a team with someone you consider a 'bad' communicator? How were they bad?
BTH: Absolutely, yes! The person was upstream of me, so an owner of the project I was working on. He never respected people's time, number one. Number two, he was always late to meetings and required rehashing in order to get him up to speed. He was also took a dictatorial approach to things.
Me: What about other forms of communication, such as e-mail?
BTH: We communicated rather efficiently this way actually. I could write communications in forms looking for yes or no or go or no go, and get his decision with little discussion or trouble.
8. In your team, what are your primary methods of communication?
BTH: In the core team right around me, probably half e-mail and half in person, since we're in the same office. With external teams, 99% email. In person meetings are expensive and rare and are generally reserved for important negotiation or decision making. Text messaging is more or less synonymous with e-mail in this context. All e-mails are formal, as they're generally prescriptive instructions of some sort.
9. How is your team structured? Hierarchy or self-managed?
BTH: Definitely a hierarchy.
10. How open is your manager (if they have defined leadership roles) to input on projects?
BTH: I directly report to the CEO of the public company. He happens to be involved in this project directly but normally he's overseeing many projects and takes a very superficial view.
Me: What about budget issues? I remember you mentioning those before.
BTH: No issues at the moment, but the budget started too low. We were supposed to build a 5 star hotel, but the budget was for one or two stars lower. I did make it clear up front that the budget was too low and they accepted my input, but they still decided to go forward with the project. Usually the owners start to realize the budget is too low when we're in the middle of the project, and then adjustments have to be made. It's an inefficient way of doing things, but it seems to be the trend with this group, anyway!
11. How often do you receive/give feedback?
BTH: We do have performance reviews every 6 months using the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) system. It's a rather new addition to the company conducted by the HR department.
12. If you had critical feedback to give, how would you deliver it?
BTH: I would do it directly, but casually. I try to be as immediate as possible when bringing the issue up and frame the conversation as trying to solve a problem rather than a simple critique.
13. Have you ever needed to mediate between team members in conflict?
BTH: In the early stages of The Peak project in 2007, I was on a three person core team. We were all more or less equal in the hierarchy. The other two members of this group did not like each other! They never came to the meetings together and tried to undo each others work. My biggest challenge was getting them into the same room together to make a decision.
Me: What characterized the communication in these meetings?
BTH: When they came to the meeting together, I would usually make a direct effort to make sure that both of their opinions were known. I would invite the other person to give their opinion to basically say 'Give me your comments now because I don't want to have to work through them after a decision has already been made'
14. In your opinion, what distinguishes a high performing team from an average team?
BTH: Synergy. I always try to build on people's strengths when delegating tasks to them.
Me: What about in terms of communication?
BTH: I think that as a team works together we begin to understand our shortfalls and strengths and weaknesses, and we understand each others' personal nuances to improve communication. At first this project was a bit difficult because all the people but one were new, but that goes away after a while.
15. What does or what could your organization do to enhance team productivity?
BTH: Being an effective communicator. Almost all the problems we've encountered on this project were due to insufficient or unclear communication.
Although we used the term 'team' throughout the interview, 'group' seemed like a more appropriate word to describe the 15 person core team he mentioned in the interview, as they don't actually share any specific functions, and spend most of the time delegating to and managing people lower down in the hierarchy, and communicating upwards. Even so, it is abundantly clear that clear, concise communication is still key to getting tasks done and problems solved efficiently.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Teams and Communications Interview
The following are summarized responses for the interview with Floyd Kershner.
-What position do you hold?
Floyd - I am a principle project manager for a consulting company.
-How many people are on your work team?
Floyd - I am the only person on my team. I manage multiple teams.
-What is the largest team you have been part of?
Floyd - A group of 60
-So you manage employees. How many?
Floyd - Microsoft had selected 30 customers, each of those had an average of 5 people per team. So was about 150 people.
-What were your primary methods of communication?
Floyd - It was mostly conference calls. Meeting were done as conference calls over the phone. Teams easily dial in or our during any meeting time.
-How were teams structured?
Floyd - The teams were really self-managed besides the status reports and conference calls.
-If there was any problems within the teams, how were they managed?
Floyd - The team leaders within the teams had it covered.
-How was feedback given and received?
Floyd - Feedback was given during the reports and the conference calls. The teams were self-managed, most of the feedback was handled within the team.
-Would you consider yourself an effective communicator?
Floyd - Yes, you have to be to deal with so many different teams. Since most of them were outside of United States, you have to be very clear and concise when explaining things.
-How do you define effective communication?
Floyd - Well you have to make sure the listener understands. It's never a one-way conversation, listener to head and understand what you mean, not just what you say.
-Have you ever been on a team with someone you considered to be a 'bad' communicator?
Floyd - Yes, one of the groups I worked with was very heavy on the politics. People would communicate behind your back. It was very important to get everyone down in writing.
-Have you ever had to mediate between conflicting team members?
Floyd - Yes, there was a chemical company in Belgium that was hostile towards Microsoft. We had to a contract with them so that another local company could keep our partnership. We had consistently remind them about the contract and what the writing said.
-Did you ever have any issues regarding accountability?
Floyd- Very rarely. There were a couple teams that considered coding more important than the calls, so were busy working and miss meetings.
I found this interview interesting. They seemed very optimistic about their teams. Very much on the Y-Theory side of it. A really good reason for the teams to keep collaboration going was that they didn't receive funding if they weren't responding and talking to Floyd. It was very cool to get a feeling for how the upper management worked in bigger corporations. Especially to see how they managed outsourced companies testing their products.
-What position do you hold?
Floyd - I am a principle project manager for a consulting company.
-How many people are on your work team?
Floyd - I am the only person on my team. I manage multiple teams.
-What is the largest team you have been part of?
Floyd - A group of 60
-So you manage employees. How many?
Floyd - Microsoft had selected 30 customers, each of those had an average of 5 people per team. So was about 150 people.
-What were your primary methods of communication?
Floyd - It was mostly conference calls. Meeting were done as conference calls over the phone. Teams easily dial in or our during any meeting time.
-How were teams structured?
Floyd - The teams were really self-managed besides the status reports and conference calls.
-If there was any problems within the teams, how were they managed?
Floyd - The team leaders within the teams had it covered.
-How was feedback given and received?
Floyd - Feedback was given during the reports and the conference calls. The teams were self-managed, most of the feedback was handled within the team.
-Would you consider yourself an effective communicator?
Floyd - Yes, you have to be to deal with so many different teams. Since most of them were outside of United States, you have to be very clear and concise when explaining things.
-How do you define effective communication?
Floyd - Well you have to make sure the listener understands. It's never a one-way conversation, listener to head and understand what you mean, not just what you say.
-Have you ever been on a team with someone you considered to be a 'bad' communicator?
Floyd - Yes, one of the groups I worked with was very heavy on the politics. People would communicate behind your back. It was very important to get everyone down in writing.
-Have you ever had to mediate between conflicting team members?
Floyd - Yes, there was a chemical company in Belgium that was hostile towards Microsoft. We had to a contract with them so that another local company could keep our partnership. We had consistently remind them about the contract and what the writing said.
-Did you ever have any issues regarding accountability?
Floyd- Very rarely. There were a couple teams that considered coding more important than the calls, so were busy working and miss meetings.
I found this interview interesting. They seemed very optimistic about their teams. Very much on the Y-Theory side of it. A really good reason for the teams to keep collaboration going was that they didn't receive funding if they weren't responding and talking to Floyd. It was very cool to get a feeling for how the upper management worked in bigger corporations. Especially to see how they managed outsourced companies testing their products.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Team's & Communication, featuring Brent Collier
I interviewed by brother-in-law, Brent
Collier. He has been working as a software developer for about 7
years. Currently he is working for Twitter in San Francisco as a
Senior Software Engineer / Tech Lead. I selected Brent because since
he has entered the software development field he has worked for
several different corporations and they all seemed to be structured
so differently, he would certainly have interesting experiences to
share.
Brent: I
am a Senior Software Engineer/ Tech Lead for Twitter
Brent: 10 people
Brent:
Largest was around 30 people
Brent:
Not currently
Brent:
Thorough, but concise
Me:
Do you consider yourself to be an effective communicator?
Brent:
I am not as effective as I would like to be
Me:
Have you ever been on a team with someone you consider to be a “bad”
communicator?
Brent:
Probably, but I don't remember anyone specifically.
Me:
In your team, what are your primary methods of communication?
Brent:
Email,
Campfire (group chat) and instant messaging
Me:
So, mostly informal?
Brent:
Yes
Me:
How is your team structured? Hierarchy or self-managed?
Brent:
We have a manager mostly for reporting purposes, but we're mainly
self-managed.
Me:
How open is your manager to input on projects?
Brent:
Extremely open. In fact, most of the decisions are made by us.
Me:
How often do you receive/give feedback?
Brent:
Constantly and at all levels. We do code reviews on all of our work.
We have weekly one-on-one meetings with our manager. And we also do
biannual peer review feedback on ourselves and our managers.
Me:
Have you experienced any issues regarding accountability on your
team?
Brent:
No
issues. We all know what we're responsible for.
Me:
Have you ever needed to mediate between team members in conflict?
Brent:
No, in an open group it's rare for things to elevate to that level.
Me:
Have you been part of or are you part of a high-performing team?
Brent:
Yes, if your team is not high performing, then something needs to
change.
Me:
In your opinion, what do the high-performing teams in your
organization do differently from average teams?
Brent:
Performance teams constantly evaluate and adapt. They spot
inefficiencies and address them.
Me:
What does or what could your organization do to enhance team
productivity?
Brent:
We
have a team whose sole purpose is to enhance developer productivity.
They build and support tools/methods to help us be as efficient as
possible which can be difficult in a company with 800 engineers.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Introducing...the Creativity Survey!
Survey Results
Team members will write individual posts commenting on the results soon...
Deadlines, procrastination, and motivation
College students in general are known for procrastination, especially in regards to classes which are undesirable or perhaps considered 'easy'. Consistent, frequent deadlines are important in this situation, as the added pressure of 'time crunch' usually boosts motivation to do homework in a timely manner. If deadlines are spaced too far apart, it may cause a vacuum of interest until only a short time is left. On some assignments, especially those which seem easy but belie a much more difficult problem, this can cause students to procrastinate until it is too late to complete the assignment effectively.
In this sense, the concept of creating smaller, more tangible and more frequent deadlines as parts of larger projects can be a useful tool to help students keep up in the class, and pre-empt the trend to procrastinate until the last minute.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)