Ulysses Maclaren | The Chief Operating Officer

Open Source - Five Reasons Companies Give Away AI Models That Cost Billions to Build

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 01:05:47 GMT

I was genuinely confused about this one, so I decided to write a blog post abotu it to force myself to do the research.

Alibaba, Meta, Mistral, DeepSeek and Nvidia have all spent enormous sums training AI models, and then let anyone with a fast internet connection download them for nothing. That is not how software companies normally behave. "They're being generous" was not a satisfying explanation, and neither was "they haven't worked out how to monetise it yet".

There are five business reasons. None of them are charity.

First, "open source" and "open weight" are not the same thing

Two different things get called open source here, and the difference is worth getting straight.

The licence on the weights often is genuinely open source. Qwen's current models are Apache 2.0, DeepSeek ships weights and code under MIT, and most of Mistral is Apache 2.0. Those are OSI-approved licences, so you can use, modify and redistribute them commercially. Llama is the exception. Its Community Licence makes anyone above 700 million monthly active users ask Meta for permission, which is why both the Open Source Initiative and the Free Software Foundation say it is not open source, whatever the marketing says.

The model itself is a different question. Open source in the sense the OSI defined for AI in 2024 means you also get the training code and enough detail about the data to rebuild and audit the thing. Almost nobody ships that. OLMo does. Qwen, DeepSeek, Llama and Mistral do not.

So the accurate description of most of these is permissively licensed open weights. You can run it and change it, you just cannot reproduce it or see what went into it. And a permissive licence today is not a permissive licence forever, which becomes important at the end of this post.

1. Give away the model, sell the cloud

This is Alibaba with Qwen.

Making Qwen free makes it popular. But most businesses do not actually want to buy GPUs, configure inference servers, tune quantisation and manage scaling. So Alibaba says, in effect, "Qwen is free. Would you like us to run it for you?"

Alibaba Cloud then sells the compute, the managed APIs and the enterprise services around it. Linux is free and Red Hat sold the convenient enterprise version. Same shape, thirty years later.

2. Commoditise your competitor

This is Meta, and it is the most interesting of the five.

Meta does not make money selling inference. It makes money from Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and advertising. So there are two possible futures for them. In the first, the world's AI layer is controlled by OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, and Meta has to buy access on someone else's terms. In the second, frontier-quality AI is a commodity that everyone can run.

Meta strongly prefers the second. If they spend billions on Llama and the market price of intelligence collapses as a result, that is a fantastic investment, because Meta's profits live higher up the stack.

Google did the same thing with Android. Google never needed licensing revenue from it. It needed the mobile operating system not to become a toll booth owned by Apple or Microsoft.

3. Free software, paid enterprise product

This is closer to Mistral.

A developer downloads the model and plays with it on a laptop for nothing. Then a bank says, "we need this running for 8,000 staff, hosted in Europe, integrated with our systems, monitored, secured, supported and covered by an SLA."

That second conversation is where the invoice appears. Red Hat again, with API consumption bolted on.

4. Give away the weights, sell the convenience

This is DeepSeek. Self-host if you like, or just call the API.

The counterintuitive part is that open weights make the API easier to sell. A CTO can approve it knowing that if the price triples, they can host the model themselves. That kills the lock-in objection, which is usually the thing that stalls procurement.

I understood this model as it's also the business model of SSW's CMS: https://tina.io

5. Become the standard

The last one cuts across all of them: developer mindshare.

Once millions of developers build on your model, inference engines optimise for it, hardware vendors benchmark against it, fine-tuning tools support it, tutorials teach it and consultants already know it. Alibaba has effectively recruited the internet as its ecosystem team, and Qwen has now passed 700 million downloads on Hugging Face.

That is very hard for a closed model to replicate at any price.

What this means when you are buying

My advice is to treat open weights as negotiating leverage rather than as a way to save money.

Being able to say "we could run this ourselves" changes a renewal conversation. Actually running it is a different matter. A frontier-scale open model needs expensive hardware, real engineering and someone on call at 2am, and for most teams that costs more than the API it replaced. Free weights are not free intelligence.

Be aware too that the free part is will likely end. Alibaba is reportedly about to require large commercial users of its next Qwen model to share revenue, following Moonshot, whose Kimi K3 licence requires anyone reselling it as a service above $20m a year to negotiate terms, reportedly up to a 30% share. Read the licence before you build a product on top of one of these.

What it means for the closed labs

This is the bit I had not thought through.

OpenAI and Anthropic price on exclusivity. If you want their best model, you go through them, and that is what supports the margin. Open weights break that, because once the weights are public, any cloud provider can host the same intelligence and compete on price and latency instead.

You can see it in who is arguing which side. In July, Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Palantir and dozens of others signed a letter backing the open-weight ecosystem, later joined by Google and OpenAI. Anthropic did not sign. How a company makes money is a very good predictor of its position on this.

The closed labs have two answers. Keep the frontier gap wide enough that the best work still has to come to them, and move the margin up into the application layer, where the product rather than the model is what you are paying for. Both are happening now, and both are being attempted while those companies prepare for public listings.

What's next?

I think we are entering a second phase. Phase one was use openness to win distribution. Phase two is selectively monetise the people who won the most from it.

So if you are making a build-or-buy call on AI this year, plan for the model layer to keep getting cheaper and the layer around it (hosting, integration, governance, the actual product) to be where the cost and the value both end up. That is also where your team's work is worth the most, which is the good news buried in all of this.

I have written before about how this changes the way we charge for work in The Problem With Billing by the Hour When Agents Do the Work, and about getting practical value out of these tools in Cognitive Offloading with AI.

The Problem With Billing by the Hour When Agents Do the Work

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 04:08:00 GMT

We ran a Spec Review recently and came back to the client with an estimate of around $300k, Time and Materials.

Before the work started, the Solution Architect on the job wanted to see what would happen if he handed the project to Claude Code and let it run. Overnight, it got through a substantial amount of the build. Our revised view was that we could finish the job off with roughly $60k of additional work.

Same scope. Same client. Same outcome. A fifth of the invoice.

That is a good result for the client and a genuine problem for the way we sell. It is worth being honest about both.

The link between hours and value has snapped

The old model held together because of a chain of assumptions. Hours were a proxy for effort, effort was a proxy for difficulty, and difficulty was a proxy for value. None of those links were perfect, but they were close enough that billing by the hour felt fair to everybody.

Agentic workflows break the chain in the middle. When an agent runs overnight and a developer spends the morning reviewing what it did, the hours on the timesheet describe the review, not the work. The hardest and most valuable part of that engagement was the architect deciding what to ask for and knowing whether the answer was any good. That took him twenty minutes.

There is also a transparency problem coming. Clients know what these tools cost, because most of them are using them too. A client who pays for a subscription at home is going to ask why the invoice looks the same as it did in 2023.

The market has already noticed

McKinsey now reports that around a quarter of its global fees come from outcome-based arrangements rather than billable hours, with clients increasingly arriving with a result they want rather than a scope they want delivered. BCG has told investors it expects AI-driven work to be about 40% of revenue.

Before we all declare the billable hour dead, one industry estimate puts genuine pay-for-results contracts at under 10% of AI consulting work. Most of what is actually happening is a shift from Time and Materials to fixed price, which is a much smaller change than the headlines suggest.

The demand is running ahead of the supply. Clients are asking to buy outcomes faster than consultancies are offering to sell them, which is not surprising when you look at who carries the risk in each model.

What this does to Agile

This is the part that matters for those of us who have built our delivery practice on Scrum.

Velocity was a measure of capacity

Velocity only ever worked because the team was stable. Ten people this sprint, ten people next sprint, so last sprint's throughput tells you something useful about the next one. Once a meaningful share of the work is done by agents running at variable speed and variable quality, velocity stops forecasting anything. It becomes a record of what happened rather than a prediction of what will.

Story points might actually survive

Story points are a relative measure of how big and complex a piece of work is, deliberately divorced from how long it takes. That design decision, which used to feel like an academic distinction, is now the thing that saves them.

If a story might take an agent eighteen minutes or three hours of debugging depending on how well it goes, any estimate in hours is a guess. But the story is still the same size relative to the one next to it. My advice is to keep estimating in points and stop trying to convert them to days.

Fixed outcomes pull against adaptive scope

Here is the awkward one. Scrum is built on the premise that the client buys capacity and steers it, sprint by sprint, as they learn what they actually need. The Sprint Review exists precisely so scope can change.

Selling a fixed outcome pulls in the opposite direction. It pushes you back toward a specification agreed months ago, defended by change requests, which is very close to the thing Agile was invented to get away from. I do not think these two ideas reconcile as neatly as the consulting blogs imply, and I would be suspicious of anyone who says they have solved it.

The trade-off nobody mentions

Outcome pricing is not a free upgrade.

The risk moves to you. Our own rule on Fixed Price vs Time and Materials has always added a 20% premium to fixed price work, on the basis that the consultant is carrying the risk. That premium does not disappear because the tooling improved. If anything the variance is higher now, because agent performance across different problem domains is genuinely hard to predict.
Your cost base changes shape. The $60k in the story above is not the whole cost. API and token spend is now a real line item, it scales with usage rather than headcount, and it is far less predictable than a salaried developer. That has to be priced in.
Cash flow gets lumpy. Getting paid on results rather than on effort stretches payment cycles and makes revenue harder to forecast.
Somebody has to define the outcome. "Working software" is easy to say and hard to write into a contract in a way both parties will still agree on in six months.

Where we've landed so far

Not on an answer. We have always been an Agile Scrum house, and I still think the practices underneath are the right ones. Small increments, working software, a Product Owner who prioritises ruthlessly, and a client who can change their mind next sprint are all more valuable when delivery is fast, not less.

What has to change is the commercial wrapper around them. Selling hours when the hours no longer describe the work is not a pricing problem, it is an honesty problem, and clients will get there before we do.

The good news is that the thing we are actually selling has not changed. It was never the hours. It was knowing what to build, knowing when it is good enough, and being able to tell whether what came back is any good. Those judgements are worth more now than they were two years ago, not less. We just have to work out how to put a number on them.

I've also written about the first half of this problem in SSW's rule on Specification Reviews, which is where the estimate gets set in the first place.

Get your head in the game: The rise of the 10× employee

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 22:26:42 GMT

This is a message for employees who want to be more effective, more useful, and harder to ignore.

There is a growing mismatch in most organisations. Individual capability has expanded rapidly, while job descriptions have stayed mostly the same. AI is the reason.

For a long time, we talked about the idea of the “10× developer.” Someone who could produce ten times the output of their peers. This was usually attributed to rare talent, deep experience, or some hard-to-define brilliance. Something you either had or didn’t.

What’s changed is not the people. It’s the tools.

AI has significantly lowered the cost of thinking, drafting, exploring, and prototyping. Ordinary, capable people can now do things that previously required specialists, or at least permission. As a result, “10×” is no longer a property of a role. It’s a property of leverage.

Your role is no longer the boundary

AI allows you to contribute outside your formal job description. That’s the shift.

You don’t need a promotion. You don’t need approval. You don’t need to become an expert.

In practice, this already looks like sales people drafting marketing copy, HR staff sketching simple financial models, designers reasoning about technical constraints, and developers producing rough UX concepts themselves.

None of these people suddenly mastered a new discipline. They just got far enough to be useful.

The people who benefit most are not the most technical. They are the ones who default to a simple question:

“How could AI help me think about this first?”

Thinking AI-first by default, not as an afterthought, is what creates a 10× employee.

If you want to outperform others, you don’t start by working harder. You start by assuming that for most problems, AI can help you explore options, draft a first pass, or challenge your thinking before you do anything else. Ten-times performance now comes from leverage, not effort.

10× is about range, not speed

Most AI discussions focus on speed: faster emails, quicker reports, shorter cycles. That misses the bigger change.

The real gain is range.

AI collapses the cost of trying things outside your lane. You can explore sales, marketing, product, operations, and engineering at a basic level. When you do that, you start to see connections that siloed roles often miss.

That’s where disproportionate value comes from.

The mess is expected

AI-driven work often looks messy. Half-finished scripts. Rough prototypes. Tools that work just well enough. Experiments that never ship.

This is not inefficiency. It’s learning.

The cost of experimentation has dropped. The cost of waiting has increased. Even technical debt means less than it used to, because tools improve fast and cleanup is cheaper than it once was.

Not experimenting is now the riskier choice.

This isn’t about replacing you, it’s about expanding you

AI is not here to replace you. It’s here to expand the space you can operate in.

It fills in gaps just enough for you to step into adjacent problems. You don’t need to be a marketer to add marketing value. You don’t need to be an accountant to notice financial patterns.

Humans are still doing the important part: connecting ideas, applying judgement, and deciding what matters.

What to do next, if you want to be a 10× employee

You don’t need a strategy document or permission from leadership.

You can start now:

Default to AI-first thinking for most problems.
Use AI to explore adjacent areas, not just your core role.
Bring half-formed but thoughtful ideas, not polished perfection.
Treat experimentation as part of your job, not a distraction from it.
Measure yourself by the value you create, not the box you sit in.

The people who will stand out over the next few years will not be the ones who stayed neatly inside their lane.

They will be the ones who expanded it.

Think AI-first.
Act broader than your job description.

Cognitive Offloading with AI: Clear Your Mind, Boost Your Productivity

Wed, 07 May 2025 23:49:30 GMT

Ever find yourself mentally juggling too many tasks? Meetings, deadlines, follow-ups - the list seems endless. Cognitive overload happens when you push your brain to handle more information than it comfortably can, leading to reduced effectiveness and unnecessary stress. Fortunately, there's an elegant solution: Cognitive offloading with AI.

What is Cognitive Offloading?

Cognitive offloading is simply delegating mental tasks to external tools to free your mind from excessive cognitive load. Traditionally, we've done this with simple tools - calendars, to-do lists, and reminder apps. Now, powerful AI tools offer next-level cognitive offloading, managing complex mental tasks far beyond basic scheduling.

Why Cognitive Offloading Matters

Improved Focus
By handing off mundane or repetitive tasks to AI, your mind can zero in on higher-value work - like strategy or creative problem-solving.
Reduced Mental Fatigue
Decision fatigue accumulates throughout your day. Delegating small decisions ("What's the best phrasing for this email?") conserves mental energy for big-picture thinking.
Better Quality Outputs
AI handles routine work reliably. An AI assistant won't overlook small but critical details, making sure your outputs are consistently high-quality.

How to Use AI for Cognitive Offloading

Emails and Communication

Drafting Emails: Tools like ChatGPT can rapidly produce clear, effective drafts. Adjust the AI-generated content as needed, but you'll start from a strong baseline.
Summarising Conversations: AI meeting assistants summarise lengthy conversations, capturing essential action items without taxing your memory.

Task Management

Prioritisation: AI-powered task managers automatically highlight what's urgent and what's important, freeing your mind from constantly reassessing priorities.
Reminder Automation: AI reminders prompt you proactively, reducing anxiety about forgetting tasks.

Decision Support

Information Synthesis: AI quickly analyses large data sets, delivering insights you can use to make informed decisions without drowning in details.
Creative Idea Generation: AI tools like Claude or ChatGPT can suggest multiple options quickly, kickstarting your creative thinking without heavy initial cognitive effort.

Practical Steps to Start Cognitive Offloading

Identify Repetitive Tasks: Audit your weekly activities—flag tasks that don't require your unique perspective or creativity.
Choose AI Tools Wisely: Not every AI tool fits every situation. Select tools that integrate smoothly into your workflow.
Test and Refine: Experiment with AI assistance in small tasks initially. Gradually increase reliance as trust grows.

The Bottom Line

Embracing cognitive offloading with AI doesn't mean relinquishing control. Instead, it's about intelligently leveraging technology to clear your cognitive runway. With AI taking care of routine tasks, your mind is free for strategic thinking and innovation.

Clear your mind, boost your productivity, and let AI handle the cognitive clutter.

The Evolution of Software Development from Command Lines to AI

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 22:54:20 GMT

As someone deeply entrenched in the world of technology and software development, I've witnessed firsthand the remarkable evolution of this industry. It's been a journey from the early days of bulky mainframes and cryptic command lines to the sleek, intelligent systems of today - and there's no sign of slowing down. This post delves into the rich history of software development, tracing the pivotal moments and groundbreaking innovations that have brought us to the current state of digital sophistication. We'll explore the past, assess the present, and take a speculative glance into the future, where AI, AR and quantum computing are poised to redefine what's possible.

Timeline of Industry Trends in Custom Software Development

1950s-1960s: Mainframe Era

Figure: mainframes took up whole floors of buildings

Introduction of mainframe computers.
Command-line interface and batch processing.
Dominance of languages like COBOL and FORTRAN.

1960s-1970s: Rise of Minicomputers

Figure: Early Minicomputers were still the size of filing cabinets

Minicomputers offer a smaller, more affordable option.
Continued use of command-line interfaces.
Expansion into businesses and academic institutions.

1980s: Birth of Personal Computers and Windows Development

Figure: Early Windows applications

Personal computers bring computing to a wider audience.
Introduction of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs): GUIs revolutionize user interaction with computers, making them more user-friendly and accessible to non-technical users.
Launch of Microsoft Windows: Windows becomes a significant player in the software development world, popularizing the use of GUIs in personal computing.
Development of software applications for Windows accelerates, marking a significant shift in how software is designed and interacted with.

1990s: Internet and Web Development

Figure: Dell's original website

The rise of the internet and web browsers.
Shift towards web development: from static to dynamic web applications.
Emergence of web-based languages and technologies (HTML, JavaScript, PHP).

2000s: Business Intelligence (BI)

As businesses started to generate and collect more data, there was a growing need for tools and methodologies to analyze this data for strategic decision-making.
BI tools began to evolve from basic data reporting functions to more sophisticated analytics, including data mining, online analytical processing (OLAP), and later, predictive analytics.
The focus shifted towards providing business users with insights for performance measurement, identifying trends, and making informed decisions based on data.
This era also saw the integration of BI solutions with other business systems, improving accessibility and usability for non-technical users.

2010s: SaaS, Cloud Computing and Big Data

Figure: SaaS offerings like SalesForce

Cloud computing (Azure, AWS, Google Cloud) becomes mainstream.
SaaS (Software as a Service) models gain popularity.
Focus on big data analytics and processing.
BI tools further evolved. They began to handle larger data sets, offering more advanced analytics capabilities, and providing cloud-based, scalable solutions.

Late 2010s: AI and Machine Learning

Figure: Google's Tensor Flow showing a machine learning model being trained

Integration of AI and machine learning into applications.
Rise of data-driven decision-making and predictive analytics.
Advancements in natural language processing and automation.

2020s: DevOps, IoT, and Cybersecurity

Widespread adoption of Agile and DevOps methodologies.
Growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) and connected devices.
Increased focus on cybersecurity in software development.

2020s: Remote Work and Distributed Teams

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerates remote work trends.
Emphasis on tools and practices for remote software development.

Ok. That brings us to now. We're building web and mobile applications with good DevOps, while prioritising remote access, and starting to incorporate more and more AI features... so let's look at what's coming next:

Future Trends (2020s and Beyond)

Continued advancement in AI and machine learning.

The realm of AI and machine learning isn't just advancing; it's evolving at a breakneck pace. What was once the domain of theoretical research is now driving the core of many modern applications. From predictive analytics that power business decisions to AI-driven personal assistants in our smartphones, the practical applications of these technologies are becoming increasingly sophisticated. In the coming years, we're likely to see even more personalized and intelligent AI solutions, pushing the boundaries of automation, decision-making, and user experience. The integration of AI in various industries isn't just an add-on anymore; it's becoming a fundamental aspect of digital innovation.

Emergence of quantum computing and its potential impact.

Quantum computing, often regarded as the next frontier in computational power, is poised to redefine the limits of data processing. Unlike traditional computing, which relies on bits to process information, quantum computing uses quantum bits or qubits. This allows it to process complex datasets much more efficiently. The potential impact of quantum computing is enormous, particularly in fields requiring enormous computational power like cryptography, material science, and complex system modeling. While still in its early stages, the progress in this field could revolutionize how we approach problem-solving in sectors where current computing power hits its limits.

Growth in edge computing and serverless architectures.

Edge computing and serverless architectures are reshaping how we handle data and run applications. Edge computing brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it's needed, improving response times and saving bandwidth. This is crucial in a world increasingly reliant on IoT devices and mobile computing. Meanwhile, serverless architectures allow developers to build and run applications without managing servers, significantly simplifying operations and reducing costs. This paradigm shift in computing not only enhances efficiency but also allows organizations to focus more on development and innovation rather than infrastructure management.

Projection: 2030s and Beyond

Anticipated integration of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) in applications.

The integration of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) into various applications is anticipated to transform our interaction with the digital world. VR, with its immersive environments, is poised to revolutionize industries like gaming, training, and virtual tours, offering experiences that are as close to reality as possible. AR, on the other hand, overlays digital information onto the real world, enhancing everyday activities with interactive and context-rich information. From AR-assisted surgeries to interactive educational experiences and improved retail shopping, these technologies are bridging the gap between the physical and digital realms, creating opportunities for innovation that were once the stuff of science fiction.

Possible advancements in brain-computer interfaces.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) represent a frontier in the convergence of neuroscience and technology. The potential advancements in this field are groundbreaking, offering the promise of directly translating brain activity into computer commands. Imagine controlling devices, communicating, or even navigating digital spaces with just your thoughts. BCIs could revolutionize the way individuals with mobility or speech impairments interact with technology, offering newfound independence. Beyond assistive technologies, the implications in gaming, virtual reality, and even medical diagnostics are profound, potentially leading to a future where the line between thought and action, biology and technology, becomes seamlessly integrated.

Evolution of AI towards more autonomous and intelligent systems.

The evolution of AI is trending towards the creation of more autonomous and intelligent systems, capable of complex decision-making with minimal human intervention. This future wave of AI will likely see systems that not only learn and adapt but also understand context and exhibit a form of 'intuitive reasoning.' The goal is to develop AI that can tackle nuanced and sophisticated tasks, from advanced medical diagnostics to real-time, complex problem-solving in unpredictable environments. As these systems become more capable, the emphasis will also shift towards ensuring they operate within ethical and responsible frameworks, balancing autonomy with accountability. This evolution represents not just a technological leap, but a paradigm shift in how we conceive of and interact with intelligent systems.

The 9 Principles for Selling Custom Software Development

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 01:59:00 GMT

In a world where technology changes at the speed of light, some principles for selling custom software development remain timeless. Discover the enduring sales strategies that have stood the test of time and will set you up for success, no matter what comes next.

As the General Manager and an Account Manager at SSW, I've had my fair share of challenges in selling custom software development. It's a field filled with complexities, risks, and uncertainties. But over the years, I've discovered that certain sales principles, when applied with care and understanding, can turn these challenges into opportunities. Let's explore these principles in detail.

Figure: Cialdini formalised these in his famous book, Pre-suasion, but I've put the below in my own order of importance

1. Authority: It's About Proof, Not Promises

The Importance of Authority: In the competitive field of custom software development, establishing authority is paramount. It's not about claiming expertise; it's about demonstrating it through tangible evidence and a consistent track record.

Example from SSW: Over the past 30 years, SSW has been actively creating and curating industry-leading practices on software development and project management. This collection, available at ssw.com.au/rules, serves as a resource for both our team and the broader community. Mentioning this in meetings isn’t merely a talking point; it’s a concrete demonstration of SSW’s authority on the subject.

Further Insights: Authority is also built through case studies that showcase problem-solving capabilities, certifications that align with industry standards, and hands-on expertise in Scrum and software development. It's about transparency and a willingness to share the process, making clients feel at ease.

2. Reciprocity: More Than Just Freebies

The Power of Giving: Reciprocation is about offering something of value to create a sense of obligation, fostering a more engaging relationship with potential clients.

Example from SSW: At SSW, we’ve taken the concept of reciprocation to heart. Whether it’s through free initial meetings, giveaways like USBs and Notebooks, or providing valuable insights into the latest industry trends, we strive to give before we ask.

Further Insights: Reciprocation goes beyond tangible gifts; it's about sharing expertise and knowledge, demonstrating commitment to the client's success, and building a relationship founded on trust and mutual respect. It's a subtle yet effective way to show potential clients that we understand their needs.

3. Building Trust: Honesty is Our Best Policy

Why Trust Matters: Trust is the cornerstone of any successful business relationship, especially in a field as complex as custom software development. Clients often come with their own set of fears, uncertainties, and doubts (FUD), and addressing these feelings head on is essential.

Example from SSW: In a recent meeting with a potential client, I openly discussed the risks involved in custom software development and how SSW has successfully navigated similar challenges in the past. This candid approach not only built trust but also helped alleviate the client's FUD by demonstrating our expertise and commitment to transparency.

Further Insights: Building trust is about being open and honest about the challenges and how to overcome them. It's about showing empathy, understanding the client's concerns, and providing reassurance through proven strategies and examples. By acknowledging and addressing FUD directly, we can turn potential obstacles into opportunities for connection and collaboration.

4. Solution Selling: Tailoring to Needs

Understanding the Client: Every client has unique needs and pain points. Understanding these and tailoring the pitch accordingly leads to more meaningful connections.

Example from SSW: By focusing on solutions rather than generic services, we’ve been able to resonate with clients on a deeper level. We listen, understand, and create a customized approach that speaks directly to their specific needs.

Further Insights: Solution selling is about empathy and customization. It's about moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach and crafting a proposal that aligns with the client's unique requirements and goals.

5. Scarcity & Urgency: Limited Availability and Time-Sensitive Offers

Principle:

Scarcity and urgency are key sales drivers. Scarcity highlights limited availability, while urgency speeds up decision-making. In custom software development, these can be combined for a strong sales pitch.

SSW Example:

Our developers are in high demand for their expertise and quality work. We emphasize:

Limited Availability: Our top developers are often fully booked.
Time-Sensitivity: Deadlines and project timelines add urgency.
Limited-Time Offers: Special pricing or features are occasionally available for quick commitments.

Further Insights:

This isn't artificial demand; it's our business reality. Limited availability and time-sensitive offers create urgency, encouraging clients to act quickly for the chance to work with our top-notch team.

Other Sales Principles:

6. Commitment and Consistency: Encouraging clients to make small commitments can lead to larger commitments later on. It's about building momentum and consistency in the relationship.

7. Social Proof: Sharing testimonials, case studies, or endorsements from satisfied clients adds credibility and demonstrates value.

8. Likability: Building rapport and finding common ground fosters a positive relationship. It's about connecting on a personal level.

9. Storytelling: Using stories to convey information makes it more engaging and relatable. Sharing success stories or client experiences adds a human touch.

Conclusion

Selling custom software development is a complex and nuanced task. But by applying universal sales principles such as building trust, showing authority, practicing reciprocation, and being candid about the challenges, we can turn potential risks into opportunities. These principles, while illustrated through my experiences at SSW, are applicable across various fields and can be a valuable guide for anyone looking to enhance their sales approach. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting in sales, these insights offer a roadmap to success in the ever-changing landscape of custom software development.

Boosting Productivity at Work: How Managers of Software Companies Can Use GPT-4 and Get Their Employees on Board

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 04:15:24 GMT

So, at the moment, I'm thinking a lot about how to take advantage of ChatGPT, so I thought I'd map it all out into a blog post to help me crystalise my thoughts. I'm also, of course, using it to help me write this... here goes :)

What is GPT-4?

GPT-4 is an artificial intelligence language model developed by OpenAI that has the ability to generate human-like text, translate languages, summarize documents, and perform a wide range of natural language processing tasks. In this blog post, we will explore how you can use GPT-4 to improve your productivity at work and ensure that your employees start using it too.

Writing Assistance 📝

One of the most useful applications of GPT-4 is writing assistance. Writing is a critical aspect of many jobs, and it can be time-consuming and mentally taxing to produce high-quality written content. GPT-4 can help you overcome these challenges by providing suggestions for improving the clarity and tone of your writing. Here are some examples of how GPT-4 can help you write more effectively:

Emails: Writing clear and concise emails is essential for effective communication in the workplace. With GPT-4, you can input a few keywords or a rough draft of your message, and it will generate potential sentences or paragraphs that you can use or modify to suit your needs. For example, if you're struggling to find the right words to express gratitude in an email to a colleague, you can input a few keywords like "thank you" or "appreciate" and let GPT-4 generate potential phrases that you can use in your message.
Reports: Reports are a common type of business document that can be time-consuming and challenging to write. GPT-4 can help you save time and reduce the amount of mental energy required to write reports by generating potential sentences or paragraphs based on your input. For example, if you're struggling to find the right words to describe the results of a study in a report, you can input the key findings and let GPT-4 generate potential phrases that you can use in your document.
Presentations: Presentations are an essential part of many jobs, and they require effective communication skills. GPT-4 can help you generate compelling and engaging content for your presentations by providing suggestions for improving the clarity and tone of your writing. For example, if you're struggling to find the right words to describe a product or service in a presentation, you can input some basic information about the product or service and let GPT-4 generate potential sentences or paragraphs that you can use in your presentation.
Web Content: If you need landing pages, or really any content for a web page, GPT-4 can generate great content, tailored for your target audience. Just make sure you include enough parameters into your prompt to make the output generated optimal for your specific case. A generic promp will produce generic content.

Research Assistance 🔍

Research is another critical aspect of many jobs, and it can be time-consuming and challenging to find the information you need to complete your work. GPT-4 can help you overcome these challenges by providing research assistance. Here are some examples of how GPT-4 can help you with research:

Article Summaries: Reading and summarizing articles is a common research task that can be time-consuming and challenging. GPT-4 can help you save time by generating summaries of articles based on your input. For example, if you need to read a lengthy article for work but don't have time to read the entire thing, you can input the article and let GPT-4 generate a summary that highlights the most important points.
Related Articles: Finding related articles to support your research can be challenging. GPT-4 can help you find related articles by analyzing the content of the articles you're interested in and suggesting other articles that are related to the same topic.
Keyword Suggestions: Choosing the right keywords for your research can be challenging. GPT-4 can help you by suggesting keywords based on your input. For example, if you're researching the effects of climate change on agriculture, you can input some basic information about the topic and let GPT-4 suggest keywords that you can use to search for relevant articles.

Customer Service Automation 🤖

Customer service is another area where GPT-4 can help improve your productivity. Automating simple customer service tasks can save your employees time and allow them to focus on more complex issues. Here are some examples of how GPT-4 can help automate customer service:

Frequently Asked Questions: Many companies have a set of frequently asked questions (FAQs) that customers ask repeatedly. GPT-4 can help you automate the process of answering these questions by generating responses based on the question. For example, if a customer asks "What is your return policy?", GPT-4 can generate a response that explains the return policy.
Simple Inquiries: In addition to FAQs, many customers have simple inquiries that can be handled quickly and easily. GPT-4 can help automate the process of answering these inquiries by generating responses based on the inquiry. For example, if a customer asks "What are your store hours?", GPT-4 can generate a response that provides the store hours.

Translation 🌐

Translation is another area where GPT-4 can help improve your productivity. Communicating effectively with people who speak different languages is essential in today's global economy. GPT-4 can help you overcome language barriers by translating text between languages. Here are some examples of how GPT-4 can help with translation:

Business Documents: Many businesses have documents that need to be translated into multiple languages. GPT-4 can help you save time and reduce the cost of translation by automatically translating these documents. For example, if you have a product manual that needs to be translated into multiple languages, you can input the manual and let GPT-4 generate translations in the desired languages.
Customer Communications: Communicating effectively with customers who speak different languages is essential for providing excellent customer service. GPT-4 can help you overcome language barriers by translating customer communications. For example, if a customer emails your company in a language you don't speak, you can input the email and let GPT-4 generate a translation that you can use to respond to the customer.

How to Ensure Your Employees Start Using GPT-4 💡

Introducing new technology to your employees can be challenging. Here are some tips to help ensure that your employees start using GPT-4:

Provide Training: Make sure to provide training on how to use GPT-4 effectively. This will help your employees feel more comfortable using the technology and make them more productive.
Set Expectations: Let your employees know how you expect them to use GPT-4. This will help ensure that they use it in ways that align with your business goals.
Offer Incentives: Consider offering incentives for employees who use GPT-4 effectively. This can help motivate them to learn and use the technology.
Lead by Example: Make sure to use GPT-4 yourself and share your experiences with your employees. This will help demonstrate the value of the technology and encourage your employees to use it too.
Share Wins: When someone has a big win using it, let everyone else know, so that they can emulate the behaviour.

Conclusion

GPT-4 is a powerful technology that can help improve your productivity and save you time. Its writing assistance, research assistance, customer service automation, and translation capabilities can all be invaluable assets for businesses. However, introducing new technology to your employees can be challenging.

By providing training, setting expectations, offering incentives, and leading by example, you can ensure that your employees start using GPT-4 effectively. With the right approach, GPT-4 can become an integral part of your company's technology stack and help you stay ahead of the competition.

What is ChatGPT?

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 05:43:40 GMT

ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI that can generate human-like text based on a given prompt. It is part of the GPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer) family of language models, which are state-of-the-art models in the field of natural language processing (NLP).

The model is trained on a massive dataset of text, which allows it to generate text that is similar to what a human might write or say. The training process involves providing the model with a large number of input sequences and corresponding target sequences, allowing it to learn patterns and relationships in the data. The result is a highly sophisticated language model that can generate a wide range of text, from news articles to poetry and beyond.

One of the key advantages of ChatGPT is its ability to understand and respond to natural language inputs in a conversational manner. This makes it a popular choice for building chatbots, which can engage in human-like dialogue with users and provide information, answer questions, and complete tasks. For example, a chatbot built with ChatGPT can be integrated into a website, messaging platform, or mobile app, allowing users to interact with the chatbot in real-time.

Another advantage of ChatGPT is its scalability. Because the model is trained using deep learning techniques, it can be easily fine-tuned for specific tasks or domains. This means that developers can customize the model to their specific needs, whether it's for a specific industry or language, by fine-tuning it on a smaller dataset that is relevant to the task at hand. This allows the model to generate more accurate and relevant text, which can improve the user experience and increase the efficiency of the chatbot.

One potential limitation of ChatGPT is its tendency to generate biased text. This can occur if the model is trained on a dataset that contains biases, such as gender, race, or cultural biases. This can result in the chatbot generating text that is offensive or insensitive, which can have negative consequences for the user experience. To mitigate this risk, it is important for developers to carefully curate the training data and be aware of any potential biases in the dataset.

In conclusion, ChatGPT is a highly sophisticated language model that offers a range of benefits for developers building chatbots and other NLP applications. Its ability to understand and respond to natural language inputs in a conversational manner, as well as its scalability and customizability, make it a popular choice for developers. However, it is important to be aware of the potential limitations of the model, such as its tendency to generate biased text, and take steps to mitigate these risks. Overall, ChatGPT is a powerful tool that has the potential to transform the field of NLP and the way we interact with technology.

Why is ChatGPT a big deal for tech companies?

ChatGPT is a big deal for tech companies because it represents a major advancement in the field of natural language processing (NLP) and opens up new possibilities for building intelligent chatbots and other NLP-powered applications.

One of the main reasons why ChatGPT is a big deal is its ability to understand and respond to natural language inputs in a conversational manner. This makes it a powerful tool for building chatbots that can engage in human-like dialogue with users, provide information, answer questions, and complete tasks. For example, a chatbot built with ChatGPT can be integrated into a website, messaging platform, or mobile app, allowing users to interact with the chatbot in real-time. This can greatly improve the user experience and increase the efficiency of the chatbot, making it a valuable asset for tech companies.

Another reason why ChatGPT is a big deal is its scalability and customizability. The model can be easily fine-tuned for specific tasks or domains, allowing developers to customize it to their specific needs, whether it's for a specific industry or language. This allows the model to generate more accurate and relevant text, which can further improve the user experience and increase the efficiency of the chatbot.

The potential applications of ChatGPT are vast and varied, and it has the potential to transform the way we interact with technology. For example, it can be used to build intelligent virtual assistants that can answer questions, complete tasks, and make recommendations, making our lives easier and more convenient. It can also be used in customer service, where it can be used to automate routine tasks and provide fast, accurate responses to customer inquiries.

In conclusion, ChatGPT is a big deal for tech companies because it represents a major advancement in the field of NLP and opens up new possibilities for building intelligent chatbots and other NLP-powered applications. Its ability to understand and respond to natural language inputs in a conversational manner, as well as its scalability and customizability, make it a valuable asset for tech companies, and its potential applications are vast and varied.

*Written completely by ChatGPT

Responsive Web App vs Native Mobile App

Fri, 02 Sep 2022 01:59:55 GMT

Many businesses are dealing with this quandary at the moment, and there a number of factors to keep in mind when deciding how to cater for users on mobile devices. These factors can be broadly broken down into 2 categories: User Experience (UX) and technical considerations.

Firstly, however, lets discuss what these 2 options actually are.

Responsive Web App

This is a website that shows up differently depending on the screen size you're viewing it on. For example:

When shown on a PC's web browser (i.e. a large amount of real estate), it will show everything.
When shown on an iPad's web browser (i.e. a medium amount of real estate), it repositions some things and potentially removes some parts.
When shown on an mobile phone's web browser (i.e. a small amount of real estate), it shows a cut down and optimised view, often removing whole sections if necessary.

Figure: This is one responsive web application, that shows different layouts depending on how much real-estate it has access to

Responsive Web App - Decision Factors

The UX benefits of this option include:

Familiar experience - users who use multiple platforms will see a similar experience.
No install - one barrier for use can sometimes be that users may not want to install an app on their mobile from a company that they don't trust yet.
Some access to phone features - Web apps have recently been given access to many device specific features via the API, meaning that you can now use the phone's GPS, camera, accelerometer, etc from the browser.
SEO friendly - customers will be able to Google your web app easily... Native apps are not SEO friendly.
Mobile First - if your users are primarily going to be using your web app via their mobiles, you can build the UI with that in mind, and optimise for their experience. In extreme cases, you may not even worry about desktop users at all.

The Technical benefits of Responsive Web Apps include:

Price - it's generally cheaper to build and maintain 1 application that can be used on any device that has a web browser (PC, Mac, iOS, Android, etc.).
Web Wrapper - If your web app is a Single Page Application (SPA) then by using technologies such as Cordova or Electron, you can wrap them in a native app "shell" that allows them to be installed directly onto a mobile device, and removing the header of the web browser... giving some of the stickiness of a real native app.

Native Mobile App

This is an application that is installed directly onto your mobile device via the App Store (for iOS) or Google Play (for Android).

Figure: Usually, apps that can be opened from your home screen are Native Mobile Apps

Native Mobile App - Decision Factors

The UX benefits of this option include:

Stickiness - You have a button on your phone to open it directly. You don't need to open the web browser and navigate to the URL.
Full access to phone features - almost anything the phone can do, you now have access to, including multi threading, Augmented Reality libraries, etc.
Offline access - although technically possible to some extent with some web apps, this is much easier for native apps.

The Technical factors of Native Mobile Apps include:

Hybrid - you used to have to build 1 app for iOS, and another completely separate app for Android, but now with technologies such as .NET MAUI, Flutter, Electron, etc, you can build 1 app that will work on both.
Expensive price - if you need a web app anyway, then you're still doubling up as you'll need to build and maintain a web app and a mobile app separately.
Code reuse - if you choose your stack carefully, you can get a lot of code reuse across mobile and web platforms. For example, you could have a .NET API, Blazor web UI, and .NET MAUI mobile app, (which can reuse a lot of the Blazor components).

Conclusion

This question can really only be answered by each organisation specifically, but at the risk of oversimplifying:

If you need to keep your costs down, most of your users are on the web app on their desktops anyway, and you don't need heavy offline access or other phone features, go with a Responsive Web App
If you need to be accessible via the App Store or Google Play, need the experience optimised for mobile users, need phone specific features like offline access, and don't care about desktop users, go with a Native Mobile App, preferably Hybrid so you only have to build and maintain 1 mobile app

9 Tips for Searching Effectively in Outlook

Thu, 10 Mar 2022 23:54:17 GMT

Some people are really good at using Outlook search to find the emails they need, while others have a hard time. Searching for emails can be a real struggle, sometimes you want to find emails from months ago but you aren't sure exactly what to search for.

Being able to find an email quickly in Outlook is an important skill. Here are some tips and tricks about how to find that email buried in your inbox...

https://youtu.be/g8gVTw3rHqE

Note: These tips will also help you in your Google/Bing searches too.

Scenario

Let's take an example scenario and see what tips we can use to search. Last month, you got an email in your inbox from your manager Bob about making changes to how you see data in his Northwind website.

Tip 1: Give the person you are talking to the focus

If you get 10 calls a day, you should be using this tip 10 times a day. When you get a call from Bob, before he has finished saying "how are you" you should have already typed in the search box and be looking at his most recent emails.

To get Bob's most recent emails the best thing to do, is to limit Outlook to only your inbox folder and only emails from Bob by:

Change the folder to "Current Folder"
Search for: from:Bob

Note #1: You can change the folder scoping to fit your specific needs

Figure: There are several scoping options available

Note #2: You can change the default to always be "Current Folder"

Figure: Outlook Options for Search

Tip 2: Focus on the person (i.e. to: from: cc: bcc:)

There are many different ways to focus on people. If know that the email was sent to Adam, from Bob, Luke was CCed and Chris was BCCed then:

Search for: to:Adam from:Bob cc:Luke bcc:Chris

Tip 3: Focus on the subject (i.e. subject:)

If you have a good idea of what the email subject contains, then the "subject:" scope can help a lot. For example, if you know that the email had Northwind and Bob in the subject then:

Search for: "Subject: Northwind Bob"

Tip 4: Use negatives (i.e. –)

Negatives are a great way to remove results you know definitely won't be relevant. For example, if you know Luke and Adam frequently work with Bob but weren't involved in that email then:

Search for: -Luke -Adam

Note: Start with a broad search, and then, when you start seeing irrelevant results about invoicing, add -invoice to your search

Tip 5: Use quotation marks (i.e. “”)

You can search for a direct match in an email using quotation marks. For example, if you know that "days outstanding" was written in the email then:

Search for: "days outstanding"

Note: Particularly useful when using common words but you know they were written in an exact phrase. E.g. “on top of this”

Tip 6: Combine 2 searches into 1 (i.e. OR)

Sometimes you might know a specific thing was referred to, but aren't sure what terminology was used. For example, let's say you know the email mentioned either "web app" or "website". In that case:

Search for: "web app" OR website

Note: Must be upper case... lowercase “or” won’t work

Tip 7: Find a file (i.e. hasattachments:yes)

Emails can be filtered to only include ones with attachments. If you know the email has an attachment then:

Search for: hasattachments:yes

Tip 8: Find a file’s content (i.e. attachment:)

File contents can also be searched. If you know that there was an attachment that contained the text "20/07/2021" then:

Search for: attachment:"20/07/2021"

Note: You must enter dates in USA format #ouch

Tip 9: Focus on the date received (i.e. received=<>)

You can filter on a specific time period or date. For example, If you know that the email was received after 07/20/2019 then:

Search for: received>"07/20/2019"

Note #1: You must enter dates in USA format #ouch

More Info: Outlook has a heap of other properties that you can filter on.

Figure: Outlook has a lot of meta data filtering options

Learn more: How to search in Outlook

The Art of Negotiation

Thu, 22 Jul 2021 06:45:32 GMT

Chris Voss is the expert on this topic, and I highly recommend his book “Never split the difference: Negotiate as if your life depends on it”.

Most people go into a negotiation assuming that it is a zero sum game, and that their opponent in this win-lose encounter is the adversary. The best negotiators, on the other hand aim for a win-win solution, and enlist the help of their negotiating opponent in battling the situation instead.

Your main goals should include:

Doing all you can to show the other side that you are negotiating in good faiths
Becoming genuinely interested in what drives the other side
Building trust-based influence through the use of tactical empathy, or deliberately influencing the other side’s feelings
- Aim to deactivate negative feelings and magnify positive feelings

Tone of Voice

Combative negotiators will often use an assertive tone of voice, and this often just gets your opponent off side. Instead, use a mix of these 2:

Playful/accommodating
- This is the voice of a bear of truths delivered gently
- It promotes collaboration
- Use it approximately 80% of the time
Late night FM DJ
- Use when they’re upset or agitated
- Soothing, downward inflection
- Use to highlight an unalterable fact

If you can nail the right tone, you’re that much closer to building trust-based influence and moving together toward a great deal.

Mirroring

This is the conscious repetition of your counterpart’s words. Mirrors are designed to show the other side that you’re listening to them and understanding them.

Example:

Your negotiating partner: “I’ve had a really difficult year, and it seems like you’re discounting all of the financial and personal stress I’ve been under.”
You: “Financial and personal stress?”

Mirroring is a rapport-building technique with wide applicability. It works as well at cocktail parties as it does during hostage negotiations. Mirroring can be an effective means of quelling the often reflexive hostility of confrontational people.

Mirroring can also be used to gather intel. Using it will lead your counterpart to not only repeat themselves but to elaborate and offer additional details. This expands what you know about them and their position.

Labelling

Labelling is used to give voice to the other side’s feelings.

It looks like…
It seems like…
You look like…

Note that you should avoid the 1^st person here… don’t say “I’m hearing…” or “I think…”. That would only signal that you are number 1 and everyone else is an afterthought. Keep it about them.

Labelling is designed to let the other side know that you understand their feelings, to help build relationships, and to gather information. It can be used both to reinforce positive emotions and to counteract negative emotions.

Example for a negative:

You: “It seems like you’re finding this project frustrating”

Example for a positive:

You: “It seems like you’ve been working really hard to make sure this project succeeds”

Dynamic Silence

30643845 - coffee break

Leaving a pause for a little longer than feels natural can in some cases help a lot to bring out more information.

Calibrated Questions

Calibrated questions are how and what questions structured for maximum effect. They are designed to change the power dynamic of the negotiation and force consideration of your position into the equation. In other words, they allow the other side to see things from your side of the table and allow everyone to keep their sense of autonomy intact.

Example:

You: “How am I supposed to do that?”
You: “What are you trying to accomplish by doing that?”

These questions also help cultivate the illusion of control in your counterpart. They can serve the same purpose as why questions while sounding less accusatory. Why questions tend to trigger a defensive posture.

Accusations Audit

Unexpressed negative emotions never die. They fester like an infection.

In preparing for a negotiation, you’d be well served to perform an accusations audit, during which you’ll create a comprehensive list of all the negative assumptions, thoughts, and feelings you think the other side may be harbouring against you.

Be exhaustive. Your goal is to list all the possible negative emotions and get out ahead of them. You want the other side to come back and say, “Hold on, you’re being too hard on yourself.” This would be an ideal response, as now your opponent is showing empathy for you.

Yes and No Questions

When it comes to a line of questioning, there are three types of yes answers :

Yes as a commitment (used to agree)
Yes as a confirmation (used to affirm commitment)
Yes as counterfeit (used tactically by someone who doesn’t trust you, feels trapped, or wants you to go away)

Often, a no can be much more valuable than a yes. In certain circumstances, people feel safe and protected by a no.

So, a question like:

“Is this a good idea?” may be better phrased as “Is this a ridiculous idea?”
“Can you agree to do it this way?” could be better presented as “Do you think it’s unreasonable if we can both agree to take things in this direction?”

When answering a yes question, people are going to feel that every piece of information they provide is another commitment to be made. By contrast, a no relieves them of the sense that they may have just surrendered their entire negotiating position.

And don’t forget that no is equally valuable to your own cause. After saying no, use dynamic silence to let it sink in, demonstrating to your partner that you stand by your word.

Defeating Fear of Loss

Young man frightened on white background.

One of the primary negative emotions that can derail a negotiation is the fear of loss. Neuroscience teaches us that fear is a dominant factor in human decision-making. Use your skills to try and figure out what the other side is scared of losing.

Know that people will begin to talk about a deal being “fair” once they feel backed into a corner. Fairness, in this moment, becomes the end all/be all of the negotiation. People will even walk away from a good deal if they feel like they’ve been treated unfairly.

If you get the sense that the people across the table think you’re being unfair, encourage them to speak their minds about it. Then ask for a few examples of how you’ve allegedly been mistreating them. You may find that the other side’s idea of fairness will result in something that’s totally unfair for you. The key to negotiation may be deference, but that doesn’t equate to subservience.

Do whatever you can to deactivate this fear of loss—remember your mirrors and labels—and keep your negotiation grounded, collaborative, and positive.

Bargaining Strategies

When negotiating, it’s always best to steer clear of a bargaining situation. But sometimes it’s unavoidable. Below are the stages of the Ackerman system. It’s paramount to employ tactical empathy between each round:

Establish a target price for the goods you want to buy.
Make an initial offer at 65 percent of your target price.
Assuming no deal, raise your price by 20 percent.
Assuming no deal, raise your price by 10 percent.
If still no deal, raise by another 5 percent.
Your final offer should be an odd number, and you should be prepared to include some non-monetary compensation to show them you’re committing all of your available resources.

Body Language and Speech Patterns

We all have one way of telling the truth. If you can identify how your counterpart looks and sounds when he or she is being honest with you, then you’ll be able to detect any deviations from that pattern that may signal a lie. Keep the following in mind:

The Pinocchio Effect
People who are being dishonest tend to use more words and effort than necessary to communicate their point.
The 7-38-55 Rule
In interpersonal communications, 7 percent of a person’s effort is conveyed via spoken words, 38 percent by tone of voice, and 55 percent through body language.

When you’re at the negotiating table, pay attention to how people speak and act. Do the words they’re saying match up with the way they’re carrying themselves? Look at the people who are not talking—what does their body language signal to you? People who are being sincere don’t typically calculate their body language. The opposite is true of people who are being dishonest.

If you sense people are being deceitful, deploy a label using your inquisitive inflection: “It seems like I’ve missed something here?” A lie indicates that the other side is afraid to tell you the truth—they perceive you as a threat. In short, you’ve just encountered more negative emotions to be deactivated. To help defuse them, revert again to the late-night FM DJ voice, avoid all traces of accusation, and get your counterparts to drop their guard.

The 80-20 rule (AKA the Pareto Principle)

Thu, 27 May 2021 23:48:29 GMT

There’s a filter I try to use every day to make sure I’m maximizing the effect my work is having on the business. It’s called the 80-20 rule, or the Pareto Principle.

The theory states that

20% of your customers will give you 80% of your revenue
You wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time
You use 20% of software features to get 80% of the value of that software
20% of the population control 80% of the wealth
20% of the players in a sports team create 80% of the wins
You spend 20% of your time to produce 80% of your day’s output
And the one we really care about today: 20% of the effort you make produces 80% of the results

It comes down to whether you use your time efficiently or effectively. AKA working smarter, not harder.

Efficiency

You may spend a busy day getting a lot done, ticking off a lot of tasks, having a lot of meetings, and finishing the day thinking, “I used my time efficiently today and got a lot done”. You give yourself a pat on the back and think you did well, but did you actually do anything useful today? Or did you just complete a bunch of stuff that didn’t really matter.

Effectiveness

Instead, take some time at the beginning of the day to work out which of the tasks on your plate really matter. Which ones will unblock others and allow them to get more done. Which will have a disproportionate result on the business. Over time you’ll be able to work out a hierarchy of work, allowing you to do it in the right order every time without having to think too hard about it. You may find that you end up getting fewer tasks done in a day, but the ones you did were important, and really made a difference.

Figure: The Pareto Principle

Managing Remote Workers

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 04:14:29 GMT

This past year has been surprisingly busy for IT professionals. When COVID hit, we all battened down the hatches, expecting a potential business downturn. However, within a month, a wave of new business hit our doors, as companies realized they needed to be able to offer their services online to stay relevant.

This, of course, was also the point that we had sent everyone to work from home, and since our main point of difference from overseas development houses was our locality and communication skills, this was a risk for us. The solution was to make sure our consultants were able to be as effective as possible while working remotely.

If you are facing the same challenge, here are some tips:

Webcam and mic

The experience of speaking to someone on a video call can range from terrible to excellent, depending on a few things.

If the webcam and mic on their laptop is not up to the job, get them an external webcam. Even a simple Microsoft Lifecam for AUD $100 is usually sufficient and has a decent inbuilt microphone.

If you want to one level higher, you can fork out $600 for a full Marantz Turret with a high quality camera, mic, and light. However, be aware that this will not be centered with their screen, so often they will not look like they’re looking at the camera.

Video call background

A good background separates people who look like they were forced to work from home and those who can thrive there. It’s not always possible to do all of these, but in a perfect world you do as many of the following as possible:

Keep it tidy. A messy background can be distracting
Close doors and cupboards
Possibly use a screen behind you – ideally with company colours
Digital background options
1. Blur – simple and effective
2. Take a photo from where your webcam usually is at your desk at work and use that as your digital background

Figure: Take a photo from your laptop’s perspective to use as a digital background

Touch base

We take general office banter and water cooler talk for granted and, although some of us feel like we spend all day on Teams calls, you should remember that there is another extreme for people who do not get to talk to anyone all day.

Make sure everyone you’re managing is part of a team and do at least a Daily Scrum call to check in with each other each day. If you’ve got people who are not part of a larger team, consider having a daily check-in call for those people yourself. No one should be left without any human contact for days at a time as it can be isolating and demotivating.

Think “Remote first”

In the instance you have some people co-located, and 1 or more people remote, it’s best to prioritise the remote people as much as possible. They are missing out on the body language and non-verbal cues that the rest of you will enjoy, and they will not be able to hear any muttered back channels, so whenever someone talks, make sure they talk towards the mic.

Figure: Don’t let remote people feel left out of the conversation

Daily Scrums

Even if you don’t usually use Scrum to manage your staff, Daily Scrums are a very valuable tool to quickly touch base with your team and make sure they’re on track, both with how much they’re getting done each day, and whether their understanding of the project priorities line up with yours (i.e. what order the work is done in).

Ideally you can use something like Azure DevOps to prioritise and track work items, but even a free tool like Trello can work in a pinch.

Figure: Even a simple shared Trello board can provide a great shared view of priorities and progress

The 5 Levels of Leadership

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 01:11:54 GMT

The world renowned Leadership expert, John Maxwell, has defined 5 levels of leadership, and we'll go through each one here, to help you understand how to advance through the levels, and also to understand why it's important to strive to do so.

First of all, it's important to state that these levels are additive... a level 3 leader still needs everything they learned in levels 1 and 2 to succeed.

Level 1 - Position

People follow because they have to.

At this point, you have been granted a position of leadership (usually via a job title). This is the beginning of everyone's leadership journey but should not be the end. People at this stage will only follow you because they have to, which means they'll do just enough for you that they don't get in trouble, but no more.

You have not yet built the influence to command respect from colleagues but it is a necessary starting point, and allows you to think about what kind of leader you'd like to be.

Don't push people at this stage, just help them and take an interest in them. Also, don't expect them to come to you yet.

In order to graduate from this level, you need to believe that your job title isn't what makes you a good leader. People are your most valuable asset, and good leaders include others. Therefore, you don't need to have all the answers.

Level 2 - Permission

People follow because they want to.

Leaders on this level make people know that they matter, and as your relationships grow, so does trust. Eventually, people permit you to lead them.

This will all lead to a more enjoyable workplace, and a more engaged team with boosted energy. Also, the 2 way communication will allow for better decision making, both by your team, and you.

To get to this level, focus on people rather than just tasks, and treat others as you'd like to be treated. Give praise and encouragement when appropriate, but balance this with candour as needed.

Careful not to get stuck at this level, however, as you can sometimes seem like a weak leader, or be prone to being taken advantage of.

In order to graduate from this level, you need to recognise that there's more to leadership than just influence, you have to take people somewhere. You must grow together, and sometimes it's worth risking a relationship to achieve a vision as a team.

Level 3 - Production

People follow because of what you have done for the organisation.

This level is about delivering results, and really separates true leaders from those who simply hold a position. When you achieve exceptional results, it gives people a reason to follow you, and so your leadership intensifies. Once you reach this level, you really become a change agent and can tackle more difficult or thorny issues.

At this point, you start to get momentum, as your past successes fuel yet more success. You set the standard for your followers, and people will want to be a part of your team.

To get to this level, figure out where your strengths lie and focus on them. Always communicate a clear vision to keep your team aligned towards a common goal. Make sure this vision is focussed on areas with the highest return, and don't lose sight of the fact that results are your goal.

Some traps to be aware of include thinking you're a better leader than you are, due to your momentum bringing you success... it's still important to remember the lessons from level 2, as you don't want to lose sight of your people.

In order to graduate from this level, you need to value, challenge and develop your followers. Realise that growing leaders is the quickest way to achieve a vision, as it will multiply your output.

Level 4 - People Development

People follow because of what you have done for them.

At this level, the focus shifts from delivering results, to developing people. The idea at this level is to reproduce yourself, but each person's individual strengths will help raise the whole organisation to a higher level.

Results will start to take care of themselves as your new leaders help to improve everyone else around them. This also frees you up to work on bigger things, and it's immensely rewarding to see others develop.

To get to this level, start by only recruiting the best, and then place them into the right positions. Once you have your team on the bus and in the right seats, model leadership behaviour yourself as well as coaching others to live and perform well. Lastly, empower others to allow them to succeed.

You must be willing to focus on the long term, as leaders will not develop overnight. Also be aware that you will need to let go of control, and also the ego boost of being the only leader driving success in the organisation.

In order to graduate from this level, you need to fully believe that your biggest goal as a leader is to create more leaders, and start to develop a leadership culture, where everyone can teach, practice, coach, and reward leadership at all levels.

Level 5 - Pinnacle

People follow because of who you are and what you represent.

The aim for a leader at this stage is to have their followers develop into level 4 leaders themselves. This is very hard, but results in a level 5 organisation.

This gives your leadership reach, and creates a legacy within your organisation that may outlive you.

Don't get complacent though... you will need to be careful not to stop learning, and always be reinforcing everything from the previous levels.

Remain humble and open to learning. Create an inner circle to keep you grounded. Create room for others at the top, and focus on what only you can do.

Lastly, plan your succession, to ensure your legacy.

This is a lifelong, challenging journey that can be immensely rewarding.

Bots! Huh! What are they good for?

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 01:03:09 GMT

Figure: Click here to chat... maybe to a real person, or maybe to a bot

Bots are pieces of software that can speak and be spoken to, either in text form, e.g. web chat, or in voice form, e.g. Siri.

Figure: Often simple questions will be fielded by a bot, and only if it can't answer your question will a real person be contacted

A bot could enable you to text a number to order pizza and have it delivered without ever talking to a real human.

A bot could also allow you to ask a question in natural language, and will provide you the answer. It can often do this by digesting a company's knowledge base, and either linking you to the correct place, or else give you the answer directly.

Another use for a bot is to kick off an automated task. If you've ever asked Siri to set an alarm or reminder, read you a message, or even turn on the lights in your smart home, then you know what I mean

Figure: Siri reminders have completely revolutionised how I organise tasks

Bots During Coronavirus Season

Businesses at the moment are struggling with both a supply and demand problem. The downturn in the economy has reduced demand in many sectors, while also simultaneously making it hard for many people to work due to social distancing concerns.

There are also record numbers of queries on forums such as job boards, requests for information on welfare, and concerned people trying to get the latest information on what changes are being made.

This is a perfect opportunity for Bots to shine:

They are infinitely scalable (i.e. can talk to thousands of people at once)
They work 24-7
They never get sick

The best customer experience generally happens when a bot fields initial queries, and then passes over to a human agent only if it gets stuck. This combats the possible downside of a customer potentially asking questions the bot can't answer, while still deflecting the majority of tickets with an instant answer that requires no human effort.

Examples of ways Bots have helped during this crisis so far:

Centrelink - the welfare government services have been hammered by applications for the dole as well as requests for information. Bots have been able to deal with a huge proportion of the cut and dry cases.
Remote work support - the sudden shift from people working in offices to at home has caused a big change to people's requirements for their home internet. Bots have helped telecommunications suppliers to make sure their customers' requests can be answered or actioned in real time, at any time of day or night.
COVID-19 information - more powerful general purpose bots such as Siri, Cortana, or the Google Assistant can get key information from certain websites to be able to instantly ask common questions such as "How many Coronavirus cases are there in Australia?"

Bot Frameworks

Microsoft Azure and Google DialogFlow are both excellent frameworks for building custom bots, and both provide voice recognition, natural language processing, and workflow tools.

If you want to build a custom bot for your own company, have a look at https://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/Consulting/Bots.aspx and maybe give me a call.

Stay safe.

Further reading: Adam Cogan, who owns SSW, did a piece on bots last year:. Check it out to see 5 simple questions that bots should be answering in your business: https://adamcogan.com/2019/09/26/i-like-big-bots-and-i-cannot-lie

The Drexler/Sibbet Team Performance Model

Mon, 17 Feb 2020 23:09:39 GMT

I found a small book at an airport recently called "The Decision Book: Fifty models for strategic thinking". It's a nice easy read and a good thought provoker, and one of the models in particular really spoke to me.

The Drexler/Sibbet model covers how to turn a group into a team. It specifies 7 distinct stages that a team will generally go though, and the unique issues that can arise at each stage.

1. Orientation

Main question to answer:

Why am I here?

Benefits if resolved:

Purpose
Team identity
Membership

Problems if not resolved:

Disorientation
Uncertainty
Fear

2. Trust Building

Main question to answer:

Who are you?

Benefits if resolved:

Mutual regard
Forthrightness
Reliability

Problems if not resolved:

Caution
Mistrust
Facade

3. Goal Clarification

Main question to answer:

What are we doing?

Benefits if resolved:

Explicit assumptions
Clear, integrated goals
Shared vision

Problems if not resolved:

Apathy
Scepticism
Irrelevant competition

4. Commitment

Main question to answer:

How will we do it?

Benefits if resolved:

Assigned roles
Allocated resources
Decisions made

Problems if not resolved:

Dependence
Resistance

5. Implementation

Main question to answer:

Who does what, where, when?

Benefits if resolved:

Clear processes
Alignment
Disciplined execution

Problems if not resolved:

Conflict/confusion
Non-alignment
Missed deadlines

6. High Performance

Main question to answer:

Wow!

Benefits if resolved:

Spontaneous interaction
Synergy
Surpassing results

Problems if not resolved:

Overload
Disharmony

7. Renewal

Main question to answer:

Why Continue?

Benefits if resolved:

Recognition and celebration
Change mastery
Staying power

Problems if not resolved:

Boredom
Burnout

The 12 Biggest Benefits of an Intranet

Wed, 31 Jul 2019 06:57:18 GMT

With so many companies now using some flavour of Microsoft Office 365, the question of whether to make use of SharePoint Online to build a company intranet as part of your digital workspace is coming up for more and more people.

So why might your business need an intranet? Here are the top 12 reasons:

Improves internal communication
A good modern intranet, such as SharePoint and/or Teams, allows discussions to occur via chat features, instead of the usual behemoth reply all email chains.
- Teams can have open discussions
- Individuals can share knowledge
- Leadership can stay in touch
- Departments can provide updates
Connects your company across locations and time zones
It can be hard for a geographically distributed team to stay up to date and cohesive, and an intranet can help this by becoming the place where conversations take place, company news is shared, and events are planned.
Helps employees find information
A well indexed Search is one of the most useful tools in an intranet, as if this is done well, it can be a huge productivity booster, and stops the old problem of people pulling their hair out while trying to find which folder they saved the proposal document in.

The intranet should also be the 1 stop shop for anyone looking for any other tool they might need to do their job. Even something as simple as an easily accessible repository for quick links can increase discover-ability and expose them for use.
Document version control and collaboration
Once you do find the document you’re looking for. Another very useful tool is document collaboration and version control. Stop your employees sending hundreds of competing “FINAL v3.5 – last one” email attachments, and instead train them to only exchange links to the one single source of truth in your document repository.

You then have full version control to be able to see who made what changes, and roll back to previous versions as needed.
Records Management
Many companies need to be able to keep certain documents for a period of time (e.g. 7 years for legal documents), and many intranets can automate this for you, and even automatically archive or delete older docs as needed to avoid over-bloating.
Boosts recognition and reward
Employee motivation is a key topic for any business owner, and timely recognition (either public or private) is one of the easiest tools to employ to help with this.

This is also a great way to reinforce and improve your company culture.
Simplifies employee on-boarding
A good intranet makes on-boarding simpler than ever. New hires can use it to find their feet with easy-to-access documents, up-to-date organisation charts, rich bios on their peers, and a vibrant news hub that provides information and insights into the culture of the company.
Provides organisational clarity
Especially in larger organisations, it can sometimes be hard for any employee to easily grasp the full structure, and roles and responsibilities of all their co-workers

Intranets with clear and dynamic organisation charts provide clarity on the shape and set-up of your company. Individual bios or profiles add rich layers to this clarity and help employees understand the roles and responsibilities of individuals throughout your business, as well as contact details if appropriate.
Reinforces your brand and values
Intranets provide many avenues for putting your company values front and centre, such as:
- Publicly recognising employees for living out company values
- Sharing web articles relevant to your values
- Asking employees to share examples of the values they see in daily work life
Reduces emails and meetings
Intranets with a good, integrated chat feature make discussions easy. You’ll be able to ditch the dreaded reply-all email and have productive conversations away from messy inboxes.

With improved internal communication, it’s easier to keep everyone informed and garner feedback. Which means you won’t need as many large group meetings that suck up time from multiple calendars.
Simplified processes and workflows

An intranet is an obvious place for approval workflows to live, whether for content creation, leave forms, purchase requests, or anything else. If you need a predictable, easily find-able, repeatable, audit-able workflow, the intranet is the perfect place for it.
Brings your workplace culture to life
A company is not a company without its people, and modern intranets are about those people. Bringing them together, bringing out the best in them, and enriching your company culture in the process.

Through the actions mentioned above—peer-to-peer recognition, leadership articles, brand messaging, and more—a good intranet becomes a hive of activity that takes on the characteristics of the company itself.

It's a hotbed of company culture, and this should help to keep your employees engaged.
Conclusion
An intranet can be a powerful tool. It can turn your employee engagement around, clarify internal communication, and streamline processes. But, you have to make sure you build it right, and drive adoption.

How to Motivate your Team - The Power of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose

Tue, 04 Jun 2019 03:01:23 GMT

The number 1 tool that employers think they have to motivate their team is dollar compensation. A higher pay should equate to higher motivation to perform well at work, but actually this is only true up until a person’s basic needs are met, and to ensure they feel they are being paid fairly.

Dan Pink wrote a book called Drive in 2009 that argues that, past this point, motivation is most affected by these 3 factors:

Autonomy

Self determination is such a strong motivator that it has, in the past, caused civil wars. If you have engaged staff who are on board with your vision and are pulling in the same direction, they will think of things that you couldn’t and can surpass your expectations. If you micro-manage, the best you can ever expect is for them to do what you asked them to… this model of engagement over compliance is discussed further in my blog on Orders vs Enrolment.

Mastery

People like to think that they are good at their job, and proficient in their careers. If each day at work deepens that self-confidence and belief, then every day is self-motivating. As a team leader or employer, it is therefore important to try to give people work that they feel aligns with how they want their career to progress. Of course every job has some dull or repetitive parts, so just make sure to keep the balance reasonable.

Purpose

Purpose is the hardest of the 3 to be able to give employees, since most companies are for-profit and the main purpose is to make money and grow, but in some industries this is easy. If you work in any care industry, a charity, a not-for-profit, education, health, or the arts, then purpose is in-built, and all you have to do is keep it front and centre in peoples’ minds while they work. Make sure they can see the impact they make on the world on a regular basis.

In a less intrinsically purpose filled industry, it might be alignment with the company’s mission statement that gives the employees purpose. For instance, at SSW, a custom software company, employees either get lucky and work on a project for one of the above industries, or else they can find purpose in aligning with the mission statement “To identify and use best practices (in technology, DevOps, and Scrum) to navigate the dangers of software development and produce the best possible software solutions.”

Conclusion

If you can structure your team’s work so they are self-directed, improving skills needed to get the job done, and cognisant of the good that their work puts out into the world, they will move heaven and earth to perform well.

The Five Advantages That Consultants Have Over Employees

Sun, 24 Feb 2019 22:52:36 GMT

Internal employees have context. They have worked inside an organisation for potentially many years and surely know the business better than anyone… so why hire consultants? There are a number of factors that can allow an external consultant to be a bigger agent for change than internal employees, and I’ll go into them here:

Consultants have industry knowledge

Whereas long term employees may think that the way things are done in their company makes sense, they don’t have the wide ranging experience to be able to see the best practices used elsewhere.

Consultants can zoom out

Any internal employee will see their company through the lens of whatever their particular role is within the organisation. Accounts people will have ideas that could help with cash flow, technical people will have technical ideas, etc… but very few of them will be able to look at the big picture and put all of these ideas in context for the maximum possible return on investment.

Consultants can point out the sacred elephant

In any company, you will have things that seem strange to new people, but that everyone else tells them is there for a reason, and so is soon taken for granted as part of the status quo. This might be an antiquated policy or procedure, and may have been the right thing to do when it was 1^st conceived of, but may no longer make sense. A new employee will feel pressured to “fit in” and will likely put up with this, but a consultant knows he or she will soon be gone, and only has a limited time-box to make effective change, so is much more likely to challenge this “Sacred Elephant” in the room.

Consultants are new and shiny and their opinions matter

A consultant is only brought in when there is a problem to be solved. They are expensive, and only there for a limited time, and so they are given a lot of power, and anything they recommend is carefully considered, and never discarded lightly. This helps to dispel some of the organisational inertia that often paralyses internal staff from being able to make any meaningful change to an organisation.

Consultants are sometimes brought in to give more weight to an argument that already exists

Change is expensive and energy intensive, and so sometimes a business might already be getting very good advice from internal staff to make a necessary change, but they often are not able to overcome the natural inclination of management to resist changes to the status quo. This is not a dig at managers… if they said yes to every idea their staff had, they’d spend all of their time in churn and pulling the business in countless, often incompatible, directions. However, if a consultant comes in and backs up an idea already proposed, so long as they are able to provide confidence that it makes sense and aligns with the company’s bigger goals, they are often able to push those ideas through.

The Five Things Every Scrum Master Should Do

Fri, 05 Oct 2018 00:10:01 GMT

The larger a Scrum team is, the more opportunity for wastage there is, and so the more difference a good Scrum Master makes.

A team with a bad Scrum master can feel powerless, floundering, isolated, and overwhelmed whereas a team with a good Scrum Master generally feels well informed, connected, directed, powerful, and like they are working at peak effectiveness.

Be punctual

Set a regular cadence for the team.
The daily scrum is always at a predictable time so no time is wasted trying to organise it every day. The larger the team, the more important this is.
This of course also applies to the Review, Retrospective, and Planning meetings too.

Set a strict agenda

Tangent topics will come up regularly during meetings, and although sometimes these can be important discussions, they often take up a lot of time. Make sure that there’s never a time when 2 or 3 people are talking and everyone else is phasing out. If it’s on topic for a Scrum meeting, everyone should be involved, otherwise it should be taken offline (after the meeting with just the relevant people).
Make sure that someone takes a note of these topics as they can sometimes be forgotten otherwise.

Help your team

The people who know best how to make software are the people actually making it. If they raise an impediment, take it seriously and work towards a solution.
Help to motivate the team by showing appreciation for quality work. Doing this publicly often helps motivate other team members to strive towards the same level.
Encourage collaboration amongst team members. If one person is stuck, help them to realise that it’s always ok to ask for help.
Protect the team from excessive scope change. Adding a last minute Product Backlog Item (PBI) to a sprint should only be allowed if the team can drop an equivalently sized one.
Minimise WIP (work in progress) by encouraging the team to finish each PBI before picking up another whenever possible. This helps to minimise multitasking and ensure granular delivery of value to the stakeholders.

Help your Product Owner (PO)

A good Scrum Master should help the PO effectively communicate his requirements and priorities with the team. He should then reinforce those priorities and encourage the team to work in priority order whenever possible.
It’s a good idea to have high level conversations with the PO on occasion to work out what their more abstract goals are so you can help by making micro decisions for the team when appropriate. This way you can occasionally act as a Proxy-Product Owner when needed.

Coach your team

Make sure the team follows the Definition of Done.
Make sure the Product Owner creates well fleshed out PBIs with easy to understand Acceptance Criteria.
Ensure that the team has a uniform understanding of the estimation method being used (we use 2-Small, 4-Medium, 8-Large, where a Medium is about a day’s work)

The difference a good Scrum Master makes is well documented, and if you follow the above guidelines, you should be well on your way to empowering your team.

Along with my brother, I made a video on this topic which explains how the Scrum Guide defines the role of Scrum Master:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbPkcfzi2HI

I've written many more specific tips on SSW's Rules to Better Scrum

The Importance of Positively Managing Conflict in a Team

Wed, 23 May 2018 23:29:20 GMT

Teams don’t always just hum along. People have personal and professional differences, and sweeping them under the rug is not healthy long term, and could eventually cause a full breakdown. If there is a tiff, managing it correctly can actually reinforce respect and cause a team to function substantially better than it did with the pent up tension still unspoken.

I'm speaking here mostly from the point of view of someone managing 2 people who have had a conflict, but these could also be used to manage a conflict you are having directly with someone, although this is harder, and a facilitator can sometimes still help.

There are 3 main steps to successful conflict resolution:

1. Agree that there is a problem that needs to be solved

If one or more of the parties are not willing to address the issue, it will be substantially harder, if not impossible, to positively resolve it. It’s best to appeal to professional integrity (i.e. a professional would address this, so you should), zoom out to the big picture (i.e. to show the benefits that the project/organisation would have from a harmonious team), and alleviate fears that the process will be too scary or unpleasant. Many people fear conflict resolution because they don’t understand that it can be a very positive experience.

2. Hearing the other’s point of view

In order for each person to both get their say, and effectively hear and understand the other person, it is important that both of them go in to the process with an open mind, and allow the other person to speak without getting defensive (overly defending each point) or righteous (focusing on being seen to be right in the small things instead of having a good outcome).

Remember that any examples given will likely be not that big a deal on their own, and only in the context of the person’s frustration, will they have much weight, so don’t get fixated on any one example.

3. Compromise

Each person must be willing to compromise to find a solution that works for both. If there is a power imbalance, such as a conflict between an employee and a manager, beware the solution being the manager just 100% getting their own way, as this will often foster longer term resentment. There’s a great tongue in cheek saying that is "the only good compromise is where neither party is happy".

Both parties benefit from positive conflict resolution. Discussion may even reveal that what you thought was the cause of the problem is inaccurate, incorrect or misleading. By remaining calm, showing patience and demonstrating respect, you can help resolve problems in a constructive manner. This results in effective long-term relationships and increased productivity. Conflict that results in punishment for one party may result in continued tension, stress and disruption. Focus on positive outcomes and you’ll get better results.

The 5 Technologies that Will Change Everything in the Next Decade

Fri, 17 Nov 2017 04:13:49 GMT

Here's my take on the main technology areas that will make a massive difference to our lives in the next decade.

Artificial Intelligence

This is a huge one and encompasses something as simple as Amazon's recommendation engine, up to self driving cars, and eventually expert systems such as IBM's Jenkins that could potentially replace doctors and lawyers and any other information based career.

Blockchain

The most famous blockchain technology is Bitcoin, but cryptocurrency is only one use for this technology, taking out the requirement for trusted third parties such as banks. Fundamentally however, it's just a general ledger system and could be used to track ownership of anything, including property, votes, assets, contracts, licencing, or even identity.

Theoretically, this goes a long way to removing the need for currency, government, and banks, unless they can find other ways to stay relevant than being the "trusted third party".

Here's how a blockchain transaction works:

Quantum Computing

Computers have become approximately twice as powerful every 18 months, following Moore's Law, but we are now approaching the physic limits of how small transistors can get and how fast this technology can be. The next big jump will be dropping binary transistors and adopting QuBits instead.

With this potential for quantum computers to become exponentially more powerful than transistor computers are today, this will enable much stronger cryptography (as well as also making current cryptography obsolete), machine learning algorithms to be run much faster (enabling AI), Bitcoin mining, and of course just doing everything we currently do much faster.

Brain Machine Interfaces

This technology will start with restoring lost function to disabled people, such as paraplegics, the blind and the deaf, will continue into solving Alzheimer's, dementia, and mood disorders, and will eventually be the new way we interact with computers and potentially even each other.

Elon Musk has bet big on this and thinks it's one of the best ways to make sure the AI revolution doesn't leave humanity behind.

Genetic Engineering

Mapping the human Genome to fully understand the source code behind life will allow us to, first of all, remove all genetic and hereditary disorders and diseases, and then move on to specify exactly what traits we would like to optimise for in our offspring. Future humans will be smarter, stronger, and more robust.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy

Fri, 07 Apr 2017 01:08:52 GMT

The sunk cost fallacy is in action every time you:

Sit through a long boring movie even if you decided after the first half an hour that is was terrible
Finish a meal that tastes bad and after you're already full
Continue a bad relationship or friendship, purely because of the time and energy you've invested in it so far

Put simply, it's the motivation to continue on a bad course of action, where logically the future does not look bright, only because of the time/money/energy you've put into it up to that point.

These already spent costs, that cannot be recovered, are known as "sunk costs", and there is a strong human resistance to giving them up. It feels like admitting failure. But being able to be agile and "pivot" when needed is the mark of an intelligent business, and the sunk cost fallacy is generally the main thing in the way of that.

A pivot is when, part way through developing a product or service, you decide to take it in a different direction than the current planned path. This might mean changing the main focus of the offering, or even making it do something completely different to the original plan, and should be informed by early feedback as much as possible.

The problem with the sunk cost fallacy is that you end up investing much more than necessary in to whatever you've sunk the costs into, leaving you with fewer resources to go down productive paths. For example, if you're stuck in a bad relationship, you can't open yourself up to a future good relationship. And if you're constantly paying for ongoing product development on a dead product, you can't be working on a useful product instead.

All you're doing in this case is throwing good money after bad... but there's a silver lining. What you've paid for up to this point isn't all wasted. The validated learnings you have gained will stop you from repeating the same mistakes. You have tested the market, an idea, or a product line, and you're better positioned for your next endeavour.

How to Delegate Effectively (Orders vs Enrolment)

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 00:51:37 GMT

There are 2 ways that you can allocate work. You can give orders, or you can enrol people.

Orders:

This is most people's default way of delegating work. To do it well, you speak to the person involved, give them sufficient context, and enough detail that they can get the job done to your specifications.

Pros:

Appropriate for outsourcing of very specific tasks to free you up to do other things
Good for if you have a new employee you're still not sure you trust to do things their own way

Cons:

Their main goal will be to not make a mistake, rather than get an optimum outcome
People will only do enough to not get in trouble, as micromanagement can be a disincentive for going above and beyond (as they're more likely to make a mistake if they go off-script)
They feel no ownership of the task, as they're just an extension of you
The best possible outcome is the one you envisaged, no better

Enrolment:

This is trickier but has a huge payoff if done correctly. Instead of giving them extremely specific instructions about both what to do and how to do it, you instead describe the problem that needs to be solved, give a recommendation for how you would solve it, but also the assurance that if they think of a better way, they should go for it. It can also help to give them resources to call upon if they hit a roadblock. Once enrolled (i.e. once you're convinced they care and are on board), they will put the full power of their intellect behind it, and if you have good people, you should get a great outcome.

Pros:

People have the same goal as you
They feel ownership of the problem, and personal achievement for its success
They feel valued
If they are smarter than you or have a better idea than you, you can end up with a better result than you could originally envisage
- Since you hire specialists who are great at certain things... you'd hope that they're better than you are at their job, or you're probably not hiring the right people
Appropriate for any task that really matters

Cons:

Generally not appropriate for new starters who don't yet understand your business
May require some early input from you to make sure they're on a path you can be on board with

Power BI - The Six Reports Every Consultancy Should Have

Mon, 24 Oct 2016 02:48:31 GMT

I've been at SSW, a medium sized custom software consultancy, for over 10 years, and in that time I've asked for a number of SQL Reporting Services reports to be made, but due to the difficulty in getting exactly what I needed out of the developers, I still had to make many decisions based on best guesses.

In the past year, since I've had access to Power BI and can make many of the required reports myself, this has sent me down a serious rabbit hole of discovery into what metrics I really need to run a software consultancy.

So here are the most important reports that I think every consultancy should have.

Financial Reports

Every responsible business owner / General Manager needs to keep their finger on the pulse of the financial health of their business. It's also important to be able to drill down by both time (years, quarters, months) and expense types (salaries, fixed costs, variable costs, etc) to investigate anomalies.

Utilisation

As a services based business, how many hours you bill vs how many salaries you're paying is a very good success marker. Keep track of how well each of your employees and offices are going with a Utilisation report. I't s a good idea to look at this kind of report monthly to ask questions like:

Should I hire / fire someone to grow / shrink one of the offices?
If some people have low utilisation, can they be up-skilled, or is there a good reason that they need to work on internal things?

Client Overview

Your employees will need a nice easy way to get up to speed on the history of a particular client when they join a project or are speaking to them about potential new work. An Overview Report like the one above is a good way for them to get acclimatised. It shows:

When / how much previous work has been done
Who did that work
What projects have been worked on
What technologies those projects are/were built in

Technology (i.e. Income Streams)

As a software development company, our main way of splitting up income streams is by project technologies, but for you this could be any way of splitting the service you're offering by skill types. The importance of this report is it allows us to know what technologies we should be focusing on with new hires, internal work, or up-skilling. For example, we can tell from the Trends visualisation on the top right above, that SharePoint is becoming less relevant for us, and Dynamics CRM work is becoming a larger proportion of our income.

Current Sales Opportunities

As a services company, you're probably dealing with a relatively small number of high value companies, and it's vital that your sales process is strong to keep work coming in. This report shows which of your sales people are dealing with which opportunity, and where those opportunities are coming in from. This report is the reason we opened up an office in Victoria, as we could easily see that there was enough demand there to justify it.

Booked in Days (Forecast)

In order to run a services company, you need a service calendar so you know who is available for client work and who's already booked in or on leave. We use Dynamics CRM but built our own "booked in days" report as the out of the box one was hard to use. This was built in SQL Reporting Services, but will soon be redeveloped in Power BI.

The Rest

We have other reports that we use to drill down on a lot of the above info, such as conversion rates reports to see how successful our sales process is, or detailed invoicing and receipting reports to see how our clients are paying us and who are main clients are, but the above 6 will get you most of the way there.

Do you have any others that you think I should make? Please let me know in the comments below and I'll see what else I can spin up.

Seven Tips to Being a Great Product Owner

Thu, 25 Aug 2016 00:05:36 GMT

Every software product in development has a Product Owner who is in charge of supplying the requirements, and it is often misunderstood how important this role is. You can have the best engine in your car (the development team), but if you steer in the wrong direction, you're not going to get to your destination.

Here are seven tips to make sure you're doing this job well:

Represent the business

As the Product owner, it is your job to take requirements from any other business stakeholders, your own direct manager, feedback from the developers, and also the actual users of the software, and order them into a single funnel of prioritised work for the development team to work from. This is called the product backlog and is the main tool through which you can influence the success of the team.

Talk to the stakeholders

As well as taking requirements from the business, you also need to be able to report back to your various stakeholders with what the progress of the project is, and potential ETAs for features that they're waiting for.

Maximise business value

Backlog prioritisation is all about making sure that the development team is always working on the most important thing that will provide the most business value. You can use a two dimensional matrix to help you with this decision. Think in terms of urgent vs important, and work in the following order.

If a PBI (Product Backlog Item) is urgent and important, work on it 1st
Work on important but nor urgent PBIs next
Then urgent but not important
Finally work on the PBIs that are neither urgent nor important

Since new work will constantly be coming in from feedback and other new ideas, if you follow this rule you will often find that your team almost only works on category 1 and 2 above, meaning you're never working on unimportant work. Often you'll find that if a PBI is urgent but not important, it will either no longer be urgent after a little while, or else it will become important.

Think in terms of Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

As a Product Owner, you have to be able to say when a feature is good enough for the team to stop polishing and adding bells and whistles, and instead move on to the next feature down the list.

This is especially important when budgets are tight (i.e. 90% of the time) to make sure that the business gets what it needs before you work on what it wants.

Be aware, however, that there is a slight cost in this, as if you want to come back to it later, you will have to let the developers get re-accustomed to that area of their code.

Manage Technical Debt

Technical debt is code or documentation that builds up over the course of any project, where some parts become legacy or shortcuts that were taken earlier cause headaches for work done later. Even diligent teams often find themselves with a buildup of technical debt as best practices change or new technologies emerge.

The solutions for this are varied, and include re-architecture, adding more measures such as unit tests or automated UI tests, and, most commonly, refactoring. Creating and prioritising these PBIs is one of the hardest things for Product Owners to do, as only the development team really knows extent of technical debt in any project, and often they won't speak up about it because they caused the issue. See my other post about trust in teams to make sure you get full transparency in this.

My advice is to have a little bit of technical debt reduction in each sprint, as well as in your Definition of Done

Have a vision for the product

As well as taking requirements from others, the Product Owner should be in a very good position to have a holistic overview of the long term goals of the product, and this is known as the Product Vision. Keep this vision in mind as you're shaping the product, to make sure it's heading for a good destination.

Motivate and empower the team

There are plenty of ways for a Product Owner to impact the productivity and motivation of a team.

Show gratitude for work well done or particularly useful features delivered
Share the team's success with others... always giving the credit to the people who did the work
Be available throughout the sprint for clarifications to PBI Acceptance Criteria (i.e. the requirements)
Try not to change your mind on priorities and requirements part way through a sprint as it can ruin the flow of a team that is on a roll

For a whole lot more, check out SSW's Rules to Better Product Owners

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eljozEWpf8

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Fri, 04 Mar 2016 00:25:50 GMT

There are five interrelated issues that undermine the performance of a team, and they can be viewed from 2 angles:

The Negative Angle

This is popular because as managers we're often looking for what's wrong so we can fix it:

Absence of trust. If the members of the team do not trust each other, then they cannot be totally honest with each other. This is the hardest to fix as it's often personality conflicts or deep-seated issues that cause this, but if you get this part right, the rest normally follows much more easily.
Fear of conflict. Without trust, people will not have the healthy debates that are necessary to arrive at better thought through decisions. People who don't trust each other will not openly say if they have made a mistake, or don't know something, so you can't get to the heart of any matter discussed. They are also less likely to proffer an idea if they might know another approach but are not 100% sure in case of looking silly.
Lack of commitment. If the team has not aligned behind a decision, then the individual members who did not agree with the final decision will ultimately be less committed to that decision. This will lead to the bare minimum being done by that person, and a lot more micromanagement needed to get the desired result, which is a waste of good team minds and management effort.
Avoidance of accountability. If an individual is not committed to the course of action, then they are less likely to feel accountable (or hold other people accountable). Another way of thinking of this is taking ownership. If they are not committed and don't take ownership of a task, they're much less likely to hold themselves and others accountable for successful delivery.
Inattention to results. Consequently, they are less likely to care about the group results (and instead focus on achieving their own goals).

These are from the excellent book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.

I have found these principles so useful that I have printed this summary and I have it on my wall at work, both to remind me, and to help explain to others where team breakdown problems are likely originating.

The Positive Angle

Sometimes it's also good to look at these from a positive side, so as a manager you know what you're aiming for in your teams. These are the pillars that underlie exceptional teamwork:

Trust and vulnerability When team-mates trust each other, they are not afraid to be vulnerable in front of each other, and will admit mistakes or shortcomings, allowing their team-mates to help fill any gaps.
Healthy debate One of the main pillars of teamwork is healthy debates, where each team-mate feels empowered to contribute, ideas can be shared, and plans formulated. Part of this is each team member being able to let go of any ego and talk about the topics from an objective viewpoint, which is why team trust is so necessary.
Commitment to decisions The outcome of the spirited debates should be a decision on a plan forward, and since each team-mate felt empowered to contribute to the plan, they should then also fully commit to the agreed decision.
Accountability With everyone fully committed to the plan, they should then be comfortable to be held accountable (and hold each other accountable) to the KPIs.
Attention to results If the group has a shared feeling of success, they will all strive for the same results, and will pay attention to if those results are met.

I have also written about this topic on the SSW Rule: Do you know the 5 dysfunctions of a team?

Figure: A nice info-graphic that covers this quite well