Sten Vesterli's Blog

Making IT Live up to its Promise

Pick the Right Place for Each Task

IT Leadership, , , ,

Peak employee effectiveness and wellbeing depends on finding the optimal balance between working alone and working with others. Microsoft does big studies of their many thousand employees. They found that disengaged employees complained about too little collaboration. Overworked employees complained about too much collaboration.

Now that both office and home are valid work locations, it is a leadership responsibility to make the most of each of them. Collaboration needs to be in the office. We survived two years of Zoom meetings, but at the cost of massive Zoom fatigue. Focused work should happen at home where the employee is in full control of their time. Leaders need to set the rules and clearly delineate what happens where.

Making The Most of Your Time

Spiritual Programmer, ,

As if the Afghan people did not have enough problems already, they have also just been hit by an earthquake. People are fleeing war and prosecution all over the world. If you are sitting in a comfy office working on your computer, spend a moment appreciating the good hand you’ve been dealt. Then reflect on what you are spending your life on. Are you really making the most of the talents and situation you have been given?

Learn From New People

IT Leadership, ,

I’ve been traveling through four countries this week, and every country does some things differently. Some have stupid rules that sensible people would never implement. But others have great ideas that should be implemented more widely. Unfortunately, ideas do not automatically cross borders the way viruses do.

Ideas also don’t cross organizational boundaries easily. As a consultant, I help organizations with good ideas proven in other places. But you also have another source of new ideas: The people you hire. Do you have a formal post-hire process for gathering ideas from new hires? Probably not – few people have. But think about how much you could learn if you had…

Always Measure Two Things

IT Leadership,

Be careful what you measure. You are going to get exactly that. You remember “Dieselgate,” where Volkswagen installed software in their cars to cheat on emissions tests. Samsung was just caught doing the same thing, programming their TVs to recognize a typical testing scenario and boosting brightness during the test.

A single measurement is easy to cheat on. If anything depends on that measure – bonuses, promotions, reputation – somebody is going to cheat sooner or later.

That’s why every measurement needs a counter-measure. Don’t just measure “Time to close support ticket.” I’ve been working with vendors who clearly had that measure as their main target, as have most people in IT. If you also measure customer satisfaction, it becomes much hard to game the metrics.

Set your Mind’s GPS

Spiritual Programmer, , ,

Did you ever set your GPS wrong? I know I have. It takes a little while, but I eventually figure out that something is wrong with the directions I am given. But if you set your mind’s GPS wrong, it can take much longer to notice.

If you are unhappy about the path of your life, you need to re-program your mind’s GPS. A simple way to do that is by saying affirmations. An affirmation is a compelling sentence that describes how you feel after reaching your goal. One of mine has been “I am happy and proud that I won the Best Speaker award.”

Design an affirmation and say it to yourself every day. You will find that it directs your mind to seek a way to reach the goal your affirmation describes. And yes, I did win the award I was looking for 😉

The Tolstoy Principle in Action

IT Leadership, Technology That Fits, , ,

This is what failure looks like: 50% one-star reviews. The other half is five-star reviews. Assuming these are not all from the app developers themselves, the app apparently can work. It just didn’t work for me, nor for many others.

I call this the Tolstoy principle: All successful apps are alike; each unsuccessful app is unsuccessful in its own way. The end-user does not care that 98% of your back-end infrastructure is running. They care that they can complete their task. And if one critical component fails, your app is a failure. Like this one from my local supermarket chain.

When you build systems, is all the attention lavished on a cool front-end app? Unsexy back-end services are equally important.

Choose Your Soundtrack

Spiritual Programmer, ,

Movies manipulate your feelings. You can borrow the techniques of the movie industry to change how you feel. One of their tricks is the soundtrack. You just know that something scary is waiting behind that door – the music tells you.

Think about the soundtrack you want for your life. You might create several playlists for different moods. You can have one for starting work, one for winding down after your workday, one for getting ready for bed, and an extra energetic one for doing boring work around the house.

Your rational mind cannot directly affect your feelings. It doesn’t work to simply tell yourself to cheer up. But your rational self can select the right tunes and let the music do the magic.

Work Where Others are Working

Spiritual Programmer, ,

Are you as productive when working from home? Many people fell they are not, and compensate by working even more hours. The numbers show that the time we save by not having to communte to work have become extra work hours, not extra free time.

If you feel your productivity is dropping when working from home, spend part of your workday working together with someone else. I am not talking about pair programming or collaborative work – in fact, you don’t even need to know the other person. If you take your laptop to a local cafe or co-working space where other people are working, you will work harder. It is exactly the same effect as when people exercise harder in the gym than they do at home. Get out of the house for part of your work-from-home days.

You Need On-Site Time

IT Leadership, , , ,

You can work from home as long as you also put in 40 hours at the office. That’s official policy at Tesla, where Elon Musk has thrown down the gauntlet at his executives. The factory workers put in 40+ hours and their managers should, too.

There are some jobs that lend themselves well to remote working, and some that don’t. Elon has a point that managing people involves being visible, and much leadership happens outside official meetings. Nobody has figured out a way to simulate the informal encounters of the workplace in Zoom. That is why some on-site time is necessary for everyone inside the organization. We are seeing that fully remote workers never assimilate the culture of the organization, don’t feel a sense of belonging, and quit much faster than people who still have an in-person connection to the organization. People who are 100% remote should be contractors, not employees.

Use Your Money Well

Spiritual Programmer, ,

Money doesn’t buy happiness. Yet there are some ways to spend money that makes you happier than others. Research shows that the happiness from buying things wears off very quickly. You know it will take less than six months for the shiny new device your purchase today to be replaced with a new and better one.

But the happiness you get from buying experiences lasts longer. Many of your memories will last a lifetime. Maybe you don’t need a new phone right now? Save a little on things today and spend a little more on your holiday this summer. It will make your happier in the long run.