Parkinson's law

I recently came across a couple of laws by a writer called Cyril Parkinson. His book called Parkinson's law - The pursuit of progress presents a very interesting view of organisations. I have not read the myself, but it is on my to read list.

One of his laws says that - work essentially expands to fill the time available. This means that if you have a piece of work that is estimated to take say three weeks, then the work somehow expands and takes the full three weeks to complete. The estimated time to complete primarily determines the pace at which you approach the task. In addition, it also gives you the ability to multitask and allow for interruptions during work. This law is quite an important especially when you are managing projects and it has considerable managerial implications.

If say a PM subscribes to this view, then it unlikely that he or she will believe when a employee gives an estimate for his work or updates the status of his/her tasks. It is a fairly thin line for a PM to tread by.I know some people who live by this rule. At the extreme end living by such a rule can drive behaviors that will be seen as pushy or un-trusting.

The second law of Parkinson called the law of triviality is even more interesting. It is also sometimes called the bike shed effect. Parkinson says that when people are put together in a room and asked to decide about a trivial thing such as the color of a bike shed, they can spend inappropriate time arguing and discussing what color would best work for the bike shed! Committee based decision making typically falls under this category. Imagine sitting in a room and discussing the color of a bike shed! Does it sound familiar? It does to me, I've been part of several such things that have added no value whatsoever. It is either irrelevant or something that is completely beyond the sphere of control.

The reason I remembered this today is because I am going to pick up a bike this weekend. And yes, it is for me. I was wondering if anybody wants to suggest what color bike I should pick up? And what color should I paint my bike shed ? :)

-Sandeep Kowshik

The Countess of Chester

A few months ago I got a great opportunity to do a consultancy project with the Countess of Chester Hospital. I traveled to Chester with three other project mates and stayed in the on site accommodation provided by the hospital. The Countess is a fairly big hospital and has a staff of a few thousand people. Through the project I got to meet and interview quite a few people across the organization - radiologists, pharmacists, senior consultants and even the executive board members. Our final presentation to the exec board and the CEO went really well. Our work was highly appreciated and was very well received by the exec board. It was a great experience, a lot of learning and I thoroughly enjoyed working with my team at the Countess.

But the point of this post is really about the NHS. I have been in the UK for about five years now and touch wood I've never been admitted to a hospital. So my view of NHS in general was really colored by people around me. Some positive, some negative. But my experience of staying and talking directly to people across the Countess has completely changed my view. I found people at the Countess to be passionate, committed and very caring for the patients. People were very friendly, welcoming and always greeted each other with a smile. I don't know about the other NHS hospitals, but I was totally impressed by the professionalism and the camaraderie in the Countess. I am sure the other NHS hospitals are equally good if not better than the Countess.

NHS is really a great gift to the people in UK. In comparison, the Indian medical system is slowly heading the US way and soon the hospitals will become un-affordable for the poor in India. It is already very expensive in India and it troubles me to see the almost extortionist attitude in the medical system. It is appalling that the Indian system is failing to learn from the failures of the US medical system. NHS on the other hand is a great equalizer, it provides great medical facilities for the people irrespective of social class. Surely it has its own shortcomings and challenges. But I am certain that it can and should be addressed and fixed. I hope people support the services of NHS and help to preserve such a good medical system. And all I want to say is... I have new found respect for the NHS!  

Dr. E. Deming - Out of crisis

Dr. Edward's Deming they say is the father of quality revolution. He is credited with the creation of Total Quality Management (TQM) - the industry buzzword before the Lean & Six Sigma movement.I don't know much about TQM, but I know it failed and people will look at you suspiciously if you use these words! Nevertheless, the principles of TQM and the words of Deming are highly respected in quality circles. 

I found a brief summary of his book online and added his book immediately to my Amazon wish list! Here are some of the ideas discussed by Deming in his book - Out of crisis. It's  a great read.

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and stay in business, and to provide jobs.
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for massive inspection by building quality into the product in the first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership (see Point 12 and Ch. 8 of "Out of the Crisis"). The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company. (See Ch. 3 of "Out of the Crisis")
9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
11. a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
    b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.
12. a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
    b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia," abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objective (See Ch. 3 of "Out of the Crisis").
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job. 

The conveyor belt

I am a big fan of Lean, Toyota Production system & Theory-of-Constraints. It's a shame that I haven't written much about these things here! The Toyota Way by Jeffrey Liker and The Goal by Eli Goldratt are probably the best books I've read on Lean. These are life changing books. Certainly for me, it has changed the way I looked at a lot of things in life. For instance, day to day things like McDonald's drive through, queuing system in subway, visual guides in hospitals, pizza delivery, supermarket shelves, overflow hole in hand wash basin (poke yoke) are some simple day-to-day examples you see in daily life. Principles of Lean can also be used on the software floor. Agile for instance has its roots in Lean software development developed by Mary Popendieck .& Tom Popendieck.

I can go on and on about Lean, ToC and Agile because I have spent considerable time thinking, doing and implementing these principles. I have even attempted to bring it back home and use it in my house! For today, I wanted to share the video that started it all for me. I don't know about the origin of the video or the context in which it was shot. But this hilarious video can be used to explain just-in-time, constraints, kanban, conflict & even management styles!  Hope you enjoy it too.

Mistakes

Somebody forwarded me this "tiny-teensy" list of mistakes to avoid!! Is sharing this online a mistake as well??

=========================================
Mistakes

1. Jump to conclusions about other people’s motives.
2. Get caught up in competition. Strive for cooperation.
3. Describe yourself in negative terms.
4. Compare yourself to others to try and validate your results.
5. Violate your personal values or ethics for any reason.
6. Make excuses for telling lies. Just be honest and tactful.
7. Be rude to others regardless of how you feel about them.
8. Invalidate other people’s feelings.
9. Disrespect yourself or others.
10. Forget to be grateful.
11. Talk down to people.
12. Expect the worst or project negative expectations.
13. Speak in blanket generalizations.
14. Dominate conversations.
15. Try to assign blame. It doesn’t matter who’s at fault.
16. Focus on lack.
17. Put yourself or other people down.
18. Indulge in “pity parties.”
19. Think of yourself as smarter than, or better than everyone else.
20. Keep eating just because it tastes good.
21. Always insist on having the last word.
22. Look for other peoples faults. You don’t want them looking for yours.
23. Snivel.
24. Allow negative thoughts to dominate your outlook.
25. Imagine yourself as sick, poor, unworthy, or worthless.
26. Entertain or dwell on inappropriate thoughts or actions.
27. Harbor grudges or think about getting even.
28. Make lame excuses, just take responsibility.
29. Waste time trying to win an argument.
30. Say “I can’t” because you choose not to.
31. Expect TV to make you smarter.
32. Forget to take action every day.
33. Ignore the needs of others.
34. Say yes when you really mean no.
35. Dehumanize members of the opposite sex.
36. Over commit your time, energy, or resources.
37. Allow what you “have to do” to erase what you “want to do.”
38. Let the media or popular opinion make your decisions for you.
39. Buy things you don’t need just because they’re cool.
40. Forget to smile often and sincerely.
41. Stress over things you can’t control or change.
42. Let work dominate your days off.
43. Imagine you will do it someday. Do it now.
44. Expect others to make you feel happy, satisfied, or loved.
45. Tell yourself there isn’t enough time for a healthy lifestyle.
46. Blame your genetics for bad lifestyle choices.
47. Get trapped spending your free time doing things you don’t like.
48. Make decisions because you’re afraid you might miss out on something.
49. Worry over the personal decisions of others.
50. Focus on or talk about problems.
51. Get involved in things that are none of your business.
52. Avoid eye contact.
53. Say “I told you so” when things go bad because your advice was ignored.
54. Follow fads, trends, or allow others to dictate your identity.
55. Pretend that your reality is someone else’s fault.
56. Invent distractions to avoid responsibilities.
57. Shy away from new experiences.
58. Pretend you know something when you don’t.
59. Be afraid or embarrassed to ask for help.
60. Forget to show appreciation to others.61. Allow your analytical mind to invalidate your intuition.
62. Ignore that little voice in your head.
63. Be too proud to learn from children
64. Worry about social standing, prestige, or popular opinion.
65. Talk yourself out of pursuing your dreams.
66. Think that ignoring a problem will make it go away.
67. Try to convince yourself that the things on this list don’t matter.

In hindsight - 2

Heuristics and biases is a fairly vast topic and there are a plethora of cognitive biases that determine our behavior. What is interesting is that this individual biases can aggregate and manifest itself as a collective organizational behavior.

I came across a brilliant presentation from Deloitte that spoke about the impact of these different biases in organizations. The speaker called it human biases and gave great examples of how these biases adversely impact risk strategy execution. The image below shows the different kinds of biases that exist and threaten change management programs in organizations. So true! It's a great representation of all the challenges we see in organizations day in and day out!

Source: Deloitte DBriefs

In hindsight

Remember orkut? I don't think the millennial's or the generation Z's would know about it. Orkut used to be the social networking site by google before the days of facebook. I used to be quite active on orkut about a decade ago.

In my Orkut profile - about me section, I remember writing about the character of Howard Roark the protagonist of the epic novel Fountain head. Ayn Rand, the author describes Howard Roark as a highly self-aware and highly rational individual. He knew himself very well and had rational reasons for why he liked somebody, hated somebody, what he wanted in life, what he wanted in a relationship and what to say and when to say some thing. In fact, the other characters in the book were also pretty strong headed, highly mature, rational and aware characters. Like every body else who has read the book, I too was heavily influenced by the characters, the story and the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Obviously, different people remember different things about the book and take away different things back into their lives. My world view and my needs at that point led me to admire the self-awareness of the characters which I believe eventually led me to chase "perfection". So, in my Orkut profile I had written some thing on the lines of experience - and I had written about not doing things right and giving it the name "experience"! And I wondered when will I get to the stage in life when I stop excusing myself by saying, okay I got it wrong this time and put it to down to a "learning from experience". In other words, for a long long time I was chasing the "be-perfect" dream. And I always pushed myself to get there.

Guess what? Turns out that there is a scientific explanation to this... and it is called "Hindsight bias"! Hindsight bias is an after the event rationalization where you get to the end of an event and tell yourself that you knew all the way along that the event was predictable. When you get to the end of the situation, you regret not noticing trends earlier and not adjusting your behavior accordingly. This belief that you could have foreseen the event is based on the premise that the world around is rational and behaves in predictable order. In a way, this core belief was driving me towards achieving the level of my heroes - the Howards Roark's and the the Dominique Frankon's of Fountain head.

And of course, the world is not as predictable as you believe it is and I never got to the level of my fictional heroes! I only wish I knew this earlier. I wish I had stopped to reflect and learned about this earlier. In hindsight, I wish I was a lot wiser :)