A Business Less Ordinary

About our P2P Cairo lecture, Scrum and Documentation

We're very much in the final stages of our preparations for Cairo- Thushara has even started to find the total mental calmness needed to do the totally cool performance I know she will eventually put on, once there. Exilesoft's hard-core Scrum Project management work is turning into a stage show for 2,000 P2P participants.

I think we've actually learned a lot in this process. Sometimes you just need to take a serious walk through the total logic of everything you do to get the right picture. Even redefine the way you do certain things to be able to get it really right! We've spent endless hours discussing the weight points, challenges, and joint experiences in projects from the past years to see how it all fits in with what we do every day and WHY we're doing what we're doing the way we do..

I'd say that even if Cairo and P2P was cancelled tomorrow our effort would have been worthwhile! Our ESPM (Exile Scrum Project Management) has been reborn :)

One subject that seems to become an eternal one in Scrum discussions is related to Scrum and documentation. 

I believe this is a very important discussion as there are so many people out there that seem to think there's a basic conflict between running scrum (targeting early delivery and "speed to market") and still documenting the system and what you do, and we'll face that question in Cairo - for sure.

Considering WHY you want the documentation in the first place may be a good way to get off on the right foot. Some would need it to get off the hook if anything goes wrong, or just to feel that they have control that everything has been done. Checklist. 

As offshore development is often driven by the desire of having a massive (but temporary) development effort, the final piece of software will often be passed back to an internal IT department for maintenance and modifications, once the offshore project is completed. This will require good system documentation to guide and manage the maintenance work, but probably stop short of a full set of UseCases.

Others would need comprehensive documentation as part of a future Due Diligence or IPO if the software in question makes up an important part of the corporate balance sheet or represents a key shareholder value. In this scenario the documentation would soon move into the RUP sized structure and seriously tie down any attempt of Scrum / agile strategy in development.

In several of these situations where the more heavy documentation is required, it may be a good idea to separate the actual documentation effort from the main development team and run it as a separate project or sub-project. As there are as many approaches and different motives as there are projects, getting this right should be given proper attention.

The delivered result is finally what matters - even in documentation.

Counting down to "Projects to the Point" (P2P) in Cairo

It's nighttime here in Colombo and for the first time in several weeks rain is thundering against my roof. I'm listening to my favourite radio station while enjoying the silence of the house around me.

But I'm bothered..

With only one week left before Thushara finally boards the Emirates flight to Cairo, I feel we have still too much work to be completed.. But I know we'll manage.

How did this happen? Thushara is the only one party asked to contribute with 3x one-hour lectures on Scrum and Offshore project management during this massive conference. Thanks to Brisk Consulting for showing the confidence.

2,000 project professionals will meet us there. I'm starting to realize we're doing something very right- and that our Project director is making a considerable impact in the world of international Scrum masters!

And she's very good. It's that simple.

When we started Exilesoft we were very clear on our priorities; People -> Process - never the other way around.

Do things right and fame will follow..? Yeah today I believe so.

Key Technologies for 2010

Gartner just came out with their technology predictions for 2010. No great surprises there, but from a software perspective they gave a clear underscore to the importance of Social computing, Virtualization and the Cloud, and Advanced analytics.

I think we all knew that, but that doesn't mean they are not huge challenges to many software companies and product owners alike.

The current piece of fat-client Windows software that you use everyday for your business needs, probably just isn't up to the challenge. Sorry.

The other day I got an interesting question from a prospective customer in Turkey. Could we implement "facebook" technology into his marble-trade ERP software? The idea was kinda neat. He trades in beautiful Turkish marble and sells his merchandise all over the world. Marble isn't very "virtual" in itself but the product is a highly emotional one. You buy because you "like".

So implementing Web 2.0 technology made sense to him, to enable his buyers to discuss and comment on every particular type of stone, exchange experiences about the different qualities and colors and so forth, and become "fan" of particular types.

This is Marble but your world probably isn't that very different.

Most customers will make their business decisions based on a set of hard values such as price, delivery, service agreements and so on, but then make the final decision based on a certain amount of soft values such as the people they interact with, the look & feel of your product, and how they are treated as customers- lets call it the "customer experience".

In many cases Web 2.0 can make a big difference in the way your customers sees and interacts with your company. And in the process give other prospective buyers a higher level of that "extra" customer experience.

I just love the texture of this marble... :)

Today I went into the Farming business- in Azerbaijan

This was one of those days- a usually busy day at office here, starting out with our first management meeting regarding the 2010 budget. Always a treat you can imagine.

Then we had final interviews with two shortlisted candidates which hopefully will help us achieve our high target and hopefully even add a laugh to the floor in the process! 

Evening came and my son Kim was staying late at Uni so I just kept going in office. Most lights went out, the a/c shut down and things became kinda quiet. I really enjoy that time of day in the office.

Then as I had a break from my budget and was drinking my coffee, I read another blog about Photography and Adobe Lightroom software, and there it was. KIVA. Never heard of it. Well to make it short Kiva helps people around the world with micro financing. So today I decided to invest US$25.00 in a small farming operation in Azerbaijan- to help buy 5 calves.

Mohubbat will pay me back next year. But there's a certain currency exchange risk involved. Hmmm I think I can manage.

My contribution is only 1% of his total loan so you may feel like going into business with me? You'll find the link to Mohubbat's loan down left on this page. I look forward to be business partner with you. Let's toast Mohubbat (in milk) when he succeed :)

It's all pretty Agile if you ask me.

Running Scrum Across Multiple Team Locations

Last year we officially trashed our "old" way of doing things and went Agile! Yeah nothing new there you'd say, loads of companies are saying "agile" with a voice indicating it's some kind of magic wand.. It is the answer before you even know your own question.. but truth is - agile is no simple match and can put severe pressure on both team members and clients. Having said that, going agile is also loads of fun - and I'm 100% convinced - provides far better value and results for your money. But let's have a look at some of the main issues;

Today let's look at first thing first; The requirements.

In our old model we would spend up to a few months working on papers describing pretty low-level requirements to be sure we had a) understood what you were looking for, b) made sure you understood what we were planning to make, and c) covered our ass in case you didn't read the 500 pages after all.. 

Now this both takes time and is a pretty exhausting excercise for both client and team, as you would want us to describe every nitty-gritty detail as you know I wouldn't include it in the price if you came back with it later. So one main challenge is simply to get to the point where you feel confident you have got it all covered, and where I feel confident our team can manage a proper estimation.

My problem is- already during these first few weeks or months, your requirements have secretly started to change..

As your customers, employees, board and other stakeholders are bugging you with their daily requirements to be able to complete their tasks in a most efficient matter, they will also come up with loads of things they "must-have" and which ends up as a CR's (Change request) and eventually delaying the iteration and frustrating me and everyone else.

In Scrum we do it very differently, but I'm not saying all issues are now solved..

The main principle is that we will never freeze any requirements for more than the current iteration, which again would never last more than 30 days. This sounds great as you can now add all you want to it and change everything every 30 days..? No I have to disappoint you there.

In a scrum team we start out the whole project discussing "user stories" (which of course is our all familiar "requirements") which is a high level discussion on functionality and specific technical issues. This will go around a while until we have measured that all are aligned on the major issues. Challenge now is that there is less paper to fill and a closer relationship is required as the process is somewhat open ended in both ends.

When you have the team split in two different geographical locations this further complicates things. We won't have the time together to discuss and adjust thru frequent meetings, so loads of things needs to be done with conferencing tools over the Internet. This can work really well after you have managed to glue the teams together, but there's a "bonding process" you need to observe.

To bring in faces and the "live people" dimension, we are successfully using tools like Skype (voice/video) and WebEx (common desktop) to do much of this, while Scrum-specific tools gives the capability to have an effective requirement gathering processes through electronic conferences. And as there are no sign off on "final specs", the commitment needed on both sides is to constantly repeat and update requirement work, and work closely together right throughout the total project.

What we end up with is that if I can't manage to anchor the project right at the top with my customer's management, I am prone to failure. I must ensure that the KPI's of our team-mates in the customer's organization (or whatever performance measurement they apply to their employees), is linked directly to the performance of our project. Else I will end up seeing the guy on the other side being "busy" as he is at the same time trying to catch up with "billable hours" or whatever is driving his monthly paycheck and employment review process...

Providing a common goal is quite simply the cheapest tool you have available to ensure success in your outsourced project ;)

- Your comments are appreciated :)

You can read an excellent article about user stories in our Project director Thushara's Blog PROJECTIZED

Will New Datacenters Save My Day?

While most people seems to think that software is becoming a standardized commodity, an incredibly high number of companies will continue to rely on mission-specific and mission-critical software made to the specs for their industry vertical, to efficiently deliver their business.

I was visiting the CEO of a company in Europe a while ago, and I was very impressed by their new datacenter he proudly showed me, hosting a two-digit number of the latest IBM servers, and a rack panel with Cisco firewalls, routers and HP switches. This company is well established and running a nice US$10 mill. "people" operation with a fair profit for the past 20 years. Now, it’s not within my scope to try to ruin anyone’s day, and in particular not when someone is so happy with what they have just achieved - but I just had to ask why he was moving into the “hardware business” like this? His company now employs two full-time VMware network technicians.

This scenario is not made up and is not an uncommon sight.

I’m sure you know the answer to my question already- and the heart of his lengthy and somewhat frustrated response.  Situation is- their current Windows based software system just isn’t optimized for any offsite datacenter hosting, and due to the complexity of the total solution, no datacenter will take it on as a standard software platform, or provide any competence for managing the solution. Offsite maintenance of this system would therefore be a scary scenario due to high risk of receiving a slow response and being faced with a confusing process if anything goes wrong. Not to mention the additional cost which incur when you’re hosting a solution which was not initially made to support the model. 

So what choices will a CEO in this situation have, as alternatives to the decision of carrying all the overheads and risks by doing the hardware job themselves, although it’s not his business focus? 

Let’s have a closer look at what is driving technology these days.

SaaS – “Software-as-a-Service” is one of the most important initiatives in recent years, and rapidly changing the world of corporate computing. What is interesting is that SaaS technology institutes the completion of “the circle” that started with the beauty of the IBM 360 and mainframes of the 60’s and which was later replaced by the PC and then the distributed client/server networking model with local servers (everybody has one) of the 80’s to 90’s. Remember how we all thought IBM where Down & Done? Well look at those guys now..

SaaS really leads the way for mission critical applications to move back into centralized, highly secure, and high performance datacenters, boosting performance and competitive edge for the companies using them. SaaS applications are developed based on a philosophy that the application represents a set of “services”, which should be readily available to the users on a 24/7/365 basis – no exceptions – where the user gets access to the services he wants, when he wants, without worrying about hardware, software or even licensing for that matter.

SaaS technology is also widely associated with the pay-per-use business model, where there are no more “licensing” or “maintenance” fees involved, but rather a simple sign-on and transaction-based model that will give an efficient- and variable cost model- directly linked with the business performance of the company which is using the service.

Globalization and integration

SaaS also makes a lot of sense when it comes to efficient cooperation between different legal entities, be it customer – vendor or business partners, and even cross-border businesses. As we see every day, a massive consolidation is taking place where major players are growing, through acquisitions, into multi-national companies. This involves different judicial systems, different legal entities, and limitations to data aggregation. Different systems, different time zones, and different formats- all adds to the overall pain.

Not only mergers, but also more loosely coupled co-operations through vendor networks are on the increase, as many smaller companies are working hard together trying to gain the benefit of a larger unit. Some of the challenges here are that these companies not only don’t have the same Board of Directors, but don’t even run on a common IT platform. Cooperation and data exchange across a variety of different software solutions from different countries of origin means working with a selection of vendors that most often don’t even intend to cooperate.. Now you can picture the benefits of a centrally hosted SaaS-based solution tightly integrated across borders and legislative environments..

One of the main obstacles to the adaption of any “next-generation technology” within an industry vertical is always that current vendors may be somewhat resistant to stimulate that change. Reason being that they are worried about losing their current position, the potential danger of disturbing current revenue streams, and in the end potentially pushing their existing customers into a new “evaluation” phase where they just may not come out on top..  Yeah- none of us wants that, do we?

PC, laptop, web, or even mobile phone- just hand me those data please…

Don’t Miss Out On The Recession Bonanza

Credit crunch? Downturn? Recession? Yeah if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get. And if you’re a market leader with a dominant market share, a lot of ongoing business to protect, you may not feel that you are left with much choice.  Your operations may include a large sluggish organization that will take months or even years to turn different. Consolidate and cost cutting will be your most probable way to adapt to the New Reality of a smaller world market.

To the rest of us out here, a situation like the one we see now is just a Ones-In-A-Lifetime Business Opportunity. As more and more companies are shifting their focus from growth and expansion, to cost-cutting and control, a new prosperous future is opening up to the guys who go for the Grab.

Consider this scenario; The main dominant player in your company’s market is right now turning his giant head and focus away from New product developments, Costly marketing campaigns, and New customer acquisition, and into Cost-cutting and trimming of their (a bit too relaxed?) staff.

What does this new situation mean to you? Finally the Bear has gone for his den to lick wounds and sleep out the winter, meaning a new Dawn is about to begin in your competitive game.

Most probably, up until today you have been banging your head against the solid marketing wall of your main competitors, which through their sheer size and well established business infrastructures have dominated your business field for years. Now that may all be about ready to change.

That is - if You are prepared to change it. 

Should we not leave the decision of the future with our Customers? Never underestimate the power of this small guy called “customer”. He holds immense powers in his hands and he’s willing to exhort that power in his effort of cutting the best deals for his company’s “tomorrow”.

Now what drives your customers during time of recession? The Quest for the bargain price is definitely there during times like this. Whoever will be able to deliver an innovative, high quality product, on a new cost structure may actually define tomorrow’s Winner in your market. These large sluggish guys currently dominating your field (sorry GM J) may not have the necessary space – or pace - to effectively move their organization towards that new reality.

Customers will still be out there with their needs, no matter how bad things will get, and although they may spend even far less than what we have become accustomed to call “usual”, chances are that “the market” is still way big enough for You. This means very simply that there are always enough customers out there for the small Runner-up who is still willing to think anew, focus on his product development team to supply the most innovative products, provide the best service to his customers, and go out there and sell the package to them.

What seems a Catastrophe to many of today’s main corporations translates into New Opportunity to the rest of us. Will you be a part of Tomorrow?

With Obama at the Helm

There’s hardly no doubt in anyone’s mind these days that there’s an urgent need for new thinking. Just the fact that America has elected itself a black President shows the degree of “urgency”, as this would simply not have been possible in White America only eight years ago. So that leaves us with at least one positive memory about Mr. Bush’s regency- you actually did create One Thing Good in the end.

Up until very recently I admit I have omitted to truly comprehend what is really happening in the World economy, and what it means for our small business world. I have done the mistake I am sure many with me will have done same- I have thought that this is A) mostly affecting financial institutions or large (sluggish) corporations, and B) of a temporary nature all together.

My thinking has been “Give us a few months or maybe a year, and we’ll all be back out there bashing in the sun…” I will hereby renounce that thinking completely and announce that we are all facing a new economic war – or even a Perfect Storm.

What makes me arrive at this is of course what we have all seen through the news during the past months, but also from very real business decisions transpiring through my business network. Business leaders which only a couple of months back were looking at a “no change for the first half of 2009” strategy, have now come around and made tough decisions on their cost structure and operations for all of 2009.

Those decisions are based on a new totally cost oriented “brace” strategy, that will lead to reduced focus on new innovations, gaining new competitive edge, or improving products and services. More focus on “keeping the cash” is resulting in subsequent cost cuts and job losses within their organizations.

Now these companies are not the General Motors or anything like that, but simply normal medium sized private businesses, with less than 500 employees, and when this is starting to happen on a broad scale in this (SME) business tier, there’s no longer any doubt in my mind whether this will affect us all. Bigtime.

Mr Obama We Welcome You to the Helm of Our Future.

Are You Comfortably Seated- In The Back Seat?

The other day I was visiting a good friend during the holidays, and as we sat down and enjoyed our holiday refreshments, the conversation drifted into business and technology developments, as it so often does.  My friend is (like myself) fast approaching the big Five-O, and has been a top official with an international software company for the past decade. Now the discussion soon turned to kids & the Internet, and naturally the family was concerned about their kid’s use of the Internet in general, the total time spent in front of the various screens, such as, TV shows, gaming, or surfing, and the “opportunity cost” of these kinds of activities. But in particular my friend was concerned about their kids’ addiction to Facebook (or Crapbook as some would call it).

What is Facebook and what does it represent- and more important- does it have an influence and potential value we should recognize as business leaders? As I have seen so often in the past, the general perception of adults, be it inside or outside the IT industry, is dominated by the fact that exposure on The Net represents a personal security risk, and the discussion often fails to venture much beyond that point. In essence our holiday reflection around FB ran ashore on a purely negative attitude towards these kinds of new communities, and a view that they represent basically worthless time killers.

So while there’s no doubt that any Internet community represents an online exposure which is by nature a risk in itself, in the sense that the information provided can be exploited, this is not specifically linked to sites like Facebook or Myspace, but actually includes online advertisement sites (used cars sales, auction sites like Ebay), Yellow and White pages, public information sites (e.g. tax return information in countries that allows this), and numerous other instances where personal information is publicly disclosed (have you thought about that restaurant you just went to, where the waiter took your credit card with him which includes a photo-ID on the reverse side, and disappeared for a good five minutes before bringing you the tab?).

So let’s step beyond the threats and fears for a while and look at the Web 2.0 and what is really going on out there. What is a fact is that web statistics tells a very clear message; People want to interact actively with the Web, and one-way information distribution is dying fast. Main news providers have discovered the trend and innovative new services like the iReport from CNN has caught on immensely, with thousands of news items being reported live through mobile phone cameras and the use of in-built MMS technology to send the report to CNN in an instant. BBC has their yourpics@bbc.co.uk and discussion forums where tens-of-thousands frequently tells their opinions about Barack Obama or what is happening in the Gaza. All this brings you and me into the picture in a completely new way, and with a great powerful way of communicating our views with others. Web 2.0 definitely has a huge impact on how we communicate and express ourselves and even our access to media and to being able to express our opinion. In my mind the immediate mobile phone video report of the killing of a Japanese journalist in the streets of Rangoon in Myanmar during the unrest there last year, was the ultimate evidence that even the worst regime of evil cannot suppress its people any longer without being exposed to the world- you and me will actually see to that through Web 2.0.

But Web 2.0 doesn’t stop with the news. 

Nowadays I get a good number of interesting emails from people whom I have actually never met. Most of them come from Web 2.0 sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo, and others. Some send me “I would like to add you to my professional network” while others have specific requests or questions. Millions of people are seeking into these new environments as a new and important source for answers to their specific question, a source for new suppliers, a place to find new employees, and even a world of new potential business partners. Honestly guys, I haven’t spent a single dollar on printed advertising in the past 12 months but Exilesoft is thriving and we’re meeting with new potential clients more often than ever before. 

So is Web 2.0 the path to ultimate World Democracy?

Why Does It Hurt?

Wall Street never meant much to me and I’ve actually never set my foot there. So except from being a part of our vocabulary in the same way McDonalds or AmEx is it, to me Wall Street represented a higher order seemingly beyond comprehension for a software guy like me. In fact a good part of my family lives in upstate New York, so trips are somewhat regular (yes Ella, I know it’s been a while.. :) ), but I just never saw it as a particular interesting place to see with my eyes. I mean- would I want to visit McDonalds HQ..? Somehow Wall Street gives me the same feeling thinking about it.

Now days that may all have changed. I have decided to go down there once I’m back in town. I’d just like to see what some of these people look like, that drove the entire world economy off the cliff… and I’m not going to dwell over George W. Bush or others that could have done something to avoid this disaster earlier on, given they had had the balls to do so, but no- I’ll leave that subject to others.

However, during the past few months I have spoken with business leaders from diverse business environments such as sports retail, travel agents, leisure boat manufacturers, and garment factories. The message I get is an alarming one.

To most, the economic downturn is already being felt in force. Drop in new orders for 2009, double-digit drop in month-over-month revenue from last year, and customers delaying payments, to name just some. Just from these people I have spoken with myself, the total drop in revenue must represent a good thirty to fifty million dollars worth of business lost. Now that translates into serious consequences for a lot of other companies down their chains as well, and that’s where we are right now. Are you down that chain too? 2009 is going to be very tough- maybe even flat out scary- and a lot of us will be faced with some tough decisions that need to be made with speed, to sustain our operations through that year.

My primary concern is the outlook for Sri Lanka and the Srilankan IT industry in particular, in the year to come. Srilankan IT is still fighting for “its right” to a seat at the Global IT Outsourcing Table as a serious partner and destination, and many of our businesses here are still building their capacity and capability, and may or may not have the financial strength necessary to carry on through if and when “the shit hits the fan” as we say in the army.

Add to this the overall high cost of communications and leased-line operations here (translates directly into loss in competitiveness), new suggested increase in company taxes, and the rupee heavily appreciating against most other niche currencies (including Indian rupee, Chinese Wot, and Norwegian NOK) which makes our Srilankan products either more expensive to the customer, or may force the vendor here to sell at a loss.

Currency appreciation makes our products less attractive to the market, be it tea, rubber, or IT. Those of us who are dealing with smaller countries still maintaining their own small “funny-money” currencies have probably already seen a 25-30% loss in revenue in foreign Exchange contracts, and an increase in our costs ratio. As such our prices will either have to surge or our costs will have to be cut, and from this you can imagine that companies are losing competitive edge fast.

So is this stuff all just bad? Bad Yes but All Bad? - I’m not so sure. Of course it is bad on the individual level both for the companies and the employees under siege, but where there are problems there are also new opportunities. There will be massive restructuring happening and the pathway through this and to make sure we’ll still be around, is to quickly wake up and face the new reality. Restructuring generally means a need for new products and services for the company to be able to automate, differentiate, or simply change the way their business is conducted.

There will be customers out there (maybe even more so in our field as they are forced to cut their costs in domestic operations), but our ability to create, visualize – and measure –the business value we present to our clients will be increasingly important. To the companies and management teams that understand the meaning of crisis and are willing to take the tough decisions head on, there will always be new possibilities. Think about it - some competitors will have it worse than you.. So what we all need to do right now is to get our focus right, re-assess our market approach, put the customer back in focus, get rid of any unnecessary fat in our corporate spending, and again invests in our R&D, product development and marketing. Lean and Mean is what it will be all about.

And Yes there’s a storm out there and there’s no way around it, so in deed we need to scramble for our rain gear. On the other hand- calm seas never made much of a sailor anyway.