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NotesFromSessionThree014

Steering the System: Effective Interventions

A problem is the difference between your perception and your desire. You can only fix your own problem.

"Everyone loves change when someone else does the changing." I wish I had heard that a few years ago when I was trying to understand why a company that sold change to other people was so unhappy about an internal change.

Look at the cost of the delay for being late. If the release is on time, but the feature set is incomplete, what is the cost? If you add more people, what is the cost? Juggle this stuff to find your best solution.

A problem definition needs to be very clear, just as a spec does.

If you cannot see it, what is it based on? If there is no physical sense involved, only "believe" or "know", you could be wrong.

Never give a bureaucrat a number. All they hear is "blah, blah, blah, 86%, blah, blah".

It's OK for someone to want anything. Acknowledge the desire. Just because they want it does not mean that you can do it.

You may also want to talk about what you CAN do.

Use "No and" not "No but". Put the focus on the alternatives, not what you can't do.

A team player won't get into a Liar's Contest, where management pressure increases the chance of a changing statement. You need to find the third way to get out of this loop, as both lying and not lying continue the cycle. Unless you understand the cycle, you play your assigned role, like a person with an addiction.

The Prisoners' Dilemma:

• 2 people are arrested
• there is not enough evidence to convict either of them
• they are put in separate rooms
• each is promised a lighter sentence if he confesses first
• if neither confesses, they both get off
• if they already trust each other, or if they have an ongoing relationship, they won't confess. Otherwise, they usually do.

The Test Manager is often the designated scapegoat, which is much like the identified patient in a family system.

The Subscriber's dynamic:

• in a new phone business, how do you subscribe enough people to make it worthwhile for people to subscribe?
• the first subscriptions were given away
• once you sign up the first people, it becomes easy
• what counts is what is in place
• the original wire used was barbed wire because it was already in place

People have an infinite capacity to fool themselves to support what they want to believe.

Thinking is never a luxury in our business.

SherryHeinze 2003.11.18