New plan for system design

 I recently began a project to redesign and refactor a legacy data storage and processing system. This project has some serious challenges, one being that the legacy system and backend storage is based on technology that is 20+ years old (customer use Emacs to access and operate). As the engineering team gathering requirements we find ourselves soliciting the customers for more and information to provide clarification on system requirements.


Our challenge is that technology has come so far in the last twenty years that the customers have the ability to describe what they currently have, but they have no ability to describe and reconcile what they could have. In meetings the Systems Engineers (SE's), draft notional requirements we think would be useful and the customers shrug their shoulders and say things like "I guess that would be cool". The team finds themselves fighting about what is needed vs. what is extra at every Architecture Review Board (ARB) meeting. The funny thing is that most of the debating and fighting is centered on disagreements between the development and systems engineering team. The group is always going back and forth between trying to ensure we've captured the functionality of the current operational system while designing the new one.

Every time I capture a notional view of the systems functionality it receives a 30 day back and forth virtual and physical review before I'm informed that my design is premature because we haven't decided on the systems node or this message format. I finally became fully frustrated last week as I was shot down in the ARB when after several minutes of bantering I suggested rather than continuing to guess what the rest of the system looks like (we were discussing the repository node), we finally come to an agreement on what a physical view of the system is - one that attaches specific software products to the actual design. I mean six friggin months later and one actual software baseline release and the customer isn't ready to finalize the physical design. Often this is because the customer can't reach a decision with the white noise from the team constantly buzzing around (well we could do that, and maybe we try this new product instead, or do we think about this yet)... never-ending.

This led me to devising a strategy that basically forces all the SE's and developers to reach a consensus and plan on what the systems is and how it will be designed and integrated. Agree on all the derived artifacts detailing the design and then as a group submit to the customer for review. The customer willingly admitted that it's often difficult to make a decision with so many different opinions and suggestions’ coming at him from different directions. He agreed we need to bring a unified plan for him to adjudicate and approve and that even including him in the final stages of design planning would probably be sufficient to mitigate the lengthy delays. Hopefully this works and we can finalize the system design prior to releasing the 2.0 baseline.

"Goldman Sachs what were you thinking.....getting caught?"

Financial reform seems to be the new buzzword around the D.C. beltway and the renewed focus of the President's domestic agenda. Pushing this to the forefront of the media is news just being released that Goldman Sachs, the financial juggernaut survivor of the massacre on Wall St., has been caught misleading investors. As an MBA student the financial reforms being proposed by the President have me at a real crossroad; on one hand I understand that the U.S., heck why should I limit it to just the U.S., the entire world financial industry is filled with corrupt self-serving individuals, and on the other hand as an individual investor who was severely impacted by the financial chicanery surrounding the collapse of the housing market.... wait, that's all on one side of the argument.

The other side is: although I am slightly bitter about my house price, I do feel that additional regulatory legislation and a new government agency will do little to mitigate the issues affecting the financial industry. When I see the signs of the financial disaster retrospectively laid out before me by industry experts .... I think to myself, "Wow how could I have missed it." With all the evidence and analysis publicly available and with the SEC starting to clamp down... wait. Sorry. That was my dream sequence. We don't need more government to supervise and police the industry, we need the government agencies that are currently in a position to regulate and effect change to stop being political puppets and start enforcing their rules and wielding their power to influence change.

Obviously something needs to be done to ensure the market doesn't allow banks and trading firms to hide information, mislead investors and focus on short-term investments , while foregoing long-term strategies. Smart legislation and a real push to buffer the SEC from political influence and ensure their impartiality is what we need. I’d like to see strong, sound, financial markets founded on basic economic principles and monitored by independent regulatory bodies. This is especially important with the continuing migration of individual retirement strategies from traditional employer funded pensions to 401k financial market based retirement accounts. There were plenty of opportunities for the SEC and Congress to investigate the run-up to the financial collapse, but no one when to be the one to pull the stop on the money ride. This of course would run contrary to those vociferous advocates of unrestricted, unsupervised business and financial markets, why? Because of course the markets are self-regulating, the markets would never do anything to harmful to impact their ability to grow. Well a lot of the old business rules possessed a very small footnote nobody paid attention to: the market will regulate itself and remain in balance if ran transparently (all financial information publicly available to investors), and the information is true. i.e. if companies are legit and nobody tries to cheat to get ahead, far ahead, by lying or fudging the rules, do this and the the entire market grows. Well at what point did all these financial geniuses (Milton Friedman), consider the fact that many people (like children), will take advantage and manipulate the rules and guidelines to provide themselves an unknown and some would say unfair advantage that provides only a short-term benefit with a long-term risk.



Why do businesses like Goldman do it? Besides the obvious financial benefit the simpler answer is because their ego let's them believe they're smarter than everyone else, they won't get caught (and if they do the penalties will still not overwrite the immediate benefits), and if does fall down around them they can say "it wasn't my fault", "everyone was doing it", and my favorite "if you don't bail me out from my ridiculous predicament the impact to everyone else will be severe", yes when all else fails blackmail wins. Goldman Sachs will probably come through with a minor slap on the wrist. Why you ask? Within hours after the announcement of the indictment the Dow Jones lost 125 points. Can't have that happen... my portfolio alone was hit to the tune of several K, darn it maybe the markets are self regulating because I definitely don't won't to lose more money - let them go SEC ... for the love of my pension, let my Goldman Sachs go free.

The Mac vs. Windows debate

I encountered the Mac fans in my life at the oddest occasions: weddings, graduation parties, 4th of July picnics and once at a funeral, yes at a funeral. Well it was really the wake, but that's a small detail. Anyhow, I'm at the Green Turtle just about to dig into some delicious wings when the fire of debate was lit again. A simple question like "what's your email address?", was the igniter. "Well my email address is johndoe@me.com". "What the heck is ME?" I inquire. Whooooshh. It begins with a small smirk, maybe a wry smile, the questions start... "you have all these other Apple products, wouldn't it be easier for you to sync them using a Mac OS"? "I'm scared of the mouse." I reply. What kind of a weird system uses only one button to operate and interact with the OS? It's almost communist. Now the name calling, tears and apologies all follow suit as we all reach the same conclusion; I'm a coward and everyone else who doesn't assimilate with the cool music commercials crowd is simply a Techno-Snob.

I actually had a Mac once. Well it was an Apple II and I was 10 and used it to play Leisure Suit Larry and Drug Wars on its white screen with soft blue text. Very advanced stuff, but hey you know what I don't remember? I don't remember a mouse with only one button. There I was facing the barrage of logical questions regarding my poor personal IT choices and all I want to do is get more buffalo sauce for woefully under-spicy wings. Then I remembered a recent blog I read on CIO.com and I chuckled (Yes. I recognize the irony: I don't like blogging but love to read them... my life is one big contradiction). In this particular blog the author discussed the fallout resulting from a blog he posted regarding a request to his IT staff for a Mac book as replacement for his current, slow and wimpy XP-enabled ThinkPad. His blog followers response posts were, well to say the least, not nice. The blogger went on to detail the link between the Mac vs. Windows sides of the debate and their representation of the business users vs. the IT. I thought the whole thing was funny because here I was being derided by friends for not fully taking advantage of user-centered Mac computers. Mac’s designed to handle the interactions of my various technological devices (mostly Apple products), and here I am defending myself based on the fact that the Mac is too simplistic and scary.

The blogger makes a valid case when he states that the IT staff never examines requirements and customer needs from the business or user side. IT always views business needs from a technological perspective - "why wouldn't you want to do it the right way", should be my IT department’s motto. The challenge is that without putting themselves in the user’s shoes it’s difficult for IT gain a better understanding of why an increasing amount of users have transitioned to Mac's in their personal lives and now find them suitable for business activities. Without this understanding they’ll continue their narrow minded approach to resolving IT challenges and this will continue to perpetuate the "us-vs.-them" ideology. BTW, “me.com” was apparently the older Mac users email domain name. I’m avoiding my Mac friend like the plague for the next few weeks as they make out with their newly acquired iPad’s. I joked that they can now make wireless phone calls and feel what it’s like to be in 1986 (seemed funny at the time).

The joys of online learning

This week’s topic is very near and dear to my heart because as a deployed member of the U.S. Armed Forces it was one of the innovative ways that allowed me to pursue and complete my B.S. As someone who frequently moved from place to place I've attended several universities and tried many different methods of receiving instruction from a distance - sometimes referred to as "distance learning". Tele-learning (via video tapes and live video feeds), online learning, classes in tents in remote locations, self-paced coursework with examinations and then, finally, traditional in class instruction at both Maryland and Loyola... yeah!

By far the easiest and most pleasant experience has been the in-class instruction and personal interactions with instructors and my peers at both universities. I like to consider myself more adept at interacting with people face-to-face, to be able to express myself in the moment with regards to a subject, to convey my emotional response to a specific topic or discussion. This ability to convey and express emotion and personal characteristics isn't easily discerned in the words on a screen. This is exactly what makes understanding and solving the challenge of virtual offices so important - throughout the MBA program we've focused on how important personal interaction is with subordinates and teammates. How attempting to connect with the team on a personal level begins the process of building trust and contributes to increasing productivity. The same could be said of the online classroom instruction, especially when a significant portion of the coursework involves team projects with teammates located around the world.

I enjoyed meeting and working with other students located in places like Japan, Guam, Italy, and England etc... Well basically anywhere with an internet connection. Like our virtual team discussions my teammates brought diverse and unique perspectives to each project and because of the different time zones we could use a follow-the-sun strategy to complete assignments. Trust however was often an issue as it's difficult for you to gain a real understanding of the sincerity of a person’s apology after missing a deadline, or their true level of empathy when you’re the one apologizing. A distinct challenge beyond communication and building trust was that on-line classrooms require a significant amount of self discipline and wise time-management. It requires constant checking in to see if new items are posted regarding assignments; it’s also challenging to coordinate times for on-line meetings, interactive lessons with the professors and proctored examinations. Proctored exams are also challenging, especially when you only have two days to take the exam and you’re in a packed room, auditorium, cafeteria etc.. with strangers all taking different exams. I also found on-line classes often had more difficult, in my opinion, exams than traditional classroom exams. I think professors try to compensate for what they assume is a lower workload with incredibly complex exams – questions you may not have been prepared for – tough to ask questions to a proctor regarding the use of calculator’s, or whether or not a question is correct. The last on-line class I took was in a hybrid format that had two in-class meetings that allowed students and the instructors to meet each other and begin to form more of a trusting relationship – these types of on-line classes only work if you are near the location for the meetings. I see the value that on-line classes provide, but I definitely prefer the personal interactions and discussions that class room instruction provides.

Co-CIO's is an interesting trend

There seems to be an interesting new wrinkle in how organizations manage their IT organizations: the Co-CIO. I recently received two presentations from Co-CIO's at a major investment firm. Each presenter brought their own unique perspective to their shared role and their individual and combined set of responsibilities. The focus of their information wasn't specifically to address how they share control or what the challenges and opportunities were with this type of IT leadership model, but because of the intense curiosity and interest in this IT hybrid the class couldn’t stop from making inquiries. Honestly this seemed, at first, to be an anomaly born from a unique set of circumstances requiring a two-headed approach to handle but after some explanation I still haven’t gained a true understanding of why their organization chose to transition from a sole head of IT to the shared approach. Dan’s (let’s call him CIO #2, not in order of importance or decision making but based on order of their presentation), outlook on the position was that it was a natural decision for the organization to make based on their IT circumstances and requirements. Dan was sincerely surprised by our interest in the subject – odd considering we spent a significant part of our MBA program not learning about leadership by panel. Yes. Of course we spent time learning about group communication and taking into consideration all aspects of your project team, but in the end there is always someone making the final decision in certain difficult situations.




In a challenging situation that requires a clear decision, like who gets the surplus money for their respective budget – what if both parties feel that they have the better business case for the funds? Who determines the winner/loser in this scenario? Even if one party capitulates there will still be some hard feelings, right? Dan did provide a good rationale though for minimizing our skepticism when he stated that this is a new trend in the IT field and these same decision making challenges would be present if there was one CIO and two department heads. Well that’s true Dan but at least in that situation neither department head has to be the bad guy, that honor belongs to the lone CIO.



Now back to their presentations. I was definitely impressed with the breadth of knowledge and experience, both Joyce and Dan had worked at several Investment firm in both IT and Business related positions. Unlike Dan, Joyce began in a typical investment firm internship fashion and because of her intellect, motivation and willingness to challenge and confront ineptitude she moved into the emerging IT field at the right time. Dan’s background was IT-centric, but he did work outside of the Financial Services Industry for a period of time. Joyce’s presentation focused on lessons learned from her career experiences. Her stories were very poignant and entertaining and you can definitely see the leadership qualities she possesses. Dan exposed us to his viewpoint on emerging technologies and their impact and challenges for him as a CIO. Security being his overriding challenge, which is something of a trend amongst the various speakers we’ve had this semester. He agreed with my observation that security in IT has to be balanced with the user friendliness of the business consumer that the systems were built for. Excellent speakers and an all-around great in-class discussion.

What's the deal with this housing market?

Well I'm going to reveal a little bit about my recent foray into the chaotic housing market. A few months ago the wife and I decided that with historically low mortgage rates and what we thought were depressed housing prices we could possibly find our true "dream home". If you've followed the news from this particular economic sector you've probably been able to come to the same conclusion we have: financial and industry experts are fools! or, at a minimum the news of a housing crisis has yet to reach the far flung edges of desolate Maryland. If you note a hint of biting sarcasm, its because I'm pouring it on. Before I delve into my tirade against the delusional current home sellers I want to briefly outline our futile attempts to refinance our current home under the federal programs for homeowner with ARM's. To summarize, not-a-gonna happen. Well at least not without a 3rd part mortgage broker acting on our behalf and capturing a small percentage. So what's the challenge?

There seems to be a certain unwillingness amongst the lending institutions to either understand the programs, or they understand, but without any real short term consequences helping qualified homeowners (besides possible foreclosure), they don't see an upside for them. I think it's funny that these same institutions incentivize the origination of new and refinanced loans but there seems to be a disincentive for loan officers to use these programs - you should hear the change in tone when we ask about refinancing under one of these programs; diagnosed victims of head lice are probably chippier (yes. I looked up chippier and it is a word:). Round and round we've gone with several different departments and uninterested people who seem to exist if only to transfer us to their unhappy cousins in the "I will be uber polite and unhelpful" department. Maybe recent incentives provided to those mortgage lenders who do convert loans and write down principal balances will help some? Anyways, eventually we prevailed and were able to refinance and lower our payments enough to consider renting our home and moving to a Single Family home. Would be nice to sell, but in this market, are you kidding me?

So speaking of the home selling market: why do home builders and sellers in Maryland immediately think that there doing you a favor by selling you a home. Some of the builders and home sellers we've encountered almost seem indignant when we request things like closing cost help and other seller incentives. I get it. 3-4 years ago you had 10 contracts on your home by the time your realtor hit the enter key into the MLS database. Over the last few months we've actually noted a decrease in private home listings in the counties/communities were interested in. New home construction seemed to be the way to go, however all the homes we liked were still going for 2004 prices. Certainly not prices from the top of the housing boom, but definitely not prices reflecting a buyers market. Some sales people have even had the audacity to tell us: "you shouldn't settle on options, if you have better offers then you should take them". Now mind you this isn't a comment resulting from multiple back and forth sessions of negotiations and counter-offers, but in one contract meeting. There wasn't even a suggestion from the salesperson that they could possibly work with us - It wasn't like we were asking for gold-plated faucets. I understand that our area is predicted to weather the economic storm a little better than most U.S. states, but these significant job increases that the media keep reporting are going to arrive, aren't here yet. Well at least the majority aren't. With all the disillusionment we've experienced we've decided to take the following article's advice and wait a little a longer to see how the market turns, after all we've already gotten hosed once.

What's the deal with this housing market?

Team building is vital to productivity

In my current position one of my informal responsibilities is to try to maintain and increase employee morale. My organization believes that there is a correlation between between high employee morale and work productivity, especially in light of some of their challenging work situations. Most of our employees work individually as representatives of our company. They are matrixed as part of a project team normally comprised of many different companies brought together to work on a specific set of customer challenges. As employees working individually for long periods of time we like to ensure that they still feel a part of our organization. I make significant efforts to reach out and contact all the employees on a weekly basis, attempt group outings to professional sporting events, lunches, happy hours etc.. this is often more challenging than it sounds because we have employees from different backgrounds and experiences and finding a common activity that will build team cohesion is daunting. I still find myself meeting some employees one on one because they don't enjoy group setting's (developers are a tricky bunch). I'm soliciting input and attempting to find commonality amongst the group to see what the best types of team building activities are that will be more inclusive.

Part of ensuring that our employees are content with our organization has two purposes: one, to ensure that they remain productive and contributing members of their project team and two, to continue to maintain low employee turnover. It would probably be a poor idea to allow an unhappy employee to remain unhappy while working with teammates from several other companies. One of the hurdles in maintaining morale is that our company can only really impact our employees while the other matrixed teammates are left to hope that the Project Lead will spend time trying to build team cohesion - this often doesn't occur and we end up with the have and have-not's. Inevitably our employees are requested to remain humble and ensure that they continue to serve the clients while building inroads and collaborating with their teammates.

As much time as I spend attempting to build unity, communication and cohesion amongst our matrixed employees I have a serious challenge ahead of me with my own new team. There is disconnect between the client and the Project Team due to some avoidable confrontations in the last few months. As a new member I have the unenviable task of not only selling myself as a valuable, contributing teammate but to also try to repair this fractured relationship with the client and the team. Fortunately I came to the team with a previous rapport with both the client and members of the Project Team. I think that if I remain communicative with both sides and show my willingness to learn, listen and actively contribute to the development of the system I can hopefully ingratiate myself to both groups and repair the damage.

Cloud Computing...

I believe that Cloud Computing technology has the most direct and beneficial application for my current organization. In fact we are currently transitioning to using a cloud approach to providing application services like Microsoft Office tools, files systems and access to certain databases. This approach allows a large and geographically disperse organization to optimize the use of valuable hardware and network resources. As I support the Department of Defense we are afforded the resources necessary to host our own cloud and eliminate the need to pay subscription fees to an external partner. Though each organization does not have to pay for the servers hosting the apllications and storing the data, they are responsible for any new software applications, integration activities, new storage hardware and all licenses. The real value though is the cost savings of installing and maintaining individual CPU's and servers - technicians now remotely access user terminals to either installnew software or troubleshoot malfunctioning software. Other than dropping new network connections or fixing hardware issues such as media drives and power supplies tech's can remain in the central Tech Center and thus less techs are needed for the IT dept.

Real challenges do exist though and they mainly relate to the challenges with integrating software or hardware that isn't a part of the architectural baseline. Small changes require lengthy planning discussions, review boards, integration schedules, readiness reviews and endless amounts of documentation and that's only if the IT group likes your software/hardware. Time is invaluable in our business and these extensive lead times cost a significant amount, and because they are generally inflexible, quick reaction capabilities have to be forced down their throat by senior leadership. Security is also a significant issue, either our organizational restrictions and security constraints hinder the IT group development and integration of custom built applications or the security rules governing why we need certain applications require lengthy explanations - Jeff from Legg Mason mentioned this when we discussing security. IT basically locks down everything and then requires each individual group to explain why they need certain items and that each group acknowledges the risks asscoiated with sending email. Yes. Even why we needed Outlook had to be explained at length.

The new corporate leaders wear camo

Recently I've seen several news pieces touting the warm welcome the corporate world is providing former Junior Officers (Lt.'s and Capt.'s) who have recently left military service. I definitely think this trend is a good one for a new, revitalized, corporate America. I must caveat my blog with the fact that I may be a tad biased because I was prior military, however I think I have some strong points that stand on their own merit.

Recently Gallup polls were used to survey the importance of ethics in the workplace - they surveyed both junior management employees in the corporate world and junior military officers re-entering civilian life. Can you guess which group had over 80% of its respondents strongly agree with the following statement "ethics were more important than profits", and which group had less than 50% agree (only 20% strongly agreed). As a business student I've seen this trend in polls and surveys over the last two years so I'm not surprised, but with the extent of the damage the financial industry inflicted on the U.S. economy based on sketchy lending and insurance practices you'd think the trend would slowly be trending upward.. I'm still waiting. One of the first things we learn in the military are strong core values: core values like honesty, commitment, integrity, duty and loyalty. These values are ingrained and reinforced through continuous training and real-world examples like the battlefield where your actions in the office can lead to possible life and death consequences - can you imagine if the leadership at AIG had thought for a minute that the risk of insuring the risky loans could result in the death of themselves or co-workers they would have taken the risk? I know it sounds extremist but military leaders think about the outcomes for their decisions and action in bigger terms than simple dollars and sense.

It's not that I don't think great leadership can only be found within the ranks of the military, but I think that this background does provide a great training platform for future success. Now I do think, and the articles assert this, the challenges with military officers is learning the corporate culture and subtle ways of conducting business and achieving group consensus vs. the military way of one person telling the team what they're going to do. The military realizes that for their leaders to be successful, not only in their post military life, but also while in service require leaders to be able to become adaptable to changing situations where they may not have direct training or experience along with self-awareness this builds dynamic leaders who don't require direct order to be effective. The above referenced articles state that this common myth about prior military officers is being quickly refute by those recently entering the civilian workforce - these officers feel that have the right experience and ability to motivate employees accustomed to a less formal and direct working style. One former Army Captain now working at Google has never had any direct reports but is still tasked with gathering teams together to work on projects .. he says his experience in the military has taught him how to motivate and get individuals excited about work and new ideas and helps lure developers onto projects. Remaining results focused rather than focusing on protocol also helps bridge the gap between himself and his team.

Is the U.S. Senate Broken?

After watching an interesting new segment on CBS Sunday Morning I'm starting to wonder if any piece of legislation that isn't titled "Humans Breath Oxygen Act", will be signed into law. This, of course, non-withstanding the eventual debate about exactly who gave humans that ability or whose now responsible for maintaining it.. I'm sure some "O2'ers" Senators from the wide open mid-western states will prove to be the swing votes necessary achieve successful passage. The news segment was focused specifically on the increasingly popularity of the parliamentary obstructionist move named the "Filibuster". The filibuster has been hampering the progress of legislation for a millenia, in fact even the famous conqueror Julius Caesar was stopped dead in his tracks by lengthy speeches by Cato the Younger, who applied this technique when blocking the political moves of Caesar.

So the filibuster in our Senate allows for Senators to speak for as long as they want on any topic until debate is ended by 60 or more Senators invoking cloture (hence, this big deal about a super-majority), and ending debate. Well in the famous Capra movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" Jimmy Stewart uses the filibuster to stop political corruption and attack graft in the Senate. It has been traditionally been used to ensure the minority part still has the ability influence legislation - not control it. In the 50's and 60's this tactic was rarely used, throughout the 70's, 80's and 90's it was employed 20-30 times a year on average. Since 2008, when the Democrats took over both the Senate and House the filibuster has been used a total of 118 times... this year we're on track to easily break that 2008 record. Wow ... your probably thinking "that's a lot of speeches and talking", well my friends you would be wrong. There is virtually no talking, other then when then the selected representative of the minority party gets up to the microphone and points out that there aren't enough votes to invoke cloture. No real hard work there. Essentially we've made the ability to interrupt and halt the legislative process easy. Wow I pay $$$ a year to a bunch of clowns to sit around and figure out how not to get things done until 2 years from now when all there hard work (insert biting sarcasm here) will be rewarded and they now possess the majority... ooh but that is meaningless unless it is a "Super-Majority" of 60 who can then push through their legislation - not legislation built through compromise and common ground that protects and provides for all (well, heck, most would be something). Yikes, as citizens we are seemingly rewarding doing nothing. Note I haven't targeted any particular party because ironically the Democrats who are now the target of the Filibuster had the opportunity to end the need for a Super Majority in 2005 when the Republicans (of course tired of being the target themselves) proposed a rule change that would require only a simple majority to invoke cloture. Interestingly enough the Democrats screamed bloody murder about the unfairness of it all.... Now Dem's are the ones proposing to change the rules, what do you think Republicans are saying?

We need to stop rewarding those Senators who refuse to compromise and cross party lines to achieve consenus legislation or I fear will be forever mired in unending debate that will result in one side of every issue being left feeling like they have no voice.

Managing Organizational IT Security

As most of my followers (all 9 of you), may know our most recent subject in class dealt with organizational security. Protecting business from internal and external threats. Our two speakers represented the same organization from two different areas of IT security. Our first speaker was responsible for tackling issues related to Internet fraud, sensitive corporate information being shared, unintentionally or intentionally, and intellectual property issues. The other guest speaker from Legg Mason was charged with the IT infrastructure security - ensuring that IT property and corporate systems are well protected from intrusions, theft and other security issues. Both representing necessary roles within a firm to ensure that the customers, corporate IT systems and the company image are protected.

I found our first speakers role as extremely challenging and difficult for such a small team monitoring such a large spectrum (the World Wide Web) and tackling issues of fraud and blackmail while handling the various language barriers with a small team of virtual novices in a poorly defined role. Their ability to build relationships with the various local, federal and international law enforcement agencies to handle the relatively new frontier of Intellectual Property on the Internet is amazing. She describe how they have to use cleverly designed web crawlers that perform intensive web searches for certain key words that may signal an issue requiring her teams legal expertise to resolve. Additionally, her team seems poised to newly define the role of IT Intellectual Property - the team seems to find new ways to investigate possible leads .. they have no formal training or professional investigators but her team finds a way to discover who is infringing, stealing or blackmailing them while attempting to remain anonymous.. They don't just use the Internet either.. they make phone calls and perform investigative type activities to discover the criminals. Sounded really cool.

The second speaker spoke to us about the need bridge the gap between leadership and the employees and that the ability to understand the real meaning of corporate strategic direction and apply this to your projects and activities. Seems like it's always about bridging the divide between business and IT, right? He also reveled some valuable insight into how organization protect their IT resources, and why. He brought the issue of protecting corporate systems through encryption of virtually every facet of Legg Mason IT: files, external drives, hardware and intranets and corporate websites. He explained that that the security modus operandi of locking down all IT and then requiring employee justification for exceptions isn't based on malice but rather is the more sound approach to ensuring that no IT resource is left vulnerable due to an oversight. Examining each individual port request, website, media accessory and access to file system ensures that risks have been weighed and activity can be tracked. Tracking playing and important part in possible legal issues and allowing firms to accurately assess the extent of a security breach that may result in loss of data or exposure of client information.

The world according to the customer... and of course their always right. Right?

I've recently found myself presented with a new job opportunity - one with great challenges and possibly great rewards. Unfortunately these challenges involve a difficult customer who has ran off three previous occupants of this position. This is a customer who eagerly seeks confrontation and is prone to engineering flights of fancy - i.e. changing already poorly defined requirements for the architected systems at a moments notice or delaying critical design decisions until the last minute.

This customer is of course only one customer on a larger team my organization supports. Customer colleagues have noticed the rapid flight of the best engineers from the project due to the toxic relationship between the development team and, well let's call him Mr. X, yet they are seemingly powerless to remove him because of his position within his organization and because our firm refuse to expose the turmoil within the team because of the fear of reprisal in either the form of this customer simply moving to another position where he can influence decisions regarding contracts or if the customer organization decides to retain this individual in his current position. So now the customer team is attempting to stem the tide of exiting engineers by providing generous incentives to ensure the remaining team stays put. The customer team is rightly concerned that if team members continue to exit that continuity and the current delivery schedule will suffer. I'm sure bribing our developers and engineers is the appropriate way to ensure team cohesion and productivity.

Well of course I'm tickled pink that the team lead has selected me to help rebuild the developer customer relationship - of course the big hurdle can't be tackled directly (Mr. X) and thus I have to figure a way to maneuver around him and still meet the software delivery schedule. Your guess is as good as mine. This brings to light the issues with organizations who feel certain individuals have some inalienable right to employment; they have the right to manipulate, distract, delay, and generally annoy with impunity. Why do organizations tolerate this, why is management so fearful of direct confrontation - I mean.. we all don't work for the Postal Dept. right? There's a culture of tolerance (which is normally great...unless your talking about tolerating bad behavior), which creates these tense moments during technical meetings and project reviews where you wait to see who the next engineer is who breaks down and decides to seek better opportunities.. I hope I have the ability to negotiate and broker the deals necessary for the team to advance and continue to be productive.... but hey If I do decide to quit I may receive a generous bribe to stick around... Win/Win!

I often wonder, from a quantitative perspective how much time and resources have been spent to simply mitigate and lessen the impact this individual has had on this project? All of which could have been avoided by his management simply having a talk with this person, providing a warning or even providing some guidance on how to behave? Can you imagine what this individuals direct reports have to tolerate on a regular basis - why haven't they spoken up? According to the an article regarding bad behavior that managers who are held accountable for the behavior "tend to more actively promote fairness within their organizations", and "when organizations make managers accountable for promoting fairness they stop enabling individuals who confuse power with effectiveness or pursue financial ends at any all costs"... wow that pretty much sums up what I feel in this scenario. Organizations really think that avoiding these difficult subjects and issues will make it go away... really ..really? In denial much.

Death of the written word

Hello my digital followers...

Have you all heard that ink/pencil to paper is an outmoded means of communication? I mean look at where I'm entering this information... this used to be the equivalent of the personal diary. Now I type away and if popular my personal feelings regarding any subject can be shared with millions. I read an article in Fortune magazine recently that declared the future of reading is in the digital form. It extolled the virtues of digital media and its ability to be portable, shareable and easily accessible, but how do you sell it? Not just from a journalistic subscription standpoint - I mean can you imagine people paying $0.25 for access to the Washington Post for 2-3 hours? Ok, let's move beyond that aspect and get back to the comfort people have with the tangible qualities of pen to paper. Would you feel comfortable having all legal documents signed via a digital PKI certificate... I think there's a certain uneasiness with this thought, but people are becoming comfortable with wireless banking transactions - avoiding paper money entirely, so why not get rid of all forms of the written word and save some trees right? Certain banks have already begun to scan all paper checks deposited and then retain the digital copies which they send to customer via email (PDF.. got to love it). The funny part is that the entire burgeoning growth of free digital media and digital content was being pushed forward on the wings of promotional marketing (on-line ads). Well the interesting thing is that marketing research has shown that printed ads actually results in greater revenue because it sticks with readers longer - the blitz of media sponsored digital content has overwhelmed readers and become background clutter, white noise so to speak. People like the flexibility/portability of digital media but they trust paper and ink. Is this some innate personal connection from childhood or does this rest with some type of intrinsic human need to believe in what we can feel, touch and interact with - including information.

According to the Fortune article this doesn't necessarily mean that people don't want to read or access information online, but they just don't want lots of it (long-form journalism is considered impossible for some writers), readers seem to prefer short summarized articles and even in the business circles financial investors worry that financial media journals like The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times will fall apart and the critical and in-depth pieces of journalism that allow investors to draw conclusions about the information may disappear to be replaced by the Equivalent of financial Tweets. I mean can you imagine the end result: "Like I heard a wicked rumor that J&J will not meet financial earnings..LOL" follow me on Flitter for more info in 200 characters or less... The article suggests that the savior for news and information could actually be... well a digital one. The digital readers which spend a considerable amount of time attempting to resemble paper in its original form ... a simple direct approach that allows you to do something that yes ... could possibly be free if you find your article online or your book at a peer-to-peer site, but is it convenient and direct. No. People are lazy and if you offer them a cheaper, at least from a time perspective, way to receive their information they will pay for it. Something that may be challenging to receive free (think of all the registrations you have to go through to read an article.. the ads that interrupt your reading or the inability to trust the excerpts from a third-party provider). Still there are those who love the feel of a page of paper and revel in the gloss of a photo spread, but can't this too be replicated to some extent digitally?

In business it's already become a thing of the past for someone to write down notes or send inter-office memos and even the bulletin boards in the break room have been replaced with dynamically updated information on HD TV monitors (at least where I work). Oddly enough the only group not comfortable with the thought of replacing the written word are those involved with contracts and other legal issues in business. The thought that making your X could be done with a trusted key seems to really unnerve folks (well at least my Dad who thinks that cybercriminals are specifically targeting his personal stash of can't fail investment strategies and Grandmas ultimate brownie recipe). Security seems to be the final hurdle that needs to be overcome prior to regulatory and legal approval of digital forms of contracts and other legal documents because truth be told the cost benefit analysis has been done and the cost-savings of eliminating stack and stacks of paper is there in some would say "black and white".

Social Networking and it's potential for disruption

Does anyone remember the beginning's of the Internet era and the old electronic Bulletin Boards where people would post messages to topics and threads for other users to comment and share. These legacy (Well, GeoCities, Tripod) sites were the forerunners of current social networking sites and were mainly a mechanism for personal communications and were devoid of media, and robust linking technologies that allowed people to connect easier. Social Networking tools have now become a way of life for virtually all individuals who use the Internet - even if they aren't aware of it. Many sites that are used for simply sharing photos (like Flickr) are considered social networking tools due to their ability to link profiles and tag photos that allow users to reach other people and photos that have similar characteristics. If you like photos of ducks you can search for other duck photos and find users who take photos of ducks and post your duck photos you want to share... crazy duck people. Certain sites like Classmates.com have a large and diverse user base of people simply looking to connect with old school chum via the sharing of email addresses have been around for years and have recently begun to expand their capabilities to shift to a more traditional social site by allowing personalized pages and linking to blogs, websites and allowing customization of a user page. I know my dad uses classmates but if made the link between Facebook and Classmates he would scoff and assert there is a distinction, but is their really?

So what in little baby Jesus name could the problem with the social sites? Well I guess the biggest challenge is ensuring that your information isn't used against you - either professionally or privately. There is a certain amount of misplaced trust people place in these sites because of the thought that only the information I share will be seen by only those people I designate. This could be true to some extent if your wise enough to take advantage of security that may built into a program but isn't activated by default - i.e. you have to consciously decide what additional security you want on any of the social websites. Most people just quickly zoom through the fine print and want to get to the fun - only to discover that they should have left off their social security number and bank account when they asked for money from their parents for an extended spring break in Cancun (i.e. bail money) via their Facebook or twitter account. Now they're back in the states and their family and friends are being hit up for emergency money again becuase they've been robbed while on vacation in London - never mind that they've been banned from the UK since that notorious incident at the Coldplay concert at Wembley Stadium - again apologies to the Queen and that poor security guard with the very large hat that may have been used as a lavatory (they courts will decide this one). Point being that the information posted innocently was surreptitiously used to try to defraud family and friends. So how much information is too much. Well obviously some common sense should be used - don't post sensitive information about your life, including your address, phone number, bank accounts haha and even innocuous things like high school attended or workplace on a public profile - heck you probably shouldn't do it on a private profile because you never know who your friends will show it to. I think the important thing to remember is that your posting your information on the Internet - yes all of the Internet as far as I'm concerned. Yes, you can place some protections in place against your average yahoo or clown from high school but those savvy Nigerian/Russian scammers with large uncollected sums of money in Swiss numbered accounts will still find a way.

This brings us to the second part to the privacy discussion - unintended disclosure of work-related information on these sites. Often people reveal information that typically is quickly forgotten or disregarded in casual conversation with friends and family but when posted to a site where potential adversaries or competitive rivals may use the information to glean valuable intelligence. "Hey honey I'm going to be late to dinner because the Johnson case is probably going to take longer than I anticipated", or "Hey guys I'm going to be late for drinks because we think we have another great idea for the Nike advertising account"...this information doesn't appear to be damaging but in the right light it could reveal critical information that could prove to be a real advantage to competitors or rivals?

Electronic Document retention

Well this particular topic has quite a bit of personal connection for me - electronic document retention and this impacts the IT departments in businesses. Several years ago a family member became involved in a legal dispute with their employer. The family formally filed a complaint and was thus legally protected at the time from retaliation, persecution and job termination; however after waiting several months they decided to terminate his position. Being keenly aware of the termination tactics employed by this organization (which were pretty slick actually). The organization would inform an employee that they would need to see an HR representative located in an adjacent building to their own (regardless of where their actual HR representative was located). I have a point, I swear. This ruse would provide the firms IT and security team the opportunity to inventory, scan and remove any items they determined were Intellectual Property or work product of the firm - this was often anything that could be construed to be potentially damaging to the firm: electronic documents, emails, chat records, paper documents and even sometimes personal documents in briefcases, backpacks and other items in employee offices. Having been tipped off by another sympathetic employee, this family member (will call him Mr. X) quietly excused himself from the HR rep sent to escort him by requesting some time to use the restroom. The HR rep provided him with directions to the room and then left - fully expecting him to proceed directly behind them. Instead Mr. X quickly gathered all of his personal items and documents and proceeded to his vehicle. Before being able to depart Mr. X was confronted by a member of the security team who attempted to remove his personal items from Mr. X. Mr. X stated the items were his personal belongings and that any attempt to remove them could be construed as assault. Security was not content with this rebuff (again I swear this all is relevant) and called in a code red to the local law enforcement - code red's are reserved for ... well you guessed it really bad and possibly violent confrontations (angry employees, gun-toting maniacs ..etc) not disagreements with employees over documents. As the officer who arrived on the scene stated "it's not like his carrying a computer out of here". The officer requested the organization identify what they considered to be work product or intellectual property - the security team couldn't positively state that any items belonged to the organization, then they were promptly chastised by the officer for calling in a code red and the officer asked Mr. X if he would like to file an assault charge against the security team for attempting to grab the personal items from him and preventing Mr. X from departing. The moral of the story was that the firm had no document retention policies that would've enabled them to accurately identify missing items in this type of situation, thus avoiding confrontation because there would've been copies and accurate accounting of items - electronic and paper.

By applying policies regarding where personal vs. organizational documents and emails are stored, either electronically or paper document storage , requiring documents, emails and chats be appropriately labeled will contribute to avoiding confusing circumstances regarding what is and isn't proprietary information. This particular case became even more complicated when during the legal negotiations (discovery process) the firm stated that personal notes and items being introduced during the meetings should be classified as proprietary or sensitive work product thus mitigating its ability to damage the defendant (them). In order to provide some level of legal guidance for organizations seeking to formulate or revise their policies the American Bar Association (ABA) has devised a sample policy. Although Mr. X's particular case did set some legal precedent I reference another case "Zubulake vs. UBS Warburg LLC" were Mrs. Zubulake who was filing a gender discrimination case was awarded 30 million after the courts found that UBS deleted emails and other communications from the organization that affirmed her claims, on the other side in Teague vs. Target, Target had the case dismissed because Mrs. Teague destroyed her personal computer she used for working from home prior to the defendant, Target, having the opportunity to seek material pertinent to their case (during discovery). If you take a look the ABA link I posted you'll see that it carefully describes what types of documents are considered be under subject to the retention and tracking guidelines and requires employees to acknowledge they understand and agree by signing. Also take the steps necessary to devise an auditing, acceptable use, destruction and classification of all Electronically Stored Information (ESI) - that's the official term for anything not printed or scribbled on paper. In the end the courts determined in Mr. X's case that unless the firm could identify how the documents in question were intellectual property or how their disclosure in court could impact the confidentiality of clients (work product) i.e. tell us why you think these emails and other electronic documentation is related directly to your firms business and is un-related to this case - which it wasn't. The firm settled out of court for an undisclosed amount (the details are sealed...).

System Egineering challenges: I talk to the developers so the customers don't have to.

I find myself working between customers who are super intelligent mathematician's and super intelligent, very capable developers - so what's the problem you may ask, it's getting these two parties to understand basic Systems Engineering (SE) and development principles. I begin with the words "Requirements", "CM" or delivery schedules and it makes these two sides of the aisle cringe. They change the topic of conversation to when can we get the capability under development deployed within the larger corporate systems - "we'll never know what it can do until we have in the system". I've actually learned new terms that have been invented to circumvent traditional engineering processes. Terms like "toxicity testing", this basically means we'll test the product just enough to ensure it doesn't break the larger system or severely impact other components. My favorite is the colloquialism "Code and Pray" that implies that agile development can only be successful if you can view the initial operation and deployment of a product from a hardened bunker. I've never felt so inadequate in a work scenario - I spend most of my time trying to convince my organization about the value of what I bring and how process and planning are integral for long term sustainment of operational systems.

When I began to work in my current organization we were staffed with 14 SE's and about 100 Math/Computer Science engineers and nearly double that in developers. The organization had just sustained a massive systems failure to one of the core data warehouses due to years of patching and applying makeshift code to continue life support to a custom built, non-scalable, non-supportable (no interface documentation or consistent logistics support). Yet the recognized failures in SE practices did not dissuade them from shedding the repressive bonds of industry best practices and the cut our SE staff to 7 and boosted developers by and equal number. The theory being that now that the developers were not encumbered by all our restrictions, testing requirements and documentation generation rapid development would proceed. Wow... they just didn't get it. They spent months in Tiger Teams to analyze and document the circumstances surrounding the failure and although the recognition that certain CM and architecture level development and integration may have prevented this each organization just couldn't bring themselves to slow down and do the necessary pre-work to ensure long-term continuity of operations. Probably because my organization values actual delivery of new products and services and not how long they continue to run efficiently. Pretty hard to justify spending a year talking and writing I guess. I mean it's hard to try to convince management to just imagine how much we could save if the systems continued to operate with problems or delays - quantification of this benefit is challenging and without a strong champion I guess I'm out of luck. So I continue to try inject simple SE practices without actually labeling it as such. Everyone once in awhile during the infrequent meetings where no one takes notes or offers suggestions .. or heck has an agenda... I slip one in and get caught. Then there are the traditional jokes, scoffing and uncomfortable glances. I really would like someone in leadership to make it known that that SE and formal processes need to be taken seriously - We need a champion to carry the message and enforce the practices throughout each project before we experience another major systems failure.

Theory Y vs. X

Fellow Bleary-eyed bloggers I'm back again, to kick some old-school science on the IT/Management subject and hopefully engage and entertain - folks please remember this is a blog not a forum for pieces of your life thesis - i.e free format characteristics are appreciated. I know we have a tendency in business school to write everything as if its being presented to a client. You can still write blog-style without appearing to be a high-functioning

Soooo we had a guest speaker this week in class - I love guest speakers BTW, its pretty cool to hear from different people about interesting aspects of their work lives - does that make me like a work-oriented voyeur? Probably not, because that would imply I sneak into other peoples classes to observe their guest speakers.. right? Sorry for the sidebar but I'm like puppy in that way.... All salivary glands... no focus. So our guest speakers topic was a subject near and dear to my heart - the stages of employee development and a a distinguished theory regarding the different types for management.

Basically there is this management theory developed by Douglas McGregor in his 1960 book "The Human Side of Enterprise" that says there are two types of managers in business - those who think everyone hates their job and needs motivation by reward and punishment and they only work fro money and job security i.e. your employees would rather be doing anything else besides working for you and first chance they get they'll shank you in the breakroom over the last Diet Coke in the vending machine (Theory X). On the opposite side of the fence McGregor states there are those managers who believe that work can be as fun as drinking with your frat brothers... Theory Y introduces the notion that if work is challenging and stimulating to the individual then they can align their goals with the organization and they won't require the old carrot/stick method to get work done.

Sioux (our guest speaker) made an interesting point when she stated that a lot of Theory Y goes back to something I covered in last weeks blog about Generation Y (not a coincidence I guess) - motivation in work and how managers can better achieve it. When we talked about the MBA graduates who stated they valued increased responsibility and self direction in their work over monetary compensation that jived directly with Theory Y. Sioux (like me) thinks that Theory Y involves engaging your employees and determining what type of work activities really get them motivated. Figure out if they're better suited to other positions our projects within your organization and make sure their personality gels with job - you might get more out of them and they may work harder and better because of their interest and appreciation.

Is it simply Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or do post Gen X employees need to be challenged more?

So I was recently involved in a pretty entertaining discussion regarding the different challenges and dynamics involved with managing and leading groups of employees of differing generational groups. Of course we covered what the characteristics were of each group: Gen Y'ers .. (they couldn't think of a cooler name for these crazy kids... oh yeah, that's right they've had like five.. Generation Next, MTV Generation, "The Echo Boomers"...a play on Baby Boomer's, The Millennials, The Net Generation, and finally .. The Boomerang Generation...so that's like six actually), possess an innate ability to ... not move out of their parents houses, blend in quietly and stop using electronic media for 10 seconds to reach out and communicate about ...everything. My humorous take on Gen Y aside, this unique generation born (1977 - 1999/2000 depending on your source), in a time of revolutionary technology explosion carried on the back of the Internet has some great qualities as well: a pesky need to abandon petty cultural, religious and societal difference and are generally more accepting and tolerant then their predecessors... to be commended for sure. I focus mainly on this group from a management perspective because, well, the following generation generally are only working in Third World sweatshops ... so I'm assuming motivation is generally based on the bottom of Maslow's pyramid of needs. These lively youths born to follow the ingeniously named "Generation Y", are simply called Gen Z.

Gen Z is composed of ...uhhm well ... very little yet? Most have yet to reach 18 based on the clearly defined line of generational demarcation. That's why I'm going to focus on "The Next Generation"...of employees.

A recent poll performed by a founding director of MIT's largest internship discovered some interesting trends amongst those Gen Y's being recruited into the work place... they sought above all.. freedom .. freedom to be unsure of what they want to do.. see I told you they wanted to be special.. Gen Y'ers want their work to be meaningful, they want a sense of responsibility, to be engaged and challenged and a clear path towards choice... they will not accept pigeonholing. This brings me to the interesting discussion I had with a classmate regarding what I cavalierly construed was Gen Y's inability to focus, concentrate and be at peace with their life because of the constant barrage of technology presented to them from birth. I spoke of my observation of parents plopping children in front of TV's at a young age. More recently I've seen parents carrying a Radio Shack assortment of portable TV's, DVD players and gaming consoles into restaraunts and malls - technology babysitters as it were. Additionally, the enormous amount of programming and devices marketed to children in the last two decades has been astounding - can't understand why people wonder what's going on with the fitness level of our children. Obvioulsy this is no way a scientific study or analysis - rather my personal musings and frustration when I encounter these brilliant, jittery and uncomfortable in a four hour meeting youngsters from Gen Y in the workplace.

Back to the class discussion; this young lady astutely pointed out (now I think it was astute, before I just thought she was wrong...j/k), that when I say the Gen Y'ers have some environmentally conditioned ADD, maybe I should consider the possibility that they have simply not been challenged enough. This generation can multi-task like nobodies business (offspring of intensively colorful and challenging video games... perhaps) and that simple tasks in the early phases of their work experience bore them... they feel like they can contribute so much more and have talents that need matching to current organizational problems - one of the points of the above referenced article was that "The Millenials" need coaching and open-ended mentoring that allows some unlimited problem solving with limited decision making... this is what the new crop of employees are seeking to satiate their expanding minds. This was their number one reason for choosing a particular position over another not, apparently as HR groups thought, flexible-hours, Starbucks Wednesdays and corporate gym's with free weekly massages (actually I would choose this above all but, of course, I'm a Gen-Xer). Sooo dear classmate, I stand slightly corrected as the evidence proves...

What is the deal with all the farmville/pillowfight things on Facebook

What happened to the good ole days of just contacting friends and keeping up with each others personal and work lives? Who invented these ridiculous applications. What purpose do they serve? Are they trying to spread the word about farms and farming? I mean is that the real intention. Is that what the pointless pillow fight application is trying to do as well.. spread the word about the demise of the down pillow. Facebook did themselves a disservice by allowing these applications to run on their site and basically distract from it's core customers (college students and young professionals). Now it's becoming passe' and outdated and young people are now seeking out the new cool and exclusive site to share their thoughts without fear of being turned into a pillow throwing farmer or being chastised by grandma for getting drunk or taking slightly distasteful photos... that's what young should be allowed to do without fear of repercussions lasting through the rest of their lives...

Social networking should really be split into three main categories: Family interaction, outreach... professional networking sites and personal/school and socially oriented sites.
I like the mechanism that Facebook initially employed to limit access: having a .edu email address. The same could be applied to professional websites to narrow the focus of the activities and ensure some level of enjoyment in performing web-enabled social interactions - with having a semblance of security. Lendors are even performing social network voyeurism to determine credit worthiness? This has basically devolved into a way to peek into your private life - why bother even applying for the credit.. just send a link to your Facebook account and make it easy on them... thoughts