June 2008 - Carnival of Trust

 

 

Welcome to June 2008's Carnival of Trust.  This is the one-year anniversary edition of the carnival so Happy Birthday everyone!!!

My name is Clarke Ching and I am your host for this month.  I am a New Zealander and I now live in Scotland with my lovely Irish wife and our two wee Scottish daughters.  I'm an independent consultant and my professional mission in life is to spice up IT, or more specifically, to make software development a far happier (and far more profitable) place.  Right now I'm buzzing with excitement because I'm putting the finishing touches on my business novel Rolling Rocks Downhill - think Goldratt's "The Goal" but set in commercial software development, rather than a factory - and it's going to be published later this year.   I did think of naming the book "The Davinci Coder", but was talked out of it by people far wiser than I am. It is possible that the book will be subtitled Trust Based Software Development but the jury is still out. 

My wife thinks my photo above is horrible btw.  I think she's right but I'm not going to admit that to her, so you're stuck with it - sorry.  I also apologise for the spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical errors below; I'm just not good at copy editing.  I hope you don't think less of me ...

Trust in Software Development

My industry is a paradox.  Think of all the stuff in your modern life which requires software - the banking system, your credit card, your word processor, your electricity supply, the braking systems in your car(s), the Internet, your grandfather's pacemaker, your fancy stereo speakers, the hospital equipment which keeps you alive, the security system which allows you into the office each day and keeps the bad guys out  - and then imagine how different your life would be if you couldn't trust those things to run smoothly and reliably day after day.  Stop for a moment and Imagine that all of those computers suddenly stopped working ... and you'll get an idea of how much trust you place in the ability of the millions of software development professionals quietly typing away around the world. 

Now let your mind wander back to your work life.  Odds are that since you are reading this then you wear a (metaphoric) white collar to work and that software features in your work life.  Perhaps you use software in your work; maybe you work with software teams who develop the software; possibly you even sell the software your business produces.  Does the software ever suck?  Is it ever hard to use?  How come there are so many bugs?  How come software projects - which you depend upon to do your work - are late so often? There're all sorts of stats which say that we are a very unreliable profession.  We make promises that we don't keep.  All the time. 

So there's the paradox: we make generally trustworthy products, but very few of our customers trust the promises we make.  The good news is that some of us think we've figured out how to make great promises which we can keep.  So that's where we start: 4 blog entries/articles about trust in software development.

1.  I decided to start with one of my heroes - Jerry Weinberg.  I can't think of anyone more respected - or trusted - in the software development world.  Jerry has wonderful advise for consultants in The Consultant's Money-Back Guarantee. 

... 1. At the end of every consulting visit, I ask them to evaluate the worth of my contribution. If it's not worth more than they paid me, we either adjust what I'm doing or we terminate the relationship.

2. If they don't feel what I've done is worth what they've paid, they can have their money back, no questions asked. I make sure they know this up front--though I've never had to give back their money.

If a consultant doesn't give you both these things, don't hire them...

[My thanks to deep-thinking David Peterson for the link]

2.   Last year David Anderson advised us to "Stop Negotiating, Start Collaborating" in this article first published in the Cutter Journal.  It's a very good article - important to anyone working in project work, software related or otherwise.  I wonder if David was ... perhaps ... being a little deliberately provocative with his title.  Can we ever stop negotiating while we've got people involved?  I prefer to think that there are two different ways of negotiating: as adversaries or as collaborators. 

3.  Okay ... now for something more technical, but let me warm you up a little before you click.  Almost a dozen years ago I managed a project which replaced an old antiquated cheque processing system.  It was a big project with dozens of people working on it and it was very successful, but things got a bit hairy near the end of the project.  A few weeks before we were due to finish the project an operator using the old system - the one we were replacing - made a very simple mistake on a very busy night and her manager, who was also busy, never picked it up because, in the rush, she skipped the reconciliation process.  Two days later the manager noticed that over a million dollars was missing, lost and gone forever.  Two weeks later the manager - a delightful and loyal employee, in her 50s - was fired. 

A week people started asking "will this particular problem happen in the new system?" and we came under huge scrutiny just before we were due to go live.  You can bet that we made sure our new system definitely couldn't fail in the same way.  That said ... the system which lost the money had been running over a decade without failing.  My rather belaboured point is that building software is a hugely complex task and we can never be sure if we get it 100% right.

So ... do you trust the software you use?  Dennis E. Hamilton discusses the trustworthiness of software systems in this (rather technical) blog post. 

[BTW: The Lady who lost her job's name was Lorna.  She was lovely.  She worked hard, but was put under enormous pressure by her bosses who'd recently cut staff numbers, she skipped an important step in order to keep her job - and lost her job.]

4.  Earlier this year Linda Rising wrote an article for infoq.com which questioned the use of the "prime directive" in retrospectives.  Many project managers will conduct retrospectives during and following a project, with the intention of figuring out how to do better in future.  One way of avoiding retrospective meetings breaking down into unproductive blame sessions is by starting with a discussion of the Prime Directive, which says:

"Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job he or she could, given what was known at the time, his or her skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand."

Some people buy into the prime directive easily, others don't.  I've included this article in today's carnival because I think it is easier to trust people and to be trusted by people if you believe that others have the best intentions and try to do their best job, that is, if you believe the prime directive.  I learned a simpler version from Eli Goldratt which has stuck with me through the years.  He says that one of the 3 basic assumptions of his theory of constraints is that "people are good".  If you believe it then you will view the world entirely differently to those who don't.

5.And now for something completely different.  If you don't know Charles Green then he's the guy behind the Carnival of Trust.  He's also author of one of the best books I've ever read Trust-based Selling.  I can't tell you how many people I've recommended that book to.  I think Trust Based Selling should be required reading for anyone who works in a technical role, such as software development, and feels at all squeamish about the commercial side of their work.  Charles has a delightful little post this week about the importance of Levity and Laughter. 

Now that's a proper photo, Charles!

 

6.  The author of stochasticresonance - real name unknown- has a nice discussion of one of my favourite books, Patrick Lencioni's  The five dysfunctions of a team.  The author writes, "The basis of trust is truth. If everyone can focus on the truth, then trust becomes a non issue."  I like the idea in theory ... but it's not so easy in practice.  Never, for instance, tell advise your boss that her bum does, in fact, look big in that ...

7. Gavin Ingham says that consistency is important for sales and business success.  I particularly enjoyed this one because it's so down to earth and easy to empathise with.  Click and you'll see what I mean.

8.  Graham Hill wonders if all this talk of relationships is confusing to customers.

But as we all know to our cost, few businesses have built relationships with their customers successfully. Not successfully from their customers' perspective that is ...

You know ... I think he's got a point - do you really want to have a "relationship" with your bank?   Go have a read.  It made me think more than I thought and it didn't hurt my poor head either.  Nice stuff Graham.

9.  Mila D'Antonio, lists 4 rules for Building Trust from Joe Healy, author of Radical Trust: How Today's Leaders convert People to Trust, including this one:

"2. Empower the people behind the brand.   Google is an example of a company where it’s not about the brand—it’s about the people behind the brand who have built trust". 

The people at Google may all be hugely brainy and hugely ambitious, but have you noticed that they rarely commit to anything?  If you use any of their products you almost always find out about new features when they are already working.  When you get them, they work well and you are pleasantly surprised.  You're not disappointed when what you get doesn't quite match what they promised ... because they never promised anything.  Healy is right that it is the people that make the difference, but it's also the process that the people use.  Could you work in a way that is more trustworthy?

10.  Finally, I want to finish with a blog entry which I found by accident.  Hmm, "accident" is not the right word.  I sat down at my PC this morning and it was there on a firefox tab and I don't remember ever opening it.  Go figure.  Shawn, on the Anecdote blog, writes about cooperation and the tragedy of the commons which is what happens when individuals compete for the use of a share a resource and, in their attempts to self-optimise they sub-optimise the use of the resource, sometimes destroying it.  Think of depleted fish reserves, for example. Shawn points to an article from the Washington Post which rather nicely talks about Obama, Clinton and the tragedy of the commons and notes that, "the only way to prevent tragedies of the commons is to set up structures in advance that reward long-term thinking and punish short-term selfishness. This happens mostly among competitors who share long-term interests and have social relationships of trust ..."

So there you have it!  I can tell you that this hasn't been easy for me.  I started with dozens of very good articles and blog entries and manage to whittle them down to just 10.  I hope you've enjoyed the selection.  Thanks for your time.

The July Carnival of Trust with be hosted by BossaBlog (http://bossanovaconsulting.com/bossablog/).  If you'd like to have your material appear in a future Carnival of Trust, please submit your blog posting here.  And if you're still hankering for more Trust Carnival, the prior editions can be found on the Carnival homepage.

Comments

[Shaula Evans]

Clark, it is a pleasure to learn more about the man behind the blog.

Speaking as a wife myself, the thing about wives and photographs is that we know just how handsome our husbands really are, and so we have little patience with photos that fail to do them justice. I suspect this may be the case with your wife and your photo.

When you are getting ready to get professional headshots for your book release, I highly recommend "The Actor's Picture / Resume Book" by Jill Charles with Tom Bloom, as a really excellent resource to help you prepare to make the most of your photo shoot. (In the edition I own, the sample photos are now extremely dated, but the information remains relevant and very helpful.)

Thanks for a GREAT edition of the carnival. I'm heading back to read the articles again more thoroughly, after having forwarded the link to several software developer friends. I particularly enjoyed reading about the broad topic of trust from your specialized perspective in software development.

Best wishes to you on your upcoming book!

Shaula

[Gerald M. Weinberg]

Clarke,
I'm honored that you started this fine essay by quoting my policy on refunds, as I'm sure the other authors are honored to be quoted by you. You've done a super job. - Jerry

[Andrew Shafer]

Clarke,

I write stochasticresonance.wordpress.com and I appreciate the link love. My name is not on the blog, so I understand that you didn't have it. (my name is available from prominent links)

I think you have slightly oversimplified my commentary on 'trust'.

Trust in software is complicated because humans are complicated.

Trust is also very much about how a message is delivered.

'Focusing on truth' is not just about pointing out flaws, because if that is all you do, then the 'truth' is you are just being an ass.

Thanks again for the link and I encourage people to read all the 'Dysfunction' posts. I hope people find the them thought provoking and coherent enough to be useful.

Andrew