17. Machiavelli (not exactly )
It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult
to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more
dangerous to handle than to initiate a new SharePoint
project; for the project team has enemies in all those
who profit by the old portal, and only lukewarm
defenders in all those who would profit by the new
portal; this lukewarmness arising partly from the
incredulity of mankind who does not truly believe in
anything new until they actually have experience of it.
66. What are wicked problems? (recap)
• You don’t really understand the problem until
you’ve developed the solution
• You don’t know when you’ve accomplished your goal
• Solutions are not right or wrong, they are just better
or worse
• Every wicked problem is unique
• Every solution to a wicked problem is a one-shot
operation
• You are dealing with social complexity
83. “Card sorting is a great, reliable,
inexpensive method for finding patterns
in how users would expect to find
content or functionality.”
- Donna Spencer
http://www.amazon.com/Card-Sorting-ebook/dp/B004VFUOL0
One of the key fundamental goals behind everything we are going to see today is to get to shared understanding. That is: get everyone involved to understand what the goals are and what path we’re going to take to get there.
These visual and tactile methods have been found to really help you get there
Let me start with an illustration of why shared understanding is so important and how it applies to the type of problems we work with
Our project is to build a bridge… so here’s a bridge
But so is this,
Or this…
Even this is a bridge
Our stakeholders are excited about this project!
We’ve agreed that we need a bridge!
But, if one person pictures a giant steel roadway bridge, others a covered bridge and one simple stepping stones… then…
Our odds of success are low – in-fact, I’d say zero
And that means that our project goes down the … um… drain
So, we need to get everyone onto the same page
Why is this so important?
Because SharePoint falls into the category of “Wicked Problems”
[I first learned this term from Paul Culmsee of Seven Sigma, Australia’s leading expert in problem wickedness and its solutions]
A moon-shot is a hard problem, but it can be stated clearly and simply: Take a man to the moon, bring him back alive
Cure poverty: That’s a wicked problem. We can’t even agree on who’s poor, what poverty means, and how to know if we’ve been successful.
And, when we’re working on TRYING to solve this, solutions are not right or wrong, they are just better or worse.
SharePoint is wicked with a capital “W”.
This is because of the social complexity that SharePoint brings
- You want to fundamentally change the way people do their jobs… and that leads to wickedness
Our stakeholders are excited about this project!
We’ve agreed that we need a bridge!
But, if one person pictures a suspension bride, others a covered bridge and one simple stepping stones… and…
Some of whom, won’t talk to each other.
OUR CHANCES OF SATISFACTION ARE ZERO
This is social complexity impacting the success of a technology project
Why is this so hard and dangerous
Everyone hates the current portal
Can’t find anything
Not sure if content is valid
BUT
- They do know where some stuff is, and this was hard-won knowledge and change to something that won’t be better – just different – is not what they’re looking forward to.
NEEDS WORK
Now, the team working on the new portal has a different state of mind:
They are envisioning a fantastic future state and foresee a climb, but the slope isn’t too severe – this is the ‘path of hope’.
What they don’t realize is that their immediate rise in Optimistic Excitement is followed by a steep fall into the valley of despair.
There are dangerous creatures there – ready to devour your proeject.
But, once the reality of the project sets in
The valley of despair is a dangerous place, with creatures that have their own agendas ready to ‘eat’ your project
set up multiple phases toward the eventual future goal, rather than trying to reach that peak in
one step, because it is only once you start the journey that you will discover the issues and roadblocks
that are going to make the project much harder than it seemed at the start.
Even though it is useful to break the project into phases, it is very important that you do your initial
planning with the ultimate goal in mind so that you don’t paint yourself into a corner by designing a solution that
gets you to the end of phase 1 or 2, but that needs a lot of rework or workarounds to reach the true, final goal.
It’s hard enough to get to success, to get adoption, to build the right thing.
Do you know the best way to avoid making a design error in what you build?
DON BUILD IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Start simple – get some success and then grow from there.
To have any chance of success, you MUST have everyone pulling in the same direction
This is a platitude – everyone knows this. The question is “How do we do this!”
One of the key fundamental goals behind everything we are going to see today is to get to shared understanding. That is: get everyone involved to understand what the goals are and what path we’re going to take to get there.
These visual and tactile methods have been found to really help you get there
Let me start with an illustration of why shared understanding is so important and how it applies to the type of problems we work with
A lot of doing this job well comes down to soft skills:
- Listening
- Honesty
- Humour
You need to be perceived as the leader of your project, and the team, the stakeholders and the customers must have confidence in you.
This does not mean that you have to pretend to know all the answers when you don’t. You can say ‘i’ll get back to you’.
But you can’t be uncertain about every question.
If you THINK you may be right, answer confidently. When you do a follow-up check – if it turns out that you’re wrong – you can follow up and explain why you changed your answer.
You have to come to terms with the fact that, despite all the books and blogs out there, each circumstance is different, and you’ll need to be able choose your own path without a clear map of correct and incorrect.
One of my favorite bloggers is Bob Sutton of the Stanford Design School. In one of his posts he writes
about Paul Saffo of the Palo Alto Institute for the Future who taught that leaders must have strong opinions. Weak
opinions are uninspiring and don’t motivate people to test them or argue passionately for them. But, it is also
important not to be too strongly wedded to your ideas, because it prevents you from seeing or hearing evidence
that contradicts your opinions. So to be a strong and wise leader you need to have strong opinions, but you need to
be ready to move off those opinions when the evidence requires it. This is summed up in the phrase that you
should take to heart: Strong opinions, weakly held.
You need to be perceived as the leader of your project, and the team, the stakeholders and the customers must have confidence in you.
This does not mean that you have to pretend to know all the answers when you don’t. You can say ‘i’ll get back to you’.
But you can’t be uncertain about every question.
If you THINK you may be right, answer confidently. When you do a follow-up check – if it turns out that you’re wrong – you can follow up and explain why you changed your answer.
You have to come to terms with the fact that, despite all the books and blogs out there, each circumstance is different, and you’ll need to be able choose your own path without a clear map of correct and incorrect.
One of my favorite bloggers is Bob Sutton of the Stanford Design School. In one of his posts he writes
about Paul Saffo of the Palo Alto Institute for the Future who taught that leaders must have strong opinions. Weak
opinions are uninspiring and don’t motivate people to test them or argue passionately for them. But, it is also
important not to be too strongly wedded to your ideas, because it prevents you from seeing or hearing evidence
that contradicts your opinions. So to be a strong and wise leader you need to have strong opinions, but you need to
be ready to move off those opinions when the evidence requires it. This is summed up in the phrase that you
should take to heart: Strong opinions, weakly held.
You need to listen to your customers or you will miss important information. If you are conducting a
workshop, you are there to facilitate and gather information, not to impose your vision. You have to be
mindful and in the moment. You need to eliminate all possible distractions. This means you turn off or
silence your phone, close your Twitter client (yes, I’ve seen people check their tweets during a
workshop!), and close or silence e-mail (it can really throw a meeting off track when an e-mail “toast”
notification pops up on the screen while you’re working).
There are a number of books and blogs on how to improve your listening skills. Search the Internet
for “active listening” or “mindful listening.” Choose a book or a program and then practice these skills.
It is very important to fully hear what is being said without focusing on what you are going to say in
response, because once you start to think of your response, you’re not listening anymore and there may
be valuable additional information you are missing.
You need to listen to your customers or you will miss important information. If you are conducting a
workshop, you are there to facilitate and gather information, not to impose your vision. You have to be
mindful and in the moment. You need to eliminate all possible distractions. This means you turn off or
silence your phone, close your Twitter client (yes, I’ve seen people check their tweets during a
workshop!), and close or silence e-mail (it can really throw a meeting off track when an e-mail “toast”
notification pops up on the screen while you’re working).
There are a number of books and blogs on how to improve your listening skills. Search the Internet
for “active listening” or “mindful listening.” Choose a book or a program and then practice these skills.
It is very important to fully hear what is being said without focusing on what you are going to say in
response, because once you start to think of your response, you’re not listening anymore and there may
be valuable additional information you are missing.
[Michelle’s story of the “bright idea” putting a post on a light]
Workshops can be stressful for everyone involved. Your customers are taking time out of their busy days
to attend this workshop. They don’t want you to waste their time and, at first, they may not really trust
that you are going to use their time effectively. You are under the gun to deliver a successful workshop,
and you need to keep the meeting focused, but you can also keep it a bit light by using humor. This does
not involve telling jokes, but rather making light of certain situations—especially if you are the target. It
takes a pretty good level of trust and familiarity before you can make a joke at the expense of one of your
clients, and this is dangerous territory—I have seen it backfire (on me!).
Here is an example of light humor in a workshop: We were talking about who would be the editorin-
chief of the portal and I nominated someone in the room to be the “Queen of the Portal.” Everyone
laughed (I know, you had to be there), but from then on, she referred to herself (as did the rest of the
team) as the Queen of the Portal, and it served to lighten the mood of the room.
You need to be brutally honest about yourself. As I said above, if you don’t know something, say so.
People can tell when you’re faking—either immediately or later when they find out you didn’t really
know. People will rely on your integrity, and once they trust you, they will believe you when you argue
that a particular choice or course is the right one
Being brutally honest is no excuse for being rude
Segue: you’ve got the soft skills: Now you need to gather requirements…
Analyst: I’m here to help you to implement SharePoint.
Customer: Great! What can SharePoint do?
Analyst: Lots of things: What do you want it to do?
Customer: Um, I’m not sure . . . maybe you can give me a demo.
Analyst: Sure: Imagine that you are a bicycle manufacturer in the Pacific
northwest.
Customer: But we aren’t a . . .
Analyst: Isn’t this feature cool? It has a bike as a background image.
So it’s all about the requirements, right?
Except it’s not
Because I said so, and I’m the customer.
If you don’t include my requirement, I’ll shoot
One of my biggest jobs as a SharePoint BA is to manage this desire.
My three rules of SharePoint:
Cheap: Do it!
Wait a sec – maybe we can think of some alternatives
(Hey! Maybe it’s no longer a ‘requirement’)
So, what happens when the customer says “I need this”
This is the “we need it all” solution – often arrived at before defining the problem
The “Hammer” problem
So, what happens when the customer says “I need this”
This is the “we need it all” solution – often arrived at before defining the problem
The “Hammer” problem
Think about alternatives:
Is it close by?
How fast do I need to get there – who needs to come with me
Is a less flexible but more cost-effective solution already out there
Is the destination specialized and particularly hard to get to?
Maybe we need to really think outside the box
Simple is not ALWAYS the best solution: There are times when a complex and expensive solution is the only way to get the required destination
We’ve looked how gamestorming can help, let’s dig in to another type of visual tool
Mind mapping is not new
Been around a long time, and used for brainstorming
XMind is a shareware system that does a lot of what Mind Manager does.
This is a recap
Four symbols, very simple
(tricky to master)
Other tools/techniques that use visual/tactile approach
A technique to get input or feedback from users
You may have great ideas of how to organize you intranet, but you users may have different ideas
To continue to quote Donna:
Card sorting is best understood not as a collaborative method for creating navigation,
but rather as a tool that helps us understand the people we are designing for.
In an open sort, people are not given any categories, they just have to organize concepts into groups.
In a closed sort, people are told the headings and then they have to sort concepts under the categories that they’ve been given
The analysis can be useful, but it is the process of watching people do the sorts that helps provide the real value
This tool called ‘Balsamiq’ makes it extremely simple and fast to make wireframes.
They look cartoonish, but that makes it easy to focus on what’s important (not color, font, etc.)