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Year 2010

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The (New) Hierarchy of Needs – Part V

Nov 15, ’10 8:22 PM

[This is the final segment of a five-part series on project management that is based upon Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”]

Problem Solving

The next level starts to go into the core of the project – problem solving.  This is essentially what all projects are about.

What is a problem?  A problem is an obstacle which makes it difficult to achieved a desired goal or objective.  Problem solving can be fun as it helps to build a certain skill set regardless of the topic.  In the project management space, problem solving is the name of the game.  While many problems may be obvious, there are many that will not be as obvious and may remain hidden.  It’s the job of the project manager to uncover these hidden problems and take steps to address them.

To ensure understanding, hidden problems are those that are known by the project team but aren’t being surfaced to project leadership.  Team members are more likely to hide problems if they don’t have confidence these problems will be addressed.  Problems can also remain hidden if there isn’t a clear understanding of who can solve them.

Your role as project manager is first and foremost your relationship with the team – if team members have a clear understanding of the objective and team organization, and have confidence in your ability to lead, problems will be raised much more rapidly and the team will be able to make greater traction in the long-run.

Thus, your ability to lead, instill “order” and “structure” and tackle the tough problems are all very important in this “layer”.

Momentum

At the top of the pyramid is momentum – that’s what ultimately keeps the project going!  Initial momentum naturally follows the layers just described, but it ultimately requires a core belief that the project will be successful.

As shared earlier, the ultimate goal of this new hierarchy is to have every team member reach their full potential.  While this is a lofty goal, if you want to deliver a quality product / service in a short period of time, this is what you need to shoot for.

As with any moving object, ensuring that you maintain positive momentum is ultimately dependent upon the source of “power.”  In a project, that source of power is the team and the hierarchy tiers that fall just below this one.  The more organized and refined the underlying layers, the less “friction” and the longer you can maintain positive momentum over the long-term.

References:

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ShopWell: The Next Generation of Food Consumption.

Nov 4, ’10 7:24 AM

My Google search agent for “IDEO” highlighted a venture launched by the company called ShopWell.  While the site is still in early beta, I’ve signed up to take advantage of the service that ShopWell is offering – which is to ultimately help me select food choices that are right for me.

ShopWell

While you can read about ShopWell in a more in-depth article here, one of the key points that I’ve taken away from this article is how ShopWell can meet the needs of both consumers and food manufacturers.

While standard nutrition labeling has helped, it is too generic to offer any real guidance to consumers – especially if the person has health conditions, is allergic to certain ingredients, or is extremely athletic.  At the same time, with 99 of every 100 new food products failing, food manufacturers need a better way to figure out what consumers want.

By radically simplifying the decision-making process for consumers (essentially categorizing foods into red/yellow/green status items that meet consumer’s specific needs), and providing manufacturers with greater transparency into these choices, ShopWell is a company designed to serve both of these needs.

Check out Wade Roush’s article here to learn more about this new endeavor.

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Point in Time Visualizations.

Nov 2, ’10 7:48 PM

I stumbled again upon the Wordle site by Jonathan Feinberg and thought it would be interesting to see what visualizations came about from both Incubator and Big Generator.  Here’s what it came up with:

Incubator (November 2, 2010)

Big Generator (November 2, 2010)

Visualizations such as these can be extremely useful in situations where you aren’t certain of the content as it can highlight key themes that may remain “hidden” within the text.

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The (New) Hierarchy of Needs – Part IV

Nov 1, ’10 8:58 AM

[This is part four of a series on project management that is based upon Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”]

Accountability

The next level up moves beyond this “foundation” and starts to get into the tactical level – “who’s involved and who’s accountable?”  In this layer, we build an organizational chart that shows who is involved and where each resource “fits”.  Discussions around “workstreams” and communication pathways can be found here.

In order for a project to be successful, accountability needs to be defined and enforced at multiple levels – not just with the project performers.  All project participants – including stakeholders – have a specific role to play, and if they have a role to play that means that they are accountable for “something”.  Said in another way, if it’s difficult to define what that resource is accountable for, then they should not be part of the project.  It’s really that simple.

Creating a team organizational chart is the first step in this accountability definition.  The key is that there should be ONE and only ONE leader.  Ensuring that the leadership chain is clear and unambiguous in the visual is extremely important – if it’s not obvious who is running the project, then you have a problem.

Having a technical lead, for example, can be beneficial but only if the structure is defined such that the technical lead reports to the PM.  If the PM and technical lead both report to the sponsor or customer, then you have an accountability problem.  Similarly, if you have multiple customers, how does that working relationship look?

Again, if it’s not obvious in the visual, it’s not going to be obvious in practice.

Another tip is to keep the core team as small as possible.  Why?  Mainly because the more resources you have, the more communication paths you create.  Communication paths are critical to a successful project and need to be carefully managed.

For example, in a “loose” organizational structure, you are more likely to have communication “cross talk” and duplicative efforts which impede progress.  Maintain the team organization and manage communication pathways like a traffic cop – keep things organized and life will be easier.

What happens when your project scope requires a significant number of resources?  Your core team can and should remain small.  Just divide the organization into discrete areas of accountability.  Again, keep the core team small and hold people accountable.  Careful workstream definition is key here.

I’ve learned even when people are identified on an organizational chart, it doesn’t mean they “buy-in” to the structure you’ve created.  Unfortunately, the reality is that they are unlikely to challenge what you’ve “built” because doing so can put them in an awkward position and you’re likely to receive false acknowledgement.

The key is to ensure team participants are comfortable in the role that you’ve identified, and if they are identified as a workstream lead, doubly ensure they know what you are asking them to do.

If you have the luxury of leading a team where roles are undefined, it can be beneficial to utilize Strengths Finder to truly understand the strengths of each resource.  It’s easy to assume that each person has strengths that align with the task they have been assigned, but that can be misleading.

Get the most from your resources by understanding where they excel and how they wish to contribute.

Remember, your primary goal is to build a solid relationship with the team.  If you don’t have that, it’s going to be difficult to be successful in your role.  Your secondary goal is to delegate, assume positive intent, empower the team and let things sort themselves out – you are not there to micromanage.  If you are micromanaging, you either haven’t got the right framework in place or you have the wrong resource doing that particular task (or both).

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The Visual Journey

Oct 26, ’10 11:18 AM

As you may already be aware, this blog is one of several projects that I have been working on over the past several years.  The underlying goal has centered around building a foundation onto which I can layer in new creative projects and pursuits.  This is why I’ve branded my main web site and bundled these projects within a title I call “Supercharged Creative Exploration.”

The original home page design launched earlier this year showcased the three original projects – Incubator, Microcosms and Pixeldust.  Since that time, I’ve also included a few other projects to the list – including Ink.

Not surprisingly, one of my goals has involved designing a new home page that provides visitors with a complete inventory of these projects along with a modular format that is easy to update.

With this goal in mind, I’ve formulated a few graphic designs that do just this.  While the current design solves the current objective and is easy to update, I consider it an early version and will eventually be replaced.  Over the next several months, I plan on eventually migrating to one of the site designs show below: (or some derivation thereof)

If you visit the new site, you’ll also notice a new link – something that I call “The Visual Journey.”  This is a design that encapsulates who I am, what I am interested in, and some more information about the history of my professional career and my interests.  I think it will help people understand what motivates me and what I am passionate about.

Due to the nature of the design and purpose, I’ve left it in a PDF format.  It’s best read using the official Adobe Acrobat reader but aside from a few minor graphic inconsistencies on the title page, the Preview application available in Mac OS X should also work well.

The combination of this new design along with the Visual Journey supplement symbolizes the next chapter in my creative and intellectual journey – it’s a chapter I call “Immersion.”

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The (New) Hierarchy of Needs – Part III

Oct 25, ’10 7:40 AM

[This is part three of a series on project management that is based upon Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”]

Constraints

The next level “encapsulates” mission and objectives within the triple constraint: time – scope – budget.

When the topic of project management comes up, one of the fundamental concepts is the triple constraint.  Needless to say, truly understanding the triple constraint and having a subsequent dialogue about each constraint is key to the success of the effort.  Interestingly enough, many assumptions are made during this dialogue that can introduce problems down the road.

For example, instead of asking which constraint is “variable”, it’s sometimes best to ask the question – if we don’t do X, what is the impact?

  • Time – if we can’t finish this by X, what happens?
  • Scope – If we cannot deliver X1, what happens?  What if we deliver X1-Y instead?
  • Budget – If we go over budget, what happens?

It’s recommended that the PM challenge the constraints as much as possible.

The customer may say that the effort must be delivered by date X, but if we fast forward to date X and the project isn’t delivered, what is the course of action?  If there isn’t a defined course of action, then that really isn’t a hard and fast constraint.  If there is flexibility, then it’s best to make it apparent.  Use the constraints to your and the team’s benefit.

Another aspect of this discussion is to think about the triple constraint when things aren’t going well.  If it takes an additional 10 resources to finish the project by time X, will the business still benefit in the long-run?  Scenarios like this should be discussed and planned for in advance so that you have some boundaries that you can work within.

Storytelling

The next level focuses on “storytelling” – describing the project lifecycle and the end-goal in such a way that is easily comprehensible by all involved.

Requirements are typically seen as the central “core” around which all work is driven from.  Regardless of the analysis methodology employed, leveraging “static” requirements as the basis for all work is not ideal.  The reason for this is that people do not think linearly – and traditional requirements gathering is just that.  Since this is materially different from how people think, gaps are likely to arise which can cause downstream problems.  Instead, a recommendation is to employ different “storytelling” methods to describe what the end functionality should look like.

These “stories” can take multiple forms:

  • writing out in paragraph form what the end functionality looks like.
  • creating individual “stories” that align with each objective.
  • describing the objectives using a mind-map.
  • describing how the project progresses over a period of time.

Creating a story isn’t necessarily mutually exclusive from creating requirements – but the story can ultimately build a better framework from where the requirements can exist.  Remember, you aren’t here to create “shelf-ware” – you’re here to create documentation that is going to drive action.

Ultimately, true comprehension comes from natural prose, not bullet points – tell the story first.

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The (New) Hierarchy of Needs – Part II

Oct 19, ’10 8:10 AM

[This is part two of a series on project management that is based upon Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”]

Having managed projects of various sizes and complexity over the past several years, I was puzzled with the absence of “interpersonal” elements in project management literature given that the team is ultimately at the core of any successful project.  To this end, I formulated a hierarchy of needs that incorporates pure project management concepts along with core interpersonal elements.

This hierarchy looks like the following:

  • Momentum
  • Problem-Solving
  • Accountability
  • Storytelling
  • Constraints
  • Foundation

The key behind this structure is that it has a very close relationship to Maslow’s original hierarchy of needs.

This is important to understand because the “real” goal of any project is to have a team where each individual is striving to be the best.  If each team member can work within an environment or “operating structure” (the layers listed above) such that they are able to realize their full potential (i.e. she/he is involved and engaged) and reach a state of “flow” (self-actualization), the collective team will ultimately build enough positive momentum to virtually guarantee project success.

Thus, you can see why this hierarchy of needs and the concept (and primary goal) of “self-actualization” is extremely important: if team members are happy, the chances for project success are that much greater.

Let’s explore this hierarchy in more depth.

Foundation

At the bottom of the hierarchy is a fundamental understanding of what the project hopes to accomplish.

To this end, going through a formal exercise of defining an explicit mission statement and underlying objectives can be extremely beneficial in the long-term.  This may seem unnecessary or even foreign.  But first, what exactly is a mission statement?

“A mission statement is a brief written statement of the purpose of a company or organization. Ideally, a mission statement guides the actions of the organization, spells out its overall goal, provides a sense of direction, and guides decision-making for all levels of management.” – Wikipedia

In the project management arena, the mission statement is ultimately there to guide the project team and to serve as a “beacon” when things start to become cloudy – “Why are we doing this again?” or “Why is this important to the company / LOB?”  In some circumstances, the explicit definition of a mission statement can start to raise questions across the board where assumptions will start to be challenged.  “Oh, I didn’t know that we are really doing this for LOB A …. if that’s the case, then we need to do X, Y and Z …”

Once there is agreement on the project mission, it’s only then where you can start to identify core objectives.

There really shouldn’t be many – three or four.  If you find that you’re heading beyond that, you may start considering ways to break up the project.  Be careful that the customer is not automatically jumping to the requirements definition “phase”.  This is not a requirements gathering exercise – it’s asking “What are you fundamentally trying to accomplish?”  If you’re struggling at this stage, it’s recommended that you remain at this “level” until you and your customer are certain what you’re collectively going to do.

In some situations where there are multiple organizations involved, it is also valuable to define what each organization/department hopes to gain from their participation.  While this may not directly change things, this level of understanding is helpful when challenges arise – “I see why team A is pushing back on X, because they are really focused on Y …”.  It’s better to know what’s driving behavior now than struggle with it later on.

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The (New) Hierarchy of Needs – Part I

Oct 15, ’10 8:36 PM

“The real goal of any project is to have a team where each individual is striving to be the best.  If each team member can work within an environment or “operating structure”  such that they are able to realize their full potential (i.e. she/he is involved and engaged) and reach a state of “flow” (self-actualization), the collective team will ultimately build enough positive momentum to virtually guarantee project success.” – Adrian Daniels

A little over a year ago, I wrote an article that discussed how Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs could be employed in other paradigms other than pure survival.  One such paradigm is the use of this hierarchy in project management.

Project management is a discipline that is more complex than a process or project plan.  Remember, people = complexity.  Understanding what motivates individuals to go “above and beyond”  and mastering team dynamics is what differentiates truly successful projects from average ones.

The concept that I’ll cover in the next several posts is intended to help project managers and participants really understand the interpersonal aspect to project management.  If you envision project management as a scale, the process and core “plan” are ultimately balanced by the interpersonal / psychological concepts described here.

As you take a closer look at this project management hierarchy, think about how this structure can be employed in your project(s) (or in ones that you participate in).  Can you employ the entire hierarchy or just elements contained within?  If you were to alter the ordering, what would it look like and why?

The benefits of using this hierarchy are limitless.  By taking advantage of this paradigm, I am confident that you, your team members and your project will  benefit.

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Consumer Credit and Sustainability

Oct 9, ’10 1:19 PM

[While I wrote this article nearly two years ago, I’ve decided to repost it here given its focus on creativity and innovation. – A.D.]

The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) publishes a quarterly magazine entitled “Innovation”.  In the Spring 2008 issue, Craig Badke and Stuart Walker contributed an article entitled “Designers Anonymous” which compares Western society’s consumerism with that of an addiction.  In reading this article, I was able to uncover additional insights which I think are worth sharing.

By making a comparison with the twelve-step program found at the core of Alcoholics Anonymous (which addresses the cause of the problem, not its symptoms), the authors present a similarly structured program for both designers and consumers that encourage sustainable design and purchasing behaviors.

As it is with every addiction, people will need more of what they are getting, or something new to satisfy their desire.  With fewer resources at our disposal and an ever-increasing focus on the environment and our planet, I believe that we’ll eventually reach a tipping point where consumers will come to realize that their purchasing behaviors ultimately impact the environment, and are temporarily satisfying a need that could be fulfilled through other (positive) means.

Because the vast majority of consumerism is driven by credit, credit card companies and other lenders can start moving towards a business foundation in which sustainability is an underlying goal.  Today, these companies are focused primarily on providing the customer access to credit based upon their needs.  This may not be enough for the long-term.

In the future, I believe it’s the lenders responsibility to provide the customer with a “model of sustainability” that can perhaps alter their spending habits for the benefit of the planet.

A similar “model” exists today in the fast-food industry.  Think about how traditional fast-food establishments are making incremental changes for the health benefits of its consumers.  By providing customers with clear nutritional information about each of their products, they are providing a “model of health” that was unheard of five years ago.

Due to the pervasiveness of fast-food in today’s society, companies such as McDonald’s were “required” to make necessary changes in order to adapt to growing demand for healthy eating choices.  Consumer credit is just as pervasive, which is why I believe that lenders will eventually have to promote positive change.

However, this is not to suggest that consumers do not have a responsibility to fulfill.

While following a twelve-step program is a bit extreme and perhaps “prescriptive” (to use the authors’ words), I believe that eventually all consumers will need to pay close attention to what they are buying and decide whether their purchases are truly adding value to their lives at the expense of the environment.

I believe a fair number of consumers are more aware of the impact they have on the planet and are taking steps to make appropriate corrections.  Replacing traditional light bulbs with CFCs, and increasing recycling efforts are good practices in themselves, but omit many other aspects of true sustainability – including the core social impact.

Today, most companies are unable to (either due to lack of knowledge, or desire) provide consumers with a true impact assessment of what it took to produce their product and deliver it to the consumer.  Likewise, most consumers do not have the knowledge yet to think about these factors, nor are they necessarily ready to alter their lifestyle even if this information was presented to them.

Given this information, I believe there are numerous opportunities in the sustainability arena.  Here are a select few which I think may be of interest:

  1. Think more about the “twelve-step” program concept and employ its use in other areas – i.e. use it to focus on the cause of a given problem and less about the actual symptoms.
  2. Employ the use of “models” that truly add value to the customer’s life in the long-term, and encourage companies to build strategies around this mindset.
  3. When working with lending companies, encourage them to re-invent themselves for the long-term benefit of the planet by promoting better purchasing decisions through a “model of sustainability”.
  4. Take sustainability to the next level by utilizing and implementing sustainability frameworks (e.g. Environmental Footprint, Cradle to Cradle, and LCA (Life-cycle Assessment)) in companies who may be unfamiliar with these frameworks and require expertise to integrate them into a long-term sustainability strategy.
  5. Think about sustainability as a never-ending goal and remind companies that implementing small changes over time can make a significant impact over the long-term.  Short-term (incremental) solutions do not have to be perfect.
  6. Encourage greater transparency with customers – especially in this area.  By being transparent, customers are more likely to be accepting (at least temporarily) of a company’s current flaws and are likely to remain customers over the long-term (assuming steps to correct these problems are made).  From a sustainability perspective, providing information about how products are manufactured, and clearly displaying their “sustainability” label are two good examples.  Treat customers as business partners.
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Connect to Expand.

Sep 30, ’10 1:00 AM

To date, the vast majority of my personal projects have been created independently of one another.  While many of my projects have built off of one another (e.g. Microcosms was built upon the Incubator concept), there has not been a unifying link between them.  I think there is an opportunity to alter this approach to enable greater creative expansion and exploration.

Over the past several weeks I have been thinking of a few new projects that begin to combine various aspects of my creative exploration in new and unique ways.

Here are a select few:

Mach1na: I came up with this idea a few days ago when listening to Drone Zone on Soma.fm.  The music that was playing was a combination of electronica and sounds of syncros, gears and other mechanical devices.  It would be very interesting to sketch out new mechanical devices, render them digitally using Photoshop, and then incorporate them in a fabricated information design – as if these devices were in fact, real.  Going a step further, being able to showcase these illustrations along with a similar audio track would, I think, create a unique experience.

Gaia: The theory of Gaia, in a nutshell, is that the Earth is a single living organism.  Illustrating and coming up with documented concepts that align with this theory could very well be a multi-year endeavor.  For example, illustrating plants and foliage from different time periods (prehistoric to sometime in the future) requires considerable research of the underlying taxonomy.  It’s one thing to come up with new plant concepts, but it can be more convincing if these concepts are based upon real biological principles.

This encapsulating concept could also introduce visuals that show how the Earth could appear in 2100, or 2200.  With global warming, could the Internet become part of the landscape?  Again, it’s not just about coming up with pure fantasy-based illustrations or narratives – it’s about combining research with creativity.

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