14 November 2006

On page 152 of "Rethinking Systems Analysis and
Design," Paul Coyle states, "Try telling the fire brigade that your
orange is on fire." This statement is part of a passage about trying to
find words that rhyme with "orange" and "chimney." Mr.
Coyle encourages that "there exists an individual who pronounces ‘orange’
as ‘chimney.’ "(See the Reference section for more from the book.)

Well, of course I will find another culture where
‘orange’ is pronounced as ‘chimney’ and vice versa. I am confident of this
seemingly odd culture because I know that my "orange is on fire."

Try this experiment. Hold a piece of orange peel
between your thumb and pointer finger. Gently squeeze the orange peel and
notice how some liquid squirts from it. That juice must be water(?).

Now try this experiment next to an open flame. Ask
someone to hold a match next to the orange peel as you squirt liquid from it.
Another method is to squirt this liquid into the flame of a lit candle.

Aha! The liquid is inflammable, i.e. it burns. The
liquid causes the nearby flame to grow for the moment that the liquid passes
through the flame. This liquid isn’t water, but some type of oil, sugar, or
alcohol (or all three) that burns.

Truly, my orange is on fire.

I have observed a few other non-sensical "my
blank is on fire" cases. One I read several years ago in Field and Stream
magazine on one of those "little tips" pages. It was a note to help
people survive who find themselves

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I spend most of my professional life attempting to solve problems.
I face some of these problems privately,
but I face the rest with other people.
Sometimes people working a problem will ask me for suggestions.
Sometimes someone above me at work will assign me to assist
people in solving a problem.
Other times I notice people facing problems and I volunteer my services.
The last two cases are the toughest because I am inflicting
help on others who may not want it.

In my experience, a big part of solving problems with others is convincing them to try my suggestions. I have learned to allow people time when I suggest something to them.

Without allowing time, I usually hear,
“No, I don’t want to do that.”

When I allow time, I often hear, "At first I didn’t like this idea, but on second thought I can live with it."

I have learned a couple of ways to use time depending on the situation. The first situation I’ll describe is with a group of people I manage day to day. The second situation is with an outsourcing contract.

Ten years ago I managed a group of 20 programmers in a signal processing lab. The programmers sat side by side with the users and adapted software to their desires on a daily basis. The situation worked well for the users, but was inefficient for the programming team. We usually had several programmers working redundantly on the same problem because a user would run the halls and spout his desires to any programmer he saw. The programmers were eager to please the user, so they would drop what they were doing and dive into the problem. There are advantages and disadvantages to different people working independently on a single problem. In this case, the disadvantages outweighed the advantages.

The problem we were having was how the users requested services from the programmers. I knew a way to request services that would be more effective and efficient. I called a meeting of all the programmers and proclaimed that henceforth all requests for services would go through me. I would assign the request to the right person and eliminate the redundant and wasteful efforts. This request system also had its advantages and disadvantages, but for this case the advantages outweighed the disadvantages.

Regardless of the benefits, no one implemented my suggestion. Everyone rolled their eyes, left the meeting, and did things the way they had always done them. I knew a better request system, but I failed at moving us from the current to the suggested system.

Several months later I tried again, but this time I allowed time. I prepared a short paper explaining how I wanted to change the way we accepted tasks and priorities from the users. I spoke to each programmer alone for 30 minutes and left them with a copy of the paper. Each conversation was an exchange of ideas. The suggestion evolved, changed, improved, and gained momentum through these exchanges. It took a month to speak to everyone one-on-one. I waited another month for the programmers to chat with each other about this. They did so because they noticed a copy of my paper on each other’s desks.

After these two months had passed, I spoke to the managers of the users about this idea. I explained the problems we were having and how my suggestion could provide the users what they needed more efficiently. The managers liked the idea enough to try it for a while. They too had heard about it several times in the preceding weeks from programmers and users. The word had spread slowly through the lab’s grapevine.

At the next programmer’s meeting, I announced that we would try my suggestion. No one jumped for joy, but everyone was willing to try the suggestion. They had the time to discuss this among their peers and the users, and decided that it was worth trying.

Now the outsourcing case. About five years ago I worked on several outsourcing projects. On each project, I would fly to the west coast to visit with our contractor once a month and learn of their progress. During these one-day visits I would usually make suggestions about how the contractor reported their progress. The contractor was always polite, but almost always rejected my suggestion. They felt that my suggestions had merit, but they would be too difficult and expensive to implement.

One contract had more than the usual amount of problems. We did not have good insight into the software portion of the contract. Therefore, my boss tasked me with gaining the insight we needed. I knew what I wanted from the contractor, but didn’t have much hope of having them follow my suggestions. I tried a variation of the time technique.

Instead of visiting them from 9 to 5 on one day, I arranged my trip so that I would visit them from 1 to 3 PM one afternoon, and again from 10 AM to noon the next morning. I made my suggestions to them the first afternoon, and they resisted. I left at 3 PM. That allowed them a couple of hours to discuss the suggestions and research how much time and effort it would require each month to report what I wanted. They also had the evening to let the idea swirl around in their minds. The next morning they did a little more research before I arrived at 10. Given the time to think about my suggestion and research its implications, they decided that they could provide the status we wanted. In the coming months, this information allowed us to see looming disaster in time to avoid it.

I have since used variations on this in other outsourcing contracts. Sometimes I make suggestions during a series of phone calls before visiting the contractor. Sometimes I send several faxes to different people at the contractor before visiting. If possible, I discuss my suggestion with the contractor over the course of several months before asking for a decision. Each of these techniques provides the contractor with time to consider the suggestion and increases the chances of the contractor trying the suggestion.

There are several possible explanations why time increases the chances that people will try suggestions. One explanation is that with time comes repetition. People have several occasions to hear the suggestion. Another explanation is that most people in technical fields are introverts. We introverts prefer time to process a suggestion internally before accepting it. Finally, time changes the emotional dynamic of the situation. Fear often comes with a suggested change. Fear is an immediate and strong emotion. The passage of time reduces the fear and allows other emotions and thoughts to come to the forefront. Whatever the reason, a second thought seems to work.

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I am working on a large project with a group of people on the
opposite coast. I visit them once or twice a month for
face-to-face discussions. On a recent visit I learned a lot
about improving productivity from some unexpected places.

The first lesson came from a female colleague named Susan.
Several months back Susan told me that she was expecting her
second child. I was happy to hear this for two reasons. First
was my personal joy. This is a blessed event to be celebrated.
Second was a professional reason. I believed that good things
for the project would come of this. This belief came from a
story related to me several years earlier from a project
manager in a similar circumstance.

Susan was to take maternity leave to have her child. After the
birth, she would take several months off work and then return to
work half time.

My earlier colleague had told me of the many benefits of having
a good employee who worked half the time and stayed at home the
other half. The benefit comes because while at home, the
employee is still thinking about work. The thoughts are not in
the forefront, but somewhere in the back of the mind. He found
that when the employee was physically at work, they had much
better ideas and perspectives on situations at work than the
people who worked full time. I was looking forward to having
Susan work half time on the project and stay at home the other
half time.

Susan went on maternity leave, gave birth to a fine, healthy
son, and stayed home for several months. She had returned to
work half time just before my recent visit.

I was amazed the first time I saw Susan after her maternity
leave. She looked great! She looked bright and refreshed, more
alive and awake than at any time in the previous two years. The
time away from work had refreshed and recreated her. What was
most noticeable was her attitude. While the rest of us had been
sweating the details of the project every minute of every day,
she had been away. Giving birth and being with a baby (and a
three-year-old son) is not relaxing by any means. Being away
from a project, however, can be refreshing.

Susan was working half time, but providing more insight and
wisdom to the project than most of us who were working full
time. I was delighted to see this.

The second productivity lesson on the trip came to me from a
young man named Matt. Matt likes to surf – surf real waves in
the ocean not internet surfing. Several months ago Matt decided
that he was working enough hours on the project every week (50
to 60 hours each week). Matt started spending one weekday
morning each week surfing. He came into the office three or four
hours late. No one minded as Matt was still working more than 40
hours a week.

Matt became more productive than before. He was working fewer
hours, surfing each week, and producing more.

The first day of my visit to Susan and Matt’s company was
difficult. I was disappointed in the status of the project and,
though buoyed by Susan and Matt’s productivity improvements, I
was dejected. I felt badly and stayed in my hotel room all
evening contemplating the events of the day.

The next morning I didn’t eat breakfast or do any of the other
things I usually do on a trip. Instead, I walked down the street
from the hotel, bought a fancy chocolate coffee drink (I don’t
know what you call those things), and walked the streets in the
early-morning quiet while sipping my drink. I walked, sipped,
and thought for an hour.

That day was the most productive and pleasant one for me on the
trip. I was able to listen better, think more clearly, and
contribute more to our discussions.

This trip was teaching me much about productivity improvements.
Apologies to the CMMI crowd and fans of agile development. We
were employing forms of both, but neither of them were helping
us on the project. Instead, working half time, surfing one
half-day a week, and taking long morning walks were improving
productivity and making life on the project much better.

I knew all this before this visit to the west coast. I knew that
relaxing, enjoying recreation, and taking a break from the usual
would help people work productively.

Someone I had forgotten all of this. It is strange what I am
able to forget when I am really busy working hard.

I had to see someone return to work half time after maternity
leave, meet a surfer, and take a long walk to remember what
really improves productivity. I encourage you to find what helps
you be more productive. I also encourage you to let your
colleagues learn what works for them.

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The following conversation between a requirements person and a user
occurred in my office recently.

Requirements person, "What is your number one requirement?"

User, "I need a new digital camera."

The Requirements person thinks to himself that a camera is a technology
or an implementation – a solution and not a requirement. So he asks again,
"That is interesting, but what is it that you require?"

User, "I need a new digital camera."

Requirements person, now growing frustrated tries a new tact,
"Well, what is it you are trying to do?"

User, "I am trying to take pictures with a new digital camera."

The user is fixated on a new digital camera.
The requirements person is at a loss.
So, he changes the subject completely.

He tries, "If a magic genie appeared and you could make three wishes,
what would they be?"

User, "I would wish for a new digital camera."

Requirements person, "What would your second wish be?"

User, "I don’t have one. If I had a new digital camera,
I wouldn’t need another wish."

The user is truly fixated on a new digital camera.
He thinks about it daily. Every time anyone asks him any question,
he answers it in terms of a new digital camera.

The new digital camera is blocking all thought.
The user cannot get on with his life until he
deals with the new digital camera.

This is where I come up with the phrase,
"Give the user an ice cream cone."

I think the best thing the requirements person can do is arrange
for the user to receive a new digital camera. Once that is in the
user’s hands, the user can think about something else like requirements.

I find this to be a special case of something general.
I sometimes become fixated on a thought.
Nothing happens in my life while this something is consuming me.

Jerry Weinberg spoke of this in a writer’s workshop I once attended.
He uses a "fieldstone" method.
One part of the method is that when an idea is buzzing around in my head,
I write it on a 3″x5″ card and set it aside.
The thought no longer buzzes around in my head.

An alternative? I could allow the idea to buzz around in my head.
Every time I try to write something that idea distracts me.
If the idea is,
"I hate it when I sit in meetings that have no purpose"
and I am trying to write a paper on how to arrange a picnic,
my hatred of wasteful meetings will keep surfacing in my
essay on picnics.

Johanna Rothman, a successful consultant and oft-published author,
once asked me to read and comment on an article she was writing.
The title of the article had the words
"Second-Class Citizens" in it.
Johanna kept putting the idea of testers being treated as second-class
citizens in the paper. This idea was in the title and it appeared here
and there in the article. The article, however, was about another subject,
and testers being treated as second-class citizens seemed out of place.

I suggested that Johanna write a paper about her experience with
developers and testers–the second-class citizens. Write that paper;
put that thought out of her mind. Then, write the paper she was trying
to write.

This suggestion worked. Johanna wrote about developers and testers
and then wrote the paper she wanted to write.

The point? Sometimes I have things that I have to do.
Sometimes I struggle with the "have to do" because something
else is running around in my mind. The "have to do" becomes
much easier if I can put away the other thing.

Consider that I need to cut the grass, but I’ve been thinking about
eating some ice cream. That one isn’t too hard. I take five minutes to
eat ice cream and then cut the grass.

Consider a harder case.
I am supposed to prepare a presentation for a meeting in one hour.
I am upset with the guy who works two cubicles over.
He did something that bothered me this morning,
and I am still seething over it. I cannot concentrate on my
upcoming presentation. What do I do?

Here are some things that have helped me:

• A “to do” list – more than a list of things to do later. Sometimes
  I make a list and never go back to it. The act of making a list puts the
  distractions out of my head.

• Fieldstones 3×5 cards with one note written on each card. I
  have a tall stack of these.

• A journal. A nice notebook where I record my thoughts.

More than anything else, what has helped me is that now I recognize
the ice cream cones in my head for what they are distractions.
Once I recognize them, I choose to do something.

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