It’s likely that CIOs themselves are partly to blame for the bad reputation. As a group, they don’t have a great track record for managing expenses or expectations. Consequently, CEOs are tired of hearing CFOs complain about rising technology costs and COOs complain that they don’t have the technology they need to run the business. So, why not let them handle it themselves? But here’s where it gets interesting. Give it to the CFO and you’re likely to control costs and stifle innovation. Give it to the COO and you’ll likely get, and pay for, every bell and whistle they can dream up.

I could be wrong, but I thought the CIO was meant to be the voice of reason, the voice of an expert capable of communicating and implementing an IT strategy that balances many opposing factors such as cost and innovation, consistency and flexibility, security and freedom, in a way that aligns with the overall objectives of the organization. This approach will almost always entail difficult tradeoffs to be made, some of which will be unpopular, but necessary. Who wants to hear that they need to spend ten percent of the annual IT budget on desktop and network security? IT is not all about the latest toys and gadgets, and the CIO is not likely to win a popularity contest.

Nonetheless, some companies are so tired of the hassle and expense of IT that they will go to any lengths to outsource as much of it as they can. And there is no shortage of vendors offering to solve all their problems. However, while I agree that there are many opportunities for outsourcing both business (BPO) and IT (ITO) functions, I don’t think many CEOs would seriously consider outsourcing their entire business, so why do they think they could outsource all of IT? Would they seriously expect a vendor, or a group of vendors, to be looking out for the best interest of the organization?

I have no doubt that the CIO role needs to evolve to meet both the changing landscape of IT services and the growing expectations of a tech-savvy workforce. However, I believe that this new role, properly defined, will be more challenging, more exciting, and more necessary than ever. Please let me know what you think.

So, why do we have such a bad reputation? In recent times, part of the problem traces back to the early 80s when a strong demand for new managers drove ambitious college grads to head to B-school with very little or no business experience. Companies recruited  these newly minted MBAs with huge sign-on bonuses and ridiculous salaries. And for some years, a strong economy may have masked the fact that many of these bright, but inexperienced, kids didn’t actually know much about the practical aspects of management. Some learned on the job and excelled, while others floundered and became disillusioned with the realities of corporate america.

Consequently, we learned that formal education without practical experience doesn’t always produce the best managers. On the other hand, too many people have been have been promoted into management because they were the only person on their team who wanted to manage or, even worse, they chose management because they figured they could make more money while not having to do any “real” work. The problem with this approach is that some people just aren’t cut out to manage people and others have potential but may need some additional coaching, mentoring, and education. Only a very small percentage of workers are “natural” managers and even they could use a bit of help now and then.

I would argue that there is not nearly enough investment developing and nurturing this essential part of the workforce. As middle managers, we are in the best position to connect the dots between the reality of what’s happening on the ground and the larger goals of the company. From this vantage point, we can also be a key driver of change and innovation. However, doing so requires the support, and even encouragement, of senior management if we are to make any significant progress. Most of the middle managers I know do not get this support. They fight to be heard, sometimes for years, until, frustrated and disengaged, they either leave to start something on their own, or they join the ranks of the walking dead shuffling their way from meeting to meeting.

Some of the latter won’t wake up again until they are laid off during their company’s next downsizing. A friend of mine is a counselor who has been hired by corporations to work with recently laid off employees. In his experience, at least two-thirds of those affected experience, at least initially, a sense of relief: the company has done for them what they were not willing to for themselves. Of course, not everyone wants to wake up. For some, falling asleep at the wheel is an easy way to pass the time between breakfast and dinner, or between graduation and retirement. These managers don’t make it easy for the rest of us to break the stereotype of middle managers as lazy and incompetent, the bloat and scourge of corporations everywhere.

But I would argue that we matter now more than ever. The past two decades have brought huge advances in technology, psychology, information science and many other disciplines that we haven’t even begun to incorporate into how we run organizations. Middle managers are the key to bringing real innovation to large organizations: they are more open to change than top management and they have a better understanding how to implement change than most frontline workers. However, the question remains whether they will get the support they need or whether history will repeat itself and they will be scapegoated yet again.

Are you a middle manager? Do you feel that you are getting the support that you need to be a great manager and to lead change within your organization? If not, what do you think needs to be done? Where should we begin?

Once again, and as you would expect, Akof’s goal isn’t to bring your attention on “yet another team-building framework”, but to provide you with an alternative approach to “classic” team-building techniques… so just consider it before recovering your copy of Belbin’s books on Management Teams or organizing your next ‘off-site’. No doubt you’ve got all the “raw materials” to build your team. You’ve got all the “candidates” for the job in mind, there’s much to bet they “fit the bill” each in their respective roles… but the last thing you want is a Management Team that fails to recognize the benefits that teamwork provides, to the risk of fostering the symptoms of a dysfunctional organization.

Indeed, and as you are aware, in Management more than for any other discipline, what makes a Team successful is the ability of its members to work together. And this is the main challenge. “Gelling” strong, bright and self-confident middle-managers together. You need to forge “rock-solid” foundations and empower this “soon-to-be” team with the ability to kill “in the egg” emerging ’silos’ and personal agendas. No doubt that you’ll remind them that several times, starting with your off-site… but you will not be there forever.

So what you long for is a self-motivated and self-organized Management Team… and fortunately, this precisely where Agile Management frameworks can help you.
You may have heard of “agility” relating to other disciplines than Management, maybe from the (now famous) “Agile Manifesto“. If not no worries, the few core principles governing agile frameworks are universal enough to make them eligible to other domains of expertise… including middle-management.

Agile principles implicitly provide a good bed for team Values; Agile teams must harness change instead of reacting to change. Agile teams are empowered (by you) to get the job done, deliver results frequently… with a preference to the shorter timescale. Agile teams are focused, they get together daily and privilege face-to-face conversation. More specifically, Agile Management teams undertake and curve-out managerial initiatives in “Projects”. Results are delivered in “Sprints“, a week-long and intense effort, leading to a clear and tangible result. To this effect, Management Sprints are a way to bring your Management Team through a journey of successive… well, sprints, each having a clear purpose and a length set-in-stone.

So now you get it… in the Agile Management world, team-dynamics emerge from:

1. Focused Teamwork Execution
2. People’s Close Collaboration and
3. Shared accountability on the Frequent Delivery of Results.

Every week, your newly formed Management Team achieves something TOGETHER, and each week, the team builds itself a bit more.
So you’re cool with that? You want to give it a try? This is quite simple really, let’s begin with… Sprint Zero!

This cryptic name characterizes what will be in fact your initial brainstorming session. Nothing too complicated here. Get your Managers in room for a day (go off-site if you feel like it) and optionally bring a facilitator. Ask your guys to write on ‘posts-it’ the topics that matter to them the most, then re-group these on ‘thematic’ boards. As a rule of thumb, anything dear to their hart should be fine by you. Don’t filter, don’t push back. Be open-minded …you’re looking for ideas.

Your leaders will submit to your attention a substantial list of what they think your organization (and their team) should focus on. It can be about strategic intentions like it can be about infrastructure issues or people management… at this point anything is good enough.

…but DON’T PLAN (yet) and avoid setting milestones! Resist to the temptation of setting-up timelines. You may die to put things in shape at this point in time, but one of the promises of Agile Management frameworks is to “manage chaos“, so give it a chance and leave things at that. Your first job is simply to close the initial Sprint. At the end of this exercise, your Management Team has built its first tangible deliverable: an “Objectives Backlog“. The size of this “Backlog” may scare you a bit… but try not to think about how the hell your guys will ever get to the bottom of it.

Don’t prioritize the backlog on their behalf, and don’t set the main Objectives of your organization on their behalf. They’ll have to get to this point BY THEMSELVES, and that’s the purpose of the following “Sprints”… and the purpose of our following Post: “Sprint One to Many, Act on It!”, so stay tuned.

Not all companies, however, have a culture that can or will support such a radical approach to work. One problem is that many companies don’t even have a system to measure what their employees do, except at the most basic job levels. So-called knowledge workers are often measured by the number of hours they spend in the office, the number of meetings they attend, the number of emails they write, the number of PowerPoint presentations they run…well, you get my point. Since there is no objective yardstick of productivity for these workers, some folks are destined to always feel like they can never do enough and others will get by fine with doing nothing at all. It’s all a matter of perception and not results (and I could go on about this topic, but I’ll leave it for another day).

I’m hoping that this experiment will succeed and will encourage other companies to give it a try. Best Buy has even formed a consulting service, CultureRx, to help other companies implement the program. Nonetheless, I think that it’s a good idea to try it out on a small-scale at first. Why not see if you can get this going within your department? Drop us post if you’ve want to share any success (or failure) stories. Finally, this Business Week article makes reference to the ROWE 13 Commandments, but only mentions three of them. I’d love to hear from anyone who has a copy of all thirteen.

So why is that? Why this urge of knowing what’s going-on behind the scenes? After all, while your guys are delivering and live-up to your expectations, is there really anything for you to worry about? “Am I some kind of big-brother or control freak…? Is this what middle-management is about?”. Scary thoughts indeed… but your anxiety is very natural: here’s why.

As a middle-manager, beside the noble aim of striving to make things better and report on the progress and accomplishments of your team, you may have noticed that your job often consists in anticipating issues and managing risks as early as possible. Also, and even if you’re relishing this day, situations where your team delivers right at first are scarce. As individual contributors, your guys may do an outstanding job, but problems often arise when teamwork is involved. And when crisis arise, people are looking at YOU to resolve conflicts and provide them with guidance. You would ideally need a managerial framework to allow you to fulfill any of the above duties. Some kind of a “toolkit” that would allow you to “sense” and have an accurate appreciation and awareness of what’s happening in your team. Believe it or not, our “management-world” came-up with a couple of good solutions.

Some of these frameworks consist in measuring “feedback” in order to react quickly and adapt to change (e.g Agility), others introduce at their core the concept of measuring “waste” in order to reduce defect to their strict minimum and increase predictability (e.g. Six-Sigma).

Both of them touch on the topic of “metrics”, and explore the gathering, processing, mining of data. Today we’ll focus on a very, very simple approach to measures: Activity Metrics, Performance Metrics and Productivity Metrics. This proposed classification requires some clarification.

“what“, “how well“, “how much“

The goal for “Activity metrics” is to relate “what” your people spend their time on. The goal for “Performance Metrics” is all about “how well” tasks are achieved. The goal for “Productivity Metrics” are about “how much” has been accomplished. You may immediately have noticed one thing in the above. We’re not interested about how much time your guys spend in the office. The metrics we’re talking about aim to measure “efforts“, NOT “time” and there’s a subtle difference between measuring time and efforts. Do you guess where is the demarcation?

Tracking time is performed by measuring minutes/hours. Tracking efforts can also be measured this way, but it doesn’t NEED to be. Confused? Let’s run some scenarios.

Take a clocking-machine. Such hardware generally comes with a software that provides you with a way to measure the time your guys spend in the office, where they are anytime during the day. It allows you to manage overtime, sickness days, vacations and various other administrative duties. As valuable as this is for your role of middle-manager, all this will not help you much in knowing what your people spent their time on, how well they achieved their tasks or how much as been accomplished today.

Now take an effort-tracking system. Such system generally comes with a software that provides you with a clear idea of what your guys are working-on, an idea of the efforts your guys spend on a given work-assignment. It allows you to monitor how busy things are, capture the efforts spent in your book and bill them back to your Customers. You can measure efforts in hours/minutes, cups of coffees or glass of wines… a measure dear to our hearts here at Another Kettle of Fish .

But at the end of the day, the “consumer” of your metrics must get something out of it. And that’s the key. As a middle-manager, you have first to ask yourself this one question: “who’s the audience of the metrics I’ll produce?”.

Depending of the audience, you may want your metrics to reflect either the intensity, complexity or length of the efforts undertook by your team. For example your Financial Controller maybe interested in a translation of your Activity Metrics in hours/day or dollars in association with a unit-cost. Your Team maybe interested in a translation of your Activity Metrics in the type of activity they spend the most of their time in (communications, construction, design, planning etc.). Your Project Managers maybe interested in a translation of your Productivity Metrics in number of Changes or Defects. Your Manager maybe interested in a translation of your Performance Metrics in the variation between estimated costs and actual costs.

… using Metrics, you can “manage with of force of facts” …

So you get it by now, half of the answer in defining and justifying to yourself (and your team) why you need to measure efforts and produce metrics, is by caring about your audience. Share your metrics with your audience. Explain your audience what’s in it for them. Show you care. They will in turn help you to fine-tune your results, increase their accuracy and make your reports more meaningful. When you prove the value of measuring and producing metrics, these of a burden to collect and appear less like an “accountant exercise”.

Using metrics, you can manage with the force of facts; to justify the creation of new jobs, learn how not to burn-down your people, to detect issues before they arise, to learn to predict crisis situations, to highlight dysfunctions in your organization… the list goes on and on… It well worth the effort but requires a clarification of your goals, with yourself… and eventually your team.

So you may have guessed already that you will not get to this point by asking your guys to enter that they spend 8 hours working everyday on a spreadsheet or a piece of paper… This discussion is for another time, so stay tuned for a follow-up entry. Good luck in your endeavors.