On Values and Why They Are Important

Core ideas:

• Personal values are the lenses through which we see the world.
• Knowing them helps us benchmark our decisions, so that we are more aligned with them and thus happier.
• Team values are the fabric on which a team is built.
• To create a strong culture, adherence to company values need to be tested at each hiring interview.
• It is the duty of the leader to adjust culture through honest dialuge.
• Values are neither good nor bad. They are just who we are and they make us diverse.

Why?

I have been thinking a lot lately about how and why it is important to work as a team. Inevitably, the line of thoughts brought me to a few basic questions:  to what degree does the team share the same values with the company, how we can align them, why does it matter?

Of course, the internal dialogue went on, asking other fundamental questions: to what degree shall we put effort into surfacing the true values of the team and benchmarking them against what the company expects from us? How would such a (time consuming) dialogue influence productivity? Is it worth the investment and, if so, how can we make the process engaging and honest? Maybe we should just put our heads in the sand and ship projects, caring less about topics that seem, at surface, too touchy-feely to be discussed in a serious production environment. Or not?

As the main mission of my current job is to build a strong management team around me, a team that is guaranteed to ship in spite of any adversity, for me this dialogue is more important than ever. People sharing common values make the fundamental fabric on which teams can be built.

What are values?

I would define "values" as the lens through which one sees the world. It is a fundamental set of core beliefs and attitudes that gives identity and guides decision making. Most of us are not aware of them as they are buried deep inside, shaped by our past, parents, environment, friends. We know when somebody trumps them over because then we feel a strong burst of repulsion and anger. We are very quick to judge and become intolerant about people who share a different set than we do. For instance, if one values hard work, he or she will be very tempted to dismiss others more inclined to a life of leisure, and vice versa. However, values seem elusive and it is hard to put them into words.

Why identify our values?

Honouring values means living an aligned life, peaceful, with less concerns and less emotional turmoil. On the contrary, not honouring them means constant dissatisfaction, frustration, fatigue.

One reason why decision making is so difficult is because of the uncertainty that lies ahead. Will we be at peace with the consequences? The best tool for answering this question is to benchmark the options and the expected results against our values, then pick the one that honours them the most. The whole process will feel safer, more natural, obvious and relieving.

As an example, let's assume that one's core value as software engineer is craftsmanship and code beauty. He is faced with the decision to switch jobs to a company that offers a better salary. At first, the decision seems simple. But will he/she feel happier there? By knowing his/her values and asking simple questions like "How do you take care of the code? How do you refactor?" the candidate will be able to assess his future state of happiness in that company and take an informed decision. Thus the more one is connected with his/her values, he/she will be able to take better decisions and live a more fulfilled life.

What about teams?

A team is a set of individuals working together towards a common goal. Teamwork needs cohesion, trust, reliance on others. By knowing its core values and by constantly asking "is what we do inline with who we are" a team will be able to take decisions easier, be more satisfied and bond together more closely. They will be able to say clearly:

• Who is fit for the team and who is not - and why?
• Is the next step inline with who we are? Are we satisfied with it?
• How will we improve?

Values should constantly appear as questions during team meetings. If, for instance, one team values "constant learning" they need to ask themselves even for the simplest task: "what can we learn from it?" or "how can we approach it so that we learn something from it?" If the team takes the challenge and searches for the answer, they will feel happier and more satisfied with their work because they honour their values.

Team values should be known in the recruitment process and tested for them or, otherwise, the risk of a bad hire is just too high. Let's imagine a scenario where one wants to hire a C++ developer. Is the C++ test enough? Imagine getting a guy who values changing the world through volunteering in a team that has quick financial rewards as its core. Will he be satisfied? Will the team be able to accept him? HR and the hiring manager need to provide the answer in advance: how will his values be honoured in the workplace?

The five dysfunctions of a team and values:

According to Patrick Lencioni's business fable, there are 5 dysfunctions that plague teams. They all build on each other, having as the foundation the absence of trust. I believe that the best way to overcome the absence of trust is by provoking a genuine dialogue aimed at identifying what we, as a group, value. If I know that we share the same values, I will be more inclined to trust you. I will feel closer to you, thus I will be more likely to open up and collaborate with you.

Corporate values and team values:

Values are personal. It is crucial that newly hired share the same values as the company or, otherwise, they will be misfits or, even worse, if in great numbers, they may destroy the internal culture and teamwork. It is the job of HR and that of the hiring manager to properly test for company values, not only for technical skills.  

I believe it is the duty of the leader to provoke an honest dialogue and identify what the true values are. The key word is "honest". Discoveries may conflict with the declared company values which is OK as long as they reflect the reality. Once the dialogue has started and it is genuine, through open retrospectives, questioning and benchmarking, the leader will be able to adjust the culture. I believe it is possible and the end result should be better service, better community, happiness, productivity and engagement.

And yet we need to accept diversity:

Values are neither good or bad. They just are and they define us. They contribute to the diversity of our world, a world that accommodates so many perspectives. Although we usually exhibit strong emotional response to someone who shares or does not share our values, we need to accept that as beneficial. A society or a group in which everyone shares exactly the same core beliefs is a dystopia - first of all it is impossible as each of its members have different life experiences and, second of all, it is doomed to fail because of isolation. While we need to adhere to a common set of values in order to collaborate, we are evolutionary programmed to be diverse in order to survive.

Ecology. Diversity. Social Inclusion

Last week in Malmo I had the chance to meet this amazing group of people:  http://connectorsmalmo.com/ConnectorsMalmo/For_Malmo_By_Malmo.html. Guys, I had a really great time with you! I hope we keep in touch!

During the discussions, two types of issues stood prominently: ecology and social inclusion. And it makes sense.

Ecology:

Only in a sufficiently advanced society, like the Western World, people can afford to think about ecology, about how we can make sure we are going to have an inhabitable planet 100 years from now. The rest of the world population is just too busy surviving past the next few days - weeks - months. Above all, it is the moral duty of these advanced societies to raise such issues, to provide leadership for the future, to clean up the planet and invent new, sustainable ways of living because, otherwise, nobody will.

Social inclusion:

As a society is getting more and more advanced and as its standard of living rises, it becomes more and more attractive for immigrants, for people who want and are willing to start a new life, hopefully better than the one they can afford in their own countries. Throughout history we have witnessed many  waves of immigrants, leading to profound changes in the societies they affected. Most of the time, they initially provoked fractured communities, with an increased gap between the rich and the poor, cultural clashes, segregation, extremist movements, social tension, crime, hatred, discrimination, riots.

Extremist parties have always gained political capital by proposing isolation, expulsion and restriction as a solution for the problems above. Can we do better? Are we civilised enough to manage our most inner drives to build a society where we can all live a good life?

Our brains are not wired for diversity:

• It is natural and evolutionary normal for people to quickly classify things based on simple, visible criteria - if an something moves and has long teeth, our brains tell us to run if we want to survive. Those who stay behind to investigate do not have a chance to pass on their genes often enough to become biologically relevant. Even more, it is complex, time and energy consuming to dive into details and to consider all options. We have evolved to store energy and use it only when it is critical for our immediate survival. We like to decide quickly, based on clear differentiators.

• We evolved in tribes, not as lone hunters. We, as humans, like to draw borders around us and quickly say who is in and who is out. All our society is build on borders: family, city, nationality, country, company, etc. We know them and we have a clear sense to where we belong. We need to belong as the group gives us an identity. We are very quick to judge who is in and who is out and we like borders because they make us feel safe. 

• It is very hard for us to work with big numbers. Our brains are not wired to easily understand what is the difference between 1 in 10, 1 in 100 and 1 in a million. We actually understand an event with a probability of 1 in a million as still something that could happen to us which is not really the case. Otherwise, people would be much more reluctant to play the lottery.

• Media does not help: bad guys stand out and make the news more often than decent, hard working people. As we have an internal drive to watch out to maintain our safety, we are very curious about bad things. Media loves to exploit our tendencies and present drama to increase its sales. Corroborate this point with the other three points above and it results in an explosive combination. Drama-oriented news is hurting our society, feeding us reasons to promote hate and discrimination and gives us a false sense of insecurity towards our peers. (Doesn't this look like stark contrast? http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/380512/How-Romanian-criminals-terrorise-our-streets as opposed to public data about crime in Bucharest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Bucharest which positions the Romanian capital as the safest capital in Europe - guys, there are many more Romanians in Bucharest than in London. Please don't draw any conclusions about us as a nation based on what is written in the press).

We need to accept that it is unnatural for us to easily acknowledge diversity as a part of our lives. It may seem that segregation is a problem only for immigrants but: we do not accept gay people, sometimes women still don't have equal opportunities, we fight because of religion and nationality (how many wars did we have in Europe, including the war ignited 15 years ago by the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, how many bombings in Ireland, how many riots, expulsions, extremist goverments) and even because we support different football teams. We naturally don't like diversity, so what can be done?

Diversity sparks innovation:

But before that, why do we struggle? Beside the ethical debate, I would like to give one simple reason: diversity is the basis for creativity and innovation. Innovation does not come from thin air. Innovation usually comes by combining different unrelated ideas into a new product or revolutionary thought. Just imagine how can a bunch of football fans who only know about football invent a new team game? What probability of success would you give them? What if the team is made up of football, basketball, tennis and even some obscure African and Chinese traditional sport fans? Would they have a higher chance to come up with something revolutionary?

We are too expensive:

But why so much talk about innovation? Why can't we just stick to what we have? The reason lies in simple economics. We are too expensive compared to the rest of the world. Everything that has already been invented is manufactured offshore for a fraction of the local cost. So the only thing that is left for advanced economies is to open up new markets, to create new a demand, to invent new things. Our only chance of maintaining our high level of living is to constantly innovate. And for this, just like in the example above with the football game, we need diversity. We need people who think differently, who have different experiences, who come from different backgrounds. Including them in our economic activities is a necessity, not a act of benevolence.


We need to draw boundaries based on values:

I believe that all humans are good and willing to help each other. I believe that the main reason we like to draw boundaries is because we can't connect to the others, because we don't know the others and we feel the need to protect ourselves. Once one knows his / her peer, once one sees what value his/her peer is bringing to him/her, once one knows that it is safe, I believe that he or she will gladly open the door to welcome the outsider in. We need, as a society, to counteract the negative distortion promoted by media and start a global awareness campaign. We need to put things into the right context. We all need to gather and collect positive stories. We need to show that those immigrants / gay / football fans of another team are the same people that defend our homes as police officers or firemen, are building our homes, raise our children or cure our sick.

We will still need to protect ourselves and we can do it by drawing a hard line against criminality of any kind. We need to start to publicly define our deepest values (like honesty, respect, tolerance), understand them and make sure they are respected by the whole community - uncompromisingly respected. Such a large scale dialogue requires leadership, openness, education, tolerance, self-questioning, respect and a strong will to stay in until the right solutions are found. The less responsible attitude of excluding large parts of the population based only on the ethnical or racial criteria, just because it is much easier, is neither ethical nor economically viable. I believe that we need to involve more our moral philosophers to help us define our values and build on them a genuinely free society, where everyone can express his or her personality in a safe environment, as long as it does not harm the others. We need to educate people to pay attention, to stand up, to speak their minds and provoke true social dialogue, by confronting the reality and not by vague, conflict-avoiding, politically correct speeches.

I believe that such a society can and needs to be built and would end up having a secular basis, valuing science, reason, art, research, respect for the free spirit, innovation, law, dialogue and personal initiative.

I am optimist seeing that people debate such issues, seeing people of different nationalities working together, learning together, playing together, I am optimist that the world is advancing blazingly fast towards an era of collaboration and tolerance.

[Link to Video]

A Case for Professional Project Management

There have been more than 4 years since I've started managing projects, one year since I took my PMP and 4 months since my PMI-ACP. I have shipped 4 big projects so far, I've been involved in many others and I have recently been appointed as the head of video game production in Ubisoft Kiev. All my professional life I have been involved in projects, most of them with many stakeholders, distributed around the world.

Whenever I think back to what I could have done better in various circumstances, two things stand out: I could have better controlled my area of responsibility through more standardized PM practices and, by being more in control, I could have acted more responsibly on various occasions. While clear, standardized processes do not guarantee neither project success nor the sense of ownership and responsibility that every project manager should have, they are liberating. They free the PM from the burden of reinventing the wheel and let him focus on the project at hand - contrary to the wide spread belief among unexperienced PMs that standardization is a burden the corporate management enforces on them.

Throughout this post I will discuss why Project Management is so important and why standardizing its practice within the organization can be of benefit to everyone involved. At the end, I will discuss the two blockers one can face when trying to spread the practice.

The promise of Project Management:

“Today, project management is more than a position or a career. It has become a mind-set, and it turns up in every corner of the business world. Every company is trying to manage its resources as closely as possible and project management is an essential part of that effort” - Project Management For Profit, Joe Knight 2012

In one sentence, the discipline of project management is about acting preventively, proactively and responsibly when leading a project. While great PM still has many intangibles related to human interactions, intuition, communication, talent, the discipline has evolved from magic to science, with tons of best practices, patterns and processes.

So, before asking yourself whether you need PM in your organization, ask yourself if you can afford:

• Multimillion Euro projects being led without a certainty that they will ship on time and on budget.
• Bad reputation of not being able to deliver. Mistrust.
• Poor communication and unhappy stakeholders
• Not learning from past mistakes.
• Not utilizing the investment put in past experience.
• Leaving managers without proper support when they manage multimillion euro budgets.
• Overtime, the cost of burnout or that of leaving personnel.

The promise of project management lies in having a scientific, measurable solution to the problems above. Great project managers are not magicians. They don't have a magic wand.They are trained professionals that you can trust. They will be able to explain you very clearly what value they bring to your organization and how they do it. They will talk about objective measurements, they will talk about process, about best practices. Their promise and their craft is to show you transparently what they do with your money and what to realistically expect in return. In a word, deliver expected results, transparently. Among others, they will talk about:

• Building and managing budgets and plans
• Following completion
• Identifying and managing risks
• Communication and keeping stakeholders happy
• Continuous development of staff
• Organization, structure, process

Why standardize? What if projects are going on well already?

The first question that comes to my mind is "what do you mean by "going well?"". How do you measure it? How do you know that a project is achieving maximum performance in terms of cost, schedule, quality, stakeholder satisfaction, risk, staff development? How do you know that you are getting the maximum from your investment and how do you compare projects?

In order to survive, a company needs to lead. Leading companies are the ones that have the initiative, the vision and the means to succeed. Profit and talent follow the leaders. Ideas worth nothing without being materialized, so leaders excel at execution. As PM sets the framework for delivering results, leading companies have PM as one of their core competencies - either explicitly or implicitly. Leading companies:

• have trust from our peers (ship on time, stick to commitments)
• learn from their past experiences
• secure the learning process and reuse it in future projects
• secure the talent
• optimize talent usage
• optimize budgets and timelines
• predictably deliver value

The promise of standardizing project management is to achieve all that, including:

• induction of newcomers to PM (and not only) and short, predictable ramp-up for them
• easier access to PM knowledge and lessons learned
• less burden on project managers who do not have to reinvent the wheel (processes / forms / metrics)
• a baseline for common understanding and expectations
• tracking of performance based on objective measurements
• continuous improvement

Above all, it shifts the emphasis from magic to science and process across all projects. Because of this extra transparency, everyone with an interest invested in the well being of the company have only to gain:

• Company management
• Visibility on progress
• Trust in their teams
• Less administrative burden
• Extra value added for customers
• Project managers
• Lessons learned
• Proven, transmittable processes
• Knowledge base
• Standardized forms and metrics - not have to reinvent them
• Simplified induction of new PMs
• Learning and sharing among PMs
• Team members
• Continuous learning
• Visibility, clarity, predictability, security
• Ground rules
• Trust in the company
• Customers
• Trust
• Clear deliverables
• Clear expectations
• Clear view on progress
• Involvement

Therefore, I personally do not see any reason not to standardize PM across all projects within a company or department.

What stops companies from standardizing their PM practices?

I believe that the blockers lie mostly in two areas:

• Misunderstanding about the role and the job description of the PM.
• Resistance to change.

Unfortunately, PM is a very misunderstood practice. I have seen a lot of people calling themselves project managers when what they really did was process work. The person who is providing the same technical service, over and over, to multiple projects is not a project manager. There's no such thing as office project manager for someone who is doing office maintenance work. I believe some people add "project manager" to their title just because it sounds nice, without knowing what it is about and contributing to global misunderstanding about the term. Doesn't help much either the fact that projects vary widely in size and impact, ranging from school-type assignment to multimillion, multinational enterprises.  Thus, in real life, the term "project manager" has been diluted and it does not say much about what the person's expertise is. To counter any doubt, I believe that it is up to the true PM professionals to explain what they do and by what metrics they should be measured.

Other than that, even in well established project organizations where PMs drive significant projects, it is not always clear why the practice should be standardized. Instinctively, nobody wants a new manager, nobody wants to be directed on how to do his / her job, nobody wants audits and process rigor. It seems easier to escape in the fog of "the magic practice", without clear measurements and standardized processes. Even more, as standardizing involves more work in the beginning (after all, it is a project per se), people are reluctant to take it on when their schedules are already fully loaded.  PMs would need to learn more - which is not always comfortable - and be evaluated on new metrics - on which they may not succeed that well. All these trigger the resistance to change especially in the people that would benefit the most from the standardization.

Standardizing PM is a project per se.

In order to succeed in standardizing PM, proactive managers should convince top management about its benefits and gather support for their project. They need a strong sponsor and an experienced PM. They need to provide a plan, they need to provide metrics for measuring success and progress. They need to have an approved budget and time for the people involved. Standardizing does not come free, as it requires employee time, trainings, materials. Its objectives need to be very well defined and monitored and have a designated responsible with enough power to set things in motion. Of course, it needs to be properly managed so that it becomes a success story, an example of a "perfect project" for the organization. 

Companies need to be aware that standardization is not a one-time effort. After all the practices are set in place, a budget should be allocated to maintain a structure to monitor continuous deployment of PM internal standards, audit projects, evaluate PMs, archive lessons learned and dispatch them, train new employees and evolve the practice within the organization. As with everywhere, quality, security and trust come at a price. The good news is that the price should be far less than the benefits.

Good luck! :)