With the experience of this week in mind, I was intrigued when I watched Dan Ariely’s talk on What Makes Us Feel Good About Our Work, recently released on TED.com. He describes two experiments that reveal how important it is for all of us to have meaning in our work.  Being involved in the building process, making it challenging and providing simple acknowledgement of their work go a long way in giving people a sense of meaning and staying motivated.

I would appreciate to hear your thoughts after watching the video.  How do you find meaning in your work?

Disclosure: I cannot discuss the content of the game or any specifics of the project, so please don’t ask.  Keep following Game Informer this month for exclusive content.  Any opinions expressed here or anywhere else on this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the companies I work(ed) for (present or past), their affiliates or employees.

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• The Most Important Question: Why?

Photo credit: bobsfever / Foter.com / CC BY-ND

Mission For Today: Ask Someone What Is Important To Them At Work. Listen.

You have been sitting next to and working with Luke for six months.  You greet each other every morning, talk about the weekend, and ask about the kids.  How well do you really know Luke?  Do you know what he likes best about his job?  What he likes least about his job?  Is he excited about going to work every day? Is he getting what he needs to deliver what the business needs?

Whether you are Luke’s manager or just the person sitting next to him, the best way to find out what motivates him is to listen.  Ask him what is important to him, what he likes or doesn’t like.  Ask him what he needs. After you ask a question, stop talking and listen. He may not tell you everything right away. It takes time to build that trust. Still, make sure you take the time to ask him what he thinks and then listen to the answer. Show you’re listening by reflecting what you have heard and understood.  Improve your understanding by asking more questions related to what he is saying.

In our busy world, our days are filled with telling and talking.  Take a little time today and listen. It may make a big difference to someone and you will learn something to understand them better.

When you have completed this mission, please share your experience in the comments.

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• Mission For Today: Have Coffee With Someone New

All video game developers put their passion into their projects with the hope that players will find it fun.  It’s nice to know that the chocolate we provide also has some benefits.

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Ever feel like your outsourcing partner just doesn’t “get” you, your product or your business?  Having worked with many different outsourcers across a few different industries, I have developed a good sense of what makes a good partner.  Here are a few things I wish all outsourcers understood about how to make clients happy.

Do Your Homework

While your client wants you to respond quickly, nothing is more frustrating than receiving work that wasn’t wanted in the first place.  Take some time to understand the product and the services your client wants from you.  Investing a day up front will save days of grief later.  Go through the package of work and ask good questions, especially if there is anything that wasn’t expected.  Hold a kick-off meeting with your client.  Find out what is important to your client and the product.  Ask for and analyze previous examples and share what you learned, just to make sure you are on the same page.  If there are no previous examples, create one from the work you have been asked to do and establish that as the benchmark.

Check Your Assumptions

This is particularly important during contract negotiation because no one likes hearing “it’s not in the contract” after it has been signed.  Even throughout the project, communicate often and check your assumptions as you go.  It’s better to spend a few minutes to check in than have to redo a bunch of work because the assumption was wrong. Work with your client to set up a schedule for regular communications to make sure you talk more than just when “things come up”.

Help Us Help You

Good customer service practices tell you to adapt to whatever your customer wants.  While it is important to be flexible and adapt, there naturally has to be a limit to still be able to work effectively.  As an outsourcing partner, you have the benefit of working with many different clients and learning what works or doesn’t work for your team.  Understand what are your best practices and don’t be afraid to suggest them to your clients.  As long as you use templates and practices as a starting point, rather than a required form of bureaucracy, there is a good chance we may appreciate the suggestion.  If you need anything from your client to work better, ask for it.  Do not assume that we know what you need.

Be Transparent And Ask For The Same

While you never want your clients to know about all your dirty laundry, you are kidding yourself if you think that your client can’t see when something is wrong.  We can tell if you are balancing multiple projects, having problems with the work or experiencing staffing problems.  May as well be professional, let your client know about your challenges, what you are doing about it and if there is anything you need from your client to help you succeed.  On the same token, you also know when your client is stressed, unhappy or less responsive than usual.  Ask if they can share what is going on and find out if there is anything you can do to help.  Knowing what is happening on your client’s side will also help you adapt your services to their needs.

Learn The Language

Every company, every industry uses particular words, acronyms and phrases.  Sometimes one word or phrase means different things to different people.  Learn your client’s lingo and be sure to explain any  particular words or phrases you use.  If you are working with clients in other countries, it is best to use plain, simple English (or your common working language).  Avoid slang and colloquialisms. Otherwise you will spend all your time, just trying to figure out what everyone is talking about.

As a client, is there anything else you want your outsourcing partners to understand?  Please share your experiences in the comments.

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Photo credit: DaveOnFlickr / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

When you outsource, how far do you push your partners on quality?  When outsourcing digital work (software, digital assets, etc.), it’s sometimes difficult to determine whether your request to fix something is really a change in what you wanted in the first place.  In addition, if you are easily able to make changes yourself, you may think you should just accept the work and make updates later.

In the hardware world, though, that wouldn’t happen.  If a manufacturer delivers something that doesn’t work, the customer sends it right back and the manufacturer is expected to fix it at their cost.  Same thing as a consumer.  If your favorite i-Fruit arrived broken, you would send it back, right?  You would do it right away and expect something for your trouble.

When you receive something from an outsourcer and it doesn’t meet your expectations, ask yourself: “Is the i-Fruit broken? Or am I asking for a custom color and a different case?  If it’s the former, your outsourcer must fix it.

To handle this objectively and fairly, you need to consider the following when you start the outsourcing relationship:

• What is the basic technical functionality?  What do you need the outsourcer to deliver for their work to just… work? This does not have to be an exhaustively detailed list of requirements, but the basics need to be communicated such as platform, file format, file size, naming conventions, etc.
• What is important to your product?  Of course you want everything, but what is really important to you and your product needs to be communicated to your outsourcing partners. This will define what quality means to you.
• How will you measure quality?  Even if quality for your end product is completely subjective, you will still need to figure out a way to objectively determine what your standards are and whether your outsourcing partner has met them.  At a minimum you will need to provide a reference, communicate the key points of that reference and use it as a comparison to what you receive.
• How will you factor in the cost of rework? In hardware, a certain level of rework is negotiated and factored into the cost of the product.  The same needs to be done even in software products.  This is where it can get tricky.  If the amount of rework is significantly more than expected, then a new round of negotiations will start as both sides try to push as much of the cost as they can onto each other.  No matter what, if the i-Fruit is broken, and the first three points were clearly communicated, then the cost first lies with the outsourcer.

How have you handled quality issues in outsourcing relationships?  What do you specify up-front?  How do you factor in the cost of rework? Please share your experiences in the comments.

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Mission for today: Smile!  It’s contagious!

Have you noticed that when you smile, the whole world seems to smile with you? When someone approaches you with a smile, you naturally respond with a smile. We can’t help it. Our emotions are contagious. So, the mission for today is to spread some good cheer by simply smiling. Start every conversation with a smile and you will get smiles back. The people you talk to will then start other conversations with smiles. Soon, the whole office will feel happier.

If you are tired and grumpy today, do what you can to put a smile on your face. Read a favorite daily comic strip. Go for short walk. Watch a favorite comedian on YouTube for a few minutes. Do something to lift your spirits so that your smile is genuine because the people around you can always tell when you’re faking it.

When you accomplish the mission, please share in the comments the results. Did everyone you talk to smile back? If you weren’t already in a good mood, how did you lift your spirits? Did you feel happier by the end of the day?

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• Is Laughter Contagious? (urbantimes.co)

Love this button from the great folks at Rally Software.

Does this seem familiar? Months before a deadline, the team is relaxed and responds to problems with: “Don’t worry!  We’ve got months to deal with that!”  As months turn into weeks, issues get addressed along the way, but some of the really hard problems continue to hang around. Finally, when the deadline is days away, pressure is on, and the team rushes to deal with everything at once, complaining that the deadline is the problem.

“Deadlines just aren’t real to me until I’m staring one in the face.”
― Rick Riordan

It seems that our relationship with deadlines depends on our distance from them. When they are far away, they aren’t real so we just go with the flow. Once those deadlines are staring us in the face, our relationship changes. They pressure us into action. We hate the reality of the deadline but  there is some part of us that loves the adrenaline rush. Certainly nothing beats the excitement and satisfaction we get when we work hard, hit that deadline and ship something that makes us proud!

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams

As a good leader or project manager, what can you do to ensure that issues are dealt with sooner and that deadlines do not whoosh by?

•  Find the right, regular frequency. One of the core principles of Scrum is to set sprints that are always the same length. Even if you do not use Agile practices, it is still a good concept. Sprints or deadlines need to be long enough to get work done, but short enough to respond to change. Scrum recommends 4 week sprints. Shorter than 2 weeks is too frequent and longer than 6 weeks is too long. Keeping the length of the sprints consistent will help you and your team to develop a rhythm and better manage your time. When the deadlines are predictable, your ability to deliver will also become more predictable.

• Deadlines need to be meaningful to the team. This can be challenging, especially for Scrum teams. With regular sprints the deadlines are set for the sake of having deadlines. Unless the team really buys into the concept of delivering something every sprint, they will have a hard time finishing their work and the story at the top of this post will become all too familiar. Talk to your team and find out what motivates them to meet a deadline. Find ways to tie it to a bigger objective, such as an external demo, a trade show, a real customer release, a significant achievement in the development of the product. If it takes three sprints to meet such an objective, show the team how each deadline will get them there.

• Keep progress visible. You can easily lose sight of a deadline when you don’t know where you are on the journey. It’s like being in the back of a car on a road trip and you’re wondering: “Are we there yet?”  Come up with a simple visual management system that clearly shows the team the goal and where they are on the road to meeting that goal. Put up a diagram of the major components that need to be developed and update it as each piece is worked on and completed. Add a countdown of how many days to the deadline and the team knows exactly where they are at and how far the deadline is.

• Stick to it! No one is going to take deadlines seriously if you move them. If you see that the team is in trouble, it should prompt you to make decisions about priorities, scope and resources, not to move the deadline. Never make the deadline shorter except under extreme and very real circumstances. If there is a strong business reason to do that, there must be real risk and reward attached to it, otherwise you will lose all credibility. Along the same lines, if the team misses a deadline, there needs to be real consequences. If the team beats a deadline, take some time to celebrate. Even better – give the team some free time before the start of the next sprint.

What are your tips and tricks for helping your teams manage and meet their deadlines? How do you make them meaningful? How do you show progress? Please share your experience in the comments.

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Image courtesy of Ambro/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Have you ever spent a lot of time and energy trying to transform your situation into what you think it should be, but everyone keeps doing what they have always done? You could be trying to convince people to follow a process, use a tool, improve how they work or even just fix something. Even if everyone agrees there is a problem, the team continues to default to what we know. The result: you’re stressed out, frustrated, wondering why you’re not making progress and feel helpless to effect any change.

When you find yourself in this situation, take a deep breath and consider a different point of view. While you may have a very clear vision of how things should be, there may be a better way to achieve it. Stop, take a step back and do a reality check. What is your team’s culture? What do they do best? Take an honest look at what is working for your team, even if you don’t agree with it.

To reduce your stress, embrace reality and come up with better ways to accept it. In the long run, you will succeed in changing your reality.

This story will help illustrate this concept.  I once worked with an Art Director who spent over two years trying to get several product development teams to use a common technology the same way.  Having everyone use the technology the same way made it easier for the art department to do their jobs.  They could work the same way across all the projects, making it easy to move artists from project to project as demands changed.  Artistically, it would also be easier to meet a consistent level of quality.  After a lot of frustration and very little progress, he eventually realized that the product development teams had to customize how they used the technology.  His energy would be better spent developing a common workflow for the artists that can accommodate the various ways their customers worked.  It was much easier to make those changes and, in the end, he helped his team get much closer to the original goal.

This philosophy can even be easily applied in your personal life.  Whether you are having problems with your partner, family, finances or career, consider taking an honest look at reality, embrace it, and put your energy into coming up with solutions that accept that reality.  You will reduce your stress and be happier with the results.

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Image courtesy of imagerymagestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Mission for today: have some fun at work

Teams that play together, stay together.  Whether it is Halloween, the last business day before the Christmas break, or a random Thursday afternoon why not have a little fun once in awhile?

Some simple things you can do:

• Play cards
• Play board games
• Play video games – either console or online
• Bring in a DVD and watch a movie together (and make some popcorn)
• Create something together
• If your office has any recreational facilities… use them – as a team!

The most successful team event I have held was a team potluck lunch, followed by an afternoon of playing games. One person brought in Werewolf. Another team brought in Rock Band.  Another team played online. Of course, I work in video game development, so games are a big part of everyone’s lives. Still, that afternoon was inexpensive, low-key, simple to organize and was so popular that the team asked to do the same thing the next year.

Feb 14, 2013 Update: Some members of my team decided to contribute to the Harlem Shake trend on YouTube and got together to produce this video. Just simply awesome fun!

When you have completed your mission, please share the results in the comments. What did you do? Did you have fun?

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Mission for today: have coffee with someone new.

If you have been with your company or your team for a while, you have probably developed your own social circle. These are the people with whom you talk about the weekend or share photos of your children or pets. You probably take your coffee or lunch breaks with them, too. What about the other people you work with?  Do you ever talk to them outside of meetings?

Grabbing a cup of coffee is a simple way to connect with someone new.  If you have never talked with that person outside of meetings, you will want to start with something as simple as declaring that you are getting a coffee at your nearby coffee machine and asking if he would like to join you.  You may get turned down, but at least you asked.  Next time, he may take you up on it.  Then again, he may accept and you have an opportunity to chat a few minutes.  You can stick with topics related to the meeting or even venture into asking about holiday plans.  If you have talked with the person before, take the initiative and invite him to coffee at a nearby cafe.  In a more relaxed setting away from the office, you will learn more about him and what he thinks is important… or not.  As you build these relationships, your meetings may start getting easier because you will know what is important to those around the table.

When you accomplish the mission, please share in the comments the results.  Who did you invite for coffee?  Was it a quick chat or did you sit down for the whole coffee break?  Was it a positive experience?

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Tagged: Leadership, Managing Humans, postaday, postaweek2012 ]]> http://blog.socketsandlightbulbs.com/2012/12/20/mission-for-today-have-coffee-with-someone-new/feed/ 2 Hot Chocolate socketbulbs Invite someone to coffee