I am rebuilding this site (click to read more)
Jump to content

Articles

wdfw w ff wdf sfsfd sfdwdfsdfwerw r werw erwe rwe rwer werwer werw erwer we r we rwerewrwe rwe rwer wer werwer werwe

My Articles
Community Articles
Guest Blogging Information

My Articles

Show all categories

France is trying to get Google to pay for links to their news articles

France is trying to use an already confusing and illogical Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market to force Google to pay for links to news articles for french news papers. As expected Google has responded that they will simply remove the news snippets in question to avoid any license fee's. That did not sit well with France who are now trying to sue Google.
To me it is amazing how these things keep popping up from countries like France, Germany and Spain. Anyone who understand Internet and how search engines work would see that asking a service provider to pay for providing service is backwards. For some reason this does not seem to resonate with certain people when dealing with copyright and especially media.
As France now have taken the Directive to become law in France they somehow had the hubris to think that Google, or any search engine for that matter, would actually pay for doing the french news the favor of highlighting their content and drive traffic to them. Naturally Google followed this new law by simply removing the content that require legal fees. For some reason this apparently was surprising to the French, even if the Germans have already tried this and failed miserably.
So what are they arguing about really? Well, it is the so called "rich links", or rich snippets where you will see a small image, the title of the article and a short text. In a blog post from Google they have responded with how they will handle this according to the new law in France.

This has made the French cultural minister Franck Riester angry. For some reason he actually thought that Google would actually start paying for helping the media companies to get quality traffic to their sites. It is illogical in so many ways that I do not think he really understand what Google do or how Copyright works.
If you hold copyright over something you should of course have the control of how others use your creative work, or even if they are allowed to. There is nothing strange about that. It is also in everyone's right to not use or reference that same creative work if I do not want to. That is how Copyright works.
Google is a service provider who collect information about websites and create a database over those sites to make them searchable. This is a free service that anyone can use and as you know Google is not the only search engine you can use. Google make money by allowing advertisement on the search result pages.
So what France now have done is that have made it illegal so show image and text previews in the rich snippets presented in search results. This is done by invoking the right to control Copyrighted material, which is well within their right. What they do not understand is that Google have the right to choose not to infringe on that same copyright by changing what they display in the results.
For some reason France want to force Google to infringe on Copyrighted material so they can be fined for doing so. That is illogical as you are basically forcing criminal behavior by legislation. That is an act that by itself should be illegal if forced, but it seems that Franck Riester do not understand that very simple concept.
We will see how this farce plays out in it's absurdity and I predict that the french media will suffer the same way as their German counterparts did previously. They had to make good with Google and give them permission to present the links without paying, which made that lawsuit pretty useless. I think the french will have the same experience and it's strange that they do not understand this from previous experiments like this.
What do you think?
Jimi Wikman
đź’« Jimi Wikman

We are Zington - Formerly known as Claremont

This weekend my company went to Croatia for a conference as Claremont and returned as Zington. This is yet another step in our journey to strengthen our brand for expanding out in the world. It feels good to have a new name to go with our new profile on top of our strong core values.
"We wanted a name that didn't mean anything but wasn't taken either, so we started looking. We are very pleased with the name and have had a transparency towards the employees during the process of the new name, although only about 50 people knew about the name."  - Per Thörnkvist
This is of course a big step, but thanks to a transparent process led by our amazing Tharanga Kulamithra, I feel nothing but joy and pride over this change. It is an amazing transformation to be a part of to first build the new graphical profile and then make a brand change of this magnitude.
Now we move forward, towards a bright future where we take our culture and out values to the world.
We are Zington.
Jimi Wikman
đź’« Jimi Wikman

Are you a Manager or a Leader?

It seems that the terms "leader" and "manager" are used a bit casually when you look at role descriptions and titles. The thing though is that they are not interchangeable, but actually have a very distinct definition in my opinion. Leaders lead and managers manage after all and those are two different skill sets.
Are you a project manager or project leader? That is a question almost no one ever ask, because in most people's mind they are the same. I would argue however that it is not because for me there is a very big difference between someone who lead and someone who manage.
 
A manager manage.
"Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a not-for-profit organization, or government body. Management includes the activities of setting the strategy of an organization and coordinating the efforts of its employees (or of volunteers) to accomplish its objectives through the application of available resources, such as financial, natural, technological, and human resources. The term "management" may also refer to those people who manage an organization. "
- Wikipedia
Someone with the title manager is often someone who do not directly interact with the people they manage. They handle things like finances, stakeholder communication and reporting. In many ways managers work upwards to satisfy the need of those higher up in the hierarchy. People are often handled indirectly by managers and focus is on delivery and the promise given to those higher up in the organization.
Henri Fayol have a definition I think is quite accurate:  "to manage is to forecast and to plan, to organize, to command, to co-ordinate and to control."
Managers need strong skills in strategic planning and structured organization. As they often do not directly work with the people they manage they don't need strong charisma or empathic abilities. That is not to say that managers have these abilities, just that it is less required than for leaders.
Managers focus on the promise of delivery.
 
A leader lead.
"A leader is one who influences or leads others. 
Leadership is both a research area and a practical skill encompassing the ability of an individual or organization to "lead" or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints, contrasting Eastern and Western approaches to leadership, and also (within the West) United States versus European approaches. U.S. academic environments define leadership as "a process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task"
Someone with the title leader is someone who directly interact with the people they lead. These are people who manage day to day activities within the team to ensure that the team are doing well. Leaders work downwards towards the team they lead and will shield them from the demands from those higher up in the organization.
Unlike management, leadership cannot be taught, although it may be learned and enhanced through coaching or mentoring. Erika Andersen, author of "Leading So People Will Follow," says, like most things – leadership capability falls along a bell curve. So the fact is that most folks who start out with a modicum of innate leadership capability can actually become very good, even great leaders.
We can define a leader and someone who possess a degree of leadership. Leadership can be defined as "The act of inspiring subordinants to perform and engage in achieving a goal."

In order to have others follow you, you need leadership skills and the respect of those that you lead. Empathy is a crucial skill as is charisma and compassion. As a leader you are also responsible for the promise of delivery and need organizational and strategic planning skills. It is just less required than for a manager.
Leaders focus on the promise to take care of the people.
 
Blurred lines between manager and leader.
It may seem that I make a hard distinction between managers and leaders. I know that the lines between the two are not as cut and dry as this article may suggest. Many managers are also great leaders and many leaders are great managers. The point I try to make is that the titles are not interchangeable, but they actually have a definition.
I think this is important because as long as we mix these roles when describing what role we actually are looking for, then we will continue to get the wrong skill set. This is even more confusing when adding a role definition based on an ability such as leadership.
Are you a sword or a shield?
This is a question I often ask when someone tell me they are a manager or a leader of some sort. Being a sword means that you will sacrifice the people to fulfill the promise of delivery. A shield on the other hand will protect the people even if it means sacrificing the promise of delivery.
Both of these types of managers are needed in an organization and you can often see the correlation when an organization are over representing one of the two. To many swords lead to a detached workforce and health issues among the teams. To many shields lead to difficulties to grow and economical issues.
In my perfect world we have a mix of both types throughout the organization. A higher focus on swords are at the top of the hierarchy and a higher focus on the shields are at the bottom. If we combine this with good communication and an organization model that focus work, then you have a perfect work environment.
So...are you a manager, or a leader?
Jimi Wikman
đź’« Jimi Wikman

Hitting the wall and burn yourself out

Almost every day I see someone posting about stress related illness. I meet people who I see are close to hitting the wall and burning themselves out on a regular basis and it makes me sad. Why do we struggle with this and for what purpose? How can you come back once you hit the wall and what do you do to come back?
25 years ago I hit the wall. I burned myself out and spent a year in rehab. It was so bad that I once went to the store to buy milk, but had to stop halfway home and call a friend to drive me home. I lived 10 minutes from the store. This experience is one of the worst I have ever experienced and the effect of it will never go away.
This is why I react when I see people do the same stupid thing as I did and work yourself to the brink of exhaustion. No one will ever thank you for getting burned out and the road back is very long indeed. The worst part is that it is almost impossible for anyone to understand the way getting burnt out feel, so it is hard to find someone to talk to.
 
How to burn yourself out
Working hard is not the same as burning yourself out. Working hard is for me how you should work. It is when working hard under constant negative stress happen you risk burning yourself getting burned out. The tricky part with this however is that everyone have different things we respond to with negative stress. This makes it hard to know when you are risking your health and when you are just working hard.
Stress is when we trigger our natural defense mechanism called "fight-or-flight" or stress response. This is one of our strongest subconscious mental responses and as such it is often something we are not even aware of. In short it is the way our mind defend itself from harm. What we protect ourselves from varies from person to person and it is triggered differently in different people.
You can for example be a person that handle chaotic environments such as restaurants well, but get stressed over meetings with authorities or economic problems. Other people can be very sensitive to uncertainties and require structure and order to avoid stress. Since this is individual it is very hard to know when you are hurting yourself from stress, or even what type of stress that is harmful. There are symptoms however that you can look out for to help you identify these types of issues
These symptoms are borrowed from WebMD.
Emotional symptoms of stress include:
Becoming easily agitated, frustrated, and moody Feeling overwhelmed, like you are losing control or need to take control Having difficulty relaxing and quieting your mind Feeling bad about yourself (low self-esteem), lonely, worthless, and depressed Avoiding others Physical symptoms of stress include:
Low energy Headaches Upset stomach, including diarrhea, constipation, and nausea Aches, pains, and tense muscles Chest pain and rapid heartbeat Insomnia Frequent colds and infections Loss of sexual desire and/or ability Nervousness and shaking, ringing in the ear, cold or sweaty hands and feet Dry mouth and difficulty swallowing Clenched jaw and grinding teeth Cognitive symptoms of stress include:
Constant worrying Racing thoughts Forgetfulness and disorganization Inability to focus Poor judgment Being pessimistic or seeing only the negative side For me the most common symptom is low energy. I call this "the hole" as it feels like you are trapped in a dark hole mentally. I get this quite often and that is because of my duality in personality where I am both extrovert and introvert. That means that I spend a lot of energy being extrovert at work, but then I need time for reflection for my introvert side to balance that out.
Not having enough time for reflection at work is one of the most damaging things you can have. This is why the word NO is so important as well as the ability to dedicate time for reflection. Many organizations adapt a policy called No Meetings Day, which basically locks time from being used for meetings. This is so time can be spent on work and focused reflection.
I have a theory that the reason why so many poor decisions are made in organizations is because everyone is constantly running. With no time to reflect decisions are made in the fight or flight mode. The problem with that is that when you are in that mode you suppress your prefrontal cortex. This area of the brain is often referred to the "modern brain" since this is where our ability to plan and take long term decision. This area is also responsible for empathy, which is why some managers appear to be assholes.
 
How to avoid getting burned out
Balance you energy
The first thing I suggest you do right now is to make a list of things that give you energy and what drain you of energy. This is your balance list. This list will help you understand how you are doing mentally and you should update this often in the beginning. For me for example it cost energy to go to parties and I gain energy from writing or watching movies. For you it can be that it give you energy to go to parties and it cost energy to write reports. It all depend on your personality and there are no right or wrong answers.
Do you have time to do your work?
The second thing you should do is to look at your work. Do you have enough time to do your job? If the answer is no, then you will burn yourself out sooner or later. This is why many people in stressful jobs jump between employers as the time constraint trigger the fight or flight response. You either get into conflict with your employer or you leave if the stress get to much. So if you are in a situation when time is not enough, then you should talk to your employer to reduce the workload. If that is not possible, then find new employment if possible.
Do not forsake reflection due to social demands
Thirdly, and this is mostly for my introvert peers out there, make sure you do not forsake reflection in order to be socially accepted. I know many introverts who feel obligated to go to parties or be social when they should spend time reflecting. This is especially problematic when you are young or when you invest heavily into social media. Do not be afraid to shut down, even if you feel that people think you are weird. You are not weird and everyone that actually matter will not only understand, they will support you in that decision.
Reflect and listen
This is important, because it is when you stop to reflect that you can see the signs of you being in danger of burning yourself out. For me I write things like this and as I write I reflect on my own state of mind. For you it can be a walk in nature, mindfulness or just having a cup of tea on the terrace. Also listen to what others are saying. If people ask if you are ok, then stop and reflect instead of instantly respond that you are ok. I actually had members of my team ask me this a coupe of years ago and it led to me taking a few days off as I was getting burned out
 
What do I do if I burn myself out?
Ask for help!
This one is the most difficult one for many. Asking for help is for some strange reason considered to be a weakness, but it is in fact a strength. The ability to ask for help prevent many, many issues in life and I think it is also a prerequisite for personal growth. So do not be afraid to ask for help if you start to feel some of the symptoms above. Go talk to a doctor and also consider talking to a therapist as the injury you have sustained is a mental one. Only the symptoms are physical.
Accept that you are injured
Being burned out is not something you can "get over" or "snap out of". It is not you being lazy or weak. It is a mental injury as well as a physical one as your long term exposure of stress hormones have damaged your central nervous system. You need to treat this as a physical injury and by this I mean that you need to give it time to heal. Just as you would not keep running on a fractured leg you should not continue working in the same stressful way with a stress related injury. Let it take the time it need for you to heal.
Talk to someone who understand
This is extremely difficult to do, not just for you, but also for the people around you. Many who get burned out are people that naturally work very hard. To these people it is difficult to handle the situation as it conflict with their self image. As people around you do not understand and tell you to "get over it", that affect your self image even more. For this reason you should find someone to talk to who has been in the same situation as you have. Understanding that you are not alone and that this is not something you can just get over will help with those feelings.
Fill up on positives and cut away all demands
Nothings feels as heavy as having things that you must do. It can become paralyzing to the point of giving you panic attacks just to meet someone for coffee. So try to cut away on all things that you feel must be done and focus on things that fill you with energy. If you feel like meeting someone or doing something social, make sure that you give yourself a way out if needed. When I meet with people who have suffered a stress related injury I always tell them that if they need to cancel they just send a text. No explanations or excuses are needed. I also advice them to tell others that they are meeting that if they can not make it they will send a text and that they don't need a text back. Most people will understand that and it reduce a lot of the stress.
Drugs is not the answer!
When stress related injuries happen your instinct is to avoid the pain it brings. Most turn inwards naturally and avoid people to protect themselves. For some this is either not enough, or they can not handle the social demands. So they turn to drugs to take the edge of the pain and to hide from the world in a sense. An increase of substance abuse, regardless if it is alcohol or drugs is not actually helping however. In fact since your mind is already experiencing depression and low self esteem combined with a reduced capacity of your rational thinking adding drugs and alcohol will only increase the risk of self damage such as suicide.
Know that you will be ok
Depression often comes with stress related injuries. Self doubt and the sense of being worthless is common. These things can lead to thoughts of suicide as you see no way out of your situation. This is why it is important to get help early because no matter how bad your situation is and how deep into the darkest corners you find yourself I promise you that you will be ok. Just like all injuries they will heal in time and just like all pain it can become unbearable if you carry it alone. So ask for help and know that the pain you go through is temporary and will eventually fade. 
You will be ok.
 
Take care of yourself out there
Getting burned out is becoming more common these days as we sacrifice empathy on the altar of efficiency. So take care of yourself and balance those energy levels. Talk about it often with friends and family and reflect on your current state of mind regularly.
No one will ever thank you for working yourself into the wall. Surprisingly enough most people will appreciate you for saying no if you have to much to do. Saying no takes courage and it has nothing to do with weakness.
You are an amazing person and you deserve a wonderful life. So take care of yourself and make sure you never hit that wall.
 
 
Jimi Wikman
đź’« Jimi Wikman

SAFe for Lean Enterprises 5.0 - what is new and what is the impact

SAFe 5.0 can be previewed on a preview section of the Scaled Agile For Enterprise website. The suggested changes takes several steps forward towards a lean organization type of frame work. With that comes challenges for companies who see SAFe as a development framework and not an organization one. Will this make it easier or harder to have organizations adapt to SAFe?
In SAFe for Lean Enterprises 5.0 comes with two new competencies and updated to five competencies. It also pushes pretty hard towards the business side with new business agility and SAFe for business teams. The biggest change is probably the merge of the teams level and the program level into one single level called Essential. While it is good to involve business more and I agree with the arguments for merging team and program levels I fear that this will make SAFe less attractive. That is because now it require a complete transformation of the company, while before you could have it living along side other frameworks.
 

 
New Focus on Business Agility
"Business Agility is the ability to compete and thrive in the digital age by quickly responding to market changes and emerging opportunities with innovative business solutions. It requires that everyone involved in delivering solutions—business and technology leaders, development, IT operations, legal, marketing, finance, support, compliance, security, and others—use Lean and Agile practices to continually deliver innovative, high-quality products and services faster than the competition."
This sounds amazing, but I would say that less than 1% of all enterprise companies are even close to having a lean approach to their organization. Almost all companies have some areas, but as a whole I would say almost every enterprise company still have a waterfall and project based approach to their organization.

 
Continuous Learning Culture New
"The Continuous Learning Culture competency describes a set of values and practices that encourage individuals—and the enterprise as a whole—to continually increase knowledge, competence, performance, and innovation. This culture is achieved by becoming a learning organization, committing to relentless improvement, and promoting a culture of innovation."
This is where I think many organizations dedicated to implement SAFe will get uncomfortable. Continuous learning cost a lot of money. We are talking several millions a year and a dedicated workforce for coaching and educating the organization. In most of the companies I have see this is very uncommon. Most if the time there is a small central team and then a multitude of initiatives throughout the organization that is not very structured or large enough to support everyone.
I would love to see this implemented, but the cost for it will surely give a lot of resistance.

 
Organizational Agility New
"The Organizational Agility competency describes how Lean-thinking people and Agile teams optimize their business processes, evolve strategy with clear and decisive new commitments, and quickly adapt the organization as needed to capitalize on new opportunities."
This makes sense, unless you consider that most enterprise companies are not Lean-thinking in their mindset and the sheer complexity of their operations makes Lean-thinking difficult. Again most companies still struggle with Agile where it mostly become an Ad-hoc stress trap due to poor adaptation and support.
Again this require a huge commitment with an almost total organization transformation. The cost alone is monumental and the effort to move your entire organization, as well as changing the tool set, towards this goal makes it a big obstacle towards a SAFe implementation for many companies. If they can afford the cost and can see the change management through however this would be very interesting indeed. I know of no company today that works this way on an organization level and I am not sure it is even possible at an enterprise company.

 
Team and Technical Agility Restructured
"The Team and Technical Agility competency describes the critical skills and Lean-Agile principles and practices that high-performing Agile teams and Teams of Agile teams use to create high-quality solutions for their customers. The result is increased productivity, better quality, faster time-to-market, and predictable delivery of value."
This description has been updated, but unfortunately it still does not define teams as product based. It also does not give any focus towards work satisfaction or team health, which is important factors to consider as some teams should not use an Agile methodology as it is damaging to their health. Not really much news here other than some updates to to the merge of team and program level.

 
Agile Product Delivery   Restructured
"The Agile Product Delivery competency is a customer-centric approach to defining, building, and releasing a continuous flow of valuable products and services to customers and users. This competency enables the organization to provide solutions that delight customers, lower development costs, reduce risk, and outmaneuver the competition. The DevOps and Release on Demand competency has been renamed to Agile Product Delivery."
Again not much news here. Some additional emphasis on customer centric design thinking, which is a bit amusing as most organizations are very far from customer centric in general and still very new to the concept of design thinking. Hopefully this will increase the demand for UX and CRO as user testing and A/B testing is a rather rare occurrence in today's enterprises. On the DevOps side I still do not see this working, even after 10 years of "implementation" on many organizations. In fact the trend is to separate dev and ops more than uniting them...

 
Lean Portfolio Management   Restructured
"The Lean Portfolio Management competency aligns strategy and execution by applying Lean and systems thinking approaches to strategy and investment funding, Agile portfolio operations, and governance. These collaborations give the enterprise the ability to align strategy to execution, to meet existing commitments reliably, and to better enable innovation."
This is the one thing I wish every enterprise organization would focus on right now. In to many organizations there are barely any strategic portfolios and contracts are all written as fixed price engagements that kill any chance of agility. There are few, if any, enterprise architects and overall the structure and control on portfolio levels are pretty bad. Not much news here, but an improved description and a slight alignment towards organization agility.

 
Enterprise Solution Delivery   Restructured
"The Enterprise Solution Delivery competency describes how to apply Lean-Agile principles and practices to the specification, development, deployment, operation, and evolution of the world’s largest and most sophisticated software applications, networks, and cyber-physical systems. The Business Solutions and Lean Systems Engineering competency has been renamed to Agile Product Delivery"
This section has been rewritten and again aligned a bit with the merge of teams and program. It still promote a microservices solution and continuous deliver system that is not really aligned with the complexity of large scale system development with multiple teams of different cadence. Despite that this is a good section with many good descriptions that would make life easier if followed.

 
 
Lean-Agile Leadership  Restructured
"The Lean-Agile Leadership competency describes how Lean-Agile Leaders drive and sustain organizational change by empowering individuals and teams to reach their highest potential. They do this through leading by example, adopting a Lean-Agile mindset, and lead the change to a new way of working. The result is more engaged employees, increased productivity and innovation, and successful organizational change."
This section is updated and rewritten a bit. The SAFe implementation roadmap has been updated a bit as well with 2 new courses. One for Lean Portfolio Management and one for Agile Product and Solution Management (APSM)

 
Overall these are good changes, but I fear that the extent of the new changes can make organizations feel that SAFe is becoming increasingly difficult to implement. On the other hand it can also be the leverage certain part of the organization need to push the change that they see is necessary. It also makes it more attractive from a strategic perspective to have a framework that will actually transform all aspects of the organization.
So there are some good things and some, potentially, bad things in SAFe 5.0.
I like it, how about you?
 
Jimi Wikman
đź’« Jimi Wikman