Agile Learning Labs

IEEE Engineering Management Society Event

I'll be leading a workshop called "What Makes Engineering Managers Succeed?" at the next IEEE Silicon Valley Engineering Management Society event. It's open to the public, and a real bargain. For the cost of dinner, you get a facilitated networking session, dinner, and my workshop.

When:
Wednesday, January 30th, 6:30 PM.

Where:
Ramada Inn
1217 Wildwood Ave, Sunnyvale CA 94089

All the details are here.

Silicon Valley Code Camp

Code Camp is a free conference by and for the developer community. Speakers volunteer their time and everyone attends for free. It's a place to learn, to network and to dig into some code. It's happening this weekend.

I'll be doing two sessions Sunday morning:
"Agile Intro" and "What Makes Agile Projects Succeed (or fail)?"

SDForum SEM Sig

I spent the evening at the SDForum Software Engineering Management Special Interest Group (SEM Sig) meeting. The room was filled with engineering managers of almost every type and experience level. The presenter tonight was Narinder Sandhu, who worked at HP and Intuit before founding T-Rex Global. He managed to get everyone in the room to do a basic skills-assessment and career action plan, as part of his presentation comparing large companies to small startups.

After the formal presentation, the informal discussions were amazing. I talked with people about things as diverse as: finance, feedback, agile development, a mathematical model for organizational structures, and C vs. Lisp vs. Verilog! Oh yes, I’ll be back.

South Bay ABC

This morning I went down to Santa Clara to enjoy some fine IHOP breakfast and the company of a dozen other consultants. I was pleasantly overwhelmed with the responses I got when I asked the group for advice on marketing my training services. Most everyone was aghast when I told them that I’m currently giving some classes away free.

Rosemary Hossenlopp was the first one to arrive, and the first to offer me helpful advice. Melissa Stacey, a professional organizer, did an excellent job of facilitating the meeting. Rogene Baxter, the president of Northern California Chapter of theInstitute of Management Consultants USA, was there and made a point of giving me some personal encouragement after the meeting.

Other folks I met included:

• Karen from Perceptive Technologies
• Carl Angotti, a product development consultant
• Mary Ann Gustafson, founder of Alliances Plus Consulting
• Alastair Hood, who does both strategic management and product development work
• Dan Farkas, a success coach
• Barb Tobias Chappell, a marketing communications consultant

Many thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences and advice.

Managers Support Group – Report

“It’s so great to hear that I’m not the only one dealing with this problem!” said one engineering manager after another had shared a problem they were having getting non-technical upper management to understand the time and complexity issues of software development.

The discussion was lively and time ran out long before we had covered all the topics that had come up. The topics discussed included:

• Finding time to ‘get work done’ amidst constant interruptions
• Protecting the team’s work flow from outside interruption and meddling
• Finding focus, how to choose what to pursue and what to let go
• Dealing with ill-defined goals
• Dealing with morale busting bureaucracy and ‘HR’ influence

The night started out with a mini-workshop in which the participants took a hard look at the reasons meetings get called and identified the good from bad, from the ugly. As Socrates taught me, every meeting should have a goal that is:

• Measurable, obvious when met
• Attainable
• Understood and shared by all
• Meaningful, has clear benefit

When a group meets around such a goal:

• The meeting has focus
• The meeting can be short; no need to drone on after the goal is met
• Attendance tends to improve
• Attentiveness tends to improve
• Attitudes and morale tend to improve

Next month we will have a new mini-workshop and more discussion and group support for the issues that you are facing every day. Join our meetup group!

Plug and Play

I just met with Shobeir Shobeiri and Kayvan Baroumand at Plug and Plug and Play Tech Center. It has been almost a year since I was there for techdirt greenhouse (one and two). The place has really come along. I think that they were hosting about 20 companies back then. Shobeir told me that they now house over ninety!

MBA Panel Discussion

Last night I participated in a panel discussion about the career of consulting at Santa Clara University, put on by the newly formed consulting club of the MBA program. My fellow panelists were Ken Wirt and Megan Shields. Mike Levenhagen moderated the panel.

Megan was very familiar with the world of big consulting and explained the differences between strategy firms such as McKinsey and Boston Consulting, implementation firms such as Accenture, and boutique shops such as her own firm ARGOS Consulting Group.

Ken and I represented the smaller one-person operations. Ken advised the prospective consultants to plan to spend 1/3 of their time on billable activities, 1/3 on business overhead such as billing, and 1/3 of their time networking and selling. This led to a discussion of setting rates, where I pointed out a common model of tripling the typical hourly rate for the same activity when it is done as a fulltime job. For example, if you would make $100,000 as a fulltime employee, you could calculate the consulting rate as follows:
$100,000 / 2000 hours = $50 / hour * 3 = $150 / hour

Don’t forget to factor in the value of benefits!

Some in attendance thought that this seemed high, but Ken was quick to point out that a company will be willing to pay a premium for the flexibility they get by bringing a consultant on for a short-term assignment. The salaried employee is getting the security of a permanent position, while the consultant will have to find work again in a few months.

I want to thank Steve Hawker for inviting me to be a part of the panel. Steve is one of the founders of the club, and obviously a go-getter.

Mini MBA For Free - Thanks TVC!

I spent yesterday morning with about 30 other entrepreneurs, learning about some real-world legal, HR, and funding issues that startups typically face. The program was one of six that Technology Ventures Corporation (TVC) puts on in rotation. The program is free, and they even include a decent continental breakfast! Interestingly, TVC is funded by Lockheed Martin and the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. The event was hosted by SRI at their headquarters in Menlo Park, CA.

Ralph Kokka, a lawyer with Randick, O’Dea & Tooliatos, started us off with a presentation on the pros and cons of the various forms a business might take, such as LLC, S Corp, and C Corp. He hit the high and low points of each, with a focus on the concerns of startups looking for funding. There were many questions and he did an excellent job of answering them while keeping his presentation moving.

Sherry McVicar then walked us through the most important HR considerations for a startup. She pointed out common pitfalls such as mis-categorizing workers contractor vs. employee or exempt vs. non-exempt. She also explained what benefits are mandatory, and when these requirements kick in. For example:

• All companies must provide leave for jury duty.
• Companies with 5 or more employees must provide pregnancy leave.
• Companies with 50 or more employees must provide family and medical leave.

TVC's very own Ralph Patterson rounded out the day with a presentation entitled “13 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make.” The mistakes that he pointed out were all issues that would keep professional investors from funding a company. The mistakes included:

• Assuming too much debt
• Acquiring too many shareholders too early
• Pitching the product instead of the business
• Too many Powerpoint slides
• Not having a business plan

The event was interesting and informative, and I’ll be back to checkout the other 5 installments:

• Entering the Entrepreneurial World
• Market Research and the Marketing Plan
• Financial Management
• Preparing and Presenting the Business Plan
• Attracting Equity Investors and Lessons Learned

Big thanks to Juan Montermoso, who told me about this event.

ABC

Hillary and I went to an Area Breakfast Meeting (ABC) sponsored by the Institute of Management Consultants this morning. At 5:30 AM I wasn’t so sure that getting out of bed to go have breakfast at a seafood place was a good idea. As it turned out, Scott’s Seafood in Palo Alto provided a nice atmosphere and perfectly good breakfast fare.

Jennifer Vessels, founder of Next Step, presided over the event and did a great job of soliciting topics and keeping the discussion focused and productive.

The first topic was how to go about getting a book and/or magazine article published. Our own Hillary Johnson had a lot to contribute, having written books and published articles in magazines such as inc, Worth, and US Business Review. She also was able to give the perspective from the other side as well, having been the editor of both a newspaper and a magazine. Hillary’s advice covered topics including copyright, self-publishing options, promotion, as well as how and when to approach magazine editors.

Here are some of the interesting people we met at breakfast:

Deborah Plumley helps clients with rapid planning and modeling.

Dr. Erich Helefert consults on the financial side of management, as well as being a founder of Modernsoft.

Michael Beasley Ph.D. had this beautiful business card.

Dr. Juan Montermoso runs Montermosos Associates as well as teaching classes for the St. Mary’s Executive MBA program.

We had a good time and will return for future ABCs.