Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Art or Science, Service Management is a Snap

Since a Service is the product of a process and not the processes itself, Service Management is also about the product and not the process. Therefore, the activities of management that include planning, organizing, directing, coordinating and controlling, focus on the service product.

The Service Manager will bring the product concept through a design process to create a model. They will bring the product model through the delivery process. The model will be copied each time it is delivered. The Service Manage will also bring the service model through many improvement processes.

If the service is a generic offering to a market place, the delivery process is most likely to be an operations type process. If the service is customized and delivery is unique for each individual customer, the process will most likely be a project type process.

All design efforts are unique, therefore some are project type processes and some are ad-hoc artisan type processes. Improvement processes are usually project type processes.

What is a Service?

Service is a bundle of intangible benefits made available by a provider for consumption by customers and clients.

The intangible Service, along with tangible Goods, is a type of product that is produced by a sequence of activities known as a process.

Services can provide the same benefit as Goods without the burden of ownership.

Does ITPM exist?

Project Management has been around for a very long time; long before computers and software. As a science, it is pretty well established. Other than in IT, project managers are real managers. They negotiate their charter to determine their authority; they control the budgets they planned; they select the talent needed to do the job; the set the schedule, manage process quality and risks.

The only reason Project Management has failed in the development of software is that software is not a project. Software is not planned; it is invented in an ad hoc artisan process; and that is why SCRUM is so successful.

Profit

The culture that fostered the need for slavery has not changed. US Business managers fail to grasp the concept that profit is a metric, and not a mission. It is a measure of successful management defined by the ability to effectively plan, organize to the plan, direct to the plan, coordinate to the plan and control to the plan. The fact that the company fails to make a profit, while certainly not the employees’ fault, it is a problem shared with management.

Slavery was Abolished as a Form of Management

Before slavery was abolished, slaves were not considered people, they were viewed as personal property called chattel. The law did not recognize them as having a free will; therefore, they were managed as objects. The practice of managers controlling people as chattel ended in the UK in 1833 and in the US thirty years later with a Civil War.

In other words, as a manager, we can negotiate with forms of compensation and we can motivate with influence, but the right of one person to control another person does not exist. While a manager can no longer control people, the managers’ right to control objects has never changed. As an agent for the company, responsible for the deployment of assets, a manager can offer an employee a fair days pay in exchange for a fair days work.

Adapting or Adopting ITSM

ITSM is a disciplined based practice that has been around for twenty years. IT as a Service is a concept originated by leading IT thinkers from around the world. It has many frameworks, including the global ITIL and ISO 20000.

As a discipline based management philosophy, Service Management in general has done well around the world. However, though the IT derivative of Service Management has done very well in Europe and Asia, as a discipline based practice it has not well in the US IT market.

I have been involved in a number of ITIL V1, V2 and now V3 implementation projects in the US. All have failed or struggled for the same reason. The client wanted to take a standard that is intended to change a culture and adapt that standard to fit the culture.

While such assignments generated many billable hours for consulting firms in the short-run, they also generate the buzz of a resume failure and outsourcing the IT functions to a service-oriented vendor in the end.

Practicing ITSM

ITSM, which stands for Information Technology Service Management, is derived from the practices of vanilla Service Management.

Service Management of course is a type of Product (as in Goods and Services) Management. Product Management is not the same as Process Management. Product Management focuses on the result that the consumer will acquire, use and consume the benefits. Process Management focuses on the sequence of value adding activities that produces the product. A product manager will focus on getting the design of the house correct. The process manager will focus on getting it built.

Both Product and Process Management are derived from basic Management, which deals with the Control of Assets (Cash, Tools, Equipment, etc.) and the Coordination of Resources (employees, vendors, suppliers, etc.).

Whether as an art or a science, management in any form is practiced. While many firms claim to offer an ITSM practice, there seems to be some confusion between a Professional Consulting Practice (PCP), Community of Practice (CoP) and Community of Excellence (CoE).

My experience founding different communities of practice as well as different consulting practices has found these to be very different things. First, let us deal with Communities. While both are considered Communities of Interest (CoI), the purpose for forming a Community of Practice (CoP) is to advance the capabilities of a professional practice. A typical CoP is designed to foster interdisciplinary inquiry through the exchange, peer-review and critique of individual and group best practices. The purpose for forming a Community of Excellence (CoE) is to reach and sustain a level of excellence in organizational readiness, responsiveness, performance and productivity. A typical CoE is designed to cultivate continuous improvement across the organization.

Typically, the CoP exists for the professionals engaged in the practice to exchange ideas, methods and best practices. The CoP represents the competency of the practice in terms of knowledge, skill and experience. Traditionally the CoP advises the PCP on interpretations of a body of knowledge such as ISO 20000, ITIL V2 or V3.

Typically, the PCP is a business or service venture, measured by P&L. Launching a practice fulfills a strategic objective of the firm to provision consulting services to a strategically targeted market of customers. PCP's have executive champions that control the investment resources to develop a practice and represent the strategic interests of the firm in the results. While it is very common for practice ideas to originate with practicing employees, it is unheard of for them to lead a practice launch.

Drawing the Lines Between Roles

Following the dogma of management theories is like worshiping multiple gods.

Like a religion, those who are well indoctrinated in PMI (PMBoK and PMP) tend to worship the decentralized decision making of Fayol's disciplined management philosophy as opposed to centralized decision making of Weber's bureaucratic management philosophy.

In Fayol's philosophy, decisions are made where the action occurs. In this philosophy there clear lines drawn between roles and levels. For example, there are three control roles -- 1) manager or administrator, 2) supervisor and 3) leader. While all three roles may be played by the same actor, there is a distinct focus for each. Each of these roles may have a hierarchy of levels.

Management is about the Control of Resources. Management has to do with influencing individual and collective performance through the use of the organizations assets. Manager is a legal agent of an organization, which means they have the legal right to make decisions regarding the interests of the organization. Processes of management include planning, organizing, directing, cooperating and controlling the flow of work.

Supervision is about the Control of Competency. Supervision has to do with influencing individual and collective human action in organizations work. The Supervisor is a customary agent of a practice or discipline, which means they have the customary right to make decisions regarding the interests of the practice or discipline. This traditionally means that a supervisor is any individual qualified to judge the work of another. Like the practice of carpentry, the act of management is a professional practice, therefore individual managers should also have supervisors. Since a journey level electrician would not be qualified to judge the work of an apprentice carpenter, a senior project manager would not be qualified to judge the work of a junior operations manager.

Leadership is about the Control of Behavior. Leadership has to do with influencing individual and collective behavior to reach goals and objectives. Leader is a customary agent of a group of individuals, which means they have the customary right to make decisions regarding the interests of the group of people. By definition, leaders represent the collective trust and interests of a group of individuals. This traditionally means individuals have agreed to follow the advice or decisions of the leader.

In Weber's philosophy, decisions are made by a small collective body and passed down the chain of command to be executed. Though removed from the action, they have concentrated information into a loyal power bloc. Decisions are made by consensus. Titles of manager, supervisor or leader are without decision making authority and are functional as messengers only. Thus the roles are often merged into one.

Monday, December 10, 2007

How Did Managers Come to Be

In this modern area of management, we know more about management than ever before. For some reason however, we are no better at it. We still have many of the same management problems we had 30, 40 and even 50 years ago.

There is a long list of those who dare challenge the status quo with the introduction of new management thought. Like an army of modern day Don Quixote the names of W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran and Philip Crosby immediately come to mind with their work on quality and management.

With his introduction of far fetched concepts like the existence of the Knowledge Worker in 1954, Peter Drucker is perhaps the most famous management outlaw of his time. He wisdom has for ever changed management as a science for those professionals who practice it as a science. Joining Peter on the leading edge of modern management concepts is John Case and his concepts of Open Book Management as well as those of Peter Senge and his thoughts about big picture management of systems.

There are also those who have added to this movement without the virtue of the lime light. Among those is Daniel A. Wren, Professor of Management at the University of Illinois. Dr. Wren text, The Evolution of Management Thought, brings together various thoughts and perspectives on the history of management into a single package. It is by virtue of this effort that ideas of others can be put into perspective. From the preface of his fourth edition he offers this jewel of insight:

Our knowledge about the development of management thought is constantly growing, although knowledge of the more distant past grows more slowly. Some of our knowledge has not changed, some has been refined and extended, and recent developments have rarely, if ever, been cast into a historical perspective.

By this, I must agree. Framing our recent discoveries of management with historical perspective can help us understand what has gone well and what has gone wrong with this great experiment we call management.

When I started first started college, we talked about what managers do. When young enterprising students like myself asked why do we have managers? Where did they come from? The answers were varied and amazingly inaccurate.

The word Manage is derived from the Latin word Manus meaning hand. Common words include Manual (work done by hand), Manuscript (writing done by hand), and Manufacture (assembly done by hand - 1567). Not so common words include Manufactory (a place to assemble by hand - 1582). The word Manage, means to train by handling (1587) and the word Train comes from the Latin word Trahere meaning to drag or drawn to a new place (14 century).

While the word Manage is still used in European countries like France and Italy, the use is not the same as English speaking countries. In French Manege means horse riding school. In Italian, the word Maneggiare means to handle or train a horse and the word Maneggio means horse-riding school. Even in Spanish, the word Manejo means handling and Manejar means handle. The European equal to the US Manager is the French Gerant or agent (1576); and the Italian or Spanish Gerente; all coming from the Latin Gerere meaning to bear or carry on.

Perhaps the biggest distinction is the historical use of both Gerente and Maneggiare. Gerente is most often associated with “handling” the process and not an individual. Maneggiare is most often associated with one-on-one relationships and “handling” an animal.

Based on this information we know that in English speaking countries, prior to the industrial revolution the word Manage was associated with training horses and after the industrial revolution the word was associated with controlling people. We know that factories did not exist before the industrial revolution and we know they did exist after. Could there be a connection between manager and factory?

We also know that prior to the industrial revolution the majority of the population worked on farms and that goods were crafted in guilds, before they were manufactured in factories. After the industrial revolution, the majority of the population worked in factories and manufactured goods.

It is common knowledge that the industrial revolution influenced the nature of human economic activity. Steam powered implements replaced thousands of farm hands as modernization in agriculture reduced the demand for manual labor. It also gave rise to modern factories, which created jobs that paid more than farm work paid. The result was a shift of workers from farms to factories.

Originally comes from the word manufactory. It is a combination of the word manual, which means by hand; and factor, which means something that contributes to a function or an outcome such as an independent variable having a causal impact on a dependent variable. The word factor comes from the Latin facere, which means doer. To factorize or factorise means to reduce to individual factors. In the late 1500 and early 1600’s entrepreneur's in England used a concept similar to reverse engineering to take complex processes that were owned and protected by powerful guilds and reduce them to smaller activities and tasks. Thus, the factory is invented.

During this same time, the manager in the form of the animal controller was highly respected. He was considered a person with a unique insight and special transformational skills. Is it safe to conclude that since the Manager worked with animals, there is a good probability they also worked on farms? Is it also safe to assume that farmhands moving to factories needed to be trained? Is it safe to hypothesize that the concept of the training “function” of manager moved from farms to factories with the farm hands?

The Cost of Ignorance in Management

Given enough time and interest, every practice will begin as an experience-based art form and end as a knowledge-based science. In the beginning, the practice is a mountain of uncertainty and there are risk-taking pioneers who are exploring cause and effect relationships and discovering the influence of variables. The transformation from an art form to a science lies in the elimination of uncertainties through the identification, understanding and control of the variables and conditions involved in a given event. Weather, Medicine and Engineering are perhaps our most common and therefore obvious examples.

There was a time in medicine, not to long ago, that we guessed at cause and effect relationships. Someone developed a theory of cause and effect and then attempted to prove it right or wrong; blood letting is a good example. In time, it was proven wrong and abandoned by the practice.

The closer our practice is to an art form, the greater the need for experimentation and discovery. Discoveries are documented and proven, then become part of the basic professional development. The closer our practice is to a science, the greater the need for learning the discoveries of the past.

As the numbers of uncertainties are reduced in a practice, the practice becomes a science and the need for risk-taking experimentation is reduced, but not eliminated. In the light of established knowledge, to continue to experiment becomes highly questionable and perhaps criminal. For example, if someone experimented with blood letting to treat a hemophiliac. Surly the community would beg to prosecute the individual for gross incompetence.

Given this cultural value to learn from our past; is the practice of management (primarily in English speaking countries) exempt from this cultural belief?

Management has long been established as a science, yet we still want to experiment with it. We want to combine management with leadership or supervision in order to reduce costs. By doing so, we blend people-based directional responsibilities of a leader or the skill responsibilities of a supervisor with the process-based responsibilities of a manager. The manager must now focus on their primary duty of process control, as well as skill execution and directional motivation. As the manager becomes overwhelmed and the quality of their work fails to meet acceptable levels, we begin to strip away or abandon the process responsibilities of planning, budgeting and controlling, all the reaons the science was created.

The question is why do we treat it differently?

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Can managers represent the interests of the company and owners, as well as the interests of non-management workers?

In terms of management in the United States, there are very few of us who can say how different things are today, when compared to the factory dominated workplace of the 1950’s. One big difference was that management and labor formed partnerships, not relationships.

Back then workers needed to have a level 5 journeyperson competency to work unsupervised. Untrained workers were assigned to train through an apprentice like program. Work could only be performed with the supervision and inspection of a level 5 journeyperson. All workers, including level 5s of a particular skill or function reported to a foreperson, the highest ranking supervisor, not a manager.

Managers never supervise workers; that was totally inappropriate. Managers represented the interests of the company, forepersons or unions represented the interests of non-management labor. Managers provided resources and direction, not instruction. Non-management labor provided skill and experience.

Over the last 50 years, due to the desire to cut costs, junior supervisors, known as leads, and senior supervisors, known as forepersons faded from the workplace and managers began to communicate directly with the level 5 journeypersons. In the 1980’s cost cutting strategies began to replace level 5’s with level 3’s. In time, a position was no longer a place one needed to be qualified to hold; now it was a position one needed to have permission to learn.

Today, managers are still the legal representatives of the company and its owners; which mean the practice of managers representing the interests of non-management labor is a conflict of interests.

Would you terminate an employee that had a designation such as a PMP, but clearly did not have the basic knowledge behind the designation?

It appears many of us no longer have the respect we once had for standards such as a diploma, degree, or certificate. Perhaps it is because no matter what the standard of measure, people will do what they need to do, -- “cram for the exam”; and they will say what they need to say – “teams are great”; to get the job and keep it. Would you terminate an employee that had a designation such as a PMP, but clearly did not have the basic knowledge behind the designation?

Does your firm have a system of governance to control the behavior of managers?

According to a lawyer friend, in the eyes of the law, managers are “agents” of the company, employed solely for the purpose of making-decisions regarding the use of assets owned by the company; as well as making decisions regarding legal obligations and commitments of the company. Therefore, the basic behavior of managers is governed agency law, tort law as well as contract law. Does your firm have a system of governance to control the behavior of managers based on these laws?

How can we separate the management contenders from the management pretenders?

Regarding professional designations – the Project Management Professional, (PMP) is a designation issued by the Project Management Institute (PMI) to individuals for demonstrating mastery of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK). It requires the knowledge to understand why we manage projects, training to understand how we manage projects and practice to understand when we manage projects. Once certified, the PMP is capable of interpreting and applying the PMBoK to any project management situation. This put the PMP in high demand. An industry has emerged to help people take a short cut and earn this designation by coaching and memorizing questions of the exam. As a result, more and more individuals with the PMP designation have no idea what is actually in the PMBoK. How can we separate the management contenders from the management pretenders?

Can managers effectively execute their responsibilities, and be held accountable if they have absolutely no authority?

In business law, the concept of corporate management is defined as a decision-making body, comprised of the Board of Directors, Executives, Middle Managers and Front-line Managers. By way of memo or charter, each level delegates or transfers decision-making authority down to the next level in the chain of command. Often, individuals have the title of manager, along with the responsibility and accountability, but no authority to fulfill the responsibilities. Does it matter?

Is managing the work different from doing the work?

One hundred years ago, a Frenchman named Henri Fayol laid the foundation of what has become the international standard and definition of a manager’s five basic responsibilities. The key to his concept was that doing the WORK (building a bridge) was not the same as managing the WORK. Therefore, the standard fit, regardless of the level of responsibility, as long as the title was that of a manager.

Based on this concept, managers’ need not know how to do the work; they just needed to know how to manage the work. Fayol defined five management processes, defined as follows:
1. Planning – do it, build it, make it, on paper first – by creating a body of pre-made decisions regarding the work, resources, schedule, risks and budget (called a plan) the duration of an ad hoc work effort can be cut in half
2. Organizing – assemble, hire, train, prepare to do the work before we need do the work
3. Directing – communicate and focus on the plan “inside” the work group
4. Coordinating – communicate and focus on the plan “outside” the work group
5. Controlling – verify the plan is still valid, control efforts to the plan, (it is less expensive to get back on plan than to stop and create a new one)

For those who have management related certifications, these five processes should look very familiar.

What is more important in good management?

What is more important in good management -- education (knowing why), training (knowing how) or experience (knowing when) ? Is one of the three more important in developing management competency or must all three exist? If so, do we need balance?

Is it important for managers to be qualified as managers?

It is difficult for most of us to imagine anyone attempting to practice law or medicine without some form of education. We cannot begin to think of the problems generated by firefighters or police officers attempting to fulfill community responsibilities without completing some form of training program. With the finest business schools in the world in the United States, and the most competent professional associations and societies on the planet, why in the world would we work for managers who have no formal education or training, and all there experience is gain through on the job training. In the United States, is it important for managers to be qualified as managers?

Is there a difference between Management and Supervision?

In many countries, "Management" is only responsible for decisions regarding the assets and the structure of the process and not allowed to micro manage the work of qualified individuals. On the other hand, "Supervision" is considered the oversight of work, and is the responsibility of the most qualified worker, not the manager. Does it matter?

Is Management and Leadership the same?

There seems to be a separation between what we learn in educational institutions and what we learn in professional training. Starting in the early 1970's, business schools stop teaching management and leadership together. Management was defined more in terms of its legal obligations as decision-making agents for the business entity. With amazing success under Jack Welch, GE formally separated the two in terms of responsibilities. Does it matter?