Mid Sized Company - Mid Sized Advice

Is it just me or are there very few people or companies that cater for the mid sized company?

Let me explain. In recent weeks we have been looking at doing some things from a profit share perspective that are a little different from the norm. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, does it? Well we pretty quickly figured out that anything a little out of the norm is more than a little tricky to get advice on – everyone seems to want you to fit into their “product”.

Fine, so we put together our own way of doing it and now we need to get it validated by the experts (to make sure that it is tax efficient etc.). Next problem, who do we speak to? A tax expert? No, they don’t factor in the accounting side of things. An accountant? No, they don’t understand the tax implications. An investment adviser? No, they don’t understand tax or accounting! Oh, just forget it. Wait, that’s not a solution either. *Hits the books*...

America's Cup

As some (most? all ideally) you know SA has an entry in the AC (America’s Cup) – without any doubt the biggest and most prestigious sailing “race” (series of regatta’s actually) there is around. Before going any further I’d like to repeat all the press about how big a deal it is that the guys on Shosholoza got as far as they did. I know only too well (but at a completely different scale) how difficult it is to come out of SA with a (relatively) minuscule budget and compete with teams with up to 10 times the funding.

Quite aside from budget – and the strains on the team that it produces – you also have to admire the guys who have slogged it out day in day out, quite literally “beating their brains out” tuning the boat/sails/rig day after day (for those not in the know it is not pretty, elegant or much fun). It is mind-numbing.

That said, it was really unfortunate to see them being tripped up on the little things – the torn sails or broken spin poles. Often incurred when trying to outdo themselves unnecessarily. When a conservative approach would have sufficed, a “go big or go home” approach surfaced instead – something very common to South African sailors (I know, I have succumbed to it myself on occasion). It is with this in mind that the decision to replace the combination of Mark and Ian was so puzzling – here were the guys that knew what the rest of the team could do (and not do) and most importantly would do it with a calm head.

Going Networking Crazy

It is near 10:30pm and I’m still at my machine. Why? Well oddly enough (for me) it isn’t to plough through my ever changing inbox, it is to update things on another (social this time) networking site that seems to be the flavor of the month.

Some time ago I joined up to Linkedin – a pretty good business networking site. It provides a useful function of “book marking” acquaintances, and friends that I’ve come into contact with, one way or another, in the workplace over time. It gives me another way of keeping in touch with them and what they are doing (from a work perspective) as they have changed jobs, moved countries. At least that’s what I use it for – I’m sure that others take it much further.

A more recent addition is Facebook. The bottom line with this one is that if you’re under 35 and you’re not on it, you’re just not with it. If you’re over 35, well then this may well be the first time you have heard of it – confirmed by a colleague (who is the nearest in the office to my “ancient” age) comment upon hearing that I’m now on Facebook: “Cool, now I’m not the oldest person I know on it”!

The one problem that I have always had with these things - and I’m guessing that others out there struggle with the same thing (or not) – what is the etiquette to adding people to “your network”? When is a “friend” a friend, or just someone that you know? When is a person someone you add to Facebook but not to LinkedIn (or visa versa)? When is someone you work with (a client for example) someone that you invite to your (business or even social) network? I guess that I’m not big on just adding people randomly so that it looks impressive that I have a big “network” of "friends" / "business contacts" (depending on the site).

Another problem (ok, I lied about only having one problem with this phenomenon) is, when is it going to stop? I have started to lose count of the networking sites out there that have been the “got to be on” and, maybe I’m a bit sad (don’t follow that thought), but I’m quite looking forward to having my evenings back (so I can get my inbox down to a respectable size before it fills up with overnight mails again). In the meantime I'll be sitting here a while adding friends (or hopefully they will find me and initiate contact so I don't have to).....

Agile: The myth of theory

A lot has been written about Agile – my favorite has to be that it should be written F......Agile.

Seriously though, I think that a lot of the writers miss the point. Agile is a wonderful theory, but that is where all too often it only works, in theory (caveat here: I’m basing much of this on the SCRUM method of Agile project management). As an economist (yes, my career doing that was about as short as my career as an environmentalist) I can tell you that any theory (economists love theories) relies on a lot of assumptions. Some assumptions are valid most of the time; most aren’t (all of the time). As someone who is focused on ensuring that the end client gets what they are looking for at the end of the day, the biggest assumption that underlies the Agile approach – and that is its inherent flaw - is that a client will be happy with an open-ended approach to both duration and cost with no guarantee (or idea) of what they will end up with.

There are of course plenty of customers out there who want things quicker (which is of course how Agile is sold) and there aren’t many people in technology (or any industry) who aren’t keen to try something new (buzz words are of course required, and therefore supplied). The trouble is that when the client gets into the detail and finds out what it actually means the project quickly becomes something quite different, but without any of the up-front structure or process. The result is usually a few key individuals “dying” in the process of trying to get the project out the other side, whilst on-lookers (usually the sales people but sometimes even including some of those on the team, but not those dying) congratulate themselves on a great new methodology.

The disturbing part of this is that it is amazing how frequently I come across people who are fixated on Agile (and only Agile) – whether it is recent graduates (heaven help them or their first client – someone won’t be happy at the end) or seasoned IT professionals (who really should know better).

Like any management “breakthrough”, an Agile approach has its merits and some of its guidelines just make common sense and I would argue are applied by an half-way decent project manager whether it is part of the methodology that they are following or not (I have to ask, in what project management methodology would you not say, for example “Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication”! – and you can supplement pretty much all of the Agile precepts here).

Recruitment: Catch-22

Over the past 10 years or so I’ve seen the recruitment game from a number of sides, including employee, head-hunted, interviewer, recruiter (client side), business owner, and entrepreneur. It is as the last three that I have experienced an interesting catch-22.

Last year a highly successful serial entrepreneur that I know, and have a great deal of respect for, came to me to chat about a business that he was putting together to create a recruitment portal. The business had a number of very compelling slants to it that made it particularly enticing to be involved (as an employer looking for good people). However the recruitment catch-22 immediately reared its head – by welcoming a recruiter (read portal in this case) into your fold you open yourself up to having every one of your people being head-hunted away to other firms by that recruiter (if not immediately then in the near future, and if not directly then indirectly).

While I work hard to make sure, and I like to think (and am told repeatedly by those who should know – the people themselves), that everyone in Open Box is happiest where they are, I’m also very aware that promises of greener pastures and associated pots of gold are very tempting to anyone (even if the pasture is dust when you get close and the pot of gold never materializes).

I guess this is one of the reasons why we are very selective about not only the people we hire but also the people we have as vendor partners (in this case recruitment agents).

Recruitment: An inherent conflict of interest

A while ago I read a great book that made me look at the world a little differently – Freakonomics (if you haven’t read it then I can very highly recommend it). One of the themes in the book was the conflict of interest that is inherent in a real estate agent. They are, in theory, supposed to be acting on behalf of the seller – they are after all contracted by the seller to sell the house and are paid by the seller based on the proceeds of the sale. One therefore assumes that they hold the seller’s interests at heart in their actions. Those of you who have ever sold a house would not be surprised to know that this isn’t so. The agent is actually just keen on getting a deal, at pretty much any price as long as it happens quickly – 7.5% of 1.5million for 3 days of work is better than 7.5% of 1.65million for 30 days of work (particularly in a good market where they can move onto another deal on day 4).

This is of course not to say that estate agents are dishonest – it is rather just understanding what their drivers are.

Unfortunately the same can also be said for another profession which has the unfortunate perception of attracting the “less than scrupulous” in good times, recruitment agents. Recruitment agents are paid by companies that request their services to find them good people to hire. Therefore, as in the real estate model, one would normally assume that the agent is working with the best interests of the client company in mind. Unfortunately this is not so since they make their money on a % of the person’s salary when they join the company, their “driver” will be to sell a person into a company no matter what the fit – an inherent conflict of interest.

Since all players of the “game” know this one could argue that this is fair. What is not fair however is when the agent realizes that a good person can be “sold” multiple times (person joins, collect fee, then head-hunt to another company, repeat) across a number of companies in a short space of time – something to watch out for (both as an employee and an employer).

My kingdom for.....

Ah the joys of technology – I can have pretty much my whole life all wrapped up in my notebook. Yes, that does sound pretty sad but then it does at least have a pretty big hard drive as, the theory goes, there’s a lot to store. As with anything that seems simple, there’s a catch: finding it again.

I’m one of those people that never deletes an e-mail, no matter how trivial it may seem at the time. I learnt this the tough way a long time ago when I couldn’t retrieve a whole bunch of e-mails that become really crucial. Ignoring e-mails for the moment, we move onto other files (yes, like my life quite possibly also far too much work related). While I’m pretty good at filing files in relevant folders I sometimes find myself in a situation where a file belongs in 2 places, which makes searching for it later on a real pain.

I know what you’re thinking…. “technical dinosaur, there are plenty of great desktop search tools out there”. Well that would be the answer but the problem that I have experienced with them is that they are a death knell to your machine’s speed. I know this because a few months ago I went through 3 rebuilds of my machine, 2 with desktop search (Google: loved it – note the past tense) and 1 without. Once I figured out that the indexing on the search was killing my machine (particularly at start-up) it made the choice for me: no search.

My kingdom for that (fill in the blank) I’m (still) looking for….