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CM Journal Articles Behaviorally Speaking: Lessons Learned- Getting Back to Basics!
CM Journal Articles Behaviorally Speaking: Lessons Learned- Getting Back to Basics!
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This was a busy week for many people in the NYC and the entire Northeastern United States. The massive blackout challenged all of us to respond to a difficult situation. I had to walk (for about 5 hours) from midtown Manhattanto where I live in Brooklyn. It’s a good thing that I wasn’t very tired because with a level 4 mobilization, I had to report for duty with the NYPD Police Auxiliary. In emergency services, we’ve learned a lot of tough lessons. My “day” job is helping large organizations improve their software development practices (e.g. Software Configuration and Release Management). I’ve learned a lot of tough lessons about implementing CM best practices. Many of them are related to understanding what is really important and dealing with difficult situations in a flexible and effective manner. Read on if you’d like to share some “War” stories and lesson’s learned from the trenches. Starting With the PeopleThe worst mistake that I have made, in my career, is focusing more on the technology and process issues without giving equal time and effort to addressing the “People” issues. I can design the best process in the world, but if it doesn’t fit the “culture” of the organization then it just won’t fly. This past Sunday I spent the day helping the local Pakistani Mosque control the crowd attending a major Festival on Coney Island Avenuein Brooklyn. What’s a nice orthodox Jewish-Italian boy doing at a Muslim event you might ask? As an Auxiliary Police Lieutenant I spend a fair amount of my “free” time helping the NYPD address cultural diversity and Police Community relations issues. We’ve run basketball games for Jewish and Muslims boys with the Council of Pakistan (www.copousa.org), started an interfaith Civilian Patrol (called UMMA) and helped with crowd control at large events when Police resources are strained. Despite what the media would lead you to believe, Jews and Muslims have a lot more in common than we have differences. Biblically, we come from Abraham – the patriarch of both the Muslim and the Jewish world! Learning From Police Tactics Auxiliary cops get to learn a lot of interesting skills directly from Police Officers. Any event involving thousands of people requires a lot of forethought expertise and equipment. I have been privileged to attend shortened forms of many of the same classes (taught by the same instructors) that our well-trained NYPD officers have completed. Many Auxiliaries actually train in Martial Arts more than regular police officers (in NYC we don’t carry guns). But the most important lesson that I have learned is to work the crowd in a friendly and persuasive manner. Talking (in Jewish we say smoozing) with everyone builds a base of friendly people who can help out when things start to go wrong. One year I was too tough and abrupt with a young man whose (male) ego was damaged. He was ready to get physical with me. A group of Muslim men picked him up, covered his mouth and carried him away. I didn’t have to play “Rambo” – I had friends there who understood that I was there to help (and the next time I was careful to avoid being abrupt!). Auxiliary Cops in NYC are not paid. Yet often we do the almost the same job as regular cops. Over the years I have tried to improve my verbal skills to avoid confrontation whenever possible. This year’s event was especially great because I worked the main “VIP” gate with no incidents. I am sure that we were successful because we had a lot of help from people in the community. I try to bring these same skills into my “day” all the time. Moving an Entire Organization to a New CM Tool There are many challenges in changing the way that a large organization accomplishes CM. Years ago I would try to “lay down the law” and tell people how things were going to be. I’ve learned the hard way that this just doesn’t work. Now I won’t even start an effort without asking senior management for Liaisons. For every Department we have a point person to help me identify the code that must be secured, technologies to be used as well as the training needs. I also communicate a lot more. Instead of arguing that developers have to follow my processes, I suggest that they follow the best practices in use by their peers. I often ask a group why they have different needs than the other software development teams. Peer pressure is a great organizational change tactic!! Know When to be Tough You don’t want to see me if you have parked your car in front of a fire hydrant. If someone doesn’t care about the safety of others then frankly I am probably not your friend. I have confronted politicians with fancy parking permits and done everything possible to get summons written. When that wasn’t possible (for the many repeat offenders) I have come back another day (out of uniform) to take pictures (e.g. in Brooklyn Fedex and United Parcel vehicles seem to think that they can park on the sidewalk or anywhere else without regard for the safety of others!). In these situations I am polite, but firm. Sometimes the drivers listen when I ask them how they’d feel if someone they love got hurt because a fire hydrant was blocked or a child got hurt (G-d forbid) because a truck pulled onto the sidewalk. Some drivers actually agree and thank me for being a concerned citizen. With implementing CM solutions, I believe that training is essential. There is often resistance to the cost and effort involved. My advise is to become a trainer and insist that everyone get trained. Walking Home in the Dark… In the blackout I walked about 5 hours to get from midtown NYC to my home in Brooklyn . I saw countless random acts of kindness. From people sharing the light from their flashlights, civilians directing traffic and 100s of strangers just physically helping each other with the long journey home. Kindness was everywhere. Directing traffic in a busy intersection is not easy and the civilians doing it were not really trained. It worked great because everyone wanted to cooperate! I was impressed that every store sold whatever drinks and food were available without trying to raise prices or take advantage of a difficult situation. We got through a difficult situation because, in the all too familiar face of possible terrorism (obviously not this blackout), NYC has evolved to be a kinder place. Overcoming Resistance to Change Sometimes I feel like I need my baton and handcuffs to “persuade” developers to follow the rules when they prepare their code to be released into production. Sometimes it is necessary to get tough with people because the code to every release in Production must be secured. But I do try to first use my “people” skills to overcome resistance to change without having to escalate issues to senior management or our internal Audit team. One of the things that I have done is to train the IT Audit group them in what to ask and look for when they are reviewing a development teams software development practices. Mostly, I get creative when I address teams that are resistant. I focus first on the groups who want help and often the others come along (sometimes after they have had a problem rebuilding a release!). Watching the Lights come Back on The night of the blackout I reported for duty as soon as I had grabbed a quick dinner. I was posted on Ocean Parkwayand 18th Avenuein Brooklyn. At 4:31am we all cheered when we saw the traffic lights come back on! People stopped to tell us which gas stations were pumping gas again. There was a strong sense of appreciating what we had and I still feel great when I think about the thousands of people who helped us deal with the blackout of August 2003. Bob Aiello is a Senior Contributing Editor for Crossroads News and an Associate Director at Bear Stearns & Co. where he is engaged in Software Process Improvement on a large scale basis. He is also on the Board of Directors for the Organizational Development Network of Greater New York (ODNofGNY) and a member of the Steering Committee of CitySPIN in New York. Mr. Aiello has a Masters in Industrial Psychology and a BS in Computer Science. You can reach Mr. Aiello by email at raiello@acm.org
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| Last Updated on Wednesday, 05 July 2006 03:02 |
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