Leaving a mark...

I have been playing the role of a DW Architect for a large financial services organization over the past 6 months. When I reflect back on my duties and responsibilities, one aspect came out very strong that gets missed out in the job description.

"Leaves his Unique Selling Proposition trace in the project"

There are often a lot of other crap that the organizations look for like..Coordination between the business and IT....Owner of data models....Provides strategic direction to the IT team...etc...

Do you think Emperor Shah Jahan would have given a big job description to his architect,Ustad Ahmad Lahauri, when he set out to build the Taj Mahal? He described the Taj Mahal as

Should guilty seek asylum here,
Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,
All his past sins are to be washed away.
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;
And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has been made;
To display thereby the creator's glory.

If you read the last line, it stresses the need to display the creator's glory. An architect should leave behind his glory after he is long gone from the project. That should be the true job description. It should be the one thing that the people would still talk about after he has resigned. The rest of the responsibilities are just enablers for the ultimate glory.

Celebrate even the journey and not just the result

I am a great fan of Aamir Khan, a fine actor in Indian cinema. But more than his acting prowess, what impressed me was his "own opinionated" view on movie making. His one little belief helped me realized a lot in my day-day activities. He has indicated that he believes in the process of film-making - the thrills, the sufferings, the enjoyment, the sacrifices, etc... more than the end result itself.

We do envision the end result, but a lot of us bury our minds in the end result so much that we don't enjoy the day-day process. For example, when we make software, we are so engrossed in meeting deadlines, living up to stakeholder expectations, daily status reports, that we forget to celebrate or appreciate the tiny successes like completing a unit of code without any bugs, writing a nice piece of documentation, being near your team member when he/she has a problem in her personal life, tuning a SQL query to less than 10 times its original running time. We lose all such fun events in the search of the end state, that even when we achieve the end state, it just doesn't taste that great. We pat our backs and are on-board the next "deadline train".

I am planning to introduce a "Success or Failure Celebration" event once a week in my projects going forward where people can celebrate their daily successes and failures. They get recognized for their daily successes. They can talk about their moments when they punched their fists. They can talk about the moments when their hands were there for their friends.

I will keep you posted on my results.

Ownership - Problems end with it.

Often, I find a lot of skilled and talented software engineers, who get stunted in their careers. Reason. Not skills. Not IQ. It's lack of ownership. They become more of "problem announcers" rather than "problem-killers". They just want to tell that there is a BIG, BIG problem ahead, but they don't want to solve it. Because solving is taking risk.

So, how do you get these kind of people to shape up? They are talented, because they find problems for you. Finding problems are like finding opportunities. So, what do you do ? Give them ownership. Give them the task of closing it out. Ask them not to just bring problems. But to "close" it with solutions. Once you give them the ownership, back off. Let them do their job. Don't micro-manage.

Nobody would like the auto-mechanic, if he just says there is a big engine failure in your car. But since the car mechanic has his business to run, he supports it with a big "Resolution" kit, which makes you feel to just leave the keys to him and then just pick the car when it is ready. He has ownership. He will complete it.