Gulp

I'm seeing things out here in unemployment land that really haven't changed much since my last dalliance:

• HR and hiring managers throw kitchen sinks, bathtubs and 5 gal. bottled water bottles into each and every job listing.
• They're not willing to pay for all that water and our kids are going to take it in the neck. Once I'd like to see realistic requirements...or know which ones are the most important, drop dead gotta have these.
  
• They (the people with the job form) keep calling it a job requirement. A job requirement, you uneducated idiot, is 'needs at least six months experience in JCL,' not 'Business Analyst.'
• And quit trying to cover up Abbott Labs. Uline left Waukegan a couple of months ago and other than Zebra Printers or Washburn Guitars, there's nothing up North except tea-baggers. Abbott doesn't pay contractors a living wage and the front doors should be built on skateboard metal wheels because they can't hold anyone there. Not like figuring out why is rocket science.
  
• The English- challenged refuse to even read the job 'requirement.' I am not a developer you illiterate boilerplate, I am an analyst. Interwoven/Autonomy and Documentum are on my resume showing my abilities in custom portal creation, not revising templates. 

How's that for Senior Business Analysis?

I'm going to hold out for a face 2 face interview this time. I had a five and a half hour session of blood sweat and tears for what I thought was going to be a dream job. Turns out they were ass holes. My fault. Should not have agreed to the gig over the phone.

That said, so far (both days) in this search, I've found four or five really good recruiters.

Sorry.

Recruiters with English as a first language.

I'm a car carrying liberal, but why are these companies putting language challenged people on the phone. Once I say, "I'm fine, how are you?" their script is blow to smithereens and they can't recover. They've lost sales time and they've eliminated still one more e-mail with attachment I could have sent out that no one will read.

The local recruiters feel much more professional- this anecdotal evidence may suggests the fast money idiots are back trying to sell time shares.

I hope so and I hope I'm wrong, but id IS me, right?

Jamming with High School Friends You Never Thought You had

Today seems like a good day to be thankful for the wonderful times we've all had on FaceBook and especially last Sunday's Jam Session at Alan and Alouise' house- well before it sinks into the next flood.

Rich East High School's Classes of 1971-1975 are pretty much all up on FaceBook... probably because we're too cheap to buy classmates.com accounts.

Since graduating in 1973, I've learned to play a couple of chords on a guitar. I took two whole lessons going up and down the top top four frets and matching those tones to itty-bitty 'notes' on a sheet of paper.

After dumping the 'loaner' with action (space between the bottom of the string and the top of the particle wood fretboard) of about 14 inches or so, with Epiphone's version of a Gibson J-2000,  my sister (who was a whiz) introduced me to 'chords' and you could actually play songs with 'em. Why, oh why, do we introduce people to guitars with #60 strings and action that rips the tips off your fingers?

I got me a dreadnought size to drown my voice out. At 18, I didn't think I could sing. After finding out about his cool thing called 'keys' it turns out my adenoidal bellowings weren't too bad. But that was far in the future when my better half, with exasperation in her voice, told me to hum the song against the chords and then change the capo position.

Jeez.

I'd been playing rhythm in a couple of folk ensembles for a few years and found that, pretty much, every guy in the Class of '73 did the same thing I did to find girls...learn three chords and buy yerself a capo to raise or lower the pitch. They continued practicing and learning from the folk-rock songs to which we were listening in the 70s.

They kept telling me they were horrible players.

I believed them.

So I suggested a jam session. Lots of flurrying around, excited talk and plansd akin to the Manhattan Project floated around FaceBook for about a month. I figured I'd blow the room away.

Wrong.

These guys were good. And while we had, let's see, Drama, Speech, Industrial Arts, Radio Station, Speech Team, Newspaper and a couple of niches even I wasn't aware of were represented and all the barriers of school were gone. Pffts
.
I wrote a blog on FaceBook about a year about how high school is a troubled time for many (OK, all of us) and what stunned me (and continues to do so even today) is how great these people are and I missed all of it between 1969 and 1973. Blinders and much too concerned with being vulnerable protecting myself.

• Chip was kicking ass on his 12 string- playing so quietly I couldn't believe it was a 12 string. Who knew?
• Dave turns out to live a bike ride from my house...just like when we were kids. I plan on doing just that and inviting him over to my house. After cleaning. He'll be waiting a while.He's killer mean when playing in A or E. Seriously. When we played Gloria he was all over it like a bad suite. I also had an opportunity to put the Fourth Grade Fish Tank and Freshman QSL Issues to rest, for which I'm mighty grateful. I did in a crowd so he wouldn't hit me. Turns out, he's too much a gentleman. He just let the air out of my tires. I'll be here all week- remember to tip your waitress.
• Steve- I heard him before (in my basement) and he plays a very tasty acoustic guitar- he even brought a resonator guitar, which was trey kewl. He is so good, he hit all the fills in Poncho and Lefty exactly like my band's lead player does...almost to the note. And he bitched I was using barre chords. How can you not like someone like that?
  
• Alan- all over Cat Stevens...I mean ALL OVER some of our favorite tunes from the 70s...and his Jimmy Page riffs were dead on. Wonderful Host. Five Stars.
  
• Tom- Alan's brother and closer to my music (folk, old timey, acoustic blues sort of stuff) is as good on his music as his brother. Banging on his guitar, my foot. Cool songs, very cool songs and great taste. He's a member of the Old Towne School, so how could he not?
  
• Mimi- Wow. Just Wow. Her significant other seems like a good guy as well.
• Sheree- just as pretty and intelligent and delightful as in school. One of the women my radar said 'totally, absolutely way above your station in life.' Never partied with her or Mimi- and that's just enough of a rationale to kick myself.
• Alouise- a delight for not only letting is use her basement, but to have around the party without a single sarcastic chuckle. Alan picked good.
• Peggy- A SAINT- who the hell could have put up with me for 34 years? And a crack percussionist. Definitely out of my class. No, not High School.

Funny how your early mind games come up to kick you in the ass in Middle Age.

We missed a few folks and the short notice left out some folks who might otherwise have shown. We won't make that same mistake- because there will be a next time.

Team Clock

I've got a friend from high school. Steve Ritter is his name.

He came over to my house a while back for a guitar jam and blew out the room. Haven't heard hide nor hair from him since. I don't think the rest of us were all that bad...

Now, in the wake of his "I don't usually play acoustic" (he has a $2500 Martin, I'm not stupid, Steve, just tome deaf) and doing electric riffs on heavy acoustic strings- the only thing I had going for me was my writing skill. I knew I was a better writer than he is. Had to be. He was in the plays while I was on the newspaper, yearbook and radio station.

Steve tells me he wrote a book, could I review it?

Sure- just had unemployment (ethics requires me to purchase stuff I review, especially from a friend) and getting used to a new job  kinda delayed it.

Here goes:

Turns out the SOB is also a better writer than me.

Bastard.

Now I have no reason to live.

Seriously, though, Steve's book is titled Team Clock: A Guide to Breakthrough Teams.

Steve took the old group communication model (he uses the psychological version, which is the same goofy storming and norming, etc.). But Steve made almost the same leap Maslow (you remember- 'self actualized' and 'hierarchy of needs') made in the 1950s.

Team Building (communication) is a continuum, not like the seven steps for grieving.  Ritter uses the face of a clock for his model... and the walks you all through the complete life cycle of a team. Any kind of team.

If you are a Project Manager, a Scrum Master, a Portfolio Manager, a Business Analyst or an Architect/Lead Developer, go buy this book.

All that PMI crap about inputs and outputs are nothing compared to what Steve's accomplished in 88 pages. And you don't have to memorize a thing.


There are direct application (pun intended) for software development teams.

Those just getting organized.

Those ready to take the plunge into Agile methods.

Those who's lead developer is now working for Google and pretty much everybody on the team thinks it's great, but why did she get the job and not me?

Oh, sure, if you need some help, the Team Clock Institute is standing by with operators waiting to take your call. i think they take American Express. And, yeah, if Steve and his colleagues are half as successful with your issues as he's been with those who confirmed his theories, you're going to wish you called him a long time ago.

But if you want to know (you PMs and BAs need to know this stuff a heckuva lot more than memorizing that certification drivel) how to motivate and manage your team. This book will explain. If you can help push your team out of the comfort zone into unknown or untried region- Steve has an outline and an example for you.

It's not a How To book. Steve wrote a Think About This Way book.

If my team was having major issues or I couldn't deduce what the problem was, I feel confident Steve and his team would find me an answer and a method of 'fixing it' or at least understanding it.

Team Clock is not a panacea. In fact, Steve mentions that there are times team members have to leave. But unlike goofy management books like The One Minute Manager, Ritter wrote a book that I can use as a team member and a team manager for years. Not many $20 investments can say the same.

Now that's out of the way:

Steve:

1. When did you become such jock?
2. You're killing me with three syllable words- there are perfectly good single syllable words, amigo: it's u-s-e, not utilize and t-i-t-l-e, not entitle (entitle means having a right to something). There are a couple others.
3. I'm just yanking your chain- you did a fabulous job. Very little psycho-babble and right to the point.

Now. How do I sweet talk him into our band?

What I'm doing on my Summer Vacation

I had a couple of minutes last week, so I looked in the enterprise phone book. This is like Googling yourself. It turns out my new employer....er...client thinks I'm an Architect/Designer.

The boss says she doesn't have a problem with that because a. I can do and b. I pretty much am doing it, as a sort of junior- deputy-assistant, associate Architect. That means I have no clue about process, people or things. But I'm learning.

Anyway, I wanted to know what the heck an IT Architect does since I thought it was like a super Team Lead- the kind of person who lives and breathes data layers, web services and other tools we BAs usually nod at like we understand what they're saying. I figure as long as they draw the graphics, they can call that stuff anything they want.

It turns out, I was close- especially on the technical end. But it turns out it's more of a blend of skills and knowledge:

Architecture is a business in which technical knowledge, management, and an understanding of business are as important as design.- wikipedia

Designer? Yeah. I'm not a full fledged Information Architect, oooops! An Information Architect at my client's site is a regular old software architect, not a trained designer and requirements gatherer. Actually, that's the group I'm in.

Anyway.

I'm not a full-fledged web-designer-user experience specialist, but I play one on television.  Everyone other than my boss thinks it's amazing I have more than one skill set. Muahahahahaha.

So, I'm writing and drawing, drawing and writing. We came up with the concept in the first couple of weeks and are now making the case for Knowledge Management. Oops. Sorry. Knowledge Sharing.

You have any idea how cool it is working for a place that could care less what titles and functions mean on the outside? It's confusing as hell. But its pretty cool.

Big and Small

Well, it's been about a month.

I'm reminded constantly that I'm working at a big....large...um...HUGE company and the stuff I learned at the fast-agile firms in recent times ain't gonna cut it.

The saving grace is that I have the time to anticipate, to talk, to work things out with the really smart people I work with. And that's not a bad trade off.

Yeah, it sucks having your laptop locked down. It's worse using Internet Explorer 6 and Office 2003. But I'm beginning to understand why.

This company has about a gajillion (that's 1x10+3 higher than a bazillion) laptops and PCs out in the offices. I remember one agent's kid putting a Golf on his Agency PC. The kid didn't install it correctly and Dad's PC was toast. Of course, it was the IT department's fault.

So, a little sweet talk, a few sentences about how technical my gig is and a superb boss, I got local admin rights to the laptop, M/S Project, IE 8 and Snag It installed. OK. They gave me Snag IT Release 8 and Techsmith just released version 10- but 8 still has that great little image editor- which means I don't have to ask for PhotoShop.

I've been relying on the "people skills" I learned as a Parachuting Business Analyst (drop in for a few weeks and off to the next project). Yes, I should have learned these skills years ago- but a radio news guy is supposed to be a curmudgeon.

So, I've been listening carefully, holding off riffing with my strange, yet obscure sense of humor; until I know you very well- and even then I'm careful about my jokes. It's hard, but it beats getting fired. And it seems to be working pretty well.

I'm also trying really, really hard not to interrupt someone when they're speaking. Then I went to a status meeting of the Enterprise Architects. There wasn't a topic that didn't result in at least one interruption- except when the Director spoke. Hmmm. Kinda funny, no?

I'm using the extra time to extrapolate requirements and high level designs for what could be a terrific Capture/Store/Disseminate system based on existing, every day tools with a little bit of extra horsepower. If this goes the way I'm thinking it will, the only real issues we're going to have are cultural. But we're on top of that, too.

I'll ask the boss what's proprietary and what I can talk about as we go through the process. I'll letcha know.

I really like this gig- and I've been there for about a month.

Enterprise Architecture: Lincoln Logs for IT Folks

It's been a couple of weeks and everything seems to be going well.

I'm working with an Enterprise Architect. As a sort of junior architect. The boss calls me a Knowledge Management Specialist since we're working on cool stuff like search engines, wikis, knowledge capture and knowledge dissemination. The gig's pretty high in the food chain, but I haven't stepped on my di....um....made a major mistake yet. 

Relax. I didn't know what Enterprise Architecture was, either. And no, you don't get to design and build large companies in an artistic way.

It turns out, Enterprise Architects are like BAs, but on steroids.

They ask the questions when someone in a large organization wants to add, improve, replace or remove something. The architect makes sure the IT organization's standards are imposed on new projects at conception. The architect thinks and plans how new technologies will or will not fit and how to scale applications into usable tools. The architect makes sure the data is sourced and accurate (Oracle and SAP anyone?). And that everything is properly licensed, copyrighted and implemented.

The architects shepard projects through the minefield of IT Governance (that's big time talk for who's in charge of the 'puters).  After the Architects get the major questions answered, they 'architect' the project. How does it fit into the mix of applications? Where should the database go? What kind of data base should the application use? How do we get the data from point A to point B. Document it. You get the idea.

There are Data Architects, Information Architects, Application Architects and Content Architects. There are probably other Architectural Types I haven't met yet.

The big difference between an Enterprise Architect and a Business Analyst is that as a BA, I was only worried about my project and how my team got its stuff done. This is as it should be.

But suppose the organization has 60-100 project going at any one time and a third of the BAs are like me? You know, Pragmatic and Focused so my boss looks good. Everyone would be pushing his or her project or portfolio. A mess. A chocolate mess (to those younger than Boomer age, that's how M and M Mars used to advertise M&M candy).

On this side of the Project Management Office, we're looking at how these projects support IT plans, objectives and how they fit into the mix of stuff already available. We got that information from the business. Because the business pays our salaries. And we like our salaries. The words 'align' and 'alignment' are used a lot. Align means do it the way the business needs it done to impact the bottom line, not the way you think it should be done.

So the boss wound up the key sticking out of my back (you know, where the recruiter and HR knives went in?) and set me onto five projects. Knowledge Management Projects (I feel like Bill Murray's character in Stripes when the General asks him what kind of training his platoon completed). Short leash (heck, it's only been a couple of weeks) but fun as all get out.

I'm drawing diagrams in VISIO, I'm writing up Business Rules. I'm creating project plans in Excel (having taken the Project course this spring, I'm sticking with Excel until I have to turn out a plan in Project- there's so much crap in that program you never use, it's results are counter intuitive and you can't adjust the defaults- and don't get me started on task numbering!) and having a lot of fun talking to Subject Matter Experts and Stakeholders.

See, I did a lot of KM back in the day. Much of that stuff had to be created custom in the 90s because, at best, folks were collaborating on NetMeeting. Word Docs and Spreadsheets floats around the world. We didn't know from WebEx, GoogleTools, Open Office, Instant Messaging, Twitter, Tweeting, Twisting or Twining.

That's changed. And it's an exciting change. And that's what we're gonna see: How Scot adapts to the Enterprise View and Knowledge Management 2010.

Tune in again, friends. Same Bat Channel. Same Bat time! (for the younger than Boomers out there- that's how the TV Series, Batman, used to sign off on ABC. Jeez, doesn't it suck to have a joke explained?)

Job Hunting Lessons Learned

OK, last job search rant-- I start a new gig on Monday, Finally.

Here's what I learned:

• I need to be comfortable with my resume. Changing job titles or 'punching up' qualifications is dishonest. Screw the recruiter who wants this done.

• Recruiting 'experts' tell you your resume should be one page, no more than two pages, well, you can go to three if you're really qualified but you really need the last ten years. Screw that. I'm a consultant. I do different stuff on different projects. Even edited to the bone my resume takes five pages. My vitae is around 30. Could I edit it? Well, sure. But these HR software programs are looking for keywords and no one knows what those key words are. New resume for each job. Yeah, right.
  

• Each recruiter has the same wind-up and pitch. The good ones are laughing while they do it. There are very few good ones.

• I have never, ever, gotten a job from a downtown Chicago recruiter. Every time they demand I show up, I've wasted gas or train fare and/or parking money- around $40. And you are never reimbursed for it. When you're getting all of $314 per week for unemployment compensation, that takes a lot of nerve. From now on, I'm going to invoice them for my time and cost of travel next time.

• If the hiring manager pauses slightly after you ask about next steps and says "Our process is a little cumbersome...." Hang Up. Immediately.

• Don't get old in a job that pays more than $75K/year- Ageism, it's real.

• Don't be real good in the job you had that paid more than $75K. It means no one will consider you for a lesser gig...anyone see a Catch 22 here?

• A lot of HR people are flakes. Seriously. I think most of them are Psychology Majors.
  

• A lot of hiring managers are worse than their HR staff (see above). I think these people are at the other end of the spectrum: Dilbert.
  

• Does anyone else see the logical flaws in these massive meetings of 'networkers?' Why would I network with people who don't have a job? And am I the only one who feels silly about 'power networking?'
  

I've been told its because they may know something I don't.

Whaaaa?

You're telling me an electrical engineer is going to know when a software development firm is going to hire a BA?

Right.

I'm only going to network with people I really know.

One guy who tracked me down on LinkedIn aid he wanted my input on something and then spent an hour and a half on the phone with me. In boring detail, he told me how to get a job. It was such a good system that he had not only been out of work longer than me, he refused to introduce me to one of his contacts when I actually tried it.

Networking is phony, counterproductive, a waste of time> Worse, it gives you the illusion of actually doing something. Stick with people you actually know.

• The job boards are pretty much populated by body shops. 
• Be careful of what you put on your Dice, Monster or LinkedIn profiles. The bodyshops, like HR software, have no ability discern nuance. I get a lot of matches for an IBM network tool called Tivoli. When I was with OCE-USA, we used a help desk software package called Expert Support. IBM bought the company that made it and put it into the Tivoli product line. Yes, my resume says Tivoli Expert Support.

They also can't read. I still get 'requirements' (when did a job become a requirement? When I became a number instead of a person?) for San Diego, New Jersey, Texas, etc. They want a BA for $25/hour for four years. When I reply and ask them to remove me from their listss, they started getting snippy in the last couple of months. "Well, your resume is on Monster,' or 'But your profile on Dice says...' Yes. It is. It also says I won't relocate...much less do it for $15/hour for a two month contract. What were you thinking?

 Do you know how many times I was called by the same firm for the same job from the same LinkedIn, Monster or Dice Profile? One job resulted in 57 phone calls over two days. Of those, 12 were repeats from four different recruiting forms. And I was already in their systems but they never looked. Can you imagine how much unused horsepower is in those databases? And I actually got into the finals for the gig. And I was into it until the hiring manager told me she wasn't sure if he'd promote from within or take somebody from the outside. And the job is a technical support role, not what I advertised(for a BA). I'm till waiting to hear from her. Not.

• There's a new business model out there- job sites are getting 'exclusive' listings and want cash money to let you see them. Some of them have free 'memberships' with 'basic' responses (JobFox, Ladders) and have unusually bad interfaces (JobFox- if the site has identified more than a couple of jobs for you, you're gonna be on line for a looooong time. And why is it I found more roles searching on aggregators than on the 'profile' on JobFox?).

• And what's the deal with the date resets, Dice? CareerBuilder? When you reset dates, a lot of us think there are new listings, when in fact, you're wasting our time. Stop it.

• Monster- didja have to go to flash? Taking a screen shot with EverNote is now impossible. And the log in i a pain in the neck. Stop it.
  

• The only good way I see of hiring anyone is to get a prospect vetted by an upper level whatever (BA, PM, Developer, Architect, etc.) and then either test the candidate or let me demonstrate what I can do for you. No one did that. I've had phone screens with development leads, Project Managers, Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, president, HR generalists and 'other team members.' I'm sorry. Once or twice I had a BA interview.
  

The answers are:

Hidden Requirements you never seem to be able to track down. Someone in Detroit has all of them neatly typewritten and three days before you're off the project he says, "oh, didja want that?'(Question: What's the hardest thing facing a BA?)

A simple abstraction of the process- in a step action table, it includes at least one identified Actor (human or system) with a quantifiable goal. The title should be Verb-Predicate with a unique number from a consistent naming convention. Oh yeah- success and failure states would be nice with an overview and context explanation. You also need at least one color graphic for the managers). NOTE:  Nobody ever reads it. (Question: What' a Use Case)

A quantifiable , 3-4 sentence abstract feature description with tests to determine if the feature is complete and is used to start the discussion between the developer and the end user. Can be placed on a 4x6 Card (Note: seems the Agile Book Authors have asked the Commissioner and 4 x 6 is the official card size) or on a wiki page. (Question: What is a User Story?)

An unidentified, highly educated and emotional visionary whose ideas kept coming and coming and coming. I shunted the visionary into a wiki Blog to capture the ideas and put them in the backlog and explained the process and why we had to concentrate on this small part of the project now so the business requirements would be met (Who was your worse client and how did you handle it?)

So how did I get my new job? I didn't. A close friend had a major project dumped on her at the right time, which allowed her to hire me for the third time. Not really kismet- someone who knows me, knows what I can do for her and her company (actually, my client company, now) on what I expect to be a major enterprise project.

Can't wait.

OK, let's get back to work and Analyzing Business!