Task Switching Costs

 enterprise architecture, management  No Responses »
Feb 292012
 

Happy Leap Day 2012!  Scott Ambler (@scottwambler) tweeted about task switching costs and resource management.  Here are Scott’s tweets:

Many “resource managers” will assign someone to several teams to ensure they are fully utilitized. 1/2

When people are assigned to multiple teams it’s difficult to determine if they’re actually putting their time in. 2/2

When people are assigned to multiple teams they lose cycles to task switching. More teams leads to more overhead.

I replied to Scott with the following tweets:

@scottwambler: When people are assigned to multiple teams they lose cycles to task switching. More teams leads to more overhead.”  True

@scottwambler switching costs were so high when I took over my team btwn ops and projects. We created an ops role to separate the work +1

The concept of switching costs has come up many times over the years and Scott’s tweets prompted me to post about our Duty Analyst role.   I took an approach with my development team to separate operational duties from project work.  The role we created is called the Duty Analyst.  The approach is to stop mixing operational work with project work to avoid the switching costs that cause many of our projects to be delayed.    I wrote about the Duty Analyst role here.

It has been four years since we implemented the Duty Analyst role (Jan 2008) and we continue to benefit from the elimination of switching costs between operational and project work.  The benefits of this approach which I described in Sept 2009 continue to serve us well today.

  • a clear focus on ensuring that dedicated resources focus on operational work to meet our core service commitments
  • more resources to be put on project work without interruptions caused by the phone ringing or emails with operational issues – projects get done!
  • development of group estimation skills and clear understanding of who is working on what (gets away from the “I am working hard but they aren’t”)
  • creates crosstraining opportunities resulting in  multi-skilled support team

Thanks for reminding me about this Scott.

Trust Agents – Book Review

 book review, communication, leadership, personal, social media  No Responses »
Feb 282012
 

I finished reading Trust Agents, Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation and Earn Trust,  by Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) and Julien Smith (@Julien) as part of my Masters class Enterprise Social Media @ Syracuse University iSchool.

The book is very well written and provides very practical advice for anyone who wants to participate in the social media world.

The authors talk about the 6 Characteristics of Trust Agents

  1. Make Your Own Game – standing out
  2. One of Us – being one of us and belonging
  3. The Archimedes Effect – leverage knowledge, people, technology and time
  4. Agent Zero – developing access to wide networks
  5. Human Artist – developing understanding of people and interactions
  6. Build an Army – developing mass by harnessing people’s collective actions

I love these quotes

When you conclude that talent, though not quite a myth, is certainly overrated, you start to realize that you never need to see yourself as below anyone.  Instead believe only that you don’t yet have the experience that the other person does, then find a way to get it. @chrisbrogan Trust Agents

In social media, human is the new black

3 A’s of customer service – Acknowledge, Apologize, Act

Attention is and will continue to be our scarcest resource

Three things to add value – feed the machine, be helpful, make things

Trust Equation

Trust = (Credibility x Reliability x Intimacy)/Self Orientation

  • Credibility = the signals people send out to show that they are who they claim to be and as good as they say they are.  The higher the value of C, the more you can trust someone
  • Reliability = the more people show up on time, the more you’ll trust them to do so in the future
  • Intimacy = one of the most powerful emotional factors in trust.  The feeling you get from individuals is important, and it shouldn’t be discounted just because it’s emotional.  Do you feel comfortable around them? Could you tell them a secret? That’s intimacy
  • Self-Orientation = this is the only negative; the higher the value of S, the less we tend to trust a person.  An example of a low self-orientation would be someone specifically recommending a better competitor instead of themselves. An example of high self-orientation would be smarmy, self-interested company sycophant who’s always looking for a sale instead of making people feel comfortable.

I highly recommend this book.  If you want to get more out of your social media interactions try some of the approaches and practices outlined in Trust Agents.  I have put some of the steps in place for my social media interaction and find that I am making more connections and sharing with more people!  Awesome!

Twitter: My Social Media Swiss Army Knife

 communication, social media  No Responses »
Feb 212012
 

My twitter account is @leodesousa and I am a huge fan of Twitter.  I started tweeting on March 20, 2008 after reading about Twitter on a blog that I was following.  In that time, I have tweeted over 8600 times and average about 6 tweets a day.  Almost one third of my tweets are part of a conversation with someone and one tenth of my tweets are retweets.  These are tweets from people that I follow that I found valuable and wanted to share. To see more about my Twitter profile look here: http://twanalyst.com/leodesousa. If you want to get more information about your Twitter profile and behavior try Twanalyst.com. Enter your Twitter name and see your results.

Here are a few reasons that Twitter is my Social Media Swiss Army Knife.

Connecting and Building a Global Community

Twitter has become an invaluable tool for me to build networks, to learn and to socialize.  I really value the connections I have on Twitter.  Essentially, I have a global support network with peers, colleagues and friends in:  

  • Auckland, New Zealand
  • Melbourne, Australia
  • London, England
  • Cardiff, Wales
  • Tampa Bay, Florida
  • Madison, Wisconsin
  • Rochester, Minnesota
  • Vancouver, BC

Looking at this fine group of people that I follow, I can ask a question or get advice or comment 24/7;  they are my global support network enabled by Twitter.  Now that is cool and powerful! This is something I would not have dreamed of and realistically was not viable with the asynchronous nature of email, posting to listservs or discussion forums.

A Source of Identity and Single Sign On

Have you ever connected to social media tools using your Twitter account?  Facebook has a similar authentication method called “Facebook Connect”.  Twitter uses something called OAuth – Open Authentication method.

“OAuth is an authentication protocol that allows users to approve application to act on their behalf without sharing their password. More information can be found at oauth.net or in the excellent Beginner’s Guide to OAuth from Hueniverse.”  -from Twitter FAQ

Many social media sources allow you to identify yourself using your Twitter credentials.  This saves you having to remember unique identities for every site you go to.  All you have to remember is your Twitter login information.  Twitter enables “single sign on”.

Status Updating Platform

I use Twitter to create status updates in one place (usually TweetDeck or Twitter for Blackberry) and push my tweets to Facebook and LinkedIn.  I find it far more convenient to use one simple updating service that I can share in multiple places.  The trick for me is about context and audience.  I will only push certain tweets to Facebook (family and friends), others to LinkedIn (business) and some I just keep on Twitter (Enterprise Architecture, IT and Leadership thinking).  You can control where your updates go with tools like TweetDeck and also use hashtags and rules to send tweets to your other Twitter-connected social media sites.  Read more...

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