I made quite a bunch of difficult decisions in my professional life. I underestimated their negative impact a few times. I received a lot of flak for making them in the first place. And I would probably make vast majority of them again if I had a chance.

I also restrained myself and didn’t make a few harsh decisions. Sometimes I wanted to do it but couldn’t, sometimes I could but didn’t have guts and sometimes I just didn’t want to deal with consequences. Given the chance I would likely act differently in these situations.

It seems I’m a bit gung-ho when it comes to fighting status quo. Why?

Well, first thing is that whenever you’re reading a story how a company was turned around the story always has this big change, which eventually results in a new, better situation. If you’re doing great that’s fine – do more of whatever you’re doing.

However, pretty few of us are in a position where we can say that we’re doing totally fine. It means that we need to try, sometimes hard, to change things around us. It means that we need guts to make difficult decisions on occasions.

What kind of decisions you ask? Well, so far the most difficult decisions I made were somehow connected with people. It was either about letting them go, which may be just a neat metaphor for firing, or not giving them what they wanted, or moving them out of their comfort zones.

After all, if everyone around is happy with your decisions, they aren’t difficult.

So we come back to the question which so far I’m trying to avoid answering to. Why am I willing to face unpleasant consequences instead of just accepting status quo?

One answer would be that I’m physically unable to accept mediocrity. I mean, in the long run. It doesn’t mean that I’m not willing to work in an organization that sucks. I did, at least once, and even though the starting point was really appalling, the thing which kept me there was a chance to change things around. The thing which frustrates me way more, and mean much, much more, is when you aren’t allowed to improve the situation even if you want it badly. Then, it doesn’t really matter what the starting point is. It may be decent but if it isn’t going to change my frustration will grow. And I don’t like to be frustrated, thus guts to make difficult decisions.

Another answer would be that the real change more often than not requires difficult decisions. I like a metaphor I learned years ago from one of my friends: “powdering shit.” It doesn’t make it smell better or be more pleasant. It’s just fooling yourself – “it is powder, you see, not shit.” Well, no, not really. It smells like shit, looks like shit, it is shit. Sorry. Powdering it doesn’t improve it. At all. You want to change the aroma? Clean the mess. Get your hands dirty. There’s no easy way. The only way is difficult (and unpleasant). Thus difficult decisions again.

It doesn’t mean that bold decisions are a way to go in each and every situation. No. The problem is, it’s way easier to find people who prefer accepting mediocre status quo than painful changes for the better. 4 out of 5 people (OK, I’ve just made up this statistic) will prefer to wait to the least possible (possible, not reasonable) moment before they make a difficult decision. Sometimes this waiting takes years. Years of mediocrity or, even worse, years of witnessing how the situation slowly deteriorates to the point where company goes out of business.

And this is another reason for difficult decisions. There are few people having guts to make them. People, in general, would likely accept them, even though some of them would complain, but they don’t make them. Ever. Unless forced. Even if they say otherwise. After all, who likes to do unpleasant tasks? So yes, my gung-ho approach sort of compensates ultra-conservative approach of majority, thus difficult decisions once more.

Now, don’t understand me wrong – difficulty that goes along with a decision doesn’t automatically make it a good one. You can be wrong with a difficult choice as well as with an easy one, except in former case it will hurt you badly. No risk, no fun, they say.

However, when I think about wrong decisions I made, somehow majority of them are those which seemed ease at the time of making them. It was sort of accepting status quo. “It was always like this, why would you want to change it?”

To make it better. To make our teams better. To make our work better. To make our products better. To catch up with ever-changing business environment. Or, in other words, to keep the organization alive in the long run. Not a bad motivation, eh?

I was wrong. Again. I made a couple of wrong assumptions. Then, one of my flaws played a role and I went with one of these well done solutions before I’d understood the problem. Anyway, the effect was that I was wrong.

And someone proved that.

Well, not the first time, you’d say. That’s true. Everyone errs from time to time. We’re humans after all.

Now, the trick is I actually like to be wrong.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t have to face this unpleasant feeling when my ego is hurt because I wasn’t right. I can’t say I feel totally comfortable on such occasions. However, I can choose just to feel bad about my lack of knowledge, rush to assume incorrect things and stating my message as it was divinely-revealed truth or I can treat it as an opportunity.

Every time we are wrong it is a great occasion to learn. Not only are we proven wrong so we actually learn the correct information but we also learn more about our flawed reasoning and can actually improve it a bit.

In other words every time we are wrong we get an opportunity to become a bit better. After all, next time we don’t want to have this unpleasant feeling, do we? Actually, the more wrong we are the bigger kick in the butt we get to do something about that, namely to learn something.

And that’s exactly why I like to be wrong. The glass is half full.

By the way: the same mechanism works with any failure. One of my favorite examples is about presentations. Actually my worst presentation during past couple of years was also a greatest lesson about public speaking I got during that time. Well, probably that’s not me who should make a call here, but I do believe I learned a ton from that event. I did, even though reading tweets with feedback and looking at people leaving the room wasn’t the most pleasant thing I’ve ever experienced.

So the same as you should embrace failure, you should embrace being wrong. Treat it as a chance, a chance to improve.

First edition of Lean Kanban Central Europe conference is history. I was really looking forward to be there although there’s always a bit of doubt whenever you think about the first edition of the event. Anyway lkce11 definitely lived up to my expectations.

Organization

I’ll be short here: kudos for Arne, Bernd and the rest of it-agile folks for making it happen, and doing it big time. I mean, of course there was a bunch of glitches you could have complained on but first, it’s impossible to avoid all of them and second, overall, you don’t even remember about them when you come back home.

In other words, whenever you see these guys organizing such event rest assured it will work as a good German machine. After all, they’re Germans, aren’t they?

One lesson any conference organizer should definitely take was session chairs. A group of people who were introducing speakers, gathering feedback, running with microphone when questions were asked, waving crazily when speakers were going out of time etc. We shared this responsibility among a group of people so it wasn’t that painful for me. And from a perspective of a speaker I can tell you it’s hard to overrate such help.

Content

At the beginning a disclaimer: I was a member of the board which means I feel responsible for how program looked like.

I believe we did a decent job putting the sessions together, focusing on experience reports and bringing great keynote speakers, however I got one very important lesson in terms on conference content. My expectations as a part of the audience have shifted toward advanced content while at big events, such as Lean Kanban Central Europe you need to cover more basic content as well.

It means that I need to look at the program through the eyes of the target audience, not only through mine. It looks that there already are two types of events for me: these where my focus is more set toward sharing my knowledge and those where it’ll be set more to learning.

Basing on reactions on Twitter the mixture of basic vs. advanced and theoretical vs. practical sessions was good. After all, we definitely don’t want to disconnect people who are just starting with Kanban. At the same time we want some food for thought for people who already know the basics.

All in all, even though I think in a couple of occasions we could have chosen better, it wouldn’t really be fair to complain.

A few highlights: both keynotes from guys outside of IT world (John Seddon and Stephen Bungay) were terrific. Not only were they top speakers but they also showed how much we can learn from other industries. Definitely eye-openers for big part of the audience, including me.

Interactive sessions (Kanban Konversation and Read Bead Experiment) worked great too. We need to have more of them next year. Yes, they’re sort of open-ended but most of the time results exceed expectations. By the way: if you ever land on such session, volunteer to take active part and don’t just sit silently in the audience – you will learn way more by active participation.

Networking

Because of my duties as session chair I spent many of breaks on housekeeping, but in terms of networking all the conference evenings worked miracles. Lots of exceptional conversations. Tons of food for thought. Constant challenges for my ideas and experiences. Not only did these discussions covered my hunger for more advanced content but vastly exceeded my expectations.

During presentations we sometimes sound as were dangerously close to dogma. However, whenever we we switch to two-way communication it seems that in reality we are rather reasonable folks, who are open for different ideas and opinions.

Let me just say this: if you don’t engage speakers or other attendees during conferences you’re really missing an opportunity and a big one. Networking brings such events to the next level.

And at Lean Kanban Central Europe networking kicked ass.

Wow Factors

Even though every event could live without delighters – things you don’t really expect, but when you get them they’re just great – it’s always nice have a few of them.

At lkce11 one of such things was definitely gorgeous drawings of every session of the conference, which were reminding us about important messages we heard there.

Another one, as I already told you, was inviting a couple of authorities from worlds different than IT. Definitely a great lesson for all of us who are totally focused on software industry.

Next one was chill-out area where you could recharge batteries of your laptop (power plugs) and of yours (deckchairs). And of course have great conversations. Have I already mentioned how important networking is?

My Session

Last but not least, my session. I can say that I’m really, really happy with the way it went. Actually, I was changing it almost to the very last moment basing on earlier conversations with Katherine Kirk and Bob Marshall (thanks once again for your feedback). It wasn’t recorded so if you weren’t there, you missed it, sorry.

OK, since I’m happy with the session chances are good I will deliver it again if there is occasion (hint: you can create one).

As I believe the subject of risks connected with implementing Kanban is super-important I will definitely write a separate post dedicated to the session itself. However, as always, if you’ve been there, please rate the session and leave feedback.

Final Thoughts

If you need a final recommendation for future Lean Kanban Central Europe events, first think about the content, because this was a big differentiator. Average level of sessions was way more advanced than on every agile event I took part in, and I hope it’ll stay the same. If you think about one big event you can afford every year then mark October in your calendar. Especially, that you should be able to cover basics at more local agile events which definitely are organized, wherever you live.

If you look for occasion to see your mind blown Lean Kanban Central Europe is a right place to go.

A couple of days ago I had a chance to speak at a local meetup. It probably won’t come as a surprise that I was speaking on Kanban. In fact, it was a test run of one of my presentations I was preparing for one of big events. The point is, only few people shown up.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t complain. Actually, such events are always win-win. Speaker gets some valuable feedback and an audience attends a session for free, which they would have to pay for otherwise. My end of the deal worked fine – I’ve already improved the session basing on feedback I received. However, I was somehow surprised, and in a negative way, that only few people popped up.

Well, maybe “surprise” isn’t the right word. If you asked me I would say that most people didn’t really care to exploit chances to learn, so they wouldn’t use this one either. People, in general, don’t want to learn. They don’t, even if they state otherwise. People, again, in general, are lazy. They are, even if they deny.

So no, I didn’t expect wild crowds even though I believe the message about the meetup reached quite a bunch of people. I see the same pattern whenever me, or my friends, are involved in organization of a local community events.

However, since I always consider a glass half-full I see a good side of the situation too. If you happen to be the part of this small bunch of people and you actually care to exploit any occasions to learn, not only do you unwind yourself but you also become a demanded employee on a job market.

I was discussing with one of my friends how does he see himself as an engineer. His point was that he wasn’t a rock star developer. My point was sort of similar. He wasn’t a rock star developer… yet.

What I consider as one of his biggest strengths is his urge to learn. He doesn’t have a problem to invest a couple of hours of evening or weekend to attend local community event. He does this as A, it is a chance to learn and B, it is an occasion to meet interesting people and exchange experience with them.

What he basically does is he’s consciously working on becoming a better professional than he is right now. So if you asked me about his value on job market I wouldn’t answer talking about what he knows at the moment, but what kind of potential the guy has and how he is using it. Give me the choice among him and another developer who is very skilled but have a regular “I don’t give a damn” approach and it would be a no-brainer for me when it comes to choose who I want to work with.

Sometimes I hear complaints about different trainings or presentations people attend. It wasn’t that stunningly mind-blowing, or the trainer could have been better, or two third of content wasn’t new at all or whatever else. Now, let me stress it, in my whole life I’ve never been on a training, conference or meetup where I wasn’t able to learn anything at all. Yes, it is true that sometimes you learn by negative examples, meaning the only thing you get is knowledge how not to do things. But it is still a lesson, and a valuable one!

So even though I expect people don’t give a damn I’m still surprised why it is so. If I asked all these people whether they want their career to be just a bit better they would agree in a second. And yet they do nothing to improve the situation they’re in.

If I counted all the hours I voluntarily spent on learning, including all the ramblings I share on this blog it would be hell lot of time. And believe me; I don’t regret any minute spent on this, even though I learned many things I don’t use at the moment. And no, no one paid me for that. It was just an investment on my side. The investment, which pays off, as I’m better professional today than I was yesterday. Or so I hope.

This basically means that if you happen to hire me you don’t just buy what I am today, but you also get all the potential I’m striving to exploit. The same I look for when I hire. I look at who you can become in a couple of years, not only what you’re worth now.

Why am I writing all that? I do, to make you move your butt, look for occasions to learn and exploit them! Yes, I have selfish motivation as well. Next time I do something in local community I want to see more faces popping up. I want to see more people who strive to learn since it means there are more people I want to hire. And now that you asked, yes, I consider it win-win.

When this post goes live I’m already going sailing to the seaside. It may sound very nice, but considering it is the Baltic Sea and it is already fall and a weather forecast is kind of harsh, it probably means the adventure will include being wet, cold and seasick. Sounds oh, so nice, indeed. Especially the part about throwing up.

Why do I go there then? Well, I do because sailing is one of my passions. I know these few intensive days will recharge my batteries even though I will cut significant part of my sleeping time out. It is pretty simple – do something you love and no matter how exhausting it is at the end of the day you’ll be on the cloud nine.

“That’s nice, Pawel. Actually you didn’t tell us that you switched the profile of this blog and now you’re going to share your ramblings on your private life. In this case I’m unsubscribing the feed. Good bye.”

Um, wait, please. Actually there’s a purpose of this story. Exchange sailing through Baltic Sea with whatever you do at work and seasick with your pet peeves from workplace. Now, ask yourself whether you still are happy to go there even if the forecast is harsh. In other words: are you passionate about your job?

For those of you who are managers there is following question as well. Are your people passionate about their jobs?

These questions are super-important. Passion is a differentiator between mediocre folks and those who genuinely shine and everyone wants them in their team. Passion is a differentiator between people who learn new things because it is included in yearly performance appraisals from those who just want to excel at what they do, no matter how far from perfection they are at the moment. Passion is a differentiator between these team members who you have to regularly check from those who you trust and you know they’ll do their best under all circumstances.

“OK, I may reconsider unsubscribing the blog after all. But the passion is something people have or don’t have. What’s the point, then?”

Well, sort of. It is likely that most of us work with at least a couple of people who could have become more involved. But for some reason they don’t. If I had to bet why it is so I would say it is lack of passion. So maybe we should look for a way to ignite this passion.

Yes, I know. If someone works in the same role for a few years already and you’ve never seen passion, expecting it will suddenly blossom is very optimistic version of optimism. So maybe, just maybe, looking for a new role for such person can be a game-changer? I mean we aren’t born as sailors. In some point of time someone takes us to a lake or a sea and then we discover our passion.

It isn’t that different with our jobs.

And I bet you’d prefer to work with passionate folks than with soulless specialists, even if the former were less skilled on the day one. It seems it is worth to run an extra mile to find everyone in your team a role which they’re passionate about. After all, even if you don’t succeed in each and every case at least you know you’ve tried.

Passion makes a difference.

I’ve just come back from leadership workshop. One interesting observation I made there is that, as trainees, we usually have much control over what we get out of trainings we attend.

I mean, it doesn’t really matter whether a training or a workshop or a conference or whatever is good or bad, we still can end up learning more or learning less. I don’t deny a simple fact that a better training is, um, better than a bad one. I’m not that dumb. You will definitely learn way more on the former than on the latter.

Anyway, no matter how good, or bad, training is you usually can suck more out of it. It actually is a lesson learned during crappy trainings I happened to attend. When in such situation you have a choice: you can either consider your time wasted or you can try to find these few (usually hidden) gems which are always there.

The only thing you need is right attitude:

• If your attitude is negative, be aware of that and consciously work to change it into more positive.

• If you see nothing valuable in what trainer shares, learn from the group, from their experience and their reactions.

• If you don’t agree with what you hear, don’t be afraid to challenge trainer continuously, yet do it in a constructive way.

• If what you hear isn’t aligned with what you know, challenge what you know.

• If a training itself doesn’t draw your attention, consciously keep yourself focused and observe what is happening around.

• If you got bored, force yourself to become involved, even in defiance of yourself.

• If you catch yourself distracting others, stop.

• If you don’t like a trainer, get over it and focus on content.

With such attitude you will learn more than you would otherwise. With such attitude you will learn more than you expected. So do you prefer the let you time get wasted or you’re going to make some use out of it?

When I think about different events I attend I tend to value them for different reasons. Let’s take this year. I will definitely put ACE Conference very high because of its ideal size (less than 200 people) in terms of networking. This is kind of ideal size of the crowd to have lots of different opinions and ideas but still everyone around is pretty accessible so it’s very easy to approach thought-leaders of your choice. Then, there was Kanban Leadership Retreat which was basically mind-blowing. For me it is probably a top event ever in terms of knowledge I brought from it. And finally, we come to the best big event of the year. You know the one where there are a few tracks, plenty of speakers and huge crowd.

I’m still waiting for my best big event of the year, but I won’t wait very long. Why? Because I know which event will earn this prize – Lean Kanban Central Europe 2011.

Why am I so sure? There are at least a few reasons. I know organizers so I’m pretty sure it will go very smoothly. Then there is the program. I’ve already seen many of speakers in action and had a chance to talk with even more of them so I know that in terms of content quality lkce11 will beat the crap out of any general agile event out there. If you’re tired of listening the same basic content over and over again and are in need of fresh food for thought don’t hesitate – the event is for you. Finally, there are speakers – best brains from Lean and Kanban world gathered in one place, available to be approached. If you look for a better chance to catch David Anderson, Kent Beck, John Seddon or Stephen Bungay for a chat you can hardly find a better occasion. Not to mention a crowd of Kanban thought-leaders from all over Europe and America.

If you are afraid that the conference content is too advanced for you, fear not. The first day starts with Kanban Primer session, which by the way is totally awesome, and there is whole track of industry reports which present Kanban from a perspective of practical applications. There’s no way you’d be lost.

So yes, I’m looking forward to be in Munich to meet these people and exchange experience with them. I’m waiting to hear what they have to share with the audience. And I’m thrilled to be one of the speakers as well. It is a nice fuzzy feeling to be a part of such a great pack.

I hope to see you at lkce11 too. If you plan to be in Munich catch me there – I’ll gladly have a beer and a chat with you.

I also have great news for Poles reading the blog. Polish readers of Software Project Management can count on 20% discount off the conference prices. This discount is cumulative with other discounts as well, so if you’re quick you can catch early bird discount too! If you want to exploit this promotion (which I strongly advise by the way) please contact me via email.

Every time I’m on some kind of management training I have this vague feeling of disconnection. I mean I do assume a trainer is a competent person who saw way more different work environments than I ever would. They also are trained trainers meaning they know all the tricks how work with a group, what are effective learning techniques, how to make training entertaining etc. That’s what I expect after all.

And yet, I can’t help thinking their knowledge is somehow shallow.

To take the first example – for me it’s now time of performance appraisals. I spend long hours (days actually) talking with, and about, managers from my team. One of parts of such appraisals should be goal setting. Now, ask any of those trainers teaching you how to run a good performance appraisal and they would tell you that goals should be SMART.

Great. The problem is pretty few of goals I set are really SMART. Does mean I’m a crappy manager?

Well, many of those goals are hardly measurable. Let me give you an example. I, as a senior manager, care much about building trust relationships with managers in my team because I strongly believe it is a crucial factor of success for the whole organization. How should I, or my boss, set a SMART goal for me in this area? “Gain trust of n managers by the end of the year.” As if it was kind of badge or something. Darn trust isn’t measurable! And even if it was setting such goal would be just dumb. Is getting trust of more people better than getting trust of right people? And how do you define “right people,” huh?

This is exactly the problem of many trainers. They have their recipes. They know how to sell them. The question is: do they care to come down to learn a specific situation, understand a real problem and adjust their tool to a context?

Most likely they don’t.

Thus my vague feeling of disconnection and difficulties whenever I try to apply trainers’ recipes in real-life situations. Well, I don’t really do that but I like to imagine I do and I point every single hole I see in them.

It is a problem of reality. It is so painfully specific. It’s never general. It can’t be described with a set of rules which are always true. Yet I’m being told over and over again there are such rules. Rules, which just work. I would even believe in that but, unfortunately, every time I try to apply them they seem so irrelevant.

What is my lesson today? Understand a context. Many rules may sound reasonable during training but unless you apply the context you can’t judge their real value. And few people are willing to sell you a difficult truth: it’s never about recipes; it’s always about people who use them.

I use to say that you can’t lose being honest with me. There is no potential downside – only upside. I have no problems with critical opinions on me, others or the organization we’re part of. I don’t necessarily have to agree with these opinions but I want, and need, to know them. After all, if I don’t know you don’t like something odds are I won’t do anything to change it.

I know there are different managers out there and openness and honesty don’t have to work equally well in each case. However, if you have to hide your opinions and play someone else to survive in a decent health in the organization then, well, I wouldn’t like to be a part of such company in the first place.

For the sake of this argument consider you really can openly talk with your bosses about your problems and frustrations, if you have any. Will you just be honest like you’d be when describing the situation to your friend over a pint of beer?

From my experience: many people are not.

I don’t get it. Let’s say my decision pissed you off or you felt my opinion was unfair. We can sit down and discuss it through. I make mistakes. Everyone does. I change my mind when I face reasonable arguments. So please, challenge me. Challenge my opinions and my decisions.

When your only reaction is venting in front of your colleagues then you do no good to me, to the company and, most importantly, to yourself. What are you trying to achieve that way? Is that what you believe works in the long run? I mean, really?

If you choose being honest, be honest consequently. Being so only to some point is um… quite the opposite of being honest.

I have one more advice: even if you don’t trust your manager give them a try. Maybe they won’t appreciate your open and straightforward attitude. In such case your situation will suck anyway so you don’t lose much. Fortunately, there are many managers who don’t work that way and you just can’t lose being honest with them.

Like me, for example.

I have a question for you: when was the last time you did an experiment on work you do? I mean if you are a developer when did you try something new: new practice, new way of doing things, maybe new technology to deal with a problem? If you are a project manager when you tried to do your stuff differently? Maybe it was a different way of running a retrospective or moving a planning meeting to a cafeteria or something completely different?

If you don’t have the answer at hand think about it for a while. It is kind of important.

If you think that there is expected answer you’re right. The expected answer is “today.” I expect you experiment all the time. I expect you challenge the way you work constantly. I expect you put rules to a question every now and then.

It’s a funny observation – as I go through different questions on PMSE I often see this pattern: “I follow this, this and that and I do have this issue.” Every time one of answer is: “challenge your rules.” You can bet this kind of answer will be there in a matter of hours.

This doesn’t come up as a surprise for me. This is the lesson I get over and over again. What you know is wrong. Well, it’s wrong in a way that it isn’t the best, or the most optimal, way of doing things. So if you want to keep you saw sharp you need to look for ways to improve your toolbox constantly.

Is there a better way to do it than experimenting?

So please do one thing today: do an experiment on your toolbox, your rules or the way you build things. Change something and see how it goes.

Then, make it a habit.

And if you ask what kind of experiment I did today there were many of them: I was experimenting with approach we have to training, with tools we use to build applications, with Kanban at portfolio level and with team organization. And these are only things I touched in some way today.