Road to Digital

Category: Psychology

Organizational culture and human psychology as it relates to tech

  • Working 70+ hours a week?

    From HBR: If You’re So Successful, Why Are You Still Working 70 Hours a Week?

    “I really became a robot,” a manager at an accounting firm explained. She and her colleagues worked extraordinarily long hours, but, she said, “I thought it was normal. It’s like brainwashing. You are in a kind of mental system where you are under increasing demands, and you say to yourself that it doesn’t matter, that you will rest afterwards, but that moment never comes.”

    Through my research, I’ve heard stories like this over and over again from people in accounting firms, law firms, consulting firms, and other white-collar jobs. We all know that chronic overwork is bad for our mental and physical health and can seriously jeopardize the quality of our work. We wish we could change the way we work, but we don’t really know how.

  • June is diversity month!

    From NBC News: In landmark case, Supreme Court rules LGBTQ workers are protected from job discrimination

    June is diversity month. What a way to celebrate! Congrats to all! All humans are equal in dignity and rights – everywhere!

    The Supreme Court ruled Monday that existing federal law forbids job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or transgender status, a major victory for advocates of gay rights and for the nascent transgender rights movement — and a surprising one from an increasingly conservative court.

    By a vote of 6-3, the court said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate because of a person’s sex, among other factors, also covers sexual orientation and transgender status. It upheld rulings from lower courts that said sexual orientation discrimination was a form of sex discrimination.

  • Conquering Analysis Paralysis

    Have you been part of teams where after weeks or months there is no progress because things keep getting stuck in analysis? If any of the following examples sound familiar to you, then you have witnessed analysis paralysis (also known as paralysis by analysis) for sure:

    1. Development team had to finalize selection of a tool in 3 months, but the pros and cos are still being analyzed and the final tool is yet to be selected.
    2. Business Analysis (BA) team has captured 99% of the requirements in a month, but getting to the elusive and perfect 100% is now taking months
    3. Data team had to scrub the data to be loaded into the new system, but the rules and their merits are being “validated” when the go-live is round the corner
    4. A research team should have completed the research and produced a concrete recommendation in a month, but it is still collecting data after a couple of months

    Why does analysis paralysis happen?

    Most teams realize that analysis paralysis can cause major delays and make their teams lose credibility. But then, why does it continue to happen and why do teams let that happen? I believe it usually happens due to one or more of the following:

    1. Team is trying to gain consensus from ALL involved, though some disagree and have differing viewpoints or objectives. A variant of this is when the team wants to make sure NOTHING is missed i.e. the pursuit of the elusive perfection.
    2. Team is (a) afraid to make decisions or (b) doesn’t know how to make decisions or (c) is waiting for someone else (higher ups?) to make the decisions.
    3. Team is unable to influence, nudge or negotiate to the common outcome desired, especially with various personality types (analytical, emotional driven etc.) involved.
    4. Team kicks the can as much as possible as there are no consequences or incentives to make timely decisions.

    How to conquer analysis paralysis?

    How do we conquer analysis paralysis then? A good part of the solution comes from changing individual behaviors or team culture. You can conquer analysis paralysis at an individual and team level by following these guidelines:

    1. Action! The best antidote to analysis paralysis is taking action. But, be careful to work within permissible confines of your organizational culture or things may backfire.
    2. Adopt a work approach that has decision making embedded or forced. For e.g. the following common approach in consulting – defining problem statement, proposing 3-4 options, evaluating the pros and cons and then providing a recommendation.
    3. Don’t aim for perfection – Realize that there is NO perfect product or technology. Perfect quality is a myth and definitely not attainable in a given timeline. Don’t get caught up in continuous improvement to get to perfection.
    4. Use resources, time or money pressure in your favor. When groups are up against time, resources and money, it forces groups to make decisions or act. Reiterate how lack of decisions negatively impact the outcome. For e.g. loss of customers, product delays.

    If you are facing “analysis paralysis” in any of your endeavors, you have to acknowledge and address it. It saps energy, wastes time, reduces morale, and usually benefits no one – not even the procrastinators.

  • 10 Rules, Quotes, or Laws of Meetings!

    I am sure you’d have read many books, articles and blogs on meeting facilitation and management and you’re all experts on this topic. Yours truly has concocted 10 quotes/rules/laws on meetings drawing “inspiration” from various sources – science, literature and even divine. I need your help to distill this down to the ones that really resonate with you. Please list the ones that you like the most and the ones you dislike. Also, feel free to comment or add new ones – I know we need a more positive quotes. Without further ado, here are the 10 rules/quotes/laws of meetings:

    #1 It is good to have a meeting with a good facilitator. It is better to have a meeting with prepared participants. It is best not to have the meeting in the first place!

    #2 Ignore participants who shout or speak a long time in meetings and you won’t miss much.

    #3 Why bother attending a meeting, when someone didn’t bother with an agenda?

    #4 I came across a fork, I declined the meeting and that made all the difference.

    #5 Meeting that starts on time is likely to end on time. Meeting that doesn’t start on time is not likely to end on time. It is that simple, folks!

    #6 Meeting’s success can be measured by its actual duration – the shorter the better.

    #7 I went around looking for the bad in other’s meetings, only to realize mine were the worst.

    #8 More the mass in the meeting room, less the velocity of the meeting.

    #9 What is the purpose in attending a meeting, if the meeting doesn’t have a purpose?

    #10 The only time meetings are fun, it is called Sports.

  • 5 key areas for tech leaders by O’Reilly

    From O’Reilly: 5 key areas for tech leaders to watch in 2020

    Our annual analysis of the O’Reilly online learning platform reveals Python’s continued dominance and important shifts in infrastructure, AI/ML, cloud, and security.

    Python is preeminent. It’s the single most popular programming language on O’Reilly, and it accounts for 10% of all usage.

    Software architecture, infrastructure, and operations are each changing rapidly. The shift to cloud native design is transforming both software architecture and infrastructure and operations.

    ML + AI are up, but passions have cooled. Up until 2017, the ML+AI topic had been amongst the fastest growing topics on the platform. Growth is still strong for such a large topic, but usage slowed in 2018 (+13%) and cooled significantly in 2019, growing by just 7%.

    Still cloud-y, but with a possibility of migration. Strong usage in cloud platforms (+16%) accounted for most cloud-s

    Security is surging. Aggregate security usage spiked 26% last year, driven by increased usage for two security certifications: CompTIA Security (+50%) and CompTIA CySA+ (+59%).

    A great list for potential training and learning.