Warning: generalizations and stereotypes follow.

In all software companies, likely all companies, there’s a constant battle of varying degrees of ugliness between sales and design. Sales spends all her time with customers and potential customers. All they want is for design to just do what they ask. My client needs the product to do this, just make the product do it.

Design on the other hand doesn’t like knowing that real humans exist. Design prefers personas or focus groups and doesn’t want to hear what sales wants built. Instead design wants to lie on the grass, get inspired, simplify, contextualize, and maybe design a feature or two. Will design solve real customer problems? Well in the best companies yes but likely not in the way sales suggested.

So we have a divide? A constant conflict between sales and design. What do we do? Well we get them in the same room together and hug it out right? Build consensus, get sales and design to agree and get on the same page.

Naw. Sure you need some of that, however, only so much as to have a respectful relationship between the two. The phrase ‘if two people always agree then one person is redundant’ applies here. If sales and design always agree then the good news is you can get rid of one. The best approach is to recognize and embrace the conflict and the divide. There’s strength and value in it, don’t get rid of that. It’s healthy dysfunction, keep it but make sure it’s just enough that you can still be productive.

Neil writes here about a recent visit they had from Tim Lister. One of the observations Tim made was:

“that individual team members, especially developers, need to de-optimise themselves to optimise the team. The aim isn’t to get developers developing in the most efficient way: it’s to deliver a complete product. An individual developer might need to sacrifice some personal productivity for the benefit of the overall project. He might need to change the way he works, or throw away some code, or go off and do something else for a bit, so a tester can test sooner or better and the project can run quicker.”

That’s great but companies need to watch for mixed messages they’re sending. I mentioned the idea here of having your compensation plan focus on company interdependence and a common goal. The issue with what Tim suggests above is that most compensation strategies send the opposite message. They rewards teams, or worse individuals, for hitting their targets. Yes I know, the wise managers are meant to craft those team metrics to be in line with the overall company goals but that’s never delivered on, or maintained. As well, how much are you paying your high priced managers to maintain your compensation plan? Is that money well spent?

Be cautious about the clever schemes you devise. People love games and love gaming the system. If you’re not careful you may build a company of people who are excellent at gaming your reward system and leave no one tending your business.

Men’s Warehouse has a history of firing their best sales person in certain locations. The results are that the overall sales for the store increase. What they know is that the fired overachiever was gaming the system by hoarding contacts, information, etc so they could be #1. That’s their job, be #1 right? All Tim’s suggesting is that instead of firing your top performers, find them a role to play in raising the level of your entire company. It’s infinitely more challenging to create an environment that sends that message instead of one based on internal competition.

Next week is filling up with SantaCamps. If you can get to Montreal for Thursday, then you want to hit up their CelebrateCamp. Thanks to a gracious invite from Alistair and rednod, I’m heading over, say hi if you make it out.

If you don’t know about hohoto yet, you should. Sponsor it, buy a ticket, whatever, hope to see you there!

“Join us at the #HoHoTo holiday party at The Mod Club Monday, December 15, 2008 at 7:00 PM (ET). Cash bar, DJ’s, and lots of twitterluvvin’ - what more could you want? It’s for geeks, phreaks, webheads, twitterfiends, techies, media, marketing, and PR types and all their friends. And everyone else! DJ’s, interactive media, and loads of holiday cheer, all for a great cause - The Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank”

If you even know the sport hockey exists, and live in southern Ontario, then you know the Leafs have a new man in charge. In keeping one eye on how this played out I noticed something interesting about how Burke handled the process of taking over a team.

The first thing he did, in taking over the team, was say the following to the media:

“Our team plays a North American game, we’re throwbacks,” he said before the game. “We don’t apologize for that. It’s black and blue hockey.”

“We believe in aggressive pursuit of the puck in all three zones, or possession of it desirably. We believe in answering physical challenges and playing a style that allows your younger players to play and develop in a fear-free environment.”

“No. 2, we believe in financial and fiscal prudence. At the end of the day it’s the fans’ money and the sponsors’ money, we try to spend it intelligently.”

“And third is community service. It’s not optional, you want to play in a great city like Toronto, you’ll give back to this community or we’ll find you somewhere else to play.”

Anyone who pays the least bit of attention to the Leafs knows that none of the above has been true of this team’s character or beliefs in decades. The first thing Burke did was clearly explain the character and beliefs his team espouses. A team he just joined and likely hasn’t even met yet.

It’s interesting to think about what he did NOT do. He didn’t hold a team meeting to get input from the team. He didn’t hold one on one meetings with each player to ask them each what type of team they’d like to build. He didn’t seek the commitment and buy-in of the very people who have to implement his strategy. What he did instead was laid out a clear path, one that most players will get excited about being a part of. It’s worth noting that on Saturday night the Leafs looked more like the team described above than they have in years.

Do you agree with Burke’s approach? Or is this caveman sports crap with no lessons or parallels to team building in a business?

First a quick thanks for Jevon, David, Jonas, and all the people who made StartupEmpire a great event. As always, it’s great to hang out with the Canadian startup crowd. There were some familiar faces yesterday and lot’s of new ones.

Rob Hyndman spoke at the event yesterday about intellectual property(IP), NDA’s etc. Basically, what protections must a company have in place to ensure they own their creations. Employee signs document stating everything the create on the job, or possibly otherwise, belongs to the company.

Both employees and companies have valid issues. In order for a company to grow, or simply survive, it must maintain ownership of it’s IP. Individuals with side projects have the same issue and don’t want their dayjob making claims against their IP. Sounds like an ugly situation all around right?

Well Rob beat me to the punch in touching on the opportunity in all of this. If you run a team, there’s a chance some, or all, of your team members are actively working on side projects. Instead of fighting it, embrace it. I’ve always said that the brilliance of programs like google’s 20% projects isn’t in creating time for employees to work on side projects at work. It has nothing to do with that and company’s that fail to implement similar programs for that reason are…..simple. The brilliance is in giving employees permission to talk about the side projects they’re already working on but they don’t feel they can discuss during the workday.

Choosing to spend off hours, without pay, working on a pet project is about satisfying something in you that your day job fails to do. You don’t get paid enough, you can’t be creative, you don’t get to lead people, can’t work on a specific technology, it could be anything. When you talk with someone about their side project, they light up. They’re passionate, they’re excited.

The challenge, and as Rob alluded to, it’s not a legal one? If you have a team, assume everyone has side projects and work your ass off to understand why they’re doing that. Then work with them to find a way they can satisfy that within your team. This isn’t about stopping their side project or stealing their ideas. It’s about dragging that passion and excitement into their boring old dayjobs. Most side projects are symptoms of crappy companies that don’t allow their people to find their passion.

If you work on a team and have a side project, or have contemplated one, then you aren’t off the hook either. I challenge you to drag that into your boring old job. Don’t bitch and moan and wait for the day your boss becomes enlightened. Maybe you pull in the actual project and it’s IP but again that’s not the point. Think hard about why it is you feel the need to work on that side project. What does it give you that your job doesn’t? Why do you light up when you work on it? Now take all that, go into work on Monday and find a way to get paid to do it. What do you have to lose? Sit down with your team lead and pitch a new program or just explain your side project and what that provides you. Tell them how excited and passionate you are about it and that you want to bring that level of energy to your dayjob daily but you need their help. I’ve done this a few times myself and I guarantee you, regardless of the outcome, you will learn a lot. Be prepared that you may learn you’re working at the wrong company or have the wrong team lead but that’s a great thing to learn. You may get lucky and learn that your company only wants the exact same thing and is willing to work with you to achieve that.

Not to trivialize real relationships like marriage but you have a relationship with you company. The only way to make any relationship work is if both parties are fully committed to it. So commit to your company and don’t take no for an answer. Use your job as a way to get passionate and excited while getting paid! Don’t wait for it to come to you. What are you going to lose? Hey, you can always quit tomorrow.

This story broke today, “Carpooling Illegal? PickupPal Learns the Hard Way“. It’s embarrassing enough that this happened but the fact it was covered on TechCrunch means the world is reading it which means we look like idiots the world over.

Why is it illegal? Bottom line, it gets in the way of bus company profits. It’s a great example of mixed interests and who really influences legislation and policies. Unfortunately the environment isn’t a for profit venture with lobbyists and powerful unions.

We fined a company that operates this service around the world, in 104 countries. That’s embarrassing. The specific fine? The company that was fined is reporting that it was for a shared ride from Toronto to Montreal for $60. They claim they made nothing off of the ride and were fined $11,336.07, not including their legal fees.

The ridiculous list of requirements you must satisfy in order for your ridesharing to be considered legal?

“The only way you can ride with someone is if you meet ALL of the following extremely impractical set of specific criteria:

• You must travel from home to work only – (Not Home to School, or Home to the Hospital or the Airport)

• You cannot cross municipal boundaries – (Live outside the city and drive in – sorry you cannot share the ride with your neighbour)
• You must ride with the same driver each day – (Want to mix it up go with one person one day and another person another day – no sorry cannot do that – must be same person each day)
• You must pay the driver no more frequently than weekly – (Neighbour drives you to work better not pay her right away just in case she drives you later on in the week)”

Didn’t we recently install a series of HOV lanes in Toronto? I’m sure I’m naive but wouldn’t the best way to make use of those lanes be to support, and encourage, businesses that facilitate carpooling instead of fining them?

In architecture, there’s often discussions about so-called simple cultures and how they are better, or worse, at designing and constructing dwellings that fit with their environment. Christopher Alexander differentiates the cultures as selfconscious and unselfconscious. His distinction being about how skills are taught:

“At one extreme (unselfconscious) we have a kind of teaching that relies on the novice’s very gradual exposure to the craft in question, on his ability to imitate by practice, on his response to sanctions, penalties, and reinforcing smiles and frowns. The great example of this kind of learning is the child’s learning of elementary skills, like bicycle riding….The most important feature of this kind of learning is that the rules are not made explicit, but are, as it were, revealed through the correction of mistakes.”

Obviously we North Americans are a selfconscious culture by this definition. We make the rules explicit, novices learn more rapidly by following general principles and education becomes a formal one. So my question? Applying this thought process to product development, are you building a selfconscious or unselfconscious team and process? Think about your answer before you read on, or better yet, comment below.

Here’s some more from Christopher, “Roughly speaking, I shall argue that the unselfconscious process has a structure that makes it homeostatic (self-organizing), and that it therefore consistently produces well-fitting forms, even in the face of change. And I shall argue that in the selfconscious culture the homeostatic structure of the process is broken down, so that the production of forms which fail to fit their contexts is not only possible, but likely.”

In other words, a selfconscious team is not only less capable of adjusting to external change, they are in fact likely to fail. Or so Christopher says. He also talks a lot about these complex systems and how they necessarily breakdown into loosely coupled subsystems in the unselfconscious culture.

“No complex adaptive system will succeed in adapting in a reasonable amount of time unless the adaptation can proceed subsystem by subsystem, each subsystem relatively independent of the others.”

“It is the inner nature of the process that counts. The vital point that underlies the following discussion is that the form-builders in unselfconscious cultures respond to small changes in a way that allows the subsystems of the misfit system to work independently — but that because the selfconscious response to change cannot take place subsystem by subsystem, its forms are arbitrary.”

He may have lost me but I think he’s going to argue that design in a selfconscious culture, or team, is nothing more than arbitrary. That being “a term given to choices and actions which are considered to be done not by means of any underlying principle or logic, but by whim or some decidedly illogical formula.”

So let’s ask that again, are you arbitrarily designing your software?

I really like this personal finance advice from Ramit. He attempts to explain the difference between being cheap and frugal, and yes there is a difference.

“Instead of being guided by the invisible hand of stupidity, take some conscious control of your spending. Are you just spending on eating out? When was the last time you spent money strategically to try to gain something useful? Yes, it’s actually good to spend money on things you value. Yes, it’s important to spend money on things that will benefit you financially, intellectually, whatever. Yes, I’m encouraging you to spend money on certain things!”

I love this advice because saving money sometimes requires spending money. It’s about creating value, not cutting costs. A somewhat meaningless example from my personal life. I play hockey 4 or 5 times a week. Years ago I used wood sticks because I clearly could not afford those fancy overpriced 1 piece composite sticks and the quality of my game certainly didn’t require high end gear. I would go through a $30 wood stick about once every 2 weeks which cost me a lot of coin. Finally I tried a low end composite stick which cost about $60. That stick lasted me well over a season. I have over a season and a half of use on my current stick. I would have gone through several dozen wood sticks in that time. So yes, for me a $200 composite stick is massively cheaper than a $10 wood stick. Try explaining that one to your wife.

Switching over to the current market and software, the smart companies that are going to weather any storm will make smart value based decisions. Hopefully your customers will be frugal not cheap. If you’re building software, or any product or service, then the burden is even greater that you create real value for your customers. That isn’t the same as ’selling’ value, it has to actually exist. Someone could easily have sold me a composite stick but that wasn’t the value. The value came after using it for months and not having the blade soften and turn to mush from water seeping into wood. It was the value that came through usage that turned me into a life long customer not the initial sale.

I’m not much for following financial markets. To be honest I try to stay out of tune of mainstream media because of the skewed view it imposes on me. Clearly there’s some talk about downturns and tough times for having to sell anything, including software. So what do you do?

My 2 cents is who cares? You can’t control markets. You can’t control customer buying decisions. I have a number of friends who are real estate agents. Are they stressed about the downturn in their market? No, they’re excited. They’re excited because they know they’re great at what they do. Look at the Toronto real estate market. Literally anyone could sell homes in that market the past 10 years. It took no skills and that drove the great agents mad. Their industry quickly filled with losers and pretenders. It takes a great agent to sell homes in a down market and those agents are excited about shaking out the fluff.

Don’t equate a down market to a non-existent market. Companies will continue to buy software. They may possibly buy less and you can bet they will pay more attention to what they’re buying. If you’re a strong player then that’s great news for you. You no longer have to compete with losers and pretenders as they will fail in a tighter market. So focus on you, your offering, your team, work your ass off and be great.