Losing Touch
My forays into agile software development led me to Martin Fowler’s excellent web site and his most recent bliki post; in it he deals with how clients slowly allow their test programs to degrade making it very difficult to upgrade software. What I was more interested in was his lament about losing touch as an executive in a software development company:
“As my career has turned into full-time authorship, I often worry about distancing myself from the realities of day-to-day software development. I’ve seen other well-known figures lose contact with reality, and I fear the same fate.”
He goes on to say that his current executive position allows him to keep in touch with, and write about, issues, problems, and things discovered and developed by people in the field.
Although Martin is authoring full-time at this point in his career, he uses his link to the projects performed by his company to keep up with day-to-day realities. It occurred to me that this problem of “losing touch” can infect anybody in a management position. You hear about it often in companies where a C-level executive loses touch with his customer’s needs. Another example is where a project manager doesn’t understand what his or her resources are capable of.
My own personal example is more of a career situation. When I worked in the consulting industry for a few years and then came back to the software industry, I lost touch with how software was sold; fortunately I realized that I had to shed the consulting services sales approach and regain my software chops. I got up to speed by observing sales teams in action and debriefed in detail with them afterwards.
What examples of losing touch have you overcome? How did you do it? Are you losing touch right now? What is the situation? How will you deal with it? What are you not concerned about losing touch with?
Don’t miss a post! Subscribe by RSS or EMAIL.
FREE eBOOK for EMAIL Subscribers!
If you subscribe by email I’ll send you my eBook for free! Here’s how: subscribe by email in the right hand column PLUS send any email post that you receive to bob.turek@b5media.com. (Sorry for the extra step- we don’t have this automated yet.)
To preview the book, or to order a hardcopy, go to my publishing web site by clicking the book cover.
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Agile Software Development, Leadership
2 opinions for Losing Touch
ActiveEngine Sensei
Jan 2, 2008 at 9:43 pm
One way that I keep in touch with the day to day with of my field is to mentor the new hires. This can take the form of informal project reviews, demonstrations of software solutions that I am working on and relate them to areas where the new employee will be working.
I also give out research assignments based on activities I have started but may not have the time to follow through to fruition. This way I can get insight to how a new technique may or may not work, or get an analysis from a perspective I would not have considered.
Finally, I read voraciously and challenge the subject matter experts daily with whom I have contact. This process creates a sounding board for my ideas and gives me insight into how problems are being solved. Sometimes it also reveals an area of opportunity for improvement in a current project.
Bob Turek
Jan 3, 2008 at 12:31 pm
The mentoring activities and challenging of SMEs are wonderful ways to stay connected. The challenge part of it reminds me of the post on the way “respect” is handled in some lean environments http://projectmanagement411.com/how-do-you-show-respect/.
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: