Developers vs. Enterprise

Speaker 1 [00:05]

Can everybody hear me clearly? No. No? I thought I put it on. Yeah, it's on. You hear me now? Ah, now it's getting better, I guess. I can hear me now a little bit better. Okay, if my voice is too low, then just let me know. I will try to speak it up a little bit. Yeah, welcome to my talk. I'm quite happy, so maybe many people found a way right here. Yeah, welcome to the talk, Developer vs. Enterprise. I have, I think, a quite nice picture, and maybe some of you have already seen the style at our booth outside. We did a style transfer, and as we have so many cool styles, I couldn't really, I mean, we had five or six of them, and I couldn't really decide what I should take. So welcome to my talk, developer versus enterprise with the second style. Yeah, just let me talk a little bit about me, myself. As Martin already said, I have a banking background until five years ago. I was an advisor in the ultra high net worth department of an American bank and a Switzerland bank afterwards. um and uh yeah i i wasn't really happy there anymore because of enterprise structure and uh problems i um i encountered which i see now in projects in it with still developers and enterprise so i really can um feel anyone pains he has on both sides and uh um yeah i'm managing partner now at Königsweg and we are based in Mannheim and I was providing this what we are doing in Königsweg is we think digital excellence and we do it every consultancy claims that for themselves I guess we really try to do it and I think we are quite successful with it however why did I do this or what we're going to talk today it's nice to have it with I did it the first time with a mobile phone, which is really cool because no laptop is standing here. But sometimes it's a little bit small, so I cannot read it. It's a lesson learned. Sometimes you only know it by doing it. So what are we going to talk about today? I will talk a little bit about a usual situation we often see when we help in projects or when we talk to people who want to promote a project. um so and after that we will talk a little about external internal projects what is the difference between it and why why are there differences there and then what is very important we talk about the stakeholder structure of a project who is involved and what are the personal interests about it um yeah and then after that we give some advice how to set it up um how you promote your project what you should do if you really want to bring up something for forward um and afterwards if the time is still there we talk about one or two use cases um what we we seen and then we have a little summary and then it's time for a little bit a little q a um so again i have to yeah okay What is the usual situation? The usual situation is that the developer is saying, oh yeah, do you see my great lines of codes? I solved this problem with a long of Schwartz algorithm. It took me hours of work. We have one guy here. He's talking about the long of Schwartz algorithm tomorrow. I think it's slightly different. The name, I did it for purpose, but highly recommended talk. He's coming from finance as well. So for me, it's very exciting to see that. And he's talking about options and swaps and whatever. It's really cool. But however, the manager says, oh, yeah, great. What is it doing? What can we do with it? Can you show me the result or at least a picture? What can we sell to our client? This is the interest of the manager or someone who is a little bit on the other side of the project. And then he said, yeah, but what I try to say is if you keep on developing, my theory will have great results and a smooth running system which is very performant and robust. Sounds great for a developer, I would say. But on the other hand, what does the manager say? Wow, that sounds great because he doesn't understand a word usually. And please send me your script and I will think about it. So who of you thinks that he will think about it? that's most likely the cases and this is not because any one of them is stupid or doesn't know what he is doing in his role but this is not because they're not talking the same language or talking about the same things or someone didn't put the value in the center of a project or of a talk we see here and so the question is why external projects and why internal projects Just to give me a little distinction, internal projects is usually, so first external projects, the customer satisfaction usually is in the center. The cash flow and revenue generation is important, market positioning and new requirements for products. and having internal projects it's usually innovation automatization cost efficiency bringing things forward employer motivation as well can be a internal project domain expertise is required and usually we see it when there's a fast changing environment so the enterprise needs to move and then we see a project but the truth is that internal projects they require the same A level of attention and dedication at external projects, which usually if there is a client involved, we give slightly more power to the project. If it's an internal one, we see it by ourselves. If a client is involved, everyone is really 100% or 110% into the project. If we do it for ourselves, maybe it can wait for one or two weeks and sometimes even three. um however um external projects they use they bring cash and internal projects use cash for the beginning um but however it's really really um um it's it's really important to also really think about internal projects how the company can be brought forward um and the good news is you guys you all can make the difference yeah and uh just think about it um so now talk about the stakeholder structure of a project um you know we can see it that's good um in the middle we see that's what i'm talking a little bit as well today stakeholder and politics this is what we are all afraid of it i i was talking to someone in the morning and he said i had a project and he was told we do the project without politics and i said okay how long did you do it one or two days and they said yeah exactly maybe half a day and um it's just not possible um because we are all people and we are all human and we are like we are and uh but the good news is we can manage it and we can think about it and uh so so i hope that my talk will help a little bit to understand everyone a little bit better um yeah we have uh in the center the user and the client the client will be for external projects and the user will be for internal projects This is kind of quite important. Then we have the sponsor. He needs to give the money, so someone needs to pay it. Then we have the project team. Someone needs to do it. It seems that this is very important. We have the project controller. Usually no one understands why he's there. But for some reason, he's there, and he might be important as well. Then we have the shareholders. This is true the bigger a company is, the bigger a company is, this is more true. Then they have shareholders and also external shareholders. Then we have the management, and we usually have a project manager. So, I mean, there can be other persons involved, external consultants, whatever, but I was talking about a project that is really within a company. Yeah, now we have the user and the client. There it is important that the outcome for the user or the client should be in the center of the project. This is important for him. The client always wants to feel, at least get the feeling that he's in the center. And the same is true for an internal user or a colleague. If you do something for him, you should see him as the center of the project. He might be impatient or impolite, depending on his power or his rank. So just to be sure that this might be the case and just smile and say, yes, we will do it as quick as possible. sometimes he's hard to reach for feedback rounds which might be a problem and this has something to do with a good project setup uh up front to solve these problems um it might change his mind very often um this is what we see quite as a ah okay you can do this or you did this can you also do this or i don't like that too much um and i guess these are usual problems every one of us nose here and uh yeah at some point uh it's uh yeah he could maybe be more clear but uh this is also the thing um at the beginning i said the question was can i see something and sometimes people only can understand or imagine what things are doing if they see them um this is just the case this is i guess for every one of us the case some are a little bit more imaginative and the other a little bit less but uh um i can say if i saw the first time um our picture of a style transfer i said no wow that's cool and before i said okay style transfer but that is what's wow so it's just like this um and the user client usually wants everything that is possible for the least price and the shortest time um we know about this as well and uh yeah just to be aware that it's like this and then we can manage this uh we have to sponsor um besides the client the person whom you should care about also because he gives the money especially in internal projects he gives the budget he helps with other resources so he's a very important person because he usually is well connected he can organize some resources he can organize some knowledge and everything else he connects people and he wants the project to succeed because he pays it which is usually a good thing if someone wants that the project succeeds because Because then you have at least his attention. Then there's the project team. Of course, they want to have a homogeneous composition of the team. Because usually people like to stick to their peer group and not other types of person. I know this community is very diverse. And that's why we really like it. And that's why we really support it. But sometimes if it comes to a bigger company, it's not always the case. And people tend to stick to their peers. We need to know that. Then they want also exciting projects, nothing boring stuff. I think this is, for you guys, even more important than for other people. You should have a meaning what you do, and I can totally understand it. They want a high budget and enough resources. I can understand that. It's not always possible, but in the idea world, if we can wish whatever we want, we should think about it. and they don't want to be bothered with documentation or the boring stuff they want the the shit to get done and i can also totally understand that but for some reason some people they might need some documentation for other reportings and so just be aware and usually if you do it if you started at the beginning and early enough then it's not such a pain than uh people might be might think um then we have the project manager um i myself i'm quite often the project manager so uh i know what i'm talking about a little bit he's usually the contactor between um all different stakeholders so he's also a very important person if you want to want to set up a project and i want to talk choose this guy wisely um he reports to the management and the project team sometimes to the shareholders as well depending on the the size of the company um the smaller the company is the more he reports directly to them um you should choose a proper management or leadership style this is very important as well um this would be a standalone talk um what is the right management style is there even a good management style or um just just do what needs to get done um you should make sure that the milestones are met and if not that it is communicated clear this is very important um a project manager and everyone involved in the team to be honest or the project to be honest he should communicate clear and he wants all other stakeholders to be highly committed nothing worse for a project manager if we see that someone is really not interested in a project so again this guy is very important if you really think about promoting a project or starting something new choose this guy carefully then there's the management um uh this uh it's not always aware of the technical needs we we saw at the beginning um and this is clearly because they have a different socialization they didn't study it um sometimes you could um postulate that they should get a little bit more into detail and not only on the um on the the um surface um but um they want to see that the the added value of project of something you do is put first and is often at least for middle management driven by political issues one guy is wanting this and then he heard that this is the next hot topic and they are all kind of sometimes not really sure what they should do next because the top management changing their mind quite quickly as well and so they try to position themselves quite quite well which is totally normal for someone that is in that position and he usually has not much time because he has not only your project or that one project but much more different projects he wants things to get done without question how and he wants solutions and no problems and this is very important if you talk to within a project or even before don't come and this is what i what we're telling to our employees as well if there's an issue great we can solve everything but that's not a thing but what would you do i want to know what you would do because i have to decide and i sometimes don't have time within our company to think about a solution by myself and usually the the management they trust the you don't believe it but usually they trust you and so just have a solution there and then you can say yes or no and if it's a no it's not a big issue then just think about another one and at some point he will say yes um yeah then we have the shareholders and this the following is true the bigger company um the the more likely is the following um the shareholder aims for the highest possible profit um because they invest money um he's very cash flow driven he wants immediate response um he has short side goals due to report reporting regulations the bigger it is We have a three-month reporting rule for listed companies. And he doesn't contribute to the added value of a project. He just doesn't care. He just wants to have cash flow. Again, the bigger, the more true it is. The smaller, usually cash shareholders are more involved and they have a much better understanding and much more time than for bigger companies. ah and then this guy the controller um we all know him somehow he's monitoring the time and material fair enough um he doesn't show any excitement or understanding usually um and which for people who really put a lot of work and effort in something it might be very hard i can understand this but then again understand his role um he is therefore setting and monitoring the kpis and uh talk about the figures and uh not about a great line of code um he will hardly contribute and and add any value to the project as well um because this is just by definition not his role um otherwise he should need to start billing himself and this is sometimes not compliant as well um yeah so i said it before the stakeholders and politics um So, what I want to tell you with these things, everyone has a different position within a project, but everyone is needed. So, this is the very important thing. We need everyone because they are just there. And if you want to succeed a project, we have to get along with every one of them. It doesn't matter on what side you are here. And one key thing about it is to communicate clear and to talk to each other because usually we find out that the management, they are also human beings as well. And if you talk to them, they're more empathetic than you might think. Everyone has his own agenda. This is clear as well. They usually collide with other personal agendas and the project goal and the possibility of output. For me here, output is performance per time unit. Maybe I'm a little bit management-driven here as well. But this is what I would say. This is performance. And, yeah, they collide with each other. So furthermore, some stakeholders can be dependent on others or influenced by others, which is usually an issue where we talk about this later. And one might think that the success of the project does not meet his own agenda. This is an issue as well, because then this person maybe will not really contribute what he should contribute to the project. The result of these things will be that not everyone will trust each other. information is not shared proactively which is okay but it will be much more difficult when information or results will that is produced are not okay i have to finish the sentence now which is not correct so they give wrong information and this is the worst that can happen in a project and this is what unfortunately we see sometimes um what i have put here is the stakeholder interest matrix i really like it um and we developed it uh together with a client for a project where we came um into and i said well we do it now for two years and uh we're not getting where we should and i said yeah but did you talk to these guys who is everyone involved in a project they didn't even really know um it because it was two years old and not like people did what they wanted to do but didn't talk to each other and then we said okay um we have all our stakeholders here um again user sponsor project team project manager management shareholder controller and then we ranked it how it should be so it usually um the better is a 10 and the worst is a zero um and we see for example that the dedication to the project goal of the user and client is much higher than the one of the shareholder or the management um so i think the seven is what it should be for the management and for all of the others of course they should be dedicated to the project goal it's very clear right um then uh there's the question do they have varying personal interest again a 10 is they don't have varying personal interest um so everyone should have a 10 i'm saying should have and um how can they contribute to the project goal we're talking about this before not everyone can contribute or will contribute which is okay and the user client um it would be nice if he had a three um it's more true for the user than the client um and for example the project team of course they do the main part of the work so they have the highest contribution um to the project goal um and then there's the question how independent are the decisions um favoring the project goal because this is always an indicator if something's going wrong if the decisions are not really independently done because then usually not the best decision is taken into account or not the worst one or at least a middle good one um yeah and then again the user client should of course made his independent decision because he at least the client he pays it and that's what we do it for um also the sponsor he should uh make his independent decision and the management as well. Here usually is the highest gap between it should or should not. And then the controller, of course, he is told by someone what he should do. So, yeah, it's not really that we expect a 10 there. Now we see what we like. This is maybe average or a little bit below average. This is what we see often in things. A user client, 10 out of 10. But then Nova writing personal interest, the user already sometimes five because they're getting told that they get something or the one guy gets something but he don't get it the way he wants. And then there's already a bad mood with them and then they're not maybe contributing that much as they should be. And the client usually has a 10 out of 10 as well. and then if we talk think about maybe the management and the independent decision that is possible favoring the project goal we see here a three out of ten and this is really a big issue that the people they want to do the right things but they're caught in some middle management political games we were talking a little bit a little bit about it before and this is some point where we really need to get into it and talk about it and there again talking helps yeah so everyone can maybe everyone can maybe take this matrix and assess projects they are currently inside and then just I mean we have some numbers behind it and some criterias we take we can talk about these later on besides that But I think everyone in a project has some kind of gut feeling what it is there, and he can make a number behind the green numbers. There we're going to see on the right side, we're going to see examples for personal interests, which is kind of interesting, I think. Again, there it's more true for a user. He had a different idea in the beginning, but was getting other solutions, and he doesn't like it. And if someone doesn't like it, he really is not too much into the project. For the sponsor, the sentiment might change with political decisions. I mean, the sponsor gives money because he thinks that he has a higher outcome at some point. This is true for anyone who gives money into any project, at least in a corporate world. and if you see that even he succeeds this is maybe not the right track anymore or we he won't get any proper reward and then his sentiment might change and this this might be an issue as well the broaching project team might bring no value they have no conviction maybe they see that they have a bad pm project manager they have some issues that they don't like each other some just normal human things um then there's a project manager here's maybe the possibility of a different project so he's not 100 there anymore he rather wants to have that other project because this is much nicer the people they are nicer or better we all notice the grass is always green on the other side of the river and um yeah then the management they have no time they have other problems that are more important than the problem that you you might bring up to them um they have maybe no general interest because this is not their type of things they want to think about and um there are some maybe fights for power on a c-level basis so one c-level he wants to do this and the other wants to do that and then um usually they um look who has more power and they want to put through their ideas and things and then this might be bad for a project as well um and then the shareholder um there they have maybe personal worrying personal interest because they have long-term growth which is usually a project about um versus a short term payout they want to have and we all know if the if we have to invest then we cannot pay out any dividend or whatever, and they might not like it. That's maybe why they don't really support, and then they usually influence the management. And the controller maybe has some cost-cutting goals, and his bonus is depending on if he can lower the project costs by 10%, and he will try to put it through. So we see everyone has his own position, and everyone has his own goals and agenda. And we really need to streamline these things if we want to succeed a project. Now we talk about setting it up. Before we do that, what we usually use, it's a kind of thing also part of change management, but we usually say think about change before you start to change. And there are five success factors for a project I want to share with you. Usually, we want to have a vision, we need skills, we need incentives, we need resources, and we need an action plan. And if one of these five things are missing, then we have usually a problem. And, for example, if the vision is missing of a project, we have confusion. No one knows what he wants to do. and um um yeah and we have um if if skills are missing we have anxiety and uh if the incentives are missing we have resistance people they don't know what they do it for what do i have from it we're talking about these interests and uh and so on and so on uh also very important is if they're not enough resources you have frustration and no one wants to be frustrated in his life and especially in the field eight or ten hours in the office um so i have two minutes left so the use case is canceled for today we can talk about this maybe further on um but what i want to tell you um the project setup before you pitch it is think about the stakeholders interest we were talking about um and take them into account think about the value not the technical details and put in the center of the project communicate this is i mentioned it maybe five times but this is so much important just talk to the people and you will get better results if you not talk to them um plan steps that deliver results fast look for quick wins um this helps also if you have small milestones but you can show something um if possible have an mvp or prototype or other understandable visualization of the idea and everyone will will be more overwhelmed if he sees a picture than if he sees a line of code especially if you cannot read it um and choose your project team wisely um who wants to take part who can contribute and who has the resources and make sure as many people as possible benefit from the success of the project this is also look at any any single position and think what might be the favor for him if he contributes to the project and also important have the right timing sometimes we all know it here artificial intelligence data science so we hear all the buzzwords and uh people that um especially management is going on there but if you hear them maybe it's the right timing sometimes you are five years ahead or sometimes you are five years behind it's always uh best to be right now here and uh stay with yourself so i think we have to have a break um uh one thing more the pitch day be prepared just think about the things we're talking about um remember not to get too technical put your value first again and show a good spirit and i'm quite sure that you have more access now within your projects um so now it's your time any questions