Free ≠ Zero Cost

As my late Grandpa use to say, “Son, nothing in life is free and clean up your plate.” Looking around the internet today it appears as though there are a plethora of free tools, however, ‘sign-up for free‘ doesn’t mean there isn’t an associated cost. Leveraging these free tools as part of your business does in fact have a cost which is why you should carefully consider a measured approach to these tools. Something to think about: Developing a strong strategy is about understanding how you are going to be better by being different.

Here are 4 simple steps to begin building a successful social media strategy;

Step 1: Ask

Ask your customers and colleagues  – How are your peers socializing and sharing information? Do your customers use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, MySpace or other social networking sites? Typically it is a combination but as a small business it is important to get an understanding where people are hanging out and whether there are relevant conversations occurring in that community. Now ask yourself, “how can I become part of that community…that conversation”?

Step 2: Learn

Social Media 101 – If you’re considering leveraging these tools you need to a have a basic understanding of what they’re about. Spend some time reading up on how these tools are currently being used for small businesses. Online searches, case studies, talking with other business owners, or working with a trusted advisor are all good starts to increasing your social media IQ. Failing to understand the basic concepts, lexicon and etiquette will result in missed opportunity when it comes to successfully leveraging these tools to better your business.

Step 3: Define

Define a goal – Most small business know exactly what their goals are but leveraging social media to support those goals can seem challenging. Are you trying to connect with more prospects? Increase repeat business? Improve client experience and satisfaction? Perhaps you simply want to meet interesting people in your industry but whatever it is be sure to keep track. Regardless of your goal, having a clearly defined strategy that maps to your business goals can be the difference between success and failure.

Step 4: Start

Start & Evolve – Too much analysis and planning can also be counterproductive. Having a base line strategy along with a feed-back loop to evaluate your strategy is a great place to start. Developing a great strategy requires a bit of experiential learning with an adaptive mindset, so start small and evolve your approach based on your hits and misses.

Social media is the latest tool to be added to the belt of small businesses. Even though many of the tools are free, taking time to think about your social media strategy will pay dividends in the long run. Keep in mind that these tools and communities are evolving at a phenomenal pace, so it’s important to take an agile approach to social media strategy.

Rubis Solutions helping businesses execute consistent web strategies

We recognize that phrase is a bit ethereal but for all intense purposes it’s really what we do. On any given day you’ll find us helping customers deploy collaboration tools, deciphering last weeks web analysis or building a website to dynamically publish content across several business networking sites. Taken individually, carving out a web presence is pretty straight forward but it can be a little daunting to figure out how to get the most bang for your buck. Here’s our quick-fire recipe for building web presence;

1. Get a website

2. Get Local

3. Get Reviewed

4. Get Graded

6. Get Advice

7. Get Noticed

Recently I came across an interesting article from SEI at Carnegie Mellon. Having spent a significant amount of time with companies using CMM, ISO, CMMI, Agile etc. at various levels of the organization it’s rather intriguing to consider weaving these tools together.

CMMI and Agile are compatible. At the project level, CMMI focuses at a high level of abstraction on what projects do, not on what development methodology is used, while Agile methods focus on how projects develop products. Therefore, CMMI and Agile methods can co-exist.

Theorhetically speaking combining CMMI and Agile is “possible” but realisitically is it happening?

Absolutely! It makes me cringe when I hear comments around, “we can’t use an Agile framework because we do X” or similarly, “we’re Agile so we can’t do Y”. The fact of the matter is that if you drill down there’s a lot of overlap occuring in the real world. Scott Ambler over at Amblysoft has compiled some rather interesting data through various surveys and recently spoke on the Agile Toolkits Podcast (so-so sound quality). Glad to see someone dispelling some of the rhetoric on both sides…

See you there!

The other day a colleague asked, ‘in addition to being a Certified Scrum Product Owner, what is it that you’re reading’. It was somewhat difficult to answer because in any given week I’ve got my head buried in a stack of books, blogs and articles but here’s the short list specific to Agile, Scrum and Ruby on Rails

All too often there comes a point in a project that we begin to wonder, “Where the are we going?” Regardless of size of the project there seems to be a tendency to reach a point of uncertainty in the overall direction of the project. The disconnect permeates throughout the project team and wrecks havoc on the ability to achieve positive results. Similar to a ship with out a sail, a project without a clearly articulated strategic plan is destined to drifting aimlessly. Hear are a few things to think about when planning your next project, think of it as a road map to identify the Strategic Project Plan.

Mission Statement: Similar to a business plan, the strategic project plan stands to benefit from clearly identifying a Mission Statement. As a stand-alone item, Mission Statements may seem lofty and lacking in sufficient level of granularity but they can come in handy when you feel the project drift into uncharted territory. A Project Mission Statement, like the center-mast of a ship, is critical in ensuring that your project stays the course. Without it you might as well pack it in and wait for the rescue boat. And if you’ve ever seen a rescue boat, they’re not very elegant means of transportation.

This is not to say that a Mission Statement, in traditional terms, is absolutely required. GE for instance, uses an operating philosophy and clear objectives built on 4 strategic principals. The critical component is that their strategic principals are clear, simple yet meaningful. It’s the same with a project Mission Statement, there needs to be some overarching purpose that can be used to support the entire project.

GE’s 4 Strategic Principals

• Build leadership businesses
• Focus on reliable execution and financial discipline
• Drive growth as a process
• Spread ideas across great people and teams that share common values

Here are a couple corporate Mission Statements; 

• “We help people trade practically anything on earth.” eBay
• “To inspire and nurture the human spirit— one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.” Starbucks
• “The Chicago Bulls organization is a sports entertainment company dedicated to winning NBA Championships, growing new basketball fans, and providing superior entertainment, value and service.” Chicago Bulls

Likewise, a Project Mission Statement should be clear, simple and direct. Notice the statements above are quite flexible, so much so that they support a lot of different initiatives. It’s the same with a Project Mission Statement; it needs to have the strength to withhold the weight of our objectives, goals and action plan, as well as the uncertainty that surrounds even the strongest plans.

Here’s a Project Mission Statement we can use that sticks with our our sailing theme;

“To travel the world in a sailboat.”

Project Objectives: Objectives are oftentimes misinterpreted as Goals, however like a Mission Statement, they tend to be somewhat fluffy. Nonetheless, they go one step further by acting as the glue that will hold together our project strategy. Here are a few Objectives I cooked up based on our mission to travel the world in a sailboat; 

• Ensure our passengers and crew are safe at all times
• Improve our marine navigation skills
• Have fun
• Write a book about ‘island hopping’

Although they’re rather broad, the objectives contain an element of specificity that enables us to connect our Project Mission Statement with our Project Goals.

Project Goals: Goals are oftentimes where strategic project planning gets messy, partly because defining them can be challenging but more often than not, it’s because we skip the mission/objectives phase and dive straight into what we need and when we want it without really appreciating our mission. One thing I’ve found that works well is setting goals on a large, medium and small scale. This varies somewhat from the typical long-term and short-term approach because I find that saying long-term/short-term prematurely forces a discussion around time lines. Not that I’m trying to avoid commitment but it’s been my experience that associating time frames in the Action Plan promotes focus on “what” and not “when”.

Lets start defining our Project Goals by first breaking out the objectives so that we can focus on one at a time. The important point here is to ensure that we associate each goal with an objective, so lets consider what goals we can define to achieve our objective ‘to have fun. One way to determine a few goals would be as simple as asking “What do we consider ‘fun’?” One fun-related goal might be to visit the British Virgin Islands, another might be to see the northern lights and a third to study marine life in the Galapagos Islands. The list could go on but you get the idea. Goals need to be concrete and feed directly into our objective – to have fun.

Action Plan: For me, the Action Plan is the best part of every strategy session because it’s where we leverage all the work up until now and actually start detailing how we’re going to attain the mission. Of course, for our mission of traveling the world in a sailboat there are a plethora of tasks that need to be defined. Again, for discussion purposes, lets focus on a single goal, similar to how we defined our goals. Lets look at our goal of visiting the British Virgin Islands;

• Evaluate the top 5 marine navigation systems
• Interview sailors that have sailed to BVI
• Chart a course from our current location to BVI

After drafting a number of action items, lets begin quickly prioritize them using 1, 2, 3, 5 and 8, where 1 is the least important. At this point we simply need to generally identify how much they mean to us.

• 1 – Evaluate the top 5 marine navigation systems
• 8 – Interview sailors that have sailed to BVI
• 3 – Chart a course from our current location to BVI

The strategic project plan gives us a good starting point for a more detailed planning and execution. Depending on the size and scope of the project it’s possible that we need a couple iterations of the plan in order to move into executing the strategy. We’ve covered alot of ground already, so lets save the next phase for another day. Developing a strategic plan is oftentimes the single most critical element of any project. Similar to a ship without a sail, a project without a strategic plan is bound to forever drift. Taking the time to create a Strategic Project Plan with your team and ensuring that it’s a collaborative effort will serve you well on those days when you’re wonder whether you’re on track.

Happy Planning!

Pete was a great trainer and provided a plethora of real-world examples which prompted a lot of valuable discussion. Although at times a bit chaotic, we simulated using Scrum in an end-to-end project using balloons, string, paper-clips and tape which provided a great experiential learning environment and made the subject matter “sticky”. The class participants were another highlight, 10 people with varying degrees of development knowledge and business background that came prepared to challenge, learn and share. It was by far one of the best professional workshops I’ve attended.

5 Take-Away’s:

1. Scrum is not a silver bullet
2. Scrum is highly adaptable
3. Scrum aint easy it’s an art
4. Scrum uncovers problems earlier
5. Scrum is fast, fun and the future of software development

5 Quick Take-Away’s

1. Scrum is a framework, not a methodology, the difference being a methodology in some respects tells you what to do, how to do it and when to do it, whereas Scrum simplifies and gives you a simple set of rules to make progress.
2. Everything is made using a cross-functional team
3. Constrain size and time
4. Something has to be DONE at the end of the time-box. Done equals “shippable”
5. Transparency, everyone knows where you are all the time