People, Practices, Things

We are drawn to IT by a fascination with complex technology. This is unfortunate because it blinds many of us to the importance of the People/Practices/Things trilogy.

Reality is of course infinitely-dimensioned (speaking of concepts not physics). There are other similar models. The ITIL books have at least two others: “P4: People Process Product Partners” is a good one . Let us apply the Rule of Threes to simplify, and stick with PPT.

People

The order is important: People come first. IT folk too often start with the technology, occasionally start with the process, and seldom start with the people.

“People” covers mundane aspects like teamwork and having enough resources for an implementation project, and the more strategic issues of getting executive commitment and approval. Most of all it concerns cultural change. Culture means (in this sense) “how things are done around here; how we approach stuff”. Cultural change is about which behaviours and attitudes need to change and how to effect that change.

Equally important is to consider what cultural aspects cannot or should not change. Organizations have a unique character: often aspects of that character are what make an organization competitive or why people choose to work there. Culture in a broader sense intrudes. For example, accountability and ownership of process are sometimes seen differently in other countries.

It is often said that we can’t modify staff attitudes, so make the behaviours change and the attitudes will follow. This is an effective approach. The easiest way to change behaviour is to pay people. Remember the Garfield Principle (I got it off a Garfield comic long ago): “Work is so bad you have to pay people to do it”. So change behaviour by linking change to payment.

Next best is a variant: measure behaviour. Do so visibly. Preferably publish the results.

On the other hand, consider attitudinal change as well. De-motivated people can be stirred up, and misaligned people re-focused. The author’s technique is to make it personal: explain why they are at risk and what is in it for them to change. Some will get it; some won’t.

For the ones who don’t, there are always the behavioural change techniques. Another way to rally people is to frame the changes in terms of the outcome: Present the changes as the method to get to a common agreed goal. Training as brain-washing works too, especially multi-day intensive courses. As a last resort: if you can’t change the people, change the people.

Practices

Once we understand what will and won’t work culturally and what we need to do to get there, only then are we in a position to design and implement processes (unless of course you like doing it several times, or failing). There is no best practice, only generally agreed practice. So no definition of process is sacred; they all need to adapt to the receiving organization.

The link between People and Practice is education. Rule of Threes again: inform, train, coach. Sending emails is not informing. One course without follow-up is not training. And why won’t IT departments coach? I think it is that IT machismo thing: “I never had any help. I just grabbed the manuals and jumped in. Think or thwim”. The cost and effort of setting up an effective coaching program will be one of the best investments a manager can make.