“… we also gain a great deal by having an Arabic-speaking, Lebanese-Christian female journalist covering the Middle East for CNN …”

The argument being that in a culturally and politically complex geographic area someone with such a particular background is an asset to the journalists covering the region for a large US based media outlet. If the majority of the reporters covering this area for a Western audience are Western white males, a perspective from a person with a different background, upbringing and gender will add something to the mix. This holds whatever the region, media outlet, audience or topic.

Cultural diversity can provide different interpretations of situations. The difference is upbringing, history and personal experiences shape your brain, color your views, create your filters. It’s not the cultural diversity per se that is of importance, it’s the resulting cognitive diversity that is of essence.

Diversity creates different viewpoints, different ways of problem solving, other ways of looking at the world in general. This clash of perspectives produces creative solutions.

If you are offered different information streams, you can choose. Although this doesn’t mean the choice is easy.

So. It’s important.

What is equally important is not to assume because of their background, a person has a specific viewpoint.

Remember my post about Elif Shafak, the female author from Turkey? Some people analyze her stories from this perspective: “female” and “from Turkey”. And although she is all that, in her books she attempts to overcome identity dogmas and just tell stories.

So. It’s complex.

And that’s the whole problem.

It takes energy and focus to take on conflicting information streams and make up your own mind. It might even make you more confused.

It is easier to follow sources that provide identical viewpoints. It takes less energy.

And if all our energy is taken by fear and stress, we have to save it somewhere.

Image by Sara Nel.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Thomas Friedman. CNN. And Cognitive Diversity. is a post from: Project Shrink.

I must admit, that the first time a played The SIMS I immediately try to get them to kill of love each other. I mean: “Looking for a job” Yeah, yeah. “Hitting the next door neighbor” Cool! Assuming that I am not the only weirdo here, and to make stuff entertaining, lets go to our example.

Consider the actor Tiffany in a game. She might have the following properties:

• Gender (M/F) := F
• Age (number) := 30
• Lust (number) := 50
• Anger (number) := 40

We have a 30 year old female that is rather neutral on her emotions lust and anger. Tiffany might be doing something. Actually, every actor is always “doing” something at a given moment. E.g. sleeping, drinking, having a shower or playing chess. This is called the “state” of the actor. Although in reality what people are doing can be limitless; a state can only be a value from a limited list. Of course, this might be a long list. Lets say Tiffany is currently “drinking”. At this moment we have a 30 year old woman having a drink and feeling normal. This game doesnt sound like a lot of fun, does it? So, lets give it some action.

Tiffany is one outgoing person, to put it like that; when her lust-level is 50 or above, she needs to satisfy her lust, this will become her “goal”. If you are fond of some abstract syntax you like the following notation about Tiffany:

• Goal::Satisfy lust
• State:=all
• Threshold:=lust=>50

So, it doesnt mind what she is doing, when the lust peaks, so does she. One of the strategies she has up her sleeve to fulfil this goal is to just kiss someone. But how to select a suited partner? Or a willing victim if you want. The game will have some rules to determine the target, the actor with whom to interact with.

• Target: gender=M; lust>90.

All males with a lust above then 90 can be a target. The computer will run through the list of actors in the game to search for candidate that fits the rule. If it has found one, we get to the part where you can see something happening in the game. If it has selected a strategy (kiss someone), found a suited target, it will run some predefined activities associated with this strategy: walk towards the target, say hi, do some chitchat, etc. This is all finally visible on your screen. And finally when the goal is satisfied, when Tiffany finally has her long desired kiss, this will influence her properties; perhaps in this case her lust-level will finally drop by ten points.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Sims Project Model: Tiffany’s Lust is a post from: Project Shrink.

To be able to discuss how people operate within a project, it is important to have some kind of idea in our head about people, their behavior and how they interact. Some kind of model. Of course a model is a simplification of reality; we leave things out, we make stuff easier, just to be able to understand it all. This might be a small problem, but we have no choice. Without ignoring aspects and making a few assumptions there is no way on earth our brain will get it. Sorry to bring this to you: but our mind is too small for reality.

When looking for a way to describe how people operate, you just have to be totally amazed by the popular computer game The SIMS. In this game you simulate a group of people that live together. They go to work, they sleep, they have coffee with the neighbours, and they have sex and raise their children. The simulation runs in principle by itself, but the fun is that you can interfere in their situation; can withhold them from food, provide them a lot of money, make them hate or love each other. You just sway your magic wand, kick back and see how your actors in the game react. And what staggers me the most, and why I bring up this subject in the first place, is the level of detail, and live like feel of the simulation. They really nailed it down, simulating ordinary people on their own and in a group.

Just from the looks of it, it seems worth to look a little closer to the underlying behavioral game engine (the part of the game which emulates individuals behave depending on interactions with other actors in the system) to help us crack the code for a proper model. Of course this will be a simplification of the real deal.

Every individual in the game is called an ‘actor’. Every actor has some properties that describe it. Of course you have a name so you know who is who, but you also consider aspects that are a given like age and gender. Next to these kind of ‘given’ properties you have items that describe the state of mind the actor has at any given moment, and yes, they will change. Think about emotions like lust and anger, or physical conditions like hunger and general health.

To be able to do something useful with these properties, they can have values. Of course, gender can be Male or Female, but for things like Anger you can use numbers: 0 can mean completely without anger, and with a value of 100 the steam is getting out of an individuals ears.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - How To Learn Project Management By Playing The Sims is a post from: Project Shrink.

Just to make things easier on our lives, we call the result of all this behavior “the project”. In this sense it is nothing more than an abstraction. If we say “the project is late”, this doesn’t mean that some creature or entity from outer space showed up later than expected; it is the result of the project people working together that wasn’t finished on the time we predicted.

In this sense the word “project” is the same as “economy”. If our economy is improving, there is not some kind of energy force that is doing better than before. The whole system of people working, people buying and people living that is better off in some way than in the past. We need this kind of abstraction, just to be able to cope with it; it is easier to talk about the economy than about 100 million individuals.

And the funny thing is that this abstraction influences the people that make up the underlying system; if the economy is doing better, people will spend more, if a project is late, people will work harder.

Figure: the interactions of stakeholders “make” the project. The properties given to the abstraction “project” influence the stakeholders.

If you try to define a project from this point of view, the best definition I know of comes from Doug De Carlo (2005) in Extreme Project Management:

“A project is a localized energy field comprising a set of thoughts, emotions, and interactions continually expressing themselves in physical form.”

In case you are wondering at this moment what the role of the Project Manager is in this context. He should steer the stakeholders in such a manner that the resulting behavior (the sum if you will) reaches the desired business goal. But that will be the main focus of the entire book, so relax, we will get into this later on in much detail. For now, just hold on to the thought that the stakeholders make up the elements of the project as a system. They are independent from each other, but their social interactions affect each other.

The following postings provide additional information about viewing a project as the result of interactions:

My Current Model For PM
Complex Adaptive Systems
Projects As A Complex Adaptive System: Why Bother?
The Sims As A Project Model
Sims Project Model: Tiffanys Lust
Sims Project Model: Berts Lack Of Recognition
Reality Refuses To Follow Your Plan
Explaining PM Approaches
Four Mechanisms In PM Methods
Why Societies And Projects Fail Or Succeed
Project Profiling With Systems Thinking

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Why Projects Are Nothing More Than Social Interactions is a post from: Project Shrink.

In the first episode of this series I used a very simplified model of how stakeholder behavior is determined:

• Stakeholders have needs
• Based upon there needs and their perception of project reality they will choose a strategy that benefits them most.
• The execution of this strategy is their behavior.

As I will progress in the series this model will of course be refined. The first item I want to add is the use of anticipated needs, strategies and behavior from other stakeholders. When determining the strategy a person will also weight in the expected behavior of others. This is very obvious in the subject of this second episode: the reluctance to commit to something.

The best way to illustrate this is by using a quote from Frederick Brooks legendary book The Mythical Man Month:

¦ the reluctance to document designs is not due merely to laziness or time pressure. Instead it comes from the designers reluctance to commit himself to the defense of decisions which he knows to be tentative. ˜By documenting a design, the designer exposes himself to the criticisms of everyone, and must be able to defend everything he writes. If the organizational structure is threatening in anyway, nothing is going to be documented until its completely defensible.

If the anticipated behavior of other is threatening some of the important emotional needs of a stakeholder, he or she may choose strategies that avoid some kind of confrontation. In this situation we are talking about needs like:

• Recognition among peers and within hierarchical organization
• The threat of not being admired, appreciated or in control
• But also some material needs like fear of loosing ones job or not getting a raise.

The stakeholder can use several strategies, which are all targeted towards avoiding a confrontation on the subject he or she is handling.

Delaying: pushing a possible confrontation to a later time frame, hoping it will go away; or be better at that point in time.

Creating smoke screens: by raising other subjects, by trying to bring other items to the agenda, the stakeholder may try to get the focus of his problems, and hoping to stay under the radar. When I was young I had to go to bed at 8 o clock in the evening. When this time was approaching, I just got silent and watched television, in the hope my parents wouldnt notice me.

Keep on giving counter arguments: this is actually a form of delaying, but so widely used it deserves an entry of its own: Just keep on raising questions or arguments why a certain task cant be finished.

No written testimony: avoid having something on paper, email or any other medium that is fixed after you have released it. In this way you are keeping things vague and they are impossible to measure. This is the one used in the earlier quote from Brooks.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Project Sociology – Part 2 (repost) is a post from: Project Shrink.

This is a repost of the original Project Sociology article/video. I removed the old one a while ag o oops.

In this first episode I will discuss how project people look at each other to measure them selves.

Projects are all about people. Its the human element that determines the success or failure of this temporary organizational endeavor. In my book Surprise! Now Youre a Software Project Manager I use this as the central point to explain to new project managers how to manage software projects.

The central argument goes something like this:

• The behavior of the project stakeholders determines the course of the project;
• Stakeholders are guided by their needs (their fears and wishes) in their behavior
• By examining the needs, expectations and behavior the PM can spot potential problems
• This examination provides the PM with clues which process component (method or technique) to use to resolve the potential problem.

In this way, there is a direct link between the social complex of stakeholders and the tools and techniques a project manager has up his sleeve. This subject not only consist of project management, but leans towards psychology, sociology, complex adaptive systems, social simulation and economics. There is a lot of research available, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there. Some of it in the context of projects, most of it in entirely different contexts.

The the real challenge lies within understanding the behavior of humans within the project context (therefor I coin the phrase Project Sociology “If you look on Wikipedia you will find the following definition: Sociology is the study of the social lives of humans, groups, and societies, sometimes defined as the study of social interactions. ). If we have a better understanding of how people operate, and more important why, the how an project manager can throw its toolbox towards the stakeholders, will be the easy part. As in many situations: Understanding is half the battle.

In the presentations I will use the term stakeholders very often. A stakeholder is anyone that has something to do or is somehow affected by the project. From users to sponsors, from testers to developers, from marketing to production. The all one thing in common: their personal needs are affected by the project.

Whatever your take is on projects, at the end of the day it is just a bunch of people working together to achieve a certain goal. During this endeavor to laugh, cry, pull pranks, play dirty tricks and have all other kind of behavior towards each other. If you are lucky the even work to reach the final goal. If you take everything away, and put people in the center of what a project is, you will see a group of stakeholders interacting with each other; just like any other group of people would do.

Just to make things easier on our life, we call the result of all this behavior the project. In this sense it is nothing more than an abstraction. If we say the project is late, this doesnt mean that some creature or entity from outer space showed up later than expected; it is the result of the project people working together that wasnt finished on the time we predicted.
In this sense the word project is the same as economy. If our economy is improving, there is not some kind of energy force that is doing better than before. The whole system of people working, people buying and people living that is better off in some way than in the past. We need this kind of abstraction, just to be able to cope with it; it is easier to talk about the economy than about 100 million individuals. And the funny thing is that this abstraction influences the people that make up the underlying system; if the economy is doing better, people will spend more; if a project is late, people will work harder.

In the end, what is the role of the Project Manager in this context? He should steer the stakeholders in such a manner that the resulting behavior (the sum if you will) reaches the desired business goal.

With every thing I will ever tell you, keep one thing in mind: it is a way of looking at things. It will never be THE ONLY WAY. So, it will never be the only truth, it may not even be the truth in certain situations. I will only show you ways to look at the project you might have never done before; to provide you with a different perspective that can be beneficial at a given moment while you are running your project.

At his moment I will use a very simple model of how stakeholders behavior is determined:

• Stakeholders have needs
• Based upon there needs and their perception of project reality they will choose a strategy that benefits them most.
• The execution of this strategy is their behavior.

Needs are fundamental. We are born with it. In various degrees, each according to his or her own unique nature, we each have a natural emotional need to feel (taken from Eqi.org):

In this episode we will look at needs in which stakeholders measure themselves with other people. Their reference group. Software engineers tend to compare themselves with other software engineers, not only within their own company but also in a wider range, even internationally. Management members mostly compare themselves with other people within their companies hierarchies. Stakeholders use the reference group to formulate their own interests: I want to earn as much as Big Shot Shirley. I want to be as good as Leisure Suit Lenny. I want to have more power than Head Honcho Harry.

The reference group is used in different ways:

• A reaction from the group can feed a personal need (think about recognition)
• Or as a yard stick, to compare a persons ranking (the need to feel important, the need to feel competent.

This kind of ranking is a relative thing: the most important people dont have a need for being important, they already reached that level. It is the feeling of being MORE important the makes up the need.

Anyway, people will look at their effort (what they bring to the table, hard work, good skills), and how their effort is rewarded. And in this sense the reward is the fulfillment of an emotional need. They will compare there own situation with that of their reference group, persons that they consider comparable. If they think they are better of, there are just happy; if they think they are the lesser fortunate they can have several strategies:

Change their effort: Working less if their not appreciated enough. So that the total sum of their effort versus reward in comparison is equaled out, or work harder if they believe better rewards will come.

Change rewards: If the rewards they were looking for, are not there, they can look for other rewards, throwing alternatives in the equation, like trying to get more money.

Sabotage: If the reference group is in their sphere of influence, they can try to sabotage their effort à reward sum, by undermining their position.

Bail out: People can just give up. Throw in the towel, sit apathic in front of their computer screen, calling in sick or go looking for another job.

Take for example a developer that is looking on an internet site that contains other job descriptions and salary indications. He will draw up an effort/reward equation and concludes that he is not appreciated enough. First he will try to work harder, under the assumption that the reward (appreciation will go up). When that isnt the case he will ask for more money, trying to compensate with this reward. When he doesnt get a response on this either, he will probably bail out in some way or another.

Some management teams can have a great resemblance with a monkey hill. Within corporate politics one wants to have a larger power base than the either. Managers dont want to loose face among each other, because that would undermine the need to feel respected and in control. So you get a lot of sabotage or cloaking behavior like:

• Covering Up Own Incompetence
• Undermining Anothers Reputation
• Attempt to Build an Empire within the Organization
• Attempt to Maintain an Empire within the Organization
• Attempt to Increase Sphere of Influence within Organization

When stakeholders are using the change effort / reward strategy most of the time the project manager can deal with it using motivational techniques. If people are bailing out, you have a problem, you have to reboot the stakeholder from scratch. And if you have a lot of sabotage-behavior, you better dig in deep for some heavy corporate politics.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Project Sociology – Part One (repost) is a post from: Project Shrink.