Ulrika Park, Systems consultant @ Frontit
Email: ulrika.park@frontit.se
Twitter: @ulrikapark
LinkedIn: http://se.linkedin.com/pub/ulrika-park/1/624/4a
Business & IT communications
To get what you want as a client of IT systems and digital media services, you need to be very knowledgeable in how to communicate in the zone where IT and business meet. You need to be able to describe, analyze and innovate business as well as understand the complexity of technical systems today and how to meet this complexity.
A part from this you also need to understand people process and psychology. No matter what fantastic IT solution or digital service you have in mind, to make this of use and delight for your customers or co-workers – you also need to get them on the change train. You need to be able to work with extrovert creators, colorful designers as well as introvert pattern analysts and mumbling linguistic lovers. Could you do this?
Some people call this requirement analysis, why not. I sometimes call it to be the clients representative. Some times product owner or coach.
The main thing to strive for in the borderline of IT & business is, it seems, is to make people talk to each other in a way that leads to working software – as the customer wanted it. As I’ve noticed – when you achieve this kind of working communication, it also often leads to much better relations between suppliers, clients and partners. Also happier programmers and if you are really serious to more happy end-users – and good business.
Agile methods
To be able to deliver the right digital service, you and your company, need to be able to change – and change fast! Due to continuously changing surrounding market and customer and co-worker needs. These fast changes in systems has to be done without creating chaos and wasted investments.
The agile methods is very much inspired from Lean Thinking and the Toyota Production System, where principles such as Just.-in-time, Go See, Pull based systems, Visual management, Continous improvement etc helped Toyota and Japan to rise from after-war destruction to one of the leading technical nations and car producers in the world. These principles work also very well in IT and systems development to deliver the right software in time. And the business – the client – need to get agile too. Get off the heavy burden of over-administration, bureaucracy, contract-fighting, non-value-adding actions to produce faster and better services.
Many of the agile and Lean principles are quite the opposite from business as usual, or what we learned at school. The mission for many agilists is to make the results of practicing agile visible.
Digital media and some personal history
My first Internet experience was in 1994, while studying Communication Theories in Mid University, Sundsvall (a city in the Middle of Sweden). My friend Magnus Ljadas showed me something on the school Macintosh screen. ”Here, you just go get it girl… ” and pointed at some discussion note, on Usenet, Gopher or whatever.
I was fascinated!
Now I want to learn how to program! And make use of my mathematical interest. So I did. Went to Computer and Systems Science in Kista, Stockholm and built my first Pascal program and web site. After a while – when browsers got better – I remember – it was full of stars.
And on the digital media path we went.
Working as a systems developer in the golden era of Internet services rising, working with one of the first large e-commerce business in Sweden, PC Express (today InWarehouse) together with management, marketing, sales, customer service and of course IT.
Later running my own business in web production, together with marketing manager, designers and developers.
Finding my way on the project management part of making digital media to production. Learning about teams and methods.
Employed in KTH Learning Lab as technical project manager, ScrumMaster and more.
Developing understanding of the importance of user experience design, by working with UX designers, to make our systems work.
Today digital media is a broad range of services and customer experience.
Statistics, observations, customer understanding are of more importance every day.
Vision, clear goals, simplicity and ability to take use of feedback in digital media production is what make a difference.
Technical skills
The beauty of cross-functional development teams that excel I have seen. Striving for this to happen wherever we go, up-hills very often, holding on towards agile principles and frameworks when the boat’s rocking, it’ll always get better.
When your not an active systems developer anymore, even though you have been one some 10 or 20 years ago, please – for the technical skills we have to rely on information and insights by working close to developers, testers, architects and making them talk and be engaged in what they deliver. Bring the real technical people with you when you’re in these contract negotiations on huge (or small) software contracts. Don’t buy stuff your best technician wouldn’t buy, no matter what.
As former developers we can still keep and have a deep interest in new technologies and possibilities, by practicing Go See for example. Spend one or two days next to a real programmer and you will gain valuable insights you couldn’t get by reading CIO news.
When I started as a developer it was real important what kind of technologies you had in your CV. Java? Microsoft? PHP? Com objects? SQL Server or Oracle? E-commerce? ERP? CRM? CMS? BI?
Fortunately this seems to mostly have stopped, except when signing off Power Point off shore contracts.
Everyone,should now that a good developer could take on almost any technology, in the right setting, with the right time, people and mentoring.
Nowadays no system acts in isolation. You won’t get out of complexity, you just need to have the skills to meet it. By short iterations, technical spikes (try-outs), ability to change decisions, respect for those who knows best – and some good software will be delivered in time.
Coaching
In teams some of us often get the coaching hat. Coaching and mentoring new product owners, project managers, requirements or test people to see the results of a disciplined development process. The focus for coaching, in my view, is communication, respect for people and continuous and relentless improvement.
Learning and education
”Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela
As early, or at least not so late, adopters of agile, Lean and an ability to change fast, education is an important tool to spread this knowledge. It’s my strong belief that as system developers, scrum masters or just people believing in agile principles and practices, it’s our responsibility to educate our customers, managers and co-workers if we believe in this way of working with systems, products and services.
We, the technical people, have the necessary background, from practicing or learning about agile for 10 years by now. We know the consequences of the rigid old school methods – for business, people and system sustainability. Some of us have seen development teams excel by practicing Lean & Agile. We, the systems people, have enough knowledge and interest about systems to educate others. Sometimes we just need some courage to get us into deep water and outside comfort zones, to be able to get the ”other side” i.e management, customers and co-workers listening.
”The ability to learn faster than your competitor may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.”- Peter Senge
This is one of the reasons I decided to leave work at one educational institution – Royal Institute of Technology
for another – Frontit (fka ProjektStyrning) for a while.
Please contact me for more information.
Email: ulrika.park@frontit.se
Twitter: @ulrikapark
LinkedIn: http://se.linkedin.com/pub/ulrika-park/1/624/4a
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