executing leadership in software engineering carol brothers sr. manager, protax quality/test intuit...
TRANSCRIPT
Executing Leadershipin Software Engineering
Carol Brothers
Sr. Manager, ProTax Quality/TestIntuit
2
Agenda
What does Leadership mean in Software Engineering?
What does good leadership look like? The ProTax Story
– Knowing what’s important– Knowing how you’re doing– Identifying and executing projects to improve
Putting it all together
3
ProTax Boiled Frog SyndromeProTax Boiled Frog SyndromeCustomer Percentage Growth by Tax Year
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
00 00 01 02 03 04
Lacerte ProSeries Total ProTax
Revenue Percentage Growth by Tax Year
-10%
-5%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
00 00 01 02 03 04
Lacerte ProSeries ProTax
TY01: TAASC Acquisition
ProTax Satisfaction Scores by Year
88%
90%
92%
94%
96%
98%
100%
TY99 TY00 TY01 TY02 TY03
Lacerte ProSeries
Notes: Lacerte for TY99-TY01, Top 2-box on a 5 pt scale. ProSeries for TY99-01, Top 2 box on 5 pt scale for 1040 product. For TY02-TY03 (both), Top 4 box on 11 pt scale.
4
What is Leadership?Three basic questions...
What is important?
How are you doing, and how do you know?
What are you doing to improve?
Easy to say… tough to do well…Easy to say… tough to do well…
Operationalizing the Leadership Model
Quantitative & Qualitative Output Metrics: •Employees•Customers•Shareholders
+ProactiveAssessment…how we’re doing
Evaluate Performance
… apply judgment…
red, yellow, green
Time management strategy…delegate
to the driver…they have the lead
to continuouslymonitor
OK
CriticalFew?Apply
J udgment… Screen on impact vs.
true north
NotOK
NoYesAdd to priorities list
Select Priorities… Critical few Initiatives to improve the future: • Growth… Customer• HPO/ GPTW• Infrastructure
Develop DACI and resource…Include progress reviews in operating mechanisms
Execute Day to
DayFramingThe
Context
“The Right”Big Y(‘s)•Employees•Customers•Shareholders
PriorityExecution
Execute Priorities
Quantitative & Qualitative Output Metrics: •Employees•Customers•Shareholders
+ProactiveAssessment…how we’re doing
Evaluate Performance
… apply judgment…
red, yellow, green
Time management strategy…delegate
to the driver…they have the lead
to continuouslymonitor
OK
CriticalFew?Apply
J udgment… Screen on impact vs.
true north
NotOK
NoYesAdd to priorities list
Select Priorities… Critical few Initiatives to improve the future: • Growth… Customer• HPO/ GPTW• Infrastructure
Develop DACI and resource…Include progress reviews in operating mechanisms
Execute Day to
DayFramingThe
Context
“The Right”Big Y(‘s)•Employees•Customers•Shareholders
PriorityExecution
Execute Priorities
What’s important?
How are you doing?How do you know?
What are you doing to improve?
6
Start with the most important thing that you do....
7
Drill down to what it means Drill down to what it means for your organizationfor your organization
Revolutionize Accountants’ Practice through New Offerings Maximize my practice potential (growth/profitability) Provide me a competitive edge in running my firm (efficiency)
Create a WOW Customer Offering Experience My offering fits the way I work (ease of use) I feel confident of the output... Don’t have to verify (accuracy) My business is not disrupted (reliability, timeliness, performance) My offering meets all my needs (comprehensiveness... Breadth and depth, completeness)
Support Great E2E ProTax Customer Experience Partner with other core and enabling processes to better serve our customers
Deliver for the Current Period... Deliver customer-defined functionality Deliver on-time Adhere to budget Meet customer-defined quality Use disciplined project management process
...Build the Foundation for Long-term Growth Create strategically valuable technology Increase productivity... Reduce complexity
Win Hearts andWin Hearts andMinds of EmployeesMinds of Employees
and Customersand Customers
8
Moving the needle – how will you know?
Find the desired business outcomes that show you’re getting better or reaching your goals.
Examples for WOW Customer Experience:– Time to perform critical “jobs” in the product (gets to easy to use)– Tax calculation test coverage, and calculation defects (gets to
accuracy)– 50% reduction in support calls (gets to reliable product,
minimizing disruptions to the accountants’ practice)– IRS and state agency forms coverage (gets to completeness)
Operationalizing the Leadership Model
Quantitative & Qualitative Output Metrics: •Employees•Customers•Shareholders
+ProactiveAssessment…how we’re doing
Evaluate Performance
… apply judgment…
red, yellow, green
Time management strategy…delegate
to the driver…they have the lead
to continuouslymonitor
OK
CriticalFew?Apply
J udgment… Screen on impact vs.
true north
NotOK
NoYesAdd to priorities list
Select Priorities… Critical few Initiatives to improve the future: • Growth… Customer• HPO/ GPTW• Infrastructure
Develop DACI and resource…Include progress reviews in operating mechanisms
Execute Day to
DayFramingThe
Context
“The Right”Big Y(‘s)•Employees•Customers•Shareholders
PriorityExecution
Execute Priorities
Quantitative & Qualitative Output Metrics: •Employees•Customers•Shareholders
+ProactiveAssessment…how we’re doing
Evaluate Performance
… apply judgment…
red, yellow, green
Time management strategy…delegate
to the driver…they have the lead
to continuouslymonitor
OK
CriticalFew?Apply
J udgment… Screen on impact vs.
true north
NotOK
NoYesAdd to priorities list
Select Priorities… Critical few Initiatives to improve the future: • Growth… Customer• HPO/ GPTW• Infrastructure
Develop DACI and resource…Include progress reviews in operating mechanisms
Execute Day to
DayFramingThe
Context
“The Right”Big Y(‘s)•Employees•Customers•Shareholders
PriorityExecution
Execute Priorities
How are you doing?How do you know?
10
Execution = Project Management
90% of execution is managed by project management, and it’s also where 90% of the engineers will be spending their time.
The remaining 10% is making sure we’re still building the right thing against the desired outcomes
Great reading: Software Project Survival Guide by Steve McConnell
Start small, with plans vs. actuals:– Scope / requirements– Size– Effort / cost– Schedule– Quality
11
Day-to-day Execution
Project Reviews
Current Previous From To
Yellow Yellow 8/19/2004 8/26/2004
Total Due 0Completed 0Total Over Due 0
Status of FY04 P EF XML - MI SBT Experimentv2
Actual Hours
Productivity
Requirements Change
Status Reporting Period
Defects
Schedule Perf. Index
Feature Test Coverage
Cost Performance Index To-Complete Perf. Index
Earned Value
Risk
Elapsed TimeTask Status
3425
0 10 20 30 40
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Arrival Closure Open Closed
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Passed Failed Total Executed
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
0
5
10
15
20
25
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
0.00 20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00
Probability
Con
sequ
ence
3628.00
1402
0.00 500.00 1000.00 1500.00 2000.00 2500.00 3000.00 3500.00 4000.00
2648
1730
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
0
1
2
0
1
2
0
1
2
Project Dashboards
12
Qualitative vs. Quantitative Data
Qualitative can be much more telling than quantitative data sometimes!
Examples:– Hallway talk about projects engineers hate to work on – is it
because they don’t think it’s important?– Testers can’t figure out how to perform the product jobs in their
test cases – if testers can’t figure it out, how can the customer?– Attendance at tollgates or reviews – are people just doing their
own work without the balance of the greater team?– Developers say they are done, but testers still working diligently –
do the developers feel part of the team and feel like they own the outcome?
– Best engineers aren’t assigned to the most important projects – does everyone agree with what’s most important?
Your gut is telling you more than you think!Your gut is telling you more than you think!
13
Continuous Assessment
Don’t forget to assess projects’ impact on the expected business outcomes, too
How much did the needle actually move?
Operationalizing the Leadership Model
Quantitative & Qualitative Output Metrics: •Employees•Customers•Shareholders
+ProactiveAssessment…how we’re doing
Evaluate Performance
… apply judgment…
red, yellow, green
Time management strategy…delegate
to the driver…they have the lead
to continuouslymonitor
OK
CriticalFew?Apply
J udgment… Screen on impact vs.
true north
NotOK
NoYesAdd to priorities list
Select Priorities… Critical few Initiatives to improve the future: • Growth… Customer• HPO/ GPTW• Infrastructure
Develop DACI and resource…Include progress reviews in operating mechanisms
Execute Day to
DayFramingThe
Context
“The Right”Big Y(‘s)•Employees•Customers•Shareholders
PriorityExecution
Execute Priorities
Quantitative & Qualitative Output Metrics: •Employees•Customers•Shareholders
+ProactiveAssessment…how we’re doing
Evaluate Performance
… apply judgment…
red, yellow, green
Time management strategy…delegate
to the driver…they have the lead
to continuouslymonitor
OK
CriticalFew?Apply
J udgment… Screen on impact vs.
true north
NotOK
NoYesAdd to priorities list
Select Priorities… Critical few Initiatives to improve the future: • Growth… Customer• HPO/ GPTW• Infrastructure
Develop DACI and resource…Include progress reviews in operating mechanisms
Execute Day to
DayFramingThe
Context
“The Right”Big Y(‘s)•Employees•Customers•Shareholders
PriorityExecution
Execute Priorities
What are you doing to improve?
15
Use data to decide how to improve the future
Do root cause analysis on projects that have less-than-stellar results
Don’t forget about the qualitative data!
Set up improvement projects to make the future better– Architecture– Process improvements– Reuse– Etc.
Explicitly STOP doing things to make resources available to work on long-term improvements
These priorities should be executed as projects, with equal importance as product-related projects
Pointers for How to Get Started
Quantitative & Qualitative Output Metrics: •Employees•Customers•Shareholders
+ProactiveAssessment…how we’re doing
Evaluate Performance
… apply judgment…
red, yellow, green
Time management strategy…delegate
to the driver…they have the lead
to continuouslymonitor
OK
CriticalFew?Apply
J udgment… Screen on impact vs.
true north
NotOK
NoYesAdd to priorities list
Select Priorities… Critical few Initiatives to improve the future: • Growth… Customer• HPO/ GPTW• Infrastructure
Develop DACI and resource…Include progress reviews in operating mechanisms
Execute Day to
DayFramingThe
Context
“The Right”Big Y(‘s)•Employees•Customers•Shareholders
PriorityExecution
Execute Priorities
Quantitative & Qualitative Output Metrics: •Employees•Customers•Shareholders
+ProactiveAssessment…how we’re doing
Evaluate Performance
… apply judgment…
red, yellow, green
Time management strategy…delegate
to the driver…they have the lead
to continuouslymonitor
OK
CriticalFew?Apply
J udgment… Screen on impact vs.
true north
NotOK
NoYesAdd to priorities list
Select Priorities… Critical few Initiatives to improve the future: • Growth… Customer• HPO/ GPTW• Infrastructure
Develop DACI and resource…Include progress reviews in operating mechanisms
Execute Day to
DayFramingThe
Context
“The Right”Big Y(‘s)•Employees•Customers•Shareholders
PriorityExecution
Execute Priorities
• big Y’s and levers• business outcomes defined• resource allocation to priorities
• dashboards for priority items• manage by exception on day-to-day execution• explicit communication mechanisms
We’re all learning… let’s share what we know and “steal shamelessly”
We’re all learning… let’s share what we know and “steal shamelessly”
• projects that move the needle on key business outcomes
17
Questions???
Comments????
High Praise?????