Author: Rob Broadhead

The Mid-Year Review

A New Year always includes a flood of articles on planning and assessing for the year gone by and the one ahead. However, annual planning is not enough. That is why a mid-year review and adjustments are valuable. In particular, we need to adjust during the journey rather than wait until the end. They should also be much less investment than year-end as your course is set. It just might need some modification.

Where Are We

The middle of the year is a good point to see how you are doing. You should be about halfway through your goals or progress set in January. If you are ahead of schedule, then keep forging on. When you are off-track, then review options for getting back on track or even adjusting goals. Six months is a lot of time for a correction to “bake in” and turn a loss into a win. The modern business world moves fast. Your mid-year review may point to goals that need to change. A new product idea may appear to be a better direction to take, or the window of opportunity may have passed for a flagship goal of the year. Do not throw good resources after bad. If it is time to call it quits, then do so and move on.

What Works, What Needs Change

Another benefit of assessing progress at this point is that you should have a solid track record of success or challenges so far. Your adjustments made in January have now been in place long enough to evaluate them. The processes and tasks that have not paid off can be replaced with options that will hopefully serve you better. You might also be able to double down on the things that have worked well. Consider things like A-B testing and that you might know have a clear direction with either A or B. At this point, the evaluation period can end. There is no need to keep checking the score once a winner has been decided.

Looking Ahead

It never hurts to start to position yourself for the next race or objective. You can wait until November or December to start planning for the next year, or you can start today. There are often things you can do to help inform decisions to be made down the road. First, consider what sort of options you want to assess for the next year. Then keep an eye out for articles or other ways to get a jump start on assessing whether an option is worthwhile or if it is better to pass. When you put something on your mental radar and let it sit, you can often end up with a lot of material for that decision almost for free. You will find that you pay more attention to passing articles and discussions than you would otherwise.

Adjust and Execute After A Mid-Year Review

Once you have assessed where you are and where you want to be, it is time to make adjustments. These can be as little and simple as changing metrics or reporting up to scrapping a plan and going back to the drawing board. Do not be afraid to make big changes at this point. There is nothing to be gained by dragging out a losing cause. No one likes bad news. However, when you take the big step of re-assessing your goals and plans, you can properly set expectations for the remainder of the year. We all have seen situations where the goal line is adjusted multiple times in minor ways. These “corrections” can lead to frustration and wasted resources. A mid-year review is a perfect occasion to take a larger step and make a more significant course correction.

The good news in all of this is that you have enough time to make these changes and still evaluate them at year-end. Our mid-year review and adjustments provide an opportunity to cut losses and start forward on a path to success six months sooner. However, that does require us to take a hard look at where we are and how we got here with an eye towards improvement. As with annual planning and review, look to change as a path to improvement rather than merely accepting failure.

June 15, 2021
Finding A Solution With Limited Resources
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We all have times and projects that are beyond the available resources.  It is a goal too big or a window too small for our limited resources.  In the world of business, this may be too many tasks and not enough team members.  In our personal lives, it may be a day full of too many tasks and not enough hours.  There are ways to work through these situations.  Fortunately, we can even get a "win" at times by embracing some of these common ways to overcome shortcomings.  These include a lack of resources or a lack of skills.
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Face The Reality of Limited Resources
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The often largest hurdle is to admit you have limited resources for your objectives.  It can be tempting to try to jam a square peg in a round hole.  That includes trying to achieve a goal even with limited resources.  This approach is not different from sticking your fingers in your years and loudly saying "I can't hear you" to avoid bad news.  It is not beneficial and amounts to ignoring the problem.  I have never seen this as a valid approach.  It blocks us from taking productive actions like those that follow.
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Some try to aim for the stars with the idea of at least reaching the moon. However, it seems like too often, you end up flat on your face. There has to be at least a plan for hitting that lesser (more reasonable) target. This approach also helps avoid spending time on tasks or features that end up being unfinished or of lower quality.

Adjust Scope

The easiest way to match resources to a goal is to change the goal. That may mean accepting a solution that is only 80%. It may mean waiting longer or spending more money. Any of these changes may be acceptable. However, make the hard decisions and adjust your goals. It allows the team to focus on the new goal and ignore things that do not contribute. In many projects, this decision can remove tasks from the board and free up time to get to a high-quality and acceptable solution. In some cases, this will equate to highly marketable versions 1 and 2 of a product instead of a late version 1.

Sooner Rather Than Later
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The sooner you accept that changes are needed, the better.  I have seen projects go until the figurative final hour before trying to make adjustments.  Many of those projects would have been delivered on time if only they had adjusted the course sooner.  The more time you have left in the journey, the less course correction is required.  In software, this can be a substantial factor.  Early decisions can free up resources in every area, from design and analysis through to testing and deployment.  An excellent example is the choice of platforms.  I have seen projects drop a native mobile requirement late in the game that literally could have reduced the overall cost and timeframe by half if done sooner.
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Wait For The Estimates And Accept Them
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Estimation can be time-consuming.  Nevertheless, it is precious.  Good estimates can warn you of issues in scope or timing long before they become a true obstacle.  Take the time to estimate tasks and effort.  Then, accept those estimates.  When you have estimates that put you beyond a target, adjust the target, do not push back on the estimates.  This process will create a bad environment where people provide what you want to hear instead of reality.  That can lead to the emperor having no clothes, and you are the emperor in that case.
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Working Smarter With Limited Resources

It is almost a cliche to work smarter, not harder. Nevertheless, there is a lot of value in this approach when you have limited resources. We often have extra things that are done as part of a project. These tasks include estimation, planning, administration, polishing, and other items that may not be needed. While they may have value, they may slow you down. We can see this in race cars. They strip down the vehicle to only what is necessary for the race. When you lack the resources to do it perfectly, find the ways you can cut to the core.

A project that requires people to give up weekends or work long weeks of overtime should also reduce scope and clutter. That means every task and the scheduled meeting should contribute to the goal. The time for checking off a box or making someone feel comfortable was probably passed a while back. That includes up to a CEO that wants to check in on progress all the time. When those check-ins start to take the team away from the goals, be honest and find a less intrusive way to keep them informed. Likewise, if something has been going bad or taking you off track (including specific resources), then do not be afraid to make adjustments. A bad trend is likely to continue until you make a change.

The Shortest Path

The bottom line is that you need to focus on the goal. Make sure you have a clear picture of what is necessary and what is not. Then plot the shortest route to get to the end. Drop everything not completely necessary first. Once the simplest path (and tasks) is defined, you can add back in things that are likely to keep you on track. When you do this, cut deep. It is easier and more effective to add something back in later if time permits than cut something out down the road.
May 23, 2021
Managing Upgrades and Software Versions
Managing upgrades is something we all face. That. is true whether you are running your software in your house, at a small business, or for an enterprise. There are versions released regularly as often as quarterly, and sometimes we get the new version “free,” sometimes not. There are many things to consider when crafting a version roadmap for your software. Here are some things to help with that. These suggestions and warnings come from a broad experience with software and highlight some paths that can make your life easier.

Managing Upgrades Through Major Versions

The “old school” approach to managing upgrades was often made via major versions. Software companies would release a major version every year or so. Then you would take the time to get up to date. That approach quickly morphed into a leapfrog approach for many companies. The disruption of performing upgrades and costs of installs were enough that the benefits were often not worth the effort. There were also licensing constraints that made an “every other version” approach much more effective in time and cost.

That approach is an excellent model for planning a version roadmap. There is always a cost to embracing/installing a new version. Often it works better for us to take on more changes less frequently rather than smaller changes more frequently. This approach also gives plenty of time for changes to “bake in” to the organization. Thus, allowing processes to evolve to embrace new features.

Managing Upgrades Through Features

Software used to promise needed features with every release. However, we have moved to a world where features are driven more by internal needs than marketing bullet points. Many organizations are content with staying on a version for years. These organizations prefer stability, and an upgrade tends to be large and feature-rich. That sometimes includes a push to move off of a version that is no longer supported.

The risk with the above approach is running out of time before a release is unsupported. Likewise, the resources and upgrade paths can be limited. Less frequent upgrades can lead to much more complex paths and can put data at risk. Some applications go through “watershed” upgrades that require a significant data migration effort. Those typically require the users to be on a specific version before the migration is done rather than skipping through multiple versions.

Obstacles and Road Signs

The approaches listed are both valid, and either may be a perfect fit for your organization. We have already touched on some things to look out for. However, it is good to have a list to walk through in planning out your approach.
- Be aware of watershed releases – When you have a release that will effectively be incompatible with prior versions, that can often be a “need to upgrade” marker.
- Store Version media or packages – There are combinations of software required for a version that can become difficult to replace. Vendors move forward or may even cease to exist. Thus, it can be critical to access prior versions of software and even operating system tools when you delay your upgrades.
- Know Your Features – I have found that it is rarely a good idea to take an upgrade just because it is available. While there is risk involved, there is also the factor of utilization. It is important to know what your software can do, and blindly upgrading can miss out on valuable features. Invest the time for reviewing release notes and training updates when available. This investment can pay for itself quickly and inform you of whether future upgrades are valuable or not for your needs.
The Cloud Factor

Software as a service and the Cloud can make these types of issues seem a thing of the past. However, even SAAS products have versions and upgrades. You might be in a situation where you can hold off on a version upgrade for a while, but that is rare. Even in those cases where you have a “choice,” it often is presented as a preview you can embrace sooner rather than later. While you lack choice, there are still actions you can take (and should) as part of your upgrade strategy.
- Take advantage of backup options where possible.
- Use and verify export options where possible. It is your data, make sure you have access to it outside of the SAAS product.
- Keep current on planned upgrades, enhancements, and outages.
- Plan for some time to test and verify updates.
- Embrace the latest features as suitable to your needs.
- Avoid company critical periods of work that coincide with a maintenance period or upgrade.
The good and bad part of a SAAS product is that you are not responsible for the workings of that product. A lot of the management and administration tasks are taken out of your hands. Nevertheless, the steps above can help you mitigate risk at the cost of taking some of that management back on yourself. It is worth that trade-off. You will be happy to have a way to take your data elsewhere when a product becomes unusable, or a provider closes shop.
May 14, 2021