Middle-management from Red Canary

Work|Life Results 2008 QA

Trevor Stafford — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:59:46 GMT

Welcome to Red Canary’s 2007-2008 Salary Survey Results, QA Edition

Click below to separate our survey results into visually manageable chunks.

Hours Worked Per Week, by Years of Experience

Hours Worked Per Week, by Company Size

Commute Times by Region

Overall Job Satisfaction: 1-12+ years of experience

Job Satisfaction by Company Size

If could improve one thing about your job, what would it be?

Conclusions

On the whole, Testing Professionals are more satisfied with their jobs than not, but don't feel that they have particularly promising careers.

This career dissatisfaction is acute at the lower levels of experience. (Employers! Help your junior testers feel better about their jobs)

Waterloo Region workers tend to have the happiest baseline of the three regions, with Toronto having the greatest percentage of "100% Satisfied", as well as the largest "I'm actively looking elsewhere" groups.

Company size seems to have a polarizing effect on job satisfaction: small companies have the greatest number of very happy and very unhappy employees. Larger companies skew towards mildly positive or negative ambivalence.

Vacation time gets increasingly important for older workers while reducing their weekly toil becomes less of a concern...and it's not because they work fewer hours, in fact they tend to work longer.

In Software Project Management, Size Doesn't Matter

Craig Fitzpatrick — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:37:48 GMT

A frequent Red Canary contributor, Craig Fitzpatrick is the CEO of Devshop, a software-specific project management application, which recently released version 2. This entry was borrowed from his blog, Uncommon Sense (for Software).

A few months ago, I was discussing project management with someone from the financial sector. This person, who is rather good at his line of work, admitted he didn't know much about project management (but had some clients that did).

The organization is large enough...that it becomes difficult to see the direct impact that the top decision maker has on the success or failure of the project.

We were talking about some new ways of looking at project management, particularly, the domain-specific approach that I often advocate.

Wanting to test my theories, he picked up the phone and proceeded to call one of his clients, whom he knew to be a real top-notch expert in project management.

What is interesting is that this project manager client of his was perceived to be an expert not because of any particularly extraordinary skills he had displayed, or even a long list of stellar accomplishments but rather, because he managed really BIG projects - like 4 years, 200 people, $50 million projects. Big ones.

At first, I didn't even think twice. Of course, I thought, I suppose you would have to be really good to handle those kinds of projects. I mean, if co-ordinating 10 people is tough, 200 must be about 20 times tougher.

A lot of people would certainly reason this way. After meeting this manager, which was a rather familiar experience (nothing much new), it triggered a line of thinking: It is often far more difficult to manage a 10 person project than a 200 person project.

Let me explain.

It's not that I'm saying that the person managing the 10 person team is more important that the person managing 200 people on a $50 million project. I'm not equating difficulty with importance - and by difficulty, I'm talking about the project management responsibilities, not other duties they may have to perform.

Just like you shouldn't dabble at coding, dabbling at managing just makes you a manager with a disadvantage

Speaking with this project manager in particular gave me deja vu. It was more like speaking with a CEO than a project manager. In chatting with any "project manager" with a team size of 100 or so people, what you quickly realize is that they're not project managing anymore at all. They're more like a CEO, involved at the capital allocation level, for multi-year operations.

They are running an organization. They're tuned in to major technological shifts and trends, like "If we bet the farm on Lotus Notes, will it still be the platform of choice when we finish in 4 years?" Heh heh. Oops.

When you're talking about a project that big, the head honcho is managing managers, who possibly manage other managers, who have team leads, who lead the people actually producing the work.

They are more like mentors to the managers who are actually managing. The organization is large enough then, that it becomes really difficult to see the direct impact that the top decision maker is having on the success or failure of the project.

While I haven’t managed a 100 person team yet, I can already see the difference between 10 and 35 developers

I liken it to riding (or steering) the wave, rather than causing it directly. How many debates have you heard after some political or fortune 500 scandal where hoards of people say things like,

"Well, you can't blame the top dog for something that some underling in another office did. It's not his fault."

There you have it, by popular opinion, less direct accountability for large teams. If you can't blame the top dog for failures, then how can you attribute success to him? Life in a small team however (say 10 people), is much more likely to give you a heart attack. There's nowhere to hide. The pace is way faster. It's very easy to see the direct impact (good or bad) that each person is having on a daily basis.

When you're managing a software team of less than 10 people, chances are, you're not just the manager, but one of the developers as well (or at least a designer or architect). The dynamic of a 10 person software team is much more clear - one person managing, and 9 people producing. I think it's at about 10 to 15 people, where it is no longer practical for a manager to even touch the source code - in fact, it can be down right dangerous.

Over that last 13 years of managing software teams, I haven’t seen convincing evidence that project management difficulty increases linearly with team size.

Coding is not something you should dabble in. Either let it consume you and be really good at it, or don't touch it. After 15 or more team members, it's quite likely that there will be a lot more delegation. At 15, you may have 1 manager and 1 technical team lead.

At 35, you probably have a Director or a couple managers and a couple technical team leads. At 100, well, you get the picture.

With each round of delegation (which IS necessary by the way), some amount of pressure, and direct accountability is taken away from the top dog. I'm not just theorizing here, I've actually experienced it. While I haven't managed a 100 person team yet, I can already see the difference between 10 and 35 developers, team sizes I have managed.

To manage 35 developers you really need to break them up into teams of 5 to 7, with technical team leads, and a manager or two. So even at 35, there's a couple degrees of separation between the top policy maker, and the folks actually producing code.

In that awkward team size of about 10 developers, you're likely to be as much a producer as a manager. It's really tough to be great at both. Just like you shouldn't dabble at coding, dabbling at managing just makes you a manager with a disadvantage.

It's at the point in time where it is clear to everyone around you that it is no longer practical for you do be doing any producing, but that you should be managing full time, that your project management life actually starts to get a bit easier. At that point in time where you have managers reporting to you, your project management worries get lighter still (though you probably have new responsibilities keeping you up nights).

All this to say, over that last 13 years of managing software teams, I haven't seen convincing evidence that project management difficulty increases linearly with team size. There's a breaking point at which the project management (only) difficulty actually decreases when the team sizes breaks a certain point.

Project management worries then get replaced by other worries (like what the heck should we be betting the farm on... 'cause if I'm wrong, we go out of business - easy stuff like that).

Innovation vs. the W.E.N.U.S

Craig Fitzpatrick — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:14:57 GMT

I just read a blurb about this McKinsey article: "Some people are passionate about innovation, while others shy away from new ideas. McKinsey research finds that, in some organizations, managers who are most frequently sought out for advice on new concepts often have the most negative attitudes towards innovation—partly because they have difficulty balancing new ideas with current priorities." "One way around these bottlenecks is to intentionally create networks of managers charged with encouraging new ideas. This kind of decentralized team can identify promising new concepts and prioritize them so that they receive the attention they deserve." It's a premium article which means you have to pay for the whole thing, which I don't generally do, so I haven't read it. But the summary above was enough to get me thinking. Big companies seem to have real difficulty balancing innovation with their WENUS. (Remember the WENUS, a statistic that Chandler from the TV program Friends was in charge of managing at work? "I'm LOOKING at the WENUS, and I'M NOT HAPPY!" (WENUS == Weekly Estimated Net Usage Statistic). Chandler was a middle manager. The mention of a "middle manager" in the McKinsey blurb above frames the core of the problem. Once a company gets big enough, the temptation to have middle managers who's jobs are defined by operating metrics alone (think: productivity) is a dangerous game. What McKinsey is referring to is a manager who is only focused on managing the existing business process and is not too concerned with improving it. Perhaps it's not their fault - perhaps their compensation is ONLY tied to these metrics and they have absolutely no incentive to rock the boat. In fact, perhaps they would be punished for new ideas if they take a small short term hit on their WENUS because they let someone on their team work on something that might improve things in the future. McKinsey's recommendation? Create teams of managers who are charged with encouraging new ideas (from the troops). Great. Yet another layer of management, who is now by definition at odds with the line managers, and if they are to be effective (at encouraging new ideas) they must swindle resources from the line managers to implement these ideas. With no ability to simply hear one of these great ideas and say, "Wonderful - make it so!", how effective could they be? Does the person coming up with the idea have to hand it off to dedicated "innovation implementers" who work for the innovation manager? How much of the idea is lost in translation? This is a terrible organizational structure. A team member's reward for coming up with a good idea is that they have to feel like they are "going around" their direct boss to someone else and then be put in the awkward position of having that other manager get into a pi--ing match with their direct boss over the team member's time. Wonderful. Big companies love to specialize. Your job is the WENUS. Yours is innovation. No wonder in the tension between status quo and progress, big companies are often slow to change and lethargic. Their very organizational structure is tuned towards optimizing the status quo, rather than adapting and thriving on change and progress. What if these so called "middle managers" were also charged with innovation? Not some arbitrary quota like "3 good ideas per month", but rather, at least reward them for thinking progressively instead of tying their rewards only to the WENUS. Worse, the way you define a role determines how you recruit for it. So, after creating the traditional line manager roles which aren't encouraged to innovate, you've likely staffed up for them as well. Now, suppose you change the definition of that role? Drat. You've already recruited people who may not be the ones to shine. Now what do you do?

5 Reasons why part-time HR leaders make sense for growing companies

Sachi Kittur — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:55:17 GMT

Sachi Kittur, Founder, Kompass Solutions

You’ve spent the last year establishing your organization as a force in your industry. Recent wins and opportunities in the pipeline demand that you prepare for aggressive hiring and your company’s next stage of growth. But as CEO, you need to stay focused on your company’s strategic business goals. Talent acquisition requires time, planning, resources and expertise that you may not have. You don’t want the expense and paperwork of an HR department, but it’s a talent jungle out there. Hiring an experienced, part-time HR leader has proven to be an effective solution for many growing technology companies.

5 ways that part-time HR leadership makes a difference

1. Same budget, better results: Typically, the first HR resource that an emerging company hires is a junior-level generalist whose experience limits them -- and limits you. With a seasoned, part-time HR leader, you add a balanced resource that can collaborate with the executive team and pro-actively drive strategies while still managing and building an effective HR operation. 2. Recruitment costs are reduced by 25-40%: Recruitment and Retention – an organization’s investment in these important ‘people pillars’ will determine its ability to grow. An experienced HR leader will be able to develop a solid recruitment program that leverages diverse sourcing strategies. Hiring better resources and decreasing the reliance on external staffing firms will bring significant savings to your organization’s bottom line. 3. Happy employees = stable company: A savvy HR leader brings a proactive approach to retention, which means significant cost savings and avoidance of the typical pain points of fast-growth organizations. 4. Become an Employer of Choice: Recognition as an “Employer of Choice” serves both retention and recruiting purposes. A seasoned HR leader knows how apply focus, innovation, and employee engagement to realize this goal. 5. Linking people strategies to ROI: Most experienced HR leaders today recognize the importance in linking talent management initiatives to ROI. There are a number of creative tools available to assess the progress and contributions of your people function, beyond the standard turnover and cost per hire metrics. A strategic HR leader will ensure that they are continuously measuring and linking their people initiatives to the bottom line. This will ensure that shareholder value is maximized with every people dollar that you invest: a well-rounded HR leader that can strategize one minute and solve a payroll issue another is the perfect solution to maximizing the return of your investment in an HR resource. As your company prepares to take itself to the next level, take a moment to think about the talent management support that is going to help you get there! Sachi Kittur is the founder of Kompass Solutions, an organization that helps emerging technology companies develop people management solutions that support their next phase of business. Maximizing the efficiency of both time and resources is at the forefront of Kompass’s solutions.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Product Managers WEBINAR

Alyssa Dver — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:43:47 GMT

Courtesy of Featureplan

Outstanding Product Managers have oxymoronic personalities - they must be confident but open-minded, highly organized but flexible, evangelistic experts but tremendous listeners. The skill set required to be a successful Product Manager can be overwhelming. Yet some Product Managers stand out as examples of having "it". What is "it" and how can any Product Manager get "it"?

In this session, Alyssa will discuss seven common habits of highly effective Product Managers. Focusing on straightforward actions and general practices, participants will leave with practical ways that they can significantly improve job effectiveness and satisfaction. Speaker Bio:

Speaker: Alyssa Dver

Alyssa Dver, CEO of Wander Wear Inc., founder of Type @ Consulting.
Alyssa's book, "Software Product Management Essentials" won praise from dozens of organizations and experts. She consults to a variety of organizations and presents to groups including AIPMM, Massachusetts Women in Technology (MassWIT), American Institute of Strategic Management (ASMI), American Marketing Association (AMA), and the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA). Alyssa is the CEO of Wander Wear Inc. (www.wander-wear.com), a company that develops information and products to prevent kids from getting lost. Prior, Alyssa was CMO for SEDONA Corporation and has held senior management positions in software companies of all sizes based in the US and in Europe. She is the inventor for patent pending lead management software that is installed in over 300 financial institutions around the world. Alyssa has been published in BusinessWeek, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine and many others. She has contributed to numerous books and publications as an expert in product management, marketing, entrepreneurship and various technologies.

From big to small, part II. 5 tips for evaluating a small company

Jessica Lam — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 04:00:00 GMT

(Part 2 of a 2-part series, “Read Part 1 of From Big to Small) An early stage company offers much: career advancement, hands-on involvement, and fresh challenges. But young organizations are also associated with uncertainty and failure. How can you tell a winning company from one that’s going to sink? By considering 5 fundamental criteria, say two tech professionals who left secure posts at big companies for professional success and personal satisfaction at a small one. Red Canary talked to Todd DeLaughter, President of Opalis and Greg Twinney, VP of Finance and Administration at Opalis, to find out what they look for in an early stage company. TOP 5 SMALL COMPANY QUALIFIERS 1. Gutcheck: Personal conviction 2. Decide: Market readiness 3. Evaluate: Quality of leadership 4. Investigate: Quality of financiers 5. Gauge: Growth & profit GUTCHECK: DO YOU GET THAT TINGLY FEELING? When DeLaughter first heard about Opalis and their product, something inside him lit up. “It was the most interesting, most compelling thing out there,” he says. As the vice president and general manager of the $1B OpenView Business Unit at Hewlett-Packard, he felt that the needs of his customers had not yet been met, and that Opalis’ IT process automation offered the market something unique. “Customers were saying ‘Don’t just tell me something’s broken, tell me how to fix it.’ They were grappling with building something that could respond proactively,” says DeLaughter. “Opalis fit [that] space exactly.” Even though DeLaughter struggled with the idea of moving to an early stage company, he couldn’t deny how passionate he was for the product and its potential.

“My heart was pulling me toward Opalis. Eventually I got my head to agree with it,” DECIDE: IS THE MARKET READY FOR THE PRODUCT Even if the company has an innovative and ground-breaking product, it’s useless if it’s not commercially viable. In other words, there has to be a market for the product. “You have to pick the right categories and the right areas,” says DeLaughter. Picking the right categories requires research. You need to determine if there is a niche in the market or whether a market segment can be created for the product. This means examining the competition and deciding if the company has something fresh to offer. EVALUATE: THE STRENGTH OF THE MANAGEMENT TEAM The management team is the driving force behind any organization, steering the direction of the company and building its vision.

Greg Twinney
of Opalis

When Greg Twinney decided to join Opalis, he studied the executives to determine whether he agreed with their values, ideas and plans for the company.

“[You need] a strong leader with a vision…someone to expand [the company],” Twinney also says that you need to look at the track record of the management team, to determine how successful they’ve been in the past. He suggests reading their bios, finding out what their core strengths are, and researching the companies they’ve worked for before. They need experience not only as executives, but as leaders of small companies. INVESTIGATE: WHO HOLDS THE PURSE STRINGS? The way in which an early stage company is funded is the best indicator of whether they have the confidence and faith of those in the industry. Venture capitalists fund a company on the basis that they will earn a return on their investment. So an early stage company with strong financial backing and a lot of venture capitalists shows that the company has a good chance for success. “Opalis [was funded by] VenGrowth, BDC, Sierra Ventures and Roynat Capital,” says Twinney. “They were all invested in this company and they saw the potential for a lot of growth.” But looking at the number of venture capitalists is not enough. It’s equally important to look into who the venture capitalists are and what their philosophy is.

Some VCs only get into a company in order to make a fast buck. They’ll look at the market, figure out when a good time is to invest, and then make an exit. In this case, there’s no indication of whether the company has the potential for growth. If VCs have a track record of staying their portfolio companies, it’s a sign that when they do invest, they (and others in the industry) have faith in the company and its long term success. GAUGE: COMPANY GROWTH AND PROFIT Although an early stage company doesn’t have an extensive record to examine, there should still be data available to indicate how much it has grown since it started. For example, when Greg Twinney first started to work for Opalis in 2005, there were 35 employees. Today, the company has grown to more than 60. While Opalis is still a small company, its rapid growth suggests that the company is likely to develop further. Joining an early stage company is still a gamble, but by taking the right steps and doing your due diligence, it can be one of the smartest bets you ever make.

Startup sales talent: the good, the bad, and the costly

Trevor Stafford — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 07:00:00 GMT

In the careful parlance of business, plugging skilled salespeople into a startup is ‘mission critical’.

A more direct translation would be ‘hideously expensive’ and ‘easy to botch’.

In the MacGyver environment of a startup, salespeople need a swiss army knife of skills: biz-dev, marketing, strategic know-how and a sprinkling of technical savvy. Failure is common and high performers are needles in the proverbial haystack.

“Sales professionals will be the most difficult hiring decisions startups make,” says Teresa Spangler, VP of Strategic Business Initiatives at Headway Corporate Resources. According to Teresa, whose company helps organizations of all sizes find sales talent, sales attrition over the first three years tops 30%.

“60% of sales hires don’t make it past their first year”—Spangler

For startups, squandering money and time on a bad sales hire is a cost they simply cannot afford.

“The cost of losing a first-year sales hire is more than $120,000”

WISDOM FROM THE TRENCHES

So what’s a startup to do? Red Canary sought the advice of Kevin Dwyer, (former) CEO of Toronto-based Shoplogix. Kevin built a very successful sales organization at Shoplogix and has contributed to six startups over his 30-year career.

“At the end of the day, if you’re not turning revenue, the rest doesn’t matter.”- Kevin Dwyer, former CEO, Shoplogix

FINDING SOFTWARE SALES TALENT

Kevin Dwyer,
CEO
Shoplogix

The first place Kevin looks when he needs to fill a sales role is his own Rolodex, a fraternity who have fought with him in startup trenches past.

“Having developed a strong network of people that have proven track records, whenever I change my jersey I look at [a] pool of candidates that have traditionally over-performed and over-delivered. I’m going to try to put those feet on the street as quickly as I can”.

Kevin suggests that for tech-leaning founders (and the VCs who fund them) bringing on an executive with an antecedent network of sales contacts should be a priority.

Headhunters, not job sites, are the next best dowsing rod for sales talent. In addition to scouting gold-standard candidates, headhunters act as quality control, filtering out weak links and using their networks to sift for true expertise.

Teresa Spangler recommends using headhunters to plumb competitors for possible talent:

“Go and get the people who are working for the 4, 5 and 6th place competitors – [like you] they [don’t] have the brand name to carry them – they love selling and they’re hungry. They will help to build [your] value proposition.”

FINDING SOFTWARE STARTUP SALES TALENT

Kevin Dwyer takes a no-nonsense approach to hiring software salespeople. To him, sales is binary – either the salesperson outperformed quota or did not.

“[Find] a CEO with the skill set to get the business launched…someone who has a rolodex and a network of contacts that can rapidly build out a revenue generating engine”- Kevin Dwyer

However, he’s quick to point out that previous startup experience and the ability to paint the big picture—not big numbers—are fundamental hiring criteria.

“This is a conceptual game, people are investing money in something they can’t hold or feel.”—Kevin Dwyer

Selling (startup) software takes a host of skills, says Kevin. Chief among them is the ability to conceptualize.

As he explains it, software salespeople are hawking intellectual property from a position where they have little to no support infrastructure or brand recognition.

Kevin, who spends roughly 90 minutes with a candidate, feels that getting someone to describe a complex sale says a lot about how they operate both personally and professionally.

Kevin’s Hiring Questions

• Describe (what happened with) a deal from start to finish. How did you source it? Qualify it? Cultivate it in a competitive environment? How did you put a bow on it and close it? • What deal did you lose that you thought you won?'What happened? What did you do wrong, what would you do differently? • Find out if they are willing to "ask for the deal"

Teresa Spangler of Headway Sales Talent Solutions takes a similar approach, reminding startups to look for salespeople that have marketing and financial savvy as well as excellent prospecting skills.

Teresa’s Hiring Questions

• What would you do from day 1? • How do you prospect, how do you manage your time? • What are your success criteria, how do you measure yourself? • What's the most complex sale you've ever made, talk about how that sales came through from start to finish

“I don’t ask trick, Mensa-type questions”. —Kevin Dwyer

The problem with interviews, however, is that many startups make mistakes well before the first handshake.

STARTUP HIRING GAFFS

One of the mistakes startups make, says Teresa Spangler, is that the leadership drinks too much of its own Kool Aid—assuming that their immature brand and possibly immature product will simply set the market on fire.

This leads to unfair expectations and systemically poor support of salespeople – not to mention a tendency to hire individuals who promise much and deliver little.

“The young entrepreneur has to remember: the salesperson is not a magic maker”- Teresa Spangler

Kevin Dwyer concurs, noting that “in the absence of a really solid pre-sales partner – [software salespeople] are going to fail”. In Kevin’s opinion, even the best startup salespeople need support and the time to cultivate business—particularly with a still-evolving product:

“[if] You’re not giving them a bulletproof product that’s ready for prime time…they are ill-equipped to deliver a solution within the customer’s environment.”

BUYING A PAPER TIGER

Another startup hiring mistake, Kevin notes, is hiring experienced salespeople who are good ‘on paper’—long in experience with big brands, big accounts and big quotas—but unaccustomed to operating without a robust support network and brand equity.

As proof of the dangers of hiring blue chip sales personnel, Teresa Spangler relates a story where she moved an inside sales team en masse from an established player to a growing company.

The team was so used to having a marketing machine that they were unable to even write their own email campaigns.

THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF SALES (why it’s good for startups)

Hiring the right salesperson is a tremendous challenge for growing companies.

Organizations large and small have to deal with smarter customers (some companies are now training employees on how to buy software) and sales cycles have increased 25% in the past year alone.

But all is not doom and gloom. Teresa Spangler sees the shift as an opportunity for agile startups to adapt quickly, pouncing on a market leader’s inability or reluctance to change their sales process.

“This is a great competitive advantage for an entrepreneurial company to come in and be thoughtful in how they hire salespeople. If they pinpoint their competitor’s selling errors they can move quickly and profitably”. – Teresa Spangler

Startups, she says, have the ability to be sales-focused at every customer touchpoint. Beginning with skilled sales people, startups can offer value and adaptability across the board.

The days of hiring a charismatic hunter with a mega-watt smile are over. Today’s software startups need salespeople with a cocktail of talents – and must recognize their own obligations and hubris to help them succeed.

“Customers are turning away from aggressive sales tactics and cold calls”.- Teresa Spangler

The risks are great: both buyers and the rules of engagement are changing, good sales talent is expensive and possibly the most important hire a company can make.

But great too are the rewards. Profit and growth await startups who hire smart and move fast.