nerdleader

I have been thinking recently that we do ourselves a disservice in the technology industry by creating so many ways to do the same thing. We create new languages, procedures, platforms, and solutions in search of competitive advantage and optimization. As leaders, not only do we need to be able to discern direction from a confusing cloud of options, partial information, guesswork, and somewhat applicable hard data, but we are expected to understand and keep up with emerging trends in technology, the industry we are in, and put it all together. How, then, can we make sense of technology’s place within industry? Let us follow the writing 101 example of defining what exactly we mean.

“technology” – the structured application of science to a specific objective; usually a business (industry or commercial) objective.

To even begin to make sense of technology – current applications, trends, and outcomes – we must ensure that we are capable of being self-taught and have a spirit of continual learning. We must also honor the “science” part of technology by making sure we understand how to tell if something is working, through instrumentation and measurement, so we can have quick, cost-effective experimentation and first-hand knowledge gathering. Lastly, we must ensure that we learn from and trust our teams, who are closer to the technology and current trends than we are, who must be necessarily closer to the business as leaders and managers.

I know it is not controversial to say, “everyone should always be learning and improving”, but it is one thing to say it, and another to do it. It is important for leaders to model continuous learning behavior. Hold book clubs and/or assign pages and homework. Send out book information in department newsletters. Feature recent graduates of boot camps and universities in company-wide emails. Make sure that it is completely apparent that the expectations of the organization AND YOURSELF is that learning is a part of life. And make sure to reward outstanding efforts in the field of learning and teaching – bonuses for learning objectives or raises/time off for college adjuncts, etc.

“Failing fast” is almost cliché in its modern industry usage. We have learned that one of the biggest indicators of success is how well an organization can learn from its failures, and its ability to minimize the impact of failure. While this mantra was created and applied to new business ventures, it can lead us to do the same when we introduce new technology. Yes, it is important to “test drive” new technology and “kick the tires”, and most vendors are more than happy to provide trial licenses to allow you to evaluate their commercial software or hardware – take advantage of those. For free and/or open-source software, there will be less support for the testing period, but as it is free, you will have ample time to study it.

The differentiator here is to ensure you have a rubric for how you will be evaluating the technology, containing the questions you will be answering and the measurements you will be taking. Ensure that the team keeps you up to date on progress, and that you are taking the time to understand it yourself. Have an appropriate closing ceremony at the end of the testing period and ensure that the team mentions likes/dislikes and important “gotchas” that have come about during the testing period. Also, be sure to spend time collecting not just the hard costs – which should be readily apparent at the beginning of the experiment – but also the switching costs, which are likely more amorphous and occasionally overlooked.

Just as your teams must be the experimenters and observers during any technology trial, so must your teams be the executors of the technology decisions you are making. They will necessarily have the most up to date, relevant information and skills, and they need to have your trust and support. It is true that you will be accountable for the decisions being made, but it is time for technology decisions to be shared by the team. I personally want to hear from every teammate who feels they have a relevant voice as we gather information. Whether the decision is delegated to a team member, or we decide through consensus, voting, or with me as the sole decision maker, I want the cards on the table, so to speak, and all of the relevant information at hand. We must be humble enough to admit that we are (almost) never experts in the technology that our teams are using, and it is past time we listen to experts.

Taken together, we have a great recipe for making sense of the many varied technologies around us. We foster a sense of learning and improving so that we always have up-to-date, relevant information, with which to make decisions. We ensure we understand how to acquire new knowledge through experimentation and have a methodology for making conclusions at the end of an experiment. And we ensure that we are giving our teams a voice and a seat at the decision table, as they have earned it and so that we can learn WHY a given decision is best. By having enough new information on industry trends and best practices, and learning from those who can make sense of specific technologies, we can build a picture of the technology landscape and our place within it.