Pat’s Point of View

So many people have extracted lessons from Gordon Ramsay’s style, from management to consulting (for instance there’s me, Ruth, Donna, Craig and even The Australian) that it’s becoming boring. He’s obviously good value, but I’m now looking elsewhere for analogies.

Sticking to the reality TV theme, though unintentional, bears much fruit and I can’t think of any better example than Trinny and Susannah. I think they are brilliant at what they do, without having to drop the F-bomb every few seconds (don’t get me wrong I don’t mind Gordon’s profanity but it does make him less accessible).

I first happened across Trinny and Susannah (T&S) in their UK show and series of books “What Not to Wear”, where they gave ordinary people fashion tips tailored to their body-shape, lifestyle and budget. For those of you not familiar with the duo, this isn’t your typical fashionistas spouting on about “What’s hot this season, darling”, it’s honest and useful advice for real people. And it goes much deeper than vanity, most often the cause of the problems they solve are the emotional hang-ups we all have inside. They make people feel good about themselves and accept who they are.

Since then they have continued to help people across several more TV series, as well as across the globe. Theirs is an excellent model for consultants, with core traits such as:

• Working as a pair, they balance each other out
• Breaking it down into simple rules we can understand
• By exposing themselves, literally and figuratively, they foster trust and empathy
• A true desire to help others
• Ruthlessly forward, there’s no room for shyness, excuses, self-denial or apathy
• A simple process: research, understand, extract, boil down, try, validate, rollout

The process I speak of in the last point, was well documented in the more recent series “Trinny and Susannah Undress…”, where the girls showed that their approach can scale too. Doing some very ethnographic-like formative research around a particular problem, they extract insight and develop their rules, followed by application of the results to thousands of people. A series of huge publicity stunts for the BBC, no doubt, but this is consulting on a level rarely seen (and with genuine results).

I think possibly the most interesting aspect of their approach is the development of rules. This is what makes their work so accessible; anyone can get simple and straight-talking advice that suits them. What colour combinations go together? What choice of clothing hides this, or accentuates that? What colours go well with my complexion?

I’ve even done this myself, making use of the rules for guys-without-six-pack-abs and it works. In fact T&S’s work with men is probably the best of all, because if there is anyone who needs simple rules to supplement bugger-all fashion sense it’s the male population.

See what people are blogging about: Trinny and Susannah, consulting, Gordon Ramsay

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Over the weekend just passed, I joined my wife and baby daughter at a Tresillian Family Care Centre for an intensive programme of ‘parent craft’. The idea is that parents and baby stay in residence for five nights, learning best practice techniques for settling, sleeping and feeding. We wanted to brush up on technique and shed any bad habits we had accumulated whilst trying to survive the first four months of parenthood.

This “live-in” method gives you 24-hour access to experienced childcraft nurses and allows you to concentrate fully on the task of parenting without the distractions of cooking, cleaning or going to work. It’s the perfect opportunity to master the necessary skills, with expert support at hand, should you need it. It’s a very effective method.

They demonstrate techniques in a realistic environment, as opposed to a classroom or conference hall. They observe how you handle situations, and attempt to adjust your behaviour as necessary (after all what we’re talking about is a change in attitude, awareness and behaviour, not a fundamental change of the game).

The nurses’ intervention reduces from near 100% at the start, down to a bare minimum by the end of your stay. This serves two purposes, at the start they give you a break by taking the reigns for a short time, which is crucial in terms of ensuring the sanity of parents and the effectiveness of the learning. Additionally, reducing this intervention is crucial to getting parents to a point where they can go home and successfully continue using the practices they have learned, on their own.

Throughout your stay, of course, the nurses are always on hand should you need them. They give that all important advice, at the crucial moment it’s needed. This is really important, because by allowing any time to pass allows for post-rationalisation and self-denial. Getting help at that point when things get unstuck also increases the likelihood of remembering what to do.

This live-in approach really struck a chord with me, and I started to consider how it could be used in other fields of expertise. I think it would be an absolutely great model for consulting, and more specifically mentoring. At least in my field, which is information architecture, user centred design and information management.

Techniques and guidelines, no matter how simple and refined, can’t give you the wisdom to know how to apply them to all situations that might arise. Raising a child is complex because life is complex, but many work situations people find themselves in are very complex also—such as managing an intranet, redesigning a large website or any number of major IT projects. This is where mentoring has much to offer above and beyond training or the self-taught approach.

I’ve long thought that mentoring is best done in-situ (in my presentation on Mentoring Collaborative UCD I concluded that an in-house mentor works best) where the team being mentored has access to their mentor’s advice as and when it is needed. Additionally, it should be face to face. Having to call or email your mentor, or wait for them to come in for a meeting, really stifles the inherent intimacy that mentoring thrives on. My experience is that even a relatively small physical distance, such as a taxi ride away, reduces the effectiveness of mentoring.

A traditional consulting engagement doesn’t allow for this, but there are some relatively common tactics to improve the situation. Such as clumping together several visits into one whole day, but this lacks the impromptu nature and feels slightly forced and hypothetical. If you tackle problems when they occur, the better the results are.

Another alternative could be the use of a contractor, to supplement the team. While many contractors and freelancers would have the skills and experience in their particular field to be mentors, they typically aren’t hired to do so and of course don’t have any motivation to go beyond their remit. Contractors are usually hired to perform a specific piece of self-contained work, with little “leave behind” for the rest of the team. To approach the live-in model, they would have to actively coach the team in which they are embedded, but also gradually reduce their intervention.

A ‘day stay’, where the mentee comes and works in your office, is another approach. This gives the access to their mentor, and is close to the Tresillian model. However, most often in my work, the mentee is more than one person, so to be truly analagous to the live-in model, the whole team would need to come and live in the mentor’s facility. While you would gain the same benefits, primarily the elimination of distractions, it just wouldn’t be practical to do so (plus who wants to have a sleep over with their work colleagues?!).

This arrangement would also share the potential problems with the Tresillian model, which is the fact that once you leave their facility you may not be able to match your success once you get home. The very nature of taking the problem to a controlled (or semi-controlled) environment could jeopardise its success; practicing any technique is more difficult in your day-to-day environment.

But if we reverse the scenario, it may be viable. That is, the mentor becomes part of the team being mentored, for a length of time, and operates as part of that team. This is a longer interaction than normal consulting would allow, and something akin to secondment, but more flexible. It needs to be long enough to ‘get into the thick of it’ and practice techniques in a realistic environment with realistic situations. And this is definitely such a thing as too early. Like an advanced workshop or master class, you need to have a bit of distance under your belt. In the case of parenting you need to know your child and what works and what doesn’t, and as with most things, you need to give it a genuine go yourself, before seeking help.

This may be a common approach to consulting or mentoring in certain fields, but it’s not as widespread as it could be, in my experience. Especially considering how powerful it is as a form of up-skilling. I’ve not come across this in web design, IA or UCD fields, but I’d be interested to hear if anyone has used such an intensive, live-in approach to mentoring, as either the mentor or mentee.

See what people are blogging about: mentoring, consulting models

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Yesterday I attended the half-day WIPA Usability and Eyetracking Seminar, and found it fairly good use of a few hours of my time. Largely because it helped confirm some things in my own mind.

First up was Challenges for Usability in Agile Development presented by John Eklund of UX Research. There has been much talk about agile development methodologies in recent, and probably as much talk about how user experience practitioners can remain valuable in such an environment.

To paraphrase John, my summary of the discussion is as such:

• Agile is about “bringing design forward” (I like this definition)
• It’s about less documentation and specification up-front
• Acknowledge that requirements will not be fully correct, complete or fixed in stone; learn to live with it rather than boxing requirements gathering into one neat discrete step that must be finished before anything else can begin
• Agile is also iterative or incremental development
• Partial prototypes help elicit requirements and specifications from the client
• Clients rarely read spec documentation and often can’t articulate what they want until they see it (you know it’s true!)
• Creativity is less bounded by specification when the specification is yet set (this is not just in terms of visual creativity but also the overall design directions)
• For UX to fit into this methodology it needs to be embedded, flexible, fast and practiced by an experienced practitioner
• For best results in agile environments, UX expertise should be independent of designer (and client)
• Additionally, UX practitioners must play the “expert advocacy” role (providing ad-hoc advice on simple issues without the need for a costly ‘engagement’ or bulky reports)
• Generally faster turn-around is needed for activities like usability testing

I enjoyed John’s perspective on this topic, and a few of his points in particular are closely aligned with my own views on UX practice. I’ve used mentoring in the same way as John’s “expert advocacy” where UX or IA expertise is bought by the hour, allowing for much greater freedom to add value to the design team without having to get approval for a project each time they want to ask a question.

Next up was Eyetracking - Applications in Digital and Media by Peter Brawn of Eyetracker. I was impressed by Peter’s presentation of eyetracking as part of UX practice, as opposed to how I have seen it pitched in the past (that is as the answer to all your problems). This makes sense, since there is a lot that gaze paths and fixation data can not tell you about the usability of a website, and vice versa there are some things you can’t really get out of traditional usability testing and ethnographic research techniques.

For example, a certain section of a website is not receiving much traffic. Usability testing might tell you that users are interested in the content in that section, but perhaps not why they aren’t getting to it. Eyetracking can tell you that users simply don’t look at the obvious, big, fat link that goes to that section, but not why they don’t look at it. Combined you are getting a more complete picture.

That said, I still believe that, dollar for dollar, other methods are better value than eyetracking. For the cost of the hardware and software (or consultants to do it for you) quite a lot of low-tech testing and research could be done. Ideally, you’d do both, but going back to John’s topic, if you want to ensure UX keeps its foot in the door in agile environments—or any other—the approach needs to be lean, mean and cost effective.

I do understand that many clients want the snazzy visualisations you get from eyetracking, not to mention the snob value, but this is only going to be realistic for big corporate clients. Smaller clients should save the cash and use other methods.

See what people are blogging about: agile, eyetracking, user experience, usability testing

Popularity: 15% [?]

I read with interest, Any Rutlidge’s post on Pre-Bid Discussions. You see, Andy was invited to bid for some work but decided not to do so after an enlightening discussion with his potential client, in which he got a good sense for the project timeline, the nature of the work and whether or not it is work he even wanted to do.

To others, these concerns might seem ridiculous, because for some agencies and freelancers the only relevant pre-bid concerns are 1) is there a slight possibility that I can do the work? and 2) can the client pay? For these folks, nothing else is relevant to pre-bid discussion. The likely result of this foolish approach is a succession of nightmare projects with only periodic success, and a stressed-out and unhappy life and/or staff as the norm.

I know exactly what he means. There have been quite a few times I have wondered why we—the agency I was working for—were even involved in some projects. But in recent years, I’m happy to say that there was more careful consideration given to the work that was taken on, particularly which tenders and RFCs to respond to. In fact, my ex-colleague Cairo Walker developed a set of criteria, or questions to be asked of clients, for this very purpose. (Perhaps this knod her way will entice her to post her thoughts on the subject!)

I like Andy’s approach, but I think many organisations will come face to face with the issue of branding. Not the pretty logo they use but who they are and what they want to achieve—their values. Without a clear sense of this, determining whether a potential client is in-line with your brand will be difficult. The logistics such as budget and schedule can be assessed

All in all, I would recommend we all do more of this vetting, whilst fully admitting that I’m not the best when it comes to this; I have a terribly bad habit of attempting to diligently do whatever anyone asks!

Popularity: 13% [?]

The time has come for a change, as if I haven’t had enough change lately. But this change is a career change, and it is with some sadness that I announce this is my last week at Step Two Designs.

While it has been quite an experience, it is time to move on and experience something else. My immediate move will be to join the team at News Digital Media. I’m looking forward to it, especially to the change in pace and surroundings, and working with a great bunch of people. In many ways it will be a return to the sort of environment I had worked in for many years prior to coming to Step Two.

So, next after Step Two—the third step as it were—is News. I start next Monday and I can’t imagine it will be long before I’m rubbing shoulders with uncle Rupert himself. You don’t suppose he monitors the blogosphere do you? :)

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My latest article has just been released, in which I interview Gerry Gaffney on the use of cultural probes in the context of intranet development. This was actually to return the favour extended by Gerry to interview me for his UX podcast. Here’s a taste:

Often it’s difficult to tell exactly who is using an intranet, and how they are using it. Obviously, some research is required to help answer these questions, but what technique can capture the tacit knowledge without shadowing users in an uncomfortable and expensive way?

A relatively recent research technique that can be very useful in this situation is known as a ‘cultural probe’. In essence, the technique involves getting users to give you information without you actually being there. Often this means giving them a diary to write things down in, but the technique can make use of all manner of objects.

I think there are many benefits to this technique for those designing, or redesigning, an intranet. Firstly, it’s often the case that intranet teams are working with very little budget, and thus including all user groups—say interstate or overseas—in research activities can be next to impossible. Sending out a probe which can collect data for you at low cost is a good solution.

It’s also a great way to reduce the ‘Hawthorne effect’, that is the effect you will have on those you are researching simply by being there. This effect is especially difficult for intranet teams to avoid, since they are often researching their own colleagues. It’s hard to blend into the background when you know everyone in the room! External consultants have it easy when it comes to quietly observing or doing contextual inquiries.

I really like the cultural probe technique, especially the sorts of whacky and creative things done by design researchers such as Bill Gaver. These might be a bit ‘out there’ for the corporate environment, but certainly get your attention.

(I’m interested in case studies that describe the use of probes, particularly ‘inside the firewall’. Have you probed your enterprise? What did you find?)

See what people are blogging about: cultural probes, user research, intranet, design research

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I’ve enjoyed watching Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares for several years now, it’s a great show and we all love to laugh (and cringe) at the predicaments the owners of these restaurants get themselves into before Gordon resurrects them. But it’s also a great example of a good consultant at work.

Our favourite football-star-turned-TV-chef exhibits several key traits, he is:

• confident – the meek might inherit the earth but they’re rubbish at getting the job done
• experienced – having done it all before he knows what he’s talking about and everyone knows it
• well rounded – it’s not just about the cooking, to run a successful restaurant you need to know about every aspect of the business
• eager to teach – he’s not a pompous prat who refuses to share his knowledge and experience, he gives it willingly

Gordon’s methodology on the TV show is simple but effective. One of the most useful parts of his approach is he breaks it down, demonstrating simple ‘tricks of the trade’ that can be the difference between staying afloat or going under. For example, I love the way he often shows how you can serve simple but elegant meals for mere pence, but sell it for a few quid.

By breaking the dire straits situation down to individual problems, the answers become quite simple. Like a lot of things, these answers are typically quite obvious, when viewed individually. The phrase “it’s not rocket surgery” seems to fit, but you need to work at the right resolution; the whole enchilada is too much to swallow in one go.

However, this is easier said than done. If you know what you’re doing you can salvage almost any situation. Gordon has a lot of experience, so he looks for patterns in each establishment he visits, patterns that reflect things he has dealt with in the past. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight he can apply a solution. If you’re tackling something for the first time, it can be difficult to see the answer, even for a superstar chef.

Of course, the outsider’s perspective is a big advantage. The people in these failing restaurants are often blinded by their own myopia and apathy, even though they are talented, hard working people with the best intentions. They can’t see what’s happening right in front of their eyes, and in many cases they just don’t care anymore.

The parallels with being a consultant—particularly in the kind of work I do—are clear. And I think Gordon has the right approach to whipping his clients into shape. The swearing would certainly make my clients sit up and take notice :)

This analogy also highlights the importance of observing; spotting the points of pain and the root causes behind the troubles a restaurant is experiencing. This is equally important when working with my clients, for example examining the current situation with their website, intranet or information management practices. Then identifying the actions that would have the greatest impact in the shortest possible timeframe. Because we’re not talking about refinement in these situations, we’re talking about code red emergency, about to fall to pieces. That’s the scene we most often find ourselves in as consultants.

It’s a case of the 80/20 rule; forget trying to tackle everything, just tackle the key 20% of issues to keep your head above water (or the doors open in the case of a restaurant). Then once you’re up and running again you can smooth out the wrinkles and go for that Michelin Star!

Another key part of Gordon’s success is the fact that he aims to get people skilled-up and self-confident. He points them in the right direction then he f***s off (as Gordon would say). He doesn’t step in and do the work for them, otherwise when he leaves they would be back at square one. This is the only sustainable way; being a mentor as opposed to a contract expert.

So what? Well I am a big believer in uncovering useful things in places you’d least expect it. Yep, this is just a TV show, but I think we can all learn a thing or two from Gordon. In a way, this post is the spiritual successor to my earlier post about the Super Nanny. I wonder how many ‘celebrity consultants’ could be role models for the humble IT consultant.

Of course I’ve put myself right in it, I’m going to have to practice what I preach now. Have to get myself one of those funky chef’s shirts.

(Thanks to James for sparking off this idea.)

See what people are blogging about: Gordon Ramsay, consulting, mentoring

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After an embarrassingly long time, I have finally finished a case study of an intranet redesign project I did for Canon more than a year ago.

This project highlighted that intranets do not need to be structured in the ‘traditional’ way (ie like public websites).

Instead of a single home page and a rigid view of the site, a fresh approach was taken, and the information architecture for [this intranet] makes use of personalisation to efficiently meet the needs of Canon staff.

Lastly, it is worth noting that the information architecture techniques devised for websites apply equally to intranets, sometimes more so. This is a key lesson for experienced information architecture practitioners.

Continuing my ‘exclusive tips’ for those who read my blog, what you won’t read much about in the article is the intranet alignment workshop we ran.

In any organisation, there are many stakeholders who are involved in the design or management of the intranet. The first challenge confronting many intranet projects therefore becomes to create a common vision for the intranet, to align the many stakeholders, and to define the role that each stakeholder will play.

Ask anyone who has worked in a large organisation on a website or intranet project, and they will tell you that getting management buy-in can be very difficult. Political battles over ownership of the site, and thus over its redesign, are commonplace. And without some early alignment and consensus, trying to get approval for design ideas later on can be heartbreaking.

Just a half-day workshop, held after some initial needs analysis has been performed, can work wonders. Key stakeholders get their chance to give their input, they can see progress is being made, and as a group can discuss those things that are often assumed (like what is the intranet for?).

See what people are blogging about: intranet, intranet redesign, information architecture

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Today I ran the first of my series of Information Architecture Fundamentals workshops. It was a good day, with a nice small group so we had lots of good discussion.

And it was a really great group of people too, with similar situations and levels of experience. Everybody worked in public sector, either health or education. And because these weren’t absolute beginners, I could dispense with some of the material in the course and discuss stuff that was a bit more advanced.

The feedback from attendees was really positive, with high praise for the lunch (oh and they thought I was pretty good too). The most frequent comments were that the group discussion was great, giving them a chance to hear other people’s perspective. The scope and level of detail was also appreciated. This is good since I deliberately tried to keep the focus on ‘big picture’ and properly defining the problem space, rather than jumping into the details of specific techniques, which IA training tends to do.

Next step Canberra, and there are plenty of places so I might see you there.

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Yesterday I made what seemed like my millionth trip to Canberra. Nothing really deserved it’s own post, so here are a few tidbits:

• There a hell of a lot of roundabouts (’traffic circles’ if you prefer) in Canberra. They are the ultimate in user self-governance. How democratic of Walter, although I suspect the prolific use of roundabouts has more to do with lowering the cost of road infrastructure by not having any traffic lights.
• Whilst the situation with cabs in Canberra is stupendously bad (if you’ve ever tried getting a cab at Canberra airport you know what I mean) it’s worth pointing out that the taxi drivers are pretty good. They’re tidy, polite, topical, they speak English, and they know their way around. Unlike most Sydney taxi drivers who don’t tick any of these boxes (who hasn’t had to give their cabbie directions to a well-known destination?). Dare I say it, this is likely because Canberra’s cab drivers aren’t fresh off the boat.
• I met a lady named Gwenda. It’s like her parents couldn’t decide between Gwen and Glenda. It’s annoying but not as bad as the thing where people create a new name by spelling an existing name incorrectly (eg Jorja, Kortny). I think there are more than enough names in the world without resorting to this kind of ‘creativity’. Either way, I think it’s rather cruel of parents to give their children such stupid names.

See what people are blogging about: Canberra, Canberra cabs, roundabout, business travel, stupid baby name

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