Samuel Prasad, Ph.D.

Multitasking - are we getting more things done?

Classical psychology text books tell us that people cannot multitask. They say it's psychologically impossible. But we are multitasking more and more, not only in our workplace but also at home. Are we really getting more things done? Not really, say Professor Clifford Nass and his colleagues Eyal Ophir and Anthony Wagner of Stanford University. In a study of two groups of people - one made up of heavy multitaskers and the other made up of people who did not multitask as much - they found that the heavy multitaskers consistently underperformed the light multitaskers in problem solving because the heavy multitaskers allowed themselves to be distracted by superfluous or irrelevant information, which they were specifically instructed to ignore. Wagner, an associate professor of psychology said, "When they're in situations where there are multiple sources of information coming from the external world or emerging out of memory, they're not able to filter out what's not relevant to their current goal. That failure to filter means they're slowed down by that irrelevant information."

Other studies seem to support the above conclusions including the one conducted by two French scientists Sylvain Charron and Etienne Koechlin of the Institut National de la Santé and Ecole Normale Superieure, who say that the human brain cannot simultaneously pursue multiple goals. It is overwhelmed when dealing with multiple tasks resulting in irrelevant information being stored in memory. This not only impairs the brain's ability to function optimally when required to solve a specific problem but contrary to popular belief the study also found that multitaskers take longer to switch from one task to the other when compared to light multitaskers.

In the January 2012 issue of Harvard Health, P.J. Skerrett, senior editor, quotes Paul Hammerness and Margaret Moore, authors of Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life, as saying, "multitasking increases the chances of making mistakes and missing important information and cues. Multitaskers are also less likely to retain information in working memory, which can hinder problem solving and creativity. Instead of trying to do several things at once—and often none of them well—Hammerness and Moore suggest what they call set shifting. This means consciously and completely shifting your attention from one task to the next, and focusing on the task at hand. Giving your full attention to what you are doing will help you do it better, with more creativity and fewer mistakes or missed connections. Set shifting is a sign of brain fitness and agility, say the authors."

However there are some who argue that a lack of focus can sometimes be good for creativity. The results of a new study by Kelvin Lui and Alan Wong from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, released on April 12, 2012, says people aged 19 to 28 who frequently use different types of media at the same time appear to be better at integrating information from vision and hearing when asked to perform a specific task. Using both vision and hearing to perform a specific task is not multitasking. It's the way humans normally work, no matter what the task.

2012 Technology Predictions

There are three things in life that are certain - death, taxes and the crystal ball dropping in Times Square (New York City) on New Year's Eve. Truth be told, I did not really see the ball drop this year because the TV channel that my wife and I were watching got to the ball only after it had slid almost to the bottom of the pole. Anyway this is a good time to peer into the crystal ball and make a few predictions for 2012. While most of the experts seem to be fixated on the number 10, I'll limit my predictions to THREE. Here they are:

1. THE SMART PHONE REPLACES YOUR WALLET AND YOUR ID

NFC (near field communication) equipped smart phones will be widely available in the U.S. through most of the major carriers before the end of 2012. How does NFC work? The technology behind NFC uses inductive coupling to transfer data between two NFC-equipped devices when they are within a few centimeters of each other. Europe is way ahead of us in the use of NFC-equipped smart phones as a payment method and for identification purposes. The customer just taps the phone at the POS register instead of swiping a credit card. This method of payment is quite secure because of two-factor authentication which requires the customer to key in a PIN or through biometric scanning of the customer's fingerprint. Multiple credit cards, store cards, loyalty cards and bank accounts can be linked to a single NFC phone which means that a wallet full of cards is on its way to becoming obsolete.

The ability of a smart phone to display 2-D bar codes or other visual tags will increasingly be used in lieu of boarding passes at airports, driver's licenses and other forms of paper identification. NFC phones used in conjunction with two-factor identification eliminates many of the problems with stolen IDs and credit cards.

By the year 2015, at least 30% of the people will be "wallet-less".
 

2. ENTERPRISES STAY AWAY FROM THE PUBLIC CLOUD

Companies will continue to stay away from the public cloud because of security concerns. Security in the public cloud is still very elusive. According to Vivek Wadhwa, a columnist for Bloomberg Businessweek and the Washington Post, "Cloud computing provides significant cost savings and operational advantages. But it also unleashes a Pandora’s box of security concerns. We’ve already seen cloud break-ins originating from China. And a number of legitimate Internet companies have suffered when the FBI confiscated a shared server in a cloud hosting facility that also hosted rogue applications."

A "public cloud" means that a company's applications and data are hosted on servers and networks that are outside the company's firewall managed by a third-party, which means that the company has to rely on the cloud service provider to safeguard the company's application and data. The public cloud will still gain popularity among start-ups for testing new products because of the cost benefits it provides.

Hybrid Clouds are beginning to emerge, but I am not sure if they will be able to address all the security concerns adequately. What are hybrid clouds? They are a combination of public and private clouds where some of the company's software and/or data resides on the public cloud and some on its private cloud which is essentially the company's internal network.

Cloud service providers have a long way to go before enterprises will entrust their applications and data to the public cloud.

3. THE AGILE MANIFESTO IS ADOPTED BY MORE COMPANIES

The majority of technology projects are behind schedule, over budget and/or does not meet specifications according to the results of a study published earlier this year by "The Standish Group". The primary reason for this high rate of failure is the continuing use of outdated project management methods that rely on a command-and-control approach where most decisions related to design, cost and time are made at the top based on incorrect information. Management is lulled into a false sense of security when they buy into the notion that projects can be executed successfully by creating detailed plans upfront, when many of the parameters and constraints needed to create such plans are yet unknown. We've all heard about the urban myth that a project plan must spell out everything in minute detail including the condition “..in case someone falls under a bus..”.  This is a hangover from the DoD standards. If you are building nuclear reactors it’s a good idea to spell out everything and back-up every decision with a series of checks and signatures. But most of us are not building nuclear reactors, and for management to insist that project plans be created with an excruciating level of detail that is both unnecessary and inaccurate before the project can even start is ludicrous. (see http://www.iso-9001-checklist.co.uk/tutorial/4.2-documentation.htm).

In order to increase the probability that a project will be successful it is my opinion that the only solution is to adopt the "Agile Manifesto". It is refreshing to see that it is being adopted by more and more companies as they realize that traditional project management is just not working. The manifesto for agile software development is as follows:

• "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
• Working software over comprehensive documentation.
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
• Responding to change over following a plan."

The twelve principles behind the Agile Manifesto are:

• "Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
• Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
• Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
• Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
• The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
• Working software is the primary measure of progress.
• Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
• Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
• The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
• At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly."

More information about the agile manifesto can be found at http://agilemanifesto.org/.

I believe that companies will have no choice but to adopt agile management processes to not only retain their best talent but also to stay competitive in today's global market.

Lean Six Sigma in Software Development.

"Six Sigma" is a process man-agement strategy developed by Motorola in 1986 to improve the quality of products by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing outputs. "Lean" on the other hand is a production practice that aims to eliminate expenses for resources that are not creating value in the product.

How do we combine Lean and Software especially since Lean Six Sigma has had its origins in manufacturing and does not translate easily to software development? The Poppendiecks in their book titled "Implementing Lean Software development" successfully make a case that writing software is really a form of product development and hence the implementation of Lean Six Sigma in software development is possible. They claim that, software not devel-oped as a stand-alone product is usually embedded in hardware, or it may be part of a game, or a business process - which means that software is either a product or a subset of a product.

"The seven principles" of Lean Software Development are:

• Eliminate Waste
• Build Quality In
• Create Knowledge
• Defer Commitment
• Deliver Fast
• Respect People
• Optimize the Whole

Eliminate Waste
Identify the 20% of product features that deliver 80% of value to the customer. Focus on implementing the 20% for deployment in the first phase.

Build Quality In
Develop QA standards and QC processes to catch defects early on in the software development life cycle. Test-driven design (TDD) is a very effective to reduce and eliminate defects.

Create Knowledge
Use feedback from daily builds and early release of the minimum 20% feature set to customers for evaluation and feedback.

Defer Commitment
Define the architecture model such that most decisions related to the feature set can be reversed and changed. A realistic design approach is to leave options open so that irreversible decisions can be made as late as possible.

Deliver Fast
Deliver software so quickly that customers don't have time to change their mind", say the Poppendiecks.

Respect People
Allow team members to offer feedback and ask questions. Just make sure you answer every question. You are not too busy and neither is any question unimportant that it does not deserver an answer. Employ team-building activities to help open the lines of communication and create co-dependence between members of the team.

Optimize the Whole
Lean software development needs the support of the entire organization. The entire value stream from the time a customer request comes in, to the time the software is delivered must be optimized.

To steer a boat you have to move to the back.

This is quite contrary to the theories developed by Kurt Lewin, Ronald Lipitt, and Ralph White in 1939 which state that there are only three major styles of leadership:

• Authoritarian
• Participative
• Delegative

Authoritarian style of leadership assumes that the leader has all the information necessary to make the right decisions. For this style of leadership to succeed employees must unconditionally accept the power of the leader and follow directions without questioning them. It does not mean that the leader can use demeaning language, engage in abusive or unprofessional behavior. As you can well imagine, this style of leadership may work well in the military but it rarely achieves the desired goals in a non-military work setting. Why? People don't like to be ordered to do things without explaining the rationale for the directives and without a clear understanding of the end goals. 

The participative style of leadership is much more common in companies where the leader includes one or more employees in the decision making process. The leader still makes the final decision and is responsible for the outcome of the decision. This style recognizes the strength and knowledge of key employees and is a sign that the leader is secure, confident and is not afraid to seek counsel from others. This is a style that most employees respect.

The delegative style of leadership must be used wisely and only if the leader has the full trust and confidence of peers and the team. This style of leadership assumes that the employees empowered to make decisions understand the end goals, are able to obtain and analyze the required information before taking any action. This style must be used only if the leader is not quick to blame others even if decisions made by employees causes things to go terribly wrong.

Social scientists over the past century have come up with many leadership theories. Most well known among them are:

1. "Great Man" theories assume that leaders are born, not made.
2. “Trait” theories assume great leaders share particular traits that make them well suited for leadership.
3. “Contingency” theories purports that environmental and external variables, including the type of followers determine the person best suited to lead.
4. “Situational” theories states that people who can recognize situational variables that affect the outcome of an action or decision are best suited to be leaders.
5. “Behavioral” theories are based on the supposition that great leaders are made not born which is the exact opposite of the "Great Man" theories.
6. “Participative” theories suggest that good leaders elicit input from other members of the group before making decisions.
7. Management theories also known as "Transactional theories" are based on a system of rewards and penalties. Good leadership is rewarded for accomplishing the stated end goals while failure to meet them are seen as signs of poor leadership and are punished.
8. Relationship theories also known as "Transformational theories" is the best form of leadership where leaders are able to motivate, transform and inspire their group members. It is no wonder that leaders who belong to this group have the highest ethical and moral standards.


Transformational leaders are ones who have learned the art of leading from behind. They listen to the people around them. They usually surrounded themselves with smart problem-solvers who do not need to be told what to do. Transformational leaders spend their time focusing on what they should be doing to achieve the end goals because they know that the people around them will do the same without  having to be micromanaged or told what to do every step of the way.

"To steer a boat you have to move to the back. Leadership is about asking questions and letting people answer them," says Anne Berkowitch co-founder of SelectMinds a social networking company in New York.

Mobile Commerce

Next Generation Commerce (NGC) is defined as a ubiquitous convergence of multiple customer touch points like e-commerce web sites, social networking sites, call centers, emails, traditional channels and mobile devices. This implies that NGC must offer consistent service to its customers across all touch points. In today's world, customers check prices at multiple web sites; visit the local store; use social networking sites like FaceBook and Twitter via their mobile phones to share prices and discuss their shopping experiences with the world which in turn provides valuable feedback to the merchant. It's time that merchants use this wealth of data to provide their consumers with a more personalized and interconnected shopping experience across all channels.

One of the many ways that marketers are exploring avenues for providing a personalized shopping experience is through mobile commerce. According to a report published by ABI Research, mobile commerce will account for $1.6 billion in revenues in 2009 as the proliferation of smartphones and consumers’ increasing comfort with mobile transactions translates into phone users making purchases via their handsets. But the holy-grail of mobile commerce is location-based marketing which is just starting to take off as more and more smartphones are equipped with GPS software. This allows consumers to receive coupons and other relevant shopping information including products that may be of interest to them directly on their mobile phones from stores that are in close proximity to their location. While this is a very attractive marketing option - called "push" marketing - it is frowned upon by the Mobile Marketing Association.

The "right way" according to the Mobile Marketing Association is "pull" marketing where the consumer can browse coupons and products by categories at a store. No coupons or product information is displayed on the mobile phone unless the consumer launches an application and initiates the information "pull". The moral of this story is that in order for location-based marketing to succeed it would be wise for marketers to remember that it is important to give people control over when and what information they choose to receive on their mobile phones.

As RFID equipped phones become available in the U.S. over the next few years there will be a great push by marketers to make consumers use their mobile phones as the primary vehicle for making purchasing decisions. Studies by Forrester Research show that increasingly consumer behavior is influenced by the information they’re able to find on their own, on the go. This opens up tremendous opportunities for marketers who can make valuable product information available to consumers that is relevant to them as they are standing in the aisle of a store. This combined with a consumer's ability to pay for a purchase using a secure electronic wallet located in the mobile phone is a marketer's dream come true.

Software Reliability

Producing software is not very different from, say, manufacturing an automobile. Each has to go through the processes of creating specifications, designing, prototyping (proof-of-concept), construction, testing and production. Why then do we put up with unreliable bug-ridden software when we would not accept a sub-standard automobile?

The problem is that the software industry is yet to embrace repeatable production methodologies that enable the creation of software that works reliably and according to specifications all the time. Sadly, in many cases programmers start writing code even without specifications. Design, prototyping and simulation phases are perceived as unnecessary and routinely skipped even though software reliability is critically important today more than ever before because software is now embedded in most of the appliances we use at home, the cars we drive and the planes we fly.

If that is the case, why are companies willing to allow sloppy software to be produced when they are scrupulous in implementing six sigma and quality management methods in other manufacturing areas. No, I hope it is not because they think that programming is an art form that is subject to the whims and fancies of the programmer. Software engineering is a science and will yield predictable results if one understands and follows the science. Creativity and scientific discipline can co-exist. In every creative process there are patterns which can be identified over time that can be optimized and choreographed to achieve predictable results. It is therefore welcome news that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency, the SANS (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security) Institute, Mitre and other organizations recently announced that they are pushing for custom software developers to be held liable for faulty code they write.

According to ANSI, software reliability is defined as the probability of failure-free software operation for a specified period of time in a specified environment. So one of the goals in producing reliable software is to be able to accurately predict or extend MTBF or mean time between failure. Achieving this goal is extremely hard because of the following reasons:

• Software failures are rarely preceded by warnings.
• Software requires infinite testing to exhaustively verify and check all possible operational scenarios.

In addition, software defects are also due to ambiguous specifications, poor design and construction. While bug-free software may be an oxymoron it is possible to write software that is secure and relatively free of defects by adopting processes like the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, which is an useful tool that can be used to make the software construction process predictable and can also help to control, measure and continuously improve software quality - thereby increasing the mean time between failure.

Why aren't companies adopting CMM processes? Because it requires a complete culture change. According to Kim Caputo, a frequent speaker on CMM implementation,

• It requires redirecting organizational focus away from short-term gains towards long-term benefits.
• It requires redirecting management effort away from the crisis "problem of the day" towards future risks.
• It requires redirecting development effort way from cranking out "quick and dirty" code towards disciplined engineering techniques.
• It requires expanding internal and external goals towards customer satisfaction.
• It requires continuously optimizing processes so that problems are prevented with long-term solutions instead of quick fixes.

At last count, there were only a few hundred companies in the world that had attained CMM Level 5 certification. While the U.S government and its subcontractors routinely use CMM it is yet to be adopted by most other companies.

Project Failures due to Human Risk Factors

What percent of projects fail due to the "human risk factor"? According to published statistics more than half of the 60% of projects that fail are due to human factors. With numbers so high it is no wonder that human resource management is an inherent and critical part of any project activity, and as such plays an important role in the success of any project. But the sad story is that applying risk management to humans are largely absent because most project managers do not understand the process of identifying and assessing risk factors of team members, which if done properly would allow them to proactively develop techniques to mitigate such risks and boost the success of their project.

Project managers clearly understand that a team's performance is primarily dependent on the members in the team. Bruce Tuckman, an American psychologist proposed in the 1960s that a group of people who have to work together usually go through a series of conflicting and underperforming phases before they learn to work together. This is called the "forming-storming-norming-performing" model in which the group's first phase is characterized by individuals ignoring their differences, wanting to be friends so that they can be accepted into the group. This is very much like the "honeymoon" period in a marriage. This is followed by the "storming" phase in which members are no longer afraid to confront others in the group with their own ideas and perspectives. The third phase called "norming" is one in which members begin to trust each other, and begin to establish rules of conduct and behavioral standards for the group as a whole. They still need supervision to guide them and ensure that they all work for the common good of the group. Lastly, during the final stage called "performing" the group has now become highly self sufficient and is able to work very effectively without external supervision towards achieving a common goal.

But not all teams reach the "performing" stage. In fact, very few do, especially since product and project cycles have shrunk to weeks and months. So how does a project manager assemble a team that has an increased propensity towards performing at peak capacities in a very short time. Here are some of my thoughts:

• ensure that there are controls to increase quality and reduce defects due to human factors. In other words, provide the proper tools for the job. At the most basic level - performance can be evaluated through inspections. Remember, that quality cannot be inspected into a product. Quality begins by setting quality assurance standards followed by using well-defined quality control processes to ensure that the product meets quality assurance standards.
• reduce costs due to human performance limitations, i.e., do not hire people whose skills are not a good fit for the job at hand.
• reward and publicly acknowledge team members for exceeding quality and performance standards.
• have a strong leader at the helm who can articulate the vision of the project, motivate members to reach their full potential and one who is not afraid to tell the truth when things go wrong. Only full disclosure and truthfullness allows for quick course corrections.
• empower the team and encourage them to take calculated risks without fear of penalization. 

A quality-based organization goes a long way towards reducing the time and cost to bring a product to market.