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Why Aren’t You On the Cloud?

Why aren’t you on the cloud?

We’re getting tactical with you today. There are a few, and only a few, reasons for your enterprise not to get to the cloud. Stop hosting your own virtual machines (VMs) or hosting them on someone else’s infrastructure, pick a cloud provider and get “your mess, for less” on a cloud provider’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

Then have a plan to incrementally move from IaaS to Software or Platform as a Service (SaaS/PaaS). The recent ransomware events area a clear indicator that even security vendors are having challenges, and will continue to do so.

Carve out those systems that cannot be moved – then pressure those vendors to get on the ball, connect the rest of it up to a cloud with connections back to those legacy systems as needed. The work involved is well worth the payoff both in short and medium term benefits. You’re getting a layer of unmatchable protection, resiliency and elasticity.

If you think you’re a carve out exception, or you want to know where to start, first three folks that contact us get an hour on us to discuss and sketch out viable ideas.

So …Why aren’t you on the cloud?

(EDIT: This posted right before a widespread Internet outage that same day. Irony perhaps, but the point stands!)

Entrepreneurship in Trying Times

We’ve been reading several articles (and we’ll post one in the comments) about the economic recovery, entrepreneurship and employment and we’re seeing some alignment with anecdotal evidence both first hand and here on LinkedIn. One of the things we do at 1Focus as a way of giving back is give back to young entrepreneurs with prescriptive guidance and direction, especially when it comes to technology.

We’ve see a significant uptick in solo entrepreneurs, and at least 20% of them have proven to be nimble & adept at pivoting – a greater version of which we incorporate in our global client engagements.

This is where Diffusion of Innovation Theory comes into play (link in comments). With all size of our clients there is often a concern of competition. But this is good – you don’t always want to be first, it’s ok to launch with a small pack of competitors. That competition will drive differentiators and a higher level of service – both of which are opportunities to create distinct advantages.

If you feel the drive to start a business – do it – with intention! And remember, competition is good, for your business and for your consumer and it allows you to compete on more than just price!

We’re big believers in opportunity, so, we’ll give the first three folks who ask an hour of advice – gratis.

What are you waiting for?

Celebrate the Small Wins!

Celebrate the small wins on the way to the larger victory!

Too often we’re quick to self criticize and shrug away celebrating ourselves. This would be a great new habit to build!

Whenever you accomplish something, even a small step, take a moment, take a breath and celebrate it. Stop for a moment and congratulate yourself. It’s an important way to build self motivation – which will always carry you.

And if you falter? Celebrate the lesson that mis-step taught you and avoid making the same error. Relish the fact that you get another shot.

We’re still giddy at yesterday’s featured post, even as we’re focused on the next milestone. So take a moment today, and celebrate one of your accomplishments. Then do it again tomorrow & the next day.

Stop the Insanity of Constant Work!

(This is in response to the excellent Wall Street Journal The Pain of the Never-Ending Work Check-In by Rachel Feintzig. It was a featured post for that article at LinkedIN too!)

I mean where do I even start with this … an apt subtitle for this would be how to do everything the way we’ve always done it and be surprised that it doesn’t work.

With yet another wave resurging globally (and vaccinated people exhibiting less severe symptoms and vastly reduced need for hospitalizations), for society to function, businesses need to function, for business to function, they have to learn new modes of behaviors and interactions. At least until we get to a point where energy is widely available & free and matter converters are ubiquitous (Star Trek reference), these are the facts we are presented with.

The video’s we’ve posted and will continue to post over on 1Focus address exactly this, so let’s do a top 3 do’s & don’t’s really quick.

DON’T keep transacting business the way you always have.
DO expect, accept & embrace the need to change, and make adjustments, so you’re transacting business in an intentional, impactful way.

DON’T let business happen to you – that’s so incredibly risky & dangerous – especially since these factor are all known knowns.
DO come together – stop, drop and roll, create a plan, stick to it, tweak it as you go (I’m looking at you perpetual meetings).

For Leaders:
DON’T constantly inspect your people, if you’re micromanaging and people care is in the rear view, you’re not doing 50% of your job! Ok, the hell with it – here’s a shocker – 80% of your job as a leaders is seeing to the well-being of your people, removing impediments and collaborating on progress. It is NOT to monitor or micromanage them!
DO provide and project that sense of calm and, you know, authentically caring about your people. People can tell.

For Contributors:
As with real life, you have to set limits, we ALL have to set limits. Here’s a shocker – after just ONE 50 hour week your efficiency is reduced, after TWO you’re burning out and you’ll have to work ever more to get the same results.
MORE importantly, you’re not the best you for yourself, your family, your friends, or your job at that point – and the viscous cycle will start.

Look, this is why we talk quite a bit in our books about coming together. We’re not pushing some kumbaya new-again hippie fad. The only way any of this succeeds, the only way we break old toxic patterns and create new healthy ones is by coming together and making a change together.

And we’re sitting here on a MOUNTAIN of experience. This is what we do. It’s the HARDEST part of what we do – not the tech, not the process, but gradually, incrementally, consistently bending work spaces, leaders, individuals and cultures into a better place. More happiness & resiliency leads to more productivity & retention & less crisis.

It’s your choice. You can do what you’ve always done, or you can decide to take this opportunity to make a lasting, permanent change that’s healthier for everyone, now, and in the future.

Designate Your Workspace – TODAY!

We had our eyes opened – and we mean O-P-E-N-E-D – when we got some of our Workspace survey results back.

70% of our former, current and prospective client’s contributors don’t have a designated workspace in their residence. For our medium and smaller customers that number is as high as 80%.

So we’re going to deviate from our “script” today and talk about the importance of having a designated workspace! We address this in our books as well. It’s critical to do so – our bodies, mindsets, psychology – everything – acts and reacts differently based on the environment we’re in – even under the same roof. Stressors impact us differently, relaxation have different ameliorating effects all depending on where we are.

The last thing you want is to wake up and see work stuff, go into your living room, dining area, kitchen, porch and see work stuff. You’re going to be constantly in work mode and that’s going to run you down. It’s amazing we’ve seen the productivity gains we have under these circumstances. Now let’s make sure we keep those up AND increase happiness by designating yourself a workspace.

Find a spot in your home you can delegate. We’ve seen all sorts of areas from nooks and balconies to entire basements. Put all your work stuff in there. Work only in that spot. You get up for a break, you’re walking out of that designated space. You walk into that spot, you’re in work mode.

Your psyche, spirit, soul, your body, your mindset will all thank you for the clear direction. You’ll know and react better and work more effectively. Don’t delay, carve out an hour today, and get started on this. It’s ok if it takes a few days to feel out the right space, but just start.

In fact – the first five folks who respond and want a hand, we’ll help -free – for up to a week to get set up. Drop us a line below. If you’ve already done this and see the results, we would to love hear from you too!

A Waterfall to Agile Story – In Increments!

We’re huge fans of doing things in measurable increments to achieve lasting results – especially when it comes to change.

In our Incrementalism series, we’re sharing a client story today. Our client, regional, worth about $10B, had kicked off a waterfall to agile transformation for their IT & Software teams. Being a big, stable, capable company they had made some really smart hiring decisions in selecting their Agile SMEs. Being a big, stable, capable company they were also, inherently, slow to change. With Agile they expected to see big results, quickly.

Their change efforts were floundering for six months when we got the call to jump in. What the struggle came down to was attempting to change everything over to Agile in one fell swoop. Tools, Processes and People, most importantly, in IT and their business clients were dealing with brand new concepts and methods to transaction business between IT service delivery and stakeholders.

Our plan was to change in smaller increments, one cross-functional team, even one feature team if necessary, at a time, with discrete, measurable goals – and then iterate and build on it.

After overcoming understandable resistance born from six months of no progress, we got traction and got things rolling – showing and doing alongside the teams, then doing in parrallel, then expanding the scope, each time with the same incremental, measurable approach. Folks caught on quick we were using Agile to transform the teams SDLC to Agile too.

We taught the teachers, created internal advocates and won over stakeholders. Six months on, momentum showed the org was on a great track to continue on their own – and to this day, they’re happily plugging along with Agile and looking at how they can use the same methods to transform some of their business processes.

Keep shooting for the moon, but get there in increments.

We would love to hear your change transformation stories – good, bad & ugly!

Incremental Moonshots

Moonshots – great big lofty goals are awesome. We love them.

But you’re not going to get there swinging for the fences every single time.

In all the work that we’ve done, with technology with process with people and with mindsets, one constant has been the need for change.

Change is justifiably scary for most of us. Very few of us thrive on change. Even fewer successfully execute on making the changes necessary.

And that’s because we’re always swinging for the fences. If you’re not speaking for the fences, you’re not really working are you?

Let’s change that mindset a little bit. Realize that change comes and sticks in small increments and with constant commitment, not one huge swings that stand a higher chance of missing.

Start by redefining your goals. Take those BIG changes & decompose them down into smaller, incremental changes that build. Work on one at a time. Commit to it. Remember it takes 21 days to make a habit change, and 90 days to get it to stick. So be patient. Understand if you falter, be gentle with yourself, learn from the experience, then recommit to it.

Hail Marys are awesome for spectating, but they’re not repeatable.

Start small and build on each success. Pretty soon you’re standing on that moon you were shooting for. More importantly you got there without burning yourself out and with a newly developed mindset that’s elastic, resilient and able to face inevitable # disruptions.

Try it. Reach out if you want advice. We would love to hear your experiences.

https://lnkd.in/esaevkH

Wait … Aren’t You a Technology Company?

“Wait… aren’t you a technology company?”

Why yes we are! We also do process work.

“So why are you talking about communications and zoom calls and well everything except for the technical work you do!?”

Because NONE of it is successful unless we dig down to the root cause – and the root cause almost always comes down to communication, resiliency and culture!

We don’t want you to be dependent on us. We want to impart the momentum necessary to get you past this hurdle. And nothing we do ever sticks unless we address the fires we’re hired to put out by also working at the people level.

Story time. One of our clients based out of Asia, fairly large, and had been around for 100 years in one form or another. They went through an acquisition spree and tripled in size. They went from one time zone to eight.

While we worked up a plan to address technology platform harmonization we also started asking questions about culture. Needless to say we got some puzzle looks. Here was a tech company asking about culture and other business related matters…

Academic studies and experience show the vast majority of mergers fail due to cultural cohesion issues. Nothing we attempted would work or stick unless we also addressed culture and mindset and communication class part of any work we did or will do!

This is why we’ve been speaking to those topics for the last couple weeks. All the technical and process brilliance in the world won’t help, unless you have the people on board to carry on the work that you do. And you’re able to imbue them with a resilient mindset.

This is what we do at 1Focus. Yes we’re a technology company. Yes we’re a process company. We’re also a people company.

We make sure our solutions stick by addressing people, mindset, culture and communication as part of every technical or process solution that we put in place.

We teach, we show and we do with you at every step of the way.

We’re 1Focus.

Does it HAVE to be a Meeting?

Yesterday we talked about how one of the ways you can make virtual meetings more effective is by looking into the camera when you are talking in a group session. Today we’re going to talk about does it have to be a meeting?

80% of you if not more – way more – have too many meetings and not enough time to just do. Imagine if you had your day structured such that you had a time for meetings and time for doing. And doing, by the way, is not responding to emails, It’s time to spend actually doing work.

How would that feel? I know it feels amazing to us, as hard as it was for us to get here and commit to structuring our work day.

So ask yourself this question. Do I have a slide deck that am I going to be reading off of? If the answer is yes, then that’s something you can handle asynchronously. Pick a tool, any Pokemon! You’ve got Slack, Teams Google Meet and several others. Pick a tool that allows you to collaborate asynchronously on a work product, connects to a repository you can store work product in, and has some sort of search ability for both work products and conversations. And actually use that tool!

You’re going to want to have a meeting whenever you need an interactive conversation and include a diversity of perspectives to complete a work product or move past an impediment. Sure it’s fine to jot down some notes to reference, but if you find yourself creating and reading off of a deck take it asynchronous. We love using OneNote for meetings! Form follows function and in this case you’ll find making those habit changes easier and more tactile.

But otherwise, it’s work time! It’ll take real effort and coordination to get yourself and your team there but you can do it! We’ve helped our clients get there, we’ve gone there ourselves – and as hard as it was, it was a real game changer!

You won’t be dreading yet another day of meetings. You’ll be looking forward to your work time and yes even your meeting time. You’ll find yourself working more effectively, not to mention the job satisfaction you get from actually getting things done instead of being in back-to-back meetings.

Try it. Structure your day. Ping us if we can help, but above all let us know how this works out for you.

You can do it!

Quick Tip to Reduce Zoom Fatigue

Zoom Fatigue! It’s a Real Thing! Over the last few weeks our customers have been asking us if it’s time to upgrade their audio visual and conferencing hardware and software.

These conversation always include a portion on communication effectiveness. And the answer almost always is a recognition that communication could be more effective, especially as a lot of firms around the world are still doing remote or have settled on hybrid workspaces.

So, it’s not always a question of hardware or software needing an upgrade.

So here’s a small but super effective tip. Look into the camera when you’re talking not at the screen. Every call we used to have, calls that we still see happening with our customers, people are staring at the screen while talking! That’s a great way to reduce the efficacy of your communication and to increase zoom fatigue. We don’t want either!

Both in person and remote, when people you’re talking to are looking at their screens and they’re looking at you and they see you looking back in their eyes and not at the screen, you’re helping reduce zoom fatigue and create those connections, virtually, that enhance conversations. You feel and are present, instead of distant.

Did you catch that? You’re doing it for the people you’re talking to, and when they speak back and they’re looking in their camera, you’ll feel like they’re looking in your eyes as well!

It takes some getting used to as a speaker, but when everyone’s doing it you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much less zoom fatigue you’ll have coming out of these calls.

There’s other tips we’ll be sharing throughout the rest of this week such as “does it have to be meeting” and “why you don’t always need to meet about a deck”. This tip we’ve found to consistently have the greatest impact!

Give it a try let us know how it works out to you, we’d love to hear your experiences.