Tag: Running a Business

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The 2-hour, 2-hundred-dollar rule

I’m not a big believe in golden rules, generally. But we have 1 golden rule at work that supersedes all other rules. And that’s our 2-hour, 2-hundred-dollar rule. Which goes like this:

No one shall spend more than 2 hours or $200 on any one thing without first discussing it with the team.

I can’t claim to have created this rule, although I wish I had – Jeff did. I wish I had created this rule because I think it accomplishes two simple but great things:

  1. It speaks to the face we’re all equal in our responsibility to the company – Jeff and I follow this rule, all our staff follow this rule. We’re all equally free to explore, to think, to create – with a set boundary
  2. It provides some freedom to our staff to make their own decisions about what bugs they want to fully explore, what topics they want to read more about, when they want to push something to focus on perfecting something else.

I’ve used this rule to justify buying a particular ebook, ordering some new software and spending a morning optimizing 1 site by a few hundred milliseconds – all within the past 2 quarters. Nothing major, nothing ground-breaking, but allows me some freedom to just explore something of interest to me.

This same rule has also prevented me from spending all day improving the usability of a feature that is only used occasionally by a client, and already had an existing, functional interface. I simply brought up that I wanted to explore this, and that I thought I needed 4 hours. After discussing with the team, we determined it just wasn’t worth it, so I left it alone.

And that last, the case wherein the request to spend additional time is rejected may in fact be the most useful – because it forces the proponent to defend a position, it forces all of us to get up to speed on a project and to think critically about not only what’s best for us as a company, but what’s best for our client.

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Creating a win

In my job, I do a mix of project work (larger bits, building sites, etc), tickets (service requests from clients) & management (running a company). Historically, I would spend my mornings doing the latter two tasks – they’re all piecemeal items that take anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours to complete, then I’d switch over to project work in the afternoon before wrapping up with a little management action – mostly status updates from staff/contractors.

This was ok, except that it really left only 3-4 hours a day to do project work, and in the afternoons which have *always* been less productive than mornings & evenings for me. I felt like I always had a huge pile of tickets and wasn’t keeping up with project work. Partially because we’re so busy, but partially just a sense because with such a short timeframe, I often wasn’t reaching a milestone within a day. And I like checking things off my to-do list.

So earlier this year, I started to push things around, and watch how things fell out. I don’t work fridays, and I don’t launch projects on thursdays (because I don’t work fridays), so I tried to do tickets & non-daily management tasks on Thursdays. This worked out ok for me, but less so for clients – they wanted tickets done before thursdays so that they could review them too. So now I’ve moved my “tickets” day to Mondays. And this has been an epic win.

I discovered that no one minded if I told them that their request would be completed the following Monday – even though they minded when I used to say Thursdays. I think that’s because mentally, Mondays are the start of something, even if it’s the next something, whereas Thursdays are near the end, so people are feeling rushed to finish before the end of the week. And because I’m not in the office on Fridays, there was always an extra dose of staff management, partner meetings & ticket requests to deal with anyways.

So now on Mondays I do tickets, I buy supplies, I check on staff, I check in on clients. I spend all day doing little 5 minute-1 hour tasks. By the end of the day, generally, my to-dos for the week have dropped to only the projects I’m working on and 1 or 2 others. And, rather than feeling stressed because I’m already behind after 1 day, I instead feel accomplished because I’ve cleared my slate and now have 3 solid days of “real” development ahead of me. Days with few interruptions where I can knock off milestones and get that satisfying tick on my to do list.

So I’m not doing any less work, or any different work. But just by examining how I worked, and looking at what clients were expecting, I’ve been able to shift my week around to be, on the whole, markedly more productive than it was prior to my making this shift. I’ve created a win for myself where previously there was generally only failure and “close”. This month we’re experimenting by putting everyone on this schedule. We now have enough staff that every day but Friday has 1 staff member knocking out service requests, freeing the rest of us to just to project work the rest of the week. I’m hoping that we’ll not only maintain our current turn-around-times for service requests, but potentially actually get a little faster with this system, even though each staff is spending only 1 day a week, rather than little bits of everyday.

 

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What I look for in a potential hire

I’ve been thinking a fair bit the last little while about how I run a business. This started after a conversation on Linked In with Dave MacDonald sometime last fall, but has percolated to the top of my brain of late. I recently passed the 7th anniversary of my company, and I’ve worked in small companies for nearly all my professional life at every level, so I suspect that I have some insights. So, consider this the first in an irregular series on running a business.

Here’s the dirty secret about getting hired by me: by the time you’ve shaken my hand and sat down, I already know if I want to hire you or not. All that’s left to figure out is whether or not you can lose the position by not being what I expect, how exactly I want to slot you into my company, and, most importantly, how you want to slot my company into your life. This means 2 major things:

  1. My first impression of you when you walk in the door is key – this is the “gut” decision that Malcolm Gladwell talks about so much in “Blink“. In over a decade of hiring people, I’ve only been wrong once when I thought someone would be a good fit (I’ve no idea, of course, how many times I’ve been wrong when I thought you wouldn’t fit in). I might talk about what I look for in an interview another time.
  2. Everything you do that leads up to me calling you to interview you is vitally important. And that’s what I’m going to look at today.

There was an article last week on SquawkFox called “6 works that make your resumé suck“. All that is true. I will likely throw your cv out if I see a lot of that. Other tips for resumés and cover letters:

  • Short! If your resumé is more than 1 sheet of paper, double-sided, it’s too long. Your cover letter should be even shorter. You either have information that is no longer relevant, or you’re purposefully padding it. Either way, you’re lying to me, and we’re off to a bad start.
  • Looks nice! Your resumé should be easy to scan for highlights, with lots of appropriately sized & spaced type. my 2 page rule does not mean I want 2 pages of single-spaced, 8-pt type all across it. Layout proves to me you understand the basics of presentation & user experience. At this point, I’m the most important “user” of your resume, so help me out .
    update: Mark Busse points out, quite correctly, I suspect:  ‘In the communication design profession, resumes are basically dead. NO designer gets hired using a cv—even a gorgeous one’.
  • Error-free! I may be extreme on this one, but I will discard your resumé out of hand if I see a single typo or grammatical error. Same goes for a cover letter. I don’t care if English isn’t your first language or not. Errors on these tell me a few things:
    1. You’re not detail-oriented. Programming & Design are both all about sweating the details. A typo tells me that you’re not attentive to detail.
    2. You’re satisfied with “close enough”, which, to be frank, is not good enough. If you don’t care enough to impress me, how could I ever trust that you’ll care enough for our clients?
    3. You’re not willing to ask for help. This is a group environment where you won’t always be the expert in everything. If you won’t ask someone to help make sure your resumé & cover letter are perfect, you probably won’t ask for help when figuring out that algorithm either.
  • Professional! If your resumé is on blue paper with spaceships in the background, or is scented, or anything “gimmicky”, I’m not interested. This just says to me that you don’t feel your qualifications will speak for you, so you want to trick me into checking into you. Not true. That being said, I’d love a colophon explaining your typeface, paper, etc – the rationale for your design decisions. Using your personal letterhead is also fine, if it looks professional (so if your personal brand contains rocket ships, that’s fine).
  • URLs! This is pretty industry specific, but I expect you to have an online presence. I expect to see your twitter, facebook, blog, linked in, youtube, whatever profiles listed (or at least a path to see all relevant profiles). We work on the web. If you don’t use the web in a contemporary way, why should I believe you understand it at all? Along those same lines, you better be sure that your online profile is suitable for a potential employer to see. Your online profile consists also as a way for me to rapidly assess you for how you’ll fit into our corporate culture.
    update: to clarify – I’m not looking for a specific service, or that it is “clean”.  I’m looking to see is evidence of use/understanding of social media & online interactions. Also, this is the perfect way to show me examples of your work along with rational and process decisions made along the way. Wrote some awesome code? where’s the post on it? Particularly proud of a logo you designed? Write about it!
  • Not a form letter! I understand you might be sending off hundreds of these. But if your cover letter doesn’t include some specific references to my own company, our work, our clients, etc, I don’t believe you really want to work here. And I only want to hire someone who actually wants to work here as opposed to just get a job, anywhere. And this is the prime role of your cover letter. To convince me of your interest in working here, specifically. Your cv does the “get a job, any job” part.
  • LinkedIn! Also pointed out by Mark Busse (follow him, he’s smart: @markbusse) is this: ‘Good advice, except why have a resume at all when LinkedIn exists?’ I’m totally down with just being sent a link to your LinkedIn profile instead of a resume. This goes very well with the URLs! idea above.

That’s my advice for resumés & cover letters. Pretty straight forward, I think. While I’m on the topic, here are some criteria that over the years Jeff and I have evolved to see as must-haves in a potential hire:

  • Degree or equivalent: Having a degree tells us that you can stick with something long & difficult all the way to the end. You don’t quit at the 90% mark. What your degree is in is somewhat irrelevant, but having successfully completed something as demanding, time-consuming and protracted as a degree is a must. This tells us you likely know how to handle the stress when push comes to shove and you have to fight through problems to finish a project.
  • Team experience: This one might be controversial: We’ve recently decided that we only want to hire people who have played team sports or other otherwise played a part on a team with a shared goal (and distinct from working elsewhere with others). The reason for this is simple: This is a small, close-knit company. People who have played team sports understand the importance of team-building. Also, understand what “take one for the team” actually means. I’ve worked with people who fundamentally do not understand the meaning of teamwork, regardless of what their experience is – and this has been detrimental to everyone else on staff.
    update: to be clear, I want evidence of experience in working as a team – not just in sports: Band, theatre, debate clubs, whatever. I’m not looking to hire jocks – I just want to know that you truly know what “teamwork” is, outside of the required team project you likely had to do at school.
  • Obvious Social Skills: given what else I’ve written on this site, and that we’re a software development house, this might seem odd. Aren’t software developers known for having the eccentric genius on staff that no one understands but can throw out perfect code all day every day? Yes – but not where I work (except for me? ;). If I hire you, I will likely spend more time with you than virtually anyone else in my life except for my wife. So I have to believe that I will enjoy that time. And that my other staff will enjoy that time. And that my clients will think positively of us after interacting with you. Otherwise, what’s the point?

So there’s my initial thoughts on things to think about when writing resumés, cover letters and presenting yourself. I think a take away is that all of these add up to be your personal brand, whether you are conscious of it or not. So start being conscious of it. These are all the intangibles that crystallize into form the moment I finally interact with you in person and we start the interview.

(final aside: You might note, quite correctly, that this blog is rife with both typos and grammatical errors. But you know what? This site isn’t my cv, it’s my thought playground – it’s not meant to be perfect, just a place for me to think out load and interact with the world at large in a casual setting – and that’s ok.)

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