Why? Because the heavy-process bureacracy in state & local government over-legislates (to protect?) the public from itself.

…Blogger Chris Spagnuolo, at EdgeHopper, has a great entry called “Act Like A Start-up,” where he talks about the corporate culture of a start-up company…

best regards

mark allen roberts
http://www.gettunedin.com

At the same time, after the innovation has entered the day to day life of people, it’s no longer an innovation- it’s become a custom (as if it has always been there!) and has to adapt to qualities of custom. The drive of “making it possible” is the secondary now – It has been made possible! The challenge now is to earn the acceptance of customers. A lot of factors enter the scene like coping with industry completion, customer satisfaction, customer perception, quality and so on. The child is no longer a child, it has to grown and we have to grow with that. We can always move on to the next innovation, but there’s not many happening right!

Of course, buyers also have to want to buy value delivered.

I appreciated your blog Michael about how scrums can be valueless and mechanical. It drives me a little crazy to hear one person say, “well I did somethun and somthun, and will do more of the same today”. In these cases the CSM must ask for elaboration and encourage the team to hold each other accountable to ensure that everyone on the team is doing their part to help the team out (which is a big part of a daily scrum).

We pull up the burndown chart at the beginning of the sprint and highlight what developer is working on what sprint (as they talk). Then as the CSM I’m listening to hear key words from the team member that correspond to the stories they have accepted. If I don’t hear what I’m expecting I can ask about that detail. The other point that needs to be made is that the CSM must be prepared (more) for the daily scrum. We must teach and live the framework before our team or we give no credibility to it.

Another tactic we use to enhance communications is called “post-scrum.” We schedule a 15 minute meeting time after every scrum to facilitate questions, update the Project Owner, and ensure that everyone is on the same page. Those who don’t need to be there can go back to work. We’ve found this to be invaluable because it’s committed time everyday to ensure we on the same page with each other and the Product Owner. It has almost become essential and is most certainly a face to face situation that Chris was encouraging.

I believe it is possible as long as a company a)truly values a “Start Up” culture and b)proactively supports it. Without both the company will quickly become a bureaucracy with all of the symptoms you and others have already mentioned.

I led what ended up being a highly successful start-up sales distribution channel within a company so I understand what it takes to succeed. Some of the key ingredients include:
* C-Level executive sponsorship: You must have top level support and direct
access to that executive to eliminate roadblocks if necessary.
* Sufficient Autonomy: Of course there are boundries such as; Budget
Constraints, Legal Compliance, Formal Business Planning Process, etc. but
it is important to give the business leader in charge the room to create a
vision, to innovate, to motivate and ultimately to drive success. It is vital to
give the business leader full decision making rights when it comes to
how to run the business.
* Sufficient Funding: Sounds basic but this is where the rubber meets the
road. The key here is to have realistic ROI goals that escalate as the
business matures through its growth phases.

There is a risk involved in cultivating a start up mentality that many large corporations are simply not willing to take. Regardless of what they say their actions say that they;

a) Are more interested in protecting their position in the market place vs. going for exponential growth.
b) Are more interested in avoiding internal conflicts.
c) Are more afraid of failure vs. the potential rewards of success.

Anyone that has led a start-up operation understands that risk comes with the territory and that it takes a tremendous amount of fortitude, courage, discipline and perserverance to succeed. Many large companies simply do not have the stomach for it in my opinion.

I think the point another poster made about the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance issues is valid to a degree but I also think it’s easy to use SOX as a good reason to avoid taking a necessary risk.

Best Regards,

Greg Kohne

Very valid points. I come from a background of start up as well as managing large Multi National Organisations. To add to your points, one thing that I find amiss in most professional run orgnaisaitons is awareness of P&L and projected profitable growth. In a frenzy organisations grow without being much aware of their bottom lines and rub their hands when the accountant shows them the figures post various allocations. I have rearely come across professionals who can even answer basic start up questions like- what is my daily cost and what is my daily revenue.
One needs to have a skill of an accountant at leadership levels topped by business acumen.

Cheers,
Mohit Batra

This is no surprise to me – look at sports teams like basketball and hockey. Even football teams separate into groups of 5-7 to accomplish similar goals (the offensive line). I’ve even seen artist gatherings that seem to max out at around 7 people. After that it becomes a conference and no real ideas are spawned.

If large companies could find a way to organize their work flows such that they are tackled by groups of 5-7 people instead of using hierarchies, I think more creative work could be accomplished by large firms.

Mike

Read “Building Breakthrough Businesses within Established Organizations by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble in Harvard Business Review (you can find it on the web). I think its a terrific article and has hugely influenced my own thinking. Best wishes Andy Richman

You can make a framework in a big company to encourage entrepreneurship, and although there are some cool stories (Google for example) I’m a bit cynical. It’s more of an employee retention trick to me, because entrepreneurs that can make things happen usually want significant payoff (=equity) for their ideas and sweat, and that’s near impossible to get in a big company, as the people with the most equity (senior management and board members) are more concerned with protecting it than risking it.

If you’re an entrepreneur though, that’s something to be happy about because you’ll find the special thing that the big companies will buy you out for some day (for multipltes more than they would pay their employees). If you’re an employee in a huge company, then I’d say that’s life. If you want an entrepreneur’s freedom that’s cool, but you have to leave the safety of the big company and be willing to risk your own fortune if you want the payoff. And the freedom of not having someone tell you to stay in your cube and stop trying to do something new IS part of the payoff.

Long story short – don’t blame the big company for knowing what you should be doing and when, after all that’s how they got big. To them, “acting like a startup” probably means 80% failure rate

I think it is inevitable that when large groups of people work together bureaucracy and other “big organization” symptoms crop up. It is also mandated by the environment. Just take a look at the requirements for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

Though you can create small companies within a company or create networked company to lower the scale of specific parts of the organization. Another approach is corporate entrepreneurship by introducing an incubation group to start up small commercial high risk initiatives without the boundaries of the existing corporate culture where managers would not like to burn their hands on high profile and high risk projects.

Cheers!

Robert

I think you touch on a very pertinent issue that affects everyone and anyone looking to increase productivity within their work enviroment! As a Sales and Marketing agent most of my life, I have found that the common problem of “business meetings” and “social/networking” interaction being a fear factor for many people has caused “email/Wikki’s” to be thought of as the solution!

Unfortunately this is only a solution if time/location is an issue but, poses as a real problem when we use it to replace personal interaction within companies and with clients!

It also brings us the the very real issue of not knowing who your key players are within your organization. I am not only talking about C level suite and above but, everyone from the call center and throughout the company! We all know you will never get to know your staff through electronic communication and that can leave you very unsure about the loyalty and expectations of your employees! This is information that is crucial, especially in a recession economy!

Great topic! Thank You!

All The Best
Danielle Colucci

Employers around the globe are complaining about exactly this. Effective communication is a key interpersonal skill that is lacking especially among newer staff. It is also a culture that is carried forward from one organisation to another. Technology is for our convenience and not inconvenience. Students pick it up whilst at university or school and it carries on to the workplace.
We encourage students to present and debate and you can see straight away, most of them struggle or shy away.

Cheers
Vijay

Take care,

Michael Mango