Henry Lawson | A Blog on Software and Business Management

Static Website Hosting on Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

2017-08-19T00:00:00+01:00

Originally this blog was hosted on Amazon Web Services, using a Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon CloudFront and Amazon Route53. I have now completed a migration to Google Cloud Platform.

Originally I had planned to use Google Cloud Platform's (GCP) equivalent services:

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) with Google Cloud Storage (GCS)
Amazon CloudFront with Google Cloud CDN
Amazon Route53 with Google Cloud DNS

However after exploring further I realized two things:

To use Google Cloud CDN, you need to use Google Cloud Load Balancer (GCLB), which currently costs around USD $18 per month.
Google Cloud CDN is not required when using Google Cloud Storage (GCS) as Google Cloud Storage leverages Google's caching network and your objects are cached close to your users as part of the service.

After discovering this, I realized that the CDN was not needed. I just needed to point the DNS records of my domain to a Google Cloud Storage bucket. However, I then realized that when using a custom DNS record in front of a Google Cloud Storage bucket, only HTTP is supported, your content will not be served over HTTPS - you can of course use a Google Cloud Load Balancer in front of the bucket and use your own certificate, but HTTPS is not served when using the CNAME solution.

Even though I do not have any sensitive content, I prefer to serve all my content over HTTPS by default. Not being able to do that from a bucket was a show stopper.

It didn't take long before I realized that the solution to serving a static website on Google Cloud Platform is to use Google Firebase Hosting.

Google Firebase Hosting provides static content hosting via a global content delivery network using a Firebase domain or a custom domain, over HTTPS.

Using the Firebase SDK, I had my static Jekyll blog website deployed in seconds, serving over HTTPS on my own custom domain. With Firebase's generous free tier, this blog will probably cost me nothing per month, versus the few dollars it used to cost me per month on Amazon.

The final setup was:

Google Domains - Registrar for domain name
DNS with Google Domains - DNS provided by free if your registrar is Google Domains
Google Firebase Hosting - Static website hosting with global content delivery network (CDN)

Google Compute Engine (GCE) Study Notes

2017-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

Below are various notes and links that I have collected while going deep on Google Compute Engine. For an overview of all the notes and this study adventure in general, the GCP Study Plan is a good start.

GCE Home
GCE Docs
GCE Docs - Concepts
Preemptible Instance
1. Short lived
2. Max life 24 hours
3. Much lower pricing
4. Can be terminated at anytime
5. Configure a shutdown script to gracefully handle instance termination, save state to a Cloud Storage bucket
Compute Instances
1. Instance States
  1. PROVISIONING - resources being reserved for instances
  2. STAGING - resources acquired, preparing for launch
  3. RUNNING - booting up or running, can ssh now
  4. STOPPING - instance being stopped or shutdown before being TERMINATED
  5. TERMINATED - has shutdown, can be deleted or restarted
2. Instance Scheduling Options
  1. Triggered when there is a service disruption - hardware failure or maintenance
  2. Can Live Migrate move to another VM host and restart
  3. Terminate or optionally restart it at the new location
  4. Can be configured using availability policies onHostMaintenance and automicRestart
3. Meta-data available to instance via HTTP requests
  1. Can long poll for changes
  2. Can store small amounts of Key Value info
  3. Can be used to "self discover" information for usage by the instance
4. Serial console can be used to debug startup or boot issues
Custom Machine Types
1. Choose custom vCPU and Memory VM configurations
2. Feature allows you to scale vertically
3. Configure VM to match application needs, best fit VM, no waste
Pricing
1. Discount based model
2. No lock in to legacy VM types
3. Reduced priced based on usage period, sustained usage discounts
4. Predefined machine types, treated as inferred instances for billing, allowing you to start and stop instances
5. Algorithm is geared in customers favour, biggest discount possible
Images
1. Multiple standard images
2. Premium images, from supported vendors - extra cost
3. Images are customized to run on Compute Engine
  1. Use Compute Engine repositories for RPM/DEB
  2. IP/Networking configuration tweaks
  3. Other tweaks detailed in docs
4. Can import custom images from on-prem or other clouds
  1. Images can be stored under an image family so compute instance use latest
  2. Windows custom images not supported
  3. Setup bootloader, ensure SSH works, create image file, compress image file, upload it, setup Linux Guest Environment - for GCP features, configure for optimal GCP configuration, implement security bet practices
  4. Image Management Best Practices
5. Community images, not supported by GCP but by community
Accessing Instances
1. Can manage SSH keys manually, be aware that keys will need to removed and cycled as the team members change, prefer using gcloud tool if manual keys are not needed
Instance Groups
1. Managed Instance Groups scale to the number of instances defined in the group, can sit behind a load balancer, use an instance template to define what instances should look like
2. Unmanaged Instance Groups, for legacy applications that need to sit behind a load balancer but will be scaled and provisioned manually, snowflakes behind a Load Balancer
3. Managed instance groups can use the Instance Group Updater, using various params to control how many minimum instances are maintained and max instances updated at any given time, updates can be canaries before rolling out, can be proactive - will actively update instances or opportunistic - will wait for instances to die or be scaled up or down by an autoscaler. Instance Group Updater can also do restarts or recreations
4. Managed instance groups can be updated via rolling updates, they can be paused, continued, rolled back or canceled
5. Managed instance groups can have health checks applied to them
6. Instances in a Managed instance group can be abandoned from the group to allow you to debug and tweak the services, they will also be removed from load balancers
7. Detect and recreate unhealthy instances in the group
8. Zonal vs. Regional, regional spans multiple zones in case of zone failure
9. Tip, over provision regional managed instances to allow for the unavailability of one zone
10. Tip, configure regional autoscaler to have higher max instances and lower target number to account for over provision for zone availability
11. Managed instance groups can be used to deploy docker containers
12. Autoscaling in a Managed Instance Group done via Autoscale Policy which can be based of Stackdriver metrics, CPU utilization, etc.
Storage Options
1. Persistent disks, local SSDs, Cloud Storage Buckets, RAM disks
2. Disks have different limits and performance characteristics
3. Number of disks is dependent on vCPUs
VM IP Addresses
1. Static external IP address - available for use by any instance in the project
2. Ephemeral external IP addresses - assigned to an instance when started, released once it is terminated or restart
3. Regional Static IP - can be assigned to an instance or network load balancer
4. Global IP - used with HTTP(s) or SSL load balancing, not an instance
Load Balancing and Autoscaling
1. HTTP(S) load balancing - cross region, can forward based on URL
2. Network load balancing - single region, non-HTTP(s) services
Global, Regional and Zonal
1. Assets fall into one of the above categories
2. Zones are independent of each other, separate cooling, power, networking control panes
3. Regions are collections of Zones
4. Users can be restricted to certain quotes in different zones
Identity Access Management
1. Can create a custom service account to assign to an instance to allow it to access GCP services
2. Instances provisioned with a default service account that allows read only access to some basic services, this can be deleted
Container VMs
1. Container VMs allow running of docker containers through a definition in a YAML file when the compute engine is created

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Study Plan

2017-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

Recently, for various reasons, my interest in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) has peaked. I have had exposure to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and as such, I am fairly comfortable with their offering, platform and services. However I have not had the chance to be exposed at the same level to GCP.

Below is a plan I have put together to help improve my knowledge of GCP, it is quite thorough, I don't intend on getting through all of it but it is a plan to get the ball rolling.

Connect with the public community, go over popular content:
1. GCP Podcasts
2. GCP Blog
3. GCP Medium posts
4. GCP Twitter
5. GCP StackOverflow and SeverFault
6. Google Groups Mailing lists
7. GCP public GitHub repos
8. Follow GCP developer advocates - twitter, medium, blogs
9. Follow any popular non googler GCP - twitter, medium, blogs
10. GCP YouTube Channel
Search for any books on GCP or GCP products, add them to the reading list
1. Google Cloud Platform in Action
2. Site Reliability Engineering
Review the certifications and study guides, record resources for deeper learning later
1. Cloud Architect
2. Data Engineer
Read over to a shallow depth, GCP's services and offerings
Compare and contrast popular cloud offerings, identify gaps and strengths
1. Azure
2. AWS
Rank GCP services by ubiquity and begin studying and building solutions with them. For each service:
1. Read over marketing content, client stories, GCP website pitch
2. Read over GCP documentation
3. Identity and watch any popular GCP or third party how-to videos or tech talks on the product, GCP Next videos, Udemy, Qwiklabs, safari books online, google code labs etc.
4. Configure using GCP web console
5. Configure using GCP API
6. Configure using GCP Cloud Deployment Manager
7. Go over configuring service with Terraform, Puppet, Chef, Salt understand maturity and flexibility of integration with GCP or third party products and clouds, are any features missing etc.
8. Determine how product integrates with other GCP products, IAM, Load Balancers etc. integrate and try, understand best practices and improvements
9. Contrast experience with AWS and Azure equivalent product
10. Analyze the business and tech problems this product can help solve
11. Determine the elevator pitch for this service
12. How can it be used by a development team in DEV, UAT, PROD; how can config and changes be promoted through environments? Think through scenarios and devise answers
13. How can it be tested? Can the testing be automated?
14. How is it monitored? What can be monitored?
15. How is it secured? How can a large organisation isolate and provide this service to teams? With manageable blast radiuses?
16. How can it be configured to be highly available?
17. What does the perfect setup and or best practice look like for an enterprise organisation?
18. How is the billing formulated? How can the cost be reduced by users?

As for the study order for services:

Revert on Red Build

2016-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

A typical action when working in Trunk Based Development (TBD) is to revert a commit that caused a red build. Sometimes this is the appropriate action to take. Sometimes it is not. This article provides some learning's and discussion points to consider before mandating that all commits that caused a red build should be reverted.

It should be noted that these points are specific to a particular team's setup and not all of these challenges are present in all TBD setups. For the project in question, there were multiple apps, each with their own repository, the team was doing TBD for each app. An app's pipeline ran in isolation up until it produced and published an RPM. The team had limited VM's to deploy and run functional tests against the integrated apps. So it was typical for a change in one app to be published to an RPM and then wait for the functional test VM's to free up before they were deployed, by the time the functional VM's were free there would typically be at least 1 other app bundled up with that pipeline run.

The above while not an ideal setup is typical in most organizations as they don't have the budget to provision enough infrastructure to support running each commit in isolation through the entire pipeline. If each commit can run through the entire pipeline in isolation, it might make some of the points below moot. However, when reverting (if the team is large) it is likely that subsequent commits have been pushed before the build turned red, making the revert slightly more complicated.

A revert may not be appropriate when:

It is a simple fix to address the problem, time to do the fix and push is less than the time to revert and push.
Database migrations have been run in a higher level testing environment and it may require manual effort to undo the migrations.
Multiple commits have bunched up together from various pairs and apps and have failed together in automation, reverting your change may introduce another issue, reverting everyone's changes to the last green could have more adverse impacts and is a bigger/riskier commit.
The issue is not related to your commit, it could be environment related and reverting will not resolve it.
There were multiple commits in different repositories and reverting will mean coordinating a revert across all of them.
It may be an issue only reproducible in a deployed environment, it might not be possible to reproduce the failure locally that you are seeing in the deployed environment.
When a pair immediately reverts their commit when they see the build has broken, they loose the opportunity to debug and understand why that failure has occurred. I have been on teams where a pair spent half a day reverting commits, attempting to stabilize the build and get it back to green not realizing that it wasn't their commits that broke the build in the first place, by having the knee jerk reaction to "Revert on Red" they didn't take the time to debug and understand what actually happened.

Before mandating that all red builds should result in commits being reverted, it is important to consider the above points.

One size doesn't always fit all, sometimes it is best to trust the pair to make the best decision with the information they have at hand to remedy the broken build. No one likes the pressure of fixing a build when the whole team is waiting on them. If a revert is the simplest and most appropriate action to take, a pair will do it. A revert is simply a tool in our tool belt, it isn't a hammer to hit every red build on the head with.

A final note is that "Reverting on Red" is a reactive solution, that is, what to do when it is broken. Another way to look at the problem of a red build is through preventative solutions, try asking the team what can we do to avoid this situation?

Acknowledgments:

andrewcare for his insightful feedback on reddit.
Paul Hammant has taken these points to the next level and provided an even deeper commentary on the topic.

Pro Social Incentives

2016-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

In Are You Fully Charged? Tom Rath quotes a study on Pro Social Incentives for teams. I had come across a similar idea presented before in Drive by Dan Pink. My own experiences participating in sporting teams and at ThoughtWorks further emphasized the argument for it.

When motivating ourselves we are much more incentivised if the reward being offered for our work benefits others through our giving rather than receiving a reward ourselves.

In one of the experiments, good work was rewarded with money that participants were directed to spend on a bill, expense, or gift for themselves. In contrast, participants in the “pro-social group” were given an incentive but instructed to spend the money on a teammate instead. Even though the study was conducted with a group of pharmaceutical salespeople (which is a traditionally competitive profession), the team that had incentive to do good for someone else saw greater gains in performance than the team with a more selfish incentive. Are You Fully Charged? by Tom Rath

From my personal experiences I have found my work to be much more rewarding when the result of my work allows me to provide a benefit to another person and not just to myself. That said, I believe that a Pro Social Incentive is most effective when their is already some baseline of incentive for the individual already established, i.e. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Bad Analogies

2016-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

In software engineering we often try to draw parallels with our profession and other engineering or creation industries. These analogies often make sense initially but breakdown as the analogy goes deeper into the process. It also encourages misinterpretation and sets an unrealistic expectation of how software is created.

The typical analogy that is put forward is that building software is like building a house or a bridge.

Initially this makes sense as both processes have the following phases:

Engineers consult with the customer to understand their needs
A design of the entity is created
Engineers work together to construct the entity
The entity is completed and handed over the customer to begin using

When we look at this high level process. The two disciplines have a lot in common. Unfortunately it is only at this higher level that things fall into place. Where software engineering begins to drift away from other engineering disciplines is:

A house or bridge has known environment variables - the weather, climate and seasons are typically well understood before design and will not change significantly for the lifetime of the entity. This provides some predictability to the engineers so their design can be built with enough resilience to meet extreme changes in environment variables. In contrast, the environment around a software system is constantly changing at a rapid pace, the users skill levels, technologies, devices are constantly changing, attempting to future proof a design to be resilient to these changes is impossible as no one can predict with certainty the direction the environment around software will take.
The needs of the users of a house or bridge will not significantly change over time and the solutions to those needs is a solved well understood problem. A house or bridge consists of several well known components, for example a bathroom, kitchen, bedroom and lounge room. A customer of a house will usually be able to predict with high certainty how many of each component they will require and the capacity that each component needs to support. That is a house will contain 3 to 4 residents, as such 3 bathrooms are required, 4 bedrooms and a single kitchen and lounge room. Software systems however may start with predictable capacities but grow at exponential speeds, as such those initial components might not scale with the growth in user numbers. It is hard to imagine an engineer designing a house to sleep 4 that could in a few years be turned into a hotel serving millions or that even though they asked for a kitchen, they have since learned that everyone eats out, no one uses the kitchen , so they'd like it replaced with another bathroom. This however is a common story with software systems.
Software is easier to change than physical infrastructure which de-emphasizes the need to "get everything right at the start". If you design a software solution with the expectation that it will not be easy to change (like a house or bridge) you build in unneeded, excess complexity. Which is not required as software is more malleable and can be changed to adapt.

The common theme between the above points is that when building a software system, variables external and internal to the system are constantly and sometimes rapidly changing. These constantly changing variables require a different process and different methodology to engineering.

When we draw parallels between other engineering practices and software, we underplay these variables and as such create the expectation that software can be predictably and uniformly executed like other disciplines.

Acknowledgments:

norwegianwood for his insightful feedback on reddit.

Down Migrations

2016-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Having worked with database migration tools in anger for several years, some best practices have become clearer over time. The most important is with the usage of down migrations. In this article I'll provide some learning's that have resulted in my devaluing the purpose of such scripts.

A typical database migration tool will provide the ability to write an "up" and a "down" script. An "up" script, updates the schema and or data of the database to the latest standard for that point in time - it "upgrades". A "down" script is also written that will downgrade the change performed by the "up" - it "downgrades". The "down" script is typically used when an issue occurs during a deployment and the changes to the database by the "up" script need to be undone.

The "up" and "down" scripts are written under the following assumptions:

The changes are non destructive, i.e. they are not a DROP, DELETE, TRUNCATE, these type of changes are impossible to reverse
A "down" script assumes all parts of the "up" script have failed and need to be undone, typically this is not the case, it might be possible to write multiple "up" and "down" scripts for each small changes but testing each in combination for a deployment can become complicated
The execution of the "down" script is done in coordination with the reversal of the application code too
The execution of the "up" and "down" script is done during an application downtime when no new data is being inserted between "up" and "down", building in an assumption that is being updated and inserted after an "up" and before a "down" compounds testing complexity. Typically an issue introduced by a deployment may not become apparent until multiple users have attempted transactions, by this time it may no longer be possible "roll back", the only option is to continue to "roll forward"

In practice, the above assumptions never hold true. Instead it is more beneficial to:

Write an "up" script that is compatible with all versions of the application in production. If there is an error in the application code or the migration, nothing needs to be undone, as the app and database can continue to work together at different versions, nothing needs to be undone.
Rely on database technologies such as snapshots and restores to recover from any migration failures, these are more reliable as an automated snapshot recovery procedure can be created once and will allow for recovery from more types of failures. In comparison a "down" script requires testing for each script and each permutation and expected failure type.

Book Review - The Challenger Sale

2015-09-20T00:00:00+01:00

The Challenger Sale was another great read on sales and sales tactics. Similar to SPIN Selling, it focused on the interactions and discussions with the customer and how to approach and nurture the relationship for success.

The book is based on a study of an organisation and the information and advice the book provides is based on the learning's and findings from the authors research.

In their research, authors Matthew and Brent discovered five types of sales workers, these are:

The challenger
The hard worker
The relationship builder
The lone wolf
The reactive problem solver

They then studied these types of sales workers to understand which approach lead to the most success. Their finding was that the first type, The Challenger, was most successful.

When they deconstructed what actions these sales workers were taking and found a set of actions they called Constructive Tension, challenger sales workers, taught for differentiation, took control of the sale and tailored their messages for resonance. All of these actions kept the customer engaged and positioned the sales worker and his organisation as knowledgeable experts who understood their customers business.

Teaching for differentiation involved providing insights to their customers on industry trends, unique perspectives, compelling industry issues, potential land minds, etc. The sales workers would use these insights to lead conversations and lead towards solutions and implementations. Conversations such as these, also help to create a sense of urgency for the customer and their organisation to act on this information.

Tailoring for resonance is about ensuring that the message or insights being shared are framed and relevant to the customers being pitched too. Challenger sales workers need to understand the buying influences of the customer, their needs and desires and tailor the message to have an impact on them.

Taking control of the sale, contrary to what it's name might suggest, it is not about being aggressive towards the customer in moving them through the sales process. Instead it means to plan purposefully, planning for and anticipating questions, preparing answers in advance, knowing the client, being prepared for the negotiation and to avoid pitfalls such as discussing cost and money too early without first setting an understanding of value and without understanding why cost is important to the customer.

Overall the book provided some great insights into the customer interaction and provided some solid advice on how to approach and execute the conversation.

Book Review - Strategic Selling

2015-09-19T00:00:00+01:00

The New Strategic Selling provides a firm framework for classifying and following through sales in a structured way that can be repeated and standardized in an organisation.

Having taken an interest in selling, selling tactics, and psychology, I found the book quite informative as it detailed a process focused approach to selling in a structured way that I could see applied easily on top of what most businesses are already doing.

The New Strategic Selling is a process for the "complex sale". That is a sale that involves multiple stakeholders and parties and must satisfy a range of requirements and terms. This in contrast to the "simple sale" which is a sale that typically takes place between two people where the buying decision is made by a single person.

The book provides some great insights, the most valuable of which I found to be their definitions of different Buying Influence's in the sale. These are the Economic Buyer, User Buyer, Technical Buyer and Coaches. The book then details what to expect and how to deal with each of these influences throughout the sale. It is important to identify these persons early on in the sale as they all play a key role in securing the sale.

The other valuable piece of information I gained from the book was the definition of the Sales Funnel. A process for categorizing opportunities and steps on how to move an opportunity further through the sales process.

Other pieces of wisdom gained were around Response Modes; a category of types to classify what mode an influencer in the sale is in and some advice on how to structure and approach an influencer in one of these modes.

Overall, I found The New Strategic Selling to be a great "macro" selling book. Unlike The Challenger Sale or SPIN Selling, it does not focus on the details of interactions and conversations of the sale but instead takes a step back and looks at the entire process. The provide a structured format to qualify and proceed if the conditions are appropriate. The methodology they provide is one that is generic enough to fit all organizations and would compliment well with the aforementioned resources.

Book Review - Influence

2015-09-13T00:00:00+01:00

Influence by Robert B. Cialdini is one of my all time favorite books. After reading it, it changed the way I looked at everyday interactions.

The insights Cialdini shares are truly valuable. Everyday, during our common interactions we are naturally influenced by certain things. We are usually oblivious to what these influences are but we usually feel them afterwards. It might be during a negotiation for a car, after the purchase of an item or after following someone's less than helpful instructions.

Cialdini and his years of research have distilled down these influences into six clear principles. What I appreciate the most from this book is that he is not sharing his gut feelings or observations but he is sharing years of academic research by him and his peers.

The six principles that Cialdini has identified are, Reciprocation, Commitment and Consistency, Social Proof, Liking, Authority and Scarcity. Below are my rough notes.

Reciprocation
- People like to return the favour and often return favors at levels exceeding the initial favour or gift
- Christmas cards sent to randoms, people replied with cards
- People feel indebted, the feeling results in over compensation
Commitment and Consistency
- People like to be consistent in their actions and words
- Private and public consistency matters, the latter more
  - Written > Spoken > Thoughts
Social Proof
- People often look to see what others are doing as evidence for what they should be doing
- When there is an accident people look to see how others are behaving and reacting and look to their surroundings for guidance
Liking
- People are influenced by people they like
- Attractiveness matters, people like people they are attracted too
- People like people that are similar to them
- Honest compliments, make people like someone
- Contact and cooperation creates a bond
- Conditioning and association with things can result in liking, for instance people of respectable positions in companies, celebrities, status
Authority
- People of authoritative positions command influence
- Connotation not context, actors who play roles as doctors are respected as doctors
- Titles, people with titles in front of their name receive recognition, for instance people are less likely to argue with someone who is a PhD doctor, even in the field they don’t have the PhD in
- Clothes, uniforms and outfits can command authority and have influence, suites a tie
- Trappings, expensive vehicles and accessories can command authority
Scarcity
- Mormon temple was only going to be open for a few more days, people became desperate to go on the tour even though they have zero interest, simply because it was their only opportunity, scarcity principle
- People psychologically want something that is of limited availability

Book Review - Crucial Confrontations

2015-09-12T00:00:00+01:00

Soon after reading Crucial Conversations I picked up another book by the same authors called Crucial Confrontations. Since then the book has had a second release and is now called Crucial Accountability.

Where Crucial Conversations focused at handling tough conversations as they evolved in everyday situations. Crucial Confrontations detailed an approach to deal with higher stakes dealings where emotions may be running a lot higher.

These notes were captured as I read through the book, it is by no means a substitute, the book itself is a gem with lots of insight.

Work on me first

Choose What and If
- Ensure you are confronting the right problems
- Ensure facts, stories and emotions are allowing you to see the person as a person rather than a villain
- Choosing what problem to discuss
  - Identify and deal with the right problem otherwise it will not go away
  - You are dealing with the wrong problem if you are not getting the results that you want
- Use CPR to hit the right target
  - Content - Talk about the content, the facts about what just happened
  - Pattern - Discuss the pattern that has been happening, focusing on the facts
  - Relationship - What effect has this had on the relationship, lack of trust, doubt their competency
- Look at consequences but don't get caught up in Stories
- Look at intent but don't get caught up in Stories
- Choose from the list by considering what you do and don't want for:
  - Yourself
  - Others
  - The relationship
- Don't let your Stories or bias affect you in determining the core problem
- What crucial confrontation to hold and if we should hold it
  - What - CPR, what came before the behavior; the intent, what came after the behavior; the consequences. Cut to the heart.
  - If - Am I acting out? Am I telling myself I'm helpless? Am I falling to silence? Will the social system support your effort? If others are saying nothing, differentiate yourself.
Master your stories
- Set the right tone, your first sentence or two will set the mood and climate for the conversation
- See and Hear > Tell a Story > Feel > Act
  - We assume people act the way they do because of disposition (personality and character traits)
  - We often forget about forces in the environment (the situation)
- The stories we tell, help justify our worst behavior
- Be conscious of falling to silence or violence
- See the other person as a person
- Avoid ugly stories
- Why would a reasonable, rational, decent person do that?
  - What other sources of influence are acting on this person?
  - What’s causing this person to do that?
  - Since this person is rational, what is causing them to act irrationally or irresponsibly, what am I missing?
- Become curious, discuss as a scientist not a vigilante
- Six sources of influence
  - Self, motivate (Pleasure or Pain)
  - Self, enable (Strength or Weakness)
  - Others, motivate (Praise or Pleasure)
  - Others, enable (Help or Hindrance)
  - Things, motivate (Carrot or Stick)
  - Things, enable (Bridge or Barrier)
- Crucial Confrontation preparation
  - Master my stories
  - Tell the rest of the story
  - Look at all six sources of influence
  - Expand motive to include the force of others

Confront with safety

Describe the gap
- Start with safety, share your path, end with a question
- When you want to have a crucial confrontation, what not to do, these tricks leave people feeling manipulated, patronized and don't create an environment that makes people want to contribute healthy dialogue:
  - Don't play games
    - Don't sandwich (compliment, say what you mean, compliment)
    - Don't play Entrapment (ask loaded questions and then destroy their response)
  - Don't play charades
    - Don't drop condescending visual queues (look at your watch, frown when someone is late)
  - Don't pass the buck
    - Good cop, bad cop - make someone else look like the bad guy
  - Don't play read my mind
    - Being vague and forcing the person to discover the issue
- Be honest and respectful
- Start with safety
  - When you don't respect them as a person (mutual respect) or don’t care about their goals (mutual purpose) people feel unsafe.
  - If you are starting a conversation and you feel the person is going to feel offended or become defensive, start with a preventative contrasting statement
  - Contrasting is when you explain what you don't intend with what you do intend
  - Establish mutual purpose to get people onto the same page or to establish common ground. Let others know your intentions are pure and that your goal is to solve problems and make things better for both of you.
  - Ask for permission for sensitive issues, speak in private, don’t group attack
- Focus on facts
  - Stay external - describe facts and events, not stories
  - Explain what, not why - don’t draw and share conclusions, they are bad stories
  - Gather facts from people - people will share stories with you, grab the facts
- Don't use absolute language
  - You said => I thought you said
  - It's clear => I was wandering if
- Step out of the content to restore safety, use contrasting
- End with a question to hear the other persons' point of view
Make it motivating
- People are motivated by the consequences they anticipate
- Change a persons perceived consequences to change their behavior, their motivation
- Don't use sneaky tricks to get motivation
  - Charisma - only in the movies
  - Power/Force - negative impact on relationships, does not help in the long term, people will get even causing a negative cycle
  - Perks - undermine and destroy the satisfaction of doing the job
- Use natural consequences to motivate people
  - Explore all natural consequences, find the one the person cares about
    - Link to existing values (find stuff they care about and highlight the natural consequence related to it)
    - Place the focus on long term benefits
    - Introduce the hidden victims (highlight the negative impacts of their actions)
  - Make the invisible consequence visible while maintaining dialogue
  - Watch for the line between dialogue and threats
- If people are not receptive, check safety, step out and use contrasting, remind them of the your mutual purpose
- Stop once you reach critical mass
- When you have to, consider discipline:
  - When natural consequences constantly fail, consider imposing consequences of your own
    - Know the mechanics and correct procedures
    - Partner with people with authority
    - Be appropriately somber
    - Explain the next step
    - Be consistent
    - Don't back off under pressure
- When all else fails, discuss a work around - less responsibility, lower role
- Ensure action items are made when the discussion ends
Make it easy
- Ensure the person is able to do the job before motivating them
- You are a facilitator, enabler and supporter
- Tools for making it easy
  - Jointly explore barriers (avoid quick advice)
  - Jointly resolve issues
    - Involvement both enables and motivates
  - Involve others, empower them, it will provide motivation to overcome problems
  - Ask for ideas and input, be genuine
- Brainstorm ability barriers
  - Self
  - Others
  - Things
- Once you have identified barriers ask:
  - Will this person keep facing the problem?
  - Will others have similar problems?
  - Have we identified all the root causes?
- Provide advice only when necessary, allow the discussion, learning's and discoveries happen organically
- Pop the question -
  - If you have dealt with motivation, check ability (It sounds like you are willing to do this, but is there anything still standing in your way? Is there anything else we need to deal with that will stop you from getting this done by Tuesday 9am?)
  - If you have dealt with ability, check motivation (If I get those documents up to you by 1 pm, are you willing to get that done for me by 5pm?)
- Make it safe for others to search
  - Ask for permission - Check to see it is OK to catch up and chat about the issue.
  - Ask for feedback - Phrase it in a way where you are looking to see the solution to the issue from your perspective, what can I do to enable you to do what is needed.
  - Prime the pump - Offer some suggestions if they are not willing to add dialogue.
Stay focused and flexible
- Be flexible
  - Note new problems
  - Select the right problem (original, new or both)
  - Resolve the new problem and return to the original issue
- Be focused
  - Deal with problems one at a time
  - Consciously deal with new issues, don’t allow them to be forced onto you
- Typical reasons for focus to change:
  - People feel unsafe
  - People violate trust
- If a pressing issue pops up, bookmark your place in the conversation and step out to discuss the new issue “I’d like to talk about what just happened”
- When someone becomes overly emotional, use AMPP to help them to explore their paths, once the issues are brought to the surface, take action and resolve them together, dissipate the issue so you can resolve the problem
  - Ask - Express interest in other persons views
  - Mirror - Acknowledge the emotions people are feeling
  - Paraphrase - Once people start sharing, restate what they said in your own words to show that you understand
  - Prime - If others are not sharing, take a guess and share what you think they may be feeling

Move to action

Agree on a plan and follow up
- Who - ensure someones name is attached to a task
- Does what - define clearly and simply what is to be done and expected, use contrasting to ensure clarity
- By when - ensure a date is agreed on
- Follow up - decide when and how you will follow up based on
  - Risk - how crucial or risky is it
  - Trust - track record?
  - Competence - how experienced is this person

Book Review - Crucial Conversations

2015-09-11T00:00:00+01:00

One of my favorite books on soft skills is the classic Crucial Conversations by Vital Smarts. I first read the book a few years ago and since then I constantly find myself reflecting back on many of the insights I gained when reading it the first time.

Below are my detailed notes from various readings and searching on the internet for discussion and notes on the book. While my notes down there are fairly lengthy, the book itself does a fantastic job of teaching the material. I highly recommend reading that first.

1. Start with heart

Person you can directly control is yourself
Focus on what you really want for yourself, the relationship
Refuse the fools choice
- Search for healthy options to bring you to good dialogue

2. Learn to look

Be aware of where the conversation is heading
Be aware of how people are reacting in the conversation
Look for when the conversation becomes crucial
Look for safety problems
- People moving towards silence or violence
Look for outbreaks of your Style Under Stress
Ensure that all parties are comfortable and able to add to the positive pool of dialogue

3. Make it safe

Step out of the conversation
- Is Mutual Purpose at risk
- Is Mutual Respect at risk
Apologize if appropriate
Contrast to fix misunderstanding
- What you don't intend or mean
- What you do intend or mean
When you are at cross purposes, use CRIB to get back to mutual purpose
- Commit to seek Mutual Purpose - state that we need to find a mutual purpose, bring the dialogue back to identify one
- Recognize the purpose behind the strategy - Ask people why they want what they are pushing for, separate demand from the purpose it serves
- Invent a Mutual Purpose - If still at cross purposes, invent a higher level purpose to find mutual motivation a goal
- Brainstorm new strategies - With a clear mutual purpose join forces to find a solution that serves everyone

4. Master my Stories

See and Hear > Tell a story > Feel > Act
Analyze your stories, question your conclusions, look for other possible explanations behind your stories
What story is creating what emotions
- Get back to facts
Abandon your stories and concentrate on the hard facts only
Watch out for clever stories
- Victim - "It's not my fault"
- Villain - "It's all your fault"
- Helpless - "There's nothing else I can do"
Ask yourself, to tell the rest of the story
- Am I pretending not to notice my role in the problem?
- Why would a reasonable, rational and decent person do this (remember your mutual purpose)?
- What do I really want?

5. STATE my PATH

When you have a tough message to share
When you are convinced of your own rightness
Don't push too hard
Remember to STATE your Path:
- Share your facts - State your persuasive, true and non controversial facts, not your opinion!
- Tell your story - Explain what you’re are beginning to conclude, in a light manor
- Ask for others paths - Encourage others to share their facts and stories
- Talk tentatively - State your story, don’t disguise it as fact!
- Encourage testing - Make others feel safe to express differing and opposing views

6. Explore others paths

Make it safe
Use AMPP to help get people to explore paths
- Ask - Express interest in other persons views
- Mirror - Acknowledge the emotions people are feeling
- Paraphrase - Once people start sharing, restate what they said in your own words to show that you understand
- Prime - If others are not sharing, take a guess and share what you think they may be feeling
As people begin to share their views remember ABC:
- Agree - Agree when you share views
- Build - If others leave something out, agree and then build
- Compare - When you don't agree, don't say they are wrong, compare your two views "I think we see things differently", use STATE to explain your views

7. Move to action

Turn a successful crucial conversation into great decisions by moving to action
Determine how to decide:
- Command - Decisions made without involving others
- Consult - Input is gathered and subset decides
- Vote - An agreed upon percentage swings decision
- Consensus - Everyone comes to an agreement
Decisions should be put into action through assignment
- Who?
- Does what?
- By when?
- How will you follow up?

Book Review - Switch

2015-09-10T00:00:00+01:00

Switch by Chip and Dan Heath is a book on influencing and driving changes in behavior. The book uses the metaphor of an elephant and it's rider. In their metaphor, the rider represents our logically thinking mind, the elephant our internal do-what-I-feel-like subconscious mind.

The metaphor plays well with itself, a person atop a large animal. It is easy to imagine our logical mind (the rider) dealing with our sometimes sporadic and uncontrollable subconscious wanting to do things on a whim or how they were always done (the elephant).

Chip and Dan break down the process of driving the rider and elephant into three key steps. Direct the rider, Shape the path and Motivate the elephant.

Directing the rider is about talking to the logically thinking rider and setting them up to respond to the change. To do this, Chip and Dan recommend you look at the problem objectively and identify the bright spots, find the areas that are doing it the right way. Script the critical moves for the rider by limiting options and making it easy to do the right thing and pointing the rider to the destination by making it clear what success will look like.

Shaping the path looks at building successful habits, rallying the herd and creating an environment that is self perpetuating. The area around us can dictate our behaviors and actions, use this major influence to your advantage to drive change.

Motivating the elephant provides steps to direct and encourage our subconscious into action. To do this it is advised to trigger an emotional response to the change, don't just dictate it, make it easy for people to connect with it. Shrink the change and make success easy, start small and introduce early wins to stimulate motivation. And finally grow your people, help people form a self image that is consistent with the goal so they feel motivated to be consistent with their image.

Not only does the book go deep into each of these topics. Dan and Chip teach the content through story telling. The whole book is rich with case studies, academic research stories and personal experiences making many of the points more memorable.

Book Review - Made To Stick

2015-09-06T00:00:00+01:00

The Heath brother's Dan and Chip have laid out a simple acronym to apply when presenting an idea that needs to stick. The acronym is SUCCESS.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die is true to it's title. When presenting ideas we often get caught up in expert speak, we present the details, the facts, the information but often leave our audience disengaged and uncertain about our message.

Days, hours or even minutes after we have presented, our audience may struggle to recall the crux of our message.

Made to Stick takes a look at why some messages stick better than others and distills the learning's down to the SUCCESS formula. A convenient acronym for important elements to incorporate into a presentation or writing to ensure that your key message is understood and stays with the audience long after it was presented to them.

The SUCCESS acronym stands for:

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Stories

"If you say three things, you are saying nothing", distill the main idea down to the core compact concept and the Commander's Intent are the keys to keeping a message Simple. Avoid conflating a message with multiple arguments and positions, the simplest proverbs are the most memorable.

Provoke curiosity and avoid the obvious when presenting information or stories about your idea. It is often the stories or facts that surprise us, that stick with us. Ensure your message is presented in a way that it is unexpected to the audience.

There is nothing worse than an idea or message that is abstract and unrelatable. Memorable messages are presented in terms that the audience understands, they are tangible, descriptive, avoid biases and are unambiguous. They are concrete messages. Ensure your message is concrete for the audience.

Facts and statistics are important. Your message has to be credible. Supported by authorities and anti-authorities. When presenting this information, avoid presenting just the numbers and information, provide vivid details, present facts and statistics that are testable by the audience, create an impact, show underlying relationships and compare data to enhance the impact. Try and find a statement that fulfills the "Sinatra Test". A statement such as, "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere".

An emotional link is also important. Avoid provoking the analytical mind. Appeal to peoples values and self images, use influences in the community and social aspects to stimulate emotion. People are wired to feel for tangible things, not facts and figures.

Being able to link it all with a story that stimulates the imagination and provides further context. Allow your audience a way to relate.

By incorporating elements of the SUCCESS method into the presentation of an idea, you should be left with something that is memorable, something that is sticky. Much of the formula presented by the Heath brothers is backed by studies in psychology and builds on a lot of other theory done in the subject. For this reason, I look forward to being able to put it to use soon.

Book Review - What Great Sales People Do

2015-09-05T00:00:00+01:00

What great sales people do by Ben Zoldan and Michael Bosworth was a good read on selling through the use of emotional connection by listening and sharing stories.

Much of the content in the book is focused around the art of sharing stories and being able to connect and resonate with buyers, leading them through the sales process through story telling.

The material presented in the book is general enough that I think it is applicable not just in sales but in the common act of sharing and communicating ideas in a persuasive manner.

The book presents a common framework for story building by defining a Setting, Complication, Turning Point and Resolution. The framework that they present, named the Story Leaders Card System, assigns a colored card to each topic and guides you through the thought process of constructing a story that has each of these aspects.

With this framework you are encouraged to build stories about your product to assist in moving customers through the sales ladder and also to create stories about yourself to answer questions such as:

Who I am?
Who I represent?
Who I've helped?

The book rounds out at the end by emphasizing the importance of empathic listening presenting the model of Awareness, Encouragement and Reflection. Highlighting the importance to allow your customer to speak and for you to understand what it is they are saying with their verbal and non verbal cues.

Finally the book covers the topic of selling to a large organisation and talks about the model of adoption and the importance of having stories that are viral enough that key people in the organisation begin telling and inevitably sell for you. To do this they use the analogy of Story Teller, Tribal Leader and Tribes.

Book Review - Drive

2015-09-05T00:00:00+01:00

Dan Pink's book on what motivates us, Drive, has been an insightful read. Having seen the RSA Animate video on what motivates us and his TED talk I already had a small taste of what to expect. The book solidified a lot his thoughts and research on the topic and I found it quite informative.

His passion and interest in the topic comes out in the book and it has left me with a good vocabulary on the topic with clear ideas on what to apply in the future.

The book begins by going over the different forms of motivation that we have subjected ourselves to over the years. It began with Motivation 1.0, our needs to survive, to eat and provide for our families. As the world developed the motivation moved towards Motivation 2.0, the sticks and carrots era. In this era, motivation to work was driven by rewards and the fear of punishment or negative consequences. The last stage, Motivation 3.0 is where Dan's hypothesizes the world is moving towards. His thoughts and ideas are well researched and throughout the book he presents academic studies and mature advance thinking organizations that posit his claims.

The key takeaways for me where around his discussion on Motivation 2.0 and his ideas on what Motivation 3.0 is. The traditional forms of motivation through extrinsic factors of a title, salary or fear of joblessness can only drive so much motivation from us. For creative jobs where there is an expectation to do more than a medial structured repetitive task, this form of extrinsic motivation is limiting. To truly motivate ourselves we need intrinsic forms of motivation. Internally we all have a drive to do well, to help others and to create a better world. To tap into these desires we have to ensure that the our work is structured in a way to allow us Autonomy, to find Mastery and have a clear Purpose.

By accident, or by purposeful design I can see many of these elements being present in the organisation I work in. I've had the privilege of experiencing first hand that if your organisation provides work in a way to give you full Autonomy to structure, design and complete the work in a way that you feel comfortable. And provide you with the support, opportunities and time to master skills you are passionate about. And to make the overall work purposeful with clear outcomes. It can set up the whole organisation for success.

Drive solidified for me and provided a clear explanation for much of what I have observed and learned working in an organisation that has a culture of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Having gained a language and body of research on the topic, I look forward to being able to introduce many of these ideas with our clients.

Book Review - Getting Past No

2015-09-01T00:00:00+01:00

Getting Past No by William Ury built on some of the ideas presented in Getting To Yes. The book went deeper on the topic of dealing with a difficult counter party who has immediately taken the position of "No" in an argument.

In a simple to follow formula, Ury has laid out 5 steps to the deal with this situation in a negotiation.

The first thing is to not react. When dealing with a person who has taken a strong position. It best to first control your feelings and not become emotional. If the behavior of your counter party is offensive or triggers your emotions, pause for a moment and allow your self to collect your thoughts.

Once collected, begin disarming your opponent by stepping to their side. Listen to them, ask clarifying questions, paraphrase statements and focus on areas of agreement, build on common ground.

After the conversation has returned to a productive level, change the game. Start understanding what their interests are. Most likely they have only shared their problems. Now it is time to understand what their underlying interests are. Ask clarifying questions, the "Why" and "Why not".

Make it easy for them to say yes and hard for them to say no by removing obstacles that prevent agreement, offering multiple choices and building with them on the options that they find agreeable, share credit to reach a solution and ensure that they do not lose face in the agreement. If they continue to show resistance, reemphasize the importance to reach an agreement, share previous agreed upon items and consider sharing your BATNA in a none threatening way.

Book Review - Getting to Yes

2015-08-31T00:00:00+01:00

The traditional form of negotiation follows the painful dance of both parties deciding what they want, stating what their position is and then making small compromises until both are happy with the agreed upon outcome. The problem with this form of negotiation is that inevitably leaves one party feeling hard done by and the other exhausted or guilty after the bending the other party to their will.

This traditional form of negotiation is known as "Negotiating over a Position". Once two parties have stated their positions, such as "I will not pay more than 20 dollars for this" and "this product will not be sold for less than $50". We have already backed ourselves into corners and have only given our counter party the information to argue over the number - rather than understand why we believe it is worth $20 or $50 dollars and what could be done to satisfy the underlying interests that are supporting our stated positions.

Getting to Yes provides a simple set of four steps to apply to any negotiation scenario to help achieve an outcome that both parties can be satisfied with and that explores all options.

The book starts out by describing the problem of "Negotiating over a Position" and then goes on to explain the two typical roles in this negotiation, hard and soft.

When being Hard over a position you are typically left tired and exhausted from holding out for so long and your team is probably burning out.
When being Soft over a position you are typically left feeling hard done by or you feel cheated as you have made more concessions than you were comfortable with.

Rather than negotiate using this format. Roger Fisher and William Ury suggest that you should instead employ the following techniques:

Separate people from the problem
Focus on interests not positions
Invent options for mutual gain
Insist on using objective criteria

By employing these techniques to a negotiation, you are better able to put emotion away from the problem and look at it objectively by not confusing it with the person. By focusing on interests, you can resist the natural reaction to argue over someones position and you are encouraged to look past and understand what their underlying interests are. Inventing options allows you to explore opportunities that can satisfy both parties interests in novel ways. And finally, by using objective criteria you can be assured that you are both reaching an agreement that is fair and unbiased to personal opinion or preference.

Book Review - SPIN Selling

2015-08-30T00:00:00+01:00

In an effort to learn more about selling and sales I picked up SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham and Bob Kalomeer. The book is a fantastic read as it brings a pragmatic, well researched approach to sales conversations that can be immediately applied, not just to sales but to everyday life and consulting as well.

SPIN Selling is a book based on research and studies conducted by a group of researchers from the Huthwaite Institute. They took an academic look at sales techniques and identified what successful people are doing to succeed in sales.

The researchers discovered that successful sales people guide their customer with a series of questions. The questions that these sales people use typically fall into a series of categories. As the conversations progressed over time the researchers discovered that these series of questions would lead the customer towards closing the sale. The technique follows a Socratic style of questioning. The SPIN Selling technique is in contrast to the typical form of selling by first showcasing a series of features and benefits. Then secondly, matching those features and benefits to the customers needs. And, finally establishing a superiority in the market of the sales persons product or service against their competition. This traditional technique was found to be less successful than the SPIN Selling technique.

The SPIN Selling technique follows the below form of questioning:

Situational Questions
Problem Questions
Implication Questions
Need Payoff Questions

Successful sales people often use a mix questions from each of those categories and move between them during the sales conversation. The key takeaway for me is that the questioning is used to help direct the customer towards identifying and addressing their needs, through this style of questioning you lead the customer to realize their problems and potential solutions.

The book also identifies other behaviors and actions of successful sales people these are in the areas of identifying customer needs, successful actions and how they define success.

Further details on the SPIN Selling technique and these successful behaviors are captured in the Mind Map below.

Design in Software

2015-08-10T00:00:00+01:00

Design is more the art of preserving changeability than it is the act of achieving perfection. Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby by Sandi Metz

Too often when refactoring it can be easy to get carried away trying to refactor and optimize to a structure that is perfect, expressive, concise and readable.

The quote above is a good reminder that what we really need to design for is something that preserves our ability to change it. I have learned this the hard way. More times than I'd like to admit, I've refactored to a solution that is more difficult to change than if it was just left untouched.