Managers are spending a great deal of their time and efforts to be aware of what is going on and taking actions if there is an out of order situations. Those tasks can easily require hours from managers having to monitor a large number of tasks and employees. Although there is plethora of software, they are either too complex, cumbersome, or specialized. Managers end up tracking their operations and employees through status reports and status meetings using emails, spreadsheets and schedulers such a MS outlook.

This impacts the organizations because of managers lose hundreds of hours yearly on inquiring what is going on or is there risk of omission. This is even more prevalent when the teams to be managed are distributed geographically. Not timely managed out of order situations may lead to costly errors that may have high repetitional and client impact.

Potential for task management is unlimited. People do tasks to achieve results. Any other activities are related to task being (for example collaboration, sharing, searching). In fact project management is a particular case of task management not the way around. The potential of task management is so great for organizations, that it can become as prevalent for business as the social network is for individual task management. There is an attempt to disrupt the market with collaborative and social network, but we believe that organizations need task management to manage their business.

iFollow helps managers to be aware what is going. It allows them to track repeated sequences of task, individual tasks and measured data point over time. Employees and co-workers interact with iFollow only through their email eliminating the adoption barrier across the organisation. Any out of order situation, for example past due or out of range value, are detected by email alert, and color coded in a dynamic timeline visual overview.

It appears that overconfidence in Moody’s was one of Desjardins biggest mistake in this matter. The irony here is that Moody’s rate negatively institutions (Desjardins) that are in difficulty because they relied on Moody’s positive rating of certain financial product. It sound like Moody’s rates Moody’s’ negatively.

The current financial crisis is a serious situation because it affects the foundation of the banking system: trust.

In most cartoons, the image of a bank is that of a safe behind bars, protected by security guards.  This concept represents the essence of a bank, a place you trust to keep your money.  Trust is so important that in a bank, all decisions are based on the impact that the decisions will have on the bank’s reputation.

Many years ago, banks realized that they could lend money in return for an interest rate.

Imagine a world of one small bank in a small village with total deposits of one dollar.  One day, that bank lends that money to one villager.  That villager will spend that money at some point.  That money will be deposited back in the bank.  The money deposited can be lent again.  This wheel is the economic engine. The faster and the bigger the wheel, the better the economy.

Banks can multiply the money lent ad infinitum, provided that there are no loan losses or rapid withdrawals of money.  In realty, there are loan losses and not all money can be recovered.

Let’s say that there is an economic crisis in the village where people could not pay back their loans anymore.  The village bank would be in real trouble because it lent the same deposit to others multiple times.  Sounds familiar, there will be a domino effect that could result in a catastrophe.

So there is a regulation that caps the bank lending power, limiting the amount of money that the bank can lend versus the capital in reserve.  This is called the capital ratio.

This capital ratio is defined in accordance with the loan losses probability.  It is determined by the credit default probability (PD) and the losses given in the event of default (LGD).  [That leverage power bank is used it to borrow from other banks].

The probability of default is knowledge that banks accumulate over time.  With this knowledge, risk managers analyse risk factors that could contribute to a default (for example, capacity to pay back, stability, employment.) 

The main cause of the credit crisis lies in the other part of the equation.  The perception of risk of losses in the event of default (LGD) has been removed by guaranty (derivative) from other banks or insurance companies.   That is what AIG was doing for mortgages.

Consequently, banks felt compelled to lend almost ad infinitum because their capital ratio requirements was alleviated by the reduction of the LGD to zero. They even overrode basic credit policies.

In a traditional credit crisis, the default is on the borrower side.  The problem here is twofold because both borrower and bank are in default.  To solve the problem, both aspects must be addressed: 1) the foreclosure must be prevented to stabilise the losses of values.  The mortgage must be allowed to be renegotiated by taking into account the capacity of payment and the real estimated value of the house. 2)  Trust between banks must be re-established by the government, by insuring banks that they will not fall apart.   Those actions will help resolve some aspects of the credit crisis but trust in the banking system will not come back soon.  In my view, the greed that stretched the system to the max should be made to pay.

1. Not understanding the nature of the Internet.  Too often, design teams think of the Internet as a pushing media such as television or radio. Users’ behavior on the Internet is different than when they are reading books or newspapers, listening to the radio or watching television. For example, when browsing, users have goals and look for information.  If they don’t find what they are looking for, they will leave the page after 8 to 12 seconds.  Users scan web pages.  They don’t read.  If something looks like an ad, they will rapidly look someplace else.
2. Forcing users to guess what is clickable or not.  Design teams expect that users will figure out what will be clickable on their page.   This is not the case.  In most cases browsing is non-mandatory and users do not put their full attention on a website.  In this context, it is very likely that they will not click on a non-visible link even if they understand that a cursor changing from an arrow to a hand means a clickable region. Blue underline hyperlinks are the most effective.  Users perceive such hyperlinks 50 milliseconds faster.   In the world of limited attention resources, loosing 50 milliseconds of user attention means leaving money on the table
3. Not understanding the interactive aspect of the Internet.  Too many design teams see web pages as a static entity.  They have design meetings with color printouts of web pages laid out on a table.  They get clients or management to sign off on a project with static pages.  When people talk about a book, they don’t talk about the front page but rather about the story.  Discussing interaction issues with static pages is like talking only about the front page of a book.  Since interaction is dynamic, this process results in poor design decisions where too much emphasis is put on superficial aspects, such as the look.  Never forget: user interaction with web site cannot be describe, written or verbalized, it can only be observe.
4. Using ads in the same way they are used in traditional media.  Internet is a goal-driven media with very limited user attention.  The bandwidth of user attention is similar the one we have when looking at a billboard on the highway: a few seconds.  Worse, on the Internet, users are not captive but in control of the interaction.  This does not leave much room to be pushing ads.  The only effective way to do that is to position related items at the right time and place.  This requires designers to understand the probable sequence of users’ goals (the path of attention) and to position related items for cross-sale or up-sale in the form of links inside the useful field of view (5-7 cm diameter on a screen).
5. Copying others.  Too often, designers start with the designs of others as the basis for their own design.  The reasoning is that because other companies use a certain approach, it must be good.  This lazy way of solving problems often results in solutions that do not solve the target user problems.  Instead, the focus should always be on solving the target user problems first.  Once the design team has a clear picture of the users and their problems, and only then, can they take a look at how others and the competition address those issues.
6. Cluttering pages with too much information. On home pages and landing pages, user attention is 8 to 12 seconds and reading speed is about 3 words per seconds.  This corresponds to a total of about 25 to 35 words.  The useful field of view is about 5-7 cm, leaving a space of about 4 to 5 groupings on a web page.   When reading a list, users abandon after 5 to 7 items unless the lists are organized in alphabetical or numerical order. 
7. No back button. Users expect to be able to use the browser’s back button.  There are so many websites that do not permit the use of a back button.  Often, IT (Information Technology) people bring security issues as a reason for the lack of a back button, but the fact is that its incorporation requires them to do more work.  Who should do the work, your millions of users or the programmers?
8. No concise writing.  On the web, users are not fully attentive and tend to scan a page.  This means that the comprehension capability of a user with a college degree will be equivalent to that of a user with a fifth grade education.  The writing must be simple, short and right to the point.  To achieve this goal, designers must reduce the quantity of text by 50% in the first review and reduce it again by 50% in the second review.  The text must be tested many times for clarity.
9. Pop-ups. They are annoying, disruptive and do not provide browser navigation capability.  In addition, they cannot easily be printed and are often blocked by pop-up blockers.
10. Small font size. This is the most commonly violated rule.  All sites should provide readable fonts.  With a contrast of 100%, the font size must be equal to 1/200th the distance of reading.  On a computer screen, this means a size of about 3.2 mm.  For a standard font such as Arial or Verdana, it is about 11 points.

During my study, the teacher just exposed briefly the postulate of relativity and went on spending most of the time in class deducing the equations. We then had to go home solving problems for hours. I was thinking I understood it, but in fact, I was like a technician capable of solving problems and passing an exam. I must admit I didn’t grasp the full philosophical meaning of those equations. The teacher skipped the fundamental philosophical questions on the relativity theory. Only years later, after reading other books on relativity did I fully grasp the concepts.

Contrary to the teaching I received, Einstein starts in his magnificent paper by first defining time. He showed that what is simultaneous for one moving body compared to another might not be for the other. With those notions and the principle of invariance of physics law that includes the invariance of speed of light, it is easy to understand that the classical notion of absolute time must be abandoned. After stating the fundamental principles, Einstein went on deducing consequences of those philosophical principles, the mathematical equation and the consequence on the notion of space and energy.

Einstein provided the fundamental philosophical concepts first and deduced the equation while the current teaching is just based on applying equation to solve problems.

In education today, little time is spent on the philosophical questions underlying the history of discoveries and the fundamental principle behind those notions. In science and engineering, most of the teaching time is spent developing equation and students manage to pass the exams.

The teaching is like junk food, it is ”junk education”. Students get cramped with a lot of technical stuff without really spending time on underlying philosophical questions. I suspect that’s why, the bridges designed by Quebec engineers (from the OIQ) since 1970 are crumbling. Engineers are trained not to question norm and standard; they are just applying formula without questioning as long they are protected.

Einstein used to say that ”Imagination is more important than knowledge”. During a trip in the United States, a reporter asked Einstein a question from the Edison questionnaire (a list of 150 factual questions): ”what is the speed of sound?” He admitted ”I do not carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books”. So Einstein would have failed that question in an exam.

I attended the IDSA conference in October 2007 where Sir Ken Robinson gave a talk on education. It was very much in line with Einstein. He stressed that imagination is the most important intellectual skill. He explained vividly that our education system destroys imagination. I invite you to watch his talk keeping Albert Einstein in mind.

1. Experts cannot assess terminology choice and evaluate task compatibility. Terminology and task compatibility account for the majority of usability problems. To my knowledge, the only effective approach to evaluate terminology and task compatibility is through usability testing and field study.
2. The importance of heuristic (guidelines) depends of the context of use. For example, is the user going their once in a lifetime? Or is he a power user going there all the time on a mandatory basis.

As I always do, I complied telling the client I will do heuristic evaluation with the help of informal usability testing instead of pure heuristic evaluation. That way, I don’t loose time explaining clients why they are wrong. I asked a few colleagues or friends to act as subjects for the informal usability testing who could be representative of the audience.

Following the evaluation, I found the design of the portal was poor but I was not surprised, I have often seen bad design throughout my consulting practice. As usual, most usability problems were associated with confusing wording, task compatibility issues and funky use of interaction techniques. Up to now nothing unusual. I went on presenting my findings. But, while presenting, the client constantly interrupted me saying this or that; we cannot change it because it is a decision from the upper management. In some cases the minister himself got involved in the design choices.

Only later, after the formal usability testing where all users failed on all tasks, I got the client to admit the design was poor. At that point they had no choice but accept my recommendations. This situation is painful because it places the management in a bad position. They were involved in poor design decisions.

More recently, a client in the airline industry told me he does not want to hear about usability because everybody has a different opinion. They often end up asking the CEO to decide. Again, I will have a very challenging consulting project because it might show the CEO made the wrong decision. Of course, I will try to find ways around it but nevertheless, it is not easy.

For many organizations, design (user interface design, user requirement, and functional specifications) is a painstaking process involving fierce battle between stakeholders. When they do not agree, they escalate to upper management for decision.

Escalating design decision that otherwise should be taken by the design team is a sure recipe for politics. If decisions are wrong, it will be uncovered sooner or later. Then, you will be in serious trouble.

How to prevent this?
If you’re an executive, never get yourself involved in detailed design aspect. Keep yourself at the goal level and let your team design solutions. If your team tries to get you involved in design deadlock, it is because they have not done their homework or they lack expertise. Your project manager might say there is a deadlock; he needs your help to move forward. He will try to reassure you by saying he will fix the usability issues later. Don’t believe that, it will never happen and you will get stuck with a poor design for years. Stress it to your team you don’t care if the screens are blue, white or yellow as long as users were able to achieve their goals rapidly, without hesitation and errors. Get an external usability company to evaluate the design of your internal team so you will get an objective assessment of the design. Don’t worry about the susceptibility of your people, there is an easy way to manage that. If you don’t show leadership, you risk to be stuck with poor design for years if not forever.

Never forget, usability equals productivity. The first reason why we use technology is to improve productivity, so good design is extremely important.

If you are member of a project team, base your design decision on facts instead of opinion. How? Learn usability best practices, build a prototype and test your design with users with usability testing. If you do not have this expertise, don’t hesitate, get and external consultant in usability.

The current version at the financial institution is a Windows based GUI (graphical application based). The proposed version was totally web based. After a business review that included a field study and cognitive analysis, I discovered that both the current and the new software didn’t meet the business needs. In fact the current version required lot of manual entries and was highly error prone while the new version would not address those issues and would, in addition, require three times more user action.

I soon made my client aware of this. The project manager, who is from the information technology department, reacted by saying the project scope is to make the transition, respect deadlines and budget. Meaning he does not want to change the plan. Information technology department even contested my findings and required me to demonstrate the facts again. After revisiting my findings they realized that the situation was even worst than they expected it. In the end, the financial institution followed my recommendations because the facts were rock solid and we found a solution that would integrate existing technology already in use at the financial institution.

Sounds familiar? Many IT (Information technology) projects are planned and scoped before analysis or field study is done. In many instances, the justification is a technology replacement or and upgrade. Over the last twenty years I devoted my consulting practice on project turnaround and I encountered hundreds of similar situations.
Last year I attended a three day PMI (Project Management Institute) training camp. What amazed me the most was the widespread acceptance by the PMI community of the irony of planning and estimation for software projects.
Here is the problem:

To estimate a project, you must first know the amount of work required to complete the project. To build two (2) kms of road will require twice as much work than building one (1) km.
In a software project, the amount of work is defined by what (the functions) you will build. You will have a good idea of the functions you will build after the functional specification phase. Since the functional specification is usually done after the planning and estimation, you get the information you need to estimate the project after the project is started. It is a bit like if you have to plan and budget the medical treatment before the diagnostic is done.

I can assure you that in physics, my previous career, you would get fired or put aside fairly fast if you come up with something like this.

What is more, estimation at the planning stage is guesswork. In PMI methodology, they mention arcane techniques such a point of function method or historical data or some other combinations but again, this is, in my view, a sophisticated cover up for guesswork. Yes, there are calculation methods but the input assumptions are based on human judgment (guess). Those judgments vary from one person to another. Often, the estimator does not have any ideas about the business and operations. For example, in the Government of Quebec, software architects estimate after meeting user’s representatives that previously met business analysts who never met end-users.

Typically, once estimations are done, budget, scope and timetables are established. The board approves the budget, people are hired and project execution begins. If you discover in the course of the project that real business needs differ from what you planned, the story above is repeated. The project manager will tell you it is out of scope. Or he might say your new findings could be filed as change at the end of the project. Remember, he is hired to execute the plan even if proven wrong. Isn’t he?

There are solutions:

1. Do you ask yourself if the application you are using (email, office application etc) is in Java, PHP, C Sharp, etc? Most of us will answer “I don’t care”. In fact, 100% of the user experience (UX) is provided by the user interface (UI). So why not start the project by the end. Why not design and test the user interface before the project is established and a budget is set. Then you will know what to build.
2. Look at other industries, such as automotive or aerospace. They all start by verifying their biggest risks first. When Airbus or Boeing want to develop a new airplane, they build a large-scale model, display it at Bourget salon and take orders even if the plane does not exist. If there is not enough order, they will cancel the project. Car manufacturers, design clay models, present those models in a show room to verify if the client will buy it. Then they will plan production. So both automotive and aerospace start by the end.
3. Remove red tape and bureaucracy. Allow direct communication between developers and users
4. Invest in continuous business analysis processes where field study (ethnographic study) is part of the culture. To my knowledge, the best approach to do business analysis is the cognitive approach.
5. Budget business analysis and diagnosis throughout the operation on a continuous basis.
6. When executing verify risk by simulation, experimentation or calculation.
7. Allow information to circulate though project by keeping project size small

This graph shows the evolution of George W. Bush’s approval rating over time. His approval rating rose to 68% in March 2003, at the beginning of the Iraq war, and declined steadily after that. It is now at 26%. Not only did the war not proceed the way he had told people but there is a growing number of Americans questioning the idea of going to Iraq in the first place.

How to lead?
First: be right
No matter how good you are at executing and communicating, and how much charisma and resolution you have, if you are wrong, you will fail. Churchill was resolved but he was right. In the hiking story above, the leader was sure of himself but wrong. He overestimated how lost we were.
To be right, you need facts.
In real life, we do not know with certainty the actual situation. In the context of uncertainty (most real life situations), the more certain you are the more likely you will be wrong. Facts are even more important in uncertain situations. Why? What you know and what don’t know are facts. ”I am lost in the forest” is a fact. If the leader in the hiking story would have admitted the true level of uncertainty about how lost we were, he could have proposed a series of tests. For example, he could have propose a short walk in a different direction to gather more facts about the current location. A negative result would then have been seen as new information on where not to go instead.
Second: Communicate facts (reason for change)
It is very difficult to convince people to change something if they are not convinced about what the problems are and their urgency, see John Kotter. Two economists might disagree even if they use the same economic model. By separating fact from opinion, we might understand the input or assumption and understand why those economists disagree. Whenever you make a decision where people must follow your lead, facts are the essence of getting people agreeing on the current situation and the course of action.
In business transformation (change Management), facts are more than data “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (Sign hanging in Albert Einstein’s office at Princeton), facts are like an observable situation that can be described and shared.

Once facts are gathered and separated from opinion, they can be shared during working sessions. Those sessions permit the group to agree on problems. Consequently, it will be much easier to get the group to agree on a course of action once they have agreed on the problems. During those working sessions, the focus is first on the current situation, not the course of action. Ensure everybody that they are respected and never discard people expressing bad news (don’t shoot the messenger). Often they might be your best source of facts. To ensure the free flow of information, remove red tape, formal presentation and favor a more informal organization with a high degree of respect, see ‘‘The Death to Bureaucracy” from Jack Welch.
Third: gather more facts
Often, you need to collect more facts. Creativity and imagination are required to gather facts. For example, in the above story, a series of short walks in different directions is an approach to gather more facts on the current location. Gathering facts is boiled down to: observation, experiment, calculation and simulation. Fact gathering is not a consensus driven process. You are collecting evidence. Never rely on opinion. Humans are biased and opinions rarely correlate with facts.
In business transformation initiative, the best sources of fact are field studies. The field is rich and wild; people develop very sophisticated tactics in real work environment. Knowledge lies in the field, not in meeting rooms. The worst source of facts is the traditional hierarchy : line manager, director and executive. Facts gathered through this path will surely be altered, trimmed down or hidden.
Fourth: prevent bias
Facts may be distorted. When relying on human sources, multiple independent sources are required. Be careful with surveys or focus groups, they do not gather facts but opinions. They provide the tip of an iceberg. Avoid group meetings. Groups are only good to solve problems, to brainstorm or share information.
Objectivity does not exist; you have to cope with that.
No matter how good the information is, if you are biased, or already convinced of the answer, you are in danger. A bias could, for example, lead one to accept or deny the truth of a claim, discard evidence or look for evidence that confirms a preconceived idea (confirmation bias). In the hiking story, the guy seemed so sure of himself that we trusted him even if the direction he gave did not ring a bell to us.
To reduce bias, observe yourself to see if you feel emotional. You need to detach yourself. It is well known that a lawyer should never defend himself or a medical doctor should never diagnose himself. Ask different persons in a one on one session to interpret facts. Don’t give them your thoughts. Observe the difference in their interpretation. Try to think as fresh as you can. Gather all facts prior to a decision. In order to avoid bias, good investigators will collect evidence and then conclude. After all this work, let the decision emerge naturally. If you still do not feel not comfortable, your instinct will tells you there is something wrong, listen to it. It means there are still uncertainties that you have to work with, or simply wait.
The four steps described here relate to making the right decision and communicating that decision (vision) to a group of people. Once you have the right direction and a group of people agreeing with you on the course of action, executing change is a piece of cake.
Leading people in the right direction requires hard work, time, experience and wisdom. You can get there faster by practicing the right thing. For more on the subject, I suggest reading John Kotter on this subject and “Engineering psychology” by Christopher Wickens.

Say a lot with less!

2. Avoid having wrong design goals. For example minimizing the number of clicks. To ensure having the proper design goals, know the users, their goals and the context of use. If users are going to your site once in a while on a non-mandatory basis (online banking, news, shopping…), you have to treat them as a novice. They have to understand instantly how to use the site. In this context, it is preferable having a few more clicks and pages with less information. On the other hand, for power user, speed is more important. In this context, less actions, pages and clicks are more important.

3. Do few things and do them well. For example for an e-commerce site, ease of finding the product, having the right information on the product and trust are the key success factors. For a search engine, ease of entering queries, speed and pertinence are the key success factors. Don’t spread your energy on other features unless you master your key success factors better than any others.

4. Design for user limited attention. On the web, many users have little patience and do many things at the same time (they might go on your site while at work). Within 10 seconds, they will abandon if they don’t find what they are looking for. Since the reading speed is about 200 words per minute, you can provide a maximum of 35 words to read before a user abandons. So minimize the quantity of text. Contrary to TV where the full screen is in use, on a computer, only a small portion of the screen is viewed simultaneously (roughly 6 to 7 cm diameter). This is due to the useful field of view, which corresponds to the subtended angle of the fovea vision. Information must be grouped within this diameter. That’s why banners are so ineffective. For most page layout you can afford about 4 to 5 groups. Avoid long lists of items, users read only the first few items at the top of the list. Organize according to the natural eye path. Remember users start from the top left corner, go to the center and if they don’t find what they are looking for, then they try to go to the left expecting a menu. For this reason, avoid menus on the right. The bottom right is the worst real estate of a page.

This sketch show the typical eye pattern on a web page.

5. Avoid relying on branding. Users do not remember seeing your ads, brochure and other corporate information. Keep your brand simple and name your entire product line in relation to a user goal. If you already have a brand for a product, provide a prompt matching the user goal. This also help SEO (Search Engine Optimization). For the same reason, you don’t need to be that consistent between corporate brochure and web site.

6. Users don’t read, they scan. Users will scan text and when they find something that is likely to meet their goals, they click on it. You better to expect that users won’t read your text. A good approach is to provide just a list of hyperlinks with a large font. You can also provide a small description with a maximum of 15 words with smaller lighter font under the hyperlink. This technique is ideal for a newsletter. Users will scan the list, if they are interested, they will click on it and read the description under it.

7. Ensure users understand your text and graphics. At least 50 % of the usability problems are related to the wrong choice terminology. Users get easily confused between concepts such as events and news, schedule and time table…. Minimize the number of concepts. Don’t worry, users mix apples and oranges. Test and test again your site with real users to find the right terminology.

8. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use basic web controls. You don’t need to create complex navigation structure. A simple menu and the browser’s back and forward button are Ok for most of the cases. Once users have a successful behavior, they continue to us it for other goals. For example, if they find something through the menu, they will try this method again for another goal. Limit your design to familiar controls. Use straight hyperlinks to select a page. You will make more money with blue underlined hyperlinks because the users’ reaction time is about 30 ms less.

9. Use readable font. If users find the information and can’t read it, it’s zero. Why using small fonts? If your fonts are too small, only younger users will be able to read it. With the right size, everybody will be able to read it. Fonts must have a size equal to 1/200th the distance of reading for proper readability. On a computer screen, fonts must be at least 3 mm. For example MS Sans Serif or Verdana at a minimum of 11 points are Ok. Font adjustment controls don’t work because most users that would need them never use them. Those having serious reading problems already have special adjustments on their browser.

10. Be permissive to errors. Users make errors. The best way to manage errors is to allow them. For example, be permissive to various date formats. On the other hand, if users make errors, ensure proper detection, recovery and simple messages. Messages must have two items: the status and the corrective action.

For more information , you should check the Top 10 Web Design Mistakes of 2003 from Jacob Nielsen