InRhythm

Your partners in accelerated digital transformation

InRhythm News

Customers are Much, Much More Than Signed Contracts

December 3rd: Customer Collaboration Over Contract Negotiation

Like most things, how you see something is a matter of perspective. The lens that you look through is shaped by experience, environment, who you’re influenced by and the attitude you take towards life and the given topic in particular.

Applying a customer-centric lens to branding, product development and marketing seems like an obvious thing to do, however, it wasn’t until the 1960s when Lester Wunderman urged companies to do so. Moreover, it wasn’t until the turn of the last century when customers took control with their collective new ability to dictate a brand’s narrative via the internet and dawn of social media. So, this concept of customer-centricity, in practice, is actually a modern way of thinking.

“Agile Value #3: customer collaboration over contract negotiation” is an example of a customer-centric approach. However, the core component of the directive is essentially the same. It’s all about communication.

That doesn’t mean unilateral outreach where you as the brand are sending messages, postcards, coupons or holiday catalogues. What it does mean is creating a forum for open dialogue in the spirit of true communication where conversations are bilateral. Doing so ensures that pain points can be discussed until they are understood and then resolved.

As agile product developers, the responsibility of maintaining a health dialogue with our customers is up to us. All too often, I have heard software engineers citing that communication with a client is the responsibility of the sales and marketing team. Not so!

We’re the people who are typically onsite with the customer. It is up to us as the agile craftsmen to deliver our best work to our clients so that their light can shine brightly. Clients look to us as their trusted advisors who are there to help them meet their needs, deliver quality work on time and help ensure our client’s success with their customers. Losing sight of the value of wearing a customer-centric lens compromises our ability to deliver our best for our clients. As soon as we we make it about ourselves and not our clients, the work environment will become more challenging and potentially even toxic.

The concept of collaboration over contract negotiations delineates the difference of being regarded as a vendor versus as a partner. Here at InRhythm, we know which side we aim to be on. Approaching software engineering with agile methodology requires that we are constantly communicating with our clients, assessing their needs and anticipating their needs even before our clients realize that things have shifted.

This brings us back to perspective. If we communicate regularly, with transparency, and deliver quality work in a timely manner, our clients will view us with the lens of partnership. Conversely, if we view our clients with the lens of a signed contract and the dollars tied to it, our perspective will be tarnished. As software engineers, we will struggle to deliver our work with that passion and quality that is required to fulfill the demands of an agile effort.

Agile Value #3 is the reminder for all of us that the lens that we view our work with is critically important. Viewing our deliverables and efforts with a client-centric perspective will positively impact how they view us. And, it can make all the difference between doing business versus being out of business.

Thanks and Keep Growing,

Gunjan Doshi

CEO, InRhythm

What We’re Reading Around the Web

The Real ROI Of Being Customer-Centric
Entrepreneur
“No business will survive long without satisfying its customers. That much should be evident to any company whether it is established or just starting out.”

100 Of The Most Customer-Centric Companies
Forbes
“Customer-centric companies live and breathe their customers and are laser-focused on providing amazing experiences.”

Customer Centricity — Marketing as customer-centric corporate management
Medium
“[The] key to success: a more radical focus on humans. Genuine customer centricity requires to rethink all functions and levels.”

6 Ways to Build a Customer-Centric Culture
Harvard Business Review
“To successfully implement a customer-centric strategy and operating model, a company must have a culture that aligns with them — and leaders who deliberately cultivate the necessary mindset and values in their employees.”


We are the Living Lab: InRhythm’s Learning and Growth Newsletter

October 22nd: Agile Craftsman in a Living Lab

For more than 15 years, InRhythm has been in the business of practicing agile methodology, building high velocity teams and accelerating product development through a combination of staffing solutions, processes and tools. We’re agile craftsmen, constantly learning, testing new ideas and sharing what we’ve learned or developed with our partners. In essence, we are a living lab for agile best practices.

Going forward, our Learning & Growth newsletter and InRhythm blog will highlight agile values and principles through examples to demonstrate how we are putting each of the values and principles into action. As agile craftsmen, it is imperative that we assess every process and method with a lens designed to identify inefficiencies. When recognized, these opportunities for improvement must be raised and discussed as a team to uncover ways to address the inefficiencies.

Within our own walls at InRhythm, we analyze processes to learn why they work – and why they don’t. Learning by doing is often the best form of instruction. Agile craftsmen must recognize that there is the potential to fail and “feel the fear but do it anyway” in the words of Coach Jeffers. 

Our practice leads scrutinize each effort at each partner and bring back new ideas and best practices. Internally, we test these new concepts, practice implementing and executing them then review what we did with a lens on how to make it better. By first testing new ideas ourselves, we can assure our partners that we are bringing vetted concepts forward to make their high velocity teams even stronger. As a living lab of agile craftsmen, we cannot be afraid to pivot.

Inherent in our success is learning, learning through observation, application and implementation. What doesn’t work within our own walls is unlikely to work at a partner site. Recognizing the difference between an agile concept that has the potential to be beneficial once artfully defined and practiced versus a concept that is flawed in its conception and will never work despite excellent execution can only be done through trial and error. 

A hallmark of agile product development and of high velocity teams is failing fast. However, in order to fail, you first need to try. Wayne Gretzky, a hockey legend, masterfully articulated this his popularized quotation, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Over the weeks and months ahead, we look forward to sharing some of our “experiments” as agile craftsmen practicing new concepts to make the available to you and our partners.

I’m interested to learn how have you been able to apply internal learnings to your business success, and create your own living lab? Share your thoughts with @GetInRhythm or on the InRhythmU blog.

Thanks and Keep Growing,

Gunjan Doshi

CEO, InRhythm

What We’re Reading Around the Web

What is Agile Testing?
Guru99
“Agile Testing can begin at the start of the project with continuous integration between development and testing.”

Engineering Higher Quality Through Agile Testing
Atlassian
“Project owners face an unwelcome choice: delay the release, or skimp on testing. (I’ll give you one guess as to which option wins 99% of the time.)”W

Agile Testing, Principles & Advantages
ReQtest
“Agile testing not only facilitates the early detection of defects but also reduces the cost of bugs by fixing them early.”

Agile Methodology: The Complete Guide to Understanding Agile Testing
RTricentis
“This frequency has forced testers to shift when they conduct testing, how they work with developers and BAs and even what tests they conduct, all while maintaining quality standards.”


Achieving High Performance Cultures: InRhythm’s Learning and Growth Newsletter

October 8th: How to Achieve High Performance Cultures

Everyone wants a high performance culture. Here’s why it matters. Research shows that high performance organizations have a 14% job turnover rate compared to 48% as seen in low performance organizations. 

Throughout nearly 20 years of management consulting, I’ve completed over 100 organizational assessments of companies ranging from startups like Yodel and Vimeo to great enterprises like Consumer Report and Amazon. These assessments revealed the reasons why companies struggle to attain high performance cultures. Additionally, these evaluations highlighted how investments in team culture enabled transformation into successful enterprises. 

The key message is that high performance cultures require what we refer to as “10x teams.” Success of 10x teams is not the result of a secret formula. Rather, it’s based on an approach that can be consistently repeated.

That said, one of the main roadblocks to developing 10x teams is the process itself. Furthermore, the obsession with process. There is a preconceived notion that adoption of a process, whether it be agile development, safe or lean mindset, or some other process, will solve every problem. Not so. 

Working with my clients has illustrated that it is the convergence of people, culture, process and business structure that spurs the magic. Ultimately, it is this convergence that creates 10x teams and high performance cultures. The adoption of key practices accelerates performance improvement. These practices include pulling group members together, propelling groups into action, encouraging groups to push boundaries as a team so that they can achieve an increasingly greater impact together over time.

Off-the-shelf processes for 10x team transformation simply do not exist. Bespoke processes must be developed based on your people, culture, org structure, geography and so on. Efforts to design a process in the absence of these factors typically have the reverse effect: your business will slow down and you typically will not achieve the desired outcome. Additionally, unintended consequences include expectations for a transformed culture which is unattainable with a vanilla approach. Confusion and dissatisfaction often result.

Without a doubt, based on my experience, adopting a generic process that does not factor in the aspects unique to your business is the number one reason teams are prevented from becoming 10x. Another important consideration is that team transformations are dynamic processes which are either cumulatively additive or negative. Given that the long-term goal is a sustainable culture, continuous adaptation is required to keep your teams and company moving in the right direction. 

I’m curious. How has process limited your organization from growing and what barriers have you come across along the way? Share your thoughts with @GetInRhythm or on the InRhythmU blog.

Thanks and Keep Growing,

Gunjan Doshi

CEO, InRhythm

What We’re Reading Around the Web

Why Some Rules are more likely to be Broken
Harvard Business Review 
“Our intuition was that rules that were high in either type of complexity would be harder to follow. Because organizations rely on routines for following rules, complex rules would require complex routines, which would be harder to execute reliably.”

5 Team Attributes that are Killing Your Creative Tension
WForbes
“Fear of failure can stifle the engagement, speaking up and risk taking that are hallmarks of creative thinking.”

Companies do Best when they Encourage this Kind of Culture
Forbes
“Businesses do best when they’re built around high-purpose cultures, which are equally focused on both employees and customers.”
 


Principles of Raising the [Hiring] Bar: InRhythm’s Learning and Growth Newsletter

August 2nd: Principles for Raising the Bar

We all know the significance of an outstanding hire – they drive business forward, raise the bar for other employees, and enrich your culture. Great hires can elevate an entire organization, and it all starts with the interview process.

Over the past two decades, I’ve led hundreds of radical transformations for huge enterprises and revolutionary startups. I’m also a CEO, and in my tenure I’ve seen the tremendous return of a good hire. These experiences have provided me with a clear view of the attributes that set great interviewing apart from average interviewing.

For many organizations, the Interview process is not planned nor strategic – but it needs to be. Consider this: If you’re bringing someone into your family, you spend so much time making you sure they’re compatible in terms of values, long term goals, and how they will bring positivity into your life.

We spend more time with the people we work with than we do our own families, and interviewing is the one tool the corporate world has to figure out if someone is a fit. When considering a new hire, focus on three key factors: personality traits, skills and background.

The interview process is also a way to provide an experience for interviewers, so if it doesn’t work out, much like dating, it’s should be considered a learning opportunity. The good news is, it’s never too late to realign and improve your process to ensure you are hiring the right talent for your organization. My experience as a consultant and CEO has provided me with a ton of insight to a variety of hiring processes, from which I’ve developed some key principles for raising the hiring bar. 

1. Hiring the right people should be a part of everyone’s job. 
Yes, everyone. Hiring well is an organization-wide effort. All your employees are the face of your organization to potential talent. 

2. Define your success 
How do you know if you’re hiring the right people if your definition of “right” isn’t clear?

3. Do your homework
The best interviewing requires prep. You need to prepare for every interview, every time.

4. Value culture fit above skills fit 
Clear out the noise in your recruiting process: emphasize the characteristics and criteria that really matter to your organization.

5. Improve your team with every hire
Every new hire should be a huge improvement over your existing people. Every person you bring in affects your culture, for better or worse. Which direction do you want your company to go?

6. Empowered recruiting: your hiring council
While everyone should be a stakeholder, it’s important to empower the individuals in your organization with the skills to take you (and your hiring) to new heights.

7. Constantly raise the bar
Everything you do as part of this process should aim to exceed, not meet, previous expectations.

My next few newsletters will dive deeper into these principles. Each will cover a separate area of the process, but also depend on each other for success. As always, please share your thoughts and experiences with hiring or interviewing with @GetInRhythm or on the InRhythmU blog.

Thanks and Keep Growing,

Gunjan Doshi
CEO, InRhythm

What We’re Reading Around the Web

9 CEOs Share Their Favorite Interview Questions
Fast Company
“How many degrees separate the hour and minute hands of a clock at 3:15? If this seems like a surprising question, well, that’s sort of the point. “I want to understand how somebody thinks about a very new problem in a difficult situation, and how they respond to that under pressure.”C

Job Etiquette Isn’t Just for the Applicants
Wall Street Journal
“If you treat candidates poorly during the recruiting process, they’re going to tell their friends. You could get away with that in 2009, but you can’t get away with it in 2019.””

The Traditional Job Interview is Dead
Inc.
“You’ve heard the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Yet here we are in 2019, still interviewing like it was 1989.”i

How to Hire the Right Person
The New York Times
“These chief executives have developed through trial and error to help you go beyond the polished résumés, pre-screened references and scripted answers, to hire more creative and effective members for your team.”


Communication is Crucial: InRhythm’s Learning and Growth Newsletter

July 18th: Communication is Crucial

Over the course of my career I’ve leaned that communication is the key to building meaningful relationships. When I look back at the defining moments in my life, whether it be pitching a potential new client, exploring an opportunity for partnership, or having a difficult discussion with an employee when things are just not working out, there were critical conversations that have dictated my success and the quality of relationships I have been able to create.

There’s a video from the 90’s about a man who avoids communicating with others because he’s having a bad day. He internalizes his frustrations until he’s given a pair of glasses and is able to see the pain points of those around him. Towards the end of the video, his frustration transforms into compassion, and he is able to open a dialogue to start a conversation. This video has always stuck with me because it emphasizes a simple yet profound point: you never know what someone may be going through, and the only way to make a connection is through communication. 

I adopted a strategy from the book Crucial Conversations – Tools for talking when the stakes are high. The model outlines a process that, from my experience, sets you up for a more successful outcome when having a critical conversation. According to the authors, there are seven steps to holding crucial conversations in a positive space when surrounded by highly charged emotions:

Stay in dialogue

Make it safe

Don’t get hooked by emotion

Agree a mutual purpose

Separate facts from story

Agree to a clear action plan

The first step is for me, the most important. I’ve learned that how I discuss something can impact what I am trying to discuss, so by managing my mindset, being open to the outcome and starting with positive intent, the conversation starts and ends with respect and efficiency. 

By following the method of working with people rather than through people, and not letting necessary conversations go by, even when difficult, I’ve found that I’m able to ensure there is clarity around responsibility, expectations are defined and standards are maintained. The conversations are deeper and more honest, and thus a new type of bond is formed that helps transform personal situations and relationships. 

Effective communication and critical conversations are not only key to a successful business, but also a skill a necessary skill for a truly fulfilling life. What methods of communication have you found to be effective and impactful? Share your thoughts with @GetInRhythm or on the InRhythmU blog.

Thanks and Keep Growing,

Gunjan Doshi
CEO, InRhythm

What We’re Reading Around the Web

A Communication and Collaboration Strategy is Fundamental for Business Success
(2 min. read)
CIO
“Even in the digital era, business is about sharing information among people. At many companies, though, that means trying to share information using a variety of communications and collaboration tools that have accreted over the years with little to no planning. Many of those tools offer a specific set of functions that no longer match what the company needs. Others let valuable information go uncaptured because they don’t integrate with functions in other solutions.”

Communication is the Most Important Business Skill, Says CEO
(3 min. read)
Business Insider
“When someone concentrates fully on a conversation, considers the content, and demonstrates an understanding of the message, the person on the other side feels valued — and is more likely to be agreeable. Bad listening creates the opposite effect.”

10 Must-Have Communication Skills for Business Success
(7 min. read)  
Salesforce
“Communication helps us learn about new opportunities, manage our education, and ultimately maintain and cultivate important connections. But it also helps within a business; with employees, customers, and shareholders; and in virtually every other aspect of business.”

The Role of Effective Communication in Entrepreneurial Success
(3 min. read)
Entrepreneur
“Entrepreneurs and businesses often struggle to apprehend their true potential without good communication attributes. Most people negate acquiring good communication skills over the importance of accomplishing technological skills which may impede the business profitability. On the contrary, effective communication overwhelmingly payback a business in lucrative ways impacting both internal and external associations.”