<quote> No one goes to the gym to willingly get punched in the face by the senior vice president of boxing. But some folks eagerly pay for a sparring partner when it's time to get better. The difference is obvious, but we've forgotten to say it out aloud. No grades, no check marks, no badges. I'm not in charge of you, and I'm not manipulating you. I'm simply establishing the conditions for you to get to where you said you wanted to go. You tell me where you're going and what you need. You make promises about your commitment and skills development. I'll show up to illuminate, question, answer, spar with, and challenge you. I'll make sure you're part of a team of people who are ready to care as much as you do. We can get real. Or let's not play. </quote>
Started in 2011 as my outlet to share my experiences on personal life and work topics. My handle is khanmjk. My friends & colleagues call me "Mo". This blog is an experiment, work-in-progress. Life: Self-awareness, personal development, growth hacking (quantified self). Work: Software and Systems Engineering, Leadership, Management, New Ideas and OpEds.
Tuesday 29 August 2023
Be the leader you wish you had
Wednesday 31 May 2023
Why I never ran a program without a Project Charter
Lessons on large-scale delivery program management ...
So what do I mean by using the Project Charter in "clarifying the essence" then?
- Start by understanding the why. Why is this program needed? Why is it important?
- Move on to understanding the who. Who are the sponsors, stakeholders and teams impacted? Who will be working on the program? "First who, then what"
- A program manager must be sufficiently well-versed with all the roles expected from the program, and work hard to secure the roles needed. Yes, this means the program manager must escalate to get the people needed for the program (on the bus, as well as off the bus). A responsible program manager would raise all these risks & concerns up-front, before officially kicking off the program.
- Clarify the what, including calling out what's missing - Set up the mental model for the program. What is this program about? What is it not about? What's in scope? What's not in scope? What workstreams make up the program? How do all pieces come together?
- Agree, Align, Action - The 3 As of project execution involve agreement on the deliverable, alignment of all parties involved which includes acceptance of their workstreams and ultimately agreeing on the action plan to execute.
Example Program: Transform Digital Self-Service of a $3 billion run-rate business
Sunday 9 April 2023
How I scaled engineering ops excellence to ±10X with Mission Control
Continuing with me sharing my experiences as CTO, in this post I share the actions I took to help improve an engineering organisation's operational health in our journey of scaling an online video streaming platform from 1X to 10X, from May 2017 to October 2020. To get to 10X improvement takes a journey, which I achieved in under 3 years, and after reaching the goal, I decided I'd learnt enough of the CTO experience and exited, after having set up a strong succession leadership pipeline in place.
- Establishing the team despite constant re-orgs going on at parent company - getting the right people in the right roles at the right time
- Transforming a rag-tag undisciplined team to a disciplined, clear-headed, focused organised unit
- Introducing laser focus on product engineering by unbundling non-core video apps to other businesses
- Being critical on the technology platform by establishing a baseline of the architecture, using third party auditors to rate the scalability of the platform
- Improving physical infrastructure: networking, compute, storage and data centres. Move away from self-hosted and self managed data centres to partnering, shutting down data centres as needed.
- Build an industrial grade networking stack and leveraging modern peering facilities and overhauling the server infrastructure
- Setting the roadmap for cloud by transitioning first from single region data centres, to multiple data centre deployments, to running multiple stacks simultaneously, introducing containers and microservices then finally getting ready for cloud and leaping first into serverless paradigms
- Embracing cloud partnerships with big players: Akamai, Microsoft, AWS, etc.
- Improving product and engineering delivery by revamping and overhauling the agile work processes and backlog management.
- Introducing communications mechanisms that helped remove doubt and earned trust across the many different business units and teams (we were known as the online pirates doing their own thing)
- Improving risk, governance and security - bringing it to the top, raising awareness
- Creating strategic partnerships internally and externally to leverage skills and expertise I couldn't get in-house or afford to build or manage ourselves
- Introduced technical operations controls - Mission Control, more active management of operations daily, 24/7 with increased focus, planning and prep for peak times, like weekends and major events planning.
- Aggressively reducing costs on key platform components whilst capitalising on gains through economy of scale
The dreaded 403 We're sorry, something went wrong
Sunday 19 March 2023
An example of resource planning a 100 person technology team
Saturday 18 March 2023
Visualising a technology roadmap and year plan on just one page
- Physical Platform Infrastructure and Networking - Data Centres (Compute, Storage, Networking)
- Cloud Services commercials & workloads
- Software Engineering - multi-platform, multi-device software development & testing
- Enterprise & Solution Architects
- Video Streaming Hardware & Software infrastructure integration & management
- Recommendations & Content Discovery Engines - AI/ML scientists and engineering
- Agile Program Management Office - Agile Specialists
- Technical Operations & Integrations - Command Center & Mission Control 24/7/365 support
- Security, Anti-piracy, Risk & Governance streams
- The themes that categorise the work so non-technical customers & stakeholders can understand
- The cadence of releases for product feature delivery for product & marketing teams
- The key KPIs our work drives - growth targets for monthly active users
- The key events happening during the year that would put a strain on the platform load/stability
- Show what the tech team will be producing month-on-month
- The owners and points-of-contact for each work stream
Click to enlarge: An example of a technology leader's roadmap / year plan |
Thursday 16 March 2023
How I led the turnaround of a tech platform from 1X to ±9X in just 3 years
Technology Strategy Map - North Star / Key Focus Areas |
Platform growth over 3 years under my leadership |
Wednesday 15 March 2023
How I communicated a CTO's 3 year plan through writing
In Q1 2017, I was tasked to build the future online video platform (Delta) for the group. By the end of 2017, the group inherited another business unit, bringing its own video platform (Sierra) into the mix. The parent company created a new business unit as a result, consolidating a new operating model, bringing all entities servicing online video customer segments into a single operating business unit. With two different product portfolios, serving different market segments and powered by two different technology stacks, Sierra & Delta. Sierra was borne in the digital world from day-one cloud-native, with Delta having evolved from the traditional broadcast PaytTV world, pre-cloud. So you now have two independent CTOs (separated by continents apart) responsible for two different tech platforms, talk about ambiguity! From a high-level cost accounting perspective, it looks like there's much duplication going on surely!? Simply put: both organisations build apps that consume video, why don't you guys merge into a single platform? :-)
Tuesday 14 March 2023
How to Visualise & Communicate Technology Migration 3 Year Plan
Monday 13 March 2023
My One Page Project Scorecard
Back when I was an independent management consultant, I used to lead very large enterprise-wide programs that cut across multiple business units, each with its own project management office. My job was to lead, direct, coach and deliver through others, without myself having any hierarchical power - apart from referent power as my sponsors were the C-suite themselves. The job itself was interesting as I had to wear multiple hats: dive into the detail working with implementation teams whilst at the same time, be ready to communicate with my higher-level stakeholders, abstracting the detail. But if asked any questions, I must have the answers for them, without differing to the workstream owners.
Typically my programs would entail any number of workstreams, from ten to fifty. Some workstreams (or work packages) themselves would be considered programs in their own right. A program being a collection of multiple projects. Projects being a unit of work usually involving a single group, to deliver a series of tasks. I would be leading and executing through many program and project managers, as well as individual functional managers.
Over time, I'd developed my own mechanisms for structuring and managing these large-scale initiatives. One such mechanism is a simple project dashboard, on a single piece of paper, that shows the full map of all the initiatives, calls out the owners responsible and overall status - highlighting a call to action.
As a consultant however, my role was to guide, raise risks and mitigate as much as I could (within my scope of influence and control), and then escalating upwards for decisions outside my control. What's a consultant to do, eh?
Let me know what you think of this visual?
An example One Page Project Report from 2015: large-scale media workflows automation program |
Saturday 11 March 2023
My first 100 days as CTO: Resetting the Mental Model
The Situation - VUCA !
My 100 day plan
Fri 11-May: Morning Paper
This DDM role is seemingly chaotic, need to find a balance and a way of prioritising and managing my work in progress. I can't be working every day long hours, need to find the balance and time for my other interests. Officially my days start from Monday, of which I will enter a countdown from 90 days! I must set myself something to achieve in the first 90 days.
First stab: By the end of 90 days, we should have:
- settled with product management on a common backlog that drives the work
- delivered at least one release of DStv Now
- kicked off a stream and have a concrete plan of action for a Platform SDK API
- have a realistic plan for the platforms improvements
- agreed on roles and responsibilities between the various customers and my teams
Within the first 30 days, I need to:
- workshops with product & planning team
- complete handover with R (1st week of june)
- complete a 360 review based on feedback from DDM & External customers
- complete view of all the people in the division
- a full view of people by skills, competency and career aspirations
- a view of the vision and strategy for the group - Why do we exist, What are our outputs, how we go about it?
- agree reporting from all lines - Architecture / Dev / Platforms
- set clear objectives on delivery
- agree a way of working/transitioning VOD Wars program
Within the second 30 days:
- town hall with full tech team
- objectives, pds, measurements of performance clearly defined and agreed by all
Within the third 30 days:
- publish approved strategy & objectives
- must have delivered some feature increment
- reporting & dashboards in place
- improved working relationships with customers
- platform network optimisation plan executing in full swing
- vod wars program transitioned out
Tuesday, 2 May 2017
Ideas for DDM-GM role
Here's some topics to note if you take the GM role:
- Workshop retrospective - aim is to get people to understand the current reality. Timeline of company showing where they started, turning points and current period
- Map out worlds of interaction of teams - micro and macro worlds. Showing customer relationships and where DDM teams fit within this world.
- Talk through the trust curve and get people to vote into areas of the curve. Where do they think they sit? Need to draw quadrant map.
- Talk about RAGE model. Do a workshop mapping out current reality, aspirations, goals n expectations.
- For each line manager, draw a job card mapped to rage, split by work worlds (DDM, VET, customers, etc.) career and personal categories. For each apply the RAGE model
- Self Assessment. Create survey based on Agile Good Ugly book. Get leaders to rate themselves according to criteria of systems engineering practices.
- Workshop with team to define what "world class" means
- Develop vision and mission for group. Tie back to company objectives. The Why golden circle. Why, How, What. Why does DDM exists? How do we behave to reach the Why? What actions or results to we produce that speaks to the Why?
- Get to know everyone. Radical candor. Review CV, skills and experience. Growth/Performance matrix - who are the rockstars? Who are the superstars? Who likes stability? Who wants to grow fast?
- Discuss the Cynefin model.
- Teach the Dreyfus model.
- Team self-assessment down to each last person (identify gaps, growth, training, etc.)
- Career Ladder - does DDM have one?
- Build authentic relationships
- Build trust from outset
- Do not dictate - listen, embrace collaboration & welcome criticism
- Implement Personal Kanban - time management - teach it?
My first All Hands / Townhall - Reset Mental Model of 150+ People
More Flux thrown into the mix for fun
Did I deliver on my 90 day plan then?
Friday 10 March 2023
A neat tool to bridge the gap between Product & Engineering: Combined Backlog
Sunday 5 March 2023
How I switched from Program Manager to CTO
Prior to VOD Wars, I'd further strengthened my exposure to all domains of the media Video Entertainment business, by being the chief program director for launching a new video streaming business "Showmax" to Africa, in 2015. This too, was a wonderful experience, launching a business start-up from zero to launch in under ten months, co-ordinating every business (legal, finance, marketing, strategy), technology (buying a new tech stack, integrating new offshore development team, building & customising product features, integrating payment vendors, 3rd party integrators, etc.) and operations (content workflows, infrastructure & customer support).
And before Showmax, I'd been leading major group-wide initiatives for advanced and internet-connected devices (I was lead end-to-end program manager for DStv Explora, for a small stint delved with the then nascent DStv Mobile), and before that, spent my time as technical program & product manager for advanced set top box middleware software, NDS Mediahighway/Videoguard platforms.
In fact, the last time I was engineering-focused, strictly speaking was in 2010 - when I'd taken up the role of Principal Engineer after inventing a Speaking TV/EPG - a role change, after being involved in project, program and product management before then. And the years 2011-2013, when I'd helped transform the consumer devices division of Multichoice, to use modern software engineering methods of planning, product development and end-to-end systems integration, in getting them to launch their first version of DStv Explora.
Being a rock-star program manager consultant in a niche industry in Africa, did come with its perks! I billed by the hour, and was mostly in control of my time. I had back then in 2014-2017, experimented with 4-day work-weeks, I took personal time off (PTO) for long periods of time (sometimes 2 months unpaid or more). It was around this time that I had started working on my RAGE model for personal development. As I dived deeper into my professional self-reflections, the following realisations about my aspirations started to really gnaw at me:
- I was getting bored of being a program manager, I felt there was no challenge left and I was no learning anything new any more. I'd been reading, studying, applying and mastering the many forms of project & program management since 2008 and by 2017, I think I'd arrived and was feeling satisfied with my craft, as an expert program manager, a project leader at the top of PM hierarchy as explained here.
- I felt I reached my goals of understanding how to run a full blown video entertainment business as I had experienced by then, every single aspect of business, technology & operations of the Pay-TV value chain.
- I had my program management work mechanics down to an art form: I had a repeatable process, had built templates for structuring program charters, communicating progress, etc. There wasn't much more I could learn from the mechanisms needed in program management and was operating at the highest level of project leadership. A lot came naturally to me, operating on instinct most of the time.
- I felt could run a Project Management Office (PMO) with my eyes closed. I'd started mentoring and coaching other project & program managers but I was not interested in specialising in PMOs.
- I learnt the secrets of engaging and managing high-powered senior executives, I was confident in discussions, meetings, presentations and contractual negotiations.
- I was not sure I could continue being a consultant without having skin-in-the-game, or having a seat-at-the-table.
- I had failed to land other consulting engagements outside the scope of Video / Media - so my "business" AS3 (Africa Systems & Software Services) was a one-man show, tied to one big corporate without hope of branching out of video - so why remain a consultant when I could have a seat at the table if I wanted to?
- As a consultant, I'd developed my own prime directives of knowing when to offer advice, opinion or put a proposal together. Consultants serve a purpose, they can lead through indirect influence but also need to remain humble and fully aware, that they don't really have any clout or say in strategic decision making. Something, if I'm completely honest with myself, I wanted to influence directly, I wanted my ideas to be heard, I wanted to be directly responsible for change, and influence strategy and change the status quo, if given the chance. I could sit on the sides and offer advice and witness slower pace of change, or get in the ring, get my hands dirty and experience true ownership, accountability and responsibility. I yearned for an opportunity to experience being a senior executive, responsible for a big organisation.
- I felt I'd drifted too far from the technology domain - and needed to get back to the core. After all, I built software myself in the early days, and have degrees in Engineering and a masters in Computer Science. I wanted to get closer to the tech teams building modern apps, internet scale.
- I wondered if a Program Manager could switch back to being a Technology Leader - looking at people around me in executive roles, I felt I had more than the requisite experience and technical know-how to adapt and do the job.
- I needed to experience what it meant to be a manager with direct responsibility for people and bottom-line P&L. No more assisting from the sides.
Friday 30 September 2022
My Amazon/AWS Work of Leaders Profile
The last time I had a detailed psychometric assessment done was in 2015 as I was stepping up to executive management (C-Suite) roles, the Enneagram report, seven years ago.
It's now 2022 and I'm working at Amazon Web Services in a leadership position where the focus is on scaling myself, my team and my business. As part this journey of leading to scale, I completed a new kind of psychometric based on the DiscProfile focused on the "Work of Leaders".
This Work of Leaders psychometric is different because unlike other DiSC reports, which emphasize understanding the differences between people (like the Enneagram model), Work of Leaders focuses on understanding how your tendencies influence your effectiveness in specific leadership situations.
Here's is decent walkthrough of the assessment: