Creating the ‘lean corporation’ and avoiding startup mistakes: Page 2 of 2

 
Quality vs quantity
 

 
Employees are spending more time at work, even when they are not in the office, but this work ethic cannot be sustained indefinitely.
 
“The key part of processes is about sustainable pace – when you are working in a natural manner, your productivity is much higher,” says McManus.
 
“Working eight to 10 hours that way is exhausting, and there are diminishing returns,” he adds.
 
Working at a sustainable pace actually leads to higher productivity, and “hopefully you’ll be going home to spend more time with your family,” he argues.
 
“It’s a cultural change for some of these companies. We have set up a software culture where we are rewarding people for burning themselves out, when really we should be rewarding people for being at optimal productivity, which includes downtime and the ability to recharge and rest,” he adds.
 
This also covers recruiting, where hiring and building teams would benefit from working at a sustainable pace.
 
“You are able to attract a broader spectrum of people because the sustainable pace is attractive,” says McManus.
 
“In many cases, you can actually recruit a broader mix of skills and experience levels by having a number of senior members of the team mentoring the larger number junior members on the team.
 
“This allows you to have a shared ownership of the code base and a diverse set of skills on the team,” he adds.
 
Never mistake quantity of work for quality of work, McManus stresses.
 
“This is true everywhere, even in Silicon Valley – you might come in and work for 18 hours, but maybe for three hours you’re actually messing around on YouTube, staring out the window, or being sucked into your email or reading a blog.
 
“Whereas with the agile method, you are pair-programming all day – there is actually no way for you to waste time or lose focus because you are working closely with someone, two people at one workstation solving the same problem together.
 
“Rather than stick around for 18 hours trying to solve a particular problem, you solve it in a lot less time, and are therefore more productive,” he adds.
 
The grassroots way to change
 
Rome was not built in a day, and corporations cannot be expected to change their processes, culture and behaviour in a day either.
 
Such a change is best tackled in incremental steps, according to McManus, who recommends that corporations begin with a team to effect this transformation.
 
“Pick a project, pick a team and transform them into catalyst to infect the rest of the organisation,” he says.
 
“Once you can demonstrate the value with a small team, those people can become the leaders to introduce that change.
 
“In many ways, it has to be a grassroots approach – it has to be people who are doing the work who become believers in the change,” he adds.
 
Related Stories:
 
Digital disruption: In 3yrs, nothing will be the same
 
Digital disrupters twice more profitable: CA Tech survey
 
Rethinking DevOps for an app-dependent Asia
 
 
For more technology news and the latest updates, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Like us on Facebook.