Accept full responsibility for your achievements (a “know your map” influence tool how-to)

This post provides guidance on how to apply the "Accept full responsibility for your achievements" influence tool from the "Know Your Map" chapter of the book Student to CEO: 97 Ways To Influence Your Way To The Top In Banking & Finance (read more here), including specific steps, examples and templates.  All content in this post has been created by me, using the title of this influence tool as a starting point only (the book provides anecdotes and context, not detailed how-to steps as outlined here).

What?

Ensure that you understand how you contributed to every achievement in your life. Know that you are in full control: every time you have achieved anything, it is because of actions that you took, regardless of who provided the opportunity or gave you a little nudge in the right direction in the first place. It was you that took the action to make it happen and it will be down to you every time you make an achievement in the future.

Why?

If you are to be successful, you must believe that you have the power to make your life a success. Your achievements did not just happen by accident, it was not just luck.

Even if you were fortunate to have a particular opportunity, it is highly likely that you played some part in creating that opportunity, even if you didn’t mean to or did not realise it at the time: for example, it could have been a brief conversation that you had, which you thought was completely unrelated but led someone to suggest you as a person to help with something.

Likewise, if you had not taken action once the opportunity had arose, you would not have converted that opportunity into the achievement that it became.

Know that you are responsible for your achievements, you are in control and you are the person that will accomplish all of your future achievements as well.

How?

Every time you achieve anything, make sure that you give yourself a silent pat on the back to congratulate yourself on the achievement and think about what you did to get there. This is not the same thing as being cocky or boasting – it is a positive attitude that helps you to grow in confidence and to keep building successes on successes. By reflecting on each success you can also look for patterns and key actions that you may repeat in the future that will lead to further achievements. It will also help you to identify things that you might want to avoid doing or improve on when working on similar opportunities.

An example

There have been many times in my life when I have been called “lucky” , but when I have looked back over the events that led to my “luck”, I can identify various things that I have done to lead there. Some of the things that I have done may have been extremely small – such as conversations that I had in passing that turned out to be more significant than I thought, or minor changes that I made to my LinkedIn profile or online CV that led to a significant new opportunity.

Many of the new jobs that I have landed and successful deliveries that I have been responsible for have been due to not only the focused efforts on those opportunities themselves, but also due to my consistent behaviour from day to day, to the way that I have dealt with situations and responded to questions and to proactive action that I have taken on even minor tasks that have led to far greater things than I could have imagined.

The important point with this influence tool is to recognise that these opportunities and successes were not just down to luck. They may not have been fully intentional, but were influenced by me and were due to my actions.

The same is true for you. You are in control of the way that you behave and respond to events in your life. Do not allow people to tell you that you were “lucky” for you successes – take credit for them, use them to build your confidence and give you the motivation to continue to work and live in line with your values, to the utmost of your ability. Believe in your own successes and not only will you be happier, but you will find that it leads for more and more successes in everything you do.

An exercise

1. Think of a great thing that happened in your life that you were involved in but at the time you did not think that you played any real part in making it happen.
2. Now go back to how the opportunity arose. Who was involved? How did they come up with the idea? Why did they ask you to be involved in the way that you were? Did anyone ask you at all or did you just volunteer or take action without being asked?
3. Really try to think about everything that could have led you to that point.
4. Then think about what you did to help translate the opportunity into an achievement. What did you do? Who did you talk to? How did people react to the success? Who got credit for it? (Again, this is not about you taking credit for other people’s achievements, it is about recognising what part you played and realising that you were responsible for at least part of its success).
5. Now think forwards. What opportunities are you currently aware of or are currently working on. Now that you know how influential you are, what might you do differently today, in the next few days, weeks and months to accelerate or improve your personal achievements and to play an even more significant part in the achievements of others?
      

Model success from the top (a “know your map” influence tool how-to)

This post provides guidance on how to apply the "Model success from the top" influence tool from the "Know Your Map" chapter of the book Student to CEO: 97 Ways To Influence Your Way To The Top In Banking & Finance (read more here), including specific steps, examples and templates.  All content in this post has been created by me, using the title of this influence tool as a starting point only (the book provides anecdotes and context, not detailed how-to steps as outlined here).

What?

Study how other successful, high achieving individuals reached their goals and apply whatever was successful about their approach to yours. Look for people who are at the top of their game in an industry, sector or discipline that you are targeting and seek to learn what worked and what did not work for them, so that you can emulate their successes and avoid the pitfalls that they fell into.

Why?

You can save a lot of time and effort by learning from other highly successful individuals. In some cases they may have taken some specific actions that you can copy directly; in others they may have just had a particular attitude or set of behaviours that made the difference. Whatever it is that made them successful, why not see if the same thing can make you successful too?

How?

Modelling success from the top does not have to involve a formal “study” of anyone – it can just be achieved by keeping your eyes and ears open when working with great people and making sure you learn from them.

However, if you are to dedicate some time and effort to learning from the best in a more formal way, there are several key ways to do this:

• Study a famous highly successful person through research;
• Study a famous highly successful person by directly reaching out to them; or
• Study someone that you already know, who is highly successful in a relevant area of their lives or career.

Whichever of the above you choose, there are several basic steps that you need to go through to do this:

1. Identify the person or persons that you intend to study. They must be successful in a way that is directly relevant to you;
2. Define a structure for studying their success e.g. categories of behaviour, capabilities or outcomes to look at how they performed in each. Ideally this structure should be aligned to the categories that you have used to define your own objectives;
3. Plan your research: how are you going to do it e.g. what books, websites or other sources are you going to target, how are you going to get in contact with them, how will you document and analyse the information you gather?
4. Conduct the review in line with your plan;
5. Analyse the results and work out how your findings can be applied to your own life;
6. Apply the lessons that you have learned!

There are a few other alternative approaches in addition to this:

• Read lots of biographies and autobiographies of people who you want to learn from and make sure you continuously look for ways to apply their ideas and approaches to your own life;
• Read lot of self help books that contain case studies and anecdotal examples from other successful people;
• Find a successful person to be your mentor (a longer term relationship than this one-off exercise).

An example

You will find examples of where you have done this in everyday life, because we model our behaviour on the behaviour of others often without even realising that we're doing it. This can be in relation to everything from your accent, picked up from your parents and friends, to the way that you deal with setbacks in your life.

The key difference that this “influence tool” advocates is that you take control over who you are influenced by and how, including what it is about others that you allow yourself to be influenced by and what you will not allow.

An example from my work life is a programme manager that I worked for several years ago who I still use as a model for how programmes should be run. Not only did he implement a range of programme management tools that are widely recognised as “best practice”, but he did so in a pragmatic way that demonstrated how they should be used for maximum effect. He focused on getting the best out of the people that were working for him, on coordination and alignment of activities, on clarity of status and communication. It was a great experience to work for him and on every project that I have been on since, I think back to what he did and what he would have done to make sure that I deliver to the best of my ability.

Also, in my experience the most valuable behavioural lesson that I have taken away from successful people is the very high standards of integrity and quality that these highly successful live by. I have seen that a person's attitude and principles and the way in which they consistently live their lives in line with these values is often the most important factor in their success.

An exercise

As a really simple way to get started, try filling in the table below.

You can add as many rows as you wish, for all of the people that you feel that you can learn from. The columns in the table cover:

• WHO
  This column is for the name of the person you will model your success on. These people can be world leading superstars but don't need to be: they can be anyone who has any behavioural trait or success that you want to learn from and model, no matter how humble their backgrounds.
• LESSONSThis column is for a list of the lessons that you will take from the life and achievements of the person that you have chosen to model your success on. When filling in the lessons column, try to be as specific as possible about what it was that they did to achieve their successes. Don't focus on environmental things that were outside of their control such as their upbringing – instead look at what decisions they made, how they dealt with setbacks and mistakes, what specific actions they took that you could copy, how they behaved from day to day that worked well for them. If you chose them due to one particular success in their life, focus on things that led to that success.
• ACTIONSThis column is for capturing a list of things you will do to take action on the lessons learned by the individual you are learning from. You can list as many actions here as you like - just make sure that your actions are as specific as possible: ideally include in your list things that you can do today; things you can change about your behaviour from this moment forwards; specific people you will talk to, things you will do and deliver. The more specific and immediate your actions are, the more likely you will be able to implement them and the quicker you will see the positive effects of making those changes.

WHO Successful Person	LESSONS What made them successful?	ACTIONS What can you do to apply their lessons to your life?

• Download Model Success From The Top template here (RTF format file)

Know where you are right now in relation to your goals (a “know your map” influence tool how-to)

This post provides guidance on how to apply the "Know where you are right now in relation to your goals" influence tool from the "Know Your Map" chapter of the book Student to CEO: 97 Ways To Influence Your Way To The Top In Banking & Finance (read more here), including specific steps, examples and templates.  All content in this post has been created by me, using the title of this influence tool as a starting point only (the book provides anecdotes and context, not detailed how-to steps as outlined here).

What?

Clearly define where you are now in relation to the outcomes and goals that you have set yourself and in comparison with what success “looks like” to you. Understand your location and the direction that you are facing before you set out on your journey. If you are pointing in the right direction, at least you know that every step you take, no matter how small, is taking you closer to where you want to be.

Why?

If you do not know where you are now, how do you know if you are heading in the right direction to achieve your goals? You need to know your current situation in relation to your outcomes to be able to create a plan that you can execute to move towards the achievement of your goals.

It is important that you review your position to establish where you are again on a regular basis, because as you progress you will encounter new opportunities and challenges , which will result in the need for changes to your approach.

Therefore, know where you are is important to be used when:

• Planning
• Tracking progress
• Adjusting your approach to take advantage of opportunities, overcome challenges and re-align yourself with where you really want to get to

How?

Knowing where you are in relation to your goals implies that you first need some goals! (See influence tool 1: know your outcome for guidance on how to establish your goals).

However, if you do not have any concrete goals, you could list areas of your life that you wish to improve and start by just assessing where you think you are in those areas. This can actually help you to identify further goals for you to work towards, based on an understanding of what you wish to improve.

The biggest benefit of identifying where you are now in relation to the areas of your life that need improvement or against specific goals that you have set yourself is that it helps you prioritise your efforts based on areas of greatest weakness, or based on areas that would be easiest or hardest to fix, and gives you an idea of how far you have got to go to get to where you want to get to, which will help in developing a plan to get there (your route map).

One of the simplest ways to assess where you are in relation to your goals, is to list your goals (or areas of your life that you want to improve), then give the areas a “score” based on your gut feeling in terms of where you are e.g. 5 for great and 1 for terrible. Then write a set of comments explaining why you have given yourself that score for that goal.

Whilst this influence tool is all about knowing where you are in relation to your goal, just assessing your position without taking action will not take you very far – so it is also always a good idea to jot down your thoughts on what you can do to improve things and take things forwards for each area as well, ideally as a set of specific action points.

You will be amazed by how far just knowing where you are will take you. For example, are you even pointing in the right direction? Just knowing that you need to turn around can have a profound effect on your success in business and life – so even if you don't write down any action points, just assessing your current position will take you further forwards than you probably realise.

Below is a simple table that can be used to assess where you are in relation to your goals:

Goal or category	Current rating	Rationale for current rating	Actions
Finances
Relationships
Belongings
Others

• Download Know Where You Are template here (RTF format file)

In the table above, I have included “categories” similar to those suggested for the “know your outcome” influence tool. You can replace these with specific goals that you have set yourself to really focus on areas of high priority. It could also be useful to have one version of this that is a high level view of where you area against each category of goals and a more detailed one for each of your goals.

An example

Let's start with an analogy.

Imagine you are travelling to meet someone in a town that you have never been to before. You have just got off a train and all you know is that the place that you are meeting them is in this town.

So – you know you are in the right town. But how far is this location from the train station? Which direction is it in from here?

Just knowing where you are and where you are trying to get to is not enough – you need to know where you are in relation to your destination: e.g. which direction it is in, how far away it is, can you walk it or do you need to get a taxi? Only then can you work out your plan for getting there and how long it's going to take.

The same applies to your own self development. Just having goals is not enough, and even an assessment of where you are now without knowing where you are trying to get to is not enough. However, the minute you start looking at where you are in relation to where you are trying to get to, you will find that you are able to look at what you need to do to achieve your goals. It will become a lot easier to develop a real, actionable plan to be successful in achieving whatever it is that you are trying to achieve.

An exercise

1. Print out two copies of the “Where You Are” template.
2. Fill in the first template for the categories of your life that you set your goals around (refer to the “know your outcome” influence tool for more info).
3. Fill in the second template for any specific goals that you have set yourself.
4. For each row, make sure that you have a clear description of why you think you are where you are and at least one thing you will do to move towards your goal or improve in that area of your life.

Know your outcome (a “know your map” influence tool how-to)

This post provides guidance on how to apply the "Know your outcome" influence tool from the "Know Your Map" chapter of the book Student to CEO: 97 Ways To Influence Your Way To The Top In Banking & Finance (read more here), including specific steps, examples and templates.  All content in this post has been created by me, using the title of this influence tool as a starting point only (the book provides anecdotes and context, not detailed how-to steps as outlined here).

What?

Clearly define where you want to get to and what success “looks like” to you. Be as specific as you can; describe why you want to get there, how it will feel when you get there and how you will measure your success.

Why?

If you do not know the outcome that you want to achieve, you cannot create a plan to achieve it and will not be able to assess whether you have made it there or not.

Therefore, your outcomes are important to be used when:

• Planning
• Tracking progress
• Measuring success once an outcome has been achieved

How?

There are various tools available for setting goals and objectives.

It is usually advisable to set some boundaries such as:

• the timescale for which you are establishing your outcomes (e.g. 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years);
• the “categories” of your life for which you are defining your outcomes (e.g. your career, your relationships, your belongings, your health, your finances etc); and
• the “success criteria” you will use to describe the outcome (e.g. numbers, ££, feelings, deliverables etc.)

Once you have your boundaries, simply spend some time thinking about what you want to achieve in each of these areas and write down your thoughts.

A simple table such as the one below can be used as a template for capturing your outcomes.

Timeframe:
Category	Outcome – where do I want to get to?	How will you know when you get there? (What does success look and feel like?)
Finances
Relationships
Career
Others

• Download Know Your Outcome template here (RTF format file)

A real example

Anything that you do, whether you know it or not, you will have been thought of in your head beforehand – even if your outcome was as simple as making a cup of tea, with milk and no sugar – you will have in your mind an idea of how you wanted that cup of tea to turn out before you even started to make it.

Think of anything you’ve ever achieved. Did any of it happen by accident, really?

If you didn’t define your outcome, who did? Did you parents have something in mind for you? Or your teachers? Did you have an outcome that you were aiming for without ever really realising it?

Even if you are not consciously aware of it, anything and everything that you have ever done, has been done with a purpose that you have subconsciously “signed up” to. By setting your own outcomes, you are taking control of your own destiny, instead of allowing those around you, your circumstances and environment, set them for you.

An exercise

1. Print out three copies of the “Outcomes” template.
2. On the first template, write the timescale “1 year”.
3. List the key “categories” of outcome that you want to use.
4. For each category, write a description of where you would like to be in that timeframe.
5. For each outcome, write a description of how you will know when you have achieved your outcome.
6. For each outcome, write one action that you could take immediately to make progress towards that outcome.
7. Repeat for 3 and 5 years on the following templates.

8 Influence Tool Categories (from Student to CEO: 97 Ways To Influence Your Way To The Top In Banking & Finance)

The 99 Influence Tools in the book "Student to CEO: 97 Ways To Influence Your Way To The Top In Banking & Finance" are grouped into the following 8 chapters.  Below are links to posts summarising my view on the contents of each of these chapters and the key take-away points, for quick reference:

1. "Know Your Map" Influence Tools
2. "Know What You Want" Influence Tools
3. "Be Willing To Do It" Influence Tools
4. "Be Passionate" Influence Tool
5. "Believe You Can Do It" Influence Tools
6. "Date To Be Different" Influence Tools
7. "The Skill Of All Skills To Climb To The Top" Influence Tools
8. "Do It In Service" Influence Tools

“Do It In Service” Influence Tools

The “Do It In Service” influence tools are all about ensuring that everything you do is for a good cause and that you focus on the value that you are delivering for others (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

In the words of Chinese Taoist Philosopher Lao Tzu, “A leader is one who serves”. This applies to everything in your life. Whether you are working for someone, or have people working for you, your success lies in helping those around you to succeed. As a leader, this means shielding your team from issues, removing obstacles and enabling them to do their jobs to the utmost of their ability. When working for others, it is all about fulfilling your responsibilities and exceeding expectations to deliver to the needs of those that you are working for.

When you do something for someone, you are helping them. They will appreciate it and it will make you feel good to have helped them. You should not do things to expect anything back: just knowing that you have helped should be enough. However, the great thing about doing things for others is that it creates a feeling of goodwill, it builds good relationships and more often than not, in the future, those people will repay the favour. Not only that, but the more value you deliver to others, the more your reputation will grow in the eyes of others. It will open up new opportunities to help others and lead to more and more success.

“Doing it in service” is in many ways one of the easiest things to do but also one of the most powerful. Whatever you do, think about how you are doing it to help others and make sure you keep this in mind to ensure that you deliver more value and success every day.

“The Skill Of All Skills To Climb To The Top” Influence Tools

The “Skill Of All Skills To Climb To The Top” influence tools cover more advanced concepts about the way that people perceive you and respond to things that you do. They are about building relationships that deliver mutual value and success to you and those that you interact with (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

These influence tools cover concepts such as:

• Do lots of things that help other people: do not expect anything in return, but know that if you do something for someone, they will feel implicitly that they should do something for you in return and the more that you help people the more they will be there for you when you need them;
• Take an interest in others and show it: focus on them, ask questions and listen rather than talking about yourself, find out about them and use this to help engage with them more effectively;
• Bring all of these things together: building on all of the previous influence tools, you must consistently deliver when you say you are going to do something, keep positive when talking to and about people, use the intelligence that you gather by finding out about people to add more value than anyone else.

“Dare To Be Different” Influence Tools

The “Dare To Be Different” influence tools are all about what you can do to stand out from the crowd, what you should do to ensure that you do not make the mistakes that many people make and instead take the less trodden path of success (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

Key themes include:

• Be different: learn from other people's mistakes, don't keep doing the same thing if it isn't working for anyone else, take a different approach and keep adapting until you find one that works (and the order in which you do things makes as big a difference to your success as the things that you do);
• Focus on relationships: build and maintain great relationships, develop a powerful support network but avoid stepping on other people's toes if they have helped you out;
• Think big: don't be a cog in the machine, design and run the machine! Utilise the people around you in constructive and mutually beneficial ways to get more done than you can on your own;
• Build your personal brand: your reputation is one of your most valuable assets. It is what people think of you and directly affects every interaction you have with everyone in your life. Make sure that accountability and reliability are part of your reputation, then nurture and protect it at all costs;
• Focus on results: quantifiable, tangible results are far more important and impressive than academic grades. What have you actually done? Can your successes be converted into financial value? Make sure that you document your successes throughout your career – both as evidence to use when opening opportunities and for your own personal development and reflection.

“Believe You Can Do It” Influence Tools

The “Believe You Can Do It” influence tools are all about your beliefs, values and attitude towards opportunities and challenges. They are also about how you behave and deal with situations and experiences (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

You need to believe in yourself and your own abilities to be successful. You also need to have psychological control and to consistently take action in a way that is empowering to yourself.

Key themes include:

• Believe in yourself
• Avoid and ignore negative psychological influences
• Act in a way that is authentic, responsible and decisive
• Continuously review progress and remind yourself of where you are going and why

“Be Passionate” Influence Tool

The “Be Passionate” influence tool has one short and simple message: whatever you do, throw yourself into it and do it with enthusiasm and energy (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

Doing anything with passion will increase your levels of success, because you will care more about it, spend more time on it and will have the drive to make it happen.

You will know if you are passionate about something because being passionate is an emotional thing: you will feel emotionally connected, will be interested, excited and enthused. When you get up in the morning you will want to get working on it; you will want to talk about it and will be proud of it.

Finding and living your passion is also satisfying and fulfilling. What would you rather be working on: something that you find a boring chore or something that you are passionate about and love to do?

"Be Willing To Do It" Influence Tools

The “Be Willing To Do It” influence tools are all about taking massive action towards your outcomes, building on the “Know What You Want” influence tools to maintain energy and drive, overcoming any challenges that come your way and doing things that others don’t do, to become the “top 1%” of achievers and void the pitfalls of “the 99%” (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

The areas these influence tools cover are similar to the “Know What You Want” influence tools, but are even more action-oriented and include some very specific pieces of advice in relation to how to deal with situations and how to act. The key themes covered include:

• How to deal with criticism, overcome challenges and stay committed
• How to set expectations, hold yourself accountable and drive action
• How to do more than anyone else and stand out from the crowd
• How to continuously grow, learn and develop
• How to develop an attitude that is empowering and successful whilst turning negatives to your advantage

"Know What You Want" Influence Tools

The “Know What You Want” influence tools are all about being highly focused on achieving your outcomes (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

These influence tools only work if you already have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and the more specific you are in the definition of your goals, the more effective these tools will be.

The key themes covered by these success tools include:

• Focus: if you are focused, both in terms of being very clear about the outcomes you are striving for and in carefully using your time to ensure everything you do takes you closer to those specific outcomes rather than spending time on things that do not, you will be massively more successful than if you spread your efforts over too wide and area that may or may not align to where you want to get to;
• Delivery of value: whatever you do, always aim to deliver value in excess of what you are being paid and track your results and successes, because it is the tangible results that you deliver that people benefit from and care about, not the qualifications you have obtained or the tasks you have carried out. If you have done a lot of work but you cannot say what benefit that work has delivered, what was the value of you doing the work in the first place?
• Continuous learning: no matter where you are in your career, it is critical that you continuously build your understanding and experience in line with the outcomes that you are striving to achieve. Look for opportunities to learn from everything you do – from the day-to-day activities you perform to specific training courses and books;
• Perseverance: you will encounter challenges, you will make mistakes and you will fail. The important thing is how you deal with this failure: if you pick yourself up, learn from it and carry on, you will be a success. The more challenges you overcome, the stronger and more successful you will be – even if in the short term it doesn’t feel like it. Often the most successful people overcame the biggest challenges before they made it to where they are today.

“Know Your Map” Influence Tools

The “Know Your Map” influence tools are all about ensuring that you know where you are going and how to get there (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

The analogy of a “map” is a fairly classic one that most people will be familiar with, but the great thing about this analogy, as reflected by the corresponding influence tools, is that it raises a few important points:

• Make sure it’s the right map: if you are in London, a map of Paris won’t help you much. In the same way, the “map” that you use for your own personal development needs to be your own, not somebody else’s, because you need to make sure you can find your own way based on where you are and where you want to go;
• Make sure you know where you want to get to: if you don’t know where you are going, you will not be able to work out how you are going to get there. Not only that, but you will not know if you are in the wrong place and you will not have a way of knowing for sure that you have reached the destination that you wanted to reach;
• Make sure you know where you are now: if you don’t know where you are now, it will be very difficult to work out how to get to where you want to get to, because you won’t know how far you have got to go and what obstacles you need to overcome to get there;
• Make sure it’s a good map: maps can vary in quality, in terms of how clear they are, the level of detail they provide and their accuracy. Taking the time to create a good map will save a lot of time in the long run;
• Make sure you take the optimum route: once you know where you want to get to and where you are in relation to that location, there are many possible journeys that you could take to get there. Taking a look at others who have been successful in taking a similar path could help a lot in ensuring your own success. Likewise, steering clear of pitfalls that others have fallen into will save you time and help avoid failure.

Using the "Influence Tools" from Student to CEO: 97 Ways To Influence Your Way To The Top In Banking & Finance

I recently purchased "Student to CEO: 97 Ways To Influence Your Way To The Top In Banking & Finance".

I've provided my views on the book below (the summary: it's pretty average but definitely good enough to be worth a glance through - the best bits are the "bite-sized" "influence tool" boxouts and there are some useful financial services-specific examples throughout).

But that's not the purpose of this blog post.

Using Influence Tools

The purpose of this blog post, and the reason I'm highlighting the book here is that it provides 99 (yes, more than the advertised 97) "influence tools" as box-outs throughout the book, which I have decided to use as prompts to write about.

I don't entirely agree with every single prompt, I'm not convinced that the order in which they appear is at all times the most logical, and I might skip some of them  because they are too specifically focused on the contents of the book so don't make much sense out of context, but most of them are great common sense and they do provide nice, concise points to write about.

As you can tell from my comments above, I'm not overflowing with praise for the book, but the very fact that it got me writing this is a positive thing and there are a few points that he makes that provide a slightly different perspective on things.  Please read the below for more info, and if you are interested in buying a copy, you can get it on Amazon.co.UK here, and Amazon.COM here.

  

About the book

Whilst this book tries to put a clear emphasis on "banking and finance", it turns out that it's actually a pretty standard self-help book, which takes the usual approach of using the author's experiences as a story to knit together a string of personal development advice.

Its key differentiator is the "Banking and Finance" focus, and this is the main reason that I bought it, because it is an industry that is fairly new to me but that I am currently working in and I have recently accepted a senior role for a global bank, which I will be starting in the New Year.

The anecdotes and stories based on the author's experience are all Banking and Finance related (as you would expect), and the famous people, example scenarios and case studies that he presents are also Banking and Finance related.  However, the majority of the advice is pretty generic.  That's not a bad thing at all, as it is all pretty sound advice - but the author seems to have tried to compensate for this by writing the phrase "Banking and Finance" every other sentence.  Yes, we know this is a book about Banking and Finance but telling us that Banking and Finance is what it's about because it's a Banking and Finance book can become a bit irritating because in a Banking and Finance book you already know it's about Banking and Finance because it says Banking and Finance on the cover and you've already said that your'e writing it for people who want to get ahead in Banking and Finance over 20 times in the intro.  You get the idea here...

The other slightly odd thing about this book is that although it has 97 (well actually 99) "influence tool" prompts, the main text of the books doesn't directly reference them.  Or at least, it doesn't reference them consistently.  They are generally relevant to whatever has been written on the pages that they are included on, but they just seem to be dropped in there.  This means that many of them aren't even really explained.  In most self-help books that use this kind of concept, the "tips" are either used as headings then explained with supporting anecdotes and exercises, or are clearly and directly relevant to the section that they are included in.  If this had been the case in this book, it could have significantly improved the flow of the writing and would have provided more specific take-away points.

Of course, this book is also a marketing tool to get you to go to the author's presentations and buy his services.  Unfortunately this also comes across quite clearly at times.

However, despite these points, it's not all bad.  There is some real content here and the points made are largely common sense and useful.  From the wide range of self-help books that are out there, this wouldn't be the first one that I'd recommend, but if someone asked me whether it was worth a read, I would still say yes.

New Year Tidy Up

Happy New Year.

I've started the year with a quick tidy-up:

• Deleted two old blogs that I created a few years back but never really used
• Posted a couple of old articles that I wrote in 2006, as on a re-read they looked like they could still be of some value to someone
• Deleted 17 "daily reflections" posts that didn't really have anything of value to the readers in them
• Deleted a further 2 posts that on re-reading were very specific to the time and not particularly informative
• Re-tagged all "daily rubbish" posts as "daily misc": there's something not quite right about the perception created by having a tag dedicated to "rubbish", so I thought a new name with a more neutral feel would be a good idea

Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and New Year break and here's looking forward to a great 2011.

Validation vs. Verification

Another article from 2006:

These two terms keep cropping up as a source of confusion at the moment, so here's my attempt at clarifying the situation.

The traditional definition

I can kind of see why people have trouble with these two terms, when you consider how often I've heard these as definitions:

• Verification = "Making sure we build it right";
• Validation = "Making sure we built the right thing".

Yes they are different, but if you're trying to explain this to people who were confused before, I can't see this helping much.

The simple non-definition

Here's the way I remember the difference:

• Verification - think "system test";
• Validation - think "User Acceptance Test" (UAT).

Note: these are not definitions, they are examples of types of verification and validation.

In other words...

Verification covers all the checks you do along the way to make sure you're building whatever you're building right e.g. peer reviews, unit tests, load tests etc. etc.

Validation is all the stuff to make sure you're meeting the requirements. So again, this could well be unit testing if it's testing directly against a particular requirement - but it's the stuff that makes sure you're making what the end user needs, as specified by the requirements.

A non-technical example

I find that looking at these things from more than one angle helps.

You can perform verification and validation on anything that you produce. And what you produce doesn't have to be "techie"; whatever you're working on, the same principles apply.

For example, say you're writing a document.

Verification looks at formatting, spelling, and the reviews by colleagues to make sure you're doing it right.

Validation is checking that you're actually answering the questions that need to be answered, and making sure that the person(s) you're writing for are happy enough with it to sign it off.

Yet another perspective

Ok, here's another one.

Verification is all about making sure whatever you're producing is high quality: it follows the standards you should be following, it is error free etc.

Validation is all about sign-off. You want to make sure the audience is happy with what you're doing, and if it's a client you're doing it for you want them to be happy enough to sign it off as complete.

Yes, there can be overlap

Of course, one of the main causes of confusion is that sometimes these activities are performed together. How and when validation and verification are performed is down to your organisation's processes (or your project's processes, or whatever) - the key is that they both happen, and that they're made to work for you.

Relationships between CMMI Specific Process Areas and Generic Goals

This is an article I wrote back in 2006, reposted here because it still has some points that someone might find useful...

One of the most common areas of confusion when looking at the CMMI is the relationship between the "Process Areas" and the "Generic Goals and Practices".

At a glance, people seem to think that in order to increase the "maturity level" (not to be confused with capability level) of your organisation, you concentrate on the process areas and specific practices for whatever maturity level you're aiming for - and that by focussing on those areas you will achieve the ML badge you've been striving for.

• If when you read the specific process areas you apply all generic practices for them as well as the specific ones, you may well be on the right track. But do you understand why?
• If you just focus on improving the engineering side of things, I can assure you that you are completely missing the point.

And so begins my attempt to explain why, without the use of diagrams or technical jargon...

Process Areas vs. Generic Goals

1. Process Areas are basically lists of the key things you need to do to make sure you do a specific thing properly, grouped under a title that describes the specific thing you're doing;
2. Generic Goals are the key things that you should really be doing whenever you doanything.

These structured lists of things were drawn up based on "industry best practice", so you're likely to find pretty much the same kinds of things in most half-decent management and engineering or development methodologies.

Process Area Example

One thing you'll notice is that some of the points (or "Specific Practices") that make up these Process Areas are, for want of a better expression, a bit noddy. They are totally and utterly obvious. Not only that, but if you are managing a project or developing a piece of software, you are most likely doing it already.

Example: RD, Requirements Development, SP 2.1-1 Collect Stakeholder Needs.

i.e. when capturing requirements (developing an understanding of requirements), you need to first work out what people want.

If you you're not doing this already, I would guess that you are either unemployed or nearing the end of your contract (whether you like it or not).

Generic Goals example

Generic Goals are again common sense.

Example: GP 2.5 Train People.

i.e. for a project to be truly successful, make sure that the people working on your project have the skills required to perform their jobs correctly - and if they don't, provide them with training to make sure that they do.

The big difference here is that Generic Goals should be applied to all Process Areas. Even so, this is still common sense when you think about it. The person responsible for gathering the stakeholder needs when developing requirements for the Process Area example above, really needs to know how to gather requirements to be any good at actually doing that. If they don't have a clue, they will need training, or will end up doing a bad job.

But wait, there's more...

That's the basic relationship between the two - but when you look at the CMMI more carefully you'll start to see that there's a huge amount of cross-referencing to help you work out how to use it.

In other words, some of the Process Areas actually tell you the things you need to do to implement the Generic Goals for all the other Process Areas!

I'm not talking about the explicit cross-referencing you find in the model when it says "refer to the XXX process area for information about XXX", I'm talking about implicit overlaps between Process Areas and Generic Goals.

Best demonstrated with some examples

I'm not going to go through every Generic Goal and map it back to a Process Area for you. You need to think about how you apply this to your organisation e.g. the guidelines of the CMMI's PP Project Planning process area may actually be performed across multiple processes in your organisation, in a way that means that you cannot define your own "Project Planning" process as such, but must instead document how a number of your processes work and demonstrate how you are performing all of the activities described in PP Project Planning. If I just map Process Areas to Generic Goals, there is a temptation to just take the CMMI "As-Is". All I can say is, I wouldn't recommend it.

However, I know that the best way to demonstrate the implicit relationships between Process Areas and Generic Goals is with some examples, so here are my favourite two:

GP2.5 Train People
OT Organizational Training defines the key things to consider for the central management of training for the entire organisation. If you manage training centrally and ensure that all projects consider training for everything they need to do, then you're going to satisfy this Generic Goal.

GP2.6 Manage Configurations
CM Configuration Management sets out the industry best practices for managing configurations. Document the way in which your organisation performs Configuration Management, and apply it to everything you do and you'll be performing GP2.6.

The point

The final comment I'd like to make is that the use of the CMMI requires a bit of thought. Don't just focus on specific Process Areas unless you've really thought about their impact on your organisation.

The CMMI emphasises central management, consistency, understanding and accountability. All good things in my books - but not things you can achieve by just by working down the list and doing "what it says". The CMMI provides a well-structured reference model, but it's not a how-to guide.

Look at your organisation's processes, look at those specified in the CMMI. Look at how working on Process Areas in the right way can move you towards satisfying the Generic Goals.

Repackaged Common Sense = The Next Big Thing

A theme you may notice in some of my posts is that a lot of ideas around "best practice" management, consulting, development or whatever are actually quite often existing ideas repackaged in new frameworks with new buzzwords etc.

That isn't a criticism, it's an observation. In fact, quite often the new presentation and structure of these ideas represents the evolution of better ways of doing things, even if some of these changes are very subtle, or simply provide a better understanding of the ideas rather than actually changing them.

Some of my posts are likely to be the same - a new view on old ideas. No matter how good something is, it can always be improved, or better understood, or better implemented. The Next Big Thing is the Last Big Thing, only that bit further down the line.