December 18, 2017 at 08:10Jeb Klitschko
You have probably heard about such a boxer as Vladimir Klitschko. You can relate to it in different ways, but most importantly, it seems - what useful things can be learned from him, and not in which party he is a member and which religion he professes. As Stephen Covey bequeathed to us, you can learn something from any person, if you have such a goal - to learn and develop.
I’ll tell you what I studied with Klitschko. If this story is useful to you, in any form - excellent. Programmers must help each other.
I somehow accidentally read about Jeb Klitschko. I am not an expert in boxing, but I will try to explain (to those who are also not experts).
When the boxer is standing, he has one hand slightly in front, the other a little behind. The one that is slightly behind (right-handed - right) beats cross - a direct hit, very strong, because it has a large trajectory and the energy of almost the whole body is invested in it.
A jab beats with his hand just ahead, a short, quick stroke. It is not as strong as cross, but it is faster and easier. As a result, it can be used more often.
So, Klitschko made the jab one of the most important elements of his strategy (this is from the words of analysts and coaches, I did not come up with). He often jabs a lot, exhausting an opponent, preventing him from striking. Due to frequent use, Jeb Klitschko became stronger than the average boxer - in other words, he pumped it.
And this Jeb Klitschko sunk into my soul. Not as a boxing device, but as an element of a strategy leading to victory.
I disengaged myself from boxing, and looked at Jeb Klitschko through the prism of my life, first of all that part of it that flows at work.
I laid out Jeb Klitschko into two fundamental elements:
• Simplicity and accessibility of execution;
• Frequency of use.
A simple, understandable, short action that is performed regularly to help win.
The brain immediately began to look for analogies, and there were a lot of them.
Zeland in Transerfing constantly says: the main condition for the success of the practice is regularity. Who read, remember - 30 minutes, but always every day.
The founder of Rolf said: if you want to improve something - improve what you can reach.
Stephen Covey said that the main thing is the balance of the sides of life, and the balance is kept on regularity.
He, Stephen Covey, says that you need to sharpen the saw - to regularly develop in the selected area, at least a little, but every day or week.
Gandapas says - start with what you have. No sneakers - run in shoes and a suit. The main thing is to start and continue.
Ancient Chinese torture, when water drips onto a person’s head, says that the formula “small action + regularity” works in a wide variety of fields.
Well, ours, Russian, “water grinds a stone”, exactly the same thing.
You all know this, and you’ll give another million examples.
Specifically, Jeb Klitschko struck me (figuratively) - not because I “understood” - it was clear before. I decided to make this understanding a part of my professional and personal life.
There were several goals.
Firstly, if you believe in the example of Klitschko, you can make small, simple actions a significant element of victory, in all senses of the word.
This is like charging, or there is learning English. You understand that in order to keep yourself in good shape, and at least not to degrade, you need to engage in some kind of physical activity regularly. A lot has been written on this topic, I will not repeat it. There is no need for 2 hours every day to hang around in the gym - this is for athletes and athletic performance.
Secondly, the phrase that I very often met in books haunted me: do what others do not want to do, and you will win. This is not an accurate quote, as in different sources there are different options.
I wanted to learn regularity and discipline. I watched a lot of people, and I saw that everyone has problems with discipline. In business, this leads to serious problems and failures - a lot of plans are made, a lot of rallies happen, at which everyone says: “That's it! Starting a new life! Now we will act like this! ” After a couple of days, enthusiasm disappears, the routine sucks, and all beginnings come to naught. It is clear that a person with a developed discipline of introducing changes into his life gains a serious competitive advantage.
Thirdly, the systemic brain wanted to understand why it is so difficult to do something small and useful every day. What is the problem, why a bunch of time management methods, MBA diplomas and beautiful ties do not allow, for example, tough managers to force themselves to follow the rules that they themselves have developed. It is clear that the system “decided - and do” has a vulnerability.
Fourth, it’s boring to “just work.” It is necessary to develop.
As a real programmer, I created for myself an automated development accounting system. He called it the Klitschko Project.
What for, you ask? There are well-known practices, such as check lists and TODO lists. You write what you need to do, do it, check the boxes, and here it is, happiness.
But there is one trouble - check lists are born and die in one day, like moths. The checklist answers two questions:
1. What should I do today?
2. What have I done today?
But yesterday? And a week ago? And how did I spend this week as a whole? How many jabs have I completed? And in a month? And compare the weeks among themselves? And the dynamics from month to month?
If you are a programmer, then you understand that you need a simple accounting - you need to write to the database what you had to do and what was done every day. Then, having such a database, the answers to all questions will be found by themselves.
It was such an automated system that I created for myself. Language hardly turns to call it an automated system, it was business for 1 hour, but oh well.
The trick is simple, like picking your nose - write down what you did and what didn’t. Have statistics for each day, in numbers, not emotions.
You could, of course, keep records on paper checklists, store them and analyze them, but there is a chance to get into this situation:
Now it was necessary to choose what exactly, how and when to do it. The choice is huge, but something was needed from the current work - at the same time useful for me and the business, simple, with an obvious result.
I decided to choose what corresponded to the principle of “doing what others do not” - independently, on my own initiative, without setting goals, to develop a system and, if possible, a business, as far as I can reach.
Most people do not do this - on their own initiative. Everyone is waiting for tasks, projects, directions, motivation. So that someone took it himself, without a project, budget and bonus, he would improve something - you’ll get a hell.
This is normal, in general. Or not normal? I do not know. But it reminds me of a vicious cycle. Business does not want to pay more, because people are uninitiated, they work only at the direction of, and even that is not very high quality. And people do not want to be proactive, look for opportunities for improvement and implement them qualitatively, because they pay the same money, or maybe less - the initiative is considered punishable.
This is the circle I decided to try to break.
I chose the following as jabs:
1. Setting up checks in the information system (implementation of the concept of a self-learning system);
2. Inventing and formulating ideas and proposals for the development of the company;
3. The implementation of their own and others' ideas on the development of the company;
4. Setting automatic task setting (implementation of the concept of postERP);
5. Search for non-optimal code and its refactoring.
I christened all these actions with jabs, recognized them as equivalent and set a rule: every working day I have to do any of the listed actions. One, any, but to the end and every day.
In order not to deceive or enrage anyone, I practiced jabs for lunch, i.e. instead of lunch. Anyway, lunch is evil.
I will briefly explain the selected jabs. The main thing - I did not perform the tasks that someone set for me. If I was tasked with optimizing the code, then I executed it during working hours, and like a jab it did not count.
Now point by point.
1. Checks - this is an abstract mechanism that makes 1C better, data is better, reduces the number of errors. But it must be filled. I found a script for the error, made a check, life got better.
1C, which was in a yellow box, knew nothing about our company. Checks help teach 1C how it is customary here, and learn quickly and effectively.
If you consider me as part of the system, you will get self-education. I am like a translator, with one foot here, with the other there. The system looks at the world with my eyes, sees its mistakes, and adapts to be closer to the world.
2 and 3. Our company had an automated system for recording proposals for improvement and their implementation. Any person could write something there, it was discussed there, voted and once could be realized.
The proposals for the development of the company have two troubles:
• They are few served, because “A, no one will do it anyway, nothing will change”;
• Nobody will really do them, and nothing will change.
I decided to kill two birds with one stone - and created and implemented proposals.
I chose proposals for implementation from those related to the information system.
He wrote down new ideas not only of his own, but also of strangers, which people told me verbally, but did not fill out in the system, because "well, no one will do it anyway ..."
4. Automatic task setting is a tool for quickly describing and changing business processes. Exactly what is embedded in the poster. But this abstract mechanism, as well as data verification from item 1, therefore the main condition for useful use is that it must be filled, i.e. Describe and launch new processes.
5. Refactoring of system braking spots is simply one of my favorite entertainments. You see yourself, or people complain or the measurement system tells you where the brakes are.
You open the measurement of performance, and went to bring to mind. Buzz.
It was terribly lazy, especially the first days. The flash dope constantly worked - you don’t do anything for four days, when you get ready for the fifth day and smell the jab, and that’s all - a complete feeling that the whole week went well.
And then you look at the statistics - 1 day out of 5, i.e. 20% of your plan. You wipe away the snot, force yourself, remember the goals, that you thought up all this yourself, and you don’t have to answer to anyone, and it becomes easier.
As a result, the fool was able to quickly overcome, and during the first month the habit developed daily to do something useful.
I worked specifically with these jabs for 3 months, i.e. approximately 60 business days.
During this time:
1. I set up about 30 checks of primary documents, as a result of which the procedure for closing a month and correcting analytics was halved;
2. He wrote about 200 new ideas for the development of the company;
3. Implemented approximately 80 ideas for the development of the company.
As a by-product, I received an increase in people's interest in the system of ideas and suggestions. They realized that "at least someone in this company is changing something." And they began to write more sentences.
4. Completely entangled with the right tasks two mass processes - procurement and money management. The purchase resulted in an incredible quality controlling system - simple, fast, easy, responsive.
5. Optimized the verification from p. 1 by implementing three ways of executing the layout scheme in 1C. I optimized the autotasks from p. 4. I made asynchronous batch processing, which speeds up the recording of primary documents by several times. Etc.
At the strategic session of the company, I presented the goals, the process and the results of the Klitschko project as one of the ways to increase the effectiveness of the manager’s work (by that time I was already an IT director).
Specifically, that part of the Klitschko project that I outlined in this publication was only the first experience, but it also brought tangible results for the company. Here are the main ones:
But Klitschko himself gave me a lot more. I understood the power of regularity and discipline, and I learned to consciously, systematically and consistently seek discipline from myself. And then from others.
Having become an IT director, with the help of jabs, I learned the correct, effective and interesting regular management. This is a good, but separate topic, somehow I will get together and write about it.
Jeb and regularity played a significant role in the experiment, accelerating the work of programmers by 4 times.
Thanks to the jabs, I realized where, in what sand, the strategic development of companies flows, and in general all the changes.
Jeb helped to understand what was wrong with the managers, why they often stomp on the spot, while being very busy - they run all day, as if wound up, and the result is so-so.
Subsequently, I developed the ideas of the Klitschko project in the topic of task flow management, but this is a completely different story.
I’ll tell you what I studied with Klitschko. If this story is useful to you, in any form - excellent. Programmers must help each other.
I somehow accidentally read about Jeb Klitschko. I am not an expert in boxing, but I will try to explain (to those who are also not experts).
When the boxer is standing, he has one hand slightly in front, the other a little behind. The one that is slightly behind (right-handed - right) beats cross - a direct hit, very strong, because it has a large trajectory and the energy of almost the whole body is invested in it.
A jab beats with his hand just ahead, a short, quick stroke. It is not as strong as cross, but it is faster and easier. As a result, it can be used more often.
So, Klitschko made the jab one of the most important elements of his strategy (this is from the words of analysts and coaches, I did not come up with). He often jabs a lot, exhausting an opponent, preventing him from striking. Due to frequent use, Jeb Klitschko became stronger than the average boxer - in other words, he pumped it.
And this Jeb Klitschko sunk into my soul. Not as a boxing device, but as an element of a strategy leading to victory.
I disengaged myself from boxing, and looked at Jeb Klitschko through the prism of my life, first of all that part of it that flows at work.
I laid out Jeb Klitschko into two fundamental elements:
• Simplicity and accessibility of execution;
• Frequency of use.
A simple, understandable, short action that is performed regularly to help win.
The brain immediately began to look for analogies, and there were a lot of them.
Zeland in Transerfing constantly says: the main condition for the success of the practice is regularity. Who read, remember - 30 minutes, but always every day.
The founder of Rolf said: if you want to improve something - improve what you can reach.
Stephen Covey said that the main thing is the balance of the sides of life, and the balance is kept on regularity.
He, Stephen Covey, says that you need to sharpen the saw - to regularly develop in the selected area, at least a little, but every day or week.
Gandapas says - start with what you have. No sneakers - run in shoes and a suit. The main thing is to start and continue.
Ancient Chinese torture, when water drips onto a person’s head, says that the formula “small action + regularity” works in a wide variety of fields.
Well, ours, Russian, “water grinds a stone”, exactly the same thing.
You all know this, and you’ll give another million examples.
Specifically, Jeb Klitschko struck me (figuratively) - not because I “understood” - it was clear before. I decided to make this understanding a part of my professional and personal life.
What for?
There were several goals.
Firstly, if you believe in the example of Klitschko, you can make small, simple actions a significant element of victory, in all senses of the word.
This is like charging, or there is learning English. You understand that in order to keep yourself in good shape, and at least not to degrade, you need to engage in some kind of physical activity regularly. A lot has been written on this topic, I will not repeat it. There is no need for 2 hours every day to hang around in the gym - this is for athletes and athletic performance.
Secondly, the phrase that I very often met in books haunted me: do what others do not want to do, and you will win. This is not an accurate quote, as in different sources there are different options.
I wanted to learn regularity and discipline. I watched a lot of people, and I saw that everyone has problems with discipline. In business, this leads to serious problems and failures - a lot of plans are made, a lot of rallies happen, at which everyone says: “That's it! Starting a new life! Now we will act like this! ” After a couple of days, enthusiasm disappears, the routine sucks, and all beginnings come to naught. It is clear that a person with a developed discipline of introducing changes into his life gains a serious competitive advantage.
Thirdly, the systemic brain wanted to understand why it is so difficult to do something small and useful every day. What is the problem, why a bunch of time management methods, MBA diplomas and beautiful ties do not allow, for example, tough managers to force themselves to follow the rules that they themselves have developed. It is clear that the system “decided - and do” has a vulnerability.
Fourth, it’s boring to “just work.” It is necessary to develop.
System
As a real programmer, I created for myself an automated development accounting system. He called it the Klitschko Project.
What for, you ask? There are well-known practices, such as check lists and TODO lists. You write what you need to do, do it, check the boxes, and here it is, happiness.
But there is one trouble - check lists are born and die in one day, like moths. The checklist answers two questions:
1. What should I do today?
2. What have I done today?
But yesterday? And a week ago? And how did I spend this week as a whole? How many jabs have I completed? And in a month? And compare the weeks among themselves? And the dynamics from month to month?
If you are a programmer, then you understand that you need a simple accounting - you need to write to the database what you had to do and what was done every day. Then, having such a database, the answers to all questions will be found by themselves.
It was such an automated system that I created for myself. Language hardly turns to call it an automated system, it was business for 1 hour, but oh well.
The trick is simple, like picking your nose - write down what you did and what didn’t. Have statistics for each day, in numbers, not emotions.
You could, of course, keep records on paper checklists, store them and analyze them, but there is a chance to get into this situation:
Practice
Now it was necessary to choose what exactly, how and when to do it. The choice is huge, but something was needed from the current work - at the same time useful for me and the business, simple, with an obvious result.
I decided to choose what corresponded to the principle of “doing what others do not” - independently, on my own initiative, without setting goals, to develop a system and, if possible, a business, as far as I can reach.
Most people do not do this - on their own initiative. Everyone is waiting for tasks, projects, directions, motivation. So that someone took it himself, without a project, budget and bonus, he would improve something - you’ll get a hell.
This is normal, in general. Or not normal? I do not know. But it reminds me of a vicious cycle. Business does not want to pay more, because people are uninitiated, they work only at the direction of, and even that is not very high quality. And people do not want to be proactive, look for opportunities for improvement and implement them qualitatively, because they pay the same money, or maybe less - the initiative is considered punishable.
This is the circle I decided to try to break.
I chose the following as jabs:
1. Setting up checks in the information system (implementation of the concept of a self-learning system);
2. Inventing and formulating ideas and proposals for the development of the company;
3. The implementation of their own and others' ideas on the development of the company;
4. Setting automatic task setting (implementation of the concept of postERP);
5. Search for non-optimal code and its refactoring.
I christened all these actions with jabs, recognized them as equivalent and set a rule: every working day I have to do any of the listed actions. One, any, but to the end and every day.
In order not to deceive or enrage anyone, I practiced jabs for lunch, i.e. instead of lunch. Anyway, lunch is evil.
I will briefly explain the selected jabs. The main thing - I did not perform the tasks that someone set for me. If I was tasked with optimizing the code, then I executed it during working hours, and like a jab it did not count.
Now point by point.
1. Checks - this is an abstract mechanism that makes 1C better, data is better, reduces the number of errors. But it must be filled. I found a script for the error, made a check, life got better.
1C, which was in a yellow box, knew nothing about our company. Checks help teach 1C how it is customary here, and learn quickly and effectively.
If you consider me as part of the system, you will get self-education. I am like a translator, with one foot here, with the other there. The system looks at the world with my eyes, sees its mistakes, and adapts to be closer to the world.
2 and 3. Our company had an automated system for recording proposals for improvement and their implementation. Any person could write something there, it was discussed there, voted and once could be realized.
The proposals for the development of the company have two troubles:
• They are few served, because “A, no one will do it anyway, nothing will change”;
• Nobody will really do them, and nothing will change.
I decided to kill two birds with one stone - and created and implemented proposals.
I chose proposals for implementation from those related to the information system.
He wrote down new ideas not only of his own, but also of strangers, which people told me verbally, but did not fill out in the system, because "well, no one will do it anyway ..."
4. Automatic task setting is a tool for quickly describing and changing business processes. Exactly what is embedded in the poster. But this abstract mechanism, as well as data verification from item 1, therefore the main condition for useful use is that it must be filled, i.e. Describe and launch new processes.
5. Refactoring of system braking spots is simply one of my favorite entertainments. You see yourself, or people complain or the measurement system tells you where the brakes are.
You open the measurement of performance, and went to bring to mind. Buzz.
Process
It was terribly lazy, especially the first days. The flash dope constantly worked - you don’t do anything for four days, when you get ready for the fifth day and smell the jab, and that’s all - a complete feeling that the whole week went well.
And then you look at the statistics - 1 day out of 5, i.e. 20% of your plan. You wipe away the snot, force yourself, remember the goals, that you thought up all this yourself, and you don’t have to answer to anyone, and it becomes easier.
As a result, the fool was able to quickly overcome, and during the first month the habit developed daily to do something useful.
results
I worked specifically with these jabs for 3 months, i.e. approximately 60 business days.
During this time:
1. I set up about 30 checks of primary documents, as a result of which the procedure for closing a month and correcting analytics was halved;
2. He wrote about 200 new ideas for the development of the company;
3. Implemented approximately 80 ideas for the development of the company.
As a by-product, I received an increase in people's interest in the system of ideas and suggestions. They realized that "at least someone in this company is changing something." And they began to write more sentences.
4. Completely entangled with the right tasks two mass processes - procurement and money management. The purchase resulted in an incredible quality controlling system - simple, fast, easy, responsive.
5. Optimized the verification from p. 1 by implementing three ways of executing the layout scheme in 1C. I optimized the autotasks from p. 4. I made asynchronous batch processing, which speeds up the recording of primary documents by several times. Etc.
Results and Development
At the strategic session of the company, I presented the goals, the process and the results of the Klitschko project as one of the ways to increase the effectiveness of the manager’s work (by that time I was already an IT director).
Specifically, that part of the Klitschko project that I outlined in this publication was only the first experience, but it also brought tangible results for the company. Here are the main ones:
- A normal, correct practice of improvements appeared in the company - both people and management saw its benefit. I suggested adding motivation, helped me choose the numbers, the management agreed and everything turned around - proposals began to be added and implemented;
- The company has launched a very cool procurement system in full force. One of the main indicators - most of the suppliers who left the company for some reason, at the new job wanted the same. They asked to sell, asked to do, asked to at least sit with them at a meeting with the automation, asked to let them on a tour.
- The soft starter continued to spin on an old server, with 16 GB of RAM and 4 cores, without generating performance problems.
But Klitschko himself gave me a lot more. I understood the power of regularity and discipline, and I learned to consciously, systematically and consistently seek discipline from myself. And then from others.
Having become an IT director, with the help of jabs, I learned the correct, effective and interesting regular management. This is a good, but separate topic, somehow I will get together and write about it.
Jeb and regularity played a significant role in the experiment, accelerating the work of programmers by 4 times.
Thanks to the jabs, I realized where, in what sand, the strategic development of companies flows, and in general all the changes.
Jeb helped to understand what was wrong with the managers, why they often stomp on the spot, while being very busy - they run all day, as if wound up, and the result is so-so.
Subsequently, I developed the ideas of the Klitschko project in the topic of task flow management, but this is a completely different story.