We often see people including their Twitter usernames ( e.g. twitter:@rajivpant) as contact info on presentations, business cards and email signatures.

Would Twitter ‘s username convention of @rajivpant have been better if it had evolved as rajivpant@ , with the @ sign at the end instead of beginning? That would have been more consistent with email and one could take it as shorthand for rajivpant@twitter ( or in this proposed sn: format, for sn:rajivpant@twitter.com )

That way, on Twitter posts (tweets), you could refer to a user as rajivpant@ (implying @twitter as the default). On posts on other sites, you could refer to the user as rajivpant@twitter and still have it link to the user’s page on Twitter (and potentially also notify them on that service). That way, we’d have a consistent person naming and linking convention across social networks or blogs. E.g. rajiv.pant@facebook , rajiv.pant@google

I’ve omitted the “.com” domain name suffix above to avoid confusion with email addresses, but an alternative to that could be to have social network URLs like sn:rajivpant@twitter.com where sn:would be a universal social network protocol handler that would be distinct from the email URL syntax of mailto:rajiv.pant@example.com . It would avoid the need of per-site handlers like twitter:@rajivpant that are becoming common.

One benefit of having the @ (or + in Google+) at the beginning is that the text editor can start to autocomplete the name for you. However, that convenience could still exist in other ways. For example, if you type a special character sequence like sn: , it can start showing you names and just insert it using the username@ format instead. In fact, it could even show you names from your connections on other social networks!

In your contacts (e.g. MacOS Address Book), you could then enter someone’s social network addresses using the sn: URL format. When someone clicks on a sn: link, the URL handler would first look to see if there is registered custom app for that domain name (e.g. Twitter client on MacOS or iOS) and then launch that app. If no app is registered for that social network’s domain, it would map it to an http: URL like https://twitter.com/#!/rajivpant , https://www.facebook.com/rajiv.pant or https://profiles.google.com/rajiv.pant
This would avoid site specific URL formats like twitter:@rajivpant

For brevity, the URLs could simply be in the format sn:username@twitter , sn:username@facebook , sn:username@linkedin and sn:user.name@google If such shorter forms are adopted, then each social network’s brand name would be registered via a system of registries or it could default to .com if the full domain name isn’t specified.

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• You manage all aspects of technology for a major digital brand or for a large company with 3 or more Web sites.
• You lead a technology department of between 50 to 250 staff.
• Internal corporate IT functions such as desktop support, telecommunications services and internal business systems are beyond the scope of this article.

Click on the diagram above to view it as a zooming presentation

The following are seven areas that the CTO heading up such a technology department in a media company is typically responsible for.

Digital Technology Department in a Media Company – By Functional Areas

Each of the seven areas contains the following functions.

1.  More articles related to Scrum teams.

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When stakeholders, executives and team members have confidence in the abilities of a leader/manager, it results in their lending greater support to that leader/manager. It also tends to make them more forgiving of mistakes made by the leader. Both of these things result in better performance, effectiveness and results from the leader. That, in turn causes the stakeholders, executives and team members to have even greater confidence in the abilities of the leader. This causal loop scenario is good for the leader’s career.

In the study of System Dynamics, this would be called a reinforcing loop as illustrated in the diagram. This is an example of applying Systems Thinking to a workplace scenario.

The reverse of this also holds. When stakeholders, executives and team members don’t have faith in a manager, it results in them not lending their support and effort to the project being led by the manager. It also causes them to be unforgiving when the manager makes mistakes. Those things result in problems and the project performing poorly. That, in turn results in the people having even less faith and confidence in the manager.

A manager needs to break out of such an undesirable reinforcing loop situation before it results in his/her downfall.

The ways out of such situations include:

• The executives replace the manager. However, this is often an undesirable result for the manager.
• The manager has the team work on some tasks in the project that he/she has a high probability of making successful. These help the manager gain the confidence of others.
• The manager starts to perform other things well that help build confidence in his/her management qualities. For example, becoming highly responsive to emails and requests, following up after meetings and discussions, etc.
• The manager starts to meet constructively and regularly with executives, stakeholders and team members one on one with the goal of developing and maintaining relationships of trust with them.

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Shorter paths (fewer arrows along the way) do not indicate a quicker career growth path. To the contrary, often gaining experience in multiple areas helps develop as a well-rounded executive prepared for senior leadership roles.

Certain roles are not listed explicitly but are combined into other roles in this illustration. For example, the roles of Security are merged into Systems in this view. Also, roles like Senior Engineer and Lead Engineer are not shown separately, but covered by Engineer and Engineering Manager. Similarly, Senior Manager and Senior Director are also not shown separately. Incorporating that level of detail would have significantly increased the complexity and decreased the readability of the diagram.

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Sarah Chubb Sauvayre, President, Conde Nast Digital managed Rajiv at Conde Nast

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Janet Kasdan, Director of Technology, Conde Nast Digital, reported to Rajiv at Conde Nast

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Jessica Perry, Vice President, Product Planning/Management, Conde Nast Digital, worked directly with Rajiv at Conde Nast

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Susan Kaplow, Executive Editor, Syndication and Web Development, Conde Nast
worked with Rajiv at Conde Nast

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If you are the CTO or VP of Technology at an organization, your team needs to do three things effectively and regularly:

1. Innovate; improve; create new products, features, services & processes
2. Operate; maintain; execute existing processes & systems with predictable results
3. Seek & identify products, features, services and processes that are no longer necessary; Decommission systems; Free up resources for reassignment

The above are the roles of creator, guardian and recycler, respectively.

An example of a creator-type manager is someone whose primary background is software engineering and that their strength is in delivering client satisfaction & happiness via innovative products & services.

A example of a guardian-type manager is someone who does a good job heading up technology operations.

The dedicated recycler-type role rarely exists in many organizations, resulting in unnecessary systems (whole or in part), features and processes consuming money, causing unnecessary complexity and slowing down productivity and innovation. Recycling should be a part of everyday work in a technology organization. Reduce waste by recycling.

There are many benefits of having a dedicated recycler role in your management team:

• Higher productivity due to reduction of complexity, removal of obstacles and availability of freed-up resources
• Helps eliminate or minimize ‘process creep’
• A happier workplace resulting from the above
• Cost savings

I recommend that you have these three distinct roles, with a manager focussed on only one of creator, guardian, or recycler type tasks & responsibilities at a given time.

The table below gives some examples of tasks and responsibilities under the three areas.

This article was inspired by the Indian concept of Trimurti in which in which the cosmic functions of creation, maintenance, and destruction are personified. It was also inspired by the Harvard Business Review article titled “What 17th-Century Pirates Can Teach Us About Job Design“ by Hayagreeva Rao, Professor of at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

This post about the Trinity Method of Technology Management is part of a series on technology leadership & management.

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CAREER-CLEAR

Employees are scored in a total of 5 categories. Upto 10 points can be earned in each category for a total of upto 50 points. The final score is then multiplied by a factor of 2 to give a standard scale of 0 to 100. Using a normalized 100 point scale allows it to remain consistent (by adjusting the factor) even as companies add/remove categories and items.

If you want to jump directly to the system first and then come back and read the text, click here.

The scoring for each item follows a simple but strict 3-level scale of 0 (below baseline), 1 (at baseline) or 2 (better than baseline). There are no fractional “in between” scores. For example, you must not score someone 1.5. You must pick either 1 or 2. This 3-options-only scale is meant to minimize vagueness. For the same reason, a wider scoring range like 1 to 5 (commonly seen in star rating systems) is not used. A score of 0 in an item is not neccessarily bad. If you are not seeing at least a few 0 scores for most employees, you have set your baselines for each item too low.

The baseline for each item is the same for everyone from the programmer-apprentice to the VP of Engineering. The baseline level — i.e. what quality of performance in that item rates a score of 1 — must be defined in advance for each item as unambiguously as possible. This can be done by senior management or by management consultants hired for this purpose. Doing this in consultation with the employees (who are to be rated) and clients/stakeholders is recommended.

The resulting total score is meant to be mapped to the employee’s level of seniority/rank for title and compensation. That means within a job functional area, employees at senior levels should score higher than employees at junior levels.

For example, a score of 81-100 could map to director/VP levels; 61-80 manager; 41-60 engineer/contributor; 21-40 junior level/apprentice. Since different functional areas — for example, software engineering and quality assurance testing — may have different pay scales, this score maps directly to rank/title, and those are mapped to salaries corresponding to the functional areas’ market rates.

You will notice that a lot of emphasis is given to leadership and management qualities. This is designed for the system to work across the wide range of skills from intern to VP. At first, this may seem like the system is unfairly skewed in favor of seniority and higher level employees. The system, however, is designed to favor skills and better level of performance in multiple areas.

The first four categories are described below. The fifth category is defined as discretionary/user-defined. CAREER-CLEAR is designed to be used in the real world, in a diversity of organizations and on a regular basis. The system won’t succeed if it is too rigid. On the other hand, the system must meet its goals of being fair, consistent and constructive for all employees. To accomodate and balance these goals, 20% of the criteria is meant to be user-defined at descretion of the manager within the fair, consistent and constructive guidelines.

It is inspired by systems described to be in use at Microsoft, Construx, FogCreek (Joel on Software) and Conde Nast Digital Technology. The latter was developed by Bobby Chowdhury, Brian Murphy, Janet Kasdan and Rajiv Pant.

The 5 categories are: Caliber, Leadership, Expertise, Role and Discretionary.

Caliber

This section measures the talent of the employee in general (non-technical) areas.

Scoring: Above Average=2, Average=1, Below Average=0. Add the score for each of the heuristics. Max Score=10 points.

1. Ownership – Has identifiable long-term ownership of projects. This is a measure of the criticality, complexity and / or number of projects the employee has ownership in.
2. Responsibility – Is consistently reliable in terms of deliverables and time.
3. Communication – Communicates effectively with peers and other colleagues. Listens to and understands others’ viewpoints, challenges, needs and desires.
4. Consistency – Is approachable, predictable, receptive and consistently applies good judgment in all interpersonal interactions in the work place.
5. Innovative – Innovates and stays abreast of emerging technologies and finds ways to incorporate those technologies into systems.

Leadership

This section evaluates the positive influence the employee has on others.

Scoring: Above Average=2, Average=1, Below Average=0. Add the score for each of the heuristics. Max Score=10 points.

1. Teacher, Coach & Motivator – Mentors others, makes great use of all information sharing tools available and is an active presenter. Rallies the troops and improves morale.
2. Enabler – Empowers and enables others to succeed.
3. Exemplary – Leads by example and goes above and beyond the ‘requirements’.
4. Maturity & Humility – Embraces others’ solutions, even when incompatible with one’s own. Incorporates feedback from others to find the best solutions.
5. Connector – Has familiarity with the ecosystem beyond one’s own projects. Functions as a hub which others are drawn to for a quick answer or a quick redirect towards an answer.

Expertise

This section quantifies the skills and experience of the employee related to the job function.

Scoring: Above Average=2, Average=1, Below Average=0. Add the score for each of the heuristics. Max Score=10 points.

1. Fundamentals – Understands of the core technical concepts aligned with the given job function. This may include data structures & algorithms, testing, networking, etc.
2. Breadth of Expertise – Is a subject matter expert and go-to person for many areas of technology.
3. Pragmatic – Has a demonstrated ability to identify the best solution to balance what’s most theoretically ideal against what might be the most practical due to concerns about security, scalability, time to market pressures and cost.
4. Automator – Consistently works to drive improvement in processes and systems.
5. “Boy/Girl Scout Rule” – Leaves code and systems better off than they found them.

Role

This section enumerates the employee’s role and areas of contribution within the organization and beyond.

Scoring: Above Average=2, Average=1, Below Average=0. Add the score for each of the heuristics. Max Score=10 points.

1. Strategic – Provides sound vision for broad, long-term goals.
2. Tactical – Oversees many projects or activities that move the organization towards strategic goals.
3. Operational – Steers day-to-day processes that achieve the tactical goals.
4. Executional – Implements repetitive tasks that make up the operational processes. A measure of quantity and more importantly, quality of work produced.
5. Industry Recognition – Is recognized externally as a leading technologist through contributions to open source projects, blogging, writing books, participating in technical committees, speaking at conferences, etc.

The following are some examples to illustrate strategic, tactical, operational and executional.

• Strategic: “Our new Web application will become one of the top three, preferably #1, in its space in the US market.”
• Tactical: “We will hire a small team to develop and launch it. An office location would be required to meet partners and clients. We will also need additional funding.”
• Operational: “We will hire a great software architect, 2 expert engineers, set up office in Manhattan, and have goal of reaching $500,000 in additional funding by the end of the year.”
• Executional: “The architect designs the Web application in collaboration with the engineers. The engineers and the architect implement it. The team then makes it live and markets it via social networks and other channels.

Discretionary

Please be sure to adhere to the goals of being fair, consistent and constructive for all employees in using this discretionary section. This category is not meant to be used to justify favoritism nor meant to be arbitrary. Good descretion comes from rational, reasonable and relevant criteria. Place items here that are not already covered in other categories and are important to your organization. A good rule of thumb is that you must be able to justify any criteria you apply here.

Scoring: Above Average=2, Average=1, Below Average=0. Add the score for each of the heuristics. Max Score=10 points.

1. discretionary / user-defined item 1
2. discretionary / user-defined item 2
3. discretionary / user-defined item 3
4. discretionary / user-defined item 4
5. discretionary / user-defined item 5

CAREER-CLEAR version 2.1 2010-Oct-13

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