Look Beyond the Obvious

The company for which I work, Almaden, Inc., recently delivered major new functionality for our digital employee experience management product, Collective IQ®. This article is not intended as a marketing piece, but instead provided as a means of highlighting some points I like to make about knowing one’s teammates.

A big challenge

For background, permit me to summarize Collective IQ (CIQ®) as a point-and-click product that leverages IT asset (hardware, software, and network) data, performance data, error details, and user sentiment to convey a comprehensive picture of user frustration that manifests itself in productivity and job satisfaction issues. CIQ presents results in the form of simple to understand graphs with drilldowns into data necessary to perform competent root cause analyses. Consolidating and presenting all this data in a scalable, “consumer-friendly” manner (akin to Smartphone apps – no instructions needed) has been a major undertaking.

Last week we took these capabilities to an entirely new level via the use of generative AI technology. Called AskAlma™ and AlmaPredict™, we use the AI to detect patterns, group results, analyze data, and provide recommendations. The user interacts with both features through point-and-click questions (no coding or prompting). I won’t go through the entire architecture but will say that with this approach the user can query about the current state of their environment or what it will be based on current trends.

Tough Objectives

With the back story out of the way, let’s talk a little about two key team members: one a developer (Gabriel) and the other a UX/UI designer (Natalia).

My team is located in Brazil. They are a smart, passionate, and creative group. However, they lack a lot of the opportunities that Silicon Valley counterparts often take for granted. The Brazilians read about (are starting to use) generative AI and its foundations, while in Silicon Valley they are creating the generative AI itself. The Silicon Valley opportunities exist due to educational institutions, support from the venture community, and events/meet-ups conducive to spreading knowledge, stimulating ideas, and encouraging risks.

The Almaden challenge in bringing AlmaAI™ technologies to life was how to do the work with a fairly junior team which lacked AI experience and deliver the results in a very short timeframe. Furthermore, a top goal was to deliver these capabilities in a pure, point-and-click manner, itself very challenging to implement. Lastly, it goes without saying, that everything had to work in a scalable, performant manner. This was a lot to ask!

Beyond expectations

The need to recognize people’s skills and knowledge goes without saying. Understanding their passions, creativity, and curiosity are equally important in deciding how a project will be executed. After all, as a leader, I would have to put my trust in them (and of course others) if we were to be successful.

Fortunately, Natalia (UX/UI) grasped our objective and after a time (including plenty of conversations and iterations) understood what needed to be done. With the UI prototyped it was time for Gabriel to do his part. This required research, trial and error experimentation, collaboration with other team members, and lots iteration to achieve the necessary experience and performance. Of course, he was aided at different times, but the point is that he didn’t start off with the background teams normally want for such a challenging endeavor. Likewise, Natalia (despite her training) was challenged to understand the magnitude of our point-and-click UI that required the creation of skeleton questions that become the basis for “queries” to the AI.

Clearly, I’m over-simplifying the project and team member skills, though hoping my point gets across in regard to knowing one’s team members in ways which may not be obvious.

How can we know what the resume and tests don’t show? 

I’ve mentioned before about leaders coming out of their ivory tower. There are lots of ways to dirty one’s hands or otherwise engage with team members. Brainstorming, problem-solving sessions, happy hours (even virtual ones), chats, etc. as peers are some good ways. Listening carefully to what people say, how they say things, what they share (slides, photos, music, pets, cars) highlight the soft traits that lead us to understand team members in ways necessary to establish trust in their ability to deliver in line with expectations. These also remove barriers for requesting help and knowing how to help.

Gabriel and Natalia did a truly excellent job. They also had terrific support from Development management and the CIQ team lead, as well as excellent feedback from QA. Nevertheless, as individuals, they evidenced a high degree of innovation, commitment, and desire to transform these ground-breaking features into reality. Yet, only with management looking beyond the obvious and paying attention to soft details, were they selected to attempt this opportunity. Fortunately (and confirming my instincts), their achievements exceeded expectations.

Many more stories!

I’ve got lots more to share and that is what I intend to do. In the meantime, I sincerely hope that everyone’s 2024 is starting off on a healthy and happy note! Those of us working in tech are very fortunate to be part of such an exciting, vibrant market loaded with impressive, accomplished people. In my opinion, working in tech is the fountain of youth!

Being on the front line is truly a rush!

I’m happiest driving teams, creating or fixing processes, evolving cultures, and assisting with hiring. Helping others to competently set a direction, spearhead innovation, make critical decisions, guide team members, and grow individuals into very capable leaders and teams known for their ability to excel takes this feeling to an altogether new level! Expectations and stress are just fuel for the engine. Allow me to share my insights, demonstrate how to quickly make a difference (literally leading by example), or let me get the ball rolling for you!

Please contact me at KrugerTechnologyLLC.com to know more. Let me explain in very tangible ways how I could help you and your enterprise. In the meantime, I’ll keep writing and provide more meaningful tips.