Year: 2009

Program Managers vs. Interaction designers

Posted on in design, Making things happen, Management, Microsoftby Scott Berkun

Recently Joel on Software posted about how to be a program manager and he lists UI design as one of the skills program managers should be responsible for. It’s no surprise that people who call themselves UI designers, such as the folks on on the interaction design mailing list, have taken notice and are mostly unhappy.

(Back story: The idea of program managers, roughly a sergeant level generalist who drives projects, is an idea I like.  It’s a job role Microsoft started in the late 1980s . It’s a job I had in the 90s).

Which gets to the question of should PMs do design.

The easy answer is yes, if they are good at it. Most are not. Most do not know this because they’ve never met an interaction designer, someone who does it professionally for a living. Simply because Fred is better at it than his peers, he assumes he is good. It’s not his fault exactly. Most computer science programs and business schools never talk to design schools. Certainly not about how much they need to learn from the other. And most program managers in the world are hired from computer science and business schools.

Anyway, the better teams at Microsoft figured this out over a decade ago. They did one of:

  • Hired full time UI designers and usability engineers.  (In 2003, when I left, there were over 400 of these people employed at Microsoft).
  • Created a special role called a UI PM, who was the PM good at design who led the UI work.
  • Or both.

VPs that cared about ease of use invested in these assets, and just as important, built a culture around ease of use taking priority over other considerations.

However, in most cases the above investments had moderate impact on product quality because these people never receive sufficient power to overcome the other 20 PMs running around. Sometimes all the PMs are ignored anyway by the programmers but they are in denial about it, so it’s moot until that fight for power gets sorted out.

The program manager model is just one idea for diving up work. It’s a good model, but does have it’s problems. On larger teams it’s too easy for PMs to get lost in their egos and self-interests, each one fighting to make a great feature, inside of what becomes a mediocre product.  It’s also a role that depends on culture, you can’t just graft it on and expect it to work as it impacts everyone.

Program management works best on smaller teams, or in organizations where the PM can have significant power. Once you have 15 or 20 of them running around it gets hard to sort things out. Imagine 15 or 20 film directors trying to work on a film together. If you give them enough power, you don’t need many film directors. And if you don’t need many, it’s easier to find ones with all of the talents you want, including the ability to design user interfaces.

The bottom line: program managers are generalists

At the end of the day it doesn’t matter who makes the UI design decisions provided they are good and they ship.  If you’re a PM, your primary obligation is the quality of what goes out the door. If you have someone other than you available who is good at design, your top priority should be to get out of their way, just as you would for someone good at programming, testing, or any other role. Find other things to do to keep busy – I’m sure they exist. The value of the PM, or any manager, is their ability to fight for the best use of everyone’s time, including their own.

If ease of use is truly important in what you’re making, odds are it deserves the attention of a specialist or two who can dedicate their energy to it. If nothing else, they can teach you some of the stuff you don’t know you need to know. PMs can rarely dedicate their attention to anything, as their value is their ability to co-ordinate and lead.

The bestselling book I wrote about program management, Making Things happen, has several nice chapters about how to lead design and customer research, and advocates the above advice.

Wednesday linkfest

Posted on in linkfestby Scott Berkun

Here’s the good stuff I’ve found recently:

Best advice I’ve seen for web startups

Posted on in entrepreneurship, Innovationby Scott Berkun

In 25 minutes, David Heinemeier Hannson of 37 Signals slices through most of the nonsense and hype around startup companies that I’ve heard over the years, including several myths around innovation (I don’t think he even uses the word once, until someone asks a question that includes it).  It’s by far the most bs free talk about start-ups and web entrepreneurship I’ve seen. Peter Drucker would love this.

</p> <div><a href='http://www.omnisio.com'>Share and annotate your videos</a> with Omnisio!</div> <p>

Jump to 28:50 to get past the introduction if you get bored early.

Or Watch video on its own page.

The top 100 speeches of the 20th century

Posted on in Public Speakingby Scott Berkun

As research for my bestselling book on Public Speaking, I listened to dozens of famous speeches. I found a list of the top 100 speeches of all time and worked my way through it, making the following observations:

  • We have technology bias.  Since we don’t have recordings of, for example, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Jesus’ sermon on the mount, or Cicero at the Roman Senate, this top 100 list is really the top 100 audio recordings of speeches of all time. There are hundreds of years of great speeches that will never make this list, even if we extend it beyond the 20th century, simply because we’ve never heard them spoken.
  • There is a difference between a great written speech and a great performance. No living person heard Lincoln actually give the Gettysburg address.  It’s debatable how good a speaker he was. Many of the speeches in this list are noteworthy for their content, but not necessarily for how they are presented (e.g. Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech).
  • None of these speeches used Powerpoint, or had media of any kind. It’s a reminder that it’s your ideas and how clear you can be in expressing them with your voice that matters more than anything. Some of these speeches were clearly read from a script, but many were developed through practice and using a system like the one I recommend.
  • We have cultural biases that affect who is listed.  I have yet to find a proper international list of the speeches of all time. Most of the lists I’ve found are made in the U.S. and/or Google has a strong U.S. bias since that’s where I’m searching from. I also only understand English, so even if there were an international list, it would have to be translated. And of course, history biases which speeches and ideas will be honored:  Hitler and Mussolini were both notable public speakers, but I doubt we’ll see them on any lists like these, even if they belong up there.
  •  Malcolm X is one of the best speakers on the list. I certainly don’t agree with all of his points, especially his more militant early work, but he succeeds at being natural, provocative, funny, intelligent and passionate in ways few on this list do (Try White Man’s Law as an early example and Any means necessary for later). MLK is far more theatrical in the way he presents, and I like it less (although he is exceptional). Many of the speeches in this top 100 list are by politicians, and are unsurprisingly stiff and rehearsed sounding. Even JFK comes off this way in some of his most famous speeches.

[Updated/edited: 1-13-16]

(Seattle) Presentation Camp – Saturday April 4th

Posted on in Seattle, Teaching/Trainingby Scott Berkun

Thanks to the kick-ass work of Kathy Gill, the first ever presentation camp in Seattle is scheduled to run all day Saturday April 4th at the University of Washington.

$10 gets you in for the whole day if you register by March 31 -  Registration and details here.

PresentationCamp is an ad-hoc gathering of passionate folks who want to share, interact and spread the love around the topic of presentation design and delivery. Come to learn, come to share: everyone walks away knowing a little bit more. (Not in seattle? Other camps are listed here )

The day will be run in unconference format, meaning every attendee is free to volunteer to run a session. The wiki is used to help sort out who is interested in what, and what sessions are already being planned. Don’t see what you want? Add a note for what you want to see, or what you’d be interested in helping run.

Right now odds are good I’ll be doing a big talk to start the day, and will definitely run a session or two during the event.

If you’re interested, please asap, leave your name on the wiki to help us plan the day, or go ahead and register.

How to Call Bullshit on a Guru or Expert

Posted on in Teaching/Trainingby Scott Berkun

The longer I’m in the business of giving people advice, the more concerned I am about losing perspective. I see some experts who speak to their audiences as if they’re fools. While it’s true that we’re attracted to confidence and want to have faith, it’s all too easy to be distracted by superficials and forget to question the fundamentals.

Here’s an easy guide for testing if an “expert” is worthy of your respect:

  • Ask “have you done this yourself?” Many gurus have never successfully done the thing they are giving advice about. Some haven’t been practitioners in a long time. It’s easy to forget the difference between giving advice to do something and actually doing it.  And the longer it has been since they’ve done it, whether it’s running a marathon or starting a successful business, the easier it will seem to be to them. Of course, just because an expert hasn’t done it themselves doesn’t mean they’re wrong, it just means they might need to ease up on the confidence they have in their own advice.
  • Ask “How do you know what you know?” Phrases like “studies say”, “I have seen”, “the leading theory is” are all possibly bogus phrases. They demand someone ask: What study? Where did you see this? Who says it’s the leading theory? Don’t even let an expert’s assumptions float past you. A true expert will encourage you to ask questions and challenge what they say. The word guru itself means  “someone who dispels darkness and ignorance” and anyone who uses that label should welcome the light your questions bring.
  • Ask “When is the theory you are advocating wrong?” Nothing works all the time. A smart person is aware of the limitations of any idea or practice. Ask them to explain the alternative of their position, and when they might take it. In any field there are always smart and respected experts who disagree on important subjects. A true expert will be well versed in the alternative arguments and comfortable exploring them with you.
  • Look for admissions of mistakes and failures. Someone who never admits they are wrong is dangerous. If they’re so smart, and they’ve never failed, it just means they’re a coward and have never challenged themselves (despite the challenges they’re telling you to take) sufficiently to fail. But if they’ve failed and never talk about it, they project an unreal image of what is to be a human being. Ask for stories of mistakes and failures, their own or others. This will force any true guru into open and honest territory where they can be of greater use to you.
  • Ask “Why do so many people fail at this?” From starting companies to losing weight, to writing books, our most popular experts offer advice on things most people who try fail to achieve. A wise person will answer this question and acknowledge how hard the thing is to do.  But there is an ego trap in this question: I once heard a famous consultant say, in response, “because not enough people follow my advice.”

Things to avoid so you don’t go too far:

When we’re looking for BS and find some we’re prone to going too far. Just because an expert has exaggerated their experience, or overstated the value of their advice doesn’t mean they have nothing of value to offer.

  • One factual error doesn’t dismiss a theory or a person. Factual errors are everywhere. Many good books contain them and it’s hard as a writer to sort through the origin of every fact. The existence of a mistake does not mean the premise of the author, or expert, is wrong and our tendency towards confirmation bias leads us to dismiss sound ideas that have simply chosen a poor source. It indicates a mistake in research, which all popular research has. Its maddening when someone finds I misquoted someone, or got a fact wrong, and assumes all my quotes and dates are wrong. You can criticize someone’s research but still buy the premise and theory, as some facts are less important than others. Instead look for experts who make changes to their work when they learn of mistakes and grow from it. (there’s a list of mistakes from the 1st edition of The Myths of Innovation in the 2nd, and all books should do this).
  • Use an expert as your negative stepping stone. This is what a heckler tries to do. They want to steal thunder and use someone else’s platform as a launching point for their own.  In life you score more points for building on what people say, not tearing it down. If tearing something down is necessary to create a better theory, that’s fine, but people often forget that second part.
  • Demand instant satisfaction. Sometimes when I’m stumped, I say: “send me that question in email and I’ll blog about it, with a better answer”.  This is not a cop-out if I follow through. I may have a good answer, or know a fact, but not be able to access it in real time (the older I get, the truer this will be). The goal is the truth, not how fast  I can access it. Asking a guru to follow up on their blog about something is a totally reasonable request, and it’s one I love to hear.

What other advice do you have for authors and experts who want to avoid going too far? Leave a comment.

[Post updated 12-18-13, 9-5-14, and 3-31-16 with minor edits]

Can a consultant be of use in one day?

Posted on in Teaching/Trainingby Scott Berkun

A few weeks ago Ze Frank had an interesting post about the challenges of short term consulting.

If the client and I do a good job on defining goals of the consultation before I visit, the answer is yes – a consultant can absolutely be of use in 8 hours, or even less.  Sometimes an hour is enough – they’re paying for my experience and perspective, and if they have a clear problem they are facing and can describe it well, I’m a cost effective way to reach a quicker resolution.

But on occasion I find myself in an environment where there are too many cultural issues or nuances for me to be effective. This means I’ve failed to explore the needs beforehand. I hate this for many reasons, but sometimes it happens despite my efforts.

There are three situations in particular that makes one day consultations hard:

  • I’m hired for reasons other than I’m told.  The person hiring me only grants me their perspective, and I only learn of the other perspectives when I arrive in a room and watch them get played out in my presence. To be extreme, the dude bringing me might be Darth Vader, but I think he’s Yoda until I’m an hour in the meeting and realize I don’t agree with him, or his reasons for bringing me in at all.
  • I’m hired by the wrong person. If the issues are truly with the VP of Products and his organization, but I’m hired by the VP of Marketing, and they don’t get along, my efficacy is likely limited to her sphere of influence. As an outsider I have no real power other than influence with whom I’m allowed to speak to.  If I can’t talk to the VP of Products the best I can do is advise on how someone else can work with him or around him.
  • Consultants can not make change happen no matter what you pay them. Sometimes leaders know there is a tough decision to make, but as a group are struggling to make it, and thus want outside advice. No matter how good I am at what I do, I can’t make big decisions for any company that hires me. I can suggest, argue, prove, provide context, give insight, inspire, motivate, entertain and make recommendations, but I do not work at the company. When I leave they still have the same burdens of living with their choices as they did before I arrived. Consultants enable through insight, but they can’t do the actual thing. If they expect me to somehow make and live with the decision for them, or make a tough choice go away, it’s impossible for them not to be disappointed.

The difference between two days and one is enormous. A second day gives a night for observations to grow into better questions, and suspicions into hypotheses. There’s often a chance to get a drink or dinner off the record, and get the background you need that wasn’t provided officially or even by the person who hired you.

On the whole, writing, speaking and teaching are better deals for myself and my clients than consulting. There are fewer risks, and the transactions and expectations are clearer to everyone. It’s easier to see the value of what they are paying for.  If I’m brought in to talk and it goes well, there is a natural sense of what else I can do for them in a consulting capacity.  Then even if the consulting engagement is just for one day, we all have the benefit of what we’ve learned from the talk working to help each other get the most from each other.

Stupid things presenters do (and how to stop them)

Posted on in Public Speakingby Scott Berkun

Duncan Davidson has a nice post listing several annoying habits some conference presenters have. Duncan of course notices these things since he’s often paid to photograph speakers, and these things make that more difficult than it should be. He includes several good ones including my favorite:

Please take off your name tag. This is self explanatory enough. If you wear your name tag on stage, you make my life easier for captioning. But, you don’t look as good in your photos or on video with a dork tag hanging around your neck. Don’t make my life any easier on this front.

The problem however isn’t the speakers. It’s also the conference organizers.

Conference organizers almost never give speakers any training, advice, suggestions, tip sheets. Nothing. They do absolutely zero to remind speakers of the stupid, easily avoidable, things like the ones Duncan points out. They could tape a simple checklist to the lectern, or even email it out in advance when the speaker signs up to speak.

It’s true conference organizers are very busy and have many things to juggle during an event, but since the event is always centered around the speakers, doing a few little things to up the speaker quality by 10% has to be worthwhile.

Quote of the month

Posted on in quote of the xby Scott Berkun

“Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy” – Aristotle

(Hat tip – Ronan)

Where are the female geniuses?

Posted on in Creative Thinking, Innovationby Scott Berkun

I’m getting a bit of roasting over on Forbes.com for gender bias – there were exactly zero women mentioned in the article.

Women are in fact my favorite half of the species. But my problem is the assumption that omission of diversity implies bias. I happen to be Ukrainian by heritage. Yet, there were zero Ukrainians mentioned in my post. Sure, there are a ridiculously smaller number of Ukrainians in the world than women, but the fact that I didn’t mention any of either doesn’t mean I went out of my way to exclude them.

In a 790 word article it’s not a surprise I used the most well known geniuses I could think of. It makes stronger points, provides more leverage and requires less explaining. All things useful to do in a short piece where comprehensiveness isn’t expected.

To get to the point, the fact is women and most minorities were denied many intellectual and creative opportunities in many cultures through Western history. The right to go to school, to publish, to research were denied and for generations there was an unnatural bias against women and minorities that repressed the possibility of them discovering or displaying their talents.

But regardless of the reason, if you study great creative and intellectual works in Western history, many of them were done by men. This does not mean men are better at becoming geniuses (however you define the term) than women – far from it – it just means that’s what happened. If you talk about innovation history, a disproportionate number of stories will involve men. Same for leaders of nations and authors of books – generally speaking, for hundreds of years, in most of Europe, women were not allowed to do either.

I was asked about this bias by the President of CMU when I lectured there last year, and the above answer is basically what i said then.

I do happen to know of many female geniuses or women of extraordinary or creative abilities. They didn’t fit this piece, but I’ve studied them. Here’s my list of favorites:

  • Marie Curie – First person in history to win two Nobel Prizes (only other person to do it was Linus Pauling). She also discovered this little thing called radioactivity, a discovery she died for.
  • Ada Lovelace – The first computer programmer in history. She is possibly an example of historic gender bias, as some of the work Babbage is credited with should be attributed to her.
  • Georgia Okeefe – The movements of her creative work over a prolific lifetime are comparable to Picasso’s in many ways.
  • Jane Austen – In many ways helped define the style and structure of the concept of a modern novel. I’m actually not a fan of her writing, but her impact and influence is worthy of study anyway – especially as her fame and influence was largely posthumous.

No holds barred tactics for UX in organizations

Posted on in design, Management, Teaching/Trainingby Scott Berkun

No holds barred

At Adaptive Path’s MX event this week (my write up here), 5 teams were given an afternoon to attack a UX organizational challenge. The assignment was to come up with a plan, based on a design brief, for how to plan the future of design at a corporation. The center of our work was to pitch a plan to the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer).

The team I facilitated did 3 things:

  1. Dissect the brief. We made a list of assets and liabilities from the brief, including questions we wanted answered that the brief did not tell us. (e.g. who made the personas? Were they BS or was there any data? etc.)
  2. Tactics inventory from dangerous powerful people. We made a list of possible models to list, but settled on four: P.T. Barnum & ShamWow!, Genghis Khan, Machiavelli, and 007. For each we made a list of tactics or techniques they would use and put them up on the wall.
  3. Divide and conquer. We split up the work into three piles: Work before the pitch, the pitch, and work after the pitch. And then split into three teams that came up with a plan for each one.

Continue reading →

Thursday Linkfest

Posted on in linkfestby Scott Berkun

(Updated) Teaching kick-ass course on innovation: SF, March 30

Posted on in On Tourby Scott Berkun

Through the wonderful folks at O’Reilly Media, I’ll be teaching my most popular full day course, Leading and Managing breakthrough projects, Monday March 30th, in San Francisco.

I’ve taught the course for companies all over the world and the fun, interactive and challenging material comes from years of consulting and researching what makes innovation happen. Only a fraction of the course is material found in the Myths of Innovation book.

If you lead or work where innovation, creative thinking, or developing new ideas are in your goals, this is the class for you. There is no bullshit, almost no jargon, just lots of debunking myths, practicing real tactics, and discussing facts and opinions you need to know.

For $550 (price goes up to $600 after March 15) you get:

  • A top rated, world class, fun, kick-ass full day course that will challenge you. (See the learning objectives for the course here)
  • Free consulting or Q&A with me over email after the course
  • A signed copy of the bestseller, The Myths of Innovation

(Update) Use the promo code berkunproj25 – to get a 25% discount – $420 for the day.

Registration and more details here.

There are also workshops from Doug Crockford (JavaScript: The Good Parts), and Steve Souders on High Performance Websites. These workshops come before Web 2.0 Expo in SF, so it’s a good doubleheader.

Not sure if the course is right for you? Leave a comment and I’ll answer your questions.

How to visually capture a talk or presentation

Posted on in Creative Thinking, Public Speaking, Teaching/Trainingby Scott Berkun

One of my favorite things at Adaptive Path’s MX event this week was how they had designers assigned to make large drawings based on the current talk, as the talk was happening. It was real time art/design/creation – super cool.

Here’s Teresa Brazen’s drawing of my talk, Why designers fail:

drawing of why designers fail

The cool thing is that as I watched other people’s talks during the day, if ever I got bored I could watch their drawing being made in real time and see what the designer was calling out as key points, or even how they interpreted what was being said. I found it was a great, non distracting way to add to what was being presented. I really hope more events do this kind of thing.

Report from Adaptive Path’s MX ’09 conference

Posted on in design, Management, On Tourby Scott Berkun

Had a most interesting couple of days at Adaptive Path’s most recent event: MX. First pleasant surprise was the InterContiental in San Francisco, possibly the best big hotel I’ve stayed at in some time. It’s fancy, it’s new, it’s got a great weight room and pool, the staff rocks, and it’s where MX was. The hotel’s website is meh, but next time I’m near the Moscone center for something, I’d stay here again. Doubt I’ll get a killer room with a view on the 31st floor like I did this time, but you never know.

I’m convinced people get more value the smaller the conference is. It’s easier to meet people, single track guarantees you can make small talk with anyone, the vibe is low key and informal, and the speakers are easy to find and chat with. MX had about 100 to 120 people I’d guess which, as I say, means more value for people not less. Its a perk of recessions: for people who can afford to go, you get a better value.

Highlights:

  • Bruce Temskin on Customer Experience during a recession. He works at Forrester, but also runs the experience matters blog which as best I can tell is an interesting crossover of Marketing & Design thinking, from an analysts perspective, about how to make and measure good experiences. Check out this post on how Lego thinks about user experience.
  • How Tivo Does it: an interview with the VP of Design, Margret Schmidt. My big takeaway was that the founders were design thinkers from day one. Like Google, the founders had a set of cultural values, and that explains much of the results. Margret was sharp. During the break I asked her how a VP of design should evaluate their own performance and she had good answers: customer/partner response and how happy her team is. Rock on.
  • Sara Beckman from the University of California gave perhaps my favorite talk: Communicating the value of design. She asked the audience how many had seen a P&L and maybe 15% of the room raised their hands. If ever you wonder why designers feel unempowered, this is why. She pointed out some great data available on design ROI. It’s easy stuff to learn, but kind of boring and not sexy, and rarely thought of as knowledge designers should have. But I bet the 15% that knows their way around P&Ls have more power and influence in their orgs. Someone needs to do a talk called “Finance for Designers” or “Accounting for Creatives”. They’d win more arguments by just doing a couple of new things.

I spoke about Why designers fail, but they also let me run a workshop called “Guerilla, No-Holds Barred, Possibly Illegal in 15
States, Tactics for UX in Organizations” which went well, as no one got arrested. I’ll write up my notes from this later.

Kudos to Brandon Schauer, Henning Fischer and Pam Daghlian for planning and running a first rate event.

Does public speaking matter in 2009?

Posted on in Public Speakingby Scott Berkun

I find YouTube fascinating from a “how much things change yet stay the same” perspective.

We love to talk about how different the world is than the pre-internet days of say 1989, but when I look at YouTube I see lots of video of people speaking in public. Lectures, talks, monologues, etc. Yes, it’s true, today it’s online and you can watch for free and at home, while in your underwear, but its the same thing: one person, talking to a crowd, or straight into the camera, about something you want to hear. For all our tech, we’re still very fond of the most low tech thing there is: a monologue.

And then we have events. People pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to go to TED, corporate offsites, full day courses, professional conferences, team meetings, awards event (e.g. Academy awards) or even to high school or college, all events centered on having one person speak to many. Look at the agenda of any large event: it’s a series of talks and lectures. One of the biggest news stories of 2007 and 2008 was Randy Pausch, and his last lecture and the story behind it.

I’m convinced public speaking, the ability for one person to communicate well to many others, is just as important today as its always been. Maybe even more important. Powerpoint and Keynote are everywhere. Lectures certain have limitations, but it hasn’t stopped the world from depending on them. It still is a primary use of all the technologies we have, and is still a form of communication people want to consume.

What do you think? Is public speaking more or less important now than it was a decade ago?

(fyi: my next book is about public speaking).

Businesses that thrived during recessions?

Posted on in entrepreneurship, historyby Scott Berkun

Working on a little list for inspiration. Do you know stories of companies that started, or thrived, during economic down times?

Here is the list Ive found so far. Looking for more please! You can find a history of U.S. recessions here to help sort things out. Here’s a partial list of world economic crises. If you have better lists, leave a comment.

  • Toro lawnmowers. Formed late in WW I right before the post war recession.
  • Trader Joes. Formed in 1957, during the recession of 1957 and 1958.
  • Target. It’s on the borderline. Wikipedia claims Target formed, seeded by the Dayton department store, in 1962. The 1960/61 recession officially ended about a year before.
  • 3M. Started in 1902, and despite major setbacks, survived the panic of 1907, eventually gaining new investors around 1910.
  • Google. This is also a technicality. Google first got funding in 1998, before the 2001-2003 dot com bubble burst. And had it’s IPO in 2004. But belongs on the list for having it’s major growth at the same time period the rest of the tech sector fell apart.

Should I quit my job now?

Posted on in Business, entrepreneurship, mailbag, reader's choiceby Scott Berkun

Here’s a good one from the mailbag:

I am seriously considering quitting the (day) job and dedicate myself to my consulting activities but, it’s scary decision. On one hand I feel it’s the right time. I have no family nor other important obligations and in a few years it’ll be too late. But on the other hand the cost of living where i live and the financial crisis make me hesitate.

Do you think that today’s crisis should affect this type of decision? Any insights you can provide me on your decision would be very appreciated.

Big decisions are always scary no matter what’s going on in the world. You’d be nearly as scared in boom times to quit as you probably are now. Keep this in mind. Much of the fear is yours. I know mine was. It’s easy to say “oh, it’s not the right time” as if there could ever be a perfect time. No angel is ever going to drop down from the sky and say “Quit now! It’s time! The universe has your back”, yet people seem to expect it will feel like this. It will always feel scary, weird and uncomfortable because it is new. And after the stability of a proper career, something you likely worked hard to get, it goes against the grain of our cultural attitudes to abandon that for the unknown.

Now I’m not saying everyone should quit today – far from it – but I am saying there is this fantasy about what it should feel like that can never possibly happen.

In short, going out on your own you only need one thing: enough clients to earn a living. That’s it.

Depending on what you intend to do this could be one single client. Or three. Getting one or three clients might be very easy for you. Or very hard. But either way you can start figuring out how hard or easy it will be before you quit your regular job. The quality of your business idea and talents are things you can measure no matter what the state of the world is. If you see a way to make money, can verify it, can get good businesses to sign contracts to pay you, then why wouldn’t you do it? Recessions or depressions are macro trends: there are always countervailing micro trends and that’s all you need to find.

The major advantage of being an independent is your low overhead and agility. You only need to pay one salary and that’s yours. You don’t need to build a factory or find investors – your constraints are much simpler. Even in down times if you see an opportunity to provide a service people need, and can pay for, you can do very well. Strong businesses are relatively stronger now given all the troubles weaker companies are in. Even during global downwards trends there are always pockets of opportunity and sometimes the people who strike out on their own during tough times, and survive, are best positioned to do well in boom times too.

Here’s a basic and time tested approach to all this:

  1. What are you lowest possible expenses for the next 12 months. Do the math on how much you need to survive. Note all the frills you can cut, like cable TV, nights out on the town, skiing trips, moving to a cheaper apartment, etc. Put together your lean expenses for a year. If you have new business expenses you expect to spend before you can make income, consider those too.
  2. Examine your savings. Based on #1, you know how much you need, assuming ZERO income, to last for a year. Look at your savings and do the math. If you find zero clients, how long can you last? A good guess is you need 6 to 12 months to build a base of clients. If you don’t have 6 months of savings, start saving now. Without a cushion you will have little margin for error, which you’ll need because you are doing something new and will make some mistakes along the way. Account for this before you start.
  3. Be clear on what you want.  Is it more autonomy? Is it more free time? Is it to have so much money you can wear clothes made from $100 bills? Think carefully about what you are trying to achieve. Simply ‘not working for the man’ anymore isn’t much of a target to aim for. I quit for more autonomy – I was sick of needing approvals for things. I also wanted to see if I’d like writing books and if I did, could I make a living around them. I decided if I could do that and live acceptably well, I’d be happy. So I quit.
  4. Find your support team. Ask your friends, your spouse, your colleagues, and find a small group of people who will support you and help you out as you start this new thing. You will need to know who can help when need it, who will encourage you and who will give you tough feedback you need to hear. Line up your support team before you make the leap.  It might surprise you how people react to your decision, so sort it out early. Groups like biznik.org or even more general networks like linkedin can connect you with like-minded people who can give you advice, support or who are a little ahead of you in the process. Blogging is an easy way to make connections and draw attention to your work, provided you like to write, or more importantly, write well.
  5. Start looking for clients. Ask around. Of your network, who are the five people most likely to need your services. Talk to them. Ask them if you were a freelancer if they’d be interested. Talk to other freelancers in your field – buy them lunch and ask for advice. Do they like being on their own? Why? Why not? Before making the leap become a student of freelancers in your field and sort out if your fantasies about it approximate the reality. Start working your network and building it now. Start a blog about your expertise: it creates a home for your knowledge and if you go on your own, your business.
  6. Get your first client fast: work for free. A good referral is worth much more than payment for a new independent. Be willing to work for free, on the basis it’s a limited time only arrangement, in exchange for a good referral or use of a client’s network (If you can’t find someone willing to let you work for free, be worried: your network or reputation are weak). You can do this on weekends or when off from your current job. Get projects under your belt now, while you have almost no risk. If after two weekend projects you hate it, you’ve learned, before quitting, freelancing isn’t for you. Get a taste for free before you mortgage your house for the meal.
  7. Leave your job on good terms. Give plenty of notice, more than the minimum (Wouldn’t you be pissed if someone gave you only two weeks notice?). Finish all your work. Make sure you do everything you can to leave on excellent terms so worst case the door is open for your return, or to possibly use your former employer as a client.
  8. Value life experience. When I quit it helped me to accept that even if I fail I’d have learned a great deal about myself, my industry and life in general. I was convinced there were lessons I’d learn I couldn’t buy any other way, and I got strength from this (It turned out I was right, but I didn’t know this when I quit). I was convinced on a personal level I could not lose, and if I planned #1 and #2 the financial risks were small. Worst case I’d take those experiences and return to the kind of career I’d had before, but much wiser and appreciative of what I have.

I’d also check out books like Million Dollar Consulting, which outline many of the considerations needed to run a successful consulting or freelance business. And Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start is a good starting point if you’re thinking along the lines of a business rather than consulting.

Also see: How I make a living –  in detail.

Have more questions? Leave ’em in the comments.