Agile Documentation Strategies

Agile Documentation Strategies

Documentation is an important part of every system, agile or otherwise

By Scott Ambler,
Feb 05, 2007

Scott is a DDJ Senior Contributing Editor and author of numerous IT books. He can be contacted at www.ambysoft.com/ scottAmbler.html.

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Documentation is an important part of every system, regardless of the paradigm followed to develop that system. Although agilists are sometimes maligned for what is perceived to be their cavalier attitude towards documentation, the fact is that we take documentation very seriously. Agilists adhere to the philosophy that your team's primary goal is to develop software, a message that sometime drowns out its sister philosophy that a project team's secondary goal is to enable the next effort. Because the "next effort" typically involves running, supporting, operating, and maintaining the system, chances are incredibly good that you're going to need to write some documentation along the way. It's possible to do so in an agile manner, and this month, I explore strategies for doing exactly this.

For some reason, the agile community seems to struggle to describe how we approach documentation. There are several explanations for this. First, the majority of agile developers prefer to focus on technical practices (such as regression testing, refactoring, and continuous integration) instead of "softer" practices (such as modeling, documentation, and governance). Hence, we talk about those things a lot more. Second, because the agile community is growing quickly, we have large numbers of novices who are in the early stages of learning—in their exuberance, they are all too eager to share their misperceptions with others, and a common misperception is that agilists don't document. Third, modeling and documentation practices weren't explicit in most first-generation agile methodologies, unlike second generation agile methods such as Open Unified Process (OpenUP) and Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) for Agile.

A Few Myths and Misconceptions

To understand the agile approach to documentation, you must first understand the potential misunderstandings about documentation that have seeped into traditional thinking:

• • Documentation isn't the primary issue—communication is. For example, your primary goal isn't to document requirements, it's to understand them so that you can implement them fully. Your primary goal isn't to document the architecture, it's to formulate a viable one that meets the long-term needs of your stakeholders. This isn't to say that you won't decide to invest in such documentation, but that isn't the raison d'tre for your project.
• • Comprehensive documentation does not ensure project success. Just because you have a detailed requirements specification that has been reviewed and signed off, that doesn't mean that the development team will read it, or if they do, that they will understand it, or if they do, that they will choose to work to the specification. Even when the "right thing" happens, comprehensive documentation still puts the project at risk because of the perceived need to keep the documentation up-to-date and consistent. Your real goal should be to create just enough documentation for the situation at hand; more on this later.
• • Documentation doesn't need to be perfect. People are flexible, they don't need perfect documentation. Furthermore, no matter how hard you work, it's very unlikely that you could create perfect documentation—even if you could, it isn't guaranteed that the readers will understand it anyway.
• • Few people actually want comprehensive documentation. When was the last time you met a maintenance programmer who trusted the system documentation that they were provided? Or an end-user who wanted to sit down and pore over a massive user manual? What people typically want is well-written, concise documentation describing a high-quality system, so why not invest your time to deliver that instead?
• • Documentation doesn't need to be standardized. Many organizations have adopted the unfortunate philosophy that repeatable processes lead to success, yet in reality what you really want is repeatable results (that is, the delivery of a high-quality system). The quest for repeatability often leads to templates, and because each system has its own unique set of issues, these templates have a tendency to grow over time into all inclusive monstrosities that do little more than justify bureaucracy. Try to achieve a reasonable level of consistency, but don't go overboard doing so.

Rethinking Documentation

Documentation is as much a part of the system as the working software itself. Your goal should be to develop documentation that is sufficient for the needs of its audience, and to do that you must work closely with your stakeholders to understand their actual requirements. I believe that this is where agilists truly differ from their traditionalist counterparts: Agilists treat documentation as a stakeholder requirement, not as something dictated by the process. Because documentation is a requirement, it is something that should be estimated by the development team and prioritized by the stakeholders. Because the resources that you have to invest in an IT project are finite, and because it's your stakeholder's money being spent, they should decide which documentation will be created and how comprehensive it needs to be.

Because your stakeholders are a varied bunch, they consist of end users, business management, IT management, operations staff, support staff, enterprise architects, and many more, chances are pretty good that most someone will identify the need for a document. But let's assume that they forgot to ask for system overview documentation. Does that mean that you don't create it? No, of course not. What you do is suggest to your stakeholders the need for such documentation, justify why it's important, estimate the total cost of ownership (TCO) of creating and maintaining it, and then let them decide whether the wish to invest in the documentation.

This is a very different approach than what traditional teams typically take. Traditional software processes define which documents need to be created, will often provide detailed guidelines and templates to help ensure completeness, will indicate when the documentation should be created, and who should receive it. The underlying assumption is that the stakeholders, the people who were smart enough to earn the money, aren't smart enough to determine how to spend the money and therefore those decisions are taken away from them in traditional processes. Not only is this incredibly arrogant, it is also ripe for abuse—hence the overly bureaucratic and documentation-heavy processes that we see in many organizations.

Many organizations justify their burdensome documentation practices on industry regulations such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) act, or the Basel-II regulations. I've worked in organizations that have had these regulatory requirements inflicted upon them and I can safely assure you that it is possible to remain agile. The first, and more important, step is to actually read the regulations. Nowhere in them does it say that you need to be ineffective and wasteful, yet if you allow the paper-pushers within your organization to interpret the regulations (and doesn't it seem that they're always lining up to do so?) then inevitably you'll find yourself in a bureaucratic morass. The second step is to be actively involved with interpreting the regulations to ensure that your resulting process is as streamlined as possible yet still in compliance. Third, be prepared to evolve your process to reflect new versions of the regulations as they evolve over time. For example it is likely that SOX will be simplified soon, and I think that it will be interesting to see how many organizations choose to tear down the political empires that were justified based solely on SOX.

When to Document

Documentation should be created on a just-in-time (JIT) manner when you need it, and only if you need it. You should document something only when it has stabilized, otherwise you will be updating it endlessly as the situation changes. This is one of several reasons why it proves foolish to write comprehensive requirements documentation early in the system lifecycle—because your stakeholders will change their minds, usually for completely valid reasons, you discover that the investment in detailed documentation was counter-productive. The implication is that detailed documentation should be written after, or at least towards the end of, the development work. Yes, you likely need to do some very high-level modeling to think things through, but investing in detailed documentation too early is questionable at best. I present a critical examination of the big-requirements up front (BRUF) approach at www.agilemodeling.com/essays/examiningBRUF.htm.

Agile Modeling (AM) advises that you should update documentation only "when it hurts". People are flexible, if the documentation isn't perfect that's okay, they can figure it out. Millions of software systems are successfully running around the world as you read this paragraph, and how many do you honestly think have perfect documentation that is up to date and fully consistent? Perhaps a handful? How many billions of dollars, if not trillions, do you think has been wasted over the decades striving to produce perfect documentation? Your goal should be to produce documentation that is good enough for the situation at hand—once it's good enough any more investment in it is clearly a waste.

Documentation Alternatives

Agilists have rediscovered the concept of literate programming, of writing high-quality, easy-to-understand source code that contains embedded documentation. Furthermore, teams that take a behavior-driven design (BDD) approach consider their test suites to be executable, detailed documentation. Agile acceptance test suites forms a significant portion of the requirements documentation and developer test suites the design documentation. We follow AM's Single Source Information practice by having our tests do double-duty as specifications and therefore we require significantly less external documentation.

The "documentation is in the source code" philosophy covers the vast majority of technical documentation, but system overviews will still be required as will documentation for non-development staff. Andreas Rueping's book Agile Documentation: A Pattern Guide to Producing Lightweight Documents for Software Projects (John Wiley and Sons, 2003) defines a wonderful pattern language for improving the efforts of technical writers. Good documentation is concise—it overviews critical information such as design decisions and typically provides visual "roadmaps" showing the high-level relationships between things. Agilists focus on this style of documentation, and only write detailed documentation when it is needed and no better alternative exists.

Agile software developers travel as light as we possibly can, creating just enough documentation for the situation at hand in a just-in-time (JIT) manner. We believe that the benefit of having documentation must be greater than its total cost of ownership (TCO), that our stakeholders should decide whether to invest their money in it, and that we should strive to maximize the return on investment (ROI). Agilists are really smart about the way we write system, user, operations, and support documentation and as a result we tend to write significantly less documentation than our traditionalist colleagues. If you're interested in learning more about agile strategies for writing documentation, I highly suggest www.agilemodeling.com/essays/agileDocumentation.htm.

The Ethical Mind

The Ethical Mind

It’s not enough to espouse high standards. To live up to them—and help others do the same—requires an ethical cast of mind that lets you practice your principles consistently.

A Conversation with Psychologist Howard Gardner

Howard Gardner and Bronwyn Fryer

If you’re running a large company, don’t expect the public to like you. Soaring executive pay packages, continuing rounds of layoffs, and the memory of ethical failures at firms like Enron, WorldCom, and Hewlett-Packard have raised public animosity toward corporate executives as never before. A U.S. Roper poll conducted in 2005 revealed that 72% of respondents believed wrongdoing was widespread in industry. Only 2% felt that leaders of large firms were “very trustworthy” (a drop from 3% in 2004), and the pattern is “not improving,” according to Kathy Sheehan, a senior vice president at GFK Roper Consulting in New York. Meanwhile, the public increasingly demands that companies take better care of their employees, communities, and the environment.

It is now, more than ever, incumbent on business leaders to repair relations with customers and employees by stepping up to the ethical plate, says Howard Gardner, the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Gardner is an influential cognitive and educational psychologist, not an ethicist per se. But as a psychologist, he believes that his first responsibility is to understand how moral and ethical capacities develop, or fail to develop. His reflection on ethical issues has deep underpinnings and a very long reach. In the seminal 1983 book Frames of Mind, he put forth his theory that individuals possess not one but multiple varieties of intelligence: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. The theory, which Gardner continues to refine, has found broad acceptance in the educational community, and teachers around the globe tailor their lessons to the different kinds of intelligence.

Gardner became personally embroiled in ethical issues when he observed how his ideas were being adopted by educators: Some schools and policy makers claimed that certain racial and ethnic groups were lacking specific intelligences. As the founder of the theory, he felt an obligation to denounce such distorted interpretations of his work. Later, when he taught a course at Harvard called “Mind, Brain, and Education,” he found himself thinking about ethical dilemmas, such as those involved in brain and genetic testing and whether it’s wise to share troubling test results with parents, particularly when no proven intervention exists.

Gardner’s core insights into the ethical mind come from more than a dozen years of studying working professionals. Since 1995, he and teams of investigators at four universities have been researching the ways in which people aspire to do good work—that is, work of high quality that matters to society, enhances the lives of others, and is conducted in an ethical manner. The researchers have also observed firsthand the ways in which good work is eroded by cultural, economic, and technological forces. (For more on this long-term project, go to www.goodworkproject.com.) In his new book, Five Minds for the Future (forthcoming from Harvard Business School Press in 2007), Gardner cogitates on what it takes to develop an ethical mind-set. In this edited interview with senior editor Bronwyn Fryer, Gardner offers his thoughts about what managers must do to develop and maintain high standards for themselves and their organizations.

What is an ethical mind?

In thinking of the mind as a set of cognitive capacities, it helps to distinguish the ethical mind from the other four minds that we particularly need to cultivate if we are to thrive as individuals, as a community, and as the human race. The first of these, the disciplined mind, is what we gain through applying ourselves in a disciplined way in school. Over time, and with sufficient training, we gain expertise in one or more fields: We become experts in project management, accounting, music, dentistry, and so forth. A second kind of mind is the synthesizing mind, which can survey a wide range of sources, decide what is important and worth paying attention to, and weave this information together in a coherent fashion for oneself and others. [For more on the synthesizing mind, see “The HBR List: Breakthrough Ideas for 2006” (February 2006).] A third mind, the creating mind, casts about for new ideas and practices, innovates, takes chances, discovers. While each of these minds has long been valuable, all of them are essential in an era when we are deluged by information and when anything that can be automated will be.

Yet another kind of mind, less purely cognitive in flavor than the first three, is the respectful mind: the kind of open mind that tries to understand and form relationships with other human beings. A person with a respectful mind enjoys being exposed to different types of people. While not forgiving of all, she gives others the benefit of the doubt.

An ethical mind broadens respect for others into something more abstract. A person with an ethical mind asks herself, “What kind of a person, worker, and citizen do I want to be? If all workers in my profession adopted the mind-set I have, or if everyone did what I do, what would the world be like?”

A person with an ethical mind asks, “If all workers in my profession…did what I do, what would the world be like?”

It’s important to clarify the distinction between the respectful and the ethical mind, because we assume that one who is respectful is ethical and vice versa. I think you can be respectful without understanding why: As a child, you might have respected your parents and grandparents because you were taught to. But ethical conceptions and behaviors demand a certain capacity to go beyond your own experience as an individual person. Once you have developed an ethical mind, you become more like an impartial spectator of the team, the organization, the citizenry, the world. And you may have to sacrifice respect for another person if your role as a citizen or worker calls on you to do damage control to protect an idea or institution you believe in.

Whistle-blowers display ethical minds. Many people might see a top manager doing something unethical, but they won’t do anything about it because they want to keep their jobs, and they feel that they must respect the boss. A whistle-blower steps back from those concerns and considers the nature of work and the community in a larger way. He takes a mental leap past daily doings; his allegiance is to the workplace or the profession. He acts ethically even though it may cost him his respectful relation to his supervisor and, ultimately, his job and relation to his colleagues. He is able to do this because his own momentary well-being is less important than the broader mission he has endorsed.

It sounds as if the ethical mind is fundamentally more community focused than any of the other four minds. If that’s true, then how does the ethical mind develop?

An ethical orientation begins at home, where children see whether their parents take pride in their work, whether they “play fair,” whether they give the benefit of the doubt or are closed minded, and so on. Children absorb their parents’ religious and political values. As children get older, their peers have an enormous effect, especially in America. Just as influential is the behavior of the surrounding community toward its citizens. Are young and old people cared for? Beyond the necessary services, are there cultural and social events to learn from and participate in? Do parents take part in these “gluing” activities and expect their children to do the same?

My favorite example of an ethical community is a small city called Reggio Emilia in northern Italy. Aside from providing high-quality services and cultural benefits to its citizens, the city provides excellent infant and toddler centers and preschools. Children feel cared for by the community. So when they grow up, they return this regard by caring for others. They become good workers and good citizens. The tone has already been set at such a high level that one rarely encounters compromised—that is, qualitatively or ethically sullied—work. And in such cases, the ethical action taken by the community is to ostracize the compromised worker (in effect, if not by law) so he does not undermine community mores. This stance works as long as everyone sees that everyone wins.

What gets in the way of the ethical mind?

Sadly, even if you grow up with a strong ethical sense, the bad behavior of others can undermine it. A study conducted by Duke University recently found that 56% of students in the United States pursuing a master’s degree in business administration admit to cheating—the highest rate of cheating among graduate student groups. If you are a very ambitious MBA student and the people around you are cheating on their exams, you may assume that cheating is the price of success, or maybe you do it because “everyone does it.” You might even come to think of ethical behavior as a luxury. A study we published in 2004 found that although young professionals declared an understanding of and a desire to do good work, they felt that they had to succeed by whatever means. When they had made their mark, they told us, they would then become exemplary workers.

As young people go into business today, the temptation to skirt ethics is mounting. We live in a time of intense pressure on individuals and organizations to cut corners, pursue their own interests, and forget about the effect of their behavior on others. Additionally, many businesspeople have internalized Milton Friedman’s belief that if we let people pursue their interests and allow the processes of the marketplace to operate freely, positive moral and ethical consequences will magically follow. I am not one to question the power and benefits of the marketplace in any absolute sense. But markets are amoral; the line between shading earnings and committing outright fraud is not always clear. The chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks, said it well: “When everything that matters can be bought and sold, when commitments can be broken because they are no longer to our advantage, when shopping becomes salvation and advertising slogans become our litany, when our worth is measured by how much we earn and spend, then the market is destroying the very virtues on which in the long run it depends.” Confidence in business is undermined; individuals distrust one another. Reggio Emilia seems light-years away.

Do you think it’s more difficult for businesspeople to adhere to an ethical mind than it is for other professionals?

Yes, because strictly speaking, business is not—nor has it ever been—a profession. Professions develop over long periods of time and gradually establish a set of control mechanisms and sanctions for those who violate the code. True professionals, from doctors and lawyers to engineers and architects, undergo extensive training and earn a license. If they do not act according to recognized standards, they can be expelled from their professional guild. In addition, mentoring is an understood component of regulated professions: A medical intern works with head residents or senior physicians who serve, in part, as ethical guides. But business lacks this model; you don’t need a license to practice. The only requirements are to make money and not run afoul of the law. Even if you start out with high personal ethical standards, it’s easy to wander off the proper path, because professional standards are a vocational option, not part of the territory. Certainly, there are businesspeople who act professionally, who feel obligated to serve their customers and employees and communities. Businesses can also voluntarily take on corporate social responsibility. But there are no penalties if they elect not to. And some economists argue that it is illegitimate for businesses to direct profits toward anything other than shareholders.

Would you say that compromised work is catching—in the same way that the emotional state of a leader affects others, as Daniel Goleman has observed?

Employees certainly listen to what their leaders say, and they watch what their leaders and colleagues do even more carefully. Employees feel psychologically emboldened or pressured to emulate the bad behavior they see in leaders and others who “get away with it.” Alternatively, leaders who model ethical behavior, especially in spite of the temptations of the market, inspire employees to do likewise and thus win for their firms in the long run. Though hoary, the example of CEO James Burke of Johnson & Johnson is still useful. When Burke immediately recalled all Tylenol products during the scare in the 1980s, he exemplified what it is to be ethical in the face of odds. In the end, his company benefited: Twenty-five years later, Johnson & Johnson is rated in the top spot for corporate reputation among large companies.

In business, it’s easy to wander off the proper path, because professional standards are a vocational option, not part of the territory.

It matters enormously whether the various interest groups with a stake in the work are in harmony or in conflict and whether the particular role models are confident about the hats they are wearing. When everyone is focused on the same thing, it’s easier to do good work. For example, in the late 1990s, our studies found that geneticists in the United States had a relatively easy time pursuing good work because everyone was focused on the same ends of better health and longer life. We found that journalists had a harder time pursuing good work because their desire to report objectively on the most important events clashed with the public’s desire for sensationalism and the pressure from publishers to generate advertising dollars and avoid controversy.

Then the real test of an individual’s—or a company’s—ethical fiber is what happens when there are potent pressures. How does one stand up to those pressures?

Well, if you are a leader, the best way for you to retain an ethical compass is to believe doing so is essential for the good of your organization. What are you trying to achieve? What are your goals, in the broad sense of doing good in the world? Once you understand these factors, you must state your beliefs unwaveringly from the first and tie rewards and sanctions to their realization.

When everything is going swimmingly, it is easier to hold yourself and others to high standards—the costs are not evident. But when circumstances are tempting you to drop your standards, you have to practice rigorous self-honesty. Being ethical really means not fooling yourself or others. I recommend that you look in the mirror from time to time, without squinting, and ask yourself if you are proceeding in ways you approve of. The questions to pose are “Am I being a good worker? And if not, what can I do to become one?”

I also believe that individuals increase their chances of carrying out good work when they make the time and take the opportunity to reflect on their broadly formulated mission and determine whether they are progressing toward its realization. There’s a great story—possibly apocryphal—about James Bryant Conant, the former president of Harvard. When he was offered the presidency, he said, “I’m happy to take it, but I can’t come to work on Wednesdays, because I have to go to Washington.” The hiring committee agreed to this condition. In fact, Conant didn’t go to Washington on Wednesdays; he just took the time to be quiet and read. He felt he needed a day each week to be alone with his thoughts. All executives ought to be able to step back and reflect and think about the nature of their work, develop new work projects, or solve work problems.

Another way to keep yourself on the ethical path is to undergo what I call “positive periodic inoculations.” These happen when you meet individuals or have experiences that force you to examine what you’re doing or to set a good example for others. A businessperson might be inoculated by the model of Aaron Feuerstein, the owner of Malden Mills, who kept paying his workers even after the mills burned down. Feuerstein’s action might inspire a leader to do something beneficial for employees, like give them an opportunity to acquire a desired skill. Another kind of inoculation—call it an “antiviral” one—allows you to draw object lessons from instances of compromised work. When Arthur Andersen went bankrupt following the Enron scandal, for example, auditors at other firms took a hard look at their own practices.

But we’re all subject to self-delusion. Certainly, one needs a more objective gauge than oneself.

Yes, and that’s why it’s important that other knowledgeable and candid individuals be consulted. Two worthy consultants could be your own mother—“If she knew everything I was doing, what would she think?”—and the press. Michael Hackworth, the cofounder and chairman of Cirrus Logic, uses this personal temperature gauge: He insists that he will not do something that would embarrass him if it were printed in the morning paper. Even if the stock drops temporarily, he knows that his honesty with the mirror builds his credibility in the long run.

Ideally, business leaders ought to have three types of counselors who are prepared to speak truth to their power. First, they need a trusted adviser within the organization. Second, they need the counsel of someone completely outside the organization, preferably an old friend who is a peer. Third, they need a genuinely independent board. If you actually listen to these three sources of information and act on the basis of what they say, then you cannot go too far wrong. George W. Bush is an example of a leader who has lacked—or at least disregarded—this kind of frank feedback. Franklin D. Roosevelt sought it regularly and was a far more effective president.

In hiring or promotion, are there ways companies can sort the wheat from the chaff?

It would be much wiser to admit people to business school who would never consider cheating—and there are some people like that—than to hope that at age 30, when they’re on the make, slippery characters can suddenly be converted into responsible paragons. That said, there is no substitute for detailed, textured, confidential oral recommendations from individuals who know the candidates well and will be honest. I don’t particularly trust written letters or the results of psychological tests. A single interview is not much help, either. A colleague of mine says “It takes ten lunches,” and I think there is truth in that.

I might also ask a young person about mentors. Our studies found that, across the board, many young professionals lack deep mentoring from individuals in authoritative positions. This was in contrast to veteran professionals, who spoke about important mentors and role models. So I might ask, “Who influenced you in cultivating a particular moral climate, and why?” The influence of antimentors—potential role models who had been unkind to their employees or who had shown behavior that others would not want to emulate—and a lack of mentors is something that we underestimated in our studies. Negative role models may be more powerful than is usually acknowledged. Of course, one has to listen carefully to which traits are considered to be positive and which ones are critiqued. Sometimes the responses are surprising.

What if you are in a position to speak truth to power? How do you gird yourself for that task?

With the assumption of authority and maturity comes the obligation to monitor what our peers are doing and, when necessary, to call them to account. As the seventeenth-century French playwright Jean-Baptiste Molière declared, “It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible but for what we do not do.”

It is not easy to confront offending individuals. But it is essential if you want to have an effective organization, be it a family or a Fortune 500 company. Two factors make it easier. First, you need a firm belief that what you are doing is right for the organization. Second, you don’t wait for egregious behavior. As soon as you—or others—see warning signs, you confront them, not in an accusatory fashion but in a fact-finding mode. If a person has been warned or counseled, it is much easier to take action the next time a wrong is identified.

As for confronting superiors, if that is impossible, you are not in the right organization. Of course, it is helpful to consult with others, to make sure that your perceptions are not aberrant. But if you are not prepared to resign or be fired for what you believe in, then you are not a worker, let alone a professional. You are a slave. Happily, in the United States, at least, most people have some options about where they work.

If you are not prepared to resign or be fired for what you believe in, then you are not a worker, let alone a professional. You are a slave.

In the end, you need to decide which side you’re on. There are so many ways in which the world could spiral either up toward health and a decent life for all or down into poverty, disease, ecological disaster—even nuclear warfare. If you are in a position to help tip the balance, you owe it to yourself, to your progeny, to your employees, to your community, and to the planet to do the right thing.

Punctuality: The Japanese way of business

Punctuality: The Japanese way of business

Karthik Tirupathi | February 21, 2007 | 15:39 IST

Economic relations between India and Japan have probably never been better, as both sides continue to reinforce their commitment to leverage each other's competencies and strengthen bilateral cooperation. This has opened a new world of opportunity for Indian professionals and businesspeople desirous of working or doing business in Japan.

However, success in business in Japan requires a strong understanding of Japanese business and culture. In the first of this three-part article based on my observations during many years of working with the Japanese, I note some essential pointers that will hopefully stand the Indian professional in good stead.

Part 1: Basic values that embody Japanese business people

No surprises: Punctuality, timeliness and sticking to commitments: The Japanese believe strongly in 'no hidden surprises' and are committed to a very high degree of predictability and consistent reliability (not just reliability). This is reflected in their business practices and everyday living, such that the train or bus schedule would read "Arrival: 8.23 p.m." and the train or bus would pull in exactly at that time!

In fact, being on time every time, is the first step towards building trust and reliability in Japan. This is true both in business as well as personal relationships.

Being organized and efficient, and adherence to deadlines (and a host of other similar virtues) are considered a way of life in Japan.

In India, arriving late for scheduled appointments is an acceptable practice. Perhaps, it owes itself to olden times when transportation was not efficiently organised and important people sometimes got held up and arrived late.

However, that has also resulted in situations where, if the relationship is strained, one person deliberately makes the other wait.

People in Japan, on the other hand, arrive for meetings at least 5 minutes before a scheduled 9:00 a.m. appointment! The simple logic is that it takes about 5 minutes to get seated and settled in and the meeting is support to START at 9 a.m.

Given the state of transportation infrastructure in India (roads and traffic jams mainly), there may be several unpredictable factors that can affect one's punctuality; However, lack of timeliness is not limited to meetings that require travel; the malaise of 'flexible time' seems to be prevalent with teleconferences too.

This practice of getting late can be overcome with advance planning and adequate preparation. At the very least, should one be getting late, it is important to inform well in advance so that the other person is not waiting and wasting time.

When the Indian associate says: "I will submit the report to you on Monday," the Japanese side expects it on Monday morning 9:00 a.m. Japan time, and not anytime during the day. It is therefore important to keep the 3.5-hour time difference in mind, Japan being ahead, when doing business with Japan.

In India, on the other hand, as long as one submits the report before midnight, it is considered as being submitted on Monday. If there is any delay, the Japanese expect to be informed well in advance and not at the last minute or after the delay has occurred!

Given "flexible" business practices, it is quite usual for Indians to factor such delays in their project, while the Japanese are accustomed to extreme precision. This often causes a lot of friction in a team where both professionals from both nationalities need to work side-by-side.

"No problem" syndrome

An Indian professional seeks to impress the Japanese counterpart with speed and efficiency. This is seen in immediate responses during discussions whereby the Indian says: "Sure, sure. . . no problem."

The Japanese interpretation of this phrase is, "How can the Indians say 'no problem' without even taking some time to consider all aspects of the problem? Surely they would not be professional."

What is needed in this situation is a response which goes like this: "We think we can do it, however, please give us 1 or 2 days to get back to you." It may seem bureaucratic, but the idea is to assure the Japanese that the matter has been given the due thought it deserved.

After the meeting, the Indian side has to remember all the committed deadlines and then get back to the Japanese counterpart with a "Yes, it can be done and will be done by XYZ date."

Of course, in the end this submission must be timely.

Preparing for a meeting

In keeping with the "no surprises" approach, the Japanese ensure that the agenda is agreed upon well in advance and all the necessary people from their side are invited and duly briefed.

I've seen seasoned senior Indian executives walk into a meeting empty-handed whereas the Japanese side comes in with a daily planner/agenda book, copious notes, a writing pad and a few big files!

This great reliance on the powers of memory by the Indian executives may be a bit unnerving for the Japanese, who see it as a potential cause for the proverbial 'slip through the cracks.'

The Japanese want to make it absolutely certain that nothing discussed at the meeting, whether of importance or not, is missed or forgotten.

The Japanese interpret not taking notes or recording dates and schedules as a sign of "lack of seriousness." What is needed for all Indian executives is to carry their respective note pads and make notes, even if they may not seem very useful. This will demonstrate the "symbolic" commitment to the relationship.

To the Japanese, an eye for detail and perceived importance towards quality are important evaluation criteria before entering into a partnership.

Quality before profit

Once a contract has been finalised, the Japanese expected certain minimum quality standards from the vendor. This quality need not necessarily have to be the best in the world, but it should be of mutually acceptable standards.

During the pre-sales phase, the Japanese would always take great pains to define this. Let's assume that this contracted quality is 70% of "best available quality." The Japanese would expect this benchmarked quality "time after time -- every time" and any reduction in quality below this accepted baseline is considered a major deviation.

A better quality level will be considered an improvement and highly appreciated, but the emphasis here is again on "no surprises ever." The focus is on consistent and reliable delivery of agreed quality all the time.

A general perception about India in Japan is that whilst good quality is available sometimes, good quality is not available consistently enough. There are wide variations and this is visible especially in manufactured products or in service standards.

This perceived "imprecision" (or range of deviance) seems to manifest even during our interpersonal interactions where one often hears "I will meet you around 2:00~4:00 PM" or "We will deliver it sometime this week."

The author is the president of Nihongo Bashi.