Of course, I’m addressing the issue of influence without authority. You never have enough authority to do the job you have to do. That’s a given. A lot of what program managers do is influence. Great testers do, too. And, since program managers work across the organization, their sphere of influence is large. Great testers have an informal sphere of influence across the organization which comes from their knowledge, not from their positional authority.

The approach I’m using is Genie Laborde’s approach which is from her book, Influencing with Integrity: Management Skills for Communication and Negotiation. The five step approach is this:

A. Aim for a specific result.
B. Be positive.
C. Take in the sensory data.
D. Dovetail your desires with those of the other person.
E. Entertain short- and long-term objectives.

And, you know what? Sometimes, influence doesn’t work. Sometimes, you move to negotiation. I like principled negotiation, where you and the other person work to understand your principles behind your positions, a la Fisher, Ury & Patton in Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. You then negotiate on the principles. (I’m reading other books on negotiation, too.) And, you know what? Sometimes, that doesn’t work either.

If you are working with unreasonable people such as people playing zero-sum games, nothing you try is going to work. In that case, you can give up with influence or negotiation, and work around those people. And, yes, I have tips on how to work around people. Because, I am nothing if not pragmatic!

But most of us work with reasonable people–at least, most of the time. And, if you want to investigate what you can do with influence, I have these opportunities upcoming. In Vancouver Oct 24, I’ll be leading a half-day tutorial at Much Ado About Agile 2011. I’ll be leading a half-day session at AYE the following week. (AYE is sold out this year.) I’ll be in Potsdam, at Agile Testing Days, Nov 14 (and the rest of the week) leading the Making Geographically Distributed Projects Work tutorial, aimed at testers and program managers. Agile testers and test managers have a particularly difficult time with influence, especially if they are not collocated with their developers.

Please join me in Vancouver or Potsdam. I would love to see you there.

Apparently not.

I received another email from the requestor telling me “We had sent you a business proposition. Your response to it is curt, rude, unprofessional and uncalled for. This “discussion” is over. Thank you for nothing.”

You betcha. Except now I remember the product’s name and I will remember to tell people, if they ask me, whether they should do business with these people. Nope.

I certainly see how a negative one-word reply could be seen as curt. Except, they asked me for it! Oh well.

Do be careful about what you ask for. You might just get it.

I was at STAR East this week, facilitating some sessions with Esther Derby. The session was fun for us and the attendees seemed to learn a lot.

For me, one of the best parts of conferences is meeting new people, making new friends, and learning about new things. Some of us bloggers got together for a little BOF-thing at the cocktail party (hey, is it a geek cocktail party without a few computers?):Brian Marick (who still hasn’t linked to me, who may never link to me, but whose writing I still read and whose friendship and review I cherish, and now I get to tease him about this linking business :-), Esther Derby, Cem Kaner, Andy Tinkham (who’s working on a new tool so he can syndicate sites without RSS feeds! Whoo-eee Andy!), Bret Pettichord, and some folks without blogs: James Whittaker, Scott Myers, Lee Copeland, Rick Craig.

Some of you familiar with these names may be thinking, “Oh, JR’s just name-dropping. Hmm. That’s strange. Why would she do that?” I’m not *just* name-dropping. I know these people. I respect them. I don’t always agree with them, but that’s ok. We are peers, and we use each other to read and review our writings, refine our ideas, and challenge our ideas to make them better.

I don’t know how much influence I’ve had on each of these people. I suspect it ranges from none to some. It doesn’t matter to me how much influence I’ve had on them; it matters more to me that they’ve influenced me. Cem, Brian, and Bret have explained to me in multiple ways that the kinds of testings I take for granted are not normal for much of the testing community, and if I want to reach that community, I need to explain what the heck I’m doing. James and I both enjoy speaking, and I’ve learned from James that if I chose to dance around on the stage, people might not walk out. (I’m still not sure I’ll actually dance, but it’s an option.) When Scott spoke about “Just Plain Stupid” design, I felt as if I was back at Symbolics, and was thrilled that he encouraged the testers to call developers on wacko designs. I’m not sure I would have considered facilitating an open-space type of session at a conference without Esther.

I’ve learned from my friends and colleagues. I know they’ve influenced me. I suspect I’ve influenced them too.

If you’re not attending conferences now, consider it. You don’t have to make friends with the speakers, but I recommend it. If you have no money to attend conferences, attend local professional group meetings. Read articles and books. Correspond with the authors. You’ll make friends, people you can ask for informal help if necessary. The speakers and authors speak and write to influence you. And the more you correspond with them, the more you’ll influence them.