And Now?

Courtesy of au_tiger01, Some Rights Reserved

When this economic downturn will pass, when many companies in the world will be spoiled by manager acting like crazy on the altar of saving, when the know how of companies will be dispelled for the head count reduction … we will ask: and now?

I don’t know what the treatment will be (or better I might know but I need to invoice if you want the answer )  but I know that rewarding executives and top manager on a quarter basis is not necessarily good.

Focusing only on short term results is not the way we manage our families: we know that we have to act to eat now BUT we know that we have to prepare our retirement AND to grant a decent future to our children AND …

PierG

Are We Using Poisons as Treatments?

After reading an interesting post of John Hunter called Dr. Deming Webcast on the 5 Deadly Diseases, I’m wondering if in today’s company we are using poisons to treat the disease of our companies. In Italy, as in many countries around the world, we have sometimes the chance to access to new ideas a little bit after they have been tested in other countries (mainly in the US).

It should be wise not to use what has been proven it doesn’t give good results!

Listen to what Dr.Deming used to say years ago about the disease of our companies and look if they seem like the treatment we have been asked to use today by consultants or managers:

• Lack of constancy of purpose
• Emphasis on short term profits – “creative” accounting, focus on quarterly profits
• Annual Performance Appraisals – management by objective, management by fear
• Mobility of management – [see Toyota for a great example of a company that operates on different principles - where the leadership has been with Toyota for decades]
• Running a company on visible figures alone – many important factors are “unknown and unknowable.”

PierG

Applications and Processes

Courtesy of Robert S. Donovan, Some Rights Reserved

As usual, when I stay with my son, I get a lot of inspiration.

Few week ago I was explaining to a friend of mine how I changed the way I live my personal life since I’m a father. Mainly:

1. I keep doing nearly what I used to do before;
2. I do it respecting, above all, the basic needs of my son: playing, eating at some specific time, sleeping for a certain amount of time at specific time .

So, for example, when I go out for dinner in a nice place I arrive earlier to let him eat at the proper time, I get some small toys to let him play, I go out early.

I think this is the same approach people should use when the need to buy an application for a specific need / process. Implementing a process with the help of a tool: remember not force the application to do what is not built to do, do not force too much the process to follow the tool.

Find a good balance: otherwise you’ll have a bad dinner, your son will be nervous, and you’ll probably ruin the evening.

PierG

Is Pair Programming THE Agile Practice?

Courtesy of Daniele Butera, Some Rights Reserved

Interesting post by Michael Hugos called: Agile Software Development Depends on Pair Programming. Michael is at the Agile 2009 conference in Chicago to find about the state of agile software development and live posts about the Pair Programming practice.

A good article especially if you are in some way new to the agile software development paradigms: it gives you a flavor of the benefits of Pair Programming and talks about the Myth of the Hero Programmer.

And I think reality is a bit more complex and we have to remember that the goal is creating value and not adhering to principles or practices. So I agree with what Kent Beck point out in a recent article To Fix Or Not To Fix?: Another Good Question

When I noted that tests needed to be used thoughtfully on the runway I was accused of abandoning my principles, of having no pride, of not being a craftsman. None of these is true, not of testing, not of defects, and not of (coming next) design. The higher principle I follow is to create as much value with my skills and talent as I can.

PierG

Does Micro-Managing Help You Succeed?

I have often written that micro management is a bad habit in some way indirectly sponsored by companies themselves.

I wasa talking about micro managing your directs, I’ve never thought about what some colleagues of mine define “PierG’s driver” that is micro managing UP.

In How Micro-Managing UP Can Help You Succeed, they guys from Management Craft writes:

Leaving your manager in the dark is not a good strategy, and can hurt your career.

Read the post and tell me: does micro-managing UP help you succeed?? What do you think as a manager and as a direct?

PierG

Systems Integration

Courtesy of JasonRogersFooDogGiraffeBee, Some Rights Reserved

Integrating information systems is not a technical or architectural stuff but an organizational stuff.

For this reason an integration problem is not solved with a new tool but with a new process. Period.

PierG

IT Dashboard of the US government

Thanks to this post in the FlowingData blog, I’ve discovered a very interesting site for IT people: the IT dashboard of the US government.

I think it’s a great initiative, an example of transparency, and I’m sure it’s going to be a mine of information and an important source for reasoning about IT dashboards.

What’s your feedback? Do you use dashboards to control your IT?

PierG

Are you ready to stop smoking?

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There is a pattern I often find in people who smokes cigarettes: “you know, I’ve almost stopped smoking 2 months ago”. Me: “almost stopped?” “yes, I just smoke 1/3 of the cigarettes I used to smoke 2 months ago … I’ve almost stopped”

Too many times I see management or process practices being started … and only partially applied after a short time. There is always a good excuse, a good alibi to be loose in discipline.

My idea is that either you smoke or you don’t smoke … there is no almost.

Are you ready to stop smoking?

PierG

Ship it and Fix it

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Last week, I’ve written about the Lessons Learned by Kent Beck in his post: Putting Max on the Back Burner.

I think this is the part that what might have more impact on some XP-ers/Agilists:

Ship it and fix it. The product needs to provide value from the first, but it doesn’t need to provide everyone with value all the time. Early sales answer questions about the market size. Early users accept some rough edges if they get to be first and you fix the problems. Not reflexively fixing every defect was a hard transition for me, but, often, answering the next business question was my highest priority. I would recommend installing real-time remote error reporting for anyone bringing client software to market. It was nerve-wracking at first to see all the errors, but in the end the feedback was invaluable

Here is what I gather from this topic adding my interpretation / point of view:

1. releases can be used to penetrate the market, drive product evolution, check the market size. Eventually fix and change to penetrate another market and loop the process;
2. from the users’ perspective external quality is something they might want to negotiate in a market exploration perspective or to gain some ‘early adoption’ advantage;
3. new features, especially in innovative or immature markets, have often a disruptive effect no matter as unfixed they are: they quickly generate a chain reaction of new ideas and than new features. Again a way to quickly explore. Timeliness in this sense is driving more than external quality;
4. the definition of DONE is not only related to the ‘acceptance’ of features, is when all users can use it (deploy), can communicate back (logging / error reporting) …

What’s your impression?

PierG

Lessons learned

I‘ve just read a post by Kent Back called Putting Max on the Back Burner in whish he announces the end of the development of his recent project JUnit Max.

I let you go through Kent’s post to understand why: I just want to share with you the lessons he learned during this project.

Knowing a little bit Kent, a great professional and person, let me say that if he has learnt these lessons, be sure they are something it’s worth reading!

Release early and often. The phrase, “If you aren’t embarrassed, you waited too long to release,” was very helpful to me. […]

Ship it and fix it. The product needs to provide value from the first, but it doesn’t need to provide everyone with value all the time. […] Not reflexively fixing every defect was a hard transition for me, but, often, answering the next business question was my highest priority

End-to-end. […] My ambition for Max was always larger than what I delivered, but implementing something of the service offering, however small, would have communicated that vision more clearly. […]

Cut your losses

Lean startup

Even if this is not probably an happy moment for Kent, I can’t wait looking at his new project!

PierG