Applied Visual Studio Team System : On the Software Business

Attending the PASS Summit

andy — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 08:33:00 GMT

Steve Jones makes some good points in his blog post Training. I find it difficult to believe the short-sightedness of some organizations when it comes to training events like the PASS Summit.

This year's Summit - like all previous years to date - had enough top notch presentations and labs to make it worth the cost of admission, travel and expenses, and the cost of allowing a database professional to leave work for three days combined. More than enough.

Like Steve, I don't get it.

Also like Steve, I bet we'll see these DBAs at the 2008 PASS Summit in Seattle - and working for another company.

I wonder if those responsible for denying database professionals opportunities for training factor in the cost of hiring and training a new DBA every six to eighteen months?

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags: EMPs Database Professionals PASS Training Changing Jobs

Good Managers

andy — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:30:00 GMT

It occurs to me today that there are two types of IT managers: those who lead teams everyone wants to be on, and those who lead teams no one wants to be on.

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags: Management IT Leadership Team

On Government Regulation...

andy — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 09:34:00 GMT

Steve Jones has an(other) interesting editorial this morning in which he toyed with / proposed the idea of the government forcing Microsoft to release patches on some regular basis.

I like Steve a lot. We have a lot in common. We're both husbands and fathers. He's a Virginia boy like me and we both like database work. We haven't met, but we plan to meet at the PASS Summit in a couple weeks.

Meeting Steve face-to-face is something I'm looking forward to.

Mostly I agree with Steve's editorials. I read them every day they are published. They are a cool part of my morning routine. I strongly disagree with the idea of any government involvement in industry - period - and stated as much in a response to Steve's words.

I'm not here to beat a dead horse. We may disagree with how to fix the issue of delayed and poorly tested service packs, but we agree they're a problem for us and our clients.

What I find fascinating about the idea and exchange is this: This is exactly how good organizations go bad. Allow me to explain:

A couple months back, I posted Gatekeeper or Roadblock? Part 2 in which I rambled about an (hypothetical) evil conspiracy between a network admin and an executive. Most scenarios of good organizations going bad lack the level of intentionality or malice described therein. Some do, but most don't. What happens to those lacking malice? How do they go bad?

I'm glad you asked.

Normal day-to-day business issues arise. And they are responded to poorly.

What do I mean by "responded to poorly"? I mean companies mired, tangled, and snarled in bureaucracy didn't get there overnight. It's a slippery slope if ever there was one. And it begins innocently enough: with a business need.

The simplest, most elegant solution appears out of nowhere: just create a tiny teentsy-weentsy bit of bureaucracy - no one will mind and few will even notice. Look at all the good that will come out of it. How can this be wrong and bad when it will create so much good? That's the logic.

And the djin escapes.

Somewhere, someone senses satisfaction. Things are finally clicking into place. Making sense. Order is evolving out of chaos. Resources are being managed. Good is arriving.

Then there's that pesky physics and nature of the universe stuff. Equal and opposite reactions, unintended consequences and the like. What of them?

Sadly, they too follow.

Bureaucracy is a creativity-killer.

Please do not take my word for it. Read every classic on industry in print. Good to Great, The Executive in Action, First Break All The Rules, The Mythical Man-Month - I could go on, but you get the picture.

Stifle innovation - especially in the software industry - and you are months away from corporate death or worse "re-organization", "re-branding" or just plain old-fashioned "re-hemorrhaging-talent".

It's not this way because Andy says it's this way. This is just the way it is. You don't have to like it or even like me saying it, but you do have to deal with it. It's right up there with E=mc^2.

Nature abhors a vacuum. You step (or worse, lead your company) out of the path of innovation and it's merely a matter of time.

Pretty grim? Yep. Accurate? Yep.

So what's the solution?

I'm really glad you asked!

There are two possible solutions:

Build a time machine. Travel back to when you first thought of the bureaucratic idea. Scream into your own ear "THIS IS A BAD IDEA!" If that fails to work, try to occupy the same space at different times, thus annihilating yourself before you destroy something so cool.
Stop. Go back. Turn around. Return to the older way. Do so as quickly as possible, with humility, and making all necessary apologies.

Both of these suggestions are equally likely to occur in the experience of a bureaucrat. One of them sounds ludicrous - the other violates our current understanding of the laws of time and space.

To me it's pretty clear. You don't call the IRS and ask them if you paid enough taxes last year and you don't invite bureaucracy.

Democracy is inherently sloppy. It resembles herding snakes down an interstate with a cane fishing pole. Does this mean chaos is good? Not if it's simply chaos for chaos' sake.

Freedom is good... and just happens to be chaotic.

Don't take my word for any of this. Ask the Xerox executives that successfully marketed all the cool technology produced by PARC.

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags: bureaucracy government regulation

Tech bloggers: Heads up

andy — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:48:00 GMT

I received an interesting email a few days back. The sender isn't important - the text is:

Hi ,
I am interested in purchasing textlink advertising on your website Let me know if you are interested and we can discuss further details. I can make a good offer to make it worth your time.

Let me know!

Thanks

No one had ever asked about advertising on VSTeamSystemCentral.com before, so I responded positively.

The conversation took a couple odd turns - enough to raise red flags.

I eventually refused politely, and then not so politely (begging, the final red flag). Compare the message I received to the one received by the blogger at phillsacre.me.uk. Again, I had a different name, but the same pattern of email domains - for me first it was Yahoo, then Gmail.

I'm not sure what these folks are up to but after the problems suffered by job boards last week, I'm sticking with the Google Ads for a while.

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags: textlink advertising your website bloggers tech

Penny's Blog!

andy — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:28:00 GMT

My daughter Penny started a blog: From the Help Desk!

I love the first entry, and not just because I'm in it. :)

Penny stopped by this weekend to meet her new brother Riley Cooper and we got some cool pictures. My favorite is below!

From left to right there's Stevie Ray, Penny, Emma Grace up top (aka "Mini-Penny" - she looks just like Penny when Penny was 2), and Riley Cooper with his I-love-my-big-sister face (also seen here).

Congrats on the new blog Penny!

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags: Help Desk Work Ethic Penny Trupe

Getting Lucky

andy — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:28:00 GMT

I was recently reminded how lucky I am.

It's true, pure luck has played an important role in my life, defining where I am today personally and professionally. Well, maybe not an important role, but it's been there.

How?

Mostly in the form of opportunities. But I then had to act on these opportunities to get the most out of them.

This is starting to remind me of a joke a pastor once told:

A local minister rides out to visit Farmer Brown one fine summer day. As he pulls off the main road onto Farmer Brown's acreage, he admires the tall corn and plush rows of tomatoes and beans. When he greets the old farmer, the minister says "You and the Lord are running a fine farm here!" To which Farmer Brown replies "You should've seen it when the Lord was running it Himself."

I can show a direct correlation between the number of 75-hour weeks I work and how lucky I am.

I can also demonstrate an inverse proportion between the number of mornings I awake completely rested and how lucky I am; as well as a positive ratio of 20-hour days / "luckiness".

So yep, I'm a pretty lucky guy.

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags:

Bad IT Project Management

andy — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:59:00 GMT

My sister-in-law recently passed the PMP certification (congratulations Heather!). I'm waiting for a call from her asking if we need to add resources.

The resources comment above is a joke, but it isn't really that funny. It's indicative of my decades of experience with bad IT project managers.

I believe and hope I have worked with some of the worst project managers on the planet. Why do I hope? I'd hate to think anyone has had to deal with folks worse than the poor project managers I've dealt with.

As I type, we're experiencing a heat wave in Farmville, Virginia. It was 107 degrees Fahrenheit here yesterday. It's the "dog days of summer", as my Granny used to call them.

Somehwere, you will find 30 or more push mowers lined up wheel-to-wheel along one axis of a lawn. On command, the 30+ operators will start their mowers. On cue, they will push them across the lawn, maintaining the wheel-to-wheel alignment, cutting the entire area in one pass.

This, my friend, is the home of an IT project manager.

My experiences have led me to a couple thoughts:

Frederick Brook's The Mythical Man-Month should be required reading for all project managers.
Proof of callouses should be required for the application process.

(The same can be said for MBAs, but that's for another post...)

Inspired by the book, Brook's Law states "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." It is perhaps best summed up by the following statement by Brooks himself: "The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned."

As an IT professional, you can learn to detect when you're about to be "managed". I share the following indicators and advice from my years of experience:

"Do we need to add more resources?" This question in and of itself is harmless. It's actually the way project managers greet each other and has no more meaning to ordinary folk than "How are you doing today?" or "How about this weather?"

The best answer to this question is a non-answer. After years of trying to correctly answer this (as though it were a meaningful question), I stumbled across an answer that works for me: "I don't know." Why does this work so well? The last thing a bad IT project manager wants to do is make a decision - at least one traceable to them.

"I am (or used-to-be) a software developer." If you hear this, you're in trouble. Big, big trouble. My advice to you is to vacate the project - and the premises - as quickly as possible. This isn't a fire evacuation, it's a bomb evacuation. You may wish to consider jumping out a window if you're on or below the third floor.

Why? You are dealing with a person who believes they were promoted because they were such a good developer. Mind you, this is true in less than 25% of my experience. And even then, odds are their resume includes COBOL or they aren't nearly the project manager they believe themselves to be. At best you have 1/3rd of a 25% chance that you're working for someone who knows a definition for delegate - a definition that isn't "someone who attends a convention."

The truth of the matter is this person was likely promoted before they could delay or otherwise further damage the software project to which they were assigned.

"What do I tell my boss (or the stakeholders)?" This question is the prelude to a demand. Your answer isn't important, the demand in the mind of the IT project manager is important. And that demand is for you to do something no sane developer would ever do.

There are a couple options. If you're feeling froggy, you can document the fact you were asked to take this ridiculous course of action by your IT project manager, and then do it. Be sure to address the issue in writing and as soon as possible. CC someone else - anyone else. If you can CC the project managers' boss without looking like you're trying to make them look stupid, that's best. If not, CC someone else at your level on the development team (and allow the bad IT project manager to continue their work of making themselves look stupid unassisted).

Note: Never BCC. BCC'ing the boss is the equivalent of placing a bold, red, flashing banner across the top of your message which states "I'M INSECURE". The boss will get this message, loud and clear. Go ahead and CC them if you believe it's warranted - those dogs need to wake up eventually.

Make sure it's in writing and someone else sees it - that's the point.

The other option is to simply ignore it and do what you know to be right and good. There's risk here too. Some bad IT project managers will call in bigger dogs to shout you down. It's good to have your mugshot and name on a book somewhere if you're going to exercise this option.

"Umm yeah. I'm going to need you to come in Saturday. Sunday's not looking good either..." People are people. Bad IT project managers don't get that. They call people "resources". People aren't resources, we use resources, but we're separate and distinct from resources. People are people.

Bad IT project managers are the reason we have IT Project Leads. After all, someone who knows what they're talking about needs to have some authority if any software project is to stand a chance of succeeding.

:{> Andy

PS - This post inspired a new category at Applied Team System: Expensive Management Practices - gotta love the acronym. :{>

Technorati Tags: Project Management IT Software Development

Iteration = Maturity

andy — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:01:00 GMT

Introduction

I was recently reminded that iteration matures software.

The History of Andy, Part 1

Like many DBAs, I was a software developer in another life. I built web applications - working my way up from HTML through DHTML and finally to ASP - and could regale (and bore) you young whipper-snappers with war-stories of how things were "back in my day". [/DanaCarvey]

But I won't.

The Times They Are a-Changin'

I'll share instead something I've witnessed many times since starting with software in 1975 - and something you probably already know: stuff changes.

And thank goodness stuff changes!

I recently ordered 1G of RAM from an online retailer. It should arrive before my next son (but that's not a given as Riley refuses to provide a tracking number - the doctors will induce Christy into labor Friday if he hasn't been born by then - but I digress...). I remember my neighbor John, who introduced me to computers, purchased a 256-byte RAM chip in the mid-1970s for about what I paid for the 1G. That's 256 bytes of RAM - not a typo. As I recall it was either a 14- or 16-pin IC.

Things have changed since then. Improvements in technology, brought about by building and improving upon existing knowledge, have brought us to a day when I can purchase 1,073,741,824 bytes for roughly the previous price of 256. I don't know how you feel about that. I think it's a good thing.

The idea of "building and improving upon existing knowledge" defines iterative development. Although the idea is relatively new to the software development field, it serves as the basis for engineering disciplines. Engineers iterate - build and improve upon existing knowledge - and we get more powerful hardware for the same amount of money. What's not to like?

Iteration - it's not just a good idea...

Iterative software development builds and improves upon existing knowledge within a specific domain. Most domains are defined by an application (wholly or in part), enterprise knowledge (again, wholly or in part), or - most likely - some combination of the two. For example, let's say you work for a large corporation as a software developer. Your domain could be the corporate website. In which case you possess knowledge about the business of the corporation and web development. You mix these together to do your job. In this case, you will probably pick up marketing savvy and current trends along with the latest AJAX techniques.

As you make successive passes (iterations) through the website design interacting with marketing, your domain knowledge is built and improves. As your domain knowledge increases, the website will become more valuable to the corporation - as will you.

Iteration adds value.

Got Iteration?

The same can be said for database development.

Perhaps you've experienced this in your own database development efforts: you receive a request for a database design to meet some desired functionality. Or you're handed a design and asked to optimize it. Or maybe even you had an idea to capture data - performance metrics or something similar - and you're designing a database solution to accomplish this.

You get into the development a few hours or a few days and realize a little tweak here or there would improve performance, or readibility, or better adapt the design to your intentions. So you make the tweak and continue.

This improvement leads you to re-examine other portions of the design and you make more tweaks. Maybe your last change broke things. Maybe you see an opportunity to add a parameter to a stored procedure and combine the business logic of three stored procedures into one.

A "Growing" Solution

Pretty soon, you have iterated enough to feel comfortable promoting, integrating, or even releasing the results - letting the effort move to the next step.

Depending on the nature of your efforts, it may not end there. If your database development is the back end of a larger application - say, the corporate website, for example - there will likely be requests for changes over time as the site grows (scales) in complexity and size.

When the requests come in you are not likely to start over. You will most likely build and improve upon your existing knowledge. You will most likely iterate.

Scaling forces iteration.

Voilà

This is how solutions mature - be they applications, databases, or both - regardless of who writes them or how many are involved in the development effort. It doesn't matter if the development team is one lady in a cubicle in the European Union or a development team of thousands at Microsoft.

Iteration matures software.

:{> Andy

Sucking Up

andy — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 04:28:00 GMT

I am sometimes accused of sucking up but the truth is I'm just a nice guy who likes to compliment folks when they do a good job. Most of those folks are my peers, some of them happen to be supervisory, and that's when the accusations flow.

So be it. News flash: I didn't start complimenting folks because you commented about it. Can you complete this thought? ;)

In his post entitled Etiquette Rule #1 - Don't be a Sycophant Rob Caron quotes a Redmond Channel Partner Online piece on Microsoft Partner etiquette.

I've had interaction with Microsoft folks and this doesn't match my experience. Rob's response matches my experience instead, where he says :

If you use a competing product, I'd rather understand what our gaffe was that made it the more attractive choice. What could we do better to earn your business next time?
If you think one of our products sucks, please tell me why. What can we do to keep your business?

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags: Sucking up sycophant Rob Caron etiquette

Gatekeeper or Roadblock? Part 2

andy — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 05:26:00 GMT

Over a year ago I wrote a post entitled Gatekeeper or Roadblock?

At the time I was working as a Production and Development DBA for a small shop. People would show up with requests that sounded legitmate to me. Usually these requests would take 30 minutes of my time and provide data to an individual or team that they could use to continue their work for days or weeks.

But the oddest thing would happen. My boss would happen by and ask what I was working on. When I told my boss what I was working on, my boss would inevitably frown. Then my boss would look cross and say something akin to "You should not be doing that for him / them." You may think I'm exagerrating, but I assure you I am not.

Hence the post.

Fast forward some...

I'm doing some consulting for a large-ish IT team for a large-ish company. Team members can't find things. They cannot connect remotely to work from home or while on vacation or away for training or business trips. A lot of stuff that Just Works at most IT departments simply doesn't work here. And no one can figure out why.

As a result, the IT department morale is dropping faster than the Congressional approval numbers because no one can get away from the office for more than a fraction of a weekend. Talented people have been recruited and paid an excellent salary with excellent benefits (including lots of unused vacation). These folks stick around for six months or so and then leave - often for equal or less pay and benefits.

Word is getting out on this place locally. Recruiting efforts are moving farther and farther away.

Network performance is awesome, but very little is actually able to run on the network due to "security policies" (hence the stellar performance). The network department consists of Bill and his very-high-turnover network engineering staff.

Bill's been with the company for years. If you ask him, he'll tell you he "keeps things running around here" and "doesn't know what those colleges are teaching kids these days - none of 'em are worth a tinker's damn."

A long time ago, Bill cobbled together a solution that exceeded management's expectations. He saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting and implementation costs. His network did everything those high-falootin' college brats said there's would do, and it didn't cost the company anything other than what they were going to pay Bill anyway. "Just doin' my job," Bill answered when asked about it by an executive. The executive was so impressed, he basically promised Bill a job for as long as he wanted to work there.

Now.

The system Bill put in place did, in fact, meet the immediate needs of the company. And it didn't cost as much as the consultant-proposed system.

But it also won't scale. At all. Ever.

Bill's learned this. He's tried to make it do more, but the system simply won't.

Bill has a few options.

He could go to training, learn about building scalable systems, and implement a better version of his solution. After all, everyone knows you need to spend 25% of your time training in IT just to keep up.
He could hire people with more recent experience and work with them to build a better version.
He could admit that although he thought his solution was better for the company, it was really just a short-term patch and they should've implemented the consultant's solution instead of his.

Ok, I put that last one in there to see if you were paying attention.

Instead, Bill has locked down the network so every possible wavelength of bandwidth is available for his out-scaled solution. He doesn't need training, he has tenure. A guarantee. He still has an executive's ear - an executive he helped get promoted by saving all that money all those years ago - an executive who both owes him and cannot afford to have the truth come out.

As new people rotate into the department and get close to discovering the issues with Bill's outdated solution that won't scale, they're summarily dismissed. The executive backs his every move. "Bill knows what he's doing. These kids obviously don't."

And so, things do not change.

Except - all things change eventually.

In this case, the company's marketshare dips to an all-time low as productivity remains steady at a 1998 level for Bill's company - while the competition begins gaining marketshare using systems that scale.

When rivals reach the same marketshare, executives muse "they're topped out now!" and wait for the inevitable. After all, if their system won't scale beyond this point, no one's will. Right?

And then the competition's system does continue to scale. And in a few years Bill's company is bought out by their competition and the innovative IT department of the purchasing firm curses Bill's old system as they try to work through the hacks to get at something that resembles business rules.

In the end, I suppose the executive and Bill both parachute out into the business world, seeking another hapless company to victimize. They're richer, no wiser, and have left talent-devastation in their wake as they unceremoniously ended, wrecked, or disillusioned dozens of careers.

What a depressing post! For a good laugh, you have to go here and read the post and comments - very funny.

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags: Gatekeeper Roadblock A sad sad tale

The Hidden Cost of Business Enemies

andy — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 11:01:00 GMT

In business, enemies are expensive.

I'm not talking about competition here. I'm talking about enemies. Competition is actually good for you for a number of reasons including:

Competition indicates a market exists. Lots of folks think "No one else is in this market - I'll own it!" Unless your idea / service / product is truly innovative, there's a good reason for the lack of competition: there's no money in it. Always ask yourself "Am I the first person to think of this?"
Competition keeps you on your toes by pushing you to excellence. If you don't satisfy, someone else will. That's powerful motivation.

An obvious enemy-related expense is lost business. If you tick someone off they will not likely use your service or product again.

But there are hidden costs as well. For instance, bad news travels much faster and farther than good news. Don't take my word for it - check out your local evening news. Very little good news is reported. Do one person / company wrong in a single business transaction, and it will follow the remainder of your career.

This is why I don't get the ethics scandals. Maybe I'm missing something but the risks of these schemes seem to far outweigh the rewards. Each time I hear of a new blatant, intentional ethical violation I wonder aloud "What were they thinking?"

There's also collateral damage to business enemies and sometimes it can turn around and bite the offended - again. How? Whenever you badmouth someone who treated you wrong, you are gambling that the person you're talking about will never do anything positive and meaningful for the person you are talking to - forever. Forever is a long time. Things change, stuff happens. Are you willing to take that risk?

Also, when you badmouth you're demonstrating you're the type of person who will talk trash about someone with whom you disagree. Odds are someone else will disagree with you in the future. Are potential clients willing to take the chance you will be happy enough with the outcome of your dealings to not impugn their reputation? Put another way: Is there anyone else they can hire who won't talk smack about them should things come out less than equitable for all parties?

It comes down to professionalism.

Everyone looks like a professional when the gig goes your way, you get plenty of recognition, paid more and/or earlier than anticipated or agreed upon. It's not hard to shake hands, pat folks on the back, give credit to those who helped, and genuinely thank those involved for the opportunity... when all goes well.

When things fly apart mid-project, when threats begin, when you start ignoring your email and silencing your cell phone without answering; when your subconscience sounds like a black-and-white World War II submarine naval movie in a scene where the sub is about to dive and is sounding the klaxon... that's the darkness where the brightest lights shine the most.

There's another word for these dim times: opportunity.

You have an opporunity to turn the project around. I am a firm believer that all projects-in-peril can be turned around. It is a sheer matter of will to do so.

The momentum gained by a project climbing out of the Pit of Despair can propel a business relationship to a completely new level, and, if you engineer such a turnaround, you will demonstrate your professionalism beyond dispute.

I know, I've seen it happen.

In conclusion, there are hidden costs to making enemies in business, and there is hidden profit in putting potential enemies in the friend column.

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags: Business Enemies Cost

Notes On Project Success - Part 2, to Stake-Holders

andy — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 07:01:00 GMT

Yesterday, I addressed Technologists regarding Project Success; today I address Stake-holders.

I have participated in projects that have succeeded and in projects that have failed. One thing I noticed about the failed projects: expectations were poorly - or not - managed.

What are examples of project expectations?

Functionality - when completed, the application / upgrade / database / server will allow me to perform xyz.
Time - how much time one expects to develop the functionality. Can also include a schedule for deliverables and / or milestones.
Expense - how much one expects to pay for the functionality.

As a stake-holder you know what you want. And you can probably communicate your expectations - using the three areas above as a guide - effectively. Issues arise when, for whatever reasons, there is a disconnect between your expectations and the those of the IT team tasked with performing the work.

I've witnessed several unsuccessful executive responses to the disconnect scenario:

"Ostritch" - ignoring the disconnect in hopes it will disappear with time.
"Gambler" - belief that there's a big score (project or technical break-through) just-around-the-corner that will save the day.
"Taskmaster" - belief that threatening people is the way to motivate them to work around challenges.
"More-Resources" - a firm belief that more resources can solve any problem known to humanity. (I often imagine these folks live in subdivisions and get their neighbors to help mow their lawns. In my mind I see forty push-mowers aligned wheel-to-wheel along one edge of a lawn. On signal, they all puch across the lawn, mowing it from end to end in a single pass...)

I worked for a company that decided to employ Performance-Based Management techniques to a successful team. They actually applied the concept company-wide, regardless of whether the teams were successful or not. In this particular flavor of PBO, 20% of employees were considered outstanding, 60% were satisfactory, and 20% were acceptable losses that the company would be better without. These numbers were set in stone and never changed.

My questions were:

Who failed? Did HR fail 80% of the time by hiring mediocre to poor employees? or did our management disillusion and de-motivate these people into their non-excellent state?

Are we, in effect, planning to never get better?

Statistical control works on processes, not people - at least not well on people.

So what is the solution?

Communication.

It's that simple. Executives have to either be approachable by the IT team or someone representing them, or you must appoint someone to be approachable in your stead. Leadership dynamics (or just plain scheduling issues) may require you to appoint someone. If so, try to find someone who speaks both business and technology.

Realize that sometimes you do not know what you do not know. I run a couple small corporations and have an appreciation for the amount of work involved in merely administering such an entity. I also know technology changes every day. It's difficult for anyone to keep up - especially if you're minding stock-holders, regulators, and the lot. We may have moved beyond the technology you understand. If we haven't, we will soon.

Either hire people you trust or trust the people you hire. If someone violates the trust, respond accordingly. But do everything within your power to exude trust-worthiness as well as trusting-ness.

For truly innovative people to be free to succeed, they must first be free to fail.

The best tools were once toys. IT professionals are notorious tinkerers. You will be astonished at the return on investment for a weekly-scheduled hour of "play time" for developers.

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags: Software projects Success Failure Technologists

Notes On Project Success - Part 1, to Technologists

andy — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 07:01:00 GMT

There was a very interesting article posted not long ago at SQL Server Central by Janet Wong entitled My Projects Have Never Failed.

In the article, the author explains projects that experienced varying degrees of success for various reasons - but in all cases a disconnect existed between the end-user or customer expectations and the delivered product.

Personally, I consider these projects failures.

Here's why: The stake-holder or executive has this expectation. It may be very unrealistic, but they hold it nonetheless. They may be very educated people or not. They may understand technology or not. None of this impacts the fact that they hold expectations.

Q: Who's in charge of communicating realistic expectations?

A: Technology people.

Or at least a member of the technology team.

A good technology team has several moving parts and people fulfilling different roles.
Note: If you're a one-person-show, this post is not about you.

At least one person on the team needs to be customer-facing. That person needs to be an expert in communicating with business people who hold unrealistic expectations. Make no mistake: this is a talent and an art.

Good communicators are rare in life, rarer in business, and practically extinct in the technology sector. Most good communicators abandoned IT departments decades ago and moved into sales where they could enjoy salaries orders of magnitude beyond what IT departments will pay them. But I digress...

I don't blame my customers when their expectations go unmet - I blame myself. Had I communicated something better - or even differently - the outcome would likely have been better for everyone.

So here are some tips for communicating with project stake-holders / executives:

You may understand what you mean when you say "Third-Normal Form Relational Database" at a meeting with executives, but few of them will. It's not their job to understand - that's why they're paying you. Step up. If you cannot translate your conversation into executive-speak, let someone else do the talking. If your point is to embarrass the executives, you'll probably not try that at your next job.
Identify someone on your team (or add someone to your team) to serve as a point-of-contact to the executives. If your team has a project manager, they may be the best person to do this. I've also seen horrible project managers who exacerbate the problem with their own inability to communicate (or worse yet, take the side of the stake-holders and hang the development team out to dry).
Keep it short.
Keep it as simple as possible. Stake-holders and executives do not need to know the history of iterations you went through to arrive at your conclusion. Take it as a sign of confidence in your abilities that they accept your judgment on the matter.
Stake-holders and executives have different priorities from you and I technology people - remember that.
If you deliver quality late, no one remembers. If you deliver junk on time and under budget, no one forgets.
The old consulting axiom ever applies: Under-promise, over-deliver.

This is business. This isn't academia; you do not get to interpret your own results.

It's not a success unless they believe it to be a success.

Me, I've had projects fail. Some of them have been spectacular in the scope of their failure. To date, I've stepped up, admitted the failed status of the project along with my errors, and promptly moved to correct the issues. I've found excuses to be a waste of my and my customer's time.

Having a project fail is bad enough; failing to manage the failure takes it to the next level.

Remember, if you fix it, it will be ok.

Tomorrow, I address Stake-holders.

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags: Software projects Success Failure Technologists

Surface

andy — Wed, 30 May 2007 22:04:00 GMT

If you have any interest in User Interfaces, you must watch this video - immediately.

Microsoft unveils Surface, a coffee-table shaped computer with some unique UI characteristics. The coolest of these is the ability to respond to multiple "touches" simultaneously.

The obvious question is: How long before this screen technology makes its way to other touch-based devices (handhelds and tablets)?

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Surface coffee-table computer GUI User Interface

Managing The Thing You Cannot Touch

andy — Sun, 27 May 2007 07:01:00 GMT

Yesterday I wrote about The Thing You Cannot Touch. Today I'm going to tell you some ways to manage the situation.

First, try to determine why You Cannot Touch The Thing. This is invaluable information in charting the waters ahead - especially if you're consulting.

Second, accept the fact that there's better than a 90% chance that you will not, in fact, be allowed to Touch The Thing. In my experience, three things must be true for you to overcome the business friction imposed by The Thing:

You have to try everything else first.
Everything else must fail to sufficiently address the issue.
The source of the issue must be mission-critical.

Regardless, your best knee-jerk reaction is acceptance. This is tough for a professional. In your heart of hearts you know what it takes to solve the real issue. And yet, you've been told You Cannot Touch It.

The good news? There's also a better than 90% chance you can find a way to solve the issue - or at least alleviate the client's pain - without Touching The Thing.

Modern enterprise applications are comprised of lots of moving parts. The Thing is probably not the sole source of pain. Addressing other bottlenecks may do the trick - at least for now.

And, if you're the person they called last time they had an issue and you solved it (and weren't "difficult" to work with), you'll likely get the call next time.

How cool is that?

:{> Andy

Technorati Tags: Consulting Software Development Satisfying The Customer Leveraging New Business