Thursday, April 26, 2007

When to stop

Toyota assembly line stops when something is wrong. There is a willingness to quit when things are off track - then they are on the path of mastery.

If you fire your worst boss, clients, stop working with the people who have no value, stop working on wasteful activities, then you free up an enormous energy. Direct that energy toward conquering great things and odds of success go way up.

Your pick?

You are presented with 2 options of picking a bottle of wine in a restaurant. One is going for 20$ and the other one goes for 30$. Which one do you pick? What if there is a third choice for 40$?

Last week I provided estimate to our users in a range, 4-8 weeks, 4 being the probability of have something to deliver. User’s understating was that we are going to finish in 6 weeks!

Monday, April 23, 2007

Better = Simpler

Many organizations view complexity as a sign of getting better. They make things overly complicated by imposing new processes which create metrics (usually they are not based on results) they like to have. The end result however, is very depressing: fear, pressure, uncertainty, and complexity. What suffers? Human CPU is not very good at handling pressure when things are complicated. Since complexity is the default (law of physics), you need highly creative people to make things simple. Creative people survive only in an environment which creativity is allowed. While many advanced teams are implementing proven methods to increase teamwork and creativity, still many managers are at sleep or denial, ignoring possibilities of doing things new ways.

At one time China was ahead of the West in science and technology then they started to believe that information was enough and progress came to a halt because they never developed “possibility”.

Simplicity is the best indicator of “getting better”.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

The more "done" something appears, the lesser and narrower feedback get

One of my colleagues at work has asked me to give feedback on his vision document (position paper). Oh well, the document is so strongly voiced that I am not sure that it is a vision document, a road map or a solution to a perceived problem. The document is definitely looks sharp with pretty pictures of sunny vision and green road maps. It also has an appendix section containing code snippets of a tagged language (xml/xslt). I am sure that our friend has put tones of work into this and his document is well thought out and incisive.
So, why am I losing energy as I read through the document? So much of what I read strikes me as correct but somehow belittling of the problems real domain face. The vision: Reuse, shared components and shared database. The document then goes through some lengths to show a solution along with a possible implementation.
The problem with such a generic vision statement is more or less the equivalent of a manager advice/order to "get better." That is no help at all if not insulting. I am also not a big fan of vision first, team later approach. Most successful companies define a domain to explore, build a team and then have the team to come up with the vision.
I am losing more energy as I see the perfectly fonted and formatted draft, every sentence seems more done than you’d like it open. The solution proposed deal with small amount of real problem, pretty much like an iceberg where 90% of it is underwater. The best design is emergent and done through exploration rather than a perfectly prescribed solution.
Am I just grumpy, or others may get annoyed as well? I shared the document with NP and DR, they both reacted the same way as I did - just a little stronger.
Don't make the Vision or a design document look done. Here is the most damaging part of this exercise besides setting the wrong expectation as Kathy Sierra suggest:
The more "done" something appears, the lesser and narrower feedback get.
If you show me something polished and pretty, you’ll get feedback on font sizes. The possibility of getting feedback is far more achievable if you do it on a piece of paper, napkin or white board. Java people use Napkin Look and Feel, for the same reason.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

When measurement becomes dangerous

Tom Demarco - based on the Rob Austin's book, Measuring and Managing: Performance in Organizations is that measurement is a potentially dangerous business. When you measure any indicator of performance, you incur a risk of worsening that performance. This is what Rob calls dysfunction.