Stumbling onto Rands

About 6-8 months ago I stumbled onto a post Rands had that just cracked me up. Something about ‘What To Do When You’re Screwed‘ just made me want more, so I started to dig into the archives and see what this guy was like. I was hooked after spot-checking a few more posts about N.A.D.D. and Agenda Detection so I just decided to start at the beginning and read or skim through this guy’s entire last five years of articles.

Now, normally during any given week I’ll surf the web and come up with a bunch of great articles that I want to write about myself. Reading Rands’ archives made me want to just keep on reading to the point where I’d hear a little voice in my head saying “just go read a couple more of his posts, you can always write your stuff later…” Madness, I’ve never been quite so mesmerized by someone’s blog since I went through Joel’s a couple years back. It literally took me a few months to get through Rands’ archives, mostly because I kept reading even the stuff that wasn’t interesting just because I wanted to know more about the author and loved his style of writing. He’s got a great sense of humor and writing style, that I’ve found myself doing the same things.

Turning your blog into an opportunity

I wanted to give a little exposure for this guy because I really think the audience of this blog (yes, I still actually have quite an audience according to my logs) would enjoy his material. Secondly, I’d like to point out that this guy has really done things right by building almost a brand on his old net handle. He started a blog, let it grow over time by adding valuable thoughts (and plenty of other not-so-valuable tid-bits, but they’re pretty funny either way), then formally bound them all into a book that people can BUY (read: CHA-CHING!!!) and read. This is a perfect example of how someone can make an indirect income as a result of their blog.
Sure, there’s plenty of people out there that have published books about their related blog material…I’m sure they’re interesting too. None of them have ever made me want to do the same though. Not that I’d write a book about IT or management, but everyone has so much in life to contribute for others to learn from or laugh at…it’s a shame I haven’t tried already.

So to wrap this up, a big thanks to Rands for sharing his thoughts with the world via web and paper. (I’ll probably refer to him quite a bit going forward.) And to everyone else out there, take a peek at his site if you haven’t already. He’s definitely a worthwhile RSS subscription.

The point I’d like to make in this post is something I’ve felt for a very long time and have seen ample proof of it since way back in my college days: Almost anyone I’ve seen that is serious about gaming has the potential for being a great developer. disclaimer: I’ve seen some really good programming come from people not interested in games, so it’s not like I’m saying ONLY gamers can code their way out of a wet paper bag. I’ve just recently dipped into gaming again after having given up the addiction for awhile.

Background

My very first interest in electronics came from gaming. My first game was Pac-Man on an old brown Atari or something. Growing up, I could make a quarter last 30 minutes at an arcade if there was a Pac-Man game of some kind. The game concept is very simple. You eat the pellets, the ghosts chase you and you either clear the board or die. As a 5-year-old, making that little monochrome chomping square race around the screen while never even looking left still intrigued me to no end. In no time, I’d mastered the game’s mechanics and used every bit of knowledge possible to last longer than anyone else that played. The timing of power-pellet use… Knowing which ghost used what maneuvers to try to catch you… Once I understood how each part of the game worked I could use it to my advantage as a component of the entire game-mastering symphony of IN-YOUR-FACE-GHOST moves.

This same approach worked later on the NES just as well. With each game we all made our measly attempts at mastering all the moves and opponents at first…BUT THEN…with the repetition we just got better. As console games got better, and computer games became more realistic and complex, and *GASP* interactive gaming on the Internet with REAL LIVE COMPETITION became the norm…our dedication to becoming a “master” had to be almost all or nothing. However, the fundamentals have never changed for me. I still manage to dissect a game down to its very basic components before planning my symphony of destruction.

Application
So, in comes the entire computer science side of the conversation.

“Dude, WTF have you said so far that has ANYTHING to do with being a great developer?”

Well, nothing really. I think I had some pretty great fun reminiscing about games though.

Actually, I’ve managed to go through a pretty good career while watching the same type of learning patterns for mastering games be applied to mastering software development. The interest is quite different, but the ability to break down the most complex problems presented in some of the most fun games are VERY VERY similar to the skills needed to break down a set of requirements into the subcomponents of a software application. The symphony planning from gaming is now the very same skill that many IT folks depend on to architect the most elegant solutions. (On a side note, if you sucked at figuring games out it doesn’t mean you can’t design worth a crap. I’ve seen some pretty bad architectures in my time as well that were probably made by REALLY FREAKING GOOD gamers.)

“Um, Retro…dude…you just told that nice long story to just say if you can figure out games you can be a good developer…it can’t just be that simple. Make this easier for me since statistically speaking I’m only skimming this post anyway…”

OK, solving games and solving development problems are two different skills. However, I think ability to break things down and apply logic reasoning combined with persistence to complete the symphony for that most gratifying moment are what really makes this concept applicable. Here’s some nice pretty bullet points for those of you that are probably just going to skim this whole page for a list or something.

Tags: gamers, developers, programming, problem+solving

Getting more technical

For the past couple of months, I’ve spent more time concentrating on hosting the site in a more maintenance-free design where I can focus on the content instead of the look and feel. The previous version of the blog was a very rough-drafted hack that was more of a rapid prototype than anything else. I used it to learn a bit more about php and blogging in general.

I’ve now applied the knowlege gained the last year toward a design that I like and know that the plans I have for the site will be easy to put in place because of the thought put into the project.

Designing for the future

This really leads into my next post that I’m working on about designing towards low maintentance, but I’ll just not discuss it more. Mostly, I’m excited about finishing up some major projects and milestones in my life and am celebrating by launching this new design at the same time.

In the meantime, please know that I’ll continue to tweak things and wrap up some of the customizations I’ve yet to complete that didn’t seem quite as important as the change-over happening now instead of later.

Ok, so now what?

Another side-effect of spending more time on the site mechanics the last couple of months is that I have just tons of topics that I’m wanting to post about. I look forward to sharing my thoughts again on a more regular basis. In the meantime, I’ll just marinate my posts for awhile until they make their way to the site.

I’ve got a few things to say about this subject, as I’ve had experience with quite a few of these in the past of various shapes and sizes.

1. If you’re not nervous the minute you go live, you’re probably doing something wrong.

I’ve only been on one project where I felt really good about launch day. I didn’t have a care in the world the couple days before-hand. Needless to say, I spent most of my waking hours the next week just trying to keep everything from falling apart. Of course there’s many lessons learned about projects as you get more practice, but being a little nervous and doing my best about being aware of things all the way up to the last minute is routine for me on project lifecycles now.

2. The longer you’ve had a plan and been able to stick to it, the more successful it will be.

Of all the projects I’ve been involved with, the ones that had the most project planning were the most successful. Now I, of all people, am not the over-planning type and generally take shortcuts wherever I can if it will save a project from being late. However, I totally respect the art of planning when it comes to completing a successful deliverable. There’s a few exceptions to the rule here, but in general…the more planning the project had, the better the odds were for an on-time completion.

3. Less scope creep typically means less defects.

Let’s face it. Scope creep happens on almost every project. For anyone following an iterative life-cycle, something along one of the iterations shown to the customer will trigger a response from them that forces you to change a few things. I don’t see anything wrong with changing some things along the way, but from what I’ve seen is…the more it happens, the more defects you will be likely to find in your final deliverable. This becomes less of a problem as your team gains experience in dealing with refactoring, risk-analysis on proposed changes to your designs, etc. Either way, the less scope creep you have, the more solid your delivered product will be.

4. Enjoy the rush, most things after go-live are maintenance for awhile.

There is nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of a newly released product. That overdose of sheer cosmic power that forces the blood through your ego-veins is sometimes impossible to maintain within your body’s limits. Sure, there’s going to be panic-moments after a launch where you react to get things under control…but for crying out loud, take a moment to really congratulate yourself on the delivery. You worked hard to get to this moment. Enjoy it. Enjoy it before you think too hard about the fact that you’re going to have your hands full of all the maintenance items that will stem from this launch or deployment. Rest assured, it normally settles down and you can go back to working on another creative assignment. For the near future though, you’re pretty much stuck in a fix-it mode until you know you have something solid.

5. There’s just nothing quite like it.

The thrill of delivering a final product to a customer is just unbeatable in my book. I’m really a customer-centric employee more often than most I guess. The best part about my job is that I know I’m bringing value to my customers and feeling a real sense of pride in my abilities as they marvel over their new “toys”. Sometimes it’s just the sigh of relief they make as you prevent a crisis or save hours of mindless work for someone through automating something for them. No matter what your service is…building a pile of success stories is not only good for your marketable profile, but it’s reassurance that you’re capable of meeting your goals repeatedly. Nothing is quite like knowing you can back up your “fightin’ words” when you have to throw down your estimations or opinions for future projects.

So what is it that you anticipate before going live on a project? Preparation and size of project usually effects my expectations. What factors effect yours? I find it just a little amusing that I still get nervous over simple little website changes when I’m also working on a project that makes this entire blog look like a single pixel on my screen of responsibility. I guess that’s just a habit I’ll never get over. Oh well, I’ll just enjoy it while I can.

Tags: anticipation, project+go-live, scope-creep, deliverables

]]> http://www.retrospector.com/2006/09/30/anticipating-a-project-go-live-date/feed/ http://www.retrospector.com/2006/09/30/anticipating-a-project-go-live-date/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Retrospector/~3/Zr-eBxMPsYI/ http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/28/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-5/#comments Mon, 28 Aug 2006 07:04:39 +0000 Retrospector Corporate Life Planning Project Management Team Building Management http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/28/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-5/ This post is the final installment of the 5 Steps to Help Your IT Team Concentrate series. The overview of all the steps I’ve covered in this series is listed for you here, with links to the previous posts, 0 being the introduction.

0. Coin a cool term for being fully concentrated
1. Identify how your employees concentrate and perform
2. Create a process where team members are most effective
3. Encourage collaboration in the group time, and support total isolation for the individual time
4. Create the appropriate atmosphere
5. Don’t be afraid to change and experiment

Today we’ll elaborate more on the fourth and fifth steps:

4. Create the appropriate atmosphere.

Atmosphere in the workplace can be defined in a number of ways. I like to think about atmosphere in two different ways, the physical and the mental. Physical atmosphere is the obvious environment that you can see, touch and feel just by sitting in the room. I like to think of the mental atmosphere of the employee as the environment perceived after you take away all the physical aspects of the workplace.

Physical atmosphere

The last post in this series probably touched on the physical atmosphere that would help an employee concentrate more than I really wanted it to. What I want to emphasize here is that the appropriate physical atmosphere is not difficult to provide relative to any other job environment factor.

I stumbled onto a great article from Jeff Atwood’s Coding Horror site called The Programmer’s Bill of Rights. The article is geared totally towards programmers, but I find it a very versitile list that could apply to just about any IT employee I can think of since most of them spend a lot of time in front of computers. The bill is pretty specific to physical environment factors that are ideal, if not essential for productive programming:

1. Every programmer shall have two monitors.
2. Every programmer shall have a fast PC.
3. Every programmer shall have their choice of mouse and keyboard.
4. Every programmer shall have a comfortable chair.
5. Every programmer shall have a fast Internet connection.
6. Every programmer shall have quiet working conditions.

I would probably add that some sort of barrier needs to be up to prevent line-of-sight with mobile people that are up and about or standing around that would distract the employee at their seat. If cube walls or something aren’t an option, face chairs toward a wall so that they’re looking at their monitor without a bunch of movement in their peripheral vision if possible.

Bottom line is, a one-time cost of a few things that are shadowed by the wages paid to each member of your team just make sense for the company in the long run.

Mental atmosphere

The mental atmosphere is a much more difficult set of factors to narrow down and adjust for your employees. Creating a positive mental environment can be achieved by taking some of the following into consideration:

1. Work to resource ratio. Are you way understaffed? Dumping too much on everyone at one time that they can’t possibly finish without loads of overtime? Keep expectations reasonable with what you have. Overstressing a skeleton crew will turn out even worse if you drive them away.
2. Good team dynamics. Do your team members work together well without any mediation? Are your members eager to work with any other members on the team? Try to avoid pairing up people that don’t get along, and most certainly remove personal issues between members from the department even if it’s at the expense of losing someone or transferring them. The ripple-effect of negativity is horribly bad for your team.
3. Corporate support. How much does your company really back up your department’s initiatives? Do you struggle getting budget support for simple items? Do other departments meet you half way to collaborate on projects requiring everyone’s involvement? If the support isn’t there from the corporate level, the motivation and departmental/self worth of each on the team can certainly demoralize everyone.
4. Interesting projects. Are you tasking talented employees with the same exact work day after day, or are you challenging them with needs that put them on the cutting edge of technology occasionally to deliver a solution. Who wants a boring job? Not anyone that wants higher salaries. Leave the boring repetive work to low-budget help or someone that’s not exposed to it. It’s more fun to get “in the zone” on projects that you have to really apply yourself on.

Basically, creating a proper physical and mental atmosphere for your team allow them to not worry about things that would distract them from total concentration. There are tons of distractions that can stem from the environment they’re in be it the squeaky chair they’re sitting in or the argument happening ten feet away about someone who told a joke that offended the person sitting next to you. Create the proper atmosphere, and you’ll get the most concentration possible from your team.

And the last step to helping your IT team concentrate:

5. Don’t be afraid to change and experiment.

This particular step is kind of a catch-all that I think is necessary as you try to find the “perfect” environment and methods to help your team concentrate. One thing that I can’t begin to emphasize enough is that every individual is different, and finds their best levels of concentration differently.

No corporate dictate on process is going to motivate your creative thinkers faster or better unless all of your employees are exactly the same. So in order to get the most for your team, you have to be flexible, and try out different things as the team grows or changes. Don’t be afraid to try something new and dismiss it if it turns out to royally suck for everyone.

Conclusion

So, to wrap up the series…I’ve described steps to take in order to help your IT team to concentrate. I’ll close with a request for suggestions from you on what other steps YOU have applied and seen successful. The steps I’ve outlined here have worked for me and many others that I’ve seen that needed to eliminate distractions and increase concentration. Hopefully they’ll help you as well.


]]> http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/28/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-5/feed/ http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/28/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-5/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Retrospector/~3/lzKUO2v3V-8/ http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/22/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-4/#comments Wed, 23 Aug 2006 04:49:21 +0000 Retrospector Corporate Life Planning Project Management Team Building Management http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/22/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-4/ This post is the next installment of the 5 Steps to Help Your IT Team Concentrate series. The overview of all the steps I intend to cover in this series is listed for you here, with links to the previous posts, 0 being the introduction.

0. Coin a cool term for being fully concentrated
1. Identify how your employees concentrate and perform
2. Create a process where team members are most effective
3. Encourage collaboration in the group time, and support total isolation for the individual time.
4. Create the appropriate atmosphere.
5. Don’t be afraid to change and experiment.

Today we’ll elaborate more on the third step:

3. Encourage collaboration in the group time, and support total isolation for the individual time.

In the last section, I emphasized creating a process that works for all types of employees. The focus of this post is to reiterate and emphasize the importance of what should be happening in the group and individual times allocated.

• Group Time

Assuming you’ve found the balanced process that works best for you, or at least have found one that you’re going to try out for now…it is very important that you encourage total collaboration during the group times allocated. During the group sessions you want to get the full advantage of having everyone in one place while everyone is in ONE PLACE. You don’t want to have to readdress the same issues later on because you didn’t fully cover everything, which could totally take someone else out of their “zone” later on by trying to gather up everyone again.

During the group sessions you want to:

1. Make sure everyone has a clear direction of what’s to be accomplished while in the group.
2. Make sure everyone has a clear direction of what’s to be accomplished before the next gathering.
3. Encourage input from every member without ridicule to keep the fresh ideas and variety of possibilities on the table…yet narrow the focus before the conversation is over.
4. Keep the energy and motivation as high as possible.
5. Identify dependencies on each member if they exist, followed by action plans of those involved to make sure things fit together nicely.

I’m sure there’s more to do in group meetings to make them effective. I’m not trying to list the all-encompassing group session agenda. I’m hoping to identify what will help your group sessions really act like group sessions so that you can also allow your employees to focus without interruption when it’s time for them to work alone.

• Isolated Time

This is the part of the entire series that I had intended for a single post. As much as I attempted to contain it within a post of it’s own, the other topics continued to jump out at me in more and more detail until they too were detailed enough to merrit posts. After all is said and done though, the initial thoughts have now been spread throughout the entire series leaving this particular part in its content-lacking state.

At any rate, the most important part of this series is finding ways to help your IT folks concentrate. The majority of IT people I’ve worked with concentrate FAR better in isolation than in a group. Some people may be more productive in groups, but concentration is definitely better when running solo. So how can you help your people perform better when they’re all alone?

Well, here’s a list that may help:

1. Give each employee their own space. That’s right, don’t make your programmers all sit at one big long banquet table in single room. Allow them to at least sit at their station without breathing down the next person’s neck. Especially don’t sit people across from each other without some kind of barrier in between even if it’s not sound-proof.
2. Reduce walk-ins as much as possible. Give them a door they can close once in awhile. If that’s not an option, headphones, cube signs saying “Currently IN THE ZONE, Do Not Disturb”, or a community “quiet room” where people can take their work with them and know they won’t be disturbed.
3. Reduce electronic interruptions. Encourage them to turn off phones, put chat and mail programs in another virtual screen or computer out of view. Some people have the ability to multitask really well, and their job may depend on their ability to focus on 10 things at once…but most employees I’ve seen do much better when they’re able to complete one task in the queue and move on to the next.
4. Make sure they are totally aware of the expectations, and that they’re equipped with the knowledge and tools required to meet their goals. There’s nothing more frustrating than having to wait on a reeeeaally slow-ass computer to compile your code when all you want to do is check that little conditional you changed. Minds wander when there’s nothing to do but wait. This also implies that your employee is trained enough to handle the job given. If they can’t handle the job, they’re probably more worried about what will happen if they can’t finish it than finding out how they could try delivering something.These are the main points, though I’m sure there’s some really good stuff you could add to it. So what else can you think of that would help in either environment?

The next post will conclude the series on helping your IT employees concentrate by talking about creating atmosphere and adopting change.

Tags: concentration, productivity, focus, IT, team+building, management


]]> http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/22/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-4/feed/ http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/22/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-4/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Retrospector/~3/J10-CPbDdIM/ http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/15/top-10-things-ive-learned-from-problogger/#comments Tue, 15 Aug 2006 05:11:11 +0000 Retrospector Blogging http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/15/top-10-things-ive-learned-from-problogger/ Darren is at it again with another group writing project at Problogger. This will be my 4th participation in his group projects, and things are really getting interesting now that he’s managed to find sponsors to donate incentives for the participants. The project’s topic is ‘LISTS’. Come up with a list of some sort, be it a ‘Top 10′, ‘How To’, or a ‘My Favorite’…whatever suits your fancy.

I’m somewhat dissapointed that we can’t use previous posts in this project, as one of my most popular posts (and continues to bring over 50% of my traffic each week) is a Top 10 Ways to Motivate Geeks list. Nevertheless, I don’t see why I can’t just come up with another list on short notice. Though the first thing that really comes to mind just isn’t related to business or technology. The first thing that hit me was a Top 10 list for things I’ve learned while reading Darren’s post at Problogger.net.

Finding Problogger is actually what convinced me to give blogging a try. I never realized it was something you could gain back expenses with using the techniques Darren talks about in his fairly deep archives. So here they are, the Top 10 things I’ve learned from reading Problogger.net:

1. You can make money from blogging

Now, at first I thought this blog was dedicated only to those that really wanted to make a career at blogging. In a way, it is. Darren does a little more though. He also posts things that are helpful to the casual bloggers. When I discovered that you could just make enough money to cover the expenses of blogging (assuming you want your own domain and control of hosing) I was baffled. Just the fact that you could make money at all, let alone as a full time job was the first thing I learned at Problogger. I really didn’t think it was feasible for just anyone to do it. My first lesson was that anyone can do it…

2. Blogging is easy, but it’s a lot of work

Most sites will tell you how simple it is to get started on a blog. Their tutorials are designed to just get you to click on their affiliate links and continue on through their site where you may click on more affiliate links. This is fine, but a lot of them will just say that “well, it’s a lot of work…but you can do it!!!”. I felt that after reading Problogger, I really had a handle on how much work I would have to put into this. Darren has always been very up front with how overwhelming it can be sometimes. I’m just a part time blogger, and I enjoy it just because it’s a new experience that I’ll probably continue on for a really long time. I’ll probably never become a problogger though, just because my goals are a bit different. Even though it’s just part time, WOW is it still quite a bit of work. This is definitely the #2 thing I’ve taken away from Darren’s site.
3. Content, content and more content

Everywhere you go, to learn about blogging you simply hear “need lots of content” and “get yourself some deep archives”. I wasn’t really sure how much content was needed until spending some time on Problogger. It wasn’t just emphasized by Darren, it was reiterated over and over by commenters on many posts. I learned from the habits of highly effective bloggers group project that content was one of the top habits shown in the definitive list I created. (Which I still get a regular stream of daily readers from after Darren posted links to it shortly afterward, thanks Darren!) I’m on my way to a decent archive size, but after just 3 months of blogging I can see how content really does help a lot.

4. You need to engage with other bloggers/blogs

This may seem like a no-brainer to you all, but before visiting Problogger, I’d have never thought to read another blog. I stumbled onto this site just because I was looking for how-to tutorials on creating a blog. In the last 3 months, I’ve learned so much about so many different things just because I’ve opened the doors to the blogosphere and raced right in. Reading is great, but I find myself actively engaging with the posts that i find interesting. I especially enjoy finding things relevant to my niche that I can relate to by leaving links to my own thoughts and ideas for others to see and respond to. This side of blogging is something that I probably wouldn’t have bothered pursuing had I not stumbled onto Problogger.

5 & 6. How to utilize feeds and subscribers

I’ve combined the two items because I find them very closely related, but deserving enough of their own numbers in the list. Learning how to use feeds and make the best use of them is something I probably wouldn’t even have considered doing. I knew what RSS was before blogging, but I never realized how many people actually utilize feeds once they see something good on a site. Gaining subscribers doesn’t sound very hard, but holy cow…I was running on pure adrenaline when i saw the first few feed subscribers show up on my feedburner count! (Not to mention the 5 email subscribers I have! ) Now that I’ve learned more about what feeds are, and how subscribers really help ensure the foundation of your traffic stays consistent…it’s much easier to maintain a decent readership. (partly because I now know what drives them away, not just because I know how to gain them) Very key things I’ve learned from Darren…

7. Site layout and ad placement

Ok, at first I was like “What? Who cares where that stuff is at, nobody looks at banners anyway!”. Boy was i wrong. Adsense, banners, affiliate links, the whole works…all of these items work very differently when utilized correctly with proper layout. I’m no expert, but changing from just chucking stuff down at the bottom of the pages to placing them throughout the site in multiple arrangements has proven very useful in finding the most effective place for my site. This is one of the first topics I learned from reading Problogger, and though hundreds of other sites are explaining the same stuff…I was drawn to Darren’s style so pretty much read all his stuff first. Either way, this was a good lesson to learn.

8. Participate in carnivals and/or group writing projects

Wow, if you thought I was kissing up to now, get a load of this point! This is partially related to the engaging with other sites/bloggers, but I think it has it’s own merrit because of what it does for you as a blogger. For me, it really helped me see in more detail how other bloggers accomplished the same tasks, approached the same problems, and shared the same frustrations. I felt the sense of immediate community with many participating readers coming to my site to check what I had to say on the matter that they were likely posting about as well in the same project. Rather than a gradual community-building exercise, immediately dozens, if not hundreds of people are thrown into a common cluster where they can relate to each other and collaborate in ways you just don’t get in one-on-one environments.

9. Be yourself, have fun

One thing I really take home from reading Darren’s post is that he really knows how to be himself. He knows who he is and doesn’t present himself in a special manner to accomodate a select few. I don’t know if he realizes it, but he sounds like he’s really having fun when he’s writing. Each time a new announcement comes up, I picture him hopping in his seat grunting “ooo ooo, the whachacallit that just came out is soooo cool and useful looking” as he types his posts. I could be waaaay off, but hey…it sounds like fun. So I try to remember that this is for my enjoyment. I never stress about not having a post ready. I just do what I can when I can do it, and I enjoy it.

And last, but not least…

10. Blogging is GLOBAL

I don’t know how many times I jump to the assumption that everyone is on the same time-zone as I am. “What do you mean it’s August 15th already. How on earth could he have posted that when it’s only August 14th right now!!!” Blogging has brought the internationalization back on the radar for me. I’ve not worked for a global company for a few years now, but I’ve not had to think about others being from other parts of the world for awhile. I really enjoy this aspect of blogging that makes me realize we’re a global community with very different views on life. I really thrive on reading how people of all different backgrounds and environments communicate together on a variety of topics through the same interface.

Conclusion

So there you have it. My ‘Top 10′ list of things I’ve learned while being a Problogger.net reader for the last 3 months of my blogging career. I know it sounds like a real kiss-up thing to post about, but it’s definitely a sincere learning experience that many people from Problogger will definitely relate to if they’ve been reading Darren’s posts since they started too.

What things have you learned from reading Problogger? Was there somethign I didn’t mention that would be in your ‘Top 10′ list? Share it up!

Tags: blogging, problogger, group+writing+project, list, top+10


]]> http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/15/top-10-things-ive-learned-from-problogger/feed/ http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/15/top-10-things-ive-learned-from-problogger/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Retrospector/~3/UYcz837_M-w/ http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/14/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-3/#comments Mon, 14 Aug 2006 05:00:55 +0000 Retrospector Corporate Life Planning Project Management Team Building Management http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/14/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-3/ Today’s post is a continuation of the series for the 5 Steps To Help Your IT Team Concentrate. The full list of steps is recapped for you here, with a link to the previous posts in the series (step 0 being more of an introduction):

0. Coin a cool term for being fully concentrated
1. Identify how your employees concentrate and perform
2. Create a process where team members are most effective
3. Encourage collaboration in the group time, and support total
isolation for the individual time.
4. Create the appropriate atmosphere.
5. Don’t be afraid to change and experiment.

Today we’ll elaborate more on the second step:

2. Create a process where team members are most effective


Not everyone on the team is going to work in the same mode of concentration, nor with the same collaboration habits. Some people are better off isolated from groups to be able to concenrate enough to finish large or complex tasks. Others are much faster at solving problems in a group environment where ideas bounce back and forth in a very multi-tasked manner.

Whatever type of team you have, make sure you identify the combination of collaboration and isolation that works for each individual. If you run strictly in one mode or the other, half your team could be ineffective most of the time.

An example

How I prefer things work in a team environment has a mixture of both environments in many iterations. I like to run projects large and small with some variation of this flow:
(Keep in mind, there’s always many other projects going on, and this example is for a pretty small project. So 1-2 days on a task just means sometime over the course of those days, not all day every day during that timeframe.)

Day 1:

• Brainstorm Session (Group - short)
• Brainstorm (Individual - day or so)

Day 3-4:

• Rehash ideas, narrow direction (Group)
• Initial design choices (Group)

Day 5-6:

• Agree on design/implementation approach (Group)
• Take tasks and split amongst team to work on (Individual/Pairs)

Day 10:

• Group review to reiterate tasks/progress (Group)
• Continue individual tasks (Individual/Pairs)

Day 14:

• Integration Session (Group)
• Release (Group)

Now, I’m not trying to define what a software lifecyle should be with this post. I’m attempting to focus on the team-dynamics of the workflow. A good mixture of group collaboration and individual focus time seems to have always worked best. If you can manage to schedule the group times to be short and often, the long stretches of individual time will be far more productive for some. Those that work better in groups should be paired up with someone else that works equally well with others.

The point
The idea is to come up with a scenario where you’re playing off of people’s strengths instead of assuming that some process driven by a company-adopted methodology will work for your team every time. If anything, take the company-adopted methodology and at least try to accomodate some changes to help leverage your individual team member’s strengths as you see it helpful.

Now I’ve discussed some of what you can do overall for the team. The next installment in this series will point out some of the more specific things you can do to help the individuals through whatever process you decide to adopt.

What processes have you experimented with? How many variations have you tried and hated? I imagine most of you have some combination of group and isolated environments, but are there many successful with just using strictly one or the other? Let me know your findings…

Continue on to Part IV.

Tags: concentration, productivity, focus, IT, team+building, management


]]> http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/14/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-3/feed/ http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/14/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-3/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Retrospector/~3/g13ozw4WzNY/ http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/10/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-2/#comments Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:37:15 +0000 Retrospector Corporate Life Team Building Management http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/10/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-2/ Today’s post is a continuation of the series for the 5 Steps To Help Your IT Team Concentrate. The full list of steps is recapped for you here, with a link to the previous posts in the series (step 0 being more of an introduction):

0. Coin a cool term for being fully concentrated
1. Identify how your employees concentrate and perform
2. Create a process where team members are most effective
3. Encourage collaboration in the group time, and support total
isolation for the individual time.
4. Create the appropriate atmosphere.
5. Don’t be afraid to change and experiment.

Today we’ll elaborate more on the first step:

1. Identify how your employees concentrate and perform

It is very important to identify how your members are able to concentrate and perform their best in the first place. Being able to concentrate isn’t something you can just tell someone to do. It’s a trait that is different for all kinds of people.

I’ve simply never seen a group of people where everyone was able to concentrate with the same environment. Some like it quiet, some like it loud. Some like it bright, some like it dark. It would be great to have a team full of productivity chamelions, but the truth of the matter is…team dynamics generally implies figuring out how to get the team to work together without expecting much change on the part of the individual team members.

Start with the basics

In order to identify how they concentrate and perform, you need to let them try some things on their own. When getting a feel for a team member, make sure you spend enough time to let them understand what is needed. Then let them loose and see what happens.

Pay attention to everything that happens as they prepare to dive into the project. During implementation, how much interactivity was there? How many distractions did the employee encounter? How often did their eyes wander around the room with a look of boredom? These are key questions to ask when diagnosing what type of environment would be best for a person on your team.

Interactivity

Some people work best when collaborating with others. They like to bounce ideas off of others and feed of other member’s creativity and enthusiasm. Synergy is the corporate term for this phenomenon. I actually prefer this in limited quantities, but if it brings the best out of your employee in long spurts you should definitely note it.

Distractions

I don’t know many people that are able to concentrate through many distractions. However, I’ve witnessed a few multitasking powerhouses too. This almost fits in with the synergy point above because many of the distractions are from other members of the team via chat or phone.

What I want to include on this is people that can interrupt that aren’t related to the project. Noises, music, flickering lights, or a lack thereof can all play a part too. Uncomfortable furniture can really distract someone enough to not focus too. Pay attention to anything that catches their attention too often and too easily.

Boredom

One of the ultimate issues with getting someone to really dig their feet in to concentrate on a task is how interested they are in it. In a state of heightened senses, the athlete that’s “in the zone” can reach their goal far more easily than someone that’s out for a leisurely game just so they can think about other things for awhile. Try to fit appropriate work to each member of the team. Sure, every job has stuff you don’t want to do, but try to keep your people motivated so they don’t let boredom get in the way of their concentration.

Make the work interesting! Managers do cheezy things all the time to get people excited about a bunch of crappy work that nobody wants to do. Give incentives outside the norm to get their minds off how boring the work is and how exciting it will be to get it finished.

Bottom line is, take notice of what the team member perks up about. Get a feel for what their interests are and try to make things easier to concentrate on by taking advantage of their interest level.

All these factors are good ways to get a feel for how someone prefers to get “in the zone” when on a project. Is there some other method you use to discover your employees concentration catalysts? How do you get a feel for a new employee on the team?

The next post in this series will discuss creating an entire process where your team members can be most effective. Continue on to Part III.


Tags: concentration, productivity, focus, IT, team+building, management


]]> http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/10/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-2/feed/ http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/10/5-steps-to-help-your-it-team-concentrate-step-2/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Retrospector/~3/xksAWFg2_zI/ http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/07/group-communication-start-with-something-positive/#comments Mon, 07 Aug 2006 05:42:56 +0000 Retrospector Uncategorized Corporate Life Planning Project Management Communication http://www.retrospector.com/2006/08/07/group-communication-start-with-something-positive/ I stumbled onto an article the other day from The Chief Happiness Officer blog about the effects of starting a meeting off with a positive round. This sure triggered some memories about countless tips on project management I’ve gathered in the past, but my first reaction was that this applies to more than just meetings. Granted, it’s most applicable in a meeting environment, but I think that conference calls, emails, even the occasional self-reflection is better off when you’re able to think of something positive first before heading into a full analysis.

Effective meeting structure


I don’t want to sound like I’m advising you to misrepresent anything. By all means be totally honest with everyone about things. However, the structure in your delivery can really have a positive or negative impact on your message as a whole.

At one of the first companies I worked for, I noticed right away that there was a pattern for meetings and for most any form of communcation to a group:

1. Start with a summary of what the discussion is about.
2. Point out something positive.
3. Describe the overall goals and objectives.
4. Recap the direction and action items, if any.
5. Motivate as much as possible during the recap.
6. Thank everyone.

The part that stuck out here was the point out something positive. With any project, something is happening. It’s really not hard to find a positive to point out and give credit for in group projects unless you’re just in a really shitty project with a total set of losers for a team. If that happens, at least try to highlight something good that you’re going to do.

Having felt a sense of accomplishment and recognition is highly motivating. One of the points I’ve made in a previous article about motivating geeks elaborates more on why this is a crucial step in keeeping motivation in the group. Starting off with postive points in a meeting is a great opportunity to give that recognition in there where it’s deserved before diving deep into controversial materal for the rest of the discussion.

May as well make the best of the unavoidable

I really hate meetings. They are, however, a necessary evil sometimes to keep effective collaboration amongst a group. The one-man-show should have no trouble with just communicating status upward because all the other coordination is simply happening in his mind. Having others to work with complicates things because if there’s communication barriers mistakes work their way into flawed designs or implementations.

So, if you have to sit through or coordinate meetings every week. I would say a good idea is definitely to start off as Alex mentioned in the link above, with a positive point that can set the pace of the conversation for your entire encounter be it a group meeting, call, or email.

What ideas do you have to put a nice positive spin on things before you get started? Do your meetings ever start out with a totally negative feel where you just get totally torn between wanting to work somewhere else and digging in your heels? Maybe putting the positive note somewhere else in the meeting structure has worked well for you. Share some insight, I’m interested in what you have discovered.

Tags: communication, meeting, positive+influence, collaboration


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