Continual Improvement

The boating scene is always ripe for an escapade, and this weekend was no exception on Lake Travis. At dusk on Saturday, we started to pull up our anchors, but one boat’s anchor would not budge. Unfortunately, we were in about 80 feet of water, and the options were limited. Leaving the anchor and chain at the bottom of the lake is the least desirable option (and an expensive one), and I’m sure there is a mile of anchor chain and rope sitting at the bottom of the lake for people in this exact situation. After an hour of circus moves with jet skis, multiple boats, and a lot of advice from passer-bys, it was time to call some divers to help.

The next morning, a couple of guys, Nik and Sam, from Oak Hill Scuba showed up to take a shot at freeing the anchor. After a couple of dives in the 60 degree water (at 70 feet), they decided the chain was wrapped around an old tree, and with one foot of visibility, the scene was too treacherous to continue with the remaining amount of compressed air. So, they headed back disappointed at not being able to free the anchor but vowing to get it out.

Graciously enough, Nik and Sam passed the story onto their friend Justin, a commercial diver, who has worked on oil rigs at depths of 300 feet. Later on Sunday afternoon, Justin showed up with his girlfriend and dive partner, Anita.

While getting geared up, Justin was casually mentioning a few experiences, like shooting straight up from 150 feet in an emergency and fending off sharks while working on the rigs. (This was like a wading pool for him!) In any case, Justin’s plan was to head straight for the anchor, release the shackle and just pull the chain off the tree. With the increased boat traffic in the area, I was a bit concerned, but within 15 minutes, Justin had free the chain and floated the anchor to the surface. A job well done…

I have posted some additional pictures of the affair on my Flickr site.

• Austin Energy looks at broadband over power lines.
  If this actually works, we could be talking about TV and Voice over the same power lines.
  (tags: austin broadband)
• Google launches alternative to SourceForge
  I hadn’t really thought about how much internal code Google shares with the world, but after reading this, it sounds like Google is really no better than Microsoft in this area.
  (tags: software open source)
• Tracking comments - co.mments
  I just noticed this on http://www.redmonk.com/cote/. This is something to investigate for the Continual Improvement site.
  (tags: blog comments software)

• Agile is maturing, and some don’t like it.
  Brian has a few comments on the evolution of Agile.
  (tags: agile software process)

• Senator Stevens saying Net is ’series of tubes’
  This is old news, but I wanted to have a URL to remember the event.
  (tags: internet humor)

• House buying tips
  As quoted in the article: “The rule of thumb is that you can buy housing that runs about two-and-one-half times your annual salary.” I had never head this before, and it seems like a rarely followed rule.
  (tags: money)
• Report: Austin VC deals up significantly - Austin Business Journal:
  This is good news for Austin, where startups are king.
  (tags: austin startup VC software)
• Paradigmatic - word of the day
  I saw this in a PowerPoint presentation. The following six slides were lost as I tried to say this really fast 10 times in a row.
  (tags: definitions humor)
• Bernanke plays it safe with his finances
  Bernanke listed no individual stocks or corporate bonds among his holdings. No liabilities were listed, either. - I like his style.
  (tags: money)

Over the years, I’ve heard many a person grumble about having to change managers, either due to organizational changes or natural attrition. I found it interesting that the author of The Fiefdom Syndrome actually promotes the systematic changing of managers and directors at periodic intervals. Using a system such as this prevents people from hiding within an organization and allows fresh eyes to look at old problems. As the title suggests, it also decreases the possibility that fiefdoms will occur within an organization and base their actions on self-survival while costing the company as a whole.

When I first heard this, I was somewhat opposed to this idea, but after thinking about it more, I can see certain situations where this might make sense. A lot of employee surveys I’ve seen state the number one reason for quitting was due to a bad manager, and this option might help while improving the business in other ways. At a minimum, organizations, large and small, should be on the lookout for situations where groups have taken on a “life of their own” within the larger organization and consider this as one possible option.

• Vieo / Cesura - fire sale.
  This is proof that systems management software is a tough business. The “street” says there may have been other issues besides a tough market.
  (tags: software austin startup)

Lake Travis - July 23 Dusk 2

Originally uploaded by Mike Lunt.

This was also taken a day ago on Lake Travis. It’s the same picture of Devil’s Cove as “…Dusk 1″, but it’s about 30 minutes later.

Lake Travis - July 23 Dusk 1

Originally uploaded by Mike Lunt.

This was taken in the infamous Devil’s Cove on Lake Travis.

I was happy to see Edward Jones get high rankings. They received the best ratings in all categories, except ‘Stock Picking’. I’m betting they are proud of this fact, since they don’t typically advocate buying individual stocks, and neither do I. If I want to gamble, I’ll head to Vegas.

• The Right Broker for You (2006 Broker Survey) | SmartMoney.com
  Edward Jones gets high rankings.
  (tags: money)

Someone recently told me that you can tell whether you are eating too much salt if your sweat burns your eyes. I found this interesting because I thought every person’s sweat burned his/her eyes, but after asking around, this apparently is not so.

Because of this and a documentary I saw about the risks of salt intake, I recently started loosely tracking how much sodium I was consuming. Thus far, I’ve been kind of surprised in the high amount of sodium in some innocent things like salsa, which I love.

While I was clicking around, I found this link from the Salt Institute. According to them, you can eat as much salt as you want. Talk about checking your sources…

I was impressed/amused by this quote from one of our software vendors: “we would like to offer our help in realizing your requirements”. This was in the context of being invited to a requirements planning session along with other companies who use this vendor’s software. There is a lot of subtle meaning hidden within this sentence. It is a very nice way of saying that you, Mr. Customer, don’t know exactly what you want the software to do, and if we take your suggestions without understanding the problem you are trying to solve, we will develop something that you don’t really want.

In addition, I like the spin that is used in offering to help when the vendor is the one really benefiting from the exercise. Granted, each customer of the vendor may benefit some, but this is only if certain requirements get prioritized into a future version of the software. In fact, after gathering all of the requirements from the customers and getting them prioritized, they may not need a lot of product management for 6-12 months.

4th of July

Originally uploaded by Mike Lunt.

Since it was wet this year, we took advantage of the ability to pop fireworks. Fortunately, we had some friends that live outside of the city limits.

• Moving IT infrastructure labor offshore
  When McKinsey likes something, you can bet that large companies will be following. The year 3 ramp up is interesting as it seems to be analogous to what I’ve experienced.
  (tags: career management)
• CMMI Main Page
  Quoting from the About page: “Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes.” I plan on doing some super exciting reading here in the near fu
  (tags: process software agile CMMI cmm)
• Continual Improvement
  My new blog.
  (tags: blog lunt mikelunt)