Continual Improvement

• Firefox update patches security holes
  FYI…if you don’t have automatic updates turned on in Firefox.
  (tags: firefox browser security)

This article about excessive overtime in the IT industry reminded me of a question I was asked about how meet a release date when the project was behind. While there are many things to try, asking the team to work additional overtime was low on my list, and here’s why.

Anyone who has worked in the software industry for any amount of time knows that releases can and often do have highs and lows in terms of work hours. If the team has been cohesively formed, development and QA engineers will most likely work extra as the release date approaches anyway. While a last extra push over a couple of weeks or so might help cleanup a few last details, the effects of doing this for many weeks will often cause the project to be delayed even further. This is because tired and burned out engineers will make more mistakes, which will create more churn and code chaos. In addition, if any team members quit before the release is complete, the project could take a serious setback and potentially fail. So, what can be done? Fortunately/unfortunately, there are three fundamental things.

• Decrease scope. If the project is using an Agile approach, this won’t be an issue because the team will maintain a releasable state for the majority of the project. Some will often mention decreasing the quality, but this is essentially decreasing the scope since releasing a quality product was a requirement in the beginning.
• Adjust resources. Adding people is a favorite suggestion for second and third level managers to make, and it never hurts to reevaluate the team. Unfortunately, software isn’t the same as building a highway, and in some cases, the additional resources can consume time from the key contributors and stretch the release date out even further. There are some interesting variations on this suggestion ranging from adding subject matter experts to help the existing team all the way to adding resources in specific areas, such as testing. With an Agile approach, resources are typically fixed, but if there are multiple Agile teams, some teams may be able to take tasks from another team that has encountered roadblocks. In addition, if the Agile teams have been formed over time as cross-functional teams, it becomes much easier for alternate teams to be able to take on extra tasks with minimal training time.
• Push the release date. If no compromises can be made in either of the first two areas, moving the date will be required. When using an Agile approach, everyone agrees to the three laws of software development, often referred to as the iron triangle, and in this model, additional iterations will added until the desired scope is achieved.

• It’s time to reconsider Google?
  This is a good reminder that there are a couple other decent search engines out there, when Google doesn’t seem to be getting the desired results.
  (tags: google search ask.com)

• Agile Journal
  There are some interesting articles on Agile on this site. It looks like it’s just starting to get off the ground.
  (tags: agile software development)
• ScrumWorks
  A free Agile project management tool. Obviously, it’s more SCRUM based, but did I mention that it’s free.
  (tags: agile development software project-management SCRUM)
• Sony Ericsson M600i smart phone
  This could be a good competitor to the Motorola Q. If only Cingular would adapt one of these consumer friendly Smart phones…
  (tags: phone sony-ericsson mobile cellphone)

Here are some pics from the Lake Travis cleanup day. It’s amazing to see how low the lake is. We spoke with some of the divers who were volunteering, and most of the trash they collected at the bottom of the lake was sunglasses. Shocker…

There are many jobs that a product manager may do, and while most focus the vast majority of their time gathering requirements and selling the products to the sales team, I contend that another equally important role is necessary. This role involves selling the engineering team on the value the new features or changes in the product will have for the customer (and ultimately the success of the group). In other words, for a product to be successful, the engineering team must be motivated to implement the product manager’s feedback. Many projects have failed or been plagued by engineering feature creep because the team did not have confidence in the information stream coming from the product manager(s).

One way to motivate engineering groups is with statistics and objective data showing the value to the customers. Ideally, revenue projections per feature would be great, but this is on par with predicting the weather. Another approach is showing raw historical data on the number and names of customers who have requested a feature; furthermore, having historical revenue data for what each customer paid would be a welcomed bonus. Information like this would provide teams with some objective justification as to why priorities have been set and take the obscurity and mystique out of a proposed new feature set. Unfortunately, this information rarely seems to make a backlog or requirements document. It could be as simple as keeping a spreadsheet with the top 25 features and noting the customers who requested each feature. In addition, it seems like a good sanity check for the product manager to validate intuitions and cross check with others in the company.

• Austin airport adds computer center.
  This looks like a worthy $2 purchase. 10 minutes is just about the right amount of time to check email before hopping on a plane.
  (tags: airport wifi laptop)

One of our recent house projects was aimed at dealing with the Central Texas sun. The key reason for this was a desire to get rid of the heat pockets around our windows when the sun was in its afternoon path. The options we considered were (1) new blinds, (2) solar screens, and (3) window film. After a lot of research, we decided that new blinds wouldn’t really help the situation, plus without some protection from the outside, the blinds would just continue to take a beating. After looking at several houses with solar screens, we could see that the screen material would start to sag rather quickly, and the almost black windows are not as visually pleasing from the outside as those with window film. (Obviously, this is just one opinion.) In addition, looking out through the solar screens does not provide as crisp of a view, so in the end we focused our attention on the window film.

The real question was does the film help with the heat, and the answer is emphatically “yes”. Here are a few specs on some of the various films we used. After having the film for a couple of weeks, there is a significant difference around the windows. While the specs say that 50-60% of the heat was blocked, my perception is that the air around the windows is 30-40% cooler, and the heat pockets throughout the house are virtually gone. In addition, when we arrive home at a time when the program is set high, the house is not unbearable, and my rough calculations say the house is 5-8 degrees cooler than it was prior to the film. That doesn’t sound like much but consider how long it takes for an air conditioner to drop the temperature that many degrees.

In the end, the cost was in the $1500 range for all the windows from Sunsational Solutions, and we were pleasantly surprised to receive a refund check from the city for making energy saving improvements, so the cost was reduced several hundred dollars. As an added bonus, the glare on the TVs throughout the house has been decreased to a point that is it not noticeable; consequently, HD looks just that much better. Here are a few pictures I took to compare the differences.

Window without any film or screen. (They missed this one but will be coming back to get it.)

Window with solar screens. (The neighbor’s house…)

Window with film. (Subtle contrast with the stone…)