February, 2009

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12
Feb 09

Deadline not met? Unacceptable.

Zen Habits writes:

We live our lives around the clock. We wake up at a certain time, work on a schedule and base our performance on the amount of time it takes us to do things. More things done in less time = good. More time needed? Deadline not met? Unacceptable.

But it’s not just the clock that gives us anxiety; it’s basing our worth on how productive we are. We have this false belief that if we just finish everything on our to do lists, we’ll be done. After that, we can finally be happy, right? Unfortunately, that time never comes.

I think the root problem is not with a wish to be productive, but more to do with the fundamental disconnect between planning projects and executing them. If you took the script of how a project actually unfolded, and sent it back in time to when the project was being planned, most people would look at it and say disagree: “it won’t really happen that way”. Planning seems to invariably hope for the best (the happy path) and more accurate dates seem to feel invariably pessimistic with a lot of padding. This, I think, is the disconnect with deadlines and where the anxiety comes from.

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10
Feb 09

Highrise: How I use it

Avonelle asked how I use Highrise, and why someone might use it over Outlook. She said:

[Highrise] worked great for keeping track of things associated with people I wouldn’t normally add to my Outlook contacts. But Outlook is such an integrated part of my day-to-day life, I have a difficult time imagining how Highrise could enhance that without weighing me down with extra effort to keep everything in sync.

I use it for a variety of things. Here are the highlights for me: 

Follow-ups

When I need a response from someone to keep a project moving, I blind carbon copy my Highrise email address (dropbox+tomorrow.xxxx@highrise.com or +thisweek or +nextweek) . This sets up an automatic to-do that will remind me later to follow up. And when that reminder does comes up, I’ll have a copy of the email at hand, their phone numbers right there on right side of the screen, and a full history of my communications with that person. Last year alone, I used it to track some 1,000 follow-ups.

Not just you, but your company

From any contact’s page, only a click away is the full history of all the conversations I’ve had with anyone at that company. I find that useful, especially when trying to keep track of hundreds of different conversations with people all over the country. This would be of high value for our team to coordinate communications since we all talk individually to our customers in the field. But for now, I just use it to remember my own conversations. 

Beyond companies, you can also create add-hoc groups by tagging people. Example: give me a all conversations with people from the local .NET user group, or all conversations with Sales Managers.

Track Important Topics

I also use it to track specific topics. For example, I have a Highrise Case that tracked all of the things around our kitchen remodel from last summer. Cases work well to group all project-specific conversations together.

Better than Outlook Folders

Folders are nice, but they have their limits. When you create a folder in outlook, you can only keep email in that folder.  Highrise lets you keep files, emails, and phone-call notes all in one, easily accessible place.

Anyway, I like it

And it seems to work well for me.

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8
Feb 09

Delays to Market

Lean Software Development: Scaling Agile to the Enterprise:

Many projects actually take longer to get started than they do to get completed once started.  Both times are delays to market and need to be shortened.

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6
Feb 09

Agile vs. Waterfall

A bit of pro-Agile and anti-Waterfall propaganda for your day:

 

(For those of you on the work network, the video only works between 8 and 10am)

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4
Feb 09

Agile Manifesto

Every time I re-read the Agile Manifesto, I am amazed. There is a heck of a lot of punch packed in there.

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

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