Mid-year reviews

Most companies have a very formal process for performing reviews, usually once or twice a year. I will admit to shirking this duty (the formal review) during my tenure as a Director of Technology. The circumstances were really to avoid the pay discussion since we were in a pay freeze, and I regularly met with my employees to ensure they were being coached and mentored. Not to make an excuse, only to provide an explanation. 

So now my company is into the mid-year review season. I don't have to do these being an individual contributor (meaning I have no direct reports).  But I have seen some of the suggested metrics for our IT partners, specifically software developers. I think they're ridiculously silly and not applicable to today's modern developer. What do you think?

Metric Title

1. Achieve _____ % bug-free code for delivery to production.
2. Decrease defect rate by _____% by (date)
3. Document 100% of coding changes
4. Identify application development process improvement ideas by (date)
5. Increase code production rate to ___(#) lines of code per (unit of time) by (date)
6. Increase mean time to failure __% by (date)
7. Learn __(#) new programming languages by (date)
8. Provide work estimates for programming tasks that are accurate within ___% of actuals
9. Recommend new programming languages for inclusion in toolkit by (date)
10. Reduce mean time to repair failures ___% by (date)
11. Reduce rate of errors per lines of code ___% by (date)

Now that you've read the list, please comment! 

I'll start - at first glance, I think there is only ONE valid metric. ALL of the others are either things you should be doing NOW at 100%, things that have ZERO impact on quality or performance (like #5), or are so dependent on environment and others as to be easily gamed (#6) 

Which one is my personal favorite? #8 - Accurate estimates will reward you, your manager, and your team beyond expectations! Why? The credibility gained for being honest, accurate, and reasonable 100% of the time is extremely valuable to your clients - internal or otherwise. It means you know what you are doing, have architected an intelligent design and that you fully understand everything associated with providing a great product! It means that your clients can plan for (and count on) your delivery!

What do you think? Ready? GO! 

 

Interviews...

I completed a degree with honors in software engineering recently. Normally, a new college graduate would be interviewing for that first job, but I am (very) gainfully employed and besides, 25 years of experience means I've already had my first job. and second, and third...
Over the years, I've interviewed folks and been interviewed many times. I was thinking about a couple of silly incidents that show there are some real challenges out there. The "real world" is not always "real" as you'll see!
The estimate: A middle-level supervisor once asked me to estimate a fairly significant enhancement to a commercial banking software package. I knew exactly what was required, and could even pseudo code most of it in my head being very intimate with the code. And, knowing that this request would likely be implemented, had begun to stub out some of the requirements in the code just to make sure I had things under control. I confidently replied that it would take "6 weeks" including testing, and that it would be flawless.  The supervisor (who I've known since high school) laughed and said "You've got two weeks, that's what I told the bank!" with a smile.
Have you ever been there? I asked him what he based his estimate on and took my 6 weeks and even the bank was happy with the results.  Sometime we don't have the luxury to do things properly, but somehow, especially in the big corporate world of IT, we always have time to do it over, and over, and, well, you get the picture.
The job:  I was asked to interview for an IT Director position at a call center. The owners were very enthusiastic about my experience and what I would bring to the company. Until this question: "This job will probably take you about 70-80 hours a week. How do you feel about that?"
(Think really hard about how you would answer such a blatant disregard for personal time)
I replied "It sounds like you have TWO openings!"   Well that pretty much ended the interview. Even if I had said OK, it would have NOT been ok. Personal time is for rejuvenation in order to be productive when you are at work. 70-80 hours would have quickly ended in a disaster for everyone.
I'm glad I don't have to deal with such silliness anymore - BUT wait!  There's more....for the next post....
Happy hunting everyone!

Nothing technical...the educated moron

My father had a term for newly minted college graduates. He called them "educated morons." They would come into his construction trailer and examine blueprints for large commercial buildings, shopping centers, high rise apartments and such, and make some declaration about his project that was book smart, but field stupid. My father was a job superintendent, responsible for getting the building to completion so the general contractor could get the early completion bonus and look good in the newspaper. He worked his way up through apprentice, journeyman carpenter, and then into management supervising multi-million dollar projects. He was a smart man who understood people too and knew how to motivate. He was one of the first to seriously address safety in the workplace when safety was a buzzword for slowing down work.
Now, I'm almost an educated moron! Except I have 25 years of experience in the field of my degree! My major coursework is complete and I have 6 units to the finish line.
Lately, I've been learning about ancient cultures. The material is scholarly and difficult to read. The videos are similar to a Geraldo Rivera piece with inconsequential statements being made with astonishment and wonder. I won't give any specific examples because they are religious in nature and I'm not interested in offending anyone. Suffice to say, it was similar to "My dog (a bloodhound) led me directly to the kill! Wowee!" Gee, how surprising...
2 weeks left in this dreadful class, and then a final class (on the same subject) and I will hold a piece of paper that says I know what I've been doing for the past 25 years. It's been a longer journey than I had anticipated, but it will be complete and of that, I am proud!
My 93 year old mother will be proud. And my father who died a few years ago will look down from heaven and see that I am now an "educated moron!" I'll smile and say "sort of, you know, experience and all that stuff..."

The final presentation (not)

My Comm218 class has come to an end! That means 6 units, and 10 weeks to go to complete my 40 year quest for a BS degree in Information Technology - Software Engineering!
Not bad for a guy who started out as a navy nuke, electrical tech, Top40 DJ, Musician (still), TV Director, Voice over talent, Commercial Producer, Software Developer, Director of Technology, Business Analyst, oh, and dad, grandpa, and  husband! It's been an exciting life and I can't say there have been many regrets. Maybe a few, but fortunately not many.
So enough drivel... the point of this particular post has todo with filling in some blanks on my last presentation for class.
First, a photo - Sunset over San Francisco.  That's what I saw from my hotel during my last taped presentation for class. After I posted the assignment, I thought it might have been rude that I didn't show it after I mentioned it - it WAS beautifully distracting! So here you go! Nature's beauty over man's creation - the Oakland Bay Bridge with its lights on as the sun set over the pacific ocean.

Technology for Presentations - Part 3 of 3

I remember one the first presentations where the chalkboard wasn't used. The overhead projector! Those plastic overlays where a teacher could actually animate a stick figure with a grease pencil was amazing to this impressionable 2nd grader! No more SCREECH on the chalkboard, no more white powdery fingers!
Then came the whiteboard. Aptly named, (the marketing folks outdid themselves on this one) the whiteboard gave us the ability to use different colors, enhancing our experience (not to mention the fumes, and yes, I passed on the previous chalkboard reference) and giving a perceived increase in ability to make changes. Erasing a white board could be done with a single wipe as opposed to the considerable effort required of a chalkboard or overlay. The problem with all of these technologies was that it required a relatively small audience and a good steady hand. From my video presentation last week, this was demonstrated by my left-handed penmanship trying to scribble on an easel. Thank goodness for PowerPoint! It eliminated my fear of exposing my poor handwriting. No more jealousy! (seriously, I hated giving presentations mostly because of my handwriting)
PowerPoint 1.0 was little more than a whiteboard - further versions provided enhancements to allow embedding audio, video, run external applications, browse to live websites, trigger external events, etc. What's next?  3-D perhaps, Holo Lens from Microsoft is an exciting technology that gives a user a virtual experience in an augmented reality. Here's an example (opens in new window) Hololens Teleports NASA Scientist in TED Talk Think of 3 dimensional overlays in your real world. Learn to cook with a virtual chef showing you how to measure, stir, and flip an omelet!
Maybe it's touch sensors that enable you to experience the texture of virtually anything in the world. Anything that tickles the senses is fair game for the future of presentation technology!

Technology for Presentations - Part 2 of 3

Part 1's post was about Prezi, a presentation software that uses the big canvas for displaying and navigating through relational content.
Today, the Nevada caucuseseses (whatever) are meeting to vote on their candidate of choice.
Voting during meetings has been around since the first conflict. Types of voting include no vote (coin toss), rock, paper, scissors, (vote by skill) and then actually counting a vote (no hanging chads please.)
The first several seasons of America's Funniest Home Videos included the phrase "Lock in your vote now." They used wired devices on the back of each chair to provide a simple input that determined that week's winner. I can imagine the spaghetti string of wires snaking through the studio to a tabulator that counted the responses! What a mess! Today, voting can be done on a smart phone, or over bluetooth. Voting is not just A or B either, but can include qualitative dialog (think tweets, or yelp)
Voting during presentations is done either subtly (yawn) or overt like the response to a question. And the type of vote counting can be determined by the need for accuracy. "How many people have ever driven a car over the speed limit?" - a simple raise of the hand will suffice.
"How many of you vote for Pedro?" requires a slightly more sophisticated method to provide some level of accuracy.
How will we vote in the future?  Walking out? did that.  Raise of hand? of course. Vote with your wallet? daily. Whatever methods are developed in the future, they will be as simple as a nod or wink if they are to survive.

Technology for Presentations - Part 1 of 3

We've all heard of "death by PowerPoint" (DBPP) - but what does that really mean? Is PowerPoint actually just the scapegoat for a poorly delivered presentation? I think so!  Why? Because the presenter is the one with the monotone robotic voice is most examples of DBPP. Further, the presenter (or his/her cronies) are the folks that create the PowerPoint slides to begin with! Maybe it should be simplified to DBP instead (Death by Presentation)
Creativity is something developed over time. It requires effort, change, and an interest in becoming different. Presentations since the creation of PowerPoint have changed very little in structure and style until now!
One of the problems with presentations is knowing what to expect. Television programs usually run in increments of 30 minutes. We know a movie will be 2 hours, a situation comedy 30 minutes. When a presentation begins, do you know how long you'll be held captive? Do you understand the number of topics being presented, or depth of content? Usually not, and the presentation software Prezi  (www.prezi.com) has an interesting solution that uses a "big picture" view of the presentation.
Here's an example Navigating The Flipped Classroom (opens in a new window)
By using a single canvas and them zooming in and out of detail, there is the ability to describe relationships that exist within the content.  Imagine traversing a family tree or organization chart using PowerPoint. It can be done, but the visual understanding of linkage (or lineage) might be too difficult to retain. Prezi does a good job at showing relationships. From a software developer point of view, Prezi would probably be an interesting tool to use showing an entity relationship diagram (ERD.)  ERD's can be very detailed showing the data types, i.e. string, number, date, object, etc and navigating through that detail is usually done with a large printout. Using a tool such as Prezi that lets you navigate into each entity with a visual reference to related entities might prove valuable in discussions. I'll give it a try and report back in a coupleof months when my current project begins to take flight!

 (Prezi is a registered trademark of Prezi Inc )