Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

In Agile Development, we are supposed to talk to one another each day. Sometimes, however, we just didn’t sign up for this talking stuff.

In Agile Development, we are supposed to talk to other persons. We are supposed to sit next to other persons and work with them. All of us are smarter than each of us. We know what we are doing, so we do that and don’t do other stuff. Smart. Efficient. Easy to change direction because we talk to each other.

Yikes, sometimes we don’t like that. We didn’t become programmers so we could talk to other persons. We became programmers so we could—no genius required here—program computers.

Why are we talking to each other? I think I’ll modify agile practices till they fit what I want to do when I want to do it and with whom or with no one I want to do it with.

Agile works. Agile can be fun. Agile is different. Ensure people know what they will be doing when they enter. They will be talking to other people every day.

by Dwayne Phillips

Go ahead; we all know it is the best thing to do. Take a nap.

A man at work struggling to read something and stay awake. Something was happening physically, low blood sugar or something like a gizzard malfunction. Sleep kept trying to drop a black hood over his head. He fought it off each time, but was still re-reading the first sentence of a ten-page document.

We all know the best thing to do is—take a 10-minute nap, get your gizzard working again, then read the thing. And we all know that we won’t do what we all know is the best thing to do because:

• we work hard here
• we are tough here
• we are so tough we can overcome gizzard malfunctions and everything else nature throws at us
• we are incredibly arrogant here
• we deny all reality here
• we just don’t do those things here!!!

Take a nap. You have my permission to concede to reality and do what everyone knows we should do.

by Dwayne Phillips

What do companies want from job candidates? I wish they would make up their mind, but I’m just that kind of person.

Let’s go around this little goofy circle

1. Companies won’t hire you unless you walk in with a certificate, a.k.a., a college degree.
2. Companies don’t like what colleges teach (see link)
3. Companies have their own classes that teach what they want.
4. So where does (1) come from

Doesn’t make sense to me, but I am neither a company CEO nor a recruiter.

by Dwayne Phillips

The stereotype of the scientist and engineer is someone who would rather be with technical things than people. Here are a few tips.

As an engineer, this holds for scientists as well, there is one fundamental question we must always be prepared to answer (two words):

what’cha doin?

The answer does not need to be elaborate. We do, however need to have the answer. Replies like, “Same old stuff,” and “You know, the usual,” aren’t acceptable. State specifically what you are doing and how that task fits or why it fits.

For example, “I’m looking a cloud computing options to see if they would give us a place to perform experiments,” or “I am trying the new features of the software so I can demonstrate them to our users.”

Now that we have the introductory interpersonal communication course behind us, let’s move on to the advanced course. In this, we answer a three-word question:

When’ll’ya be done?

No, they aren’t prying. No, they are being a bureaucrat. This is a fundamental question that question askers ask. Have an answer like, “I think I need two more days.” If you really want to impress the other person, follow that with something like, “Is there something else you want me to do now or in two days?”

See, this really isn’t that difficult. Know the introductory and advanced questions and their answers. Life can be good—even with these question askers around.

by Dwayne Phillips

Recognize special days. And when we starting looking, we will notice there are a lot of special days.

Today is Christmas. I work with a lot of people who don’t recognize December 25th as a special day. They have other days that are special in their culture, their childhood, their family.

I have fond memories of spending special days with persons. I saw the glee of children in the eyes of adults on those days.

Do you work with other persons? Most of us do. What days are special to them? Learn. Celebrate. It’s all okay. It’s all better than okay if we make it so.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes I fill the role of the “just notice-er.” Perhaps that should be an official title in systems development.

I was preparing a demonstration of software we developed in house. Something wasn’t happening as I expected. I asked a couple of the programmers to look over my shoulder.

“Look at this,” I said. “Tell me if I am doing this wrong.”

I demonstrated what I saw. The programmers were puzzled. There, right in front of them, the software wasn’t working as it should. Many questions followed. They were honestly trying to understand the odd circumstances I presented to the software they had written. I could see their minds churning through the code to find where something was possibly misbehaving.

Later in the day, one of the programmers had me look over her shoulder at how what she saw. She said, “I don’t think we are testing the software correctly.”

Then it hit me, I wasn’t testing the software. I was just noticing something about how it behaved.

Hmmm, could it be that “just noticing” is a part of “testing?” Is “just noticing” another branch of system development? Who has the official title of “just notice-er?” Why is it that these “just notice-ers” always spoil the fun? What could I do as a “just notice-er” to speed product development and improve quality? Why do I come up with titles like “just notice-er?”

Possibly someone out there reading this has answers to these questions. Answers are welcome. I am happy to notice anything you pass along.

by Dwayne Phillips

Nothing is so cruel as to learn that the system we built doesn’t do what we thought it would.

We are good, smart, caring people. We work diligently to build good systems that serve others. We test. We really test—no kidding, no fooling around. We really test.

Then one day, someone walks in the room and says, “Hey, this doesn’t work right.” Then they show us that our creation doesn’t work right. What? Something must be wrong, and the wrong thing has been done by someone else. We, we, we, er, uh, we can’t deny what we see. The ceiling falls in on us.

We understand that this person has done us a favor by showing us a fault we missed. The fault will be corrected before folks out in the world depend on our system. Still. This is crushing.

Now we have to crawl through the inside of our system to find what we missed earlier. That is called “crawling” for good reasons. It requires getting down on our bellies and moving slowly inch by inch and gosh that is tedious and I really had some enjoyable things lined up today that I like to do and this isn’t fun and I’m going to miss lunch and and and things just are bad.

Take a walk. Five minutes, but just five minutes. Breathe deeply and slowly. Realize once again that:

• we are human, not perfect
• the system is the system, it is not us
• no one is saying we are bad, they are just noticing something odd in the system

Breathe a while longer. Regain composure. Now begin the work.

Fantasy? Maybe, but it works better than other approaches I have used.

by Dwayne Phillips

Drop the “but.” It erases all previous words. Use a period instead.

I said: I don’t want to hurt you feelings, but, we need to change how we do things here.

He heard: we, actually YOU, need to change how we do things here.

Funny how the word “but” works in conversation. It tends to erase all the words that preceded it. Let’s try this.

I said: I don’t want to hurt your feelings.

He heard: blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah.

Wait, the second conversation was supposed to be wonderful with blue skies, rainbows, and all sorts of pixie dust, right? Well, those things only exist in fairy tales. Let’s continue the conversation.

I said: I’m being clobbered by the way we are doing things now.

He heard: I have a problem.

I said: I need your help.

He heard: Well, maybe this guy isn’t so bad after all. He came to me for help. Perhaps I’ll listen now. Let’s see how painful this is going to be.

I said: I need the outcome to be this instead of that.

He heard: Now he’s starting to mumble again, but…

I said: what would you do?

He heard: Oh, he wants me to fix him. Well, he does have lots of problems, that is obvious, and if he didn’t have all of them my life might be better. Perhaps…

Roses and rainbows? No. The second conversation has a better chance of working. It is worth a try.

by Dwayne Phillips

There are a long list of things we could try that would not work, but there may be side benefits for trying.

A recent article highlighted what some call agri-hoods where people are trying to live an agriculture life in the outer suburbs. Yes, they are going to grow their own food. Of course this won’t work. Estimates differ, but you need two to ten acres of good land per person to grow your own food. So, this will fail, BUT you may learn a few things a teach a few things. Those are pretty good side benefits.

Got great ideas of things to do? Most will not work. Here are some that won’t:

• write a novel
• write a screenplay
• write a play
• build a house
• build a car
• paint portraits
• It is easy to continue the list.

Then we go back to the first paragraph, BUT there are many things we can learn and teach that flow from the attempt. So, attempt it and keep your notice-er in full gear and learn and teach.

by Dwayne Phillips

For some reason (and we have a lot of these reasons), we just let things go when we know better.

Yes, that thing doesn’t work right, but you know, we just don’t fix it because…

• I don’t like fixing things
• It is someone else’s problem, they broke it or they installed it wrong
• I have more fun things to do
• I have more interesting things to do
• If you ask me to fix it, I’ll quit this job and get one where they let me do what I like
• I don’t work for you, or
• You’re not the boss of me
• and besides, people are so accustomed to it not working that they stopped complaining
• and we could keep growing the list.

And so this management job isn’t as easy as people told me it would be because there are all these people working here, and they don’t do what I say.