Archive for the ‘Development’ Category
There is something good in everyone
Posted by: Manas in Development, Misc, social on February 17th, 2009
I recently got to know that in my daughter’s school, all teachers have an interesting annual target. The target is that at the end of the year, every child in the class must receive “Certificate of Excellence” for at least one area. The belief is that every child is good in at least one thing. If the teacher doesn’t find anything good in a child, she isn’t looking hard enough. So, a teacher must find something good in each child and then help the child develop it.
something good in everyone
I was so amused by the thought and compared it with the corporate culture of our times. In fact, I shouldn’t call it culture as there is nothing cultural about it. Anyways, …
So, I was wondering if there be a company in which every manager has a similar performance goal in additional to all the regular ones like meeting deadlines, achieving sales targets etc. Each manager must identify at least one area for each direct reportee where that person can excel. And then through the year, help that person demonstrate his potential in the chosen area.
And this can be completely unrelated to the work for which that person has been hired. If someone is good at painting, there can be an exhibition where he/she can show his/her talent in the whole department or the whole office building. If someone is good at organizing hiking trips, some outbound trip is planned where he/she is incharge. If someone is good at singing, there can be informal singing sessions past working hours.
These are just examples. The skills and the way they are brought out can be different. Even making it part of the performance goals is an example. A company can choose its own method of implementing it. The important thing is the belief that there is something good in everyone.
Won’t that company have a lower attrition rate and higher productivity?
Won’t more and more people want to work in that company making it easier to attract people?
Will you not like to work for such a company? Will you not like to build such a company?
The earlier you start, the easier it will be.
Start now…
Your top priority is just another errand for others
Posted by: Manas in Development, Misc on January 29th, 2009
Finishing any sizable work always takes more time than expected, more than estimated, more than it should. Why?
Because for every work that you do, you have external dependencies. There are small bits of things that need to be done by others for you to complete your work. And those small bits of work are as important for the whole work as the big chunks are. Just as a small needle in a sewing machine is as important as the big motor driving the machine.
And those small bits of work need to be done by others. And even though these small things hold the highest priority for you, for others, it may be just a side thing; an errand to be run once in a while or when there is a mood.
And surprisingly, there are just too many of these small bits of work in any sizable amount of work. And unsurprisingly, because of their size (or rather lack of it), these bits are never visible when you make your grand plan. When you make the grand plan, you see big things and budget for them. But small things? Because they are invisible, they won’t be budgeted for. And they’ll take longer to finish because of external dependencies! After all, your highest priority item is just another errand for others 
Caught ya!
Anyway, there is no point in holding a magnifying glass and looking for small bits when estimating time. It’s too much of effort and you won’t be able to do it anyways (remember, these are too small to be seen when your mind is occupied with big items).
Just go by the rule of thumb - it takes twice the time, twice the money and will give you half the returns than what you expect.
Carpentry and Pottery {OR} Mahalo and Wikipedia
Posted by: Manas in Development, Social Web, Web on December 7th, 2008
What’s the difference between a Carpenter and a Potter? That’s roughly the difference between Mahalo and Wikipedia. Not precisely, but roughly.
Carpenter works with tools. Potter works with hands. Carpenter cuts the wood in pieces, gives them shape by applying a lot of force, then puts these pieces in some order back again. Potter spins a wheel which is the main supplier of further force and then just sits and gives shape. The wheel keeps spinning and the potter keeps giving shape.
Carpenter exercises explicit control over the entire process while Potter exercises very subtle control.
Building Mahalo is Carpentry where it is decided which articles to write, the format in which to write, assign people to write them, review them, put them up, keep people on job for updating them.
Building Wikipedia is Pottery where the core Wikipedia team primarily works towards keeping things in shape and maintaining some quality. Rest is all done by the spinning wheel (i.e. a movement towards building a free encyclopedia).
Both are art and both have their own pluses and minuses. They both can give good results. You need to decide which approach will work for your site and then stick to that.
Evolution of a Programmer
Posted by: Manas in Development on December 5th, 2008
There is a usual evolution of a programmer story popular on the web. There is another one, however, given by Vishal. Here it follows -
A programmer, in fact any techie, goes through three phases of evolution:
1. Jackie Chan - You are young, smart and energetic. Even though you can fight, you mostly dread the enemy (mostly the powerful ones). Your fights tend to go on longer and you are mostly beaten up by the enemy. Only towards the end, do you get a control on the situation. You don’t use any sophisticated tools for fighting, you do it mostly with hands OR whatever you can lay your hands on (including broom).
2. Bruce Willis - You have developed a passion for fighting now. You have learned to use tools that boost your productivity by killing enemies faster. Also, you keep a tight control over the enemy right from the begining. But you still can’t do it without getting hurt. You are so involved in fighting that you have blood running down your face and you run bare-foot on glass pieces.
3. James Bond - This is what you eventually become. Calm, fast and effortless. You have equipped yourself with an array of extremely sophisticated tools. With these tools, you can not only kill scores of people by just turning the cap of your pen, you also know how to keep yourself unhurt. Finishing a task is just a cinch for you. And by the way, you have also learnt to indulge in non-technological pleasures 
Politics Oriented Software Development
Posted by: Manas in Development on December 5th, 2008
Politics Oriented Software Development paints a clear picture of how political forces play in software development and how people can consciously jeopardize a product even though they may be directly involved in its development.
If you haven’t read it yet, it’s high time you read it. Time and again, I have been reminded of the truthfulness in this article. Even though the article mentions software development, it’s true for every industry where the work is done as projects.
Whether a Startup or a large company, most people always put short term personal gains (which includes ego boost) over long term project viability. The sooner we understand and accept it, the better it is.
Isn’t there any hope? Well, no and yes. No because people will not change. Yes because now that you know how software development really works, you can figure out what kind of influence will work and what kind will not work.
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