It’s hard to tell what drives each human. This is why my usual last interview question is a very blunt, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask everyone regardless of the amount of experience because I want to see how they improvise and, often, a hint at their motivation. I… more
There’s an article somewhere in my head which dissects the intense knee jerk reaction a lot folks have regarding managers. The question is, “Why do so many of us automatically assume that our managers are boobs?” The follow-on question is, “Even if we don’t think our managers are not boobs, why do we constantly ridicule… more
There’s a never ending battle going on in your software development team right now. It’s the battle between the Organic Engineers and the Mechanical Engineers and it sounds like this: Organics: “Software is art!” Mechanics: “Software is logic! It’s fact! And it’s a lot of work.” Organics: “You’re right! It’s work but it’s artful work.”… more
You’ve just finished your big release and the team has mostly returned from that four day weekend where they’re supposed to recharge from four straight months of work. Everyone is still pretty screwed up. Folks still instinctively check the bug database every 4 minutes to see if anything critical showed up even though there’s no… more
Stop. Grab a pencil and write down the first and last names of your past three managers. Stare at those names for a bit and re-live those months or years of reporting to this person. I want your off-the-cuff opinion about each one. My guess is your opinion falls into one of the three buckets:… more
In your quiver of management skills, you’ve got a couple of powerful arrows. There’s the annual review where you take the time to really explain, in detail, what a given employee needs to do to grow. That’s huge. That can be life changing. That’s a big arrow. How about the layoff? That’s when you get… more
You and your software development team are close. So close. Just a few more bugs and you’re ready to get those bits out there. You can taste it, but… the bugs keep showing up. Five in the morning. Ten in the afternoon. Oh shit, fifteen more during the weekend. Each day… anything more than zero… more
The main motivation for updating the site was really a nit. The right sidebar looked liked crap on Safari and when I started tinkering with the HTML, I discovered my table-based layout was just not up to snuff. “Standards”, I thought, “XHTML and CSS. That’s the ticket.” Random notes from the experience: Let me first… more
I’m am incrementalist which means I’m A-OK when change occurs a little here and a little there. I’m OK with it because the world is a big place and there is a lot to pay attention to. If I was a completionist, I would like my change with a bit more finality, but I’m not.… more
As already discussed, Managers are not evil. They’re often just stuck in translation hell where they need to say one thing in one way to one team and say the EXACT same thing to another team in a different way. This constant verbal tapdancing looks sketchy to you, the Average Joe, and you start to… more
