Clearly the person who designed this website is an artist. Too bad. Sure it's stylistic, urbane, chic, or whatever the kids are saying these days, but it is hard to use.
I did an informal round of user testing, no one could find the information for the schedule without prompting. Though many (tech guys) went "oh neat" when they realized the trick. This is beautify visuals, but poor design. Ohhh shiny is not a replacement for usability.
I dare you to try and find the show listings.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Unite with Skype?
Over the last few days I have considering moving my IM over to Skype. It just seems to make sense to use one tool for both calls, video, and IM. I know other people have made this transition.
I of course, see some issues with this:
It's too bad that the MSN, Yahoo, Skype and all the rest can't get their act together and get some real interoperability.
Carriers are more then happy to let people roam on their networks, or send text messages between people with different carriers. Of course the key difference between carriers and IM providers is that carriers charge fees for text messaging and usually have extra charges for roaming whereas IM is perfectly free.
Would you pay extra for an IM client/service that offered interoperability between the various IM networks?
I of course, see some issues with this:
- I have over 230 contacts on MSN, everything from friends to customers to co-workers to family
- I don't want to teach my mother how to use Skype. MSN is hard enough for her
- I have lots of history saved with MSN
It's too bad that the MSN, Yahoo, Skype and all the rest can't get their act together and get some real interoperability.
Carriers are more then happy to let people roam on their networks, or send text messages between people with different carriers. Of course the key difference between carriers and IM providers is that carriers charge fees for text messaging and usually have extra charges for roaming whereas IM is perfectly free.
Would you pay extra for an IM client/service that offered interoperability between the various IM networks?
Monday, December 15, 2008
Addition by Subtraction
Quick, some math teasers for you:
What is the answer to the second question? 9.
Let's put some names by some numbers:
Alfie + Arthur + Ben + Bert = 10 productivity points. So assume you can accomplish 10 "productivity points" worth of effort any given day.
Now the rest of the team isn't too fond of Ben professionally, Ben tends to introduce many bugs into the code, takes longer to finish tasks, and generally asks a lot of questions that wouldn't normally be expected of someone with his seniority.
Dennis the project manager knows that Ben is struggling, he has been working with Ben to improve his technical skills and get him more productive on the team. But so far there hasn't been much improvement.
Now Dennis is in a bit of bind.
The Sodor team has a big release coming up in the next few weeks, and Dennis needs to ensure he gets all the requested content in by this time. The team was building a new version of their flagship application, and thousands of dollars were spent on pre-release advertising. The deadline simply cannot be missed. Dennis is looking at the schedule and doesn't think he can get all the work done, he wonders if he should get another developer on the team, but he is wary of the rampup and training time. Not to mention the increased management overhead.
What would you do?
Instead, Dennis decides to do something a little more radical, he removes Ben from the team. It was a hard decision, Dennis carpools with Ben almost everyday to work. And no one likes making someone feel bad, but Dennis decided to do this anyway.
The productivity equation now looks like this:
An instant case of addition by subtraction. Without Ben slowing everyone down with simple questions and build breakages, the team is now able to go faster and get more done. All with less actual time on the project.
Dennis meets the timelines and budget. A good day all around.
Macadamian has written about this way back in 2003, and the principle still holds true today. Negative team members drag your team down. It is the manager's job to identify the negative team members and work with them to improve their productivity, if their productivity isn't improving then you must remove them from the team, and perhaps with due course the company.
Sometimes drastic change is required for the success of the project. Drastic change is hard to undertake, but sometimes it has to be done.
- 5 + 3 + 2 + 4 = ?
- 5 + 2 + -2 + 4 = ?
What is the answer to the second question? 9.
Let's put some names by some numbers:
- Alfie is a +5.
- Arthur is a +3
- Ben is a -2
- Bert is a +4
Alfie + Arthur + Ben + Bert = 10 productivity points. So assume you can accomplish 10 "productivity points" worth of effort any given day.
Now the rest of the team isn't too fond of Ben professionally, Ben tends to introduce many bugs into the code, takes longer to finish tasks, and generally asks a lot of questions that wouldn't normally be expected of someone with his seniority.
Dennis the project manager knows that Ben is struggling, he has been working with Ben to improve his technical skills and get him more productive on the team. But so far there hasn't been much improvement.
Now Dennis is in a bit of bind.
The Sodor team has a big release coming up in the next few weeks, and Dennis needs to ensure he gets all the requested content in by this time. The team was building a new version of their flagship application, and thousands of dollars were spent on pre-release advertising. The deadline simply cannot be missed. Dennis is looking at the schedule and doesn't think he can get all the work done, he wonders if he should get another developer on the team, but he is wary of the rampup and training time. Not to mention the increased management overhead.
What would you do?
Instead, Dennis decides to do something a little more radical, he removes Ben from the team. It was a hard decision, Dennis carpools with Ben almost everyday to work. And no one likes making someone feel bad, but Dennis decided to do this anyway.
The productivity equation now looks like this:
- Alfie + Arthur + Bert = 12 productivity points
An instant case of addition by subtraction. Without Ben slowing everyone down with simple questions and build breakages, the team is now able to go faster and get more done. All with less actual time on the project.
Dennis meets the timelines and budget. A good day all around.
Macadamian has written about this way back in 2003, and the principle still holds true today. Negative team members drag your team down. It is the manager's job to identify the negative team members and work with them to improve their productivity, if their productivity isn't improving then you must remove them from the team, and perhaps with due course the company.
Sometimes drastic change is required for the success of the project. Drastic change is hard to undertake, but sometimes it has to be done.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
What if software reviews were like this?
Can your copy of Windows Vista assault the beach with the Royal Marines? Or would it just sink the landing craft?
I am also pretty sure that a license of Photoshop couldn't rip around any mall fleeing any baddies baddies :)
Monday, December 1, 2008
Reading between the lines: A Bird's Tale
My son is four years old, and he attends a French language school. We live an a bilingual house, French is often spoken at home. Did I mention I am an anglophone with only a two year old's grasp of French?
Funny but true story, my wife was out and it was just the boys and I at home. The kids are bathed, I have read my son his bedtime story (in French!), and I am about to turn of his light when he says
"I want some 'oiseau'"
I think hmmm, that's an interesting duality of French and English but I understand. He wants a bird. I look around, and I grab his purple bird "toutou" and give it to him. Yes, it's as ugly as you are imagining. My son raises his voice and says
"I want some 'oiseau'"
Son I say, it's right here. Here is your "oiseau". "Oiseau" is bird right? My son starts crying. I look around, sifting through all the "toutous" looking for another "oiseau toutou", I can't find one. My son is getting frantic, he is kicking his feet and starting to go into 4 year old tantrum overdrive.
"I want some 'oiseau'"
"I want some 'oiseau'"
"I want some 'oiseau'"
Son I say, it's right here. Here you go, I pick up the ugly purple 'toutou' and and start flying it around making bird sounds. My son cries louder and now goes into 4 year old tantrum overdrive. I head downstairs and call my wife's cell phone number, maybe she knows what he means. I call, the phone rings on the dining room table.
&^#*($#*!
I head back upstairs, son I say it's right here handing him the ugly purple 'toutou' , my son says
"I want some 'oiseau'"
"I want some 'oiseau'"
Ah-ha, I get a bright idea, son I say, let's go looking for it. Is the 'oiseau' brown? Is the 'oiseau' downstairs? Is the 'oiseau' in the toy box? My son stands on top of the stairs looking confused and crying. Not knowing what to do, and the time ticking by, I give up, I tuck him in bed and let him cry himself to sleep feeling every bit a horrible father.
My wife get's home a few hours later, and I ask, what does he mean when he says "I want some 'oiseau'". My wife replies, oh, it's a song we sing.
$%#&*^@!
What is the moral of this long and only slightly humourous story?
Communication is key, and understanding what the customer is saying doesn't mean you understand what the customer wants. Understanding what the customer really wants is what separates the experts from the chaff. Knowing what the customer really means allows us to be world-class in our choices of technology, and innovative in our design and approach. Understanding is key.
PS:
In case you were wondering what song my son wanted me to sing, it was "Si Dieu existe" by Claude Dubois. A famous Quebecois folk singer. "oiseau" is in the chorus.
(Chorus starts around 1:34)
Funny but true story, my wife was out and it was just the boys and I at home. The kids are bathed, I have read my son his bedtime story (in French!), and I am about to turn of his light when he says
"I want some 'oiseau'"
I think hmmm, that's an interesting duality of French and English but I understand. He wants a bird. I look around, and I grab his purple bird "toutou" and give it to him. Yes, it's as ugly as you are imagining. My son raises his voice and says
"I want some 'oiseau'"
Son I say, it's right here. Here is your "oiseau". "Oiseau" is bird right? My son starts crying. I look around, sifting through all the "toutous" looking for another "oiseau toutou", I can't find one. My son is getting frantic, he is kicking his feet and starting to go into 4 year old tantrum overdrive.
"I want some 'oiseau'"
"I want some 'oiseau'"
"I want some 'oiseau'"
Son I say, it's right here. Here you go, I pick up the ugly purple 'toutou' and and start flying it around making bird sounds. My son cries louder and now goes into 4 year old tantrum overdrive. I head downstairs and call my wife's cell phone number, maybe she knows what he means. I call, the phone rings on the dining room table.
&^#*($#*!
I head back upstairs, son I say it's right here handing him the ugly purple 'toutou' , my son says
"I want some 'oiseau'"
"I want some 'oiseau'"
Ah-ha, I get a bright idea, son I say, let's go looking for it. Is the 'oiseau' brown? Is the 'oiseau' downstairs? Is the 'oiseau' in the toy box? My son stands on top of the stairs looking confused and crying. Not knowing what to do, and the time ticking by, I give up, I tuck him in bed and let him cry himself to sleep feeling every bit a horrible father.
My wife get's home a few hours later, and I ask, what does he mean when he says "I want some 'oiseau'". My wife replies, oh, it's a song we sing.
$%#&*^@!
What is the moral of this long and only slightly humourous story?
Communication is key, and understanding what the customer is saying doesn't mean you understand what the customer wants. Understanding what the customer really wants is what separates the experts from the chaff. Knowing what the customer really means allows us to be world-class in our choices of technology, and innovative in our design and approach. Understanding is key.
PS:
In case you were wondering what song my son wanted me to sing, it was "Si Dieu existe" by Claude Dubois. A famous Quebecois folk singer. "oiseau" is in the chorus.
(Chorus starts around 1:34)
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Innovation Story: Learning From Pixar
Last Thursday I was researching innovation to prepare for an upcoming OSEF event being hosted at Rove Mobile I came across a really interesting article about creating a culture of innovation at Pixar. Continuing in the theme of the last few posts I thought it would be interesting to examine what Pixar thinks, and to see what, if anything I can apply here at Macadamian.
Brad Bird distills 10 simple rules for fostering innovation:
Look for Intensity
When I am interviewing people to potentially hire at Macadamian I look for people that are smart and have that spark in their eyes, that spark that denotes a deep passion for technology, and for what they have done and what they will do. I am sure that everyone at Macadamian looks for these same qualities, but when I looked on Confluence for the "Type of People we are looking for" that attribute wasn't listed, so the wiki being a wiki, I changed it.
Intense people want to do a fantastic job, there is no laissez-faire I don't care attitude. These people are passionate about the products we are building, they aren't just working on a project, they are building an amazing product. These types of people will "own" the product, they will talk to the customer and suggest features, or other ways to improve it. They want to build the best, most innovative product they can. This is a great attitude, and one of the key differentiators between the average, and the above average.
High Morale Makes Creativity Cheap
Not only does high morale make it easier to be creative, high morale increases productivity by several orders of magnitude. Morale is directly related to the leadership of the immediate manager, and of the company as a whole.
A good leader managing the team can go along way to improving morale via their positive attitude and their fair dealings with the team. I could go on and on about leadership's impact on morale but I would run out of space. Suffice it to say that a good leader can go along way to making a good team.
Of course the organization also has a role to play, the organization needs to create a culture that rewards people that take informed risks, works hard to get the employees involved and feeling informed, that people have the right tools to get the job done, shows genuine concern for all their staff, and gives appropriate praise and recognition for the good work they do. After all, you want to reward the good behaviour, not just punish the bad.
These two points resonated with me, and these are two that I will focus on here at Macadamian, to reinforce and improve our way of doing things with respect to these. Of course the rest are good too.
Brad Bird distills 10 simple rules for fostering innovation:
- Herd Your Black Sheep
- Perfect is the Enemy of Innovation
- Look for Intensity
- Innovation Doesn’t happen in a Vacuum
- High Morale Makes Creativity Cheap
- Don't Try To “Protect your success”
- Steve Jobs Says ‘Interaction = Innovation’
- Encourage Inter-disciplinary Learning
- Get Rid of Weak Links
- Making $$ Can’t Be Your Focus
Look for Intensity
When I am interviewing people to potentially hire at Macadamian I look for people that are smart and have that spark in their eyes, that spark that denotes a deep passion for technology, and for what they have done and what they will do. I am sure that everyone at Macadamian looks for these same qualities, but when I looked on Confluence for the "Type of People we are looking for" that attribute wasn't listed, so the wiki being a wiki, I changed it.
Intense people want to do a fantastic job, there is no laissez-faire I don't care attitude. These people are passionate about the products we are building, they aren't just working on a project, they are building an amazing product. These types of people will "own" the product, they will talk to the customer and suggest features, or other ways to improve it. They want to build the best, most innovative product they can. This is a great attitude, and one of the key differentiators between the average, and the above average.
High Morale Makes Creativity Cheap
Not only does high morale make it easier to be creative, high morale increases productivity by several orders of magnitude. Morale is directly related to the leadership of the immediate manager, and of the company as a whole.
A good leader managing the team can go along way to improving morale via their positive attitude and their fair dealings with the team. I could go on and on about leadership's impact on morale but I would run out of space. Suffice it to say that a good leader can go along way to making a good team.
Of course the organization also has a role to play, the organization needs to create a culture that rewards people that take informed risks, works hard to get the employees involved and feeling informed, that people have the right tools to get the job done, shows genuine concern for all their staff, and gives appropriate praise and recognition for the good work they do. After all, you want to reward the good behaviour, not just punish the bad.
These two points resonated with me, and these are two that I will focus on here at Macadamian, to reinforce and improve our way of doing things with respect to these. Of course the rest are good too.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Consistency versus Excellence
A quick question for you all, if you are delivering every single project consistently, with good consistent results, have you achieved excellence?
At one point in time I might have said yes, but after reading this article I will have to say no. Unless you are in a field where everyone else are a bunch of numskulls, being consistent merely means meeting your customers expectations.
Of course being consistent is good, it means you are delivering your product or service in the same manner, allowing you to look for ways to reduce errors and flaws by providing new and improved processes to catch and eliminate them. That being said however, you put too many processes in place your team will look and act like a bunch of dumb robots, carefully following well defined procedures fearing to stray outside of the bounds. Hardly sounds like a fun place to work eh?
Excellence on the other hand is about going above and beyond, about not just achieving customer expectations but blowing them away. This type of performance requires passionate and driven people, people that will own the product and be devoted to its success. When pursuing excellence processes are only a tool to achieve a goal, they are not the goal themselves. Processes will never be emotionally tied to the product's success, only people are.
People drive excellence, processes drive consistency. If you are looking for excellence then don't look to process, look for passionate, driven people to push hard to always try and achieve more.
At one point in time I might have said yes, but after reading this article I will have to say no. Unless you are in a field where everyone else are a bunch of numskulls, being consistent merely means meeting your customers expectations.
Of course being consistent is good, it means you are delivering your product or service in the same manner, allowing you to look for ways to reduce errors and flaws by providing new and improved processes to catch and eliminate them. That being said however, you put too many processes in place your team will look and act like a bunch of dumb robots, carefully following well defined procedures fearing to stray outside of the bounds. Hardly sounds like a fun place to work eh?
Excellence on the other hand is about going above and beyond, about not just achieving customer expectations but blowing them away. This type of performance requires passionate and driven people, people that will own the product and be devoted to its success. When pursuing excellence processes are only a tool to achieve a goal, they are not the goal themselves. Processes will never be emotionally tied to the product's success, only people are.
People drive excellence, processes drive consistency. If you are looking for excellence then don't look to process, look for passionate, driven people to push hard to always try and achieve more.
Friday, November 21, 2008
How savvy organizations motivate and inspire
Earlier this week I have talked about how to create an atmosphere of innovation, and longer ago how it is important to never stop learning.
In that post I talked about creating an atmosphere where informed risk taking is encouraged, and employees are not punished for mistakes they make when taking informed risks. This article further strengthens my point.
Dr. Gary Latham of the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto encourages employees to make errors. "The research coming out of organizational psychology says that if you want risk-taking and you want people to be excited and energized about trying new things, such as embracing change, they've got to feel comfortable that they can make mistakes and learn from them." When it comes to motivation, Dr. Latham says people want just three things: "They want a sense of challenge, they want to grow, and they want to feel valued and appreciated."
Three key take-aways in that quote are:
Number 2 is an organizational challenge, sure there are aspects of leadership in this, as in the leader needs to understand how the employee wishes to grow their career, and giving him the tasks or challenges to accomplish that. But, at the end of the day, no matter how much a leader may want to advance the employees career, where the advancement means moving up the org chart, this may not be possible in every company do to existing issues, or lack of growth in the company.
Number 3 is clearly a leadership issue, yes, pay and benefits have something to do with this but where the rubber meets the road it's all about leadership. Thanking your employee for their hard work, or them going out of the way to finish a task, or recommend an improvement. At Macadamian our employees are our IP. We make a conscious effort to ensure that our employees feel looked after, both at an organizational level and at the manager level. A simple "Thank you, we couldn't have done it without you" can be a powerful statement on how you value your employees. Of course, it has to be sincere.
In that post I talked about creating an atmosphere where informed risk taking is encouraged, and employees are not punished for mistakes they make when taking informed risks. This article further strengthens my point.
Dr. Gary Latham of the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto encourages employees to make errors. "The research coming out of organizational psychology says that if you want risk-taking and you want people to be excited and energized about trying new things, such as embracing change, they've got to feel comfortable that they can make mistakes and learn from them." When it comes to motivation, Dr. Latham says people want just three things: "They want a sense of challenge, they want to grow, and they want to feel valued and appreciated."
Three key take-aways in that quote are:
- Employees want a sense of challenge
- They want the ability to grow their career
- To be valued and appreciated.
Number 2 is an organizational challenge, sure there are aspects of leadership in this, as in the leader needs to understand how the employee wishes to grow their career, and giving him the tasks or challenges to accomplish that. But, at the end of the day, no matter how much a leader may want to advance the employees career, where the advancement means moving up the org chart, this may not be possible in every company do to existing issues, or lack of growth in the company.
Number 3 is clearly a leadership issue, yes, pay and benefits have something to do with this but where the rubber meets the road it's all about leadership. Thanking your employee for their hard work, or them going out of the way to finish a task, or recommend an improvement. At Macadamian our employees are our IP. We make a conscious effort to ensure that our employees feel looked after, both at an organizational level and at the manager level. A simple "Thank you, we couldn't have done it without you" can be a powerful statement on how you value your employees. Of course, it has to be sincere.
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