Social Glass

(cross-posted from the active.com Product Development blog)
I came across these while reading the Agile Software Development blog and thought they were interesting enough to share here:

1. Active user involvement is imperative
2. The team must be empowered to make decisions
3. Requirements Timescale is Fixed
4. Capture requirements at a high level; lightweight & visual
5. Develop small, incremental releases and iterate
6. Focus on frequent delivery of products
7. Complete each feature before moving on to the next
8. Apply the 80/20 rule
9. Testing is integrated throughout the project lifecycle – test early and often
10. A collaborative & cooperative approach between all stakeholders is essential

It’s a difficult transition to move from Waterfall to Agile, especially with a distributed team. But if done correctly I’m convinced the payoffs in improved efficiency and quality could be great.

I had an interesting conversation with a good friend of mine while rock climbing tonight about being a Manager.  He runs engineering and IT Ops for a medium-sized company in San Diego, and we’re almost exactly the same age.  I asked if he ever feels settled with his job.  He said “no”. And I feel the same way.

Back in the day I was a Software Engineer.  My ability to do my job was easily measurable – almost binary even.  If I wrote good code quickly that had few bugs it could be easily guaged that I was doing a good job.  Bugs and features are all tracked and can be reported on.  Life as a Software Engineer is, well, very quantifiable.

But life as a Manager is not. It’s qualifiable.  Managers are good if they develop maintain trusted relationships with others within the company, if they delegate, and if they empower those who work for them.  And how is “good” measured?  It’s not, really.  If the team’s producing, then the Manager must be doing a good job.  But what if the team is producing because it’s a good team in its own right?  What effect do I, as a Manager, actually have on output?  It’s hard to say.

So how do the people who’ve been managing for 20 years stay sane?  How do they feel like their teams are better because they’re there?  I think they’ve learned to let go.  To concentrate on a few important items, and to delegate the rest, even when that means “the rest” might fail.

The chart above illustrates where a good Manager will find himself operating.  If he’s planned well, the matters at hand will not be urgent.  And if he’s properly plugged into the business and maintains healthy relationships, he’ll be able to identify what’s important and what’s not.  A good Manager, then, wants to exist in quadrant IV on a daily basis.  The rest should be delegated.

Quadrant IV is the key to sanity.  It’s the key to managing being a Manager.  I guess I haven’t figured out how to get to quadrant IV yet.

Did you know that MySQL enables Enterprise 2.0? I didn’t realize a database could do that.

MySQL defines Enterprise 2.0 as modern organizations implementing Web 2.0 technologies, architectures, and delivery models to offer browser-based, data-driven online applications to their business users.

Their definition focuses on the technical side of E2.0, but doesn’t acknowledge the cultural side of it. Regardless, it’s a stretch to say a database is an E2.0 enabler. A database is but one ingredient of the Enterprise 2.0 recipe. It’s how the cook mixes the ingredients that determines how good the food is.

Rod Boothby was the first person who got me really fired up about Enterprise 2.0.  I remember last year he posted quite frequently, then things went quiet.  As he indicated he’s been busy over at Teqlo releasing and testing products.

But recently we’ve seen couple of posts from Rod.  Most recently he wrote about human behavior and how it’s influenced and molded by society. Rod does a great job of diving deep below the surface of social software and I highly recommend you click over to check out his blog as you’ll find some cool, sociological insight into the Enterprise 2.0 phenomenon there.

Philosophical Thought of the Year:
Can anybody explain to me how omniscience and free will can co-exist?  For example, if I have to choose A, B or C, and it is already known that I will choose B, how can I do anything but choose B?