Coaching should reject triage

Good for the battlefield bad for society and business

Usually, I spend my time on the blog discussing agile and how to better improve software development.  I avoid political discussion because there are much better places for people to discuss that topic.  This week, I would like to discuss something different.

This week a young person I have known since her days as a college undergraduate wrote and thoughtful post about her struggles with mathematics in elementary school.  As early as fourth grade she was taken on field trips to grocery stores to learn about careers stocking shelves after completing school.  None of the other students attended that trip.  As early as nine years of age educators and members of the community were making decisions about her life.  Today, Stephanie Orme is a Ph.D. from Penn State who is a nationally recognized public speaker and recently gave a TED talk on Diversity Game Design.  

I am very proud of Stephanie.  I consider myself one of the stepping stones on her journey and I look forward to seeing her further adventures in academia.  Her story made me think about my trip educationally and as a scrum master.  We make too many judgment calls about young people, and those judgments are harming our society and the business community.

Our education system in the United States has wide gaps of inequality.  Private schools appeal to people of means and have been training grounds of the children of business and political elites for the last 100 years.  Parents often pay a premium real-estate prices to live in communities with highly rated schools.  Young people living in rural or poor school districts are not so fortunate; it means that school districts make do with what they have, and they get involved in a practice known as triage.

Initially, from the medical field and pioneered by the French during the Napoleonic wars triage means the sorting of people to help them when confronted with scarce resources.  For example, someone with a head missing from a cannonball does not need a blood transfusion that blood can go to someone with a better chance of survival.  Paramedics, emergency rooms, and combat medics use the concept of triage daily to save lives.

As early as middle school, I experienced triage in my education.  The “smart” students participated in honors courses and segregated from other students.  These students not only had to have good test scores but they also had to have good grades.  The poor students were in remedial classes, and the unwashed middle got by with standard courses.  The exception to this rule were those with cognitive and learning disabilities who received special education.  I was terrible at mathematics, so I attended learning disability courses.

As time wore on, the honors students became more privileged as standard and remedial students shifted into less challenging classes.  Honors students received college AP courses, scholarships, and opportunities to excel. Once labeled a basic or a standard student, opportunities to reach the upper echelon was difficult.  It created a type of resentment and desire to prove those who doubted me wrong.

I was more fortunate than most.  My community college prepared me for university study. I was lucky enough to receive a scholarship to a four-year school for debate and speech.  Thanks to the financial sacrifices of my parents, the incredible support of my teachers, the encouragement of countless adults, and a little luck I became a college graduate.  If you had checked in with me as a nine-year-old, you would have concluded that I would be stocking shelves.

It would take seven years working in the radio and the casino business to find my true vocation; software development.  It would take another ten years before I would discover agile and share its worth with others.  I got by on grit, but I would be fooling myself if I did not acknowledge the privilege of supportive parents and my educational background.

It is this knowledge which has shaped my perspective.  The Harvard business review talks about a “fixed mindset” vs. a “growth mindset.”  Thanks to triage in education, we take young people and place them into boxes.  We then triage those boxes into careers and roles in our community.  It is a more significant problem in business because often leaders are more comfortable around people with similar educational and cultural experience.

As someone who has not fit neatly into a box his entire life, it encourages me to adopt a growth mindset for others around me.  I cannot help everyone, but I will try to help those I can.  With a little luck, there will be more people like myself and Stephanie Orme helping reform business and culture.

Until next time.

The Social Compact of Agile

If you don't set priorities your office could be like this.
From the Iron Mitten web site.  

One of the biggest challenges in technology is there are not enough people to do all the necessary work.  Only about 18.5 million people in the world of 7.4 Billion people can maintain software and modern computer networks.  That means that less than .05% of the world have the skills to keep the global economy spinning. It would not happen without dedicated project professionals and smart technologists holding everything together.  Without prioritization, the gears of the industry would grind to a halt, and that is what I want to talk about this week.

When Thomas Hobbes wrote “The Leviathan,” in the aftermath of the English Civil War; he spoke about something called the social contract.  The social contract to Hobbes was an unwritten set of rules where individuals traded their liberty with the state in exchange for safety and protection.  Ignore the social contract, and society would collapse, and philosophers and social scientists still use the idea of a social contract to explain how communities work.

In the world of business, we also have social contracts.  People who have more authority have offices instead of cubicles, so they meet with people in private.  When it is time to distribute profits, shareholders receive preference over employees.  Finally, no one gives human resources any trouble because they have the authority to hire and fire anyone.  None of these rules are written down, but we all know they exist.

In agile, there is one social compact.  The product owner sets the priorities, and the development team says how long it is going to take to do the work.  The developers may disagree with the preferences, but they have to accept them.  The product owners may not like how long it will take to do the work, but they have to agree with them.  It is the trade-off which makes agile work.  If neither the developers nor the product owner respects this setup, then the implementation will fail.

It is well and good if you have only one project and one team.  What happens when you have multiple projects and not enough teams to do the work?  It is when prioritization becomes more critical.  Business leaders need to be part of the process, and they need to know what is being worked on and when.

There are plenty of processes to set priorities.  The most significant challenge for me is the mindset of the business of professionals.  Sales and marketing professionals are trained to think each “no” is one less objection to “yes.”  It is admirable for a sales professional; it is madness for a large organization as self-interested and selfish people scratch and claw to “yes.”  Projects hopscotch up and down in priority as developers struggle to stay ahead of the shifting needs of the organization.  Unclean code is released to production because someone needed a feature released “today.” I continue to struggle with this challenge.

So as a scrum master or agile coach, you need to enforce the social contract of agile.  That social contract is product owners set priorities and developers say how long it is going to take to do those priorities.  If you can do this, you just might succeed.

Until next time.

A March in the Mud

One of the dirty little secrets of software is for every splashy app or disruptive business there are countless hours of toil.  The mental exertion takes years off your life. Software also alienates because, to be successful, you need to be thinking about software and how to keep your skills current.  The compensation is generous but the mental and time demands of the profession are oppressive.  It made me think about what makes a scrum master successful.  This week I want to talk about the gritty nature of the business.

When I was growing up, I have a great Uncle Paul who fought in Europe with Patton’s Third Army.  He refused to discuss his experiences, and when asked about being in combat he remarked bitterly,” I was cold, and it rained a lot.”  Over the years, many of the combat veterans I have known have behaved in a similar fashion.  Whether they served in Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm or Afghanistan; the prevailing attitude was I would be unable to understand their experiences because I was not physically there.  Instead, I relied on the narrative from books, documentaries and those veterans would share their experiences.

What struck me during my investigation was the tedium of military service.  Moments of terror punctuated countless hours of boredom and following procedures.  Each day is a grind with little room for heroism or glory.  While I have never made the kind of sacrifices required of combat veterans, the grinding nature of a military campaign is familiar to anyone who has worked on an I.T. project.  In fact, every developer has a story about being on a project which resembled a “death march.”  One of my favorite illustrations by Bill Mauldin, who created the famous Willie and Joe cartoons from World War Two, is tired and muddy American Troops guarding German POWs and they are marching through the rain.  The caption offers brilliant commentary, “Fresh, spirited American troops, flushed with victory are bringing in thousands of hungry, ragged, battle-weary prisoners.”  The irony being everyone during the war is tired, hungry and battle-weary.

Anyone who works on a software project gets tired and weary.  There are too many late nights, too many slices of pizza, and too many problems to fix.  In many ways, we are like those soldiers trudging through the rain.  It is why developers prefer agile methods over the more traditional waterfall approach.  Instead of long aimless slogs in the rain and mud, at the end of each sprint, we track our progress and take stock.  Big bang releases would become a thing of the past and development would be made more sustainable.

The reality has been more complicated.  As we have learned to release software in shorter intervals, business leaders have demanded that we cram more feature into each release.  So instead of work being a “death march” it resembles being pushed out of airplanes each sprint shouting “Geronimo” and hoping we survive the experience; this is not sustainable development.

Metaphorically, scrum masters and developers are seeking a happy medium between long marches in the rain and jumping out of an airplane.  Each day should feature a win or forward progress.  Developers should not put in heroic efforts or engage in crunch time.  It is a lofty goal, and if we are doing our jobs correctly, one the agile community can accomplish.

It takes communication with business leaders and regular deployments of software into production. We need to pay better attention to the DevOps movement to see how to implement continuous integration and pipelines for projects.  Finally, it means saying “No” when people demand ten pounds of sand fit into a five-pound bag.  To do otherwise means we are no different than those soldiers slogging through the mud.

Until next time.

Well Fargo is a Victim of the Cobra Effect

Anyone who follows this blog knows that I rarely hold a grudge and I don’t like kicking an individual or organization while it is down.  I am just not wired that way.  This week I am going to make an exception because of the lesson that can be learned for everyone in the agile community.  I am talking about Wells Fargo and their latest scandal regarding opening bogus new accounts for existing customers.

This isn’t the first time I have had my differences with Wells Fargo.  They were involved in a financial literacy campaign which denigrated humanities majors and liberal arts students.  Now thanks to federal regulators they are paying a $185 Million dollar fine for creating new accounts for customers without consent.  This gets to something the agile community call perverse incentives.

One of the central tenants of “scientific management” is that you measure how an employee does their job and then based on the data, as a manager, you figure out how to make that employee more efficient.  On the surface it seems like a smart idea.  A business person measures how work is done and then they strive to use that data to improve the speed and quality of the work.  This is where the perverse incentives come into play.  If you measure something and then use it as a performance incentive it ceases to be useful because it will force people to game the system to meet the metric.  This is called the “cobra effect” and I have blogged about it repeatedly.

Based on his testimony to congress, Well Fargo CEO John Stumpf said that he set up the incentives to “cross-sell” bank services to improve the company stock price.  This was the beginning of over two hours of uncomfortable questions and criticism from both Democratic and Republican congress members.  You know that you have done something bad when both Democrats and Republicans denounce you in public.

It did not have to be this way.  Stumpf could have measured performance and created training and education programs to make his staff learn how to better “cross-sell” products.  Instead, he used the blunt instrument of job incentives and it worked for a while until regulators and congress got involved.  Wells Fargo now faces additional investigation and possible criminal penalties.  It did not have to be this way but “cobra effect” can claim another victim and it could be a major American financial institution.

Until next time.

The Virtues of Agile: Respect

This is part two of five of our series of articles about the virtues of Agile.  This week we cover the topic of respect.

Of all the values of Agile, I think that respect is the most difficult to define.  I believe that this is because it is the one virtues based on emotion more than any other.  You cannot force a person to respect another person. It is a situation which develops over time when two people work together.  In high pressure atmospheres, like technology, respect can also be fleeting.  The person you respect today could be a colossal impediment tomorrow.  It is a difficult quality to cultivate and develop among professionals.

In my experience, it is also difficult to give respect to others because for most of my life as a professional respect was something which was earned.  Someone did not receive respect from you until they earned it by helping you or accomplishing something worthy of respect.  I remember this being the case during my years in debate and I also saw it in the realm of technology.  People who understood how to implement technological solutions were elevated above others and were granted respect by junior developers.

Since I have been a scrum master for the last year, I have seen that respect is not something earned from others but something you give others and they repay in back to you.  Respect is a virtuous cycle which reinforces itself with in the team.  This is not just about knowing the names of the people on your team.  It is about knowing if they have children and what they are doing.  It is about giving time off for them to attend Christmas programs.  It is also just shutting up and listening to people.

This is contrary to much of the leadership advice we receive from public figures like Donald Trump or Kevin Trudeau being leader is not so much about being in charge but being a servant.  A leader serves the people he is supposed to in charge because the only way that they succeed is by helping others instead of being a selfish jerk.  It also means that you are going to have to swallow some pride and learn to work with others who seem impossible.

It has become obvious to me that most of my problem employees are not really problems per say but they are having problems with their job and it is my duty to fix them.  A developer accustomed to cut and paste programming was floundering, after a few training courses and working with MVC5 and Typescript they are a dependable member of my team.  In addition, he volunteers to help in situations I was not expecting to contribute.  It happened because our relationship moved away from conflict about him not hitting sprint goals to him actively participating in the team.

I am not perfect on this front.  I struggle with names on a regular basis and I have to suppress my more narcissistic tendencies.  Some people I have a very difficult time respecting because they have toxic personalities or are self-centered but I try and hope that a little dose of respect will go a long way.  Respect is not easy but if you truly want to have it on your team them you are going to have to provide it to you team members.

Until next time.

We need more women in tech.

Women are just as good as men in tech.

I have spent over fifteen years in the technology business as a consumer, developer and scrum master. One constant during my career is that there are not enough women working in technology. Numerous articles have been written on the subject and plenty of initiatives are bubbling up around the web to teach women to code.  Still, I want to address a few of the myths I have heard about women and technology which need to be discredited.

1)Women are not logical enough to code.

This is false.  The American Psychological Association states, “…gender differences in math achievement are largely due to cultural and environment factors” (emphasis mine).  So given and equal level of training women and men are equally good at math and by default logic.

2)Women cannot work the log hours required of programmers.

This is a cop out for two reasons.  First, working more hours does not guarantee better work.  According to the Harvard Business Review the more hours a person works the less productive they become.  Second, long hours are often a failure of project planning and business leadership. Individual developers should not have to pay the price for bad planning.

The above said, working extra hours and being involved in crunch time is a perverse badge of honor.  I like it when the Netizen Corporation Blog says, “This is a representation of failure rather than commitment.”

Having women in the office particularly women with families lives tempers this desire to work insane hours as a form of perverse competition.  When you have lives outside of work it tends to make that labor more productive.

3)Women hurt the teamwork of the development crew.

Study after study has shown diversity of gender, race and religion yields better decision making.  If anything software development is about making decisions.  People do feel discomfort when thrown together with groups they are unfamiliar but one they get over that discomfort their performance improves.

I have experienced first-hand the change which takes place when women are added to a development team.  Jokes about alcohol consumption and romantic conquests go way down.  The men on the team care more about their hygiene and appearance.  Everyone becomes more polite and professional with each other.  Finally, disagreements are worked out in a more civil fashion.  It is not perfect but it is much better than working on all male teams.

4)Women are just not as knowledgeable.

There are plenty of women in technology who have fantastic skills.  Marissa Mayer did not graduate from Stanford and become and executive at Google because of her good looks.  She was a smart and capable engineer who also brought to the table a keen sense of design and a fanatical devotion to metrics.

From a more personal perspective, Angela Dugan author of the “The TFS Whisperer” has become a role-model and big sister of sorts.  She introduced me to TFS, Agile, and better development methods.  She leads the Chicago ALM group and has a profoundly strong reputation among the development community around Chicago.  I have known Angela for over five years and I am better technologist because of it.

These two women are just some of the people I know who bring a sense of craft and commitment to their technical skills.  This just confirms to me that you do not need to have a UNIX beard in order to be knowledgeable.

Technology needs more women but some of these myths I have attempted to discredit have gotten in the way.  If this situation is going to improve men and women are going to have to step forward and quash these faux myths of male programming superiority.  Otherwise we will continue to be stuck in the same destructive patterns we see today in the world of development.

Until next time.

Do Not Kiss the Cobra.

Incentive programs are just as
 misinformed as kissing a cobra.

As a leader you are faced with countless decisions.  One of those decisions is how you create constructive incentives for your team.  This week on the blog I would like to talk about one of the most dangerous traps you can get into as a budding leader.  The Cobra Effect.

The cobra effect is documented around the internet but in short is a classic example of the rule of unintended consequences.  Simply put, when you put an incentive out to guide the behavior of co-workers or subordinates you will find they will game the system to maximize the incentive for their own personal interests.  This was documented when the English ruled India as a colony.  A local governor offered a bounty to reduce the number of cobras in the city of Delhi.  It worked too well and the locals started breading cobras to kill them and collect the reward.  This bit of capitalism got the governor to cancel the bounty.  In response, the cobra breeders released their worthless snakes out onto the streets.  The net effect was an increase in the cobra population of Delhi.

As a scrum master or leader you can run into the cobra effect at any time.  For instance, if you want to increase the velocity of a team the team members could inflate their estimates making it look like they are doing more work than actually doing it.  My favorite example comes from the comic Dilbert where the pointy haired boss offers to provide bonuses for developers who fix bugs.  The developers use this as an incentive to write buggy software to increase their compensation.  

The short answer is that incentives are not a good tool for improving performance.  People will change their behavior temporarily in order to meet the incentive goals and then when the incentive goes away they will switch back.  This means that developers and business people will take shortcuts instead of doing the job the way it is supposed to be done.  Long range goals are sacrificed for short term incentive gains.  I also feel that quality suffers.  

So when coming up with incentives for your development team and business, take a pause and understand that you are inviting a snakebite from the Cobra effect.  

Until next time.

Graduating from BizSpark

Proud to have graduated from BizSpark

This week marks a special anniversary of sorts.  Three years ago I became a Microsoft BizSpark member.  This week I graduate from the program.  It has been a peculiar journey but I feel that I have learned a great deal.  I would like to discuss my experiences with the program.

I was between consulting jobs and was attending an ALM conference in Chicago when I asked if there was a program for a Microsoft professional to get Visual Studio in order to start building a software start-up.  I was quickly directed to the BizSpark program and I have not looked back.  I was provided with software licenses for Office and Visual Studio.  I was also given a network to share ideas and solicit for help.

It has not been perfect.  Sometimes I have felt alone in the wilderness of business.  The clients I thought I would get just by putting out a shingle have been elusive.  Still, I have been able to migrate from Visual Studio 2010 to Visual Studio 2013 and keep up on all the latest technologies.  I am now comfortable with MVC thanks BizSpark.  I have embraced Microsoft Tag until Microsoft decided to abandon the technology and thanks to NuGet was able to generate my very own QR codes to manage my business.

Plenty of ups and downs and BizSpark has been there for me.  Now I am officially an alumni of the program and I hope that I get an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of another member WhatsApp.  I understand that this is pie in the sky thinking but that was why I wanted to be an entrepreneur in the first place.

Feel free to contact us and learn more about our business.  I want to take time out to thank Doug Crets and the BizSpark team for sharing my work with others and keeping my focused on the end goal which is quitting my day job and putting other people to work.  I look forward to letting everyone know when that happens.

Until next time.

Life lessons in Business and Football.

You can learn a great deal about business
from professional football.

This week was the Big Game.  I get together with family and spend time binging on food that is no good for me.  I watch the game and live tweet it for the fun and entertainment of my friends.  One of the things that strikes me about the event is that these teams have reached the biggest event in the sport and for a casual football fan like myself, I do not know the players on either team except for Peyton Manning.  This tells me that football excellence depends on many people working well together instead of superstars condescending to get something done.  This week on the blog some lessons I have learned about being a small business I received from a professional football.

The biggest lesson I have learned is that no one person is bigger that the team.  Peyton Manning may be the sole superstar who I know in the Big Game but he did not get to the championship solely by himself.  He needed offensive linemen to prevent big angry linemen from stomping on his neck.  He needed receivers who could catch the big passes when he needed them.  Finally, he needed defensive players who could force the opposing team off the field in three downs.  Without that he would go another season being unfavorably compared to his brother who owns two championships to his one.

Next leadership matters.  When Peyton joined the Bronco’s he took charge of how the team practices offense and even when it practices.  Since he has a track record of success, the others on the team quickly adopted his methods and the team went from mediocre to playoff caliber. This leadership on the part of Manning and the ownership of the team made a huge difference.

I think the final lesson I learned during this football season is that a bunch of no-name players working well together are better that superstars.  The Seattle Seahawks with the exception of Richard Sherman seem like a quiet and hardworking bunch of guys.  They do not care about their no-name quarterback or if they do not have stars on the field but together they are a defensive powerhouse.  As someone who grew up with the 1985 Chicago Bears and the Superbowl Shuffle, I can relate to this group of guys.

So, for me, the lesson of this weekend is that teammates matter, superstars are over rated and that leadership whether it comes from a quarterback or a coach is essential to success.  We at E₃ systems would love to help make your business more successful so contact us today and ask us how we can help.

It is going to be sad when football season ends tonight but when all the dust settles on Monday rest assured that we can all learn some lessons from football.

Until next time.

What is so great about 2014?

Looking forward to 2014 are you?

There are plenty of reasons to get excited about 2014.  A new year is a clean slate and it firers up an organization with the inspiration to come out fighting; like a punch drunk boxer.  This week on the blog I want to talk about some things we are looking forward to as an organization.

First, customer outreach; E₃ systems has been making efforts to reach out tour local community.  We were concentrating our products to a very narrow market.  This year, we will apply our products to any business that can use fleet management or inventory control software. Contact us today and ask how our systems can help your business today.

Next, we are graduating from Microsoft BizSpark. Three years ago someon I knew in the Chicagoland Application Lifecycle Management group told me about the BizSpark program. This company could not have started without the generous help and support.  I am looking forward to the time when I will be able to boast about our success to the tech media.  There is a place in the start-up world for Microsoft Technologies and we are proof.

Third, the continuing maturity of BootStrap and MVC means that the web is catching up to our vision.  When, I founded this organization I wanted to build web applications which worked on a variety of devices. Thanks to the Twitter BootStrap library, it is not possible for more people to make that a reality.  This is a good thing because it will be easier for my little start-up to find developer who understand what we are trying to accomplish.  We are also excited about the release of MVC5.  The embrace of BootStrap by Microsoft along with the security improvements and Web API means that the web is only going to get more interesting and we cannot wait to see that happen.

Next, Google has better unity between YouTube and Google+.  When Google+ first came out it was hard to get pages and YouTube channels to play nice with each other.  This made marketing and branding efforts a huge headache.  Fortunately, Google listen to its consumers and now pages and YouTube channels work together seamlessly.  Thanks Google and stay tuned as we make improvements to our YouTube channel.

Finally, the general economy is improving and with it the chance to grow our customer base.  The last three years have shown tremendous growth in web technology.  We at E₃ systems have stayed focused on those improvements to provide the best product for our customers.  With customers willing to spend on technology solutions we will see an uptick in customer and business.

So that is what we have to look forward to in 2014, we hope you will join us.

Until next time.

Death to Performance Appraisals!

Performance Appraisals are about as
 helpful as slapping your employees

It is that time of year again.  We are hustling to and fro and feeling like we are running in place.  You may think that I am talking about the holiday season, but the reality is a more grim corporate ritual.  It is the return of performance appraisal season.  I hate performance appraisal season.  I hate it like a young child hates liver or a dog owner despises animal cruelty.  I do not see any benefit to having them in a business environment and I certainly do not see them doing any good in an entrepreneurial environment.  This week on the blog, I would like you to indulge me as I explain why I hate performance appraisals.

At an early age we come in contact with the performance appraisal, it was called a report card.  These pieces of paper and notes home to our parents were necessary to let them know how we were doing in school.  If you were lucky you had parents like mine who were involved in your education and had a fairly good relationship with my teachers.  If you were like other students I knew your parents would be surprised each time you brought back your quarterly report card.  As you grew older report cards were a means to perform educational triage.  Hard working and gifted students were moved to the front of the line for college preparation and scholarships while those who didn't measure up were cast aside like trash.  Grades determined your official status in school and your possible desirability to go to college.

Flash forward four years of high school and another four years of college and when we get into the job world we expect to be free from the tyranny of report cards.  Instead, report cards are replaced by performance appraisals.  Unlike report cards, performance appraisals are not based on objective standards of excellence.  They are based on the economic needs of the company.  So you could have perfect attendance, not miss a deadline, and generate millions of dollars of sales and still receive a “meets expectations” on your appraisal.  For a classic example of this kind of insanity, just take a look at Microsoft and its old stack ranking appraisal process.  I feel very strongly that Microsoft hurt its ability to retain good employees and innovate because of this system; if everyone “meets expectations” and then the company really can’t meet the expectations of the customer.  So good employees leave and mediocre and poor ones stay.

There is another reason I hate that hate performance appraisal and that is because it resembles management by fear.  According to W. Edwards Deming, the godfather of lean manufacturing, one of the seven deadly diseases of management is the use of Evaluation pf performance, merit rating or annual reviews to control employees.  People are not dumb, and if they know the metrics you are using to evaluate them they are going to game the system to get the best rating possible at the expense of the business and customer.  For instance, if you reward a bus driver for on-time drop offs they will avoid picking up more riders during high traffic periods because that will affect their drop off times.  This creates perverse situations where people are rewarded for poor customer service.  People are afraid to do what is right for the customer instead they do what will be appraised in a positive fashion.

I am not against rating people and their performance, but the way we do it now reeks of mental illness.  Managers should be in contact with their line employees daily providing coaching and encouragement.  When a performance issue comes up it needs to be addressed right away instead of during the appraisal process.  Immediate feedback when you screw up is much more helpful then trying to recall what you did during the middle of the fiscal year.  Agile teams need to know how much velocity they can perform and if they are improving it.  Sales people and marketing professionals need to know what is going on the top line of sales and how much margin you are making on the bottom line.  All of this data is important and necessary, however you cannot squash it together into a gooey ball of muck an use it to objectively rate an employee. I would much prefer a manager telling me that the firm could only afford a two percent raise than telling me I met expectations and that is worth two percent.  The honesty would be bracing.

So what do I propose as an alternative?  I am a big fan of development plans.  Every 90 days a manager should tell a person what they can do if they need to improve and what they need to do if they would like to advance to a higher position.  In six month intervals, this information should be written down and then saved for HR purposes.  This way over the life time of the employee there should be a record of the growth and development of the employee without the capricious rating system that most companies use.  This forces managers to manage their employees instead of kissing up to their superiors.

At the end of the day, a business must satisfy the needs of their customers.  I strongly believe that the performance appraisal process as it exists in contemporary companies satisfies neither the needs of the employees or those of customers.  Something must change and I hope that as my business grows I will be one of the people leading this change.

Until next time.

Being a Jerk Does Not Make You a Better Programmer

Can you believe this A@@ Hole.
Image courtesy of Slate.com

It has been quite a week in the technology world.  The big news this week was the firing of Business Insider’s chief technical officer Pax Dickinson for a series of insensitive and sexist tweets.  As someone who has been fired, I really do not like to gloat at the misfortune of others.  I am going to make an exception for Mr. Dickinson.  This week on the blog I explain why people like Mr. Dickinson are a poison to the profession of software development and technology start-ups.

When I first joined this profession, it was male dominated.  Guys wrote code.  It was just the nature of the profession.  Diversity was usually based on experience and ethnic background as programmers from India, Asia, and the United States blended together to form development teams.  I remember quite vividly when the attacks on the world trade center took place that the developers at my firm closed ranks around the lone Muslim member of our development team because we did not want our co-workers hassling him.  People who code together tend to stick together.

As the years wore by it became obvious to me that we needed more women in the profession.  Homosexual slurs were used to describe code that wasn't acceptable.  Developers who couldn't take a joke were called “p#%&ys” and women who worked with us affectionately referred to the development work area as the “pig pen” for all the misogynistic behavior exhibited by the developers.  It was 2009 and I had finally realized that programming had far too much alpha male ignorance associated with it.

Around this time, I discovered the Chicago area application life-cycle management group.  It was led by a woman smart as a whip and tough enough not to take any grief in the profession.  It was also here that I met many women who were managing projects and in the trenches writing code.  To me it was a revelation, women not only could write software but they could teach and provide proper instruction to their fellow developers.  It was a breath of fresh air and it was at that point I realized that if I ever started my own company I wanted to encourage the participation of women in the world of technology.

Pax Dickinson fits into this discussion because he comes from the “brogrammer” school of development.  These individuals are nurtured in the world of game development and the start-up community.  They are defined by their arrogance, intelligence and total lack of an internal filter.  They are not afraid to call an algebra teacher stupid if they know the answer before teacher shows the work on the black board.  They take pride being the smartest person in the room and will make sure everyone knows they are the smartest person in the room.  As it was explained to me once, “a good programmer is smart and he is arrogant enough to make sure everyone knows it.”

Really Mr. Dickinson fits the definition of an asshole as outlined by Robert I. Sutton PhD in his book “The No Asshole Rule” which are people,  “…who consistently aim their venom at less powerful people and rarely, if ever, at more powerful people.”  Dickinson has made a career of making people who are not him feel like dirt.  Women who he thinks can’t code are beneath him.  Developers who don’t understand his mode of operation are worthless.  Heaven forbid you question his business practices or products because that will make you a target as well.

As Mr. Dickinson gained wealth and fame in the world of technology, it merely made a bad problem worse.  Business Insider should have known better than to hire this guy but when they did they gave him the ultimate license to be an asshole to his fellow man.  It is not surprise that he got himself in trouble and soiled the reputation of the organization which fired him.

I suppose that this is an object lesion then in the world of technology.  Sooner or later an asshole is going to get what is coming to him.  They can hide but sooner or later they are exposed as the cretins they are and they are cast aside because people do not want to do business with them.  I have always striven not to be an asshole in the technology world.  It is why I founded my company and why I am looking forward to hiring developers who are going to make a difference in my organization.  I don’t care about gender, ethnic origin or religion.  I just want to make sure they know C# and can code responsive layouts.

So while Mr. Dickinson is packing his desk and protesting his punishment, I am going to get on with the business of running my start-up and helping small and medium businesses work in the cloud.

Until next time.

Is your business ready for the next SharkNado.

Are you ready for the Next SharkNado Attack

It you missed it last week of the biggest events on Twitter in a long time was the premier of the B-grade monster movie SharkNado on the SyFi channel.  As the title implies, it was a monster movie featuring man eating sharks which sucked up by a tornado and then dropped on the unsuspecting population of Los Angles.  News anchors from cable television, celebrities of all stripes, and political figures chimed it to remark how awful the film was.  It generated so much buzz that the network decided to rebroadcast the film early because the overwhelming demand.  There is a lesson here for any business person.  The web and social media can be a powerful thing creating demand for your business.  In this blog post, want to encourage you to be ready when the next SharkNado hits.

The universe of social media is composed of many services; Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit being the largest and most influential services on the web.  Facebook acts as a global community for everyone from your parents to people who are interested in dressing up as cats to go for contact.  According to Yahoo news, about 1.1 Billion people call Facebook the place they go to share information with friends and family.  Twitter is known as a micro-blogging service and users can only type 140 characters at a time.  What makes Twitter so popular is the speed of how information is shared and it is also relatively unfiltered so it is the tool of Occupy Wall Street and rebels in Turkey.  Rumors and misinformation swirl about but within this river of information are plenty of nuggets of information gold.  Watching Samuel L. Jackson root for team USA during the Olympics was extremely funny and I highly recommend Jack Tapper’s feed from CNN.  Finally, Reedit acts as a clearing house of blogs and photographs on the web. They also have an “Ask Me Anything” or A.M.A feature which has become the place for politicians and other thought leaders to try out new ideas.  For the sake of disclosure, I use Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn as my social networks to promote this business.

So what does this mean to you a small or medium sized business? It means you also need a presence on social media web sites; at the very least Twitter and Facebook.  You can promote specials and talk about your business in an unfiltered manner.  If people like your content they will share your tweets and Facebook messages extending your reach.  It is also cheaper than advertising on radio, television, or newspaper.  This makes it a low cost means to promote your business.

We at E₃ systems understand this strange world and would like to help you.  We leverage Facebook and Twitter and can show you how to do the same.  Please contact us and we will show you how.  So the next time a SharkNado hits you will be able to use it to boost your business.

Until next time.

If it ain't broke, then what?

It is not old school to be using junk to
manage your business.

One of my colleagues as a joke posted this article on his Google+ feed.  It seems that a manufacturing plant has been using the same IBM 402 system to manage its payroll since 1948.  Let me put it this way, they have been using the same computer for 65 years to manage accounting.

At first I was dismissive of this article saying they should get a more modern system.  Then it dawned on me this is what my company is up against when I am attempting to sell my company to other businesses.  Sparkler Filters of Conroe, Texas would rather manage its accounting with punch cards and form feed paper than upgrade to a more modern system like J.D. Edwards or SAP.

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View California sent a group to ask Sparkler Filter to donate the old system for the museum.  The company politely said no claiming that everyone at the firm understood punch cards and the last sixty year of reports were formatted for the IBM 402 system. To this company, the system was not broke so they decided never to replace it with something more modern and efficient.  A PC with the standard version of Quickbooks could run circles around a device like this but because they are comfortable with punch cards they are going to keep it.

I run into this situation all the time when I am attempting to deal with companies which have thirty year old AS/400 systems.  It happened that fear and inertia are making it hard for people to upgrade their corporate systems.  This is going to get scarier as many of the people in the Transportation and Logistics industry retire and are replaced by this generation’s current supply of employee.  These are individual’s accustomed to smart phones, cloud based computing and social media so when confronted with green screens and systems they cannot access via their phone are going to enter other lines of work.

This, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” mind set is holding back economic growth and technical innovation.

A trucking company today would not dare use vintage 1970’s trucks to transport products today just because today’s trucks have better gas mileage and provide direct savings to the company.  The same holds true for software and services.  Today, thanks to cloud computing a company can have the computing power of a Fortune 500 company at a fraction of the cost.  With contemporary systems you can reduce administrative costs and enhance customer service without having to hire more people.  This gives you the gift of time because you are spending it in the office tracking down paper work; instead, you are selling customers and spending time with you family.

This is why I founded E₃ systems.  We want to give you the means to make more money and save time by having technical systems which will make you swifter than your competition.

Until next time.

You need a digital handshake

A digital handshake can help your business.

Lots of news happened this week.  We have a new pope and he looks like someone who shows a great deal of promise.  The wheels of government continue to grind along in spite of a charm offensive.  We also had some baseball games which counted in March and team USA once again disappointed.  What you may have missed is the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S4 phone.  This is just another sign that the business world is changing and if you do not catch this wave you are going to drown.

As Will Oremus reported the Galaxy S4 unveil was a silly and weird affair but it does remind me of the hype surround automobiles in the 1970's and the excitement generated by the promotions for new Saturday morning cartoons on network television.  As a technologist I am being asked to write applications which work on as many different environments as possible.  It is no longer good enough to have a web site.  Now you must have a web site, tablet application, and something that looks good on your mobile phone. 

I have been saying this for a while but I am going to say it again.  The dual technologies of cloud computing and mobile computing are going to change business and if you are not ready for it you are going to get left behind.  This is why you need help from a company like E₃ systems.  We are surfing this wave of technology.  We understand how to use the cloud and mobile computing to make life easier for small businesses.  We can help you with your web development, QR code creation, and numerous other services which will make it easier to do business with others. 

Consumers already can scan bar codes in stores to compare prices with their mobile phones.  Best Buy has been having problems with people using their stores to browse products and then purchase them at lower price on-line.  If this problem affects a big player like Best Buy, known as Showrooming, what do you think this is going to do to your business?   This is why I think you should look into how E₃ can help you.  We have a full line of software products which will help you manage inventory, track sales leads, and now we are offering an inexpensive "Digital Handshake" which makes it possible for you to have Microsoft Tag or QR codes which you can promote your business.  Now you save money on business cards by having people scan your "Digital Handshake" and it will automatically place you as a contact on your customer's phone. 

We have made an effort to make this process simple and easy.  We will even offer a discount to members of the Joliet Chamber of Commerice who are interested in trying this new innovation.  In this new economy of mobile phones and cloud computing you need every advantage you can get. 

Contact us today to learn more. 

Until Next time.

Software is Never Free

Just like the Merchant of Venice
we all need our pound of flesh.

Being a software entrepreneur is a difficult business to be involved with.  I spend much of my time writing software and then the remainder selling it to others.  It is difficult and I could not think of anything else I would rather be doing.  Still I do have one big challenge and it is the same challenge all types of creative people are facing.  It appears that in this internet world of abundance they do not have to pay for books, music, or software.  This week I would like to explain why software is not free.  Someone has to pay. 

I believe that this notion that software should be free was spawned from the Linux movement during the Dot.Com boom days.  Countless pixels have been spent expressing the view that software should be free and that copy writes for things like books, movies, and software were quaint notions from the pre-internet days.  I think it was professionally and culturally poisonous for the software industry.  Please let me explain.  

Software, music and books are the one of the few things we have not figured out how to automate.  The creative process necessary to build them are labor intensive and imprecise.  These processes are also prone to spectacular failure.  This is why when you check the CHAOS report it is clear why many of the software projects are challenged or failing.  It is hard to match the expectations of the people paying for the software to the abilities of the people writing that software. 

Along came the Linux movement with the religious fanaticism of the Opus Dei.  Linux was a version of the Unix software program which was developed by AT&T during its monopoly period of the 1950's and 1960's.  What made it unique is that it was freely distributed over the internet via download.   This meant that instead of paying a license for an operating system for a computer it was free.  Companies sprang up to support this ecosystem of Unix and provide a means to cash in on all the companies who didn't want to pay for software but didn't know how to use it.  So the tradeoff for a company was no cost for software but huge fees for labor to maintain and customize the software.   This spawned a system of software which is used today in the corporate world; Oracle Databases, Java Development, and PHP for web development.

I suspect that the Linux movement had to happen because companies like IBM and Microsoft made a very good living off charging people to use their product.  To software developers who tend to be an iconoclastic lot having free and open software was a nirvana of sorts.  Upgrades were based on the needs of the community and weren't subject to a corporate project manager.  Finally, the open source Linux movement emphasized the technical ability of the developer to make changes to core systems and improve the product.  Thus, free software seemed to be the best of all worlds; developers judged on merit, free products which respond to real needs, and something that was technologically elegant. 

Of course, something was missing.  Since these free products we constructed by engineers for engineers, for non-technical people they were impossible to use.  MS-DOS from Microsoft abandoned command line prompts for the windows interface for a reason.   They wanted more people to use their systems.  The Linux movement still used the command line.  In addition, major manufacturers did not create Linux personal computers so they had to be created by hobbyists and Linux fans who have been affectionately labeled a "priesthood" because of the difficult process of developing technical competence and the religious devotion they have to the Linux world view.  Finally, no one had time to write Linux software.  This is because many of the people who worked with Linux were busy updating the system and working in the corporate sector keeping systems working; in other words, with no killer application that would force people to use Linux people in the consumer realm did not use it. 

Flash forward to today, now an entire generation has grown up with free software.  Piracy is rampant in music and on-line books and when I hand a contract to a client they look at me like I am crazy.  "You expect me to pay that much," they say and I grit my teeth and say yes.  Just like my customers, I have bills to pay and mouths to feed.  They charge for their services so why should they be shocked and surprised when I charge for mine.  I think this has been my biggest frustration as an entrepreneur.   I am charging for my services and many people think I should be giving it away for free. 

I think I have a pretty good service to offer.  I have an inventory management system which works over the cloud and can be accessed via a browser, tablet, or mobile phone.  I am in the process of completing a contact management system for the insurance industry which will make it easier for people to trace sales and leads on-line.  It also works with the cloud via a browser, tablet, or mobile phone.  I am even leveraging QR codes for advertising and contact management for small businesses. 

It is an exciting way to make a living but it requires people to realize that software is not free.   It requires blood, sweat and tears to create.  I have invested most of my life into software.  You should invest a little money into to product I sell you.

Until next time.

Entrepreneur Exhaustion

I am spent and it is starting to show.

One of the biggest challenges of being an entrepreneur is finding time.  You are under time pressure for new releases.  You are under time pressure for you day job.  If you work in the world of technology you are under time pressure to be the next big thing.  I am running into the challenge and it is starting to drain me.

This is going to be a short blog this week because I am dealing with exhaustion.  I took a three day weekend attempt to enjoy myself and it is clear that my body and spirit are broken in some fashion.   I have had trouble focusing on my day job and I have not been able to code with any dedication in over a month.   It is frustrating but I know recognize that the main culprit is exhaustion.  I spent the month of January rushing a prototype out to production to have it rejected by the client when I asked them to start paying me for the work. 

I have another project in the works along with the usual bug fixes and other pieces work necessary for the business.  There just isn't time to stop and take a breather.  This is affecting the quality of the work and how much I can get done.  Thus, beginning March 9th, I am going to slow down a bit.  I will start concentrating on product already constructed and move on from there. 

If I don't take this rest I am going to be an emotional and physical wreck who is not going to be able to help anyone; including myself.

Until next time.

Creative Destruction and Cocktails

If you don't embrace change you
will wind up like this young woman.

One of my favorite sites this time of year is the site of people on street corners dressed up as the statue of liberty, a gorilla, or some other memorable mascot attempting to try entice people to use a tax preparation service.  It is one of those subtitle rights of spring, like Groundhog Day or pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training.  I always make a point of honking my horn to recognize these people.  They are cold and I am certain that the pay is lousy but during times of economic hardship it takes a great deal of pluck and desperation to dress up and shill for a tax service.

I find these dancing mascots a welcoming relief from the constant barrage of advertisements I receive from my television and the on-line world.  They seem more personable and organic than the cool narrow casting of advertisement directly marketed to people such as myself.  This leads me to this week's blog.  Thanks to technological change these mascots are endangered and organizations that don't catch this wave of change are going to be equally extinct.  My organization is an agent of creative destruction and I want to let you know why. 

Much of my time is spent speaking with business people talking about what I do.  I tell them I write software which helps automate organizations inventory and logistics operations.  I am also working on some contact management software which will help some insurance companies stay on top of their sales force.  I am either greeted with indifference or amused curiosity.  "Why would we need that?" they ask with a tone of condescension.  I smile wryly and say that their competitors are using it and that it is going to make them more profitable.   This usually leads to a changing of the subject and someone going for an new round of drinks.  I have grown accustomed to this but it does not change the reality of the situation.  Mobile computing, cloud based computing and robotics is changing how business is being done.  Firms like mine make that possible. 

If you do not believe this statement take a look at this article from the associated press from this week.  It clearly sums up how automation, computers, and robotics are eliminating entire sections of the economy.  Here is the main take away from the article.

So machines are getting smarter and people are more comfortable using them. Those factors, combined with the financial pressures of the Great Recession, have led companies and government agencies to cut jobs the past five years, yet continue to operate just as well.

The advance of cloud computing and better automation systems are making this possible.  There are some social implications to this.  How do we deal with the surplus in labor created by automation?  Are these systems really smart or do they just follow directions better than humans? Finally, where does all the money saved go thanks to these systems?  Unfortunately, I do not have the answers to these questions.  I am going to leave that to people who are much smarter than I.   

What I can say is that my firm provides the means for businesses to get on board with these trends.  My company leverages cloud computing and the mobile web to make it possible for you to automate your systems.  We make it possible to reduce overhead and inefficiencies.  This may make some people uncomfortable but so did steam power, television dinners, and Desperate Housewives.   I am still attempting to get over my discomfort with Desperate Housewives.

So the world is getting flatter, faster, warmer, and more efficient.  We will either surf this wave of progress or drown.  I prefer surfing because I don't want to be someone standing on a corner in costume dancing to drum up business for a tax preparation service. 

Until next time. 

Predictions for 2013

We are looking forward to the new year are you?

In spite of being a technical professional and owning and operating my own software company, I still can't do my own car repairs.  This gives me an opportunity to spend some time at the local car repair shop talking with other people who can't fix their cars.  The conversations inevitably turn to our careers and when others find out that I run a technology company they ask what they can expect from the world of tech.  I tell them that my opinions are not gospel but that I have a pretty good idea about what is coming up in the immediate future.  This week in the spirit of looking forward to the New Year, I want to make some predictions.  Hopefully, I will not look too foolish when some of my predictions don't come true.

In 2012 there were two major trends which could not be ignored; first, the rise of mobile computing and finally the ascent of the cloud as a computing platform.  When I first discussed the subject in earnest back in December 2011, I was looking at a trend that was just starting to grow.  Now you cannot go anywhere without hearing the term cloud.  People have even started developing myths about cloud based computing.  For 2013, I continue to see this trend grow and it is a perfect opportunity for a firm like mine to help small and medium sized businesses learn to compete with the big boys. 

Next the line between mobile computing and desktop computing is blurring.  This has driven all sorts of changes in 2012.  More and more of us get our information over phones and table devices so web developers, technologists, and even CIO's and learning if they are going to survive they will have to adapt to this mobile world.  Again, this major trend in the industry finds this firm perfectly positioned to deal with the situation.  Our applications have to work on computers, smart phones, and tablets otherwise we are doing a disservice to our customer.  I also feel that young people are even more comfortable with mobile technology than current business leaders so if we are going to tap this customer market we are going to have to build software they are going to use.  Microsoft with Windows 8 is a huge gamble on this front and while the news wasn't good early going I think they are perfectly positioned for a renaissance in the coming year.

Here are some other predictions that I think might take place in the New Year. 

• Cash is not going away:  We have all seen the articles about how debit cards, NCF, and Google Wallet are going to make cash obsolete.  Don't count on it.  We are going to need cash for night clubbing, casinos, children's lemonade stands, and groceries.  Cash will become less important but it will not become obsolete. 
• Agile will continue to grow in the startup community and face obstacles in established businesses:  I am running into this problem now in my day job.  It is clear that business leaders for large firms are frightened by the cultural changes and organizational changes necessary to make Agile work so it will take startups and big dogs like Facebook, Google and IBM to show them how it is done.  Until a company fully embraces Agile and starts squashing the competition there will be a deep reluctance on the part of other large firms.  Then it will be up to us to deal with the copy cats.
• QR Codes and MS Tag will find a home- in logistics and manufacturing:  QR codes and Microsoft tag came from manufacturing and they will return to their roots because marketing firms have been horrible at using these technologies.  I am pretty proud that we are leading this trend.
• E3 systems will be expanding our focus:  We will continue to support and market our Sully 2.0 software but we are branching out with other software offerings.  We are also going to start providing Business Solutions Architecture for small and medium sized businesses.   I am going to talk more about Business Solutions Architecture in our next blog. 
• Finally, E3 systems will continue to be a partner in the Agile Community on Google+ and a member of the Microsoft Application Lifecycle Management community:  We learn so much from these groups and in exchange it is nice to share my wisdom with them so we will have a continuing partnership with them.  

This last year has not turned out like we expected.  However, I am deeply grateful for the experiences and support we have received from the community.  I hope that 2013 is a breakthrough year for us and that you will be along to share it with us. 

Until next time.

Why We Believe in Agile

Agile, is swift, strong and a little sexy.

I spend my days toiling in an anonymous cubical at a large company during the day while by night and on weekends I toil for my own start up.  It is thankless work.  I do it because I believe that there is a better way to run a business and serve customers.  I do it because I believe in agile and its principles for the modern business.  This week I want to talk about agile and why I believe in it so strongly.

When Frederick P. Brooks wrote, The Mythical Man-Month back in 1975, he was talking about what it took to write the OS/360 computer system.  When I picked up a copy of the second addition in 2009 many of the problems that Brookes wrote about were oddly familiar.  Projects run out of control.  Communications becomes a huge challenge and project managers who treat people like machines stumble across the Brooke's Law which states, "Adding man power to late project makes it later."

Except for being able to smoke in the office and the use of punch cards, many of the sad realities Brooks observed in software development then are still happening today.  Projects are flying wildly out of control.  Customers are not satisfied with what is being delivered and millions of dollars are being squandered needlessly.  This is why I was so attracted to the Agile Manifesto and Scrum.  With Agile a developer was judged on working software instead of how much documentation they wrote.  Being able to adapt to change was more important than following plans.  Finally, the people building the software had some say in what they were doing in and how they were doing it instead of having it dictated from above.  It was liberating and when I got the hang of it I was an eager convert. 

Still, I have discovered that Agile even though it has been around for over 10 years is still considered a fad in some business circles.  I discovered why when I read Len Lagestee's inspired blog: 5 Must Ask Questions for Leaders.  Organizations, especially large organizations, may not have the correct workforce and be unwilling to trust their employees completely with the changes which are necessary.  Finally, business leaders who model themselves after Donald Rumsfeld won't understand the quantum shift necessary to switch from command and control to servant leadership.  I live that reality each day in my day job.

I know there is something better out here.  I know that a company can be nimble responsive to client needs and treat its community with respect and dignity.  I know that Microsoft tools can build fantastic business applications for the cloud.  I also know there is money to be made in the unglamorous world of infrastructure and logistics.  This is what drives me.  Business for too long has been more concerned with its own power and influence instead of what really matters which are the customers and the community they serve.  This is why I am a believer in Agile because I feel like it can not only build a better piece of software but it can also create a better business. 

Find out what I am talking about by contacting us. 

It is time that business starts acting like it is in the 21st century instead of the 19th.  I hope my little startup is part of a trend which will make that a reality. 

Until next time.