Listen To Your People

The people who work for you must be trusted. If they're not trustworthy (or if you don't trust them), your project will fail. If they don't trust you, your project will also fail. Your people can tell as quickly that you don't trust them as you can when your boss doesn't trust you.

The first rule of trust is listening. There are many opportunities to listen to your people: when they visit your office to tell you about a problem they are having, when you need an estimate from them for a software development, when you are managing by walking around (MBWA), among others. Whenever your people are talking to you, listen and hear. They consider what they are saying to be important or they wouldn't be telling you. There are many ways to let them know you are listening: eye contact, appropriate body language, "playing back" what you think you heard them say, asking appropriate questions to solicit more information, and so on.


Reference:
Francis, P., Principles of R&D Management, New York: AMACOM, 1997.

2020 Reading List

I was continuously updating and referencing this list to guide my reading. Therefore, I decided it was more useful to make it a page instead of a post with a link on my blog's landing page.

https://jerryyoakum.blogspot.com/p/2020-reading-list.html

Grain Brain

Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers by David Perlmutter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A lot of reviewers complain that this title is very repetitive. It is but for the audiobook that is alright. It is very easy for much of what the author wrote to slip right by especially if I'm doing other stuff while listening. I'm not convinced that this diet is for everyone, but I am convinced that for the people who need this diet that it is life changing. I'll change my food choices some based on this book and definitely watch for future news on this topic.

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Mycroft and Sherlock

Mycroft and Sherlock by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Great job of portraying a young Sherlock and explaining why Mycroft didn't go on to more adventures like he had in the first Mycroft book.

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Alchemy

Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense by Rory Sutherland
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With exception of the obvious bias the author has in favor of vaping, this was a very enjoyable book. It is a pleasure to look at problems from different perspectives and this book is largely about reframing questions to find different solutions.

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A Few Good People Are Better Than Many Less Skilled People

This follows immediately from the idea that People Are The Key To Success, which says that you should always hire the best engineers. This principle says that you are better off allocating just a few good, experienced engineers on a critical task than to put many inexperienced engineers on it. This is Don Reifer's "Management Principle #6." On the other hand, Manny Lehman warns that you can't rely too much on "a few good people"; what if they quit? The best advice is to have the right mix of people on a project and take care not to gravitate towards either extreme. Those people with the most experience are probably closest to retirement. Keep them working with people with less experience so their knowledge isn't lost in the future.


Reference:
Reifer, D., "The Nature of Software Management: A Primer," Tutorial: Software Management, Washington, DC: IEEE Computer Society Press, 1986.

People Are The Key To Success

Highly skilled people with appropriate experience, talent, and training are key to producing software that satisfies user needs on time and within the budget. The right people with insufficient tools, languages, and process will succeed. The wrong people (those with insufficient training, experience, or work ethic) with appropriate tools, languages, and process will probably fail. According to the Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO), the best people are 4 times more productive than others. If the best people cost 4 times the salary, you break even and probably end up with a better product (Great Designs Come From Great Designers). If they cost less, you reduce costs and have a better product. That's a win-win.

When interviewing prospective employees, remember that there is no substitute for quality. Companies often say, after interviewing two people, "Person x is better than person y, but person y is good enough and less expensive." You can't have an organization of all superstars, but, unless you have an overabundance of them now, hire them!


References:
Boehm, B., Software Engineering Economics, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1984.
Weinberg, G., The Psychology of Computer Programming, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971.

Understand The Customers' Priorities

It is quite possible that the customers would rather have 90 percent of the system's functionality late if they could just have 10 percent of it on time. The corollary of the principle of communicate with customers/users is quite a bit more shocking, but it could very well be the case. Find out!

If you are communicating with your customers, you should be sure you know their priorities. These can easily be recorded in the requirements specification, but the real challenge is to understand the possibly ever shifting priorities. In addition, you must understand the customers' interpretation of "essential," "desirable," and "optional" and prioritize the requirements accordingly. Will they really be happy with a system that satisfies none of the desirable and optional requirements?


Reference:
Gilb, T., "Deadline Pressure: How to Cope with Short Deadlines, Low Budgets, and Insufficient Staffing Levels," Information Processing, Amsterdam: Elsevier Publishers, 1986.

Don't Believe Everything You Read

As a general rule, people who believe in a particular philosophy search for data that supports that philosophy and discard data that does not. Someone who wants to convince others of a position obviously uses supportive, not unsupportive, data. When you read, "Use method X. You too can achieve up to 93 percent increases in productivity (or quality)," the method may really have achieved such results. But it was probably the exceptional case. In all likelihood, most projects experience far less dramatic results. And some projects may even experience decreased productivity using method X.


Reference:
Fenton, N., "How Effective Are Software Engineering Methods?" Journal of Systems and Software, August 1993.

Good Management Is More Important Than Good Technology

Good management motivates people to do their best. Poor management demotivates people. All the great technology in the world will not compensate for poor management. And good management can actually produce great results even with meager resources. Successful software startups do not become successful because they have great process or great tools (or great products for that matter!). Most have been successful because of great management and great marketing.

As a manager, you have a responsibility to do your best. There are no universally "right" styles of management. Management style must be adapted to the situation. It is not uncommon for a successful leader to be an autocrat in one situation and a consensus-based leader in another, just a few minutes later. Some styles are innate. Others can be learned. If necessary, read books and take short courses on management style.


Reference:
Fenton, N., "How Effective Are Software Engineering Methods?" Journal of Systems and Software, August 1993.