May 26
ErinWork agile, musings, Work
I came across this simple definition of done in my inbox:
A good working definition of “Done”: Someone’s need was met.
– Mike Burrows (@asplake) , January 29, 2016
Someone in this context should be taken as everyone that has a stake on the feature/user story:
- The Product Owner’s Acceptance criteria are met.
- The Business need will be fulfilled by the developed feature.
- The Quality Champion’s criteria for well tested feature are met.
- The (future) Maintenance team would be able to handle any required fixes or maintenance on this code without any difficulties.
- The Build Integrator will not find any issues with the generated package.
- (insert your other stakeholder group here together with their concern)
The definition of done (DoD) need not be a list. What is needed is for the team members to understand that Done means the feature is useful for everyone who is interested in it, may it be directly or indirectly. If that is not possible then the team needs to make sure they arrive to that point as part of the Inspect & Adapt mandate of agile methodologies.
May 02
ErinGarbage, Work communication, Garbage, Leadership, life, people management, Work
Holding a ball in one hand in front of you illustrates the common fact that two or more sides of the truth can exist without negating other truths. This boils down to perception; and managing the perception of the other viewers.
My co-lead in the project was getting some reputation flak for his leadership style. When we talked about it he raised a good question: “I used the same tone and method you used a few days ago when you addressed the team. What makes my delivery different (and unacceptable)?”
It was good question because I agree that our leadership styles have a lot of similarities. How come one can get away with using that style while other people have a negative reaction? Is it the context/personality of the person using the style and the preconceived notion of the audience about the person that makes a difference? This makes me think of the social experiment wherein random people were made to taste cakes. In one experiment there was a tag price in front of the cake where the slice came from and one is expensive while the other is affordable. In one variation there are no price tags but one of the cakes were placed in a plain platter while one was in an ornately gilded tray. A lot of the people said they preferred the more expensive cake (or the one in the more expensive looking tray) better stating that it is finer and has a more chocolaty taste. The catch is that all cakes used in the social experiment were IDENTICAL.
Presentation and context may be the critical factor in play here.
Oct 30
ErinGarbage, Work Leadership, opinions, policies, Work
At any given point we are either a follower or a leader. In some rare scenario we fulfill both roles.
I am getting a reputation at work for a troublemaker when in fact I am only clarifying glaring holes in policies that are too specific or useless. These are the same policies that, to paraphrase one of my recent statuses, people wield like a paper shield that wont even muster against the slightest reason. Pitiful that the instigators of these policies are the same people that I should be relying on to look after my welfare as a follower.
In these cases I take up the mantle of being Captain Obvious. It may come across as troublesome but being a leader means you need to take the road that is not going to be comfortable. If nobody complains then it is the same as being complicit to something that you do not believe in.
Follow or lead? Do you take a chance in participating in a battle that can be the turning point of the war; or sit quietly in the corner reminiscing the “what if” of an opportunity that has long gone by? Choose your own poison.
ciao!
Nov 17
ErinGarbage, Work Garbage, interview, recruitment, Work
It is common to see in the IT industry people trumpet how many years of experience they have for certain technology or skills. The practice is one of the cheapest form of self-advertisement. The problem is that experience doesn’t always equate to expertise.
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Jun 07
ErinRubbish Leadership, musings, Work
For somebody who grew up with major inferiority complex I do talk a lot whenever we have somebody new in the team. I usually have a few pointers and expectations but I am consistent in conveying what my goals as a leader is. This has always been my challenge to my new members:
MAKE ME OBSOLETE. ONCE THAT IS DONE THEN I HAVE DONE MY WORK PROPERLY.
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Jul 18
ErinLiterature, Work haiku, Work
Rustling in my bed
Issues floating in my mind
Nightmares while awake.
Sep 14
ErinWork humor, Work
Copyright still retained by Scott Adams and original image can be found here
One more inevitable thing that cannot be helped. My joining the brood doesnt help elevate my previous position. 😐
Aug 15
ErinTop of my head Garbage, Work
I hail from a middle-class family but I was able to play in the houses and offices of our more well-off relatives. During those times I always associated the “table” as a symbol of power and success. My mother is a public school teacher and I attributed her position with her photo clippings and plastic covered wooden table. I dreamed that someday I would have a table of my own that would bear the title of supervisor, manager, or simply put a boss.
In the childish view of somebody who have observed how hard it is to do manual labor, the “table” espouses a position of power; a capacity to make other people follow my whim. I would sometimes pantomime signing papers and giving people tongue lashings. It seemed like an easy life wherein my job entails sitting on a chair and transforming pieces of paper to near priceless artifacts with the simple flick of the pen in my hand.
Fast forward 25 years or so later and I can only shake my head on the foolishness of that dream. I could say that I am a supervisor but my work has not gone lighter than when I started. I am writing this piece after taking a break on my 15th hour since I started working. Those who are higher than me work more hours than I do as they seemingly take on a lot of tasks and projects. If I could talk to my past self I would have said: your dream is good my so innocent friend, but you do not understand the gravity of the responsibility that comes with that luxurious job. Tasks do not come easier as you progress your career. On second thought, jobs worth keeping become more complex and more frustrating.
Salut to all who thinks moving up the ranks mean less work. Cherish your innocence while it lasts.
Btw, I heard CEO jobs are actually easier… 😉
May 08
ErinHumor humor, Work
The image below was posted in a yammer group and I felt inspired to write a parody. All resemblance to real life are imaginary. It is not meant to reflect my place of work. Now with the legalese out of the way…
There is work and there is your life-at-work.
The kind of work that has your and your team's fingerprints all over it as documented in the metrics you worked all night and submitted 1 day late.
The kind of work that you'd never compromise on, except with that tiny incident one that we don't really like to talk about as the metrics doesn't agree with it.
That we don't expect you to sacrifice your weekend but expect you to do it anyway because we over committed and under-estimated.
You can do that kind of work here. People here think safety first, where CYA is the norm and security, as we defined it, is the top most priority.
People come here to swim in the deep end but you need a swimmer and diving certification before you can do that. And you need to sign a waiver. Afterwards we still don't let you do it because it is risky and it wasn't an activity approved by HR.
They want their work to add up to something. We don't know yet but the laws of physics say that energy is not lost so it must go somewhere. I think it becomes a paycheck or something.
Something big, at least as was stated in the executive memos. Something that couldn't happen anywhere else except for Dilbert cartoons.
Welcome to the place where dreams meet the pavement of reality. In the wipe out kind of way.
May 07
ErinFLOSS, Work floss, scripting, Work
It was the first time to generate and send the report. It deals with downloading a lot of access logs, combining them based on certain scenarios, filtering out the cruft, slicing and dicing per service accessed and then tallying the responses to see if they meet the SLA.
The first manual extraction took around 4 hours to create the report for the most critical service. After that, I sat down and created the bash+awk script to do the slicing, dicing and tallying part. It took me 3 hours to create and test the script but after that I can generate the reports for 6 services in 30 minutes, where the bulk of the time was spent in downloading the latest logs (~10minutes) and pasting the data in Excel to create the “bayoootiful” graphs.
I figured if I can automate the rest then the reports can be generated under 15minutes, and I can hook it up on a continuous service so it will send it automatically every night. After that I can work on getting rid of the need to go through Excel if I can find some API to generate it and publish them as PDFs. JFree perhaps but my Java skills are already rusty. I also need something native if possible as I cannot install stuff on the office machines. The zLinux servers are pretty much off limits though I think there is a python interpreter installed.
One thing I can say is that automation and f/loss rocks. The script is too specific and covered by IPR so I cannot post it here but it is something that most scripters should be able to do.
ciao!
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