Musings from an Ugly Bag of Mostly Water

One of the most difficult challenges in product development is to get the customer or stakeholder to focus on what is desired instead of how to do it.  I had a real-world, outside-the-office, example of this a couple days ago.

Tourist: Do you know where there's a Dick's Sporting Goods around here?  We're from Rhode Island, and we don't know our way around this town.

Me: I think there's one over at the Forum (shopping center a few miles away).  I'm not sure if it's a Dick's, though.  In fact, I'm not sure if there are any around here.

Tourist: Oh, we were just over there.  I don't think there's one there.

Me: There is a Sports Authority nearby, will that do?  [light bulb turns on in head]  Wait... what is it you're looking for?

Tourist: My buddy here wants to get a New England Patriots ball cap.

Me: Oh... [I get from them where they're headed, and there's a sports collectible store on the way]  What you want to do is this.  About 2-3 miles ater you go over this bridge [points in direction of bridge] on your way home, you'll come across a shopping plaza called Merchant's Crossing.  There's a store called JP Sports and Collectibles.  You'll find more Patriots stuff there than you'll find in all Rhode Island

This conversation could have been greatly simplified and shortened.  The customer, in this case the tourist, had a well-defined problem -- he wished to purchase a New England Patriots ball cap, and because he didn't know the area he had no idea where to go.  So he turned to me, presumably an expert in his problem domain.  However, since he had a solution in mind -- buying the ball cap at Dick's -- he obstructed the solution process by entering the unnecessary criteria of where he sought to make the purchase.  Had he simply asked where he could purchase a Patriots ball cap, I would have immediately told him about JP Sports.

Running off at the keyboard...

The Dow closed at 8175 today, over 200 points down.  Looks like the market is right-pricing itself in anticipation of an Obama economy.

Florida and Georgia meet this week in Jacksonville.  I don't care what kind of image the schools wish to maintain, this will always be the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party to me.

Florida wins.  Easily, by 2+ touchdowns.

If you work on web applications, and you're not using Firebug, shame on you for six weeks.

I'm excited to see Kevin Smith's new opus, Zack and Miri Make a Porno.  Seth Rogen was born to star in a Kevin Smith flick.

Dear DC Comics: we don't need any more Green Lantern secret origin stories.  The latest one was a seven (that's right, seven) part story arc.  For over half a year, I've had to endure yet another retelling of the GL's origin.  This book was kicking some serious ass beforehand.  Why throw away all that momentum?

The Steelers regressed a bit in their 21-14 loss to the New York Giants.  In their previous two games, they got a lot of productivity out of their offense and protected Big Ben very well.  Granted, one of those opponents was the hapless Bengals, but still... they got it done with a few no-huddle series, quick passes and screens, and most importantly the near-abolition of that bunch formation they run.  The Giants have been using some pretty intricate blitz packages to pressure the quarterback, in response to some key departures (by retirement and injury) on their defensive line.  By bunching up the formation, you play into their hands -- all the defenders can then line up in a small area, meaning you don't know who's coming, and who's dropping into coverage.  Get rid of that formation and the 7-step drops, and maybe we beat the Redskins next week.

It is amazing how low politics has sunk.  Both McCain and Obama have gone tax-cut wacky.  While from a personal perspective, I never mind paying less taxes, it may not be the most sound public policy.  Obama's tax proposal is particularly troubling.  He has promised cuts for the bottom end of wage-earners (who already are very minimally-taxed), while forcing those who are already bearing a disproportionate amount of the tax burden to shoulder more.  This is begging for a massive expatriation of wealth from this country.  If you're going to lower taxes or raises taxes, make it across the board.  This is nothing more than an attempt to bribe a large section of the electorate into complacence (and unfortunately it will work).  Putting electoral power in the hands of people who have no skin in the game is a recipe for disaster.

It's Monday, and I'm ready to go home.

They say that curiosity killed the cat.  It also has left me unable to make or receive phone calls.

My net admin has been migrating our mail systems from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 (I know, I know, M$ SUX LINUX RULZ!!!1!!!ONE!!!1).  So he shows me a neat feature that is new to the 2007 version of Exchange -- you can remotely clear the data on a mobile device.  I have my iPhone synced to our Exchange server, so my immediate response is, "Ooh!  Do it to me!"  After some objections, he agrees to push the button.

Now... what I expected to happen was this -- command gets sent, all my company e-mail and calendar data goes blooey.  Not quite.  Instead, I now have a brand-new iPhone, wiped clean of any data.

On one hand, this should be a cautionary tale in case you're an idiot like me and are tempted to push the big red button.  On the other hand, you can now rest assured that the feature works!  (for the iPhone, at least).

I read something interesting in a Tuesday Morning Quarterback column recently.  The column is an NFL-themed column written by Gregg Easterbrook, who is a social/pseudo-political writer and editor in his day job.

One thing that interested me was his suggestion that sitting politicians resign from office before running for higher office, aka "resign to run."

Easterbrook writes:

Everyone, including the press corps, seems to assume that if you say the words "I am running for president," then it's fine to receive tax-funded pay yet perform no duties. Au contraire! It is a conflict of interest, plus negligent, to hold one position, accepting pay, yet spend your time attempting to obtain a different position. Presidential candidates who are taking tax-funded pay from an office whose duties they are not performing essentially hold no-show jobs, and the no-show job is among the worst forms of government corruption.

This is a very salient point.  Like it or not, it's still a job, and our public servants should at least be expected to work for the pay they receive.  We can't expect them to do things we agree with at all times, but it's not outrageous to expect them to at least show up to work.

He goes on:

A federal resign-to-run law would make government more accountable, and how can anyone but the holder of a no-show job object to that? Such a law also would eliminate many marginal candidates, especially senators who have scant hope of winning a nomination but declare for the presidency for reasons of vanity -- then demand taxpayers support them as they self-stroke their own egos. Members of the Washington establishment constantly praise the risk-taking spirit of entrepreneurs, but when it comes to themselves, they want zero risk, running for president while clinging to their current positions. If declaring for the presidency meant a senator could lose his or her seat, few senators would run. And what a relief that would be!

OK, I can buy that.  A little idealistic and hopeful, but I'm with you, Gregg.  Now here is my favorite part:

Here's a backup possibility: return Congress to per diem. Until 1855, members of the Senate were paid on a per diem basis -- they drew money for those days on which they engaged in their duties. Suppose senators were given a high per diem rate (say $1,000 per day) but only received this pay when actually performing the public's business, rather than when campaigning, fundraising or slipping away for other self-serving activities. Panic would strike the Senate if such a law were passed. Senators would be expected to earn their pay!

Now this is an idea I can sink my teeth into.  Except I think that the per diem's should be exorbitant.  People in Congress should be able to earn so much money, that they don't even think twice about undertaking any corrupt behavior.  Even several million dollars per legislator adds up to a pittance in terms of the total federal budget.  If you could make $5-10 million per year honestly by just showing the f*ck up, would you take the chance at doing time in PMITA prison for a few bucks more?  Probably not.

We often hear how money is the root of all problems in politics, to which I would counter that not enough money in politics is the problem.  Make public service an end, not a means, and you'll see a much different outcome.

It's amazing the difference a year can make.  Last year at this time, the flightless waterfowl looked hopelessly lost against the Ottawa Senators in the first round of the playoffs.  They went on to lose that series quite handily in 5 games.

This year is a different story.  The Pens are up three games to none, and they're about 15 minutes shy of sweeping the series.  Even as an optimistic fan, I was pretty skeptical that these Penguins were a legitimate contender.  They weren't playing all that well, and when they finally started getting it together, Crosby went down for two months with a high ankle sprain.  Having already lost their star goalie Fleury for several months, this seemed to be a pretty big blow to their playoff hopes.  Yet the team kept winning and playing better.  Malkin stepped up and transformed into a superstar.  The team got strong goaltending from its backups.  And at the trading deadline they made a pretty aggressive move to get Marian Hossa.  Without Sidney Crosby and Marc-Andre Fleury, this was a pretty formidable team.  Now, it's a team I can envision making it all the way to the finals.

While anything can happen in this league, including blowing a 3-game lead, it will be nice for a change to consider anything less than a championship to be a disappointment.

Last week I participated in a 16-hour course on the Scrum framework (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_%28development%29).  Now I'm in the process of introducing it to my organization.  During my tenure here, we've done two very large development projects with little process to guide us.  We'd have tomes of requirements written, many of which were either obsolete or impractical when we got around to implementing them.  This time, I'm committed to bringing an agile approach to my company, and the Scrum master course was definitely a good start.

So far this week, I've set up an area for maintaining Scrum artifacts, and held sessions with the team and product owners to provide them solid orientation.  So far so good, as I seem to have good organizational buy-in.  I know the team will take to it, as they're already a very self-motivated bunch, but I had my concerns about the rest of the business.

If you're interested in learning Scrum, and you're serious enough about it to spend one or two thousand dollars, you should look into one of the Certified Scrum Master courses.  I obviously have no one to compare, but my instructor, Tobias Mayer (http://www.agilethinking.net), was fantastic.  The class was very example and exercise oriented, which helped us fully grasp the material presented.