Software Production Management

At the beginning it was pure calm. Junior developers do not have to do a lot more than coding, and to be clear it is about coding something that probably someone else have been already designed. Those days when I started coding remind me when I was a kid at the school. I didn’t have a lot of responsibilities and of course, the life was easier than now.

Then I became senior programmer, and then architect, and then system designer (Oh Dear God). Why? It’s probable because it is a natural process to grow up and get experience, knowledge and, obviously because it also means.. most of the times… a salary raise. But then I noticed that my whole perspective about software development had been changed. At that point I wrote the first draft of the Pee Paradigm. Please take a minute to read and understand it – you can also leave a comment.

When you are a programmer and you have to pee, you can just leave your desk at any given moment with one or few problems pending to be solved. Some minutes later -depending on your personal needs of course- when you come back to your desk you can be sure that 99.99% of the times it will be the same set of problems -nothing have been changed. And to make it even better, it is possible that while your were doing “your stuff” you came up with a solution to those problems! Amazing!. In contrast, assume that you get additional responsibilities including management tasks and you have to “pee”. So it comes the time when you have to LEAVE YOUR DESK and even when you will have a small set of “pending things” to solve or do, you can be absolutely sure that once you come back you will have additional items. And maybe you can solve things during your “reduced personal time off” but it will be certain that instead of solving things you will remember additional stuff.

Few months ago, when I was Production Manager for a huge project for one of the most famous brands in the world, I used to received more than 250 emails every day. Can you believe it? It was a mess. Obviously it was a failure inside the communications plan but it was true. So I created few rules to colorize my emails assigning colors depending on the recipients list. Let’s do some simple maths to clarify the situation:

250 emails x 1.5 minute reading
= 375 minutes
= 6.25 hours.

At this point I didn’t send an email, make a call, o even received it. I didn’t went to bathroom or do anything else than open my email client.

Could you imagine somebody asking about an specific email like “did you checked the Fulano’s email about the X situation?” – while my reduced set of neurons tried to evaluate and solve the question, another even more reduced set of neurons where thinking something like “Ah? Blah? What are you talking about? Was my name at the beginning of the email content or as the email subject?”

Since then, I wrote the Pee Paradigm and decided not take drinks at the office. Also I feel really concerned about have to pee during my working hours

Finally, it was officially announced: The 7th version of the Conference on IT Project Management will be in Bogotá (Col) from March 12 to March 13, 2009. I’m pretty excited about this event. I haven’t been notified about when should I give my presentation, so I still have a change to improve my slides. I will keep you posted on the agenda, and once I give my presentation I will share it -as usual.

More info about the conference you can get additional info @ ACIS site.

As you may noticed, I’ve switched back to English. It was not an easy decision but, for some reason latin american people look for English content as well, so writing in Spanish didn’t create the effect I thought it should.

So here is my list about 2009 resolutions -I will not include my family or personal ones:

• I will not forget to code. I do love to code, even as project manager I feel the necesity of coding. Which means Java (I really do love Java) or PHP, JavaScript, Perl, or even write some HTML (did you notice I said “write” not “code”).
• I will try to get the Java Enterprise Architect Certification – as project manager I do not need it but, hey, I want to learn a little bit more about JEE, and why not to get the certification as a plus?
• I will keep posting in my Blog -this is a hard one
• I will try to make you post a comment -this one is the hardest
• I will try to make my job experience better
• I will do my best to learn Portuguese. Brazil is a huge economy for this region (latin america) so I’m pretty sure it will be good for my career.
• I will try to keep giving presentations about PM. I will try to improve the SW development process for at least one person -excluding me of course.

Wow! It seems to that it will be a busy 2009!

Happy New Year!

Esta entrada es acerca de diciembre y de ésta época del año donde todos celebramos algo, y tomamos un tiempo para reunirnos, compartir, y conversar.

Este año ha sido sin lugar a dudas uno de los mejores años que ha pasado en mi vida. Mi hermosa hija Martina nació sana y muy alegre -siempre tiene una encantadora sonrisa en su rostro.  Jacobo, ya es todo un señor -3 años y un poco mas- y ha sido elogiado por piloso -no puedo decir que es el más fuerte, el más conversador o el más deportista, pero si me siento orgulloso de que sea un piloso . Mi esposa… caray, que sería de mí sin ella, estaría perdido por el mundo pensando en quien sabe que cosas, y buscando algo que dificilmente podría obtener si no la tuviera a mi lado -felicidad!.

En lo profesional, bueno, este fue un año menos intenso en el área académica -que me apasiona- pero muy enriquecedor a nivel profesional. Obtuve mi certificación de PMP -luego de estudiar miles de horas :-S, incluídas vacaciones en la playa con libro en mano! Dicté una conferencia en el Campus-Party y dos conferencias en la ACIS. Nada mal!, poco, pero nada mal.

Agradezco a la vida el año que pasa, pero, debo decir que no contento con ello, espero que este año nuevo traiga al menos unos 14 meses, para que me alcance para todos mis proyectos Veo en el camino mucho trabajo y nuevas ideas, que conllevan muchas responsabilidades. Ah, aprovecho para perdirle al niño dios unas vacaciones un TANTIN más extensas y un TANTON más de dinero para poder sacarles el jugo!

A ustedes, los poquitos que se interesan en las cosas que escribo, les extiendo mi sentimiento de gratitud. Les deseo a ustedes y sus seres queridos unas muy felices fiestas decembrinas y un aún mejor comienzo de año.

Un abrazo!

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