I just read a blog entry that I found very interesting entitled "Lessons Learned on the Development Industry in Mexico" (http://hackerdou.com/?p=553)
I strongly agree with the Most of the points exposed, and where you may have differences will simply matters of perception or slight nuances that do not affect the focus of his writing. For my part I wish to enrich those thoughts with other insights and lessons I learned in my several years of working in this fascinating, funny but also hateful industry.
Fortunately I have worked for many different companies, from the public sector with its storms of developers, consultants and other fauna in this sector, the securities industry, where there are whole squads of personnel systems to small companies where their "area of \u200b\u200bsystems" is a guy who just finished high school and only is responsible for connecting the PC's they buy, so I hope my lessons and experiences especially help future members of this community to get an idea of \u200b\u200bwhat they face.
We are a technology area but we love the paper and bureaucracy
Before my rain of flames, I should clarify that I have nothing against the process, not control, nor do I deny order, in the end this is one of the many goals of my work, to bring some order and control the chaos, but it is a fact that several people in an effort to keep better control, exaggerated in their proposals, plane or go astray.
This symptom is seen perfectly in those involved in defining policies and procedures within the area of \u200b\u200bsystems. I recognize that in most cases are fairly successful proposals on the issue of lead follow-up development processes and quality of software products, but I do not understand is why they insist on bringing these controls in Word and Excel? even my eyes cry where such documents have their change control tablita way in the first sheet of paper.
If you are part of a technology area, why not apply the technology to control your own area? Even use the exchange control offers Office (which honestly is far from ideal). It is also typical for the documentation of analysis and design that many people use the mail down, not sure if this is the most current version of the document, or duplicate information across many documents with a different objective, what has resulted? inconsistencies, everyone handles their account, in addition to how much you fill your PC number of files, which let's be honest, you're never going to read carefully or you will complicate the search for information there, especially if you do not have a centralized document repository, and you have to browse tons of emails or folders to find the document you need
And it is not necessary to invest a huge amount of money, with a client MediaWiki implemented as a solution to centralize information on software projects, with appropriate plugins, you have version control, access roles, export to PDF and even trims generating UML syntax and effortlessly. Save
regardless
Some companies (and entrepreneurs), fine wool that invest in technology, purchasing Oracle licenses (which cost several thousand dollars), paid to middle and high-wage high enough, they dream about servers, but you get to see how workers who actually generate the product, and also makes you want to mourn.
am getting to see many places where developers, technical leaders and others who produce the real target technology area (sorry, in my opinion nor the Power points, nor the beautiful Gantt or architectural documents, UML diagrams and the fundamental believe are necessary if, but is not the purpose an area of \u200b\u200bsystems) working under precarious conditions, in work tables or desks with a bad ergonomics, chairs rather be ideal for sunbathing in a garden, not to sit for 8 to 12 hours in a same position, and the worst of it, with older equipment throughout the organization, with which by definition are those most in need of computing power, or do little the manager really needs the most powerful computer and the license most current Office?
There are good tax strategies to maximize the deductibility and depreciation of computer equipment and is shown that in an environment, a person engaged in intellectual activities pays much more than when you have under the lash. But as the subtitle indicates, sometimes the idea is to save whatever it takes, you'd better make a few cents extra, even if you lose weight on productivity issues.
The importance of hours
buttock
many times have we seen in many places, the most respected person is the one that spends more time in the workplace and is considered the hardest working, to the extent that there are places where contract resources "per kilo with a meter, where they pay per hour of" work "of the resource, regardless of the effectiveness or performance.
recognize it is a very sensitive issue, and that definitely measure the productivity of a person can be extremely subjective, and although sometimes I wanted to mathematically determine a formula that relates the concepts of "economic compensation", "experience" and " work actually performed, "I have not found a practical way to carry it out, but I definitely know that there may be solutions to help mitigate this problem without having to fill out timesheets in excel (which more than control, I feel that disturbs productivity, and force you to find justification for the time spent), I have seen tools como Tasktop, donde calcula automáticamente un timesheet de acuerdo al código que modificas dentro de Eclipse, por ejemplo.
Administración de proyectos orientada a los caprichos del cliente
La administración de proyectos es una técnica complicadísima y definitivamente tiene un poco de arte por detrás también, pero también es un hecho que si no eres cuidadoso y como administrador de proyecto no involucras a todas las partes críticas, o simplemente demeritas la opinión de la gente que realmente realiza el trabajo rudo, estás condenando el proyecto a un fracaso rotundo.
Nunca voy a olvidar una experiencia curiosa que me ocurrió en mi primer trabajo, was part time because I was in fourth or fifth semester of studies, I was about to start a project, where my boss then asked me "We need X, Y and Z requirements, how do you see? as long as you shove them? "as is my usual insane, I started to make some notes on paper, take a few strokes, draw some charts, ideas connected by arrows, etc, and I replied in an almost certain" I believe that in month and a half we can have it ready. " Then, my boss is watching me with annoyed face and he says "but I already committed myself to the client remains in a fortnight", may thereupon imagined Series of evil thoughts and curses that went through my head.
fully agree to be negotiated and wherever possible to meet customer needs, ultimately will pay and feeds us, but on the other hand, as a company that provides solutions, we have to land the client in the realm of what is possible and guide you in the best solution in terms of time and scope, burn your employees just to "win" a solo project will lead to weeks of delays, sleepless and horrors. Never underestimate the opinion of a programmer, but junior to be, finally, he will be pushing forward your project, no matter what you say your most perfect and calibradísimo diagram Gantt
Juntitis!
Yes, sometimes I wonder if the goal of managers, project managers or the like, is wasting time in meetings, likewise, not demonize the appearance that the seals are bad, nor the amount of these, provided they have a tangible meaning and set goals and commitments, but many times there have been no meetings where three quarters of the time is wasted in vain justifications or throwing mud, and another quarter to agree in what they see at the next meeting.
Nor will I forget another project, we had a meeting with the project manager wanted to cut forces times project, of course, all this upon request (see above). So we are dedicated to reviewing business activity, planning and explaining the details of each of these, as the manager had little experience in a matter of systems (but had a thousand PMP certification and its derivatives). The meeting lasted 8 hours, and at the end of the day, we reach an agreement to cut some activities, which meant four hours reduce the length of the project. Although I do not help much, because we had a delay of eight hours, to be invested in the board, rather than the activities already scheduled for that day. Already
to finish, I think this post helped me very well to take a bit of catharsis = P, does not mean that everything is bad in that class, if so would not be in it, but I think there are many areas for improvement in future entry probably will fill with suggestions and experiences positive.
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