Super Projects

Super Projects
Ladislav Martinčík

Content
Introduction
Customer
Project Design Process
Teams
Summary
Q&A
cca 45 min

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Software Engineer
martincik.com, slowpath.com, foundum.com
@martincik
ladislav.martincik@gmail.com

Who are you?
Students vs Work force ?
Employee vs Employer ?
Server vs Client ?

How I started...
8 years back, school, fun, fail
being naive, naive way
the czech way
not being able to say "No"
do not separate projects from company itself
not enough projects
"almost" everything as project

Customers 1/3
market segmentation, customer niche
select right customers
clear statement who's your customer
Michal Berg (eSports.cz)
learn to say "No" to customers, 80/20
project control ( you vs customer )
manipulation from customer
check your customer credit
attorney, contracts

Customers 2/3
Negotiations ( The Truth About Negotiations - L. Thompson)
Good products CANNOT fix bad strategy
Strategy determines:
market segment we'll compete IN
compete WITH
HOW we'll compete
measured by profitability

Customers 3/3
you need to understand:
internal economics
distribution channels
competition channels
do good job at setting the strategy
deeply understand the customer
customer reviews
focus not only on what, but mainly why

Project C. Triangle
Before you start designing your design process you need to understand Project Control Triangle
Project Control Triangle
Schedule (Time)
Resources
Scope

Project C. Triangle
Scope
performance
price
Resources
people
computers
Quality
Time

Project C. Triangle
the more variables the better
Reality scenarios:
Fix Resources, Fix Time, Variable Scope
Fix Resources, Fix Scope, Variable Time
The best thing you can do is to fix your team which is part of the resources
Always try to add non-human resource if possible ( computation to speedup devel. )
Peopleware - Tom DeMarco & T. Lister

P. Design process
Designing process based on Project Control Triangle
Structure is the key to freedom
"The key is to standardize the lower levels of process architecture."
2 ways of doing this standardization:
Modular structure
Learning from patterns

Modular structure
Information Hidding
External interfaces
Object Oriented Programming
example with SCRUM
Customer
Review
Product
Owner
Developers

Patterns
Sequential vs Parallel
Information generation
Decentralized Control & Feedback
Queues
Automate
Development ( TDD, CIA, Paperless )
Business ( eMyth - Michael E. Gerber )
Other patterns
GTD, Scrum, Kanban, Toyota system...

Seq. vs Parallel
If you can, you should do Parallel or Semi-Parallel
Discovery phase ( Inspired - Marty Cagan )
IMPORTANT: Sooner you involve lower parts of hierarchy of your team the better
Test
Spec
Develop.
Develop.
Test

Info Generation
The sooner you generate information more you eliminate risk
Information theory
Do 50% fails 50% successes
Info
generated
Risk level
Time

Decentralize C&F
Centralized Control is economical
Decentrealized control is better for quickly changing markets
Introduce Decision rules to allow lower parts of hierarchy to make decisions faster
Most dev teams use rule: "Do not ask for permission ask for forgiveness."
Small amounts, slowly increasing with inscreasing trust

Feedback
Open Feedback loop
Good for leaders with high skills presured by time
Closed Feedback loop
Group Feedback
Change dynamics by adding/removing member
Personal Feedback
One-on-One, Beer yes in CZ but I prefer to listen first write all down + do!

Queues Theory
Smaller batch sizes ( Sprint )
Observe time of item in the queue
For better queue fighting is to have multi-functional members of the team
Teach programmers to do a bit of desing and designer a bit of coding
Have a master queue ( Backlog ) for every small idea or bug

Automation
Business Automation
( eMyth - Michael E. Gerber )
Dev Automation
Testing ( CIA )
Servers ( Clouds )
Backups
Deployment

Other Patterns
GTD
Scrum
Kanban or Scrumban
Toyota System
Lean Startup
...

Teams
Productivity
Team Structure
Collaboration
Motivation vs Inspiration
Flow vs Momentum

Productivity
60-70% load not more (Q. Theory)
Teach them to teach other
Pair Programming/Work
People for People
We write code for people not computers.
Hire the best people you can
3 types of people
Make excuses (Lazy)
Do whatever it takes (Kamikaze)
Ventage point (Sniper)

Team Structure
Diversification ( FE, BE, Design, PO, SM )
Size 7 +- 2 ( Complexity of Communication )
Women in the team
Architect = Consistency
Product Owner/Manager
"Project without PO is like Movie without director."
QA - Human testing is inevitable for quality products

Collaboration
Work together - collaboration requires emotional engagement
High respect for each other's competence on the topic of the collaboration
Have skills and permission to creatively bargain with each other over costs and benefits
Reality over Virtuality ( Whiteboard )
Show by example ( Abstractions are hard )

Motivate vs Ins. 1/2
Motivation is tricky
Story of Teacher and grades
Game Mechanics
Forsquare, Geolocation
Work vs Game play
3D world simulation
Inspire for innovation (Give people enough money so they don't think about it.)

Motivate vs Ins. 2/2
Motivation by Money
Story of Pensioner and Kids
Specialized skills + Facilitation skills (pay attention to work) = Success
Every employee has inner and outer goals. If you cannot sync them with companies goals and they'll have need to move they'll create random change which will cause random result.

Flow Vs Momentum
Flow is when time stops
Quite place, Food, Maslow's hierarchy
Momentum
Default mode of our behaviour
Solving problem for need of solving problems
STOP
Step back
Think and decide
Organize
Proceed

Summary
Pick Customer not Customers you
Begin with P.C. Triangle
Deliberately Desing your Design process
Modules, Patterns
Generate Info early
Work on your Feedback loops
Observe Queues
Automate
Understand Teams, Collaboration, Motivation, Inspiration, Flow, Momentum

Thank you! Q&A?
martincik.com, slowpath.com, foundum.com
Twitter: @martincik
Email: ladislav.martincik@gmail.com

Super Projects

by Ladislav Martincik on Oct 16, 2011

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Super Projects — Presentation Transcript