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Dorkis? Or is it Dorkus?
The other day at the gym, I met a really nice, elderly lady and we started talking about the art of exercise. After a few minutes of chit chat, I introduced myself to her: “My name is Tony“. Then she dropped the bombshell: “I’m Dorkis“. Assuming that she said “Dorothy“, I asked again, and she repeated “Dorkis”. D’oh! WTF? I almost crapped a deuce, but I somehow miraculously kept my composure (which I’m not at all any good at) and didn’t start laughing my ass off.
After she said the D-word, I barely managed to verbalize the response: “Nice to meet you“. Then I automatically went into never-never land and all kinds of stupid jokes and questions spontaneously appeared in my petty little mind:
- “How do you spell that?”,
- “I’m sure that I’ve been called that behind my back”,
- “I’ve called some people that, behind their backs”,
- “Did you ask your parents why they gave you that name?”,
- “What was it like for you when you were growing up?”,
- “Did anyone ever bust a gut laughing just after you introduced yourself to them?”
- “Did you name one of your children Bumpkis?”,
- “Is you last name Asskiss?”.
I honestly didn’t hear a word that she said for the next few seconds until a group of other ladies walked by us and said “Hi Dorkis“.
What’s the funniest name of a person that you’ve met?
Weasel Words
According to one or more of the authorities of Wikipedia, “the purpose of an encyclopedia is to spread accurate and useful information. Weasel words are imprecise, often inaccurate, and usually uninformative.” Note that the phrases “often inaccurate” and “usually uninformative” in the previous sentence are weasel words that describe weasel words.
Since this blog, and most others (<— more weasel words), aren’t meant to be encyclopedias, I knowingly and purposefully use weasel words all the time. Like everything else in the world, weasel words are neither good nor bad, they just are.
FAI = Frontal Assault Idiot
Since I already have a post regarding the FAE, why not supplement it with one on the FAI?
The other day, my friend and mentor, Bill Livingston, rightfully and truthfully called me an FAI. The picture says it all. No more words are needed, except for: “poor me, boo hoo”.
Watcha got to offer baby?
I just read yet another manifesto about changing the world. One of the questions posed by the author was: “what do you have to offer the world?” My response iz: “Advice and opinions based on my experience, of course.” What’s yourz?
A Metafesto
Being a software engineer, I’m always on the hunt for better ways to develop software. In my continuous search for excellence, I’ve recently been bombarded by what seems like an endless stream of manifestos. Here are some of the most “famous” ones:
They’re all so brilliantly elegant and moving that I want to put them on little magnets and display them in my cube right next to the company core values and quality policy magnets.
In response to the manifesto craze, I’ve come up with my own “metafesto”. A manifesto about manifestos.
Enough already! Stop talking about manifesting some ideal behavior and just do it. Manifest what you wrote yourself. No need to get up on a soapbox and pontificate to the masses of little people so that they do things the “right” way. If what you preach works, and people see it and resonate with it, then they’ll manifest what you’re manifesting. I hereby renounce all software-oriented manifestos as self-righteous and dictatorial rules wrapped in elegant and poetic rhetoric.
Do as Ghandi says: ““We must become the change we want to see.” He didn’t say “Talk about the change we want to see” in the world.
System Architecture Notation
For years and years, I’ve used the simple circle and square notation shown in the top half of the figure below in order to communicate (mostly to myself) multi-technology system designs. I did it because UML hadn’t been invented yet, and circles/squares were trivial to draw with any software drawing tool.
Now that UML has been out for quite a while, I’m gonna (try) and switch to the UML notation shown in the bottom half of the diagram. Even though packages and nodes are slightly harder to draw than circles and squares with most mainstream drawing tools, every UML tool makes it as easy as pie. Even Visio (my favorite engineering graphics tool) has templates for easily generating UML notation.
Contained And Container
In Russell Ackoff‘s excellent book titled Idealized Design , he talks about container and contained systems. He essentially states that optimizing the contained system without changing the container system is a failure in waiting. The figure below depicts what often happens when a change agent succeeds in improving the contained system without consideration of the container system.
At time 1, the change agent realizes that there is an efficiency problem within the contained system. After an epic battle against the forces conspiring to keep the status quo intact, he/she succeeds in smoothing out the operation of the contained system at time 2. However, since the container system was neglected, it still operates according to the old rules and interfaces of time 1. Thus, an impedance mismatch between the container and contained system interface has appeared. This impedance mismatch can cause organizational performance to be worse than before the change (the cure is worse than the disease) to the contained system!
In an ideal system change effort, both the container and contained systems are improved. Done correctly, a smooth and high performing system-of-systems, like the above model at time 3, can be achieved. Compare the smooth circular integrated interface at time 3 with the previous inefficient and cloudy interfaces of the previous 2 times.
The Single Most Important Thing
Scott Berkun is one of my favorite technical consultants. He’s a former Microsoft program manager who worked on the development of Internet Explorer and he’s written two classic books on project management and innovation. In this post: power, Scott states a simple and profound truth:
As a program manager (glorified title for project manager), all of my power actually came from the programmers. I only had a job because of the programmers. No programmers means no code, no product, no revenue. End of story. My power was an extension of theirs. I had to treat them with respect and go out of my way to earn their trust over time.
I’d like to extend Scott’s opening sentence so that it applies to companies that develop multiple-technology products containing an integrated system of software, digital hardware, mechanical hardware, and electrical hardware.
As a program manager (glorified title for project manager), all of my power actually came from the engineering groups….. I had to treat them with respect and go out of my way to earn their trust over time.
In multi-technology companies where managers put other peer and higher up managers first, the odds are that schedule, cost, and quality will suffer. Instead of operating like high performing meritocracies, these companies end up just like the rest of the herd; as mediocracies.
Under Siege
Working on a product that requires a multi-disciplined engineering team can be a fun and exhilarating growth experience. However, the fun can be snuffed out by poor management of negative external forces. The figure below shows just some of the forces that can derail a project.
Help!
By far, the pressure exerted by the management chain can cause the most harm to the product and development team. In some companies, the lower level managers are zero resistance conductors of schedule pressure exerted by the higher ups. The negative effects of this pressure are absorbed directly by the development team.
Since I think that all people in an organization are always trying to do the right thing, the reason that this operational behavior is so ubiquitous is that the perps aren’t aware of what they’re doing. In mindful organizations that are aware, the management chain instills a mild and tempered sense of urgency that increases performance without causing harm.
Filtering And Distortion
Virtually everyone sees “life” as an integrated, filtered, and distorted stream of continuous analog input. Each filter is person-specific and tends to get narrower as we supposedly grow-up. The designer of the filter is the personal ego and if you’re not aware of this, it can severely degrade and limit your experience of life. My goal is to remove my personal filter so that I can experience the glorious full spectrum of life. I may not attain this goal, but I’m going to try to achieve it until my last breath. Please wish me luck.
Why am I here?
WTF?
Meh!
D'oh!
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