31 October 2009
My third son was a week ago, Benjamin Micah Butel. Benjamin means ’son of my right hand’ – and I have no idea what the person who made that up was thinking, but I know what it means to me. It means my ceiling is your floor. I don’t want my boys to repeat my footsteps, but to take what I’m capable of and go far beyond. Its like a relay race where I pass the baton on (with my right hand) and they run the next leg.
As leaders, we establish innovative and creative ways of doing things, then formalise it so we can train other people to do them. So often, this becomes a constraint when it should just be the starting point. My ceiling is your floor. We should be empowering people to start with what we’ve learned and go further than us with their own creative ideas. Instead of expecting them to run the same race as you (ie do it this way because that worked really well 5 years ago), instead pass the baton so they can run the next leg of the race starting with your best and then creating their own.
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Posted by Andrew
16 October 2009
We all know that a picture speaks 1,000 words, but even more important than pictures are actions. Actions speak louder than pictures and words.
You could write and talk all day about doing something, but its worth nothing until you do it.
That’s one of the reasons why I like the Agile Manifesto:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
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Posted by Andrew
12 October 2009
We need documentation to help us achieve optimal communications and control; however we also understand that documentation can be an overhead that doesn’t add value to our customers.
There are two types of documentation and you should always be aware of why you are writing documentation and for whom.
Project documentation is for communication
Project documents are used for communication within a project and are not maintained once the project is completed. These documents are necessary to:
- Sell the concept
- Remove ambiguity
- Facilitate a multi-location team
- Manage the details
Product documentation is for management and control
Product documents are used for managing and controlling the product and will be maintained until the product or feature is retired. These documents are necessary to:
- Manage priorities and scheduling
- Maintain quality standards
- Maintain correctness
- Educate people
When you’re using documentation to communicate, then you’re capturing the state of the requirements etc at a given point in time. If the requirements change, then you don’t update your original communication, you make a new documentation to communicate the changes clearly.
Communication isn’t a living document.
However, when you document for education, then it is a living document. If the requirements or scope changes, then anyone reading your old document for education purposes will be misled, therefore in order for your document to meet its purpose, it has to be maintained. This means every time you write a document for education purposes, you’ve just added an overhead to your project – a document that has to be updated as the project changes. If you are not going to maintain the document – then you aren’t writing it for educational purposes. To make the maintenance cheaper, the document can contain less detail and more principals that are less likely to change.
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Posted by Andrew
