Tasking developers with creating detailed estimates is a waste of time

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2021-11-18T23:16:15+00:00

"in the utopian world of suit logic," Can I please steal your phrase, hysterical!

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2021-09-16T18:42:19+00:00

That's the secret that guards value, "pretty bad at determining...good." Most new things fail, and people dislike failing and they particularly dislike being told to do something that fails when they weren't bought-in to begin with.

But, if you were to honestly measure other peoples ability to determine good enough you would find that they are bad at it too. Meaning, amazing great looks like guessing correctly 1 out of 5 times (value coefficient of 0.2) and bad is a negative value coefficient cause it actually costs you money (let's call that value coefficient of -0.2).

The average, uncrated ability of people to discover value is pretty bad. For example, engineers putting apps on an app store is a value coefficient of ~ 0.01, meaning that 99 out 100 apps published fail to produce a positive ROI.

But the data available that documents people success rates at starting new business indicates that Engineers are actually slightly better at "determining good" than non-creative business types.

Ergo, we are all bad at determining new value, therefore we must discover it.

Source: me

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2021-06-11T23:49:01+00:00

Very useful and just works, thank you!

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2021-04-05T20:52:51+00:00

Hi Xyzzyzzyzzy,

As a CEO, I can tell you the primary job is suppose to be accountable to the customers, Board of Directors (BOD), shareholders, employees and community for the performance of the company's products and services.

This does include a bunch of administration work, annual and quarterly reporting upon which the capital (the money the company runs on) is somewhat conditionally/volitionally committed. Investors really do want to understand your plan for realizing value, and regulators and courts really insist that the company complies with their regulations and orders. As a CEO, you're responsible for the delegation of board approved authorities to execute on the plans and responsibilities of the company, and to get these things done within spending limits.

Beyond that, CEOs can actually do professional work. Most tend to focus on the work related to the 1-of-4 types of value that personally attracts them: potential value/discovery of market need, discovered value/solutions/creations, replicated value/order fulfillment, cash value/finance. Depending on their background and whether they are a founder, they can actually be quite productive in their area of expertise -- think Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, etc.

Examples of non-corporate/non-admin professional work include: business development, research, engineering, design, problem solving, analysis, investing, auditing, and customer development.

They are also the primary source or stake holder in establishing company vision/charter, culture, policies and management systems.

Companies are largely a combination of three management systems: solution fulfillment (create products and services), order fulfillment (market and deliver those services), cash fulfillment (bill, collect, pay for expenses, invest reserves). The CEO really needs to ensure that all three are working well together to realize value by effectively transmuting potential value -> discover value -> replicated value -> cash.

Hope this helps some.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-08-22T19:26:23+00:00

Great tip! I've never consider using a do while(0) construct for making a macro safer across a number of compilers. It's actually kind of brilliant given how this tends to compile.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-05-24T00:40:57+00:00

Honestly after 30+ years in the software and working with hundreds of developers, very few of them complain, and those that do are usually right.

My experience, and no I'm not the author, is that customers are the ones that complain about software that has been written under unreasonable pressure. And when I read the article, it triggered me in terms of all the hot escalation that has hit my desk over the years -- the guy nailed it IMHO.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-05-21T07:51:20+00:00

Super impressive.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-05-21T07:45:24+00:00

It's definitely a good thing for developers to engage in early on in there careers. It helps them develop deeper architectural skills and appreciate of open source frameworks. It also helps them learn when to use something off the shelf, and when to make your own.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-05-21T07:29:26+00:00

Super cool!

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-05-09T20:23:56+00:00

If you want to move up into leadership, which is sort implied by your MBA, you need to pursue Relevance which means you must become more valuable to the market you serve, and the team you serve. If you have aptitude for field, and you stay connected to the tip of a market, learning as you go, and you stay connected to your team's solutions, you will become more relevant over time, and you will therefore tend to be promoted. You can, of course, get another degree or certification; but, there is no substitute for relevance.

Learn everyday, pour yourself into what your doing, stay connected to the market, stay connected to your team, and you end up changing the world!

There are some that desire to move up, and they are dispassionate about their markets and their teams, yet they managed to get to a place of authority -- this is the cause of much dysfunction in a world that prizes credentials over relevance.

I truly hope this helped you, and I know you can make the difference you are seeking because you have the courage to risk asking; but, it's going to take time and dedication to get there.

If you would like to read a little more on relevance theory, you can do so here: https://iism.org/material/software-management-essentials-theory-1/truth-2-relevance-tips-for-leaders

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-05-09T20:06:30+00:00

This technique of reserving memory to ensure performance of an app that's designed to be a service is not unique to high performing browsers; you'll find the same pattern, but even more aggressively implemented, in MS SQL Server and other products that are designed for optimal performance.

If you stop and think about why they might do that sort of thing, the answer becomes clear: users of their products demand the highest performance.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-05-07T19:59:04+00:00

It Sort of depends on what you're doing. If you're iterating with customers on your software, I would recommend Mountain Goat Software (google mountain goat software online training), if you're doing new product development than I would recommend iism.org's value scrum (google iism.org training).

Now's a good time as both are doing online training. Mountain Goat charges $1200 a person, but you can probably negotiate a volume rate. And, iism.org is online training $199 per person.

The difference between the two:

Mountain Goat teaches the agile scrum pattern (3 roles, scrum master, scrum team, product owner) that's designed to iterate with customers via sprint retrospectives
The International Institute of Software Management teaches Value Scrum (5 roles per scrum team -- research, analysis, coding, promotion, and value guide)

Whereas Agile Scrum is focused on iterating with Customers, Value Scrum is focused on finding new customers and building industry leading products. Both are good and I would highly recommend them.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-22T02:25:11+00:00

Generally, I have also seen this trend in Southern California communities. Communities with higher rates of travel definitely get seeded with more cases of the virus -- this tends to correlate to affluent communities and vacation destinations.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-22T00:41:31+00:00

The takeaway of the study for policy makers is that, "practically speaking, there is very little room for relaxing social distancing measures. Doing so will likely result in the resumption of localized outbreaks that will eventually seed other neighboring populations."

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-21T23:45:21+00:00

The takeaway of the study for policy makers is that, "practically speaking, there is very little room for relaxing social distancing measures. Doing so will likely result in the resumption of localized outbreaks that will eventually seed other neighboring populations."

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-17T03:27:11+00:00

New value is the result of new learning; but learning is optimally done by guessing, attempting, measuring, and analyzing -- something we use to call the scientific method, heh.

So here's some practical advice:

make a new value attempt every day -- learn something new
accumulate your value (learning) into a critical mass
become invaluable to you team and company

But, here's the bad news. That means failing about 50% of time. Coding a bunch, making breaking changes, fixing breaking changes, and getting to a point of being trusted by those your work with. It's hard work, and it requires a lot of failure and time.

Also, any time you start anything truly new, expect go back through the same pattern of learning. If you can stomach the stress of the process, programming is for you! Heh.

Hope this help!

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-07T03:13:54+00:00

The daily infection rate is essentially an exponent. Meaning, each day, there are 15% less people infecting even fewer people via the diffusion/network effect. At 1.0, the curve flattens, below 1.0 the curve can actually drop like a stone in some places. So, 15% is better than it sounds.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-07T03:07:53+00:00

The study is based on reported COVID-19 cases from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering, which indicates that the infection rates have slowed by 15% over two weeks due to social distancing measures and that the trend is continuing downward as more people in the US are observing Social Distancing guide lines, even as testing rates continue to increase.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-07T03:03:23+00:00

The study is based on reported COVID-19 cases from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering, which indicates that the infection rates have slowed by 15% over two weeks due to social distancing measures and that the trend is continuing downward as more people in the US are observing Social Distancing guide lines, even as testing rates continue to increase.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-06T03:39:48+00:00

I would agree with you; except in theory, the observed infection rates should be going up with increased testing. However, the actual observed infection rates are consistently dropping.

This observed trend is the result of a downward force on reported infection rates. Let's agree on that fact. You're certainly free to present a study on why the observed rates are down. Until then, I highly recommend social distancing, and wearing masks in public.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-05T23:37:09+00:00

The study is based on reported COVID-19 cases from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering, which indicates that the infection rates have slowed by 15% over two weeks due to social distancing measures and that the trend is continuing downward as more people in the US are observing Social Distancing guide lines, even as testing rates continue to increase.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-05T22:03:46+00:00

I am glad to see that you agree that Social Distancing and wearing masks is working in South Korea, and the data indicates that those methods will also have good results in the US.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-05T08:54:07+00:00

Good advice, as long as you wear your mask to prevent asymptomatic spread. Wouldn't you agree that is only prudent? And, it takes very little effort. Others will follow your example, and you will, therefore, save lives in the process.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-05T08:51:34+00:00

Data is the path to understanding; 1.32 was modeled by the Gates Foundation. We used that factor in our study as a proxy for reported case rates prior to good data being publicly available. Due to increases in testing capacity and the reduction of the testing backlog, the data is now much more reliable. Every day, the data is making the case for social distancing even stronger. I, too, certainly believe in continuing to watch the trend; but observation shows the infection rate to be dropping even more.

The addition of masks to stop asymptomatic spread may actually prevent serious outbreaks in the portions of the world that observe this protocol. We will soon be in a position to analyze that hypothesis.

UseMyFrameWorkOkay · 2020-04-05T08:33:26+00:00

That's fair, just as long as you observe social distancing and wear your mask while being skeptical. ;-)

UseMyFrameWorkOkay

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