Management

I just found this great quote by Dee Hock, founder and CEO of VISA.

I ask each person to describe the single most important responsibility of any manager. The incredibly diverse responses always have one thing in common. All are downward looking. Management inevitably has to do with exercise of authority — with selecting employees, motivating them, training them, appraising them, organizing them, directing them, controlling them. That perception is mistaken.

The first and paramount responsibility of anyone who purports to manage is to manage self, one’s own integrity, character, ethics, knowledge, wisdom, temperament, words, and acts. It is a complex, never-ending, incredibly difficult, oft-shunned task. Management of self is something at which we spend little time and rarely excel precisely because it is so much more difficult than prescribing and controlling the behavior of others. Without management of self, no one is fit for authority, no matter how much they acquire. The more authority they acquire the more dangerous they become. It is the management of self that should have half of our time and the best of our ability. And when we do, the ethical, moral, and spiritual elements of managing self are inescapable.

Asked to identify the second responsibility of any manager, again people produce a bewildering variety of opinions, again downward-looking. Another mistake. The second responsibility is to manage those who have authority over us: bosses, supervisors, directors, regulators, ad infinitum. In an organized world, there are always people with authority over us. Without their consent and support, how can we follow conviction, exercise judgment, use creative ability, achieve constructive results, or create conditions by which others can do the same? Managing superiors is essential. Devoting a quarter of our time and ability to that effort is not too much.

Asked for the third responsibility, people become a bit uneasy and uncertain. Yet, their thoughts remain on subordinates. Mistaken again. The third responsibility is to manage one’s peers — those over whom we have no authority and who have no authority over us — associates, competitors, suppliers, customers — the entire environment, if you will. Without their support, respect, and confidence, little or nothing can be accomplished. Peers can make a small heaven or hell of our life. Is it not wise to devote at least a fifth of our time, energy, and ingenuity to managing peers?

Asked for the fourth responsibility, people have difficulty coming up with an answer, for they are now troubled by thinking downward. However, if one has attended to self, superiors, and peers, there is little else left. The fourth responsibility is to manage those over whom we have authority.

The common response is that all one’s time will be consumed managing self, superiors, and peers. There will be no time to manage subordinates. Exactly! One need only select decent people, introduce them to the concept, induce them to practice it, and enjoy the process. If those over whom we have authority properly manage themselves, manage us, manage their peers, and replicate the process with those they employ, what is there to do but see they are properly recognized, rewarded, and stay out of their way? It is not making better people of others that management is about. It’s about making a better person of self. Income, power, and titles have nothing to do with that.

Your example can be your greatest method of influence. Sadly, for some, you may be doing all of these things and find very little appreciation from those you manage. That's okay. They may think, "What does my manager do?", but it doesn't matter that they fully understand, unless you are preparing someone to take your place. Your job is not to prove your worth to those you manage. If your team is feeling individually appreciated, inspired, free to explore and get things done, then you are largely doing right by them. Still, your team will likely fail if you don't manage your superiors, peers and yourself properly, which is to say, I agree whole heartedly with Dee Hock's comments above.

Contrast

I've visited a lot of places around the world, but I've only really lived in a few places. I grew up in Redmond, Washington, the Redmond before Microsoft. The little town with one stop light on Leary Way and fields next to the Library where I would ride my BMX bike. I grew to love the green, tall trees, massive amounts of rain and the feeling of misty mornings and amazing sunsets. Rivers were all around me and the ocean never far away. The mountains either the Olympics to the west or the Cascades to the east were ever present. I honestly couldn't imagine a better place to grow up.

I have also lived in Northeast Brazil for 2 years. There is some desert there, but mostly verdant forests, jungles, farm land and grass lands. There, it seemed like you couldn't drop anything on the ground but that it would grow. Again I was close the the ocean and while I didn't spend much time there, I got to know fishers and farmers and cattle ranchers all of whom helped me to see life more clearly. The green you experience in the equatorial areas in Brazil is a different green than I experienced back home in the Northwest. It was a brighter and more vivid green, not the dark, wet mossy green of the Pacific rain forests. It also amazed me how on the equator, there is no dusk. The sun sets so fast, you can turn your head and miss it. But with all the sun and rain and rivers, the tall trees of the jungle were always close by. The Mango trees and the huge Jaca trees seemed to always provide shade and something to look up to.

Imagine my surprise to move to southeastern Idaho, in the high desert plains. Comparatively few rivers, though there are lots of irrigation canals. Flat land, most of it lava rock. Harsh winters and an overall color I'd describe as, well, brown. Trees here are a green color, but with a muted brown to them. The ocean seems a distant dream and large bodies of water few and far between. While we drove to our new home for the first time, I commented to my wife, "Man, this is ugly!" Now, least I offend my fellow Idahoans, we are learning more about this new climate and the wonderful things to explore here, and I'm sure those of you who have braved the high desert plains will have much advice to add, but it's still a shock and the contrast is very real.

Contrast often allows you to see things more clearly, and today, I saw very real beauty in this area, for the first time. And I saw it in the trees. What struck me is how solid, sturdy and unyielding these trees are. There are trees planted and nurtured by those living around houses or in the city, but the trees that captured my mind are those out on the plains. These trees are growing up amidst the driving sub-zero wind and snow of winter and withering heat of summer, from a bed of lava rock! It's as if these trees are saying to Mother Nature, "Sure, I'll grow here, right where you planted me." And they do grow. Against all the odds for survival, they survive! They take in carbon dioxide, unusable by most around them and exhale precious oxygen into the high altitude air. In the search for water, they break up the rock and begin to make dirt for other, less sturdy plants who will benefit years after they have died. They bear the weight of heavy snows and heavier ice. They just seem to "take it" and keep living, untiringly and unheralded, these miracles of nature do their part to grow.

Perhaps my love of trees comes from my childhood growing up around them. Perhaps I took for granted the trees, water and green always around me. What ever it might be, for me, these lonely, windswept, dust covered but undaunted trees are inspiring.

CodWarrior

Here's a blast from the past. As Xcode continues to improve as the default IDE on the Mac and for the iPhone, the majority of Apple's current developers don't even how CodeWarrior saved Apple. With the release of the iPhone SDK, I think it's not far fetched to imagine Apple's WWDC attendance tripling. Someone sent me this graphic from an old Metrowerks t-shirt. If you have this shirt, you fully qualify as an old timer.

Change is Hard

I just rediscovered this great quote:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. - Max Planck

I believe this doesn't just relate to scientific truth, but truth in general. My Dad would say, "Experience is always in the first person," meaning that it's a good idea to learn from others, but most of the time we don't. There are great new truths to be had, but everyone is at a different point in the journey, with all the baggage that entails. Many of the most important and needful changes can't happen until there is a personal experience with the need for change. Mostly that happens one person at a time. There are those who think people would act differently if they only knew some bit of relevant knowledge, but more often than not, the reality is much more complicated than a simple lack of knowledge.

Change requires love, patience, help and encouragement, a willingness to learn from above, from below and from all those around you. It requires an absolute and deep conviction that you could really be wrong about something in a fundamental way. It requires a desire to improve and a motivation to exercise more effort than normal. It requires the courage to be wrong and fail again and again in the pursuit of new understanding. In the end, it often requires the willingness to forgo the due respect and esteem of others. Almost always it requires some kind of sacrifice. It is for all these reasons and many more, that change is hard. Thanks be to those who, despite all of this, do change. They make space for others to do the same.

Be Microsoft

I love working on the Mac. I enjoy working in MacBU. These days, however, I'm not so thrilled about the vibe hanging around here at Microsoft as a whole.

We seem to have lost our self-confidence. There is a general and constant focus on "the other guys" these days. It's like everyone is continually contemplating competitive response, rather than acting for our customers. First it's open source software, then it's Linux, then it's Google, now it's Apple. Tomorrow it will be something or someone else. Least someone misunderstand, I'm all for looking out for the competition, but if all your focus is on how to respond to some perceived or real competitive threat, how will you ever be able to innovate, come up with something original or surprise and delight your customers? It's just paralyzing.

I wish folks would just realize that we are not going to be all things to all people. That's okay. We've got a job to do, and we have a very reasonable opportunity to do some very wonderful things. Let's stop worrying about the competition, or about what we can't do just yet. Can't we just focus on making our customers amazingly happy? Perhaps I'm too simplistic, but if we do just that, I really think everything else will work out.

I feel like we've lost our identity looking at and comparing ourselves with others. The insecurity and lack of confidence seems to be everywhere. You can see it in the way employees "defend their Microsoft position" rather than "just tell the story" because it's a good one.

It wasn't always like this.

What's totally ironic about this present situation is that this is exactly where Apple was, only a few years ago. In an interview at the "All Things Digital" Conference this year, Steve Jobs said this about that time at Apple:

[There was this belief that] for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose, and it was clear that you didn’t have to play that game because Apple wasn’t going to beat Microsoft. Apple didn’t have to beat Microsoft. Apple had to remember who Apple was because it had forgotten who Apple was. So for me it was pretty essential to break that paradigm.

There is space in this big old world for everyone, Apple, Google, free software and yes, even Microsoft. We don't have to be Apple to be successful. We don't have to be Google either. We just need to be Microsoft.

Thoughts from Dad

I have a great friend in my Dad. He takes time to listen to me. He tries to help me. Our conversations are not so much about some grand conclusion as they are about exploration and discovery. Recently he sent me an email follow up to a conversation we were having. Here's what he wrote:

1. I am different. So I need to figure out how others think, because they don't think like I do.

2. Learning about change is not changing.

3. Most people agree that improvement and change is needed, until it means they have to change.

4. Getting someone to want to change is hard.

5. The power of the group, has something in it that facilitates change. (Carl Rogers)

6. Most leaders say, "You need to do this... You need to change... Good luck! See you later." Instead of, "You can change. I can help."

7. It's important to setup an environment that balances building the person and getting the job done.

Man, I love my Dad.

The Courage to Help

Let me begin by stating that I unabashedly love the United States of America. It is just wonderful to live in the United States of America. There are problems to be sure, but these are had everywhere. On the other hand, the blessings experienced here are only found elsewhere in relatively small pockets. When you go to live someplace else, you learn that not only do you trade old for new in food, scenery and culture, you also trade major problem sets. The old proverb about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, elucidates the ease with which human judgment can be prone to error.

I don't think I can be called a world traveler, but I have had some experience outside of the US. I lived for two years in the jungles and deserts of the northeastern Brazil. I've visited Ireland, Egypt, Jordan and Israel. There are real families, real life and all that that entails everywhere. I feel confident in saying that the privileges I often took for granted, no longer seem to me the normal and the natural affair of mankind. They are not. In so many ways we live today at the tip top of human existence.

Yesterday was July 4th, Independence Day, commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from Great Britain. It was on this day that a group of brave men and women signed and fought for words like these:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Remembering on the Fourth of July that the extraordinary blessings I experience were not always so normal, is always very humbling for me. This year however I learned a bit more about that tempestuous and tenuous time of early America and I thought I'd share an insight I had.

Choosing to revolt against the King of Great Britain was with out a doubt insane. These 13 colonies had little money, a comparatively minuscule army, few weapons, little training and not much of a plan. What they did have was a belief that what they were doing was right. In their effort to show their faith, others were inspired by their cause and came to their aid. These others were Spain, the Netherlands and France. Men like General Lafayette, a French military officer, were moved to action. Said he of America:

The moment I heard of America I loved her; the moment I knew she was fighting for freedom I burnt with a desire of bleeding for her; and the moment I shall be able to serve her, at any time, or in any part of the world, will be the happiest of my life. - Marquis de Lafayette, Letter to Henry Laurens (then President of Congress), April 1777

With the help of the French, men like Lafayette and others, independence was ultimately achieved.

When a new nation forms, things are ever so fragile, chaos and fear so, so close at hand. I am thankful that a country far away, saw a distant tyranny so many years ago, and didn't choose to ignore it. I'm thankful that they had men, like Lafayette, who would be willing to sacrifice their lives for others to whom they had no reason to give anything. More specifically, this year, I'd like to thank the French who's sacrifice in large measure sustained a young and vulnerable nation. Their choice, so long ago, has made a way for my life, my liberty and my pursuit of happiness and I will be forever grateful.

Without the help of others, there likely would be no USA. Without those who were in a place to help actually choosing to help, the cause of freedom would have been snuffed out once again. For me, the lesson is this: even for causes with great ideals and great men like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams leading the way, the US still needed help from others, or it would have all been some small footnote in some history book today. Back then we needed those with the courage to help, and we still need each other today. Really, it was a miracle that it all worked out.

The 1.0 that wasn't

From what I can gather, the biggest problems with the iPhone seem to be as follows, in order of severity:

1. You can only use AT&T network

2. The EDGE data network is slow

3. The keyboard takes some time to learn

4. Making a phone call can take more "taps" than with other phones

5. No way to Cut, Copy or Paste

(I'm leaving off the list the fact that so many are having trouble activating their phones. I think this is AT&T's capacity planning problem, and I don't think we'll see this happen again.)

This is remarkable. The iPhone is NOT a simple device. It is a complex feature-laden phone, iPod and web device. And with all this functionality, the most folks can do to complain about it is reference something related to the items above.

This phone flies in the face of all those who think that 1.0 products must be either fully focused on one task to be done well, or those that consider 1.0 products something you should avoid by default until the next release, you know, the one with all the bugs worked out. The iPhone while complex and full of features, does have a simple interaction and experience. It is so compelling and just fun, that to miss out on this version while waiting for the "next rev" seems almost unbearable, once you've played with it. As others continue to market proudly their "alpha" and "beta" stickers, Apple shows us all, that you can deliver a 1.0 experience that really is complete.

What it means to be 1.0 will never be the same.

Apple Slips Leopard to Oct 2007

From Apple's Hot News web page:

Apple Statement
iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard's features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones. [Apr 12, 2007]

This is interesting. Apple, like many companies often slip their release dates. Historically, however, Apple has only slipped a little on ship dates, but this slip, from Spring 2007 to October 2007, is the largest slip I remember. It's very uncharacteristic of the rhythm of shipping Apple has had over the last 5 years.

Leopard is certainly Apple's most ambitious OS release yet, so it stands to reason that they could have bit off more than they could handle. I'm sure this was further compounded by the additional resources needed for both the Apple TV and the iPhone. I also wonder what the "secret features" are that Jobs referred to in his last keynote. Some have suggested that this slip was to add unplanned functionality, but I don't get that sense. I tend to believe that this is just what it's stated to be, a resource issue.

There are 3 variables you can change when managing a project: scope (how big it is), resources (how much money and people you can allocate) and time (how long the project will take). It looks like Apple reduced their allocated resources for Leopard, and without a corresponding reduction in scope, they were forced to increase the time the project would take. I'm sure this is super painful for them, it always is, but not long from now, they'll ship and this will all be a distant memory. Personally, I'm glad I don't have to put up with all the rumor sites constantly suggesting that Leopard is just about to RTM. ;-)

Update: Best quote from our chit chat around the office here: "Woah. October? :( Stupid iPhone. I want my Time Machine."

General Tug

I recently listened to speech given by Lance B. Wickman which he titled Seasons. In this speech he recounts a remarkable story from his life.

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When I graduated from college, I was commissioned an officer in the United States Army. I was an infantryman. After completing some training, in early 1965 I was assigned-with my bride of a few months-to an infantry battalion of the 25th U.S. Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. My wife and I were thrilled with this assignment and looked forward to three years of life amidst the sun and the surf and the wonderful people of Hawaii. We rented a little duplex right on the beach on the North Shore of Oahu. You could step out of our back door onto the sand; it was literally like something out of a movie.

In October of that year, our battalion received a new commander, Lt. Col. Thomas U. Greer-“Tug” Greer, as his peers called him. Tug Greer was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Class of 1951. In 1951, the Korean War was raging. Most of the West Point class that year was assigned immediately to the combat zone. Many of Tug Greer’s classmates died on the rugged slopes of that land. But Tug had survived and remained in the army. And now, 14 years later, he was assigned to command our battalion.

No sooner did he assume command, than Col. Greer took the battalion on a week-long training exercise in the rugged Kahuku Mountains of northern Oahu. For those of you who have not been to Hawaii, let me describe these mountains. They are steep slopes of volcanic rock with little topsoil and covered with thick, green vegetation. For five days, we struggled up and down those slopes in one infantry maneuver after another. Finally, it was Saturday morning, the last day of the exercise. All of us looked forward to returning early to our battalion headquarters, turning in our equipment and hitting the beach. After all, we were young, and what was the point of being stationed in Hawaii if you could not go to the beach! I remember gazing down early that morning from my perch on the side of one of those mountains at the shimmering sand and sparkling ocean. I could hardly wait!

About that time, Col. Greer came to our rifle company’s position. To our company commander, Capt. Jim Andrus, he said, “As the last exercise of this training, I would like Charlie Company (that was us-“C” Company) to establish defensive positions. Now, among other things establishing defensive positions meant digging foxholes. You know what a foxhole is. It is a hole in the ground where a soldier can seek shelter from enemy fire. But this was volcanic rock! And we were only equipped with those little folding shovels (which the army calls “entrenching tools”)! So, as Capt. Andrus gathered us platoon leaders around to give us the orders for establishing defensive positions, he said, “Since we want to get this over with quickly, we won’t actually dig foxholes. Instead, we will simply do “simulated foxholes”-we will just mark out on the ground where we would put the foxholes.”

So, that is what we did. A little while later, Col. Greer came around to inspect our “defensive positions”. I remember it like it was yesterday! As he came to the first of these “simulated foxholes”, he asked Capt. Andrus, “What are those?” Clearing his throat a little nervously, Capt. Andrus responded, “Well, sir, those are simulated foxholes.” “Simulated foxholes!” roared Col. Greer. “I ordered this company to prepare defensive positions, and that means digging foxholes! This company is going to stay out here and dig until it learns how to dig foxholes that look like the came out of the training manual!” And so, as the rest of the battalion packed up weapons and equipment and headed back to the base and an afternoon at the beach, Charlie Company remained out on that hillside. And we dug, and we dug, and we dug. Col. Greer’s name was on every one’s lips that afternoon, and I can tell you that he was not winning any popularity contests that day! But by evening, we had foxholes that really looked just like they came out of the training manual.

But, you see, there was something that we did not know that beautiful Hawaiian Saturday. When Col. Greer had been given his orders assigning him as our battalion commander, he had also received some other orders that he could not share with us-top secret orders-sending our battalion to Vietnam. We did not know it at the time, but this would be our last training exercise. And Col. Greer, with his vivid memories of his fallen classmates on the rugged hillsides of Korea was determined to do all that he could to save the lives of those men entrusted to his care. In a manner of speaking, Hawaii was the “season” for learning those skills that would save our lives. Vietnam would be too late.

What happened next I did not personally observe, arriving in Vietnam a few days after the rest of the battalion; but it was reported to me by my comrades-in-arms. They reached the spot in the division’s defensive perimeter assigned to our battalion late in an afternoon. Col. Greer’s order went out: Establish defensive positions. Our men dug in because that is what you did in Tug Greer’s battalion. Another battalion next to ours, arriving at the same time, only scooped out some shallow cavities in the ground-not unlike our Hawaiian “simulated foxholes”-planning to dig real foxholes the next day. But that night, the Viet Cong enemy launched a ferocious mortar barrage into the green troops. Our men were safe and secure in their foxholes; but the men of that neighboring battalion were not so fortunate. I am told that the next morning Tug Greer’s name was again on everyone’s lips-but this time with reverence and respect. I still regard him as one of the great men I have known. From him I learned one of life’s most powerful lessons: There is indeed a “time for every purpose under heaven”-even a time to learn to dig foxholes.

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There are probably several lessons one could learn from this story. The questions that come to my mind are these: Who are those people in the software industry that might be like General Tug? Who are the people that have "been there, done that"? Who are the folks that can point to what really matters? Where are the sages of the software industry? Where are the mentors who are renowned for having wisdom that comes with age and experience? Am I the only person that has been caught in the illusion that what we are doing today is new and special? Maybe what makes the software industry so dynamic is not the remarkable speed of new developments, but the remarkable speed at which we forget.

How to Talk to People

Don Norman has published a wonderful excerpt from his next book "The Design of Future Things" set to publish in October 2007. The excerpt is purportedly a research missive from future machines to other machines on how to deal with people. Certainly some of us lowly humans can relate to the difficulties of communicating effectively with other human beings. (We could also probably say some things about what it's like to communicate with modern-day machines.) What follows are some choice quotes from the article.

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It isn't easy to communicate with them; people take suggestions as criticism and get defensive, and sometimes angry. They misinterpret our utterances, ignore us, or overreact. Sometimes we just can't win.

Five Rules of Communication From Machines to People

1. Keep things simple.
2. Always give people a conceptual model.
3. Give reasons.
4. Continually Reassure.
5. Offer a feeling of control.

People have difficulty with anything complicated, and they don't like to listen. So make the message short. In fact, it's better not to use language at all--it takes too long and, besides, human languages is horribly ambiguous.

The best kind of communication is done subconsciously, so people don't have to interrupt their conscious thoughts to attend to them. Thus even for the most befuddled minds, we need to communicate so that the meaning is clear.

Give them something their simple minds can understand. A conceptual model is a fiction, but a useful one as it makes them think they understand.

In short, people like pictures and diagrams.

Our early 21st Century Cars had almost given up trying to explain to people that they should drive more slowly on wet roads. But then we discovered that if we made it seem as if they were in trouble by faking skids and sliding around on the road, people would beg us to slow down. Sliding and skidding fit their model of danger far better than any words could have done. So wherever possible, don't try to tell them--let them experience it.

But the bottom line is, if people haven't seen anything happening for a while, they get anxious, even jumpy. And no one wants to deal with an anxious person.

[Make] them feel as if they are in control, even when they aren't. Keep up that deception--it's very useful. People like to be in control, even if they are performing a task really poorly.

Any time you have to make recommendations, make people think the ideas are theirs. If you really have to do something fast, just don't let them know: What they don't know, doesn't bother them.

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There's some wisdom hidden in these quotes. Check out the whole thing, it's a fun read.

Update: Originally, I had some snarky, toung-in-cheek comments about each of these suggestions, but it just didn't come off like I wanted it and obscured too much of the real value in Dr. Norman's suggestions, so I've removed them.

On Context

There's been some talk recently about how MacBU might better develop software, and it reminded me of this story:

A long time ago in a faraway village lived a man who everyone did their very best to avoid. He was the type of person who believed that there was only one competent person in the world, and that one person was himself. Consequently he was never satisfied with anything. His shoes never fit right. His shirt never felt comfortable. When his food wasn't too cold, it was too salty, and when it wasn't too hot, it was too bland.

If a field wasn't sowed by himself, it was not sowed well. If he didn't close the door, the door was not closed properly.

In short, he made a career of frowning, lecturing, criticizing, and mumbling about the incompetencies of every other person in the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, the man was married, which made matters all the worse. No matter what his wife did, in his eyes it was wrong. No matter what the unfortunate woman cooked, sewed, or cleaned, or even when she milked the cow, it was never satisfactory, and he let her know it.

She tried very hard to be a good wife, but it seemed the harder she tried the less she pleased him. Finally, one evening she could take no more.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," she told him. "Tomorrow I will do your chores and you will do mine."

"But you can't do my chores," the man replied. "You don't know the first thing about sowing, hoeing, and irrigating."

But the woman was adamant. And on top of that, she was filled with a righteous anger that frankly astonished and frightened the man to the point where he didn't dare disagree.

So the next morning the wife went off to the fields and the man began the domestic chores. After thinking about it, he had actually convinced himself he was looking forward to it. Once and for all, he would demonstrate to his wife how things should be done.

Unfortunately, not everything went according to plan. In fact, nearly everything the man touched turned into disaster. He spilled the milk, let the pig get into the house, lost the cow, burned the dinner, and ultimately set the house on fire, narrowly escaping with his own life.

When his wife returned, she discovered her husband sitting on a pile of ashes, smoke still rising from his clothes. But the woman wasn't the type to rub things in. She helped him up, wiped the soot from his beard, fixed him a little something to eat, and then prepared a bed of straw for them to sleep on.

From that day forward, the man never complained about anyone or anything else for as long as he lived.

At different points in my life I've played the role of both people described in this story, so I can speak from experience when I say that there's no shortage of people who know the best way to develop software. The problem, however, is almost always one of context. What might work for one context, is absolutely the wrong solution in another. You can almost never judge correctly without knowing the context and you can not know the context without being a part of the process.

There are a lot of things that make developing software hard. I don't believe writing well designed, high quality software is easy for anyone, especially not for us who work on Mac software at Microsoft. But the challenge attracts some amazing people, for which I am personally grateful. It makes what otherwise might be impossible, doable. When I share with you what work is like for me, it's because not everyone can work on one of the oldest, most successful and most used Mac programs around. I figure you will find it interesting because, well, how do you go about testing 30 million lines of code? :-)

Today we had a nice visit from Sal Soghoian and Todd Fernandez from Apple. Among other things we talked about what's new with AppleScript and Automator and what requests we had for improvements to both. After the meeting I gave them a quick tour of the Mac Lab. We have now upgraded to where we have over 300 Mac minis and over 400 Macs total all dedicated to running AppleScript test automation. I recall Sal saying, "I'm on a serious AppleScript buzz!" I'm willing to bet it's the largest "AppleScript installment" he's ever seen!

Consider the implications of our automation test lab: There's all the hardware costs: the Macs, the KVMs, the switches, the power, the cooling, the Xserves, the SQL servers. Then there's a whole Operations team that keeps everything going. Then there's a whole Tools team that writes tools of all sorts to help our small team of testers and developers scale and manage the complexity involved. Then there's my team, the automation team, tasked with making our automation story successful. All this for what? So that we can ship to our customers a super reliable, safe, high quality product, specifically tailored and designed for the Mac. If this doesn't speak to the focused effort we are investing in making Office 12 insanely great, I don't know what does.

Others may balk at the effort required to design, build and test Office for the Mac, and I don't blame them. I'd probably do the same if I didn't understand the magnitude of what is involved first hand. We've got lots great new features in Office 12, only one of which is the support for the new file formats. It's hard to really express the scope and scale of things sometimes, but the Open XML based file format has been published and you can find the full spec online. It's a PDF 3975 pages long! Read that and you'll have all you need to understand the details of the new file format. It's a good example of what I like to call serious, professional software development at a massive scale.

You may never be a part of a software project as big as Office, but not too long from now, when you're using Office 12 on your Mac or a freely updated version of Office 2004, you won't care about all the details involved with getting every bit in those 3975 pages of Open XML spec correct, you'll expect things, like a Mac, to "just work". We want that too, which is why we do, what we do.

The Anatomy of Peace

I recently listened to a BYU Devotional in which LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley simply related from his life "Experiences Worth Remembering." One of the last experiences he shared was this:

I had a long remembered experience with Mr. Shimon Peres of Israel. He was a former Prime Minister. He had seen much of conflict and trouble in his days. I asked him if whether there was any solution to the great problems that constantly seem to divide the people of Israel and the Palestinians. He replied, "Of course there is!" As I recall he said, "When we were Adam and Eve we were all one. Is there any need for us now to be divided into segments with hatred for one another?"

He then told an very interesting story that he said he had heard from a Muslim. The Muslim told of a Jewish Rabbi who was conversing with two of his friends, the Rabbi asked one of the men, "How do you know when the night is over and a new day has begun?"

His friend replied, "When you look into the East and can distinguish a sheep from a goat, then you know the night is over and the day has begun."

The second was asked the same question. He replied, "When you look into the distance and can distinguish an olive tree from a fig tree, then you know morning has come."

They then asked the Rabbi how he could tell when the night is over and the day begins. He thought for a time and then said, "When you look into the East and see the face of a woman and you can say, 'She is my sister.' and when you can look into the East and see the face of a man and can say, 'He is my brother.' then you know the light of a new day has come.

I'm currently reading a book named The Anatomy of Peace from which I chose the title for this post. One of the ideas presented is that when we treat people as objects, we are at war with them and bad things happen. When we start to see others as real people, not objects, the whole world changes before us.

Like so many things, it's simple, but very hard to do.

Out of the Best Books

I've been reading blogs for over 2 years now. That's not very much time, but enough to really appreciate the conversation that is the "blogosphere." I'm only now realizing that because of my time invested in reading blogs, I'm not getting to read the books that normally I'm able to enjoy. Additionally, since I started working at Microsoft as a teenager, I've never finished my college degree. Now it's time to focus in earnest on completing that bit of my education. (Sidenote: If you have any tips for attending college and working full-time, send 'em my way!) So, in order to make more time in my life, I'm going to unsubscribe from many of my favorite blogs, not because of the content quality, but simply because for this next season in my life, I can't afford that luxury. So the next few posts are going to be a little meta-meta while I blog about blogs. :-) I figure that if I'm not going to read these excellent blogs anymore, at least a few of my readers might enjoy reading them in my absence. Further, it will be interesting from a personal recording standpoint when I come back, to see how my interests have changed. My process for choosing which blogs I read has been roughly this:

1. Someone I trust points me to a new blog or blog post.
2. I read the post and then skim the rest of the current posts, if most of the posts look insightful, I subscribe.
3. If the author posts multiple times each day, I'll often unsubscribe, unless the posts are very short and very interesting. This kind of rapid fire posting might be good for traffic, but the randomization doesn't help me focus or think deeply about the topic at hand.
4. Generally, I tend toward long form posts, rather than short pithy stuff. Not that I don't enjoy cleverness, it's just that from my experience most worthwhile topics can't be reduced to a simple sound bite without severe data loss.
5. There's always a risk that an author will have a few brilliant posts and then degrade into less meaningful writing. When I see this happen, I unsubscribe.

I use NewsFire to read blogs. It's simple, small and stays out of my way. In NewsFire I have a set of blogs in my "Interesting" group. This is my holding bin, the place where I put new blogs I've encountered, but are currently "on trial" to see if they graduate to a final resting place as one of my standard blogs. My typical pattern is to skim posts in NewsFire to see what I want to take time to read and fully digest the ideas. If I do, I open the post as a new tab in Safari. When I'm done, I close NewsFire and process the remaining pages open in Safari. So, I hope you enjoy the next few pointers. And if you are the author of a blog I mention, don't be sad, just remember, it's not a "good bye", it's just a "see you later." ;-)

Woz at Microsoft

One of the cool things about working at Microsoft is the constant stream of interesting guest speakers. Recently it was Steve Wozniak. It was facinating to listen to him speak about his love for technology. I had my trusty MacBook Pro and took down some notes and fun quotes. On chip design: "I played a game: how can you design it better than before. I wanted to see if I could design something with half as many parts." On wanting a computer: I told my Dad, "I'm going to have a computer." Dad said, "It costs as much as a house." I was stunned and quickly replied, "Then I'm going to get an apartment." About his microprocessor, "I couldn't afford one, but I could build it. I could always build something for free." Woz was giving away his Basic schematics, then when Jobs found out, he said, "Let's sell it." On Human Computer Interaction: "It's a lot easier to design a computer than make it acceptable to people in their lives." On Apple's rank in early computer magazines: "Apple was always at the top of the list, you know, alphabetical order." On the small business owners in the 70s and 80s: "They didn't want a computer, they wanted a solution." On childlike learning: "What's fun for kids can be fun for adults and that's my philosophy." Someone asked what excites you? His response: "Products done really well from the people point of view." "Steve jobs never programmed in his life." Someone asked if he had any regrets to which Woz replied: "Regrets about Apple, no. Regrets about my own life? Yes, I wish I would have put floating point in Basic, but I wanted to get it done quick."

You can do it!

My Dad just sent me this inspiring quote by Marianne Williamson from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

For me, at least, this is true and reading it reminded me of a great post by Seth Godin on ways to defend the status quo:

Top ways to defend the status quo

1. "That will never work."
2. "... That said, the labor laws make it difficult for us to do a lot of the suggestions [you] put out. And we do live in a lawsuit oriented society.""
3. "Can you show me some research that demonstrates that this will work?"
4. "Well, if you had some real-world experience, then you would understand."
5. "I don't think our customers will go for that, and without them we'd never be able to afford to try this."
6. "It's fantastic, but the salesforce won't like it."
7. "The salesforce is willing to give it a try, but [major retailer] won't stock it."
8. "There are government regulations and this won't be permitted."
9. "Well, this might work for other people, but I think we'll stick with what we've got."
10. "We'll let someone else prove it works... it won't take long to catch up."
11. "Our team doesn't have the technical chops to do this."
12. "Maybe in the next budget cycle."
13. "We need to finish this initiative first."
14. "It's been done before."
15. "It's never been done before."
16. "We'll get back to you on this."
17. "We're already doing it."

Let these phrases be warning signs for your mind. There is greatness to be had, don't let it slip through your fingers!

Work and Play

From David Heinemeier

You don’t have to work hard to work well. You don’t need sinister eyebrows or only 4-hour sleeps or a booked calendar to be serious. But somehow that image sticks so bad that we tend to view fun as the opposite of Serious Business Stuff(TM). It’s a false choice, not a real fight. And you accept its premise at your own peril. Fun is all about creativity, innovation, play, experimentation, progress, and seeing real things come to life. If you make fun an enemy of business, you’re judging all these desirable concepts by association.

I just had lunch today with one of our Excel testers and while we were discussing some testing ideas, she just blurted out, "I'm so in love with pivot tables! I just love them!" I laughed, but I loved to see the enthusiasm about of all things, pivot tables! Work can be play indeed!

Be yourself

I just found a great quote:

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seuss - US author & illustrator (1904 - 1991)

Do you matter? Despite it being a pedestrian principle, our patience with the differences we have with others is a good indicator.

Steve Portigal on Innovation

From Core77:

[Michael] Bierut felt he started off being too "clever" - which I hear as new for new's sake - and that wasn't the right thing to do. I don't think innovative means shocking, obviously new, different, and all that. I think innovation can be invisible and brilliant and seamless to adapt to, with that whiff of exhaled "ooh!" that happens afterwards. To a graphic designer, the word may mean something else.

Wicked Problems

I was reading about wicked problems recently and found this fantastic quote:

Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them. – Laurence J. Peter

It's often so easy to criticize without context.