You Want IT When?

The month of October has just come to a close, and it was an interesting month here on You Want it When?  The month started with the first of a series on metrics:  “Software Metrics: Some Background.”   It was a well read article, and I plan to continue with the series in November. 

I got side tracked a bit after publishing the next article, “Reflection: Unrealistic schedules.”  That’s when the site analytics went through the roof.   It was the most read article in the month of October, and it also has the most readers for a single day of any of the articles published to date on this site.  I’m unsure if the readers appreciated my position on the topic, but it certainly is a subject that evokes a reaction in my audience.

Since I seemed to strike oil with the article, “Reflection: Unrealistic Schedules,”  I decided to stay on topic while I had the readers interest, and I followed it up with the 3 part series on an approach for managing an unrealistic schedule.  The article “Part 1: How to Manage and Unrealistic Schedule” was the third most read article for the month of October, and “Part 2: How to Manage an Unrealistic Schedule” was the fifth most read article of the month.  They didn’t quite register the same reaction in the hearts of the readers as “Reflection: Unrealistic Schedules,” but the interest was positive nonetheless.

The forth most read article for the month of October was surprisingly “Why Software Process Adoption Fails.”  It is the number one read article on this site since this site has been up, and it continues to be well read.  I did not have any appreciation for the kind of interest that the article has had - totally unexpected.   I’m a bit passionate about software process, but my experience with process has been that it’s something that the software community loves to hate — even I hate it when it’s bad and so many are bad – so I didn’t expect an article that was advocating that process is good, and that the software community is sabotaging its own welfare would be embraced warmly by the software community.  Maybe most of us all feel inside the same way, and this gave a voice to what many are feeling.  I really don’t know how to explain it, but I’d love to hear some of my reader’s thoughts.

Finally the second most read article for the month of October was “Managing a Product in Crisis.”   I was asked by Scott Sehlhorst of Tyner Blain to share a personal success story.   Scott said, “What a great way to put some proof points behind the theories!” in his article, Software Product Success Stories, that created the blog-tagging meme.   I agree.   There are times when I read articles and wonder if the author writing about software development was ever actually successful.  Frankly, at times the writings from the Agile proponents evinces that reaction in me.

Really, why should anyone ever take any advice from any of us writing about software development? Even if what we write about sounds good on paper, there’s a difference between a theory that sounds logical and good and one that is practical.  Scott’s request gave me an opportunity write a bit about my success in putting to use many of the practices on which I’m writing.  That one was a little uncomfortable for me to write as I’m apprehensive with writing about myself, but I thank him for the opportunity because those of us writing about software practices should have some accomplishments to back up our rhetoric. 

It’s like hiring a financial advisor: you want to know that he’s been successful managing their own finances before you hire them.  I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking advice from a financial advisor that was heavily in debt, bankrupt, and doesn’t have much savings or success with investing.  Likewise, you, the readers, should expect the technical bloggers to have experience and successes in the practice of software development. 

For the month of November I plan to continue with the series on software metrics.  I know I’ll be writing about a topic that is inimical to many in the software community. I have been using the principals and practices that I plan to describe for nearly a decade now.  I attribute the practices to greatly improving the predictability, time to market, quality, and well being of the software teams that I have managed.  Good use of software metrics will improve the performance of your team more than anything else if you are not already using them.  My experience has been that once people have the epiphany, they warmly embrace software metrics.

I’m also planning to write about the characteristics of a good software process in the coming weeks.  We all know what we dislike in process, but I don’t read too much written about what makes a good software process.   I started outlining the article, and I hope to publish that one sometime shortly.

My goal has been to publish two articles a week: one on Monday and one on Thursday.  I’ve been staying with that pace reasonably well but not perfect.  As we get closer to the holidays, I expect that schedule will be challenging to meet, so I will try to at least publish one article a week, and I will try to publish that by Thursday when my schedule doesn’t permit me to write two.  It is possible that there may be a week that I skip. I will try not to, but life gets a bit hectic around this time of year, and so it’s a real possibility.

Please keep reading, tell your friends about You Want it When?, and please share your thoughts.  Email me, if would, at “bill(at)yuwantitwhen(dot)com”  to share your thoughts, critical or positive commentary or even topics that you would like me to cover in future articles.

For those in the US who will be celebrating the Thanksgiving Holiday and to our global community who have other celebrations this time of year, I wish you all a happy and peaceful celebration.