Technology Networking Opportunities in Michiana

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I realized that, for me, one of the most enjoyable aspects of being in the technology field is having the opportunity to exchange ideas with other technology professionals. A rich dialog with other professionals helps me become introduced to new ideas, new techniques, and possibilities that I may not have encountered had I simply relied on my own personal experiences. Networking is also a great recruiting tool to identify talented folks that you might want to join your company as openings are created.

I wanted to share just a few groups that I am personally aware of because I have attended.

Michiana Agile Practitioners

This group was started as, and continues to be, an informal gathering to discuss Agile. Beyond that, there is no single focus or formal agenda. The meetings are typically on the first Monday of each month at 5:30 PM. For September, the meeting will be on the 13th of September due to the Labor Day holiday, but still at 5:30.  We meet at Hacienda on Miami Street. The Michiana Agile Practitioners group resides on LinkedIn.

Michiana Area .NET User Group

This user group, obviously focused on .NET, is currently in the process of planning a “Tech Fest” to be held on September 18th. The day will be broken into two tracks, one focused on development, and the other with a focus IT. You can view the agenda for Tech Fest on the MADNUG site. Press Ganey was generous and is going to host the tech fest in their training center.

Chicago Agile Project Manager MeetUp

If you’re up for a road trip, this MeetUp is worth it. Meeting in downtown Chicago at 5:30 Central, you can get most of the regular work day in and still make it to the meeting on time. The attendees typically have a broad range of experience with Agile, from “exploring” to people that many would consider “expert.” The meetings are held on a monthly basis, and the topics are advertised at least weeks ahead of time. The number of attendees is limited to 30, so an early RSVP is required. Most months, I attend with at least one other coworker or guest. Carpooling makes the drive go by quickly, and most times we are back to South Bend and off the toll road by 10:30. If you’re interested, feel free to contact me and join the carpool.

What others are you familiar with?

I used Google to look for additional groups, and pretty much came up empty. Are there other technology user groups that you are familiar with and would recommend?

Marathon Racing

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It seems that sport analogies are often used to try to describe what happens on project teams. Software development efforts are equated to a race. As one who dabbles in foot races and triathlon, I couldn’t help but start to think about analogies between projects, teams, and those sports.

The sport analogy that most often comes to mind for me is the sport of marathon running. I have raced in four marathons; Chicago one time, and Detroit three times. Like software projects travelling the marathon distance of 26.2 miles requires a nontrivial investment of time and energy for preparation and execution. Also, to complete an endurance event like a marathon, there are several distinct phases.

This article lays the foundation for some later posts about specific aspects of the race analogy.

Wait for it…

Leading up to the race, I think about strategy, have written down my expected pace, and am anxious for the race to start. Despite a desire to just start, you can’t start until it’s time. Racers wait in holding pens and chat with one-another, loosen up, and anticipate the starting gun. Ceremony marks the approaching start. There is music, weather updates, last-minute course information, and ultimately, the National Anthem.

3, 2, 1…

Once the race commences, there is even more excitement. Crowd support is typically strong at the beginning of the race. The cheers of the crowd lift the spirit as you leave the starting pens and move out onto the course. The race has officially begun.

The first half

The first several miles are pretty enjoyable. If I’ve been realistic about my pace, it’s pretty easy to meet or exceed the pace that I set out to run. The miles tick away, 1, 2, 3, 4… I feel good. The excitement of the new race is still there. Aid stations are available, and despite not feeling like I “need” fluids, it’s a good opportunity to momentarily slow down, hydrate, and check my pace. Then, back to running…

As the middle of the race approaches, I continue the mental math, doubling my mid-race time and starting to get a better feel for what finishing time I expect to have. Thirteen miles down, thirteen to go. If I have prepared properly for the race, I still feel good.  I appreciate the aid stations more and more as the race goes on. In addition to the liquid, it helps to take in a little bit of solid food as the race goes on.

The next quarter

Somewhere over the next six to eight miles, the race starts to feel like real work. The legs start to feel tired, and the anticipation for the next mile-marker builds. It can become a challenge to keep up the pace from one mile to the next. The support of the crowd often thins during these miles. The encouragement that was present at the start and middle of the race becomes less frequent. As mile 20 approaches, the race becomes a mental game, knowing that my training has prepared me for the full marathon distance.

The last quarter

The miles in the low-twenty seem to be the most challenging. The effort to continue increases, and it’s not unusual to have a burning sensation in my legs.  The amount of relief that the aid stations provide diminishes, and it becomes a struggle to go on.

It is also over these miles that the anticipation of the finish line builds. The purpose of all the training and all the previous miles has been for the purpose of completing the whole distance. It is also over these miles that it is encouraging to match the pace of another runner. What can be an individual event can transform into a cooperative game of mutual  encouragement.

The finish

The finish line is the ultimate checkpoint. There is celebration, review of the events that have transpired since the beginning of the race some hours before, and a realization that the most significant milestone of the day has been reached. Ironically, it is also at this point when the discussion of the next event crops up. The finish isn’t as much an end as it is a launch point for the next big thing.

Future posts

As I created this entry, I was tempted to digress into discussions of aid stations, multi-discipline events, sustainable pace, technical debt, and cooperative aspects.  Look for those in future posts. If analogies came to mind as you read through this, feel free to share.

A Scrum Presentation You Can Deliver

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So, you have the opportunity to deliver a overview presentation on Scrum. Creating slides sure can take a lot of work, especially if you want them to look good and flow naturally.

Fortunately, you do not have to reinvent the Scrum presentation. Mike Cohn has made a Overview of Scrum presentation available on his web site. The presentation can be customized and used under the Creative Commons license 3.0.

If you have the opportunity to introduce Scrum to an audience, save yourself a lot of time and energy. Check out the Overview of Scrum presentation.

Mike Cohn’s book Succeeding with Agile

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Mike Cohn is nearing completion of his latest book Succeeding with Agile. I downloaded and read Chapter 2, “Iterating Toward Agility,” earlier today.  I highly recommend going to www.succeedingwithagile.com and downloading whatever chapter is available at that time.

Mike Cohn has also set up a Yahoo Group to discuss exchange messages about his book, as well.

Manage your projects with more than GPS

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Driving with GPSWe were driving from South Bend, Indiana, to Chicago, Illinois, in May. My son was alternating between reading a book and watching the GPS as we traveled West on Interstate 90. With about 15 or so miles to go until we were got to the Indiana/Illinois border, the road was under construction. As I drove, there were lane shifts to navigate, concrete barriers on the lane shoulders, and pot holes that looked big enough to break a tire if you hit them at full speed. My son, glancing up from his book to look at the GPS screen, announced that we were going through Gary.  

 

As I continued to drive, dodging potholes and shifting lanes as necessary, I thought more about my son’s comment.  Obviously, a GPS can give you useful information to navigate, but it was no substitute for looking out the windshield and in the rearview mirror. The GPS doesn’t tell you about other cars. GPS can’t tell you about approaching emergency vehicles. And, GPS will not tell you about road hazards that seemingly come out of nowhere.

 

Just as a GPS gives useful information for navigating, IT project dashboards, burn down charts, and iteration velocity provide information you can use to navigate. These can tell you about the direction of your project and give insights about the speed of the team. They may even help you determine if your project is likely to be late, or not. However, if you forsake meaningful team interactions and observations, you risk hitting a project pothole or barrier that was not shown on the information radiators you use.

 

On projects, use information radiators. In addition to those sources, make sure to look beyond the dashboards. Interact with the team. Ask questions. Assess the risks. Hold your retrospectives, and make sure you know what your alternative paths are. Whatever you do, don’t do the project equivalent of following your GPS off a cliff.

K.I.S.S.: Keep it Short, Stupid. 5 Thoughts on Meeting Times

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Have you noticed that a significant majority of the meetings you are invited to, or perhaps that you initiate, are an hour long and start and end at half-hour boundaries during the day? If you have days like mine, where you can get invited to several back-to-back meetings throughout the day, it is nearly impossible to make it to all of them on time. This results in delayed starts, interruptions as people join the meeting late, and you have the potential to waste a lot of time for a lot of people if you are not careful.

Here are five ideas to help combat the conflict that the hour long meeting can create:

  1. Shorter by default – In your calendaring software, change the default meeting time from an hour to something shorter. If you shorten the default time, you will have to intentionally make the invitation for a longer meeting. I have my default meeting time in Outlook set to be 30 minutes. I think you will find that needing the extra effort to extend the meeting will keep you from setting up so many hour-long meetings that are not necessary.
  2. Less is more – Truly consider your meeting agenda (you have one, right?) and how much time you will need to cover the outlined topics. Be conservative on the time allotted. You can always schedule a short follow up meeting to cover additional territory if you don’t cover everything you need to in the first meeting. Consider setting up 25, 35, or 45 minute meetings.
  3. It takes time to travel – Schedule your meetings to end at five to seven minutes before the hour or half-hour boundaries. Until that teleportation thing gets worked out, people still need time to get from point A to point B. Even if teleportation is invented some day, there is a good chance that people will still need to use the facilities. Do your attendees a favor and end a few minutes early.
  4. Plan to start a few minutes late – It’s rather inconsiderate to make those that are on time for a meeting wait for others who are late. We all have better things to do than to wait for other people to show up. Assuming that not everybody you work with will adopt item #3, why not plan to start at five minutes after the hour? Plan that your meetings start at 9:35 instead of 9:30, and start on time.
  5. Stand up – One of the things I love about Scrum is the daily standup meeting. It is a 15 minute meeting and yes, people stand up for it. Consider having other meetings that are “stand up” meetings. Just having people stand can keep them from getting too comfortable and wanting to wander off topic.

Let’s face it, an hour is a pretty arbitrary increment of time. Experiment with using a shorter duration, changing the start time, and ending a few minutes early. Let me know if you have any other suggestions related to scheduling meeting times.

Searching for Opportunities

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What a fascinating month it has been since Moody’s Corporation announced the closing of the South Bend office. The closing is due to a desire to consolidate operations into the New York and San Francisco offices. Some of the news reports indicate that 70 people will lose their jobs, but that’s not quite accurate. Seventy people will definitely be impacted, but some have telecommute arrangements, some were offered (and may accept) relocation, and some were given no options for continued employment with Moody’s Analytics.
 
Personally, I have elected to stay in South Bend and not relocate. Like my colleagues who are also going to have their employment on June 12th, we are actively seeking opportunities in the city and the Northern Indiana, Southwest Michigan region. I do find it encouraging that there is a fair amount of opportunity in the market. The resources here are sharp, and having success getting conversations and interviews going with potential employers.
 
If you are looking to make a strategic hire, now is a great time to pick up some folks being displaced by Moody’s.  The skills include C#, ASP.NET, Flex, QA and QA automation, Continuous Integration, Agile using SCRUM, and traditional development methodologies. The software help desk resources for the most part are going to be on the market. Many of the individuals have customer facing roles either currently or as part of their prior employment. If you’re looking for a few good people, let me know.