Welcome,
This blog was produced to create a space to discuss how IT professionals manage the high-tension pressures of work life in the Information Age.
Why call it Optimal Friction™? Simply put, we find that, for those of us in the field of Information Technology, high-pressure demands are a breeding ground for friction within and between organizations that affect us both personally and professionally. In this environment – to build more and more in less and less time – friction is a fact of life. Small amounts are unrealistic – too much can exacerbate conflict and drive a team to failure. Somewhere in between lies a sweet spot where friction is optimal, serving a useful purpose, but not causing collapse - at work, in health, and at home.
We encourage our fellow professionals to weigh in on this topic. We want to share ideas and solutions. Welcome to the conversation.
- Michael Mah
January 22, 2012
Next Stop: Two Talks in Munich Germany
OOP 2012 Conference, Munich Germany
http://www.sigs-datacom.de/oop2012/oop2012-eng/conference/english-sessions.html
Sustainability: Empowering the next generation
The financial crisis is still present, currently even revived with the Euro crisis. Additionally catastrophes like Deepwater Horizon or Fukushima remind us that aiming for the quick win is not necessarily beneficial for the long run. In all areas we’re asked to ensure that the next generation is empowered, by sustaining systems and strategies. Therefore it’s time for us to reflect on what this means in the software profession. One of the principles of the Agile Manifesto makes this very clear by stating “Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.” The Clean-Code-Movement requests technical sustainability by simply asking to stop building legacy systems. Thus this year’s OOP program strives for answering questions like: what kinds of tools, architectures, and techniques support building sustaining systems that are beneficial to the next generation; which designs and languages will enable a sustaining quality in a product; and how do management techniques, social skills, and (agile) processes help empowering people on the long run.
For over 20 years, the OOP conference provides a platform in particular for developers, architects, and technical (project) leaders to gain an excellent overview of the state-of-the-art in modern software engineering. The focus has always been on cutting edge techniques that have also proven to be successful in practical use. This year’s conference covers not only the essentials of software development like requirements engineering, testing & quality aspects, software architecture and IT management, yet the program will allow also to dive into the details of Integration Architectures like SOA, Large Scale or Distributed Systems. Moreover, participants can explore the essence of Modern Web and Cloud Architecture as well as technical architectural details such as Multicore, Parallelism, Security, High Availability, Scalability, Functional Approaches, Product Lines, and Platforms. If you are more interested in coding details you will most likely find sessions on Mobile and Embedded Development, DSL, MDD, OpenSource, and Coding particularly interesting. However, if we talk about sustainability – focusing on the technical aspects isn’t enough. Therefore the program will stimulate as well new ideas in the areas of people and soft skills and will cover proven and new techniques in Agility, Lean, Scrum, and Kanban.
In this year’s OOP we want to stress the interaction and networking of all participants. Tabletop football and the traditional ‘IT-Stammtisch’ – where IT seniors reflect on what has happened over the last year in software – ensure that we will as well enjoy our time together. The Open Arena (OOP’s deviation of OpenSpace) in the exhibition hall invites everyone to share his or her experiences and explore new topics with others.
I’m looking forward to welcoming you at the conference!
Jutta Eckstein
Technical Chair
OOP conference
Jutta Eckstein
Continue reading "Next Stop: Two Talks in Munich Germany"
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October 10, 2011
Ugly Teams Talk in NYC
Come on down!
Ugly Teams; Managing Difficult Conversations in Agile and Offshoring with Michael Mah
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Posted by Mike at 4:22 PM | Comments (0) |
September 15, 2011
Provocative Ideas in Hartford CT on Outsourcing, Agile, and more...
Join me for two thought-provoking talks in Harford CT on Friday September 16th. I'll be talking about trends in Managing Outsourcing, and Avoiding Dysfunction Using Agile.
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July 7, 2011
Why I Buy Apple Products
Recently while visiting family and vacationing in Honolulu my son had an iPhone accident - our fault - only 3 days after my daughter had her phone stolen.
Micah at the Apple Store in Waikiki listened to our dilemma and logged into my Apple profile. He discovered that we were loyal customers. With a friendly smile, he set us up for a replacement on the spot.
Amazing customer service brings loyal customers. He laughed when he saw that my Apple profile revealed a message about my purchases, "Too many products to list on one page." There's are reasons for that. Now another reason is Micah at the Apple Store on 2301 Kalakaua Ave in Honolulu :) Thank you Micah, if you're reading this!
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Posted by Mike at 7:43 PM | Comments (0) |
June 8, 2011
Deception and Estimating; How We Fool Ourselves
I think everyone needs to see this morning keynote address by my friend Linda Rising at the Better Software Conference in Las Vegas on June 9th:
Deception and Estimating: How We Fool Ourselves
Linda Rising, Independent Consultant
Cognitive scientists tell us that we are hardwired for deception—overly optimistic about outcomes. In fact, we surely wouldn't have survived without this trait. With this built-in bias as a starting point, it's no wonder that software managers and teams almost always develop poor estimates. But that doesn't mean all is lost. We must simply accept that our estimates are optimistic guesses and continually re-evaluate as we go. Linda Rising has been part of many development projects where sincere, honest people wanted to make the best estimates possible and used “scientific” approaches to make it happen—and all for naught. In many projects, because re-estimation was regarded as an admission of failure, the team spent too much time and endless meetings trying to “get it right.” Offering examples from ordinary life—especially from the way people eat and drink—Linda demonstrates how hard it is for us to see our poor estimating skills and offers practical advice on living and working with the self-deception that is hardwired in all of us.
http://www.sqe.com/BetterSoftwareConf/Keynotes/Default.aspx
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April 4, 2011
Man Vans, Speed, Technical Debt, and You
I have what some people call a "Man Van." It has 4WD, alloy wheels, big ice-grip snow tires, tinted glass, and a 200-watt stereo. David E. Davis, past editor of Automobile Magazine, once wrote that his Man Van was his favorite car, even compared to his Ferrari and Dodge Viper. I'm no soccer mom, but as a single father of two, I can haul dorm-room piles of student belongings up and down the US East Coast. Most important, in a snow or sleet storm, I can drag-race anyone and leave them eating my dust ... um, snow.
The Man Van is large and heavy, like a large software team. It gets decent fuel economy unless you try to push it hard and fast, which is when wind resistance takes its toll. I once pushed the Man Van to 90 miles per hour on the highway, glancing at the radar detector at the slightest beep. Sure enough, my fuel economy degraded dramatically. Trying to go even faster had a diminishing rate of return as wind resistance increased. (Don't try this at home, folks.)
Trying to push a large software team fast also hits a compressible limit. Recently, I consulted on a high-pressure project with a tight deadline. To go really fast, management ramped the team up to 70 people. Despite this giant offshore and onshore hoard, the schedules refused to shorten beyond a certain point, and the team began missing its dates. It reached what we call "terminal velocity" that defined the minimum development time. All projects have a minimum development time. It's where wind resistance matches the forward driving force of the team.
What determines this minimum development time? Obviously, the first is project size and scope. If it's an absolute truth that to deliver 82 features requires six months -- no less -- then wishing you can deliver in four months is pure fantasy. "Reality will prevail," as I like to say -- plain and simple.
Another driver is productivity. In agile development, this is often referred to as "velocity." To me, I see it more as the "innate productivity" of a team actually results in a certain velocity. All organizations have an upper limit on productivity. The problem is that most organizations have never measured this and don't know what it is. It's driven by several factors, such as the experience of the team, the development approach, and the natural complexity of the task at hand -- all acting in combination. These and other factors limit productivity to some upper threshold. It's there, whether or not you know it.
Then there's a third factor at play, and this is related to wind resistance. It has to do with the limits of large teams and what happens to defects as you ramp up staff in order to compress time. Ask anyone in a room whether defects tend to go down or go up as you try to compress time with large teams. The answer is that defects will rise. What most people don't realize, based on research on thousands of projects, is that if you double team size, say from 35 people to 70 people, then you get a geometric rise in defects. It's typical that they'll rise by as much as 400%. In the worst case, I've seen numbers climb as high as 600%. This is known as the Fourth Power Tradeoff Law, discovered by industry pioneer Larry Putnam, Sr., and built into a project database called the QSM SLIM model. It's the result of the geometric rise in miscommunication as more and more people are thrown on a project under time pressure. Haste makes waste. (Good software estimation and forecasting models can help you avoid waste.)
When the deadline finally arrives and a software release isn't ready, it sometimes comes down to a terrible choice: shipping with lots of bugs, or slipping the date and spending more money. Given that choice, many execs often say two tragic words: ship it. BAM! Instant technical debt. (Let's just hope that the software isn't meant to fly airplanes or run other safety-critical systems.)
It's this defect factor that acts like wind resistance to limit the speed of a large software team. It gets even worse when large teams aren't co-located or are spread across far-away time zones and long distances. Aside from miscommunication due to giant-sized teams, you get mistakes from language barriers or thick accents, or fatigue when it's midnight for you and noon for them. One manager in Germany told me that, when speaking to a team in Singapore, people were attempting to understand each other on complex problems in English, a language that was foreign to all of them. They couldn't communicate well, and critical missteps killed the project.
Relentless pressure to make a date starts a vicious cycle of technical debt, which includes latent defects in production software that eventually must be corrected (e.g., paid down), else the business suffers in the form of potential software outages, poor performance, and/or a host of other consequences of buggy software. If this debt is not paid down due to neglect in software maintenance, technical debt simply accrues. Finally, at some point, this debt begins to crush the business, and diversion of critical staff resources toward repairing production code is needed.
Where do these staff resources come from? Obviously, from skilled developers in the company who know the systems and architecture the best. However, diverting their efforts to paying down technical debt diminishes velocity and productivity for developing new applications. Relentless schedule pressure continues, projects fall short, and the vicious cycle continues.
So what's the answer? Well, it sounds simple: in an ideal world, you run a project with the smartest people you can find, sitting colocated to the greatest extent possible, while planning and estimating the scope of the project within the limits of that team's productivity. That kind of team, if you can get it, responds quickly to change, builds cleaner code, and finishes sooner because they finish testing faster, since there are far fewer bugs in the first place. Another potential answer is in using agile methods to mitigate the communication complexity imposed by the conditions cited above. While no panacea, benchmarking research studies that show that the introduction of high-bandwidth communication techniques espoused by agile can often mitigate these risks.
Or you can push a big brick-shaped Man Van against the wind, burn lots of fuel, and risk crashing it if you push it too far beyond its limits.
You are welcome to share your thoughts and impressions about this topic via comments on this blog post.
-- Michael Mah, Benchmark Practice Director, Cutter Consortium
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April 1, 2011
Join me at the QUEST Software Quality Conference in Boston!
I'm excited for next week's Keynote Address on Thursday April 7th at the QUEST Software Quality and Testing Conference in Boston. If you don't come see me, at least try and also make it for the talks of the excellent other keynote speakers, Anders Vinberg and Peggy Layden. I'll be there to hear their talks for sure!
Meanwhile, here's an overview of what I'll be presenting:
Geography Matters: What Measurement Tells Us about Offshoring, Agile Methods, and the “Flat World”
Has the digital revolution really made it possible to do almost anything collaboratively, even with people separated by time and distance, thereby, making it feasible to construct the optimal project team from throughout the world? Or, are the decisions to split software development around the globe coming primarily from pressure by CFOs to cut costs? Countering and complimenting the multi-shoring trend is a powerful new movement that looks at the force of concentration, or the “clustering,” of human creativity and talent, claiming that powerful innovation and economic gains result when smart and talented people locate closely to one another. This is the view the Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Lucas and the message of the agile revolution. Who is right?
To answer this question, Michael looks at what measurement data says about offshore and agile projects, and about teams separated by distance or co-located. Michael will present case studies of real companies and contrast the results from the two philosophies. What you find may challenge long-held beliefs about knowledge work, commoditization, and innovation. Get to know the benefits, preconditions, and fundamental principles of test design methods. This keynote will spark new ways of looking at measurement, management, and strategy in the self-organizing and collaborative environment that will be required for software development in the next decade.
* Learn what Industry Data is revealing about software productivity and quality
* See how CFOs "get it wrong" in using offshoring to drive down costs
* Discover what data on agile is showing us about software quality and time-to-market
As managing partner at QSM Associates Inc., Michael Mah teaches, writes, and consults to technology companies on estimating and managing software projects, whether in-house, offshore, waterfall, or agile. He is the director of the Benchmarking Practice at the Cutter Consortium, a Boston-based IT think-tank, and served as past editor of the IT Metrics Strategies publication. With over 25 years of experience, Michael and his partners at QSM have derived productivity patterns for thousands of projects collected worldwide across engineering and business applications. His current work examines the time-pressure dynamic of teams, and its role in project success and failure. In addition to his background in physics and electrical engineering, Michael is a mediator specializing in dispute resolution for technology projects.
http://www.qaiquest.org/boston/keynote.html
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Posted by Mike at 11:10 PM | Comments (0) |
March 25, 2011
For All You Foodies Out There...
The following url link does not refer to the software industry, time pressure on technology projects, offshoring, agile, or anything of the sort.
It's a remarkable essay by an 18 year-old emergent writer and potential marine biologist college student named Tara Mah (my daughter) who has found her voice as she expresses concern about what we're doing when we eat meat without considering its origins and the ramifications of how it got to our plates.
Tara has chosen a vegetarian way of life, which I fully support, and she wrote this in her new blog about what corporate food production does to animals, in order to package the nice, neat cellophane wrapped chicken, pork, and beef that we buy every day.
I was so impressed with her heartfelt insights that I told her that I would celebrate her thoughts on this issue by re-posting what she wrote on her Dad's blog. What you read here might raise your awareness, as it helped raised mine.
There's a Crosby, Stills and Nash song for all you fellow baby boomers out there called "Teach Your Children". You might know the phrase where it shifts and says, "Teach your parents well, their father's hell, will slowly go by, and feed them on your dreams..."
When I was a young 14 year old listening to those lyrics, I never imagined how fascinating it would be to live those words, now that I'm a 51 year-old single father of two. Enjoy this essay. I'd welcome your comments.
http://sphericalbirds.blogspot.com/2011/03/personal-choice-yet-global-horror.html
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Posted by Mike at 1:05 AM | Comments (0) |
February 16, 2011
What's Next For The Agile Manifesto?
I like that the Salt Lake City Agilistas came up with the following per Dennis Stevens' blog post:
Demand Technical Excellence
At the end of the day, you can’t deliver value through technology if you are not delivering quality. This category brings in aspects of architectural, engineering, and design. This is still a pressing issue and must be addressed in the community to deliver on the promise of the Agile Manifesto.
Promote Individual Change and Lead Organizational Change
Here is an example of a sentence that we had a broad range of perspectives on. Without adoption by individuals and alignment of organizational governance and management models, Agile won’t deliver on its value proposition.
Organize Knowledge and Promote Education
This isn’t just about the practitioners, it includes the broader business context as well. The community needs to build on the broad body of knowledge that exists within and outside the community – we have to avoid reinventing everything. Diversity of thought is important to the ongoing growth of the community – but we don’t actually do a very good job of intentionally building on the body of knowledge.
Maximize Value Creation Across the Entire Process
Software Development is not an end unto itself. Too many organizations moving toward Agile are focused on just the software development team. This is only valuable to the point that the software development team is the constraint in the organization. We need to learn how to do a better job of defining value and aligning the cadence across the organization and improving the flow of value from concept to delivery.
Continue reading "What's Next For The Agile Manifesto?"
Posted by Mike at 7:49 PM | Comments (0) |
January 18, 2011
OOP 2011 in Munich Germany with Tom DeMarco
Come join me in at OOP 2011 Munich, Germany next week since my NYC event tomorrow is going to be canceled due to weather! Me, you, and a bunch of technical experts and software professionals from Germany, Switzerland, and the rest of Europe :)
http://www.sigs-datacom.de/oop2011/oop2011-eng/latest-news.html
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Posted by Mike at 1:07 AM | Comments (0) |
December 28, 2010
Bummer of a Production Defect
Merry Christmas Everyone!
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Posted by Mike at 9:33 PM | Comments (0) |
November 19, 2010
Seth Godin on the hard parts
This is a great re-post of a blog entry by my former college classmate Seth Godin. I decided to share it here. For more on Seth's prognostications, check out Seth's blog. As to our industry, we know the answer. SOFTWARE IS THE HARD PART. Sure, but what's the hard part? Every project (product, play, event, company, venture, non profit) has a million tasks that need to be done, thousands of decisions, predictions, bits of effort, conversations and plans. Got that. But what's the hard part? The CEO spends ten minutes discussing the layout of the office with the office manager....
more...
Posted by Mike at 12:38 PM | Comments (0) |
November 17, 2010
Hitting the Stage at Agile Development Practices...
... at yet another great conference by SQE in sunny Orlando FL. If you missed it, come on out to the Agile West event in Las Vegas NV in June 2011.
The Good, Bad, and Puzzling: What Agile Data Is Telling Us
Strategic software development successes—and failures—happen every day, sometimes delighting customers and other times having unhappy consequences. At the same time, many development organizations are taking on agile methods—a major paradigm shift from traditional development processes. So, what's working and what's not? Drawing from recent industry data and statistics, Michael Mah answers vital questions about agile's effectiveness. Until now, organizations have observed predictable relationships among the development triangle, "Among schedule, staffing, and quality, choose any two and the third suffers." However, current industry data indicates agile may be changing all this—and turning the "law of software physics" upside down. Michael shares productivity findings—including time-to-market, productivity, and quality—at five agile companies. Discover the right practices for your environment and the characteristics of a valuable agile practices measurement program. Discover how these metrics will reveal insights into which practices offer the most benefits to your development organization.
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Posted by Mike at 12:28 PM | Comments (0) |
October 13, 2010
Join me in the Pacific Northwest...
...at the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference. where I'll be presenting a topic entitled "The Good, The Bad, and The Puzzling; The Agile Experience at 5 Companies."
Also on Monday I'll be hosting a "birds of a feather" session on Making Agile Succeed, with Tim Lister. Followed by a special tutorial called "Rightsizing Your Project at Internet Speed," which will focus on committing to the right amount of work inside tight deadlines.
Hope to see you there!
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Posted by Mike at 4:27 PM | Comments (0) |
September 28, 2010
Interesting Metrics
It seems to me that innovation is alive and well, especially at Apple. Fascinating... See this link.... more...
Posted by Mike at 10:41 PM | Comments (0) |
August 1, 2010
Does Outsourcing Destroy IT Innovation?
Andy Grove penned a fascinating commentary about the impact of outsourcing on American job creation, and the subsequent ability to innovate in the sectors that have been outsourced. He challenges the belief that as long as knowledge work stays in the United States, it doesn't matter what happens to factory jobs. Grove believes that, "not only did we lose an untold number of jobs, we broke the chain of experience that is important for technological evolution." Grove makes a good argument that, over time, companies lose the ability to innovate in the sectors they outsource. Read more...
Fascinating article here by Susan Cramm out of the Harvard Business Review, posted by Bloomberg.
Does Outsourcing Destroy IT Innovation?
Andy Grove penned a fascinating commentary about the impact of outsourcing on American job creation, and the subsequent ability to innovate in the sectors that have been outsourced. He challenges the belief that as long as knowledge work stays in the United States, it doesn't matter what happens to factory jobs. Grove believes that, "not only did we lose an untold number of jobs, we broke the chain of experience that is important for technological evolution." Grove makes a good argument that, over time, companies lose the ability to innovate in the sectors they outsource. Read more...
Continue reading "Does Outsourcing Destroy IT Innovation?"
Posted by Mike at 7:22 PM | Comments (0) |
June 7, 2010
In Las Vegas for Better Software Conference?
If you are in Las Vegas attending this year's combined Better Software Conference / Agile Development Practices conference and expo, please come join Michael Mah on Weds, June 9 @ 4 pm PST. He will be offering "Rightsizing Your Project in a Down Economy" As the description notes: "In tough times, both shoes often drop simultaneously. Then, unsustainable “scarcity thinking” takes over. Many times, the tendency is to say “yes” to impossible dates, take on too much, quietly suffer the budget cuts, and pray that heroics will save the day. Resulting dysfunction can wreak havoc on your projects in the... more...
Posted by Sean at 3:35 PM | Comments (0) |
May 25, 2010
Hanging Out with Ken Schwaber...
... and keynoting with him at the Central Ohio Agile Association 2010 Conference, "The Path to Agility".
PLUS! My good friend Dr. Israel Gat will be there as well along with an incredible attendee list. As always I'll have some surprising benchmark stats to share, which I also presented last week at SET 2010 in Zurich Switzerland.
Here's Ken's keynote address overview. If you're anywhere near Columbus Ohio this Thursday, be there or be square!!
Ken Schwaber "State of Scrum"
The Agile Manifesto was created and signed in 2001. In 2008, more organizations reported using agile processes to develop software than waterfall. Of these organizations, 84% reported using Scrum as their agile process. Is that good, or bad, or somewhere in between. This questions has pertinence because less than 505 of the organizations reportedly using Scrum also reported using iterative, incremental techniques. Even worse, Martin Fowler reported on observing many cases of “flaccid” Scrum.
Scrum has been around for 19 years, proving both its worth and the difficulty to effectively use it. Ken will discuss this history, the findings, the current state of Scrum, and the next steps.
Ken Schwaber developed the Scrum process with Jeff Sutherland in the early 1990’s and has gone on to test and popularize its use. Ken was a signatory to the Agile Manifesto in 2001, and has founded the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance. Ken has been a software developer for over 30 years, from hacked to procedural to object, from bottle-washer to cook.
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Posted by Mike at 8:42 PM | Comments (0) |
