Scientific Ink

Category: Life

  • Enjoyable project management software?!

    I find it astonishing that I am writing this: I have found a project management software that actually saves me time and makes my life easier. It is 37 signals’ basecamp software. Basecamp website.

    Basecamp was recommended by several folks as I searched around. We were using the established and familiar but otherwise horrifying timeassistant, and I checked out the open source phprojekt and dotproject and didn’t find them to suit my purposes. I’m happy with our basecamp subscription.

    Things we now use it for

    • Communicating task requirements (storycard titles and descriptions) and status
      • It also provides for template to-do lists (common tasks can be stored and brought into new projects)
    • Sharing files
    • Posting/sharing milestone dates
    • Time tracking (only available with the paid subscription)
      • within projects.
      • across projects.
      • and my favorite – one click to review the time elapsed on a particular task to date.
      • exporting to exporting time to csv files for further slicing and dicing in spreadsheet software.

    Things it isn’t

    It isn’t a work authorization system, except in the most blunt way. I can restrict people to certain projects, but not to tasks within a project. It won’t prevent someone from charging time on someone else’s storycard, this has to be enforced manually, after the fact. It does not handle cards assigned to multiple people exceptionally well. I still use the corkboards for ordering tasks: basecamp provides no means to order tasks across projects, and only a weak way to order tasks within a project. It doesn’t automate any form of estimation or planning. It isn’t a communication tool on its own. I have yet to get a client very interested in using it.

  • Our home’s other people

    The Old West Side homes tour has been stirring up a few things at our house. For one, we’ve had good motivation to complete a bunch of “to dos” that have been neglected. This includes recovering the chair that I’ve been hiding underneath a hideous plaid blanket for the past few years. And fixing the chipping wall near the shower….mundane things, but nice.

    The best result from the tour was getting us back in touch with the home’s former occupants and learning more about the home’s history. The house was built in 1912. Before we purchased the place in 2000, the home had been in one family since 1917. The tour historian tracked down Kathy, whose grandfather owned the house, and she, her father, and her son and daughter came to visit tonight.

    Family

    They revealed a few secrets: what chewed the window in the mud room, why smoking a cigarette in the bathroom isn’t as secret as you might think, what sound chestnuts make when fed into a hot coal-fired furnace, and how to communicate with the neighbor through a tin can.

    We also heard how much of her own work Kathy and her family put into the place: refinishing the woodwork, the floors, custom-engineering the amazing bathtub curtain rod, and many other details. We got some garden tips: Salvia does great in the bed next to the front door. We reminisced about some funny things that are now gone: the octopus furnace, the beautiful old electric stove that looked like a car, and changes in the neighborhood.

    Parts of the visit made me melancholy, as I thought about places I’ve left and ways my own family has changed. But, it was nice to feel some continuity as well. We learned we appreciate many of the same things–sitting on the front porch while the rain beats on the roof, waking to the tempting aroma of donuts from the Washtenaw Dairy, sharing dinner with friends on the back deck, and of course the beautiful and funky details of Ann Arbor and this particular place.

  • with a little help…

    Thought I’d (semi-)publicly announce this:

    Tom is the BEST.

    He reasoned me down from a stressed out worried angst moment Thursday. Reminded me of all that had gone well, instead of letting me focus on the few broken bits.

  • 12 signs of a great workplace

    First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently

    When I read First Break All the Rules, I really identified with their list of 12 questions that differentiate good workplaces and high performers. This list helped articulate some important predictors of success and characteristics of failures I had experienced. Here, I have tried to link this list of 12 questions to what I liked and did not like in the XP environment where I used to work. Helene, Chris, and Tom, I’d love your feedback here.

    (more…)

  • Floyd beats the heat

    My cat, Floyd, is quite fluffy and so he overheats in warm weather. His cool-off spot is in my closet. He’s been there a lot this summer. I’ve probably got too much stuff on the floor right now because he barely fits. Today he left his paws sticking out under the door.

    floyd

  • Make mistakes faster!

    Stumbling on Happiness

    So, a guiding and very freeing philosophy at my former workplace was “make mistakes faster”.

    It is part of the iterative and incremental philosophy of development. Instead of doing a huge waterfall process where the team works for months building the perfect design, architecture code, whatever, we should work iteratively and incrementally–deliver paper prototypes, functional prototypes, deliver something that can be responded to before the entire thing is built.

    The idea is we’ll make lots of mistakes in our work–so let’s get them out of the way as soon as and as cheaply as possble with quick prototyping, lots of communication, and an attitude of exploration. Let’s invest in small working pieces and get feedback sooner. Essentially, to solve a problem, try the simplest thing that could possibly work before investing in the perfect solution.

    So, I was intrigued to read in Stumbling on Happiness that “make mistakes faster” is scientifically shown to be better for our mental health. It seems that our minds are good at compensating for “sins of transgression” but much less good at compensating for “sins of omission”.

    Indeed, in the long run, people of every age and in every walk of life seem to regret not having done things much more than they regret things they did….The irony is all too clear: Because we do not realize that our psychological immune systems can rationalize an excess of courage more easily than an excess of cowardice, we hedge our bets when we should blunder forward. (p. 179 Stumbling on Happiness)

    So, what is good for our software development projects is good for our brains and well being. Good news! Let’s blunder along now….