Christmas right on time!

There is the smarty pants way of saying it to someone who is going to have a tiring year - "don't worry you will get to Christmas at the same time as every body else, just a little more tired". It's been a great year for us last year on all fronts - it's good to be End of December and looking back on all the things that we have accomplished. Yes it's been very tiring, it's also very satisfying.

Microsoft and the OLPC project

It's a long time ago that bill gates was saying that people in the development world don't need a stripped down computer. They need real computers he said... Well now MS can't turn the tide away, if they want to have a shot at the developing world market they will need a stripped down version of Windows to work on this nice little laptop which will be sold to developing countries. The cost of not doing it is a new generation of geeks not knowing blip about windows, ouch!!! Remember as Friedman says in the world is flat - it's not because you're somewhere in San-Wherever-not-on-the-map that you don't have talent, and can't be using this computer talent of yours to make a living, I'm most probably paraphrasing, but you get what I mean.

With this laptop we will be putting computing power in the hands of thousands, and millions of kids who have never had the opportunity, or would never have the opportunity to see one, because it's designed with their needs and environment in mind, so that it's and efficient and useful device.

I participated in the GiveOnGetOne program I can't wait to get my hands on the machine. I will make sure to get our UX/Design team to review and give us a product assessment. It's been designed by Yves Behar, the new darling of design in the valley, and designer of the great bluetooth headset Jawbone, so it should be exciting, stay tuned!

Cisco starting to believe in Design!

A New Blueprint for Cisco For some (including me) I say it's about time! for others it will mean oh sh"/$! Cisco executes well, and they are now turning their guns to the consumer market, we can expect them to have challenges, but ultimately big successes, and in the consumer space Design is a very important thing, more than in a backroom full of routers anyway.

Their head of design - Cordell Ratzaff - who used to be at apple says speaking of specs: "It's a 200-page document that nobody reads, but everyone spends four months arguing about. It's like hiring the architect while the cement truck is idling outside."

You got to love that - and moreover they have yet to speak to the owner of the house. Design and users voice go hand in hand - just like one can't ski without snow. Make sure you get the users on your bus!

From a rival CEO - "The question isn't whether they can build a good consumer product," says a rival CEO, who asked not to be named. "It's whether they'd know a good product if it bit them."

Wouhoo! who said one can't drop the gloves once in a while. Competition is doing it already, it's not as if Cisco is trailblazing with their design group, but for them to have someone reporting in the CEO sends a strong message. They understand the game is changing, poorly designed products as we hear from our clients, or products who have their internals exposed to the users are no longer good enough. The industry is maturing, the customers are more demanding, they have other things to do than spending countless hours figuring how to use a product, they just buy one's competing product instead. Moreover it comes down to when does a company really want to get it right with this new revolutionary product? The first time around, not version 3.0, Design is the way to get their, Cisco gets it now!

Seek Flow!

I was at a conference back in November on Product Development and Innovation and how to measure your organization success. In one of the talks one of the speaker (Donald G. Reinertsen) on product development said "Seek Flow more than efficiencies".  Talk about rocking my belief system! Someone has to wake up early to tell me efficiencies are not important, or that to run a successful product development shop there are more important things than efficiencies.

Needless to say - It got my attention right away. The whole talk brought memories from classes at University in Operational Research Math, the classes I can honestly say I wasn't paying attention as much as I should have.

The concept he was articulating is simple enough and yet very powerful. By this quote he really means that the flow of an activity, or its pace through the system/processes (Managing the Design Factory) has to be looked into and too often is overlooked.

To give an example: Let's say I come back from the states and I need to go through immigration, and the custom agents , on avg they go through one person a minute. We could say this is a very efficient system.

The example above is unfortunately not the whole picture. What about the time I spend in the waiting queue? This is really where one can measure how things are going. Hence the flow of a unit of work(me) through the system.

The system/processes we design too often focus on the efficiency at the micro level, forgetting the whole picture. Moreover the processes we create too often create context switches, or queues. Every time one creates a queue, one creates delays and kills the flow, which in turns brings productivity down. One can really be efficient at processing a unit of work, still the whole thing be very inefficient .

How does that apply to me - Look for queues, they are an early indicator of things to come in the system. Minimize the size of the queues, and work at minimizing the number of queues in the processes. The longer the queues the longer your feedback loop, and feedback loop in a software manufacture is critical. What's the most obvious queue in Software Development? The bug list - obvious enough right! Reducing its size will improve the flow of the software development activities. He even mentioned a client of his where a developer when going for a new development task, has to pick a testing task if the amount of testing work in the bug queues exceeds 5days.

Top 10 con't

Continuing from my initial Top 10 post on what I have learned in 10years at Macadamian, working with leading companies in the world delivering great software products

#3 - People - a second one - communication, transparency, feedback loop. I try to make sure that people know where I stand clearly. I find people appreciate knowing about it. It opens the door to good discussions and get to understand respective's perspectives. When in the unknown, its human nature to assume the worse - so it's important that there is as little unknown as possible

#4 Don't take no for an answer - ok I get to be told no more than my fair share, that's part of the job when selling or in potential partnerships. Well now what I understand is that for all the effort I have put in getting to that no, my counter part owes my an explanation so that I can get better for next time.

#5 Being a start up is no excuse for not making money - as they say rule #1 of business is to be in business. I'm very proud of the fact that we have been profitable since day one at Macadamian. We manage the bottom line, it's not only top line. Even if I'm a startup, what I do has value and there is a price to that.

#6 Being fair (from the one minute manager and Setting the table). Good things, just like not so good things deserve feedback, and quickly, then move on. Supporting a customer, and employee, and team member is to be able to talk about the good and the bad, all the time. Yes there will be conflicts - sort it out and move on.

#7 Stress - oh my Stress - it is stressful, just ask my family I really don't handle stress well, my face becomes expressionless, and my mood in the gutter, and my jaw constantly blocked. For me if things are not organized I get stressed - and it's a big source of stress - so I'm a huge fan of the Getting Things done system, it works for me, and it helps me focus and feel good about what I get around to do during any given day.

#8 Getting involved - I have contacts, I know a few people in and around town, it can be useful to more than business. I'm only starting on this aspect, but I like it.

#9 getting the customers on the bus - this is more or less from Good to Great. The bus is about the team composition, who should be on the team, is like a bus, and if they are in the right seat. Well User Centric Design is taking more and more importance, and it's becoming more and more a factor of success nowadays, so we need to make room for our customers in our bus whatever business we're in.

#10 dealing with problems - there are always problems small and big, it's part of the job. I like the quote "Problems to a business are like waves to surfing" for a canadian version just replace the last part with " snow to ski!"

10 things I know after 10years

Well I have been in business for 10years this year. I co-founded Macadamian in September 1997. I was asked recently to put a top 10 of valuable lessons I have learned over the years. Let me just say I felt very young and green to be putting this kind of list together. Here we go, I want it down, so that I can comeback to it later.

1. Understand what I stand for, and where I stand on issues. In other word where I can, and where I can't compromise - my priorities and my goals have to be clear to me so that my decision making is more efficient and so that it's clear to everyone I'm working with how I come about with my decision. (Learned in Debugging the software development process)
2. People
   1. The saying that A type people hire A type, and B Type hires B type, and that C Type people hire - you don't know what they will hire - it's is true
   2. To Be continued!! - got to go!