Monthly Archives: April 2010

Glub glub glub…

Posted on April 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

Geez, has it been almost 2 weeks since I’ve even been out here? I guess it has. I’m still drinking from the firehose known as the new job over here and I don’t have a lot of mental energy for deep thought after work. My dreams are weird enough these days – I don’t want to provoke the beast without reason.

One thing that I am very thankful for is that one of my new peers is in exactly the same situation that I am. In fact, (shhh) I think that he might be somewhat worse off. I’m starting something from scratch and he’s trying to piece together all of the old history of something with a tight deadline. There is nothing like being in the trenches with someone that understands what you are going through.

What have a I learned in the last 2 weeks?

  • I have some really smart and dedicated people on my team who are doing the architecture and the prototyping. They will get it right.
  • My product manager is amazing. He knows the industry, he knows the clients, and he knows what we need to accomplish.
  • My project manager only cares about doing the right things to get the product shipped. Between the two of us we’ll balance tasks anyway we can to be successful. No egos, just get it done.
  • I’ve got a lot of organizational bridges to build. I’m doing my best to get to know people across the company who can help this product succeed. It will take some time.
  • My team has recently been put together. We *need* to create our own team culture.
  • I still have a LOT to learn. A humbling amount. But. I. Will. Get. There.

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Posted in Leadership, Personal, Tactical

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Getting to Know You…

Posted on April 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

Starting a new job always means getting to know the company that you now work for. The company also has to get to know you too. Everyone is usually on their best behavior during the interview – and this does not just mean the interviewee. As a company, when you have a good candidate, you want to show off the team in its best light as well. Once the new person starts, there typically is a nice honeymoon period. In some ways it is like dating someone new – you’re focusing on all of the good things to justify your decisions (both on the hiring and on the deciding to work there sides). During this honeymoon period a lot of time and energy is spent on learning.

When I was an engineer starting a new job my focus was always on the technology. I almost always came into companies that were launching new products. In this respect I was really fortunate. I was part of the team that was defining the design, and a lot of times the technologies that were being used. That didn’t mean that there wasn’t anything new and different to learn right up front. For example – almost every company that I have ever worked for used a different code management system. I’ve used proprietary, PVCS, Clearcase, CVS, and Perforce. On the bug tracking side I’ve used ddts, bugzilla, and devtrack. I’ve utilized a number of programming language environments, and dealt with a lot of different processors and operating systems. The good news is that unless you’re coming in as the architect of a large project the scope of what you need to learn is rather focused. You will own something specific and hopefully manageable.

As a manager the scope of the things to learn is much greater. Not only do you need to have a high level understanding of the technology and the product you are building, you need to understand some of the more amorphous details.

Who are you managing? Did any of them aspire to the job you were hired to do? Are any of them unhappy and looking to leave? Any performance problems to suss out? How do you build trust? When you lead them, will they follow?

But this is just the beginning. Who are you peers? How do you need to interact with them?

Still not enough – what other groups are stakeholders in the technology you are managing? Project managers. Product managers. Sales. Marketing. Consulting.

It’s time to drink from the fire hose.

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Posted in How Tos, Leadership

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How Much Does Environment Matter?

Posted on April 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Well, today I saw my new office for the first time. Let me say “wow”. I almost cried when I saw the view from my windows and the big 4 seat meeting table beside my new desk. It is gorgeous. It is clean, it is shiny-new, and my name is already on the door (YES! a door, a real door that shuts!!). My laptop was setup too. On my first day. Double “wow”. I don’t think that has EVER happened before. If I have to use one word to describe the environment I would call it serene. I am continually impressed by the professionalism this place exudes.

Now it’s time to reminisce. What kinds of office environments have I had?

  • I once remember taking a tour during an interview and asking if an open linoleum floored area was going to be the new lab. I never got a good answer. When I started, I found that my cube was in that area. My chair rolled real good there. Aside from the fact that it was awful noisy, it wasn’t that bad…. not after I got used to it.
  • I once worked for a startup that rented space in a former motorcycle garage. The worst part is that the bathroom flooded into the carpeting. Ew. Other interesting features include that we didn’t have a phone switch or even a broadband connection. Yes, for internet connectivity I needed to use a modem! The irony is that this company was building the next great core router. It is still funny to look back at it, but at the time it was a great place to work with a lot of energy. Eventually we moved into much swankier digs.
  • I’ve worked in office space that was designed to feng shui principles. We had water features like salt water fish tanks and water walls. There were curved walls and meticulously designed workspaces. It was neat, but it didn’t reduce the stress of the workload or the overwhelming demands of the company.
  • I’ve had desks that exacerbated carpal tunnel symptoms, and I’ve had to attach keyboard trays on my own. No biggie. Where’s my drill?
  • I’ve cleaned sticky crud out of used desks, and suffered through lumpy used chairs as well.
  • I’ve worked for VPs at small companies who used hanging large white boards as a test to determine who was “hands on” capable. I passed with flying colors.

I guess my bottom line is this: an awesome environment is nice, but it can never overcome inherent corporate problems. Those need to be addressed first. If the company is great, the environment doesn’t haven’t to be perfect for people to be happy. I’ve been miserable in nice environments, and I’ve been really happy in dumpy places too.

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Posted in Personal

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