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| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 4 | ||||
| -rwxr-xr-x | blog/build.sh | 1 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | blog/content/notes/cliffs/governable-spaces.gmi (renamed from cliffs_notes/governable-spaces.md) | 8 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | blog/content/notes/cliffs/mythical-man-month.gmi | 19 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | blog/content/notes/cliffs/peopleware.gmi | 272 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | blog/content/notes/index.gmi | 9 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | cliffs_notes/mythical-man-month.md | 16 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | cliffs_notes/peopleware.md | 264 |
8 files changed, 308 insertions, 285 deletions
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ Como nunca tengo oportunidad de trabajar en modo monorepo, hay que aprovechar es * [Unos cuantos scripts que uso en mis "estaciones de trabajo"](scripts/) y [un par de barbaridades para montar un contenedor para Distrobox/Toolbox con algunas de las herramientas que uso](workstation/). * [La definición del modelo de datos del sistema que uso para registrar métricas de salud](weight/), que se convierte en una web gracias a [zqxjkcrud](https://github.com/alexpdp7/zqxjkcrud/), mi framework para desarrollo rápido de CRUD. * [Algunas cosas que sigo en RSS](FUENTES.md) -* [Resúmenes de libros](cliffs_notes/), aunque la verdad no hay mucho. +* [Resúmenes de libros](https://alex.corcoles.net/notes/), aunque la verdad no hay mucho. * [Alguna cosilla de ficción que he escrito](fiction_writing/) * [Mi blog personal](blog/), que podéis ver más fácilmente en https://alex.corcoles.net/ (y en Gemini, aunque por algún motivo no puedo enlazar a Gemini con el Markdown de GitHub). Podéis enviar cambios para correcciones y demás. @@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ Como nunca tengo oportunidad de trabajar en modo monorepo, hay que aprovechar es * [My emacs config](emacs/). * [Scripts I use on my workstations](scripts/) and [some bizarre stuff to build Distrobox/Toolbox containers with some tools I use](workstation/). * [The database schema for my health metrics tracking system](weight/), which has a web UI via [zqxjkcrud](https://github.com/alexpdp7/zqxjkcrud/), my CRUD rapid development framework. -* [Cliffs' notes of books](cliffs_notes/), fairly barren. +* [Cliffs' notes of books](https://alex.corcoles.net/notes/), fairly barren. ## Other usable projects of mine diff --git a/blog/build.sh b/blog/build.sh index 58aaeb3b..6d6f817c 100755 --- a/blog/build.sh +++ b/blog/build.sh @@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ cat >index.gmi <<EOF Envíame email a alex arroba corcoles punto net. => notas Notas +=> notes Notes EOF find . -path './2???/??/*.gmi' -type f -print0 | coppewebite-indexer . >>index.gmi diff --git a/cliffs_notes/governable-spaces.md b/blog/content/notes/cliffs/governable-spaces.gmi index 0669148c..39941093 100644 --- a/cliffs_notes/governable-spaces.md +++ b/blog/content/notes/cliffs/governable-spaces.gmi @@ -1,6 +1,8 @@ -https://luminosoa.org/site/books/m/10.1525/luminos.181/ +# Governable spaces -# Introduction: democracy in the wild +=> https://luminosoa.org/site/books/m/10.1525/luminos.181/ + +## Introduction: democracy in the wild * Online communities are different to in-person communities. * Online politics in the small reflect in the large. @@ -38,7 +40,7 @@ https://luminosoa.org/site/books/m/10.1525/luminos.181/ * Sometimes governable spaces should be highly participative, in others, use representation. * Governance designs sensitive to economy of attention. -# Implicit feudalism. The origins of counter-democratic design +## Implicit feudalism. The origins of counter-democratic design * A popular group that called for accountability had a flagship organization with a single board member. * Facebook claimed having "the hacker way": open, meritocratic, but Mark Zuckerberg has majority control. diff --git a/blog/content/notes/cliffs/mythical-man-month.gmi b/blog/content/notes/cliffs/mythical-man-month.gmi new file mode 100644 index 00000000..81080c62 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/content/notes/cliffs/mythical-man-month.gmi @@ -0,0 +1,19 @@ +# The mythical man-month + +## Chapter 1: the tar pit + +"Program": complete in itself, ready to be run by the author on the system on which it was developed. What we initially develop and delivers some value is normally a program. + +"Programming product": can be run by anybody, in any operating environment, for many sets of data. + +* A programming product is thoroughly tested. +* A programming product is thoroughly documented. +* A programming product costs three times the cost of the program. + +"Component in a programming system": works as a part of a larger product. + +* A component in a programming system follows a well-defined interface. +* A component in a programming system is tested in integration. +* A component in a programming system costs three times the cost of a program. + +"A programming systems product" is a programming product and a component in a programming system. A programming systems product costs nine times the cost of a program. diff --git a/blog/content/notes/cliffs/peopleware.gmi b/blog/content/notes/cliffs/peopleware.gmi new file mode 100644 index 00000000..d7dee8de --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/content/notes/cliffs/peopleware.gmi @@ -0,0 +1,272 @@ +# Peopleware + +## I. Managing the human resource + +People are different from software. + +### 1. Somewhere today, a project is failing + +* 15% of all projects deliver nothing. +* 25% for projects >25 work/years +* Not for technical reasons, "politics" => sociology + +### 2. Make a cheeseburger, sell a cheeseburger + +* Errors should be encouraged +* A project objective is to be ended. Therefore, a project is never steady. Therefore, a project is always changing and there is no steady state +* Need to think more about "why" this task needs to be done rather than how the task must be done + +### 3. Vienna waits for you + +* Spanish Theory Management: increase productivity by extracting more work for the $ +* Mechanizing development, lowering quality, standardizing procedure reduces enjoyment of work + +### 4. Quality-if time permits + +* Self-esteem makes people emotional +* Self-esteem is tied to the quality of our work +* Deadlines conflict with quality +* Manager: Market wants time-to-market over quality +* Builders: want to match their past best achieved quality, more than what the market wants +* But quality is a means to productivity + +### 5. Parkinson's law revisited + +* "Work expands to fill the time allocated for it" +* Parkinson was a humorist +* Motivated people do not want to work forever in the same task +* The team can motivate people better than the manager +* Productivity by task estimator. No estimate > Systems analyst (unbiased expert) > Programmer > Programmer + supervisor > Supervisor +* Bureaucratic work does expand + +### 6. Laetrile + +People are desperate to increase productivity, fall to the seven sirens, seven false hopes of software management + +* Missed something obvious: no +* Others are succeeding, you are getting outdated, not using the right programming language, need more automation: technical gains affect just a small part of the total effort +* Need to get to the bottom of the backlog: bottom of the backlog is worthless +* Workers need more pressure + +## II. The office environment + +It's hard to increase productivity, but easy to decrease it + +### 7. The Furniture Police + +Optimizing for cost, and uniformity is not productive + +### 8. You never get anything done around here between 9 and 5 + +Top performers work in quieter, more private, with less interruption, bigger spaces + +### 9. Saving money on space + +Cost of workplace is a small past of cost of worker + +### Intermezzo. Productivity measurement and unidentified flying objects + +* Gilb's Law: Anything you need to quantify can be measured in some way that is superior to not measuring it at all +* Individual productivity should only be measured by the invidivual + +### 10. Brain time versus body time + +Interruptions are expensive + +### 11. The telephone + +Ensure people attend their email with reasonable frequency (3/day) to allow prioritizing non-interrupting communication + +### 12. Bring back the door + +People work better in quiet environments + +### 13. Taking umbrella steps + +* Developers should design the working environment +* Windows +* Provide outdoor space, public space + +## III. The right people + +Get the right people, make them happy, let them work + +### 14. The Hornblower factor + +* Difficult to improve people, choose well +* Appearances << capabilities +* Do not hire for uniformity in the company +* No dress codes + +### 15. Hiring a juggler + +* Interviews are about performing, not talking +* Portfolios +* Aptitude tests are not for hiring, they are for self-assessment +* Audition on topic related to work selected by the candidate + +### 16. Happy to be here + +* Turnover is expensive and leads to short term planning => needs quick promotions, leads to inexperienced people doing the building +* Company moves are the worst +* Good companies *retrain* + +### 17. The self-healing system + +* Humans can improvise, automated process cannot +* Big M Methodologies automate: a) No improvisation, so must grow to cover all cases b) Lots of documents +* Big M Methodologies take responsibilities away from people into the Methodology +* Big M Methodologies lead to malicious compliance- follow the Methodology even if it has bad outcomes +* Convergence of methods is good, easier to onboard, etc. +* Achieve convergence of methods by training, tooling and peer review, without forcing a Methodology +* Hawthorne Effect: people perform better when trying new approaches +* Do new things on every project to benefit from the Hawthorne Effect +* But have a 10-page max. standard + +## IV. Growing productive teams + +Teams working as one on a challenge are the objective. Help the team form + +### 18. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts + +* Jell: a jelled team is more than the sum of its members. Jelled teams enjoy the work +* Jelled teams have a common objective, low turnover, strong sense of identity, feel elite, join ownership of product, enjoyment + +### 19. The black team + +* The black team tested other teams code. +* The black team outlived the original members +* Identity: dressed in black, some evil mustaches, mystique + +### 20. Teamicide + +You can't make a team jell, but you can prevent it from jellying: + +* Defensive management: preventing people from making mistakes. If the team cannot do the job, they cannot do the job. +* Bureaucracy +* Physical separation +* Fragmentation of people's time: the team must be together most of the time +* Quality reduction of the product: quality jells a team +* Phony deadlines +* Clique control (preventing the team for working together in further projects) + +### 21. A spaghetti dinner + +* Small successes lead to bigger successes +* Perform small projects, demos, etc. + +### 22. Open kimono + +* Trust the team +* Get them out of the office +* Let skunkworks projects happen +* Let people choose their peers and project +* Natural authority by being competent + +### 23. Chemistry for team formation + +Some organizations have environments that favor team formation + +Managers do not seem busy nor manage a lot, they maintain the chemistry + +Chemistry building: + +* Cult of quality +* I told her I loved her when I married her. Provide closure to each task. Small tasks for frequent closure +* The Elite Team. Allow and grant uniqueness. +* On not breaking up the yankees. +* A network model of team behavior. Managers are not part of the team. Occasional leaders inside the team +* Selections from a Chinese menu. Do not have a uniform team + +## V. It's supposed to be fun to work here + +### 24. Chaos and order + +Constructive reintroduction of small amounts of disorder: + +* Pilot projects. All projects as pilots, but limit experimentation +* War games +* Brainstorming +* Provocative training experiences +* Training, trips, conferences, celebrations, and retreats. + +### 25. Free electrons + +Some people should be left to work at what they want + +### 26. Holgar Dansk + +A "sleeping giant" can oppose any bad change + +## VI. Son of Peopleware + +### 27. Teamicide revisited + +* Those damn posters. Motivational posters tell obvious things people already know. It is demeaning +* Overtime: An unanticipated side effect. If someone is exent of overtime, it is even more damaging + +### 28. Competition + +Internal competition inhibits jell, Prevents internal coaching. Can come from: + +* Annual salary or merit reviews +* Management by objectives +* Praise of certain workers for extraordinary accomplishment +* Awards, prizes, bonuses tied to performance +* Performance measurement in almost any form + +Musical ensembles are better metaphors of good development teams than sport teams. Individual sport teams members can have differing valoration from the rest of the team + +### 29. Process improvement programs + +* Standardized interfaces are good, standardized processes are not +* Goal is a good product, not building it efficiently +* Good products are risky projects, process improvement avoids risky projects +* Better teams do more complex projects, more risk + +### 30. Making change possible + +People fear change + +Degrees of fear to change: + +* Blindly loyal (ask no questions) +* Believers but questioners: skeptics (show me), passive observers (what's in it for me?), opposed (fear of change), opposed (fear of loss of power), militantly opposed (will undermine and destroy) + +Blindly loyal can abandon a change for a newer one. Only Believers but questioners can be allies to a change. Work with them to make change successful + + +elebrate the old system + +Phases of change + +* Introduce foreign element/catalyst +* Chaos +* Transforming idea (finding the "correct training"/correct way to adopt change) +* Practice & Integration +* New status quo + +People need to feel safe for change, there should be room for some failure + +### 31. Human capital + +* Money spent of people is only lost if they leave +* Replacing someone is expensive + +### 32. Organizational learning + +* Organizations can only learn if people stay for a long time +* Organizations learn when middle management works together without competition and without reporting to upper management + +### 33. The ultimate management sin is... + +Wasting people's time: + +* Being late for meetings, blocking meetings, inviting people who don't need to be there +* Status reporting meetings +* Early overstaffing (and leads to fragmenting time of people) + +### 34. The making of community + +* Aristotelian politics is building communities, extending ethics to a group +* Creatin diff --git a/blog/content/notes/index.gmi b/blog/content/notes/index.gmi new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ba7d6ab2 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/content/notes/index.gmi @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +# Notes + +## Cliff's notes + +Notes about some books I like: + +=> cliffs/mythical-man-month The Mythical Man-Month +=> cliffs/governable-spaces Governable Spaces +=> cliffs/peopleware Peopleware diff --git a/cliffs_notes/mythical-man-month.md b/cliffs_notes/mythical-man-month.md deleted file mode 100644 index bf95c618..00000000 --- a/cliffs_notes/mythical-man-month.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ -# The mythical man-month - -## Chapter 1: the tar pit - -* "Program": complete in itself, ready to be run by the author on the system on which it was developed. - What we initially develop and delivers some value is normally a program. -* "Programming product": can be run by anybody, in any operating environment, for many sets of data. - A programming product is thoroughly tested. - A programming product is thoroughly documented. - A programming product costs three times the cost of the program. -* "Component in a programming system": works as a part of a larger product. - A component in a programming system follows a well-defined interface. - A component in a programming system is tested in integration. - A component in a programming system costs three times the cost of a program. -* "A programming systems product" is a programming product and a component in a programming system. - A programming systems product costs nine times the cost of a program. diff --git a/cliffs_notes/peopleware.md b/cliffs_notes/peopleware.md deleted file mode 100644 index 1264791f..00000000 --- a/cliffs_notes/peopleware.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,264 +0,0 @@ -# I. Managing the human resource - -People are different from software. - -## 1\. Somewhere today, a project is failing - -* 15% of all projects deliver nothing.\ - 25% for projects >25 work/years\ - Not for technical reasons, "politics" => sociology - -## 2\. Make a cheeseburger, sell a cheeseburger - -* Errors should be encouraged -* A project objective is to be ended. Therefore, a project is never steady. Therefore, a project is always changing and there is no steady state -* Need to think more about "why" this task needs to be done rather than how the task must be done - -## 3\. Vienna waits for you - -* Spanish Theory Management: increase productivity by extracting more work for the $ -* Mechanizing development, lowering quality, standardizing procedure reduces enjoyment of work - -## 4\. Quality-if time permits - -* Self-esteem makes people emotional -* Self-esteem is tied to the quality of our work -* Deadlines conflict with quality -* Manager: Market wants time-to-market over quality -* Builders: want to match their past best achieved quality, more than what the market wants -* But quality is a means to productivity - -## 5\. Parkinson's law revisited - -* "Work expands to fill the time allocated for it" -* Parkinson was a humorist -* Motivated people do not want to work forever in the same task -* The team can motivate people better than the manager -* Productivity by task estimator. No estimate > Systems analyst (unbiased expert) > Programmer > Programmer + supervisor > Supervisor -* Bureaucratic work does expand - -## 6\. Laetrile - -* People are desperate to increase productivity, fall to the seven sirens, seven false hopes of software management - * Missed something obvious: no - * Others are succeeding, you are getting outdated, not using the right programming language, need more automation: technical gains affect just a small part of the total effort - * Need to get to the bottom of the backlog: bottom of the backlog is worthless - * Workers need more pressure - -# II. The office environment - -It's hard to increase productivity, but easy to decrease it - -## 7\. The Furniture Police - -* Optimizing for cost, and uniformity is not productive - -## 8\. You never get anything done around here between 9 and 5 - -* Top performers work in quieter, more private, with less interruption, bigger spaces - -## 9\. Saving money on space - -* Cost of workplace is a small past of cost of worker - -## Intermezzo. Productivity measurement and unidentified flying objects - -* Gilb's Law: Anything you need to quantify can be measured in some way that is superior to not measuring it at all -* Individual productivity should only be measured by the invidivual - -## 10\. Brain time versus body time - -* Interruptions are expensive - -## 11\. The telephone - -* Ensure people attend their email with reasonable frequency (3/day) to allow prioritizing non-interrupting communication - -## 12\. Bring back the door - -* People work better in quiet environments - -## 13\. Taking umbrella steps - -* Developers should design the working environment -* Windows -* Provide outdoor space, public space - -# III. The right people - -* Get the right people, make them happy, let them work - -## 14\. The Hornblower factor - -* Difficult to improve people, choose well -* Appearances << capabilities -* Do not hire for uniformity in the company -* No dress codes - -## 15\. Hiring a juggler - -* Interviews are about performing, not talking -* Portfolios -* Aptitude tests are not for hiring, they are for self-assessment -* Audition on topic related to work selected by the candidate - -## 16\. Happy to be here - -* Turnover is expensive and leads to short term planning - * Needs quick promotions, leads to inexperienced people doing the building -* Company moves are the worst -* Good companies *retrain* - -## 17\. The self-healing system - -* Humans can improvise, automated process cannot -* Big M Methodologies automate - * No improvisation, so must grow to cover all cases - * Lots of documents -* Big M Methodologies take responsibilities away from people into the Methodology -* Big M Methodologies lead to malicious compliance- follow the Methodology even if it has bad outcomes -* Convergence of methods is good, easier to onboard, etc. -* Achieve convergence of methods by training, tooling and peer review, without forcing a Methodology -* Hawthorne Effect: people perform better when trying new approaches -* Do new things on every project to benefit from the Hawthorne Effect -* But have a 10-page max. standard - -# IV. Growing productive teams - -* Teams working as one on a challenge are the objective. Help the team form - -## 18\. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts - -* Jell: a jelled team is more than the sum of its members. Jelled teams enjoy the work -* Jelled teams have a common objective, low turnover, strong sense of identity, feel elite, join ownership of product, enjoyment - -## 19\. The black team - -* The black team tested other teams code. -* The black team outlived the original members -* Identity: dressed in black, some evil mustaches, mystique - -## 20\. Teamicide - -* You can't make a team jell, but you can prevent it from jellying - * Defensive management: preventing people from making mistakes. If the team cannot do the job, they cannot do the job. - * Bureaucracy - * Physical separation - * Fragmentation of people's time: the team must be together most of the time - * Quality reduction of the product: quality jells a team - * Phony deadlines - * Clique control (preventing the team for working together in further projects) - -## 21\. A spaghetti dinner - -* Small successes lead to bigger successes -* Perform small projects, demos, etc. - -## 22\. Open kimono - -* Trust the team -* Get them out of the office -* Let skunkworks projects happen -* Let people choose their peers and project -* Natural authority by being competent - -## 23\. Chemistry for team formation - -* Some organizations have environments that favor team formation -* Managers do not seem busy nor manage a lot, they maintain the chemistry -* Chemistry building - * Cult of quality - * I told her I loved her when I married her. Provide closure to each task. Small tasks for frequent closure - * The Elite Team. Allow and grant uniqueness. - * On not breaking up the yankees. - * A network model of team behavior. Managers are not part of the team. Occasional leaders inside the team - * Selections from a Chinese menu. Do not have a uniform team - -# V. It's supposed to be fun to work here - -## 24\. Chaos and order - -* Constructive reintroduction of small amounts of disorder - * Pilot projects. All projects as pilots, but limit experimentation - * War games - * Brainstorming - * Provocative training experiences - * Training, trips, conferences, celebrations, and retreats. - -## 25\. Free electrons - -* Some people should be left to work at what they want - -## 26\. Holgar Dansk - -* A "sleeping giant" can oppose any bad change - -# VI. Son of Peopleware - -## 27\. Teamicide revisited - -* Those damn posters. Motivational posters tell obvious things people already know. It is demeaning -* Overtime: An unanticipated side effect. If someone is exent of overtime, it is even more damaging - -## 28\. Competition - -* Internal competition inhibits jell - * Prevents internal coaching - * Can come from: - * Annual salary or merit reviews - * Management by objectives - * Praise of certain workers for extraordinary accomplishment - * Awards, prizes, bonuses tied to performance - * Performance measurement in almost any form -* Musical ensembles are better metaphors of good development teams than sport teams. Individual sport teams members can have differing valoration from the rest of the team - -## 29\. Process improvement programs - -* Standardized interfaces are good, standardized processes are not -* Goal is a good product, not building it efficiently -* Good products are risky projects, process improvement avoids risky projects -* Better teams do more complex projects, more risk - -## 30\. Making change possible - -* People fear change -* Degrees of fear to change - * Blindly loyal (ask no questions) - * Believers but questioners - * Skeptics (show me) - * Passive observers (what's in it for me?) - * Opposed (fear of change) - * Opposed (fear of loss of power) - * Militantly opposed (will undermine and destroy) - - Blindly loyal can abandon a change for a newer one. Only Believers but questioners can be allies to a change. Work with them to make change successful -* Celebrate the old system -* Phases of change - * Introduce foreign element/catalyst - * Chaos - * Transforming idea (finding the "correct training"/correct way to adopt change) - * Practice & Integration - * New status quo -* People need to feel safe for change, there should be room for some failure - -## 31\. Human capital - -* Money spent of people is only lost if they leave -* Replacing someone is expensive - -## 32\. Organizational learning - -* Organizations can only learn if people stay for a long time -* Organizations learn when middle management works together without competition and without reporting to upper management - -## 33\. The ultimate management sin is... - -* Wasting people's time - * Being late for meetings, blocking meetings, inviting people who don't need to be there - * Status reporting meetings - * Early overstaffing (and leads to fragmenting time of people) - -## 34\. The making of community - -* Aristotelian politics is building communities, extending ethics to a group -* Creatin
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