I attended KalamazooX over the weekend, which was a great combination of design, business, and technical presentations. As someone who has transitioned from a programmer into marketing & strategy consulting, it was nice to see content that wasn’t just staring at code. I believe some of the slides are up online, but here are some thoughts, not from every presentation, but from some of my favorites:
Dave Giard – Effective Customer Communication
- Communications is a two-way street – both sides are responsible.
- It’s important to get/give feedback early and often.
- You need to add value for the customer – what does the customer feel adds value? – need to know this up front.
- Weekly status of what you did, what you plan to do next week, any issues/problems.
- A daily standup (including the client) is better.
- The most important part of verbal communications (any communications) is listening.
James Bender – Organizational Dynamics
- Plug into the company’s information highway (water cooler, wiki, blog, intranet, etc.).
- Be someone in the know.
- Evangelize yourself and your ideas (and also your team!).
- Build coalitions.
- Learn the right way to gripe.
Josh Holmes – The Art of Simplicity
- The definition of simplicity from Websters includes: lack of sophisitcation, good sense or intelligence – which is how technologists often think.
- Systems need to be designed so the user knows immediately what to do and starts doing it.
- A simple design does not mean that the problem solved was simple.
- Users may not see a request as complex – they just know it will make their experience better.
- Agile is a buzzword, but it’s what techs need to be in order to solve problems.
- The right solution is not the one other technologists understand – its the one the user does.
- Enterprise automatically adds ten times the complexity.
- Consumer space has solved bigger issues in simpler ways.
- We usually don’t understand who are users are – the top 3 things they do.
- Use the right tool for the job.
- Solving someone’s problem adds value.
Brian Prince – 5 Easy Ways to Be More Agile
- Be Subversive – start doing things without permission, without changing what you’re doing, help people see value.
- Stand up Meetings – what was done yesterday, doing today, roadblocks. Don’t solve problems – have speaking token.
- Keep – Stop – Start Meetings – Introspectives at end of each iteration. What should we keep doing, what needs to stop, what do we need to start doing – assign people to solve by next iteration.
- Must – Should – Could – Won’t Priorities (from user’s view). Keep quality and priority in the picture. Use quality in equation always.
- Keep users and client as close as possible (not usually the same). Ask – share – show. Tell stories. Use simple planning wall.
Leon Gersing – Change
- Make little changes until you don’t realize that you’ve changed.
- Be open to change.
- Know who you are.
- Don’t let others define who you are.
- There are 3 states in life – job, career, enjoying life – which are not always the same. Know which you’re in.
- Change where you work (not always the employer, but sometimes the environment, or your state of mind).
- If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies.
Technorati Tags: development, code, kalamazoox, code, coding, programming
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Computer people just love to name things. The server guy who names all his machines after Star Wars characters competes with the network guy who names all his routers and switches after Star Trek characters to see who has the more obscure references. Usually the Desktop guy wins with his collection of Windows PCs named after Transformer characters, but that’s beside the point. It sounds like it is all in fun, but there is a very important reason we all do it. Technology is hard for humans to relate to. It is cold and lacks personality. Names help give definition to the undefined. They help give things context.