Amiram Hayardeny's My China Experience

My Dad, Broken Windows Theory and Software Development II

Dave Murphy has brought up a delicate, excruciatingly painful yet important point.  Time to market, executives' business commitments, customer pressure also play a major role in the scheduling of projects.  As they should, but never at the cost of deteriorating products and low quality.

Originally, I wanted to write the following in the comment section.  But then I realized that it was getting too long.  I decided to use an entry to answer.

Dave, my entry was directed at those executives as well.  Compromising on quality does not pay.  Let me tell you a short story, which actually describes the absolute worst year in my entire life (so far that is).  To be absolutely clear: this did not take place at Sun, this story is from my ancient history.  My manager committed that my team will deliver a project in what seems in retrospect an absolutely impossible schedule.  As you say, I warned, yelled, screamed, cried - but all was falling on deaf ears.  I remember clearly, the day the project's release was announced.  We were shocked, knowing that it was nowhere near being ready to ship.  Features were incomplete, quality was not even low - it was non existent, even the hardware still had some issues.  A few executives, of the kind you're talking about, with their reputations (and actually jobs) on the line, launched the "mandatory 80 hour work week" program, no vacations were allowed.  In fact, I remember clearly - people had to submit for vacation, if they wanted one of the weekend days off!  Builds were spun almost daily, and sometimes twice daily, dozens of testers were hired only to keep finding the bugs already found by the other testers.  Management meetings were concluding sometimes after midnight.  Intimidation was everywhere.

Bottom line - the project was late - by about a year, it was over-budget by who-know-how-many millions of dollars, reputations were tarnished, people were having heart-attacks, and a few divorces were recorded.  It was a disaster.  Disaster for the business as well as for individuals.  All the executives involved were either fired or extracted.  Scores of good people left the company.

This reminds me of a children's tale.  A farmer once had a special duck.  That duck would lay one golden egg every day.  The farmer became rich, and greedy at the same time.  He decided to kill the duck and get all the eggs at one time.  He slaughtered the duck, only to find an empty stomach.  The moral of the story is simple: if you ask for too much - you get absolutely nothing.  Projects, and schedules, must be challenging, but realistic.  Some people forget the realistic part.

The good news is that I have seen other executives as well.  The kind who fight tooth and nail to delay releases for the sake of quality.  The kind who would worry about the well being of their staff, the kind who will actually succeed in delivery of solid products, who make their customers delighted.  My point stands: quality is not negotiable!

Posted at 08:03AM May 30, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[1]

My Dad, Broken Windows Theory and Software Development

My father was born in Jerusalem, Israel in 1935. His native tongue, though, is French. Not only is he fluent in French, he was always flaunting the fact that he could easily recite poems, proverbs and plays, beginning to end, in French. He could recite the entire collection of the Fables of LaFontane. As you can imagine, my childhood was peppered with intriguing stories, with lessons at the end, in French. "Qui vole un oeuf vole un boeuf", my Dad used to say: "He, that steals an egg, will steal an ox".

"James Q. Wilson and George Kelling developed the `broken windows' thesis to explain the signaling function of neighborhood characteristics. This thesis suggests that the following sequence of events can be expected in deteriorating neighborhoods. Evidence of decay (accumulated trash, broken windows, deteriorated building exteriors) remains in the neighborhood for a reasonably long period of time. People who live and work in the area feel more vulnerable and begin to withdraw. They become less willing to intervene to maintain public order (for example, to attempt to break up groups of rowdy teens loitering on street corners) or to address physical signs of deterioration. Sensing this, teens and other possible offenders become bolder and intensify their harassment and vandalism. Residents become yet more fearful and withdraw further from community involvement and upkeep. This atmosphere then attracts offenders from outside the area, who sense that it has become a vulnerable and less risky site for crime."

The "broken window" theory suggests that neighborhood order strategies such as those listed below help to deter and reduce crime.

• Quick replacement of broken windows
• Prompt removal of abandoned vehicles
• Fast clean up of illegally dumped items, litter and spilled garbage
• Quick paint out of graffiti
• Finding (or building) better places for teens to gather than street corners
• Fresh paint on buildings
• Clean sidewalks and street gutters

Source: http://www.cityofseattle.net/police/prevention/Tips/broken_window.htm

You might be thinking now: what in the world is the connection between proverbs, the Broken Windows Theory and software development. Indeed, the connection may not be straightforward. Lets see if the following scenario is possible. A large group of developers are responsible for the development of a significant commercial software product. They are all hard working, smart, innovative, diligent. But like all other software developers, they do, in fact, introduce bugs to the product. Not intentionally of course. The question is not whether the bugs are there, the question is how these bugs get treated. Do they get fixed, tested, integrated and delivered? Or do they quietly age in the system until a really important customer experiences them? Do they get treated with respect? or are they ignored?

Let me rewrite the paragraph describing the Broken Windows Theory, using some more familiar words from the software development world: ..."This thesis suggests that the following sequence of events can be expected in deteriorating software products. Evidence of decay (large defect backlogs, no documentation, no code reviews) remains in the system for a reasonably long period of time. Quality oriented engineers who work on the project feel more vulnerable and begin to withdraw. They become less willing to intervene to maintain software quality for example, to attempt to enforce code reviews, or to address signs of deterioration..."

The "Broken Software" theory suggests that good software engineering strategies such as those listed below help to deter and increase quality.

• Quick fixing of seemingly "unimportant" bugs
• Reduced defect backlog
• Holding off new releases until the code is stable
• Limiting new feature introduction
• Enforce code reviews, documentation
• Introduce creative ways of software testing
• ...

"He, that steals an egg, will steal an ox", "Broken windows invite further deterioration", "Ignoring small bugs, invite bigger ones". When someone tells you to fix "seemingly unimportant bugs", insists on good documentation, holds back feature for the sake of better quality, remember the "Broken Windows" theory.

If you have ideas of how to increase software quality, please share them. You can use the link below to add a comment.

Posted at 08:08AM May 29, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[6]

Sweets and Crying Kids

Place: the exit of any amusement park, zoo, kids' museum, actually any place where parents take their kids to have fun.  Phenomenon: two parents in front, with worried faces, in the back, a little girl, dragging her feet, three balloons tied to her little hand, a corn on the cub in the same hand.  On the other hand, a drumstick, a large set of crayons and a coloring book, and a few stuffed animals are dragging behind her, on leashes.  And yes, of course, she is crying and sobbing.  Big tears streaming down her cheeks.  And she's mumbling: "I want to go on the ferris wheel"...Rings a bell?  Ever asked yourself how can that be?  A crying kid at the EXIT of a fun place?  A crying kid loaded with food, gifts and souvenirs?  Almost inconceivable.

So how does this happen?  If you have kids you would know the answer.  It's easy.  You get up in the morning and the following thoughts go in your head: I work hard, I don't pay enough attention to the kids, I should try to be a better parent, I should do fun stuff with the kids.  Also, if we stay home, they will go crazy.  And I don't want to have them watch TV all day, it's anti-educational.  How about - yes, there's an amusement park somewhere, lets go be good parents, the kids will have fun, plus they will get really tired, and maybe, finally, we will have a couple of minutes to ourselves before we collapse...

So we hit the road, and get to the amusement park.  It's really hot outside, and we stand in line for the rides.  And this is the point where the singing begins: "I want this", "I want that".  The park management knows, understands, and caters to little children.  They place the traps in strategic areas around the park.  Souvenirs, food, candy, pop-corn, stuffed animals, balloons, cotton candy, ice-cream.  You name it, they got it.  And the kids play along, they want everything, and the rides.  And you, playing the "Great Parent" role, take out your wallet and get this and that and the other thing.

It's all great, until you get to the point where you either run out of money, or out of patience, or both.  And once you get there, there is no turning back.  You say "no" to the next thing.  And then the crying starts.  There's no consolation.  The child is absolutely positive that she's been wronged, that a terrible injustice has been done.  This is the point where you see them, on the way to the parking lot.  Hardly carrying all the stuff, and crying like they play the lead role in a Greek tragedy...

 

Posted at 03:00PM May 26, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[0]

Observations - "The Tipping Point"

Finally, a few years late, I am reading "The Tipping Point" (http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/index.html).  Even before finishing the book, I can already tell that it's the best I have read in this genre since "Freakonomics (Freakonomics).  I haven't even finished reading the book, yet I already have a few observations.  More will come, I am sure of it.  First and foremost, starting at about page two of the book, I realized that I keep thinking about a person who played a very significant role in my life.  Every sentence, every idea presented in the book, made me think of him even more.  At a certain point I realized: this person must have read this book too.  I will explain later.

The book, starts with trying to explain "social epidemics".  How do things spread like brushfires to be extremely successful.  He uses two examples throughout the first chapter (and a few more, but these two are weaved into every idea the book presents).  The two examples are the Hush Puppies shoes, and the message Paul Revere delivered to certain parts in Massachusetts in 1775.  Hush Puppies brand of shoes was on the verge of collapse.  But a few people from Greenwich Village in New York who started wearing them, made them a huge success in the following years.  Paul Revere, according to the book, was so successful in delivering his warning to the colonists in New England, that the author offers, not in as many words, that the US won its independence due to his special skills.  In short, the author introduces types of people who take a critical role in the creation and the success of a social epidemic: the Connectors, the Mavens, and the Salesmen.  For a social epidemic to succeed, it has to come from a Maven - a person whose opinion is accepted with few or no questions, pass through one Connector or more - a person who simply knows plenty of people, and serves as a "social glue", and one or more salesmen - a person who has a gift for selling stuff.  There's more - the message has to stick, but that goes beyond my point here...

I am sure that when this book was written, the author did not plan for it to be a best seller.  After all, Malcolm Gladwell did not write a whole lot of other best sellers, or even books for that matter.  So what made it a best seller?  I have a strange feeling that the way a book becomes a best seller, is exactly like other phenomena described in "The Tipping Point".  It becomes a social epidemic, a word of mouth started by a Maven, spread by connectors, and "sold" by salesmen.  Needless to say, the contents must be good for it to "stick".  And it is.  It's a pleasure to read, it colors life in new vivid colors.  It tags people with an interesting tag.  I have realized, reading this book, that I know quite a few Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen.  I also have had some reflections on myself.

But as I said before, I gained an insight about one particular person, whose name I shall not surrender.  Although, people who know me, and my whereabouts in the last decade, will easily make the connection and hence know his identity.  What if I told you that this person has read the Tipping Point, and liked the characters, or the character types it introduced.  What if I told you that he made a list (mental or actual) of characteristics owned by these characters, and tried to gain them, and more importantly - display them.  In retrospect, it was so pathetically obvious, it is almost sad.  A person who is not naturally likable, does not generate a whole lot of original thought, and has significant difficulties in presenting ideas, suddenly tries to pass as a Connector, a Maven and a Salesman - all at the same time.  Now, that I am in the process of reading the book, I can clearly see it.  If I had seen this person again, I would say to him that he had great many other traits, there is no need to try and pass for what he isn't.

Reading this book, I had another realization.  When I was younger I knew a person who really did not like to read.  In fact, he hated to.  (Don't start guessing here that this is an autobiography, it isn't.  I used to be, and still am a book worm).  One time he had to read a book.  It was a big book, which had a lot of history weaved into a romantic novel.  The name of the book was Exodus, by Leon Uris (Exodus).  But to my great surprise, when I asked this guy a question or two about the book, I have immediately realized that he didn't read the book, he learned it.  He memorized it.  He knew the time line, the historic events.  There could not have been any joy in reading a novel for the purpose of learning it.  During the course of my life and career, I have met many people who read books not because they like reading, or they like the books.  They read because they have to.  They read because it is the right thing to do.  They read, because they live with the wrong perception of what a Maven is.  They associate with people, they tell jokes, not because they like people, or drinking, or jokes.  They do it because they have the wrong perception of what a Connector is.  They try to come up with ideas, which are not original nor interesting, and sell them to others, having the completely wrong notion of what a Salesman is.  The problem is simple.  People don't like to take advice from others pretending to be Mavens.  They don't like to hang out and tell jokes and drink with people who are obviously doing it because there's a hidden benefit in it.  People will not buy something from an artificial, self proclaimed Salesman.

In our social structures, the senses that people have are amazing.  Give them two minutes, and they will be able to make you out for what you really are.  I seriously doubt if it can be staged at all, and if, after all, it can be staged - it has to be done by people who chose acting as their life career.  The book is fascinating, read it.  And don't take it from me because I am not a Maven, nor a Connector, or a Salesman.  Take it from me because I love reading it, and so will you.

Posted at 09:01AM May 25, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[2]

Happy Shavuot (Holiday of Weeks)

Today, May 23, Jews around the world celebrated the Holiday of Shavuot.  This holiday is celebrated exactly 7 weeks after Passover (Shavuot).  This  holiday commemorates the receiving of the ten commandments by Moses in Jewish history (or mythology - you pick).

Belonging to a relatively small people, I frequently wondered how many Jews are living today, and what is the meaning of this number.  In 2004, the estimated number of Jewish people was 15 million (source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0904108.html). 

Religion	Members	Percentage
Christianity	2.1 billion	33.0%
Islam	1.3 billion	20.1
Hinduism	851 million	13.3
Buddhism	375 million	5.9
Sikhism	25 million	0.4
Judaism	15 million	0.2%
Baha'ism	7.5 million	0.1
Confucianism	6.4 million	0.1
Jainism	4.5 million	0.1
Shintoism	2.8 million	0.0

Here's another number: "from 2000 to 2001 the Jewish population rose 0.3%, compared to worldwide population growth of 1.4%".  One more: "in 1939 there were 17 million Jews in the world, and by 1945 only 11 million.  While in the 13 years following the Holocaust the Jewish population grew by one million, it took another 38 years for it to grow another million.  These sobering figures reflect how severely Jewish population growth has slowed down over the past 40 years.  Even a fertility increase of 0.4% will add millions of Jews over the next 50 years.  But this is not happening right now."  (source:http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/world-jewish-population.htm).

For the Holiday of Weeks (Shavuot), my family and I watched the classic movie: "The Ten Commandments".  It was an interesting experience to watch it thirty years after the first time.  As Jewish person, it is quite interesting to see the event which defined us as people.  It is difficult (actually impossible) to establish whether the Exodus, or the departure from Egypt is a real historical event or a myth.  The favored date puts the event at about
(source: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/exodus/f/ExodusDate.htm) between 13th and 16th century B.C.  This translates to about 3500 years ago, assuming it actually happened.  For a population accounting purposes, this serves as a reasonable (although far from scientific) starting point. 

Although there is no record of the precise number that left Egypt in the Exodus, a military census taken not long after listed the number of men 20 years of age and older who could serve in the army as 603,550 (Exodus 38:26). From that number, the total Israelite population of that time has been estimated at approximately 2 to 3 million. (source: http://www.keyway.ca/htm2001/20010121.htm).  Interestingly enough, I found in the same web site, a question: it is said in the bible, that 70 people went down to Egypt from Canaan, and that after 430 years, when they left Egypt, there were between 2 to 3 million, how is it possible?  The site actually goes through the trouble of calculating the population, assuming a doubling of the population every generation (assuming 4 children at the age of 27.  2 to replace the parents and 2 for growth).

Beginning with the original 70 people, assuming 15 generations in 430 years, growth of the Israelite nation using our factors above would have been: 70*2 to the 15th power = 2,293,760 people after 430 years.  However, today, a rapid population growth of 1.9% per year, translates into doubling of the population every 37 years (India).

What if we assume doubling of the population every 200 years (slow by all standards).  Since the exodus, we have 17 generations (200 years each), and a starting point of between 2-3 million people.  For the sake of the argument, lets assume there were only one million people to leave Egypt.  This should yield 1 million * 2 to the 17th power or the fantastic number of 131,072,000,000.  It is quite obvious that this is nowhere near the real number.  So what happened?  Where have all the Jews gone?

Some answers are simple: persecution, pogroms, wars, starvations, diseases helped the reduction in numbers.  But is that the entire story?  I assume not.  While watching the movie, remembering the story of the golden calf, it made a lot of sense to me that there was a series of action and reaction within the Jewish people.  Some would build a "golden calf" and as a result would be cast away, excommunicated, redefining the "people" as something more restrictive, and therefore - smaller.  For example: a group of people would decide that a certain dietary restriction should be changed, they would act on it, and the next thing you know: their children can't marry, they can't be buried in an orthodox Jewish cemetery.  The remainder, adopt even a stricter dietary code, hence making the people smaller yet again.  3500 years of doing, and redoing it created a small people on one hand, and a very strict, segregated, well defined communities living beside them.  Living in Israel, it is all too obvious: the ultra-orthodox want nothing to do with the state's education systems, and so they have their own.  They live in small, segregated communities, where strangers are almost not allowed.  As they accept more and more restrictions, more and more people leave.

As for me, I am a Jew by birth, and an atheist by choice.  Simply stated, I am not sure how my descendants will be counted in 100 years...

Posted at 07:56PM May 23, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[1]

In the Presence of Greatness

I am not a humble person.  Yet, this morning, I found myself sitting (mostly) quietly, listening to Dr. Steve Chen.  The following is an excerpt from Dr. Chen's biography: 

"Dr. Steve Chen took his doctoral degree under Professor David Kuck at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After his graduation, he joined Cray Inc., rising to the post of Principal Designer and Senior Vice President. Dr. Chen led the R&D effort on the development of the Cray-XMP and YMP vector machines which was widely used in the western world for research in defense, aerospace and aeronautic engineering, automobile design, gas and oil exploration, material science, meteorology, environmental engineering, chemical engineering, pharmaceutical, biological science and physics. Dr. Chen is well known in the world of science and engineering as a "super star" in the field of super computing.

In 1991, Dr. Chen and Professor David Tuck were nominated as members of the National Academy of Engineering by the National Science Advisor of the Nixon administration. Dr. Chen is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences."

Need I say more?  Only this: growing up in the industry, Cray was a legendary name.  Super computers were spoken of with awe.  I can't remember where it was, but I clearly remember seeing an old Cray super computer, one of the early ones, in a museum.  I was standing there, appreciating the strange shape and color, reading about the incredible number of instructions that the strange looking machines can run in a second.  Awesome.  Strangely, it all came back to me today.  And the feeling was, well, humility would describe it best.

Sin-Yaw Wang, our site VP, asked me to join him for the meeting with Dr. Chen.  There was no way I would miss it.  The reason why we came to see Dr. Chen was to make him an interesting proposition.  To consider Solaris for operating system in his projects.  We, Sun, can offer Dr. Chen the best, fastest, most reliable, scalable and secured OS on the planet, along with first class assistance from our top Solaris developers.  But whatever the reason for this meeting was, I will remember it for a long time.  It was a privilege.

Posted at 09:05PM May 22, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[0]

Paintings from Guy

I came home today, and my wife told me that there was a surprise in the play room.  Guy, my four year old made a few exceptional drawings.  I thought what you're thinking.  I was expecting the usual: some lines and circles, nothing coherent.  When I saw it, though, I knew it was special.  Possible because this is my kid, but what's wrong with that?  So here are Guy's dog, and fly (autographed).  I thought it was special.  Special enough to put it here...
 

Posted at 07:48PM May 21, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[1]

Solaris - The Better Linux

I had set up a demo session at Sun China Engineering and Research Institute (ERI) in Beijing.  I may have not mentioned it before, but my job here at ERI is director of Solaris X86 Engineering.  Anyway, my manager, Andy Roach, was visiting here with his staff, and we prepared a two hour working lunch - demo session combination for him, his staff, and anyone who was interested here at Sun ERI Beijing.

The results were outstanding.  Not because it as well put together (it was), and not because the presenters were exceptionally professional (they were), and not because of the unusually delicious pizza (it was).  It was outstanding, at least in my mind, because I heard one of the visitors say: "Solaris is the better Linux".  And coming to think about it, it certainly is.

What Solaris is doing for the last few years, and will continue for the foreseeable future, is to emphasize its high-end features: performance, reliability, stability, debuggability, security, virtualization and many more enterprise type features, while collecting more and more desktop and developer type features.  We at ERI Beijing, are helping Solaris' capabilities in the desktop area: USB, network (wired and wireless), storage, audio and video, human interface devices etc.  We also help our IHVs and potential customers in verifying that their hardware platforms and components are compatible with Solaris, and directing them to the right places for the resources they need to make Solaris work flawlessly on their platform of choice and environment of operation.

The demo session had quite a few stations, in which the visitors could see for themselves the new Solaris capabilities in the desktop area.  This is what we have presented:

• Storage
• Remote array management capability running Adaptec's and IBM's) Storage Manager utilities
• Multi-pathing capabilities driving storage controllers
  
• USB devices
• USB phone connection to provide internet capability via cellphone
• USB Webcams and Web conferencing capabilities
• Tools for USB development environment including libs, java interfaces and debugging tools
• Support of ZFS on hot pluggable devices
• Fingerprint based login
  
• Virtual Console
• Video
• Good progress in supporting various vendors with presentation of 3D models
  
• NIC - Network Interface Cards
• Impressive performance increase numbers for all NIC card drivers
  
• WiFi
• WiFi devices based on Intel Centrino chipsets: (3945, 2200/2915, and 2100)
• WiFi security WPA/WiFi NWAM
• WiFi Cardbus driver
• For more information: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/laptop/wireless/
• HCTS - Hardware Certification Test Suite
  
• HCTSLive
• Report to Work tool (RTW)
  
• For more information: http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/hcts/
  
• SDDT - Sun Device Detection Tool
• For more information: http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/hcts/device_detect.html
  
• Solaris x86 Installation CheckTool
• For more information: http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/hcts/install_check.html

Against all odds: all demos worked, none crashed.  There were no power failures, network glitches, equipment breakage.  Business problems were presented, with the proposed solutions, from communication to security, from storage to USB, from network to hardware certification.  All worked, all clear.  I can't say in words how proud I was of my team for pulling it together.  They did a superb job.  So let me take this opportunity to thank our guests for their patience, to thank my staff for putting together a great plan and for meticulously executing it, for the developers for being so enthusiastic in showing their work.  One more person to thank: Thanks Mr. Murphy, for not attending.  We all appreciate that. (Murphy Laws)

Posted at 03:50PM May 21, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[1]

Tips for a Good Demo Session

For the first time since I started writing a blog, I have received a special request for a blog.  I decided to rise up to the occasion.  I am sure that you'll be able to find books and other materials on preparing a good demo session,  The following is based solely on my experience. 

If you are in software development you must have had to demonstrate the results of your work, a prototype, the finished product.  Is there a way to make sure that a demo session is successful?  The short answer is no, there isn't.  There are many variables, many of which are beyond your control.  Something may, and very possibly will, go wrong.  Yet, there are many variables that ARE well within your control.  Make sure these are well taken care of, and you give yourself a better chance of success.  No guarantee of course, but a better chance of success.

A short disclaimer: what I am describing is a venue for developers to show what they are working to upper management.  This does not cover finished products or customers.

First and foremost, you have to define the goal of the demo.  Over the course of my career, I have seen demos done for initial funding, continued funding, customer interest, executive updates, possibly other reasons.  You have to make sure that your goal is clear.  Like anything else, in order to accomplish your goals, you have to know them first.  In demos, a very strange dilemma comes to mind: if the product is ready for prime time, it is probably too late for a demo already - it's ready for marketing.  If it's not ready at all, it may embarrass its developers and damage their reputation.  You have to take a risk here, make sure it is a well calculated risk.  Demo a product when it's ready to be shown.  Not a very clear statement - you have to use some intuition.

State the business problem you are trying to solve.  If you have no business problem, then there's no need for your solution, is there?  Prepare user scenarios.  The more real they are, the more convincing your demo will be.

Choose your venue carefully.  If you're showing multiple demos in the same conference room, make sure that there's enough space between them.  Make sure that the lighting is right, and yes - the temperature.  Computers generate a lot of heat, if your audience is uncomfortable, you risk people concentrating the temperature rather than on what you're showing them.  (This is correct for too cold as well - but as for me personally, the heat bothers me more).  Again, if you're showing multiple projects, it is nice that each station has a little "name tag", and possible a one page "brochure" describing the technology.

You have to be ready to resume after failure, as if nothing happened.  As painful as it is, it is quite possible that something will crash.  It isn't the end of the world.  Restart.  People are ready to accept failures during demos.  Smile, admit that the this is not yet a product, and resume.  Remember the dilemma from before?  What you're showing is not ready for market, but it is ready for show.  And yes, make sure, ahead of time, that you have power, network, hardware and software.  Everything you need should be there ready to roll at most 30 minutes before the beginning of the "show".  I usually do a dry-run before a demo.  It is helpful to test the scenarios, the presentations.

By the way, I found out that lunch helps a lot.  Last time we ordered pizza, it worked like a charm.  Hungry people are less receptive to new technologies...

A demo should be able to show to the audience what the product will be able to do when it's ready.  It is not supposed to do it yet, not completely and certainly not perfectly..  Make sure it is stable enough to show, prepare the environment, the presenters, prepare for the unexpected: take care of your part of the equation.  The rest will work itself out.

Posted at 07:17PM May 19, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[2]

My Personal Abilene Paradox

Remember my entry “the Road to Abilene” or “the Abilene Paradox”? It's a situation in which a few people are engaged in an activity neither of them likes, or actually hates, or is actually destructive, simply because everyone thinks that the other one thinks it's the right thing to do. They are either embarrassed, or simply can't tell the other people to stop it. (http://www.abileneparadox.com/)
I already wrote that I have a regular driver who drives me back and forth to work. The guy is absolutely great. I love him. He's quiet, responsible, and definitely doesn't take unnecessary risks. In Beijing, it's priceless. Anyway, he usually puts on a radio station that I really like – “Music Radio”, I believe it's 90.00 on the FM dial. I admit that it also has a “beep” going on the full hours, which is great fro someone who has a strange relationship with time, like yours truly. I am completely comfortable with it, but to some people it is strange that I have a few watches, and they are all precisely set to the second. The driver takes his job very seriously. The car is always clean and smells nice, inside and out. And the music is nice, gentle, a perfect ride in the Beijing traffic.
And then the Devil gets involved, and here's what happens. The driver buys a few CDs. American CDs. It's a collection titles “Automobile Music”. And he puts it on, and I make the mistake of humming to some really old Whitney Houston song. And that's it. We are on the fourth day in a row of the same CD. I can't stand it. I am going nuts.
But what do I do? Do I tell him? I am positive that he will be insulted. If I were him, I would be too. Do I just listen to it and shut my mouth? Not sure I can. If I hear Stevie Wonder one more time, I will go berserk. Bring and iPod? Work in the car?
So he probably hates this music, but assumes that it is part of his job, and therefore tolerates it. I hate it, but I can't say anything about it. Two grown, responsible adults sitting in a car, listening to the same bad music forever. What was the definition of hell?
Anyway, I am writing these words (in the car, going home), listening to the last chords of the old classic “When a Man Loves a Woman”. For the fifth time today. And then to my great surprise, he just pushes a button and the song starts again. That did it for me. I lost it. I was immediately stripped of all my British manners and upbringing, I forgot my good nature and the strong desire to not ever hurt anyone. I just told him to put the radio on. I am sure he hates me now

Posted at 07:35PM May 17, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[4]