Enthusiasm

As of 8 minutes ago Tabula Rasa was no more. I attempted to log in 8 minutes to late to find they took down the servers promptly at 12:00 MT. I wanted to log in one last time to say goodbye and maybe get a glimpse of the Angel PAU which they promised us for so long. Who knows, maybe they might resurrect Tabula Rasa as something else in the future.

From one of my readers who sent me a PM:

I was reading your cybervic blog earlier about “You think a lot” and I wanted to comment on it. Considering there’s an issue with me being able to post the comment on your blog (why, I have no idea), I figured I’d write it here.
Thinking a lot can be interpreted in many difference ways and you can see example of it by observing other people.

(Perceptive) For instance, someone with a lot of time on their hands might start thinking about random stuff. If their work is mostly physical, their minds have lots of time to think and, for a lot of people, it seems to be a get-away drug for their monotonous lives. Half the time, it’s philosophical and the rest is normally about how things work.

The key thing here is understanding that thinking a lot, in their case, does not make them wiser but more perceptive.

(Analyst) Some people have the tendency to consider every possible outcome before executing a task. They plan things out and will often go in denial if something unexpected happens. This is what most people refer to when they talk about thinking.

(Elaborator) There are those who over-analyze things and they are often found being annoying to those around him/her. They are either slow to respond or are extremely vague in their answers. Nonetheless, they understand that answers are never as black/white as others believe and they’ve taken the time to think and analyze in detail to give the most accurate answer. They’re often incapable of giving a “yes” or a “no”.

(Worrywart) Thinking a lot can also mean that someone worries a lot. It’s a form of paranoia, I suppose. “If I put a glass of water at the edge of the table, chances are it won’t fall but the possibility still exists therefore the glass of water should be moved elsewhere.” A mother hen is also a good example.

There are great thinkers all around the globe. From philosophical, to analytical, to all the way to a mother reminding her kids of their dental appointments while she finds the time to pack their lunch-boxes for school.

You DO think a lot, but what KIND of thinker are you? I am merely a graphic artist, but I’d say you’re a [A-W-E-P].

Anyways, my 2 cent.

P-S. I’d say I’m about [E-P-W-A]

Let’s face it. I’m opinionated guy. Although I’m opinionated, I’m not a stick in the mud and am MORE than willing to understand the view point of the other side and like to have honest discussions and come to equal understandings of the problem so that everyone involved comes to logical conclusions. So one can say that I do my share of persuading, asking of ideas, brainstorming in discussions, and in general always do so in a very enthusiastic way. My communication style is very unique and take an entire project management team and every single manager in the local office I work in and I’m the only person with my unique communication style. If you are at all familiar with DiSC, I was the only one at our office for example who was a high “i”. Because of my unique and generally unfamiliar communication style to others, I’m often perceived incorrectly by most until people get to know me and then they “get where I’m coming from”.

I’m also a very open and strait forward person. I don’t hide my opinions, right or wrong and love to share them, but am willing and welcoming to opposition to my opinions. The way I see it, how do I know that my opinions are wrong if I don’t share them and give someone else the opportunity to correct me? Equally so, if someone has something to gain like overall understanding of the problem thanks to my opinion, I like to share that information.

Unfortunately my unique form of communication style doesn’t mesh well with the fact that I’m younger than all of my peers and most of my colleagues in general. This last fact is something that sucks, but I’ve slowly come to accept over time and realize that while it sucks I do need to recognize that there is a certain level of age discrimination that exists and egos get in the way. I can’t fight it, so I need to just learn how to deal with it.

Fact is I’ve been described as overwhelmingly enthusiastic, intimidating, overly opinionated, cocky, pontificating, and a myriad of other terms. Am I truly this way or is honestly true that I’m being perceived incorrectly? Maybe I am… maybe I’m just being perceived as such. Maybe it’s as simple as some words I use on the phone that without simple gestures and body language leave others to fill in the blanks. Regardless, there is an opportunity for improvement and something I need to adjust. The problem is identifying the exact item that is incorrect. I can’t identify the problem myself and am getting vague examples at best.

So here are some recommended reading for myself to get my mind on the right track and help me figure out what I’m doing wrong. It’s a big concern and something I really need to focus on improving.

• http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/1982/05/what-do-you-mean-you-dont-like-my-style/ar/1
• http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2000/09/managing-away-bad-habits/ar/1
• http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2002/05/change-the-way-you-persuade/ar/1
• http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2002/06/the-very-real-dangers-of-executive-coaching/ar/1
• http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2002/12/the-young-and-the-clueless/ar/1
• http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2003/01/how-presidents-persuade/ar/1
• http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2004/01/what-makes-a-leader/ar/1
• http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2004/01/leading-by-feel/ar/1
• http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2004/05/coaching-the-alpha-male/ar/1 
• http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2005/01/managing-oneself/ar/1
• http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2007/01/what-to-ask-the-person-in-the-mirror/ar/1
• http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2008/09/social-intelligence-and-the-biology-of-leadership/ar/1

So I found out today during a meeting with some of my peers that apprently my boss reads my blog. I didn’t tell him I had a blog… maybe I mentioned it in passing, I can’t remember. Who knows, maybe he was just curious and found me while searching for topics that I’ve blogged about, or maybe he knew I was a blogger, or someone slipped my URL to him. Either way it seems like Andrew is reading my blog now which is kinda good and kinda bad. I will continue to blog as I always have, not caring about who’s reading which might be bad sometimes, but in general I think that if he does read my blog he’ll have a better understanding of how I think and might be able to help coach me.

So Andrew… welcome to my brain. As I’m sure you’ve already noticed I’ve been blogging for a very long time, over 4 years now. Here is where I collect my thoughts and take things out of my mental reserves. Here is where I put my stresses to paper and let them sit and collect. Here is where I explore my deepest ideas about myself and work through my shortcomings, strengths, and weaknesses.

To expand upon yesterday’s blog post, TFS has really been a facilitator for me to help improve processes and be a leader in a way to help promote better process. I explained to Sue today how the bug triage and reporting processes worked, how bugs are put into a backlog, how they get assigned to an iteration when they are assigned to be fixed there, how related / linked tasks are created for bugs, and how testing tasks are linked to from the development task. We also talked about putting linked testing for hotfixes as tasks in future releases for regression testing to make sure the hotfix rolls properly into next major releases of the software.

I’ve always been a process oriented guy and promoted better process not to “control” things, but with process comes expected levels of efficiencies. In fact well designed process should only be a set of rules you expect people to follow and give them the freedom to no have to be “controlled” and micro managed. If you have proper good process, micro management isn’t necessary (unless you’re paranoid and don’t trust your people). With process, people don’t waste time reinventing the wheel all the time. Quality control goes up with process. Things don’t “fall off the cart” when there’s process. So many good things come from well designed and embraced process that you don’t get when you’re just flying by the seat of your pants all the time. Even Agile processes are… a process.

Well, the move of bugs from FogBugZ to Team Foundation Server went very very well. Tony really liked how things got imported and have worked with Tony on making sure the process for moving the bugs for the other project happens smoothly as well. I worked with Carlos to make sure that the bug process according to Agile development and MSF Agile process guidance was being followed and shared my ideas with Tony. He agreed with my logic on how I setup things and made some suggestions. I really want to make sure that he and I collaborate (and of course include Randy as well), because we all need to agree on a good process that will improve efficiencies and drive us to be a more lean, mean, agile machine. Bugs is only one part of the whole overarching Agile process, but hopefully that’s one big step. Once people see efficiencies there and thank TFS for those efficiencies, people will embrace and look for other opportunities for success. It will be win / win for everyone and we will be more and more successful as a result.

Thoughts and wisdom. What went right, what went wrong.

EDIT: I originally posted this as a placeholder because I thought I would have some kind of good words of wisdom, but honestly it wasn’t that big of a deal. I made it a bigger deal than anyone else did, even the members were like “oh well”. The server move went rather quick and painless. People are still getting invited as of the 26th which is when I’m making this edit, but overall things have gone well. Guild is rather healthy and hoping to start getting new recruits on a more healthy server.

Today we did our second volunteer work coordinated through IHS, which was volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity’s Restore project. The “Restore” is a country wide program where they take usable used or donated building materials and sell them to the public for reasonable prices and that money they make from it goes toward funding the building of new homes for people in need. The single Restore… store can raise enough money for an average of 2-5 homes a year depending on the volume of donations and work they do. Sometimes even in a renovation project they take part of the products and re-sell those to the public to, so in a sense it’s the most sustainable way to keep usable building materials cycled back into the public. Overall it was fun, but very exhausting! While Kerrie was working in the front of the store setting up shelving for merchandise, I was in the back of the store, in the warehouse setting up the gigantic warehouse shelving that’s 3 stories high and you put product pallets onto. It was a lot of work in REALLY high places and some even crazy work standing on a fork lift 3 stories in the air. Fun stuff! Can’t wait till the next volunteer event.

Today I started working with Tony to move all of our bugs from FogBugZ, our current bug tracking software onto Team Foundation Server. He started with a relatively simple SQL script to pull the basic bug information, but I’ve been working on making a more advanced script which utilizes an inline function to collapse the many “event” records for each bug into a simple XML document which we will be stuffing into the description field in TFS. It’s not pretty for sure, but it’s the best way to get history for the bugs moved over in a clean way and allow team members to continue to work on bugs in TFS that are active without having to go back to the old FogBugZ system. My hope is to have all the bugs in by the end of the week for ecoAsset Manager and help Tony next week in moving the rest of the bugs over.

Wowy zowie batman!

We’ve all known for a while that the overall population of Umgrim has been suffering. We’ve been asking Mythic for a while to merge our server with another one. Well Mythic took it a step further. Starting tomorrow they are offering free server transfers for anyone on Umgrim and 2 other low population servers onto 2 other servers which they hope to be stable in population once this is all done. So collectively via Warhammer Alliance and other boards like UmgrimWarlords, we have made a universal decision for the MAJORITY of the server of Umgrim to move to Iron Rock. This is on very short notice because the move starts… TOMORROW. Yes that’s a big order and a lot of fast communication I need to make to my guild to ensure that everyone all does the work necessary to move their characters to Iron Rock. We have no idea what will happen to people who don’t transfer now so everyone needs to get it done. We’ve communicated via phone calls, text messages, forum PM’s, posts, and emails. Hopefully we’ve reached most everyone. We’ll see how this goes. A little nerve wrecking for sure!