Profesionalism
Engineering mindsets
- ongoing honest evaluation of the merits and flaws of in-house and third-party technologies
- agile utilization and promotion of good technologies and planned deprecation of bad technologies
- always have a plan B
- balance engineering with sales with marketing
- understanding the relationship of vision, milestones, releases, issues and tasks
- “Not invented here” vs “Standing on the shoulders of giants”
- “Never ending redesign” vs “but we have always done it this way”
- “Short-term agile” vs “Epic fixed projects”
- “Monolithic Frankenstein” vs “Sprawling “
Somethings have to be said even if nobody is listening
- Some truths need to be said outloud even if to an empty room.
- Some truths need to be said because nobody else wants to say them.
- Some truths need to be said so we hear them ourselves.
There are no stupid questions, just stupid or missing answers.
Sometimes people are afraid to ask questions for fear of looking stupid, but questions re not stupid, they just reveal a previous answer was missing or flawed.Answering questions is the thing we should be judged upon.
I get incredibly frustrated when people lie, or guess and pretend to be experts, or avoid answers altogether because the truth, or the fear of a possible truth, scares them. Questions are searches for the truth, and there are no stupid questions.
Business essentials
- Understand & control your costs and your market, both will evolve and so must you.
- Avoid ambiguity in communications, misunderstandings will hurt you.
- Hire the right people, use them efficiently, reward them appropriately.
- Control quality or it will control you.
- Work hard, play hard, rest hard. Forget any of these at your peril
Ethics, Secrets and Lies
Often i may using publicly available data infer or guess other details that may or may not be true. I see no problem with sharing those inferences or analysis with people that have the same access to facts as myself provided i am clear that those are inferences and opinion and are not fact. I may at some point learn some secret that confirms or denies my opinions, but that does not effect the opinions that i share if asked by those not privy to the same confidential information. I will not lie. and thus sometimes may chose silence or feigned ignorance. I may at times nudge people to talk together, or suggest directions for investigation or development based on perceived shared goals. While i may at times be seen as an instigator I believe that my legacy is as a facilitator. I refrain from doing harm, except where it is necessary. I don’t take sides. I come to an opinion and choose where to stand. Wether that is in the same place as others is a consequence of that judgement. I will state as fact information I know to be untrue.
Meeting efficiency
Meeting efficiency is inversely proportional to the log of the number of people.
Learning from others
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”
— Groucho Marx
People I dislike
- People that cannot say “I was wrong” or “I am sorry”.
- People that cannot say “I don’t know” and that instead make up lies.
- People that take credit for other peoples hard work and innovation.