Christian recently asked, in a comment on how project managers get power:

“…I only had a job because of the programmers…”

Wow, this is humble, in the good sense! But how did you treat those infamous programmer-jerks? How did you handle rough inner team situations?

The best place to start is empathy. Why is someone acting like a jerk? There are basic psychological reasons for this: Either they are insecure, they are unhappy, or they are angry about something.

Ok, there is a fourth reason, that they are psychopathic hell spawn put on the earth to torture all living things in a 10 foot radius, especially you, but lets assume that’s not the case for a moment.

In all three cases it’s possible they have good reasons for behaving like a jerk. Perhaps they are angry at upper management for the same reasons you are, but they see you as part of management (which, if you’re a PM, you are). Or maybe their last project manager was incompetent. Who knows? Not you. You don’t have a clue.

Odds are good it has nothing to do with you - it has to do with how they feel about what’s going on around them. Starting with a little empathy opens the door to finding a solution. If you start with “Fred is a jerk so I will treat him like one” you are likely perpetuating his reasons for behaving like a jerk, and everyone loses.

That said, there are four assets you have: charm, ability, roles and allies.

• Charm to connect. Being likable goes a long way in dealing with people. I don’t mean false niceness or being a cheezeball. I mean using your sense of humor, your natural generosity, your shared interests with someone to establish some basis for positive interaction with another person. It could be almost anything, but look for it. Good morale events help make these connections happen. If you happen to like Metallica, or Porsches, and they do, you now have something positive to talk about where it’s safe for everyone to share and connect.
• Demonstrate your ability to help . If they love making great software, if that’s really what they want, then you just need to show you can help. Even if it’s just helping meetings run better, or eliminating stupid annoyances in how decisions get made, defusing politics, reducing meetings, etc. There are a thousand easy things a decent PM can do that the programmer will noticeably benefit from. Start by asking “what can I do to make you more effective? more productive?” And listen to their answer. Do some of what they ask, come back and ask if it helped. Even if it’s a small thing, you’ve now built a tiny basis of respect for how you can help them.
• Agree on the roles you both play. More than half the time PMs suffer because people do not understand what the PM is doing. What you need to do is sit down with the programmer and make three lists: what I do (write specs), what you do (write code), what we both do together (triage bugs). Invariably there will be disagreements as to who does what work, but by listing them you’ll find all the sore spots in your working relationship. If you strongly disagree on roles, and he thinks you should wash his car, you should be able to go to your respective bosses and ask for clarification.
• Get help from your Allies. Which programmers do you get along with best? These are your allies. Ask them for input on working with Fred. Get their perspective on the frustrations on being a programmer in your organization. You may be able to see Fred in a different light. Have other PMs worked with Fred? What insights do they have?

Of course if after investing some of this energy you decide Fred is, in fact, demon spawn hellbent on destroying all positive energy in the universe, talk to your boss. If Fred is as bad as you say, others will complain and it will become your managers job to solve the problem (fire Fred, move him to more isolated work, get him a therapist).

Most of the time the real problem is people not sharing goals, and not listening to each other. Two things that your average project manager should be good at identifying and resolving.

See also:

• Why project managers get no respect
• Top ten reasons managers become assholes
• Asshole driven development (Now with 285 comments)

Posted in Management, Software/Web development, mailbag | 14 Comments »

A few months ago I finally purchased a new cell phone, a Palm Centro, first in about 5 years. My review was positive, but as with most reviews, them come early in the life of using the thing, and you never get to hear what happens after months of of usage. So here’s a follow up review - Steve asked for one, so here it is (Hi Steve!).

In short: I still love this phone.

The good:

High ease of use, simple design, I love the keyboard (YMMV - see picture), it’s small enough to slide into any of my pockets and has decent to good battery life. There are various little UI design elements they got right, such as reply to a missed call with a txt message, a nice vibrate switch right on top of the phone (can switch it without taking it out of pocket), and an easily toggle-able flight mode for being on planes.

It has a handy pseudo-GPS feature, that uses cell-towers to triangulate position in google-maps. Works great. I use it all the time. It’s accurate to within 500-1000 feet which is enough to get a map I can figure out no matter where I am.

I rarely use the stylus that comes with the device - a finger works fine 90% of the time in all the UI I use.

The bad: There are a few minor complaints. Trying to be thorough here, but despite the list these things are minor. Rarely encountered or little impact.

• Minor performance issues. The phone can get lost when you have too many apps working - switching between them sometimes can be slow. In these moments it feels like the device needs more RAM.
• Web browser is adequate. I use it often and its fine. It’s definitely underpowered for large pages and it doesn’t handle this well. So if you happen to hit a complex 500kb table or something, the browser chokes - it will time itself out after 20 seconds or so, but it’s not fun. This is rare, but does happen if you’re doing heavy web browsing and end up on heavy duty pages. The close window button is too small to hit with a finger, so you need the stylus to kill the browser.
• The sync plug is a bear. It’s a strange plug, with a wide two pronged adapter. It’s impossible to get this thing out without a lot of force, and I’m always afraid I’m going to break it, which would make the phone impossible to sync. It is a durable plug, it’s just designed in a way that makes me nervous when I use it.
• PDF support is slow. There may be a better PDF viewer than the one I have, but the I have makes sleeping turtles look fast, and its UI is frustrating - feels like a bad port of a standalone viewer, not one designed for a small screen. It works, but is slow and annoying. I tried to read a restaurant menu through it once, scrolling around, trying to zoom in and out, and simply gave up.

So if you can’t wait for the Palm Pre, which looks pretty sharp, The Palm Centro (product info here) could be a good choice.

Posted in Design, Product reviews, creative thinking, mailbag | 2 Comments »

Here’s a good one from the mailbag:

I am seriously considering quitting the (day) job and dedicate myself to my consulting activities but, it’s scary decision. On one hand I feel it’s the right time. I have no family nor other important obligations and in a few years it’ll be too late. But on the other hand the cost of living where i live and the financial crisis make me hesitate.

Do you think that today’s crisis should affect this type of decision? Any insights you can provide me on your decision would be very appreciated.

Big decisions are always scary no matter what’s going on in the world. You’d be nearly as scared in boom times to quit your nice job to jump into the unknown as you probably are now. Keep this in mind. Much of the fear is yours. I know mine was. It’s easy to say “oh, it’s not the right time” as if there could ever be a perfect time. No one is ever going to drop down from the sky and say “Quit now! It’s time!”. It will always feel scary, weird and uncomfortable. I’m not saying everyone should quit today - far from it - but I am saying there is this fantasy about what it should feel like that never happens.

In short, going out on your own you only need one thing: enough clients to earn a living. Depending on what you intend to do this could be one single client. Or three. Getting one or three clients might be very easy for you. Or very hard. But either way you can start figuring out how hard or easy it will be before you quit your regular job. The quality of your business idea and talents are things you can measure no matter what the state of the world is. If you see a way to make money, can verify it, can get good businesses to sign contracts to pay you, then why wouldn’t you do it?

The major advantage of being an independent is your low overhead. You only need to pay one salary and that’s yours. Even in down times if you see an opportunity to provide a service people need, and can pay for, you can do very well. Strong businesses are relatively stronger now given all the troubles weaker companies are in. Even during global downwards trends there are always pockets of opportunity and sometimes the people who strike out on their own during tough times, and survive, are best positioned to do well in boom times too.

Here’s a basic and time tested approach to all this:

1. What are you lowest possible expenses for the next 12 months. Do the math on how much you need to survive. Note all the frills you can cut, like cable TV, nights out on the town, skiing trips, moving to a cheaper apartment, etc. Put together your lean expenses for a year. If you have new business expenses you expect to spend before you can make income, consider those too.
2. Examine your savings. Based on #1, you know how much you need, assuming ZERO income, to last for a year. Look at your savings and do the math. If you find zero clients, how long can you last? A good guess is you need 6 to 12 months to build a base of clients. If you don’t have 6 months of savings, start saving now.
3. Find your support team. Ask your friends, your spouse, your colleagues, and find a small group of people who will support you and help you out as you start this new thing. You will need to know who can help when need it, who will encourage you and who will give you tough feedback you need to hear. Line up your support team before you make the leap.
4. Start looking for clients. Ask around. Of your network, who are the five people most likely to need your services. Talk to them. Ask them if you were a freelancer if they’d be interested. Talk to other freelancers in your field - buy them lunch and ask for advice. Do they like being on their own? Why? Why not? Before making the leap become a student of freelancers in your field and sort out if your fantasies about it approximate the reality. Start working your network and building it now. Start a blog about your expertise: it creates a home for your knowledge and if you go on your own, your business.
5. Get your first client fast: work for free . A good referral is worth much more than payment for a new independent. Be willing to work for free, on the basis it’s a limited time only arrangement, in exchange for a good referral or use of a client’s network. If you can’t find someone willing to let you work for free, be worried. You can do this on weekends or when off from your current job. Get projects under your belt now, while you have almost no risk. If after two weekend projects you hate it, you’ve learned, before quitting, freelancing isn’t for you.
6. Leave your job on good terms. Give plenty of notice, more than the minimum (Wouldn’t you be pissed if someone gave you only two weeks notice?). Finish all your work. Make sure you do everything you can to leave on excellent terms so worst case the door is open for your return, or to possibly use your former employer as a client.
7. Value life experience. When I quit it helped me to accept that even if I fail I’d have learned a great deal about myself, my industry and life in general. I was convinced there were lessons I’d learn I couldn’t buy any other way, and I got strength from this (It turned out I was right, but I didn’t know this when I quit). I was convinced on a personal level I could not lose, and if I planned #1 and #2 the financial risks were small. Worst case I’d take those experiences and return to the kind of career I’d had before.

I’d also check out books like Million Dollar Consulting, which outline many of the considerations needed to run a successful consulting or freelance business.

Posted in entrepreneurship, mailbag, philosophy | 7 Comments »

I get tons of comments/email in response to this post on how to write a book. Here’s another interesting, and life-grounding, question from the mailbag:

I found your website hand thought it was awesome. I watched your videos and decided I could use some advice from you.

My house burnt down 3 weeks ago in Burnsville, Minnesota. I lost a 38 foot RV, a 69 Plymouth Fury Convertible, and monster truck and trailer in the driveway and my 16 years old sons car he worked on so hard and never got to drive. I also lost 5 animals in the fire and that really hurts. I still have my 3 children ages 23, 16 and a 10 year old daughter who is having night mares with all this life changing overnight experience. Guess what? I want to write a book about my life and how it changed so quickly. I am very grateful we are all alive and ok. Like everyone else I dont know where to start. I am living my worst night mare in a hotel gong on a month. We have nothing but the cloths we were wearing that day. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Please contact me.

Very sorry to hear about your loss. I do hope there are local government agencies or non-profits that can offer you some assistance. Books aside, I do wish you and your family a better October.

On starting: there is no single easy way to start writing. There are some tricks to try, and I list my take on them in this essay on writing hacks. But everyone is different. How you start doesn’t matter, but if you wait for a perfect easy way to do it, you’ll likely never get started. If that essay doesn’t help, here are some additional tricks:

• Plan to come back. One trick that helps is to remember that the real work in writing is editing. I plan to come back later and revise, cut, rewrite and do all kinds of work later on. The “writing” part is just the beginning and believing this has a freeing effect. When I sit down with a blank page I have no preconceptions. I just start writing and plan to figure it all out later once there are a few pages of rambles and rants to work from.
• Go chronological. In your case you’re writing about things that have happened, or are happening to you. Great. Pick a date, say a week before the fire, and write about what happened every day from them to now. It could be as simple as two or three facts per day, or memories per day, or your recollection of your thoughts on those days, whatever you like. But anchor on time as the spine of your writing. It creates an easy way to divide up your memories, and to trigger thoughts or recollections. You then might choose to go to your family and friends and get their stories and recollections on every day, giving you even more material to work from.
• Keep a notebook with you. Have a place to write down ideas and thoughts about your experience and keep it with you all the time. Your rule should be whenever a thought crosses your mind, no matter how strange or personal, you write it down. Worry later if its good or interesting, but in the moment, commit yourself to writing something down. I have piles of old notebooks, and go through one every few weeks.
• Read other memoirs of experience. Many great writers have written books about their personal experience with tough times. Check out Joan Didion’s The year of magical thinking, about her experience with having two loved ones become seriously ill at the same time. It can help to see how other writers have tackled the same type of writing you’re going through. Worst case, you can critique their handling of personal crisis and write about that :)
• Write every day. Even if it’s just for 5 minutes, even if it’s just a sentence or a few words, sit down and write every single day. You have to get used to how it feels to sit there and that only happens if you put your ass in the chair every single day. Find a slot in your schedule that you can protect (early mornings or late nights often work) and ask family to respect that time.

I hope that helps get you started. Best wishes.

Have a question for the mailbag? Leave a comment or contact me here.

Posted in On writing, mailbag | 1 Comment »

Here’s a recent item from the mailbag/comment bag. Arjun wrote:

How do i free myself, kill my inhibitions and break away from any kind of mental consciousness i keep facing every time i want to do something really badly. I’m simply afraid, man. Afraid, i might hurt somebody or offend someone who i care for, might come across as selfish. Your talks are fun and exciting and an adventure in itself. Now, please help me in figuring out a way to just free myself from my other self. The lamb leads the lion in me so to speak. How do i reverse that relationship? I eagerly await your reply. Thanks so much man. Your the Man!

I’m not a self help guru, but that might be a good thing here as I don’t have a nice, kind, warm fuzzy fluffy answer for you.

I recently went to a bachelor party at a rented luxury house on a lake in Texas. On top of the boat dock, 20 feet off the ground was a swing: you grabbed the trapeze handle, swung out over the lake, and dropped into the water. Sounds cool, but it looked terrifying. Something about the angle of the water from that vantage point made it look unnatural. The result? A gaggle of 30-something year old men, standing on the edge, trying to build up the guts to jump.

One guy had done it. And when it was my turn to try I knew I had to turn off my brain in order to do it. Switch it right off - and decide before I put my hands on the trapeze that I was going to just jump without thinking. And that’s what happened. I jumped, and it was not nearly as scary doing it as it was thinking about doing it.

Two of my friends however spent the next hour, literally 60 minutes, standing on that ledge, the hot Texas sun beating down, looking down, trying different ways to think through the problem. A strategy set up to fail as this was not about thinking. While they never jumped, it was impressive to watch them fight a battle in their own minds for that long.

For some things in life there is no planning. No way to rationalize. It is either done, or not done. And the trap is the more you think about them, the larger the fear of doing them becomes. The trick is to be able to turn off that voice and operate without it. Create courage by denying the rational mind. And its a kind of self-knowledge to recognize when shutting off your mind is the only way to achieve what you want to achieve.

In your case things are perhaps easier. You can test your fear. Ask your friend if they’d be hurt if you wrote a book. Ask the people you care for if they can support you in trying to live your life differently, or to take a certain risk. GO AND ASK. If you never ask then the fault is yours. If you do ask for support and don’t get it from your closest friends, then you need to find new close friends. Ones who want to help you grow and be happy. Either way, in taking action you win. But in being passive and worrying, complaining, imagining, you make your own mind a trap, like my friends by the ledge.

Got a question you want answered? Put it in the mailbag or leave a comment.

Posted in mailbag | 6 Comments »

Some recent e-mail about my essay on how to learn from mistakes. Brian wrote:

I enjoyed reading your article “#44 - How to learn from your mistakes”. One other category of mistake I would add to your list, really a continuation of the “Stupid” mistake, would be “Habitual”, or “Automatic”, whichever phrasing you like better. This is the case where you repeatedly make the same mistake(s) out of habit, it’s automatic. Take the person who wakes up every Saturday around 2pm and says “Gee, I wish I didn’t drink so much, why do I always do that?!”.

These are mistakes that we regret and always ask “Why do I keep on making the same mistake over and over again?”. From my personal study, I feel at the moment that the answer lies in making a new habit of pausing before we make a decision, and imagining the possible outcomes of the action and making a CONSCIOUS (rather than automatic) decision this time.

Absolutely - In fact Leo Buscaglia, in one of his books (I think it’s Living, Loving and Learning) talked about how being healthy depends on making more of our behavior choices. To grow as a person, in his estimation, hinges on seeing more and more of our own behavior, and even emotions, as choices and taking responsibility for them, instead of blaming others, or perhaps, the entire universe.

I’m at least at the point that when I wake up at 2pm on Saturday, I know full well why I made the choice :)

Posted in Essays, mailbag | 1 Comment »

I get a lot of email, and sometimes lots of blog comments. Some of it is very nice, has feedback and useful criticism, or suggestions for things to write about, and I’m grateful for it. Some are requests for speaking engagements which I make a living on, also awesome. A good chunk are requests to read, review, or watch things other people have done, which is fine if it’s not a generic piece of PR spam. And then there’s a pile that’s is harder to classify: I’m being asked for something, but it’s not entirely clear what it is.

Here’s a recent favorite that appeared in the comments of my post on how to write a book:

I PUT MY ENTIRE COMMENT IN CAPS LOCK SO IT WILL GET YOUR ATTENTION. (please read this!!! and help!!!) OK. I’M A MINOR (14) AND I WROTE A BOOK. I STARTED WITH JUST A PEN AND PAPER AND I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN WITH A PUBLISHER. CAN PUBLISHERS STEAL IDEAS OF BOOKS? DO I NEED MY BOOK COPYRIGHTED? (please don’t think I’m stupid!) WHILE I WAS DOING RESEARCH, I READ THAT MINORS CAN’T GET BOOKS PUBLISHED AND I WANT A KNOWN PUBLISHER TO READ MY BOOK. MY BROTHER, WHO IS ALSO A MINOR, IS WRITING THE SEQUEL TO MY STORY. HOW DO I GET A PUBLISHER TO NOTICE ME? YOUR ARTICLE WAS DISCOURAGING, BUT IT WAS AN EGO DEFLATION THAT I REALLY NEEDED. PUBLISHING MY BOOK IS GOING TO BE HARD, AND I NEED ADVICE FROM SOMEONE LIKE YOU, SOMEONE WHO’S BEEN THERE, DONE THAT IN THE WRITING BUSINESS. (Sam)

Dear Sam:

First off, Caps lock BAD. Very BAD. Don’t do it. Yes, you want attention, but there is good attention and bad attention. Good attention, in this case, is to seem smart and like you’ve done your homework so I’ll want to give you advice. Bad attention is to seem crazy, annoying, helpless, confused and random (which writing in ALL CAPS make you seem). Luckily your comment was so funny and genuine, it outweighed the bad stuff.

And on to your questions:

You mentioned “I WROTE A BOOK”: Really? How long is it exactly? Most books are 50,000 words or more (roughly 200 pages). Of course there are many published books that are shorter, but if all you have are a few pages, as far as a publisher is concerned, you have a short story on your hands, not a novel or a book. But then again, if you can find your local kinkos, you can make a book of any size you’d like. If I were 14 I’d be my own publisher - it’s faster, easier, and probably more fun.

Can publishers steal ideas? This is so unlikely it’s not worth worrying about. Can’t think of a single instance of this actually happening. It’s more likely another writer will “steal” ideas, but that’s unlikely too. Provided you can prove when you wrote what you wrote, it’d be pretty hard for a publisher to get away with it anyway. I bet you a zillion dollars you should be worrying more about finishing your book, and writing well, than about your ideas being taken from you.

Minors and books: There is no law that says a minor can’t write or publish books. There have been plenty of young writers who have had books published (Paolini was a teenager when his first novel was published).

Sequels: I was quite impressed you’ve got your brother working on the sequel before the original is finished. Perhaps you can get your sister or cousin to work on the prequel?

How to get a publisher to notice you: Start by rereading my post. They don’t find you, you have to go and find them. Find publishers that makes the kinds of books you want to write, go to their website, and find their information on submissions. But dont worry about publishers until your book is almost done.

Posted in On writing, mailbag | 4 Comments »