Posts by — Alex

Through my career, it’s easy to say that I’ve worked on hundreds of different projects for many different clients. Some for small companies with small budgets, small teams to get the work done and short timelines. Other projects are for large companies, with large teams and long timelines. The one connection between all of these projects is this: the documents can make them or break them.

Fear the docs. Fear what they can do to your project and your sanity.
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With the combination of growing multiculturalism and increased overseas outsourcing, there is a greater demand on communication skills than ever before. Not only do you need to be able to explain yourself and understand others, but you need to do this regardless of their native tongue. Here are a few tips that I’ve found to be helpful in my dealings with people who speak another language, or have a very heavy accent that I find hard to understand.
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We, as developers, are required to be analytical to solve the problems that arise in day to day work. We use our analysis skills to break a problem down into smaller parts and offer solutions to each one, and in turn, create a solution to the larger problem.

While this is great, and it typically solves all the problems we run across, I’ve noticed that it begins to get into our code as well, making it overly procedural. We begin to think just like computers work – logical and procedural.
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Making time for the things in life that should be my priorities has always been a bit of a challenge for me. You can ask my wife if you don’t believe me. Aside from reiterating the fact that it is important to manage your time so that you can give the different areas of your life the attention they deserve, I’d also like to highlight a couple different ways to do this.

When I started college, I realized that working hard and giving a task my full effort and devotion was supremely important for success. It was evident in the results that students who were less focused and driven had achieved.

It wasn’t really until getting married that I realized just how much time I spent working, rather than doing other things. Like enjoying my life and my wife.

With that realization in the back of my mind, I started trying to do something about it, so that I can give my wife the time she deserves, spend some time playing sports and getting exercise, hanging out with friends, and fulfilling my other responsibilities in life.
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Have you ever had one of those days where you can’t figure out what you’ve been doing all day long? You get home wondering where the day went, and if you’ve accomplished anything. It’s a pretty crummy feeling, and I’ve been there many, many times.

After some reflection about how my “crummy” days went, I started noticing things that really reduced my efficiency. This is a collection of my findings; the things that helped me get more done and feel good about it.
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Continuous improvement is a simple ideology that is essentially summed up with the thought that everything should always be getting better. Incase you haven’t noticed, this is contradictive to the way the world works; things just don’t get better on their own. It takes work, often in huge amounts to get things to be better.

The first place you can look to improve is with yourself. A good improvement process is useless if you just sabotage it with your shortcomings. Take a step back and look at how the things you do affect the people around you and the situations that arise within your company. Make note of the negative ones so that you can improve on them.
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One of the most difficult things that I’ve had to learn over the years is how to embrace failure. It always feels…bad. It’s hard to accept, and I don’t look forward to the consequences of it.

I do like how easy it is to learn from a huge failure, though. It seems to soften the blow a bit. If it’s something you’ve not yet experienced, you will at some point in your career or your life. Mistakes happen, and you should always learn from them, and learn how not to make the same mistake again.
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It seems that the old saying “less is more” rarely applies anymore. Everyone wants more. But when it comes to the job that you do, I think the old adage stands true. Not that less work is better (although that can be argued), but that less different work is better.
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Hamid Shojaee makes some interesting points in the article “5 Common Sense Practices Dev Teams Should Avoid”, but I’d like to focus on the 2nd point. Hamid suggests that procedures and processes should not always be followed as they might be limiting to the members of the team, and that they should be taken as suggestions or guidelines rather than “The law”.
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As developers, team leads and managers, it is our responsibility to always provide a solution, fix or answer to any problem given to us. Ideally, we always offer multiple solutions. This gives whoever is making the ultimate decision the ability to weigh the options and give the client the best solution.
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