The Project Management Swing --- Some Updates

The original:

Commentaries and/or corollaries:

For your PowerPoint® Pleasure....

Amazon Shipping Managers Need To Look Outside the Window??

I ordered some books (note the irony on WHICH books).

While this is happening:

So where does Amazon ship them from? The middle of the storm, of course! 

This is not the best operations management, I think....

I know I live CLOSER to Laurel, MD than say, Coffeyville, KS (a favorite ship-from location for household goods), BUT, evidently Amazon is the only one who doesn't know that it's snowing in Laurel, MD and Richmond, VA. 

Speaking of, the UPS site says the stuff will still get delivered today, which would be really miraculous, seeing as how the stuff is currently under 3 feet of snow in Virginia.... Amazon sent out a "delayed" email, why isn't the UPS site showing delayed?
Now, admittedly, I don't need these books today, but I would be really irritated if the new wireless/usb antennae we just ordered had also been stuck in the snow.... our Tivo's can't talk! It's Tivomageddon!

Dear Outlook,

I know that this is futile, but I'm going to say it anyway.

When are you going to be better? There's so many things wrong with you, but today your lack of ability to tell that 2 people are the same people is really getting to me. 

You aren't going to send the same person 7 copies, so why won't you deduplicate my to: line?

For example:

Should become this when I click the little Man + Checkmark icon.

Not this:

That way when I'm reading a list of 75 people on the to line, I can better see that Jane is on the list (or not on it).  Speaking of, it would be nice if the To: box could expand to show everyone there, but maybe that's just me. 

This mostly happens when we have 17 Outlook distribution groups, I add each one, then need to deduplicate it to see who is missing, since between them John Smith is on 15 and yet Sally Roe is missing from all of them...

*sigh*

Bad Metrics

What happens when your metrics are out of line with the big picture?

You land on Consumerist because staff are told NOT to make major sales unless they can make an upsell with it.

http://consumerist.com/5168167/office-depot-employees-claim-theyre-told-to-lie-about-stock-if-youre-not-buying-extras

Project Update

Looks like all the milestones to date have been made, and the GANTT chart is looking good.

OMG, Microsoft, Seriously??

I've got a ton of meetings scheduled. The attendee lists are long. I would like to print the list of people who have accepted, declined, tentative, etc.

Except, according to Microsoft, http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA011499821033.aspx, I can't.

What, it's important enough to be a tab on the screen, but not important enough to ever print? Seriously?? WTF.

"There is currently no direct way to print the names of the people who have been invited to a meeting"

and

"Only the names of the meeting organizer and attendees are copied. If you are the meeting organizer and you want to include each attendee's response to your meeting request, click the Tracking tab, press ALT+PRINT SCREEN, and then paste the image into a Microsoft Office program file."

Ok, you're a multizillion dollar company. You know something is wrong, because you have a help page on something, and the answer is to alt-printscreen?

Really?

Bon Mot...

This line is from a training class I'm taking,

"Remember that people who feel good about themselves tend to produce better work."

There are a few managers I've known in the past who obviously need to take this class.

I'm going to translate for those folks.

"Yelling at people and insulting them and mocking them in front of other people just ensures that they do a really crappy job from here on out."

Committees...

I had two lonnngggggg conference calls today related to various roles I have undertaken.

I got off the phone, walked into my co-worker's office, and said,

"I think my leadership muscles are tired. They need an ice-pack and an advil."

Especially if you have limited resources, and you're pushing for change, and people don't want to change...

It's tiring!

Conversely, when everyone's excited, or when you're really (finally) making an impact, it's exhilirating.

Presedential candidates must walk around with the biggest natural highs on the planet.

Not So Much Blogging...

Why? Brain hurts!

Today:

Inbox at start of day: 249 items

Inbox at end of day: 224 items

Email sent: 65 (this is actually a middle-level amount for me)

Email recieved today, no longer in inbox, now in done: 84

Times Outlook crashed or lost server connection: 2

For the week:

Email sent: 218

Email no longer in inbox, recieved this week (not including junk): 401

Number of BrickBreaker games player: just 1!

Number of meetings attended: 8 (this is sub-normal, next week has 9 already)

Finger Pointing, Poor Usability, and Bill Gates

Bill Gates’ web experience: Byzantine, idiotic logic

Bill Gates's and Microsoft's internal memos expose (pdf) a horrible user experience AND no one willing to take the lead on fixing it.

And you thought it was just where you worked!

My favorite quote, "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated."

Side note: I once had someone tell me Microsoft would never worry about this, "user research stuff" because they would just know. Nope, even The Bill recognizes the need for usability.

Worst... Boss... Ever

Way to demotivate your people.

Success is not gained through fear of a foul mouth. Respect, yes, important. I don't happen to think that throwing things and yelling profanity gains you respect... it certainly doesn't inspire your people to do anything but cringe.

A career shouldn't be an endless trip through a prisoner-of-war labor camp.

The Tire Swing...

So, for anyone who has ever seen this little Project Marketing gem. (I think I've used it three times and seen it about 20 by now).



Today, I saw an update.

The Evolution of Gmail

Google has semi-released (lots of blurring) 21 images of Gmail from it's early, early prototypes to where it is now.

I like the fish, myself.


http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/06/the-evolution-of-pre-launch-gmail-in-screenshots/

My Confession

I get far too much joy out of coming up with fake names for documentation.

Now, some of you are reading this and thinking, "Yeah, fake names from 80's songs."

And that is actually not true.

Fake names from wikipedia. Wikipedia has these really long pages of names and how they work in different countries. I enjoy playing mix and match.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthroponym
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Given_name
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surname
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_names

And all the pages below them lead to interesting (to me) creations. And since no one else knows what they mean, I can also mix in people I know and an occasional 80's lyric...

It's the one engaging thing I can do during documentation.

Yes, I'm odd.

• Ibrahim Khazzoom
• Mariko Rotmensen
• Keith Croft
• Selma Arlington
• Vasili Ivanov-Petrov
• Tina Wentz
• Rose Barbu
• Leroy Gordon
• Jasper Wolf
• Eustacia Soden
• Alvera Johnson
• Sherri Landry
• Albert Moreau
• Mai Nguyen
• Karl Bergman
• Lena Howell
• Jared Birhanu
• Gema Pertiwi

Thinking About Personas...

I've read and seen presentations on Personas (Personae?) since the last century.

I never really saw the use. It seemed to me that the typical persona was often used to ignore overall usability issues, and that sometimes the persona were even created backwards from the site owner's goals.

IE

We have a site that sells sports equipment. Let's do some personas...

• Cal: Cal is a motivated buyer. Cal needs a baseball bat delivered to his godson by the weekend, and he doesn't care what kind it is, or what the price is. Cal owns stock in our company.
• Babe: Babe is a jogger. She is a size 8 woman who wears a 34b sports bra and needs a new one. She shops on the internet for everything. She is very brand loyal and wants our partner brand. She doesn't care about price or shipping time.
• Larry: Larry manages our biggest selling store. He is the perfect employee....

In other words, the typical presentation of the persona was that of ideal users who would never question the system, yearn for changes to it, or give up and walk away. Often the personas were created by designers AFTER the initial design was created by asking the question, "so who would use this site, anyway?"

What's the point?

Today I saw a presentation about tying personas into contextual inquiry. This was completely new to me. After the fifth source using made up personas about guesses about typical (and usually perfect) users, I stopped reading about personas. The problem with many designs is that they already design for the perfect user. Personas designed by wishful marketing teams or designed after the initial site is designed just reinforce this.

However, creating personas from contextual inquiry sessions seems like it could be really useful... and not just to programmers. To writers, to designers, to editors, to graphics people... the point of a persona is to allow your design team to connect with your users. To make the users less abstract and more of real people whose needs can be met.

If these in the personas are in turn created by contextual inquiry (user interviews and task shadowing), well, it's a whole other world.

If your team has trouble creating for an abstract goal, "lower literacy users with questions about local government", the specific target of, "Consuela, a naturalized citizen who speaks English as her third language rents a home in your county and has concerns about the recent property tax bill she recieved..." might just help close the gap.

Examples, for the sports store, again. Imagine if these were compilations of the real frustrations and needs and hopes of the real users of the site.

• Jose is an online shopper. He needs to buy a baseball bat for his nephew. He's trying our online store because he thinks the tellers are rude at his local location. He is shopping on our store because he thinks we have the largest selection. He does not know the name of our competitor, or he probably would be shopping on that site. He hasn't bought much online, but he has shopped on ebay a few times.....
• Florence is a jogger. She needs a new sports bra. She is shopping online because her local store doesn't have any products that fit her needs. Florence is sometimes plus size, sometimes misses, depending on the sizing. Florence hates underwires, but also doesn't like the way sports bras for her (size D) are often unattractive. Florence wants bright red and pink bras. Florence is only using our store because she has a coupon, if the site frustrates her, she will go buy from our biggest competitor. Florence shops online all the time, and has high customer service expectations...
• Georgia is a manager of a store in Florida. Georgia is often frustrated with the internal supply channel tools, especially the green-screen system for ordering shoes. Georgia uses a computer often, but the manager's box in the Florida store has not been upgraded in 5 years and the mouse no longer works....

It doesn't, of course, alleviate any of the needs for user requirements or stakeholders or usability testing... but maybe it could help create products that stay closer to the user needs between usability testing sessions....

This is me.. thinking.

We're Supposed to Read This and Think Something Like, "Those Wacky Chinese Government People"

I read this story and think, "someone didn't talk to enough stakeholders!"

A 2 million yuan ($286,000) sculpture in northeastern China that took two years to build was dismantled days before its unveiling because a senior government official disliked the color, local media said on Tuesday.

Full story: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN2931874320080429?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews

What Makes a Great Design Manager?

Stolen from:
http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000281.php, "So You Want to Be a UX Manager—Seriously?" which is worth reading in its entirety.

Successful managers are:

• accountable—Take
  responsibility for results and hold themselves, peers, and direct reports
  accountable for achieving established goals and objectives.
  
• customer focused—Clearly
  communicate what a team can do to achieve stakeholder or customer
  expectations, without over promising, and understand the cost/benefit
  ramifications of their recommendations to stakeholders and customers.
  
• results driven—Willingly
  establish and apply performance measurements, set high performance standards
  for themselves and direct reports as necessary to achieve customer
  expectations, and implement significant consequences—positive and negative—for
  achieving or not meeting performance expectations.
  
• open and effective
  communicators—Create an atmosphere in which
  high-quality information flows smoothly through an organization and to
  stakeholders, in a timely manner, and encourage the open expression of ideas
  and opinions. Creating such an atmosphere means you must wait for another
  person to finish his or her intended message before responding, disseminate
  more than the minimal amount of information people need, and respond
  positively when stakeholders or direct reports voice negative issues.
  
• effective managers of
  talent—Hire individual contributors who are as smart
  as or smarter than they are; surround themselves with the greatest talent;
  strive to bring out the best in others, regardless of their current
  performance levels; delegate authority and responsibility to others, allowing
  them to use their abilities and talents effectively; give feedback, coach, and
  appraise employees at every opportunity possible—every week, if not every day;
  not just at review time; and respects and tolerates differing opinions.
  
• team builders—Promote and
  generate cooperation and teamwork while working to achieve collective
  outcomes, give credit for success and recognition to the team rather than
  seeking credit for themselves, and encourage individuals to contribute to the
  organizational strategy. As Jack Welch says, they “get every mind in the
  game.”
  

These competencies embody a few key points. There is an
overwhelming amount of research and expert opinion showing that, in
addition to the six competencies I’ve listed above, great managers and leaders
are

• respectful—Treat individuals on their teams
  as professionals and address them with appropriate respect. They are not out
  to make themselves look good, but to help their employees execute their
  responsibilities well, and—yes—to build employee confidence.
  
• natural mentors—Are great coaches and find
  deep joy in helping their employees grow their careers and execute at a very
  high level.
  
• emotionally intelligent—Are direct, yet
  compassionate and tactful.
  
• able to see the big picture—Look out not
  only for their teams, but for the larger organization and company.
  
• decisive—Make hard choices quickly and
  recognize they may need to make frequent course-corrections.
  
• life-long learners—Seek feedback regularly
  from peers, direct reports, and their managers and have a passion for
  improving themselves.

Sometimes I Wonder...

A few years ago I noticed that the (then, it's been redesigned since) United Airlines website had a designer gone berserk. Taking his/her daily angst out, he/she had populated the "title" field (the one that's normally Miss/Mrs/Ms/Mr/Dr or some variant) with every title he/she could find. All the military titles were available... and so were all the Catholic Church rankings, as well as much of the British peerage system. I always wanted to try flying as a Duke, but, alas, was worried that security would stop me from flying fraudulently.

This week I noticed that the hospital website has a similar thing going.

Religion: AdventistAlliance ChurchAfrican Methodist Episcopal Zion ChurchAmerican Lutheran ConventionAssemblies of GodAtheistBahaiBaptistBuddhistCatholicChristianChristian Church (Disciples Of Christ)Christian Missionary AllianceChristian ScienceChurch of ChristChurch of GodChurch of God of ProphecyChurch of the BrethernChurch of the Living GodCongregationalEpiscopalianEvangelicalGreek OrthodoxHinduHolinessIndependent New TestamentIslamJehovah's WitnessJewishLutheranMennoniteMethodistMoravianMormonNazareneNon-denominationalOrthodoxOtherPentecostalPilgrim HolinessPresbyterianPrimitive BaptistProtestantQuakerSeventh-day AdventistUnitarianUnited Church of ChristUnknownWesleyan Methodist ChurchWicca

I'm not sure who came up with this list of options, but I have a feeling it wasn't anyone in customer service. It has the look of "told the programmer to make a list, don't bother me with the details." It's not a list based on anything that would make sense logically -- it's not, for example, built from a phone book or Google search (no Southern Baptist, no United Methodist). It's not built from a list of churches with large populations in the US (Holiness Pilgrim but no Reformed Judaism?). It's not even a list with the right names (the Latter Day Saints, not Mormon).

You can't just dump everything on the programmer and assume they can "figure it out." The business needs can only be met if the business group does their job.

Did United really want me being able to select, "Monseigneur" on my ticket? No. Did it slip through the cracks from a combination of developer wackiness and poor specifications? Probably. Does the local hospital really want to imply that there can be 50+ flavors of Christianity, but only one Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism? Probably not.

This is a failure, ultimately, of project management. Requirements weren't clarified, and in the end, the product suffers for it.

Someone at Dr. Pepper Gets Web 2.0

http://pressreleasetosaveworld.blogspot.com/

Also, this made me laugh. (Thus the project management tag.)

On Interns and Daft Punk

So, I'm actually going somewhere with this.

Start the video (for the sound), then keep reading.




I love having interns. I had (I have a spreadsheet) 24 interns over the course of the seven years I was at my last job. That's a lot of interns.

Some interns were bloody brilliant. Some were, frankly, drains on my time.

I miss having interns.

I'm trying to work on getting one maybe sometime ever again...

Anyway, by now the song should be going (you did press the big play button, right?) and I can talk about what LCD Soundsystem has to do with interns.

The song is basically the intern/mentor experience distilled.

You got to set them up boy.

The better the intern, the better the assignment.

I’ll show you the ropes, kid, show you the ropes

The worse the intern, the less creativity and independence they were given.

All the furniture is in the garage

Every intern was assigned to read segments of Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think (I told Steve Krug this once, he objected to the phrase "force fed.")

You got the set them up, set them up

So, reports I've written 6,549 times? They aren't interesting to me anymore. Give them to the intern! (Teaching point? There's more to this than pretty pictures).

I bought fifteen cases for my house, my house

Have meeting number 435 of the month? Mix it up, take the intern! (Teaching point? What a meeting in a job where no one wears name tags is like.)

There’s a freak out brewing in my house, my house

Need a usability test subject? Intern! (Teaching point? Take home Don't Make Me Think.)

You got the set them up, set them up

Need to write a memo? Intern! (Teaching point? Don't ask interns to write memos unless you want to edit them 11,435 times.)

No never, never, never let them go

Sometimes, yes, the intern gets the crap task.... but only the crap task I've done myself 4,324 times. Looking up interesting facts for the intranet comes to mine. (7 years x 52 weeks/year x 5 facts a week = too many damn facts.) (Teaching point? Someday you can make your intern look up these. Or maybe, "effortless looking things can require a lot of damn work.")

I love interns, but don't make them make copies.

My coworkers used to mock the interns--- me and my herd of ducklings -- but there's a lot of work that got done that would have never been done otherwise.

I’ll show you the ropes, kid, show you the ropes