Month: December 2017

How I build software

At various times in my professional life I have been someone who builds software, someone who leads other people who build software, someone who sells and translates the power of custom software to clients, someone who supports the work of people who build software, and someone who tests software as a user. Each role has its joys and challenges, but I've realized that so far I find building software to be the most fun and rewarding of all of them.

This post is about some of the thinking behind how I build software and the processes I've found to work best over time:

At the end I've also included links to some books and other reading about software development that I've found useful.

Great blueprints make great buildings

There's such a thing as too much planning, but it's rarely something you find in the world of software development. Most people (myself included) who have an idea for a tool, app or other piece of software want to see their vision rendered into a working thing as soon as possible. The excitement about building often drowns out any concern for the details of what to build and how to build it.

But I know from experience that if the person who wants the software thing built (the client) is not the same as the person actually building it (the developer), there will almost always be a gap to close between each others` understanding of process, milestones, expectations and criteria for success. Even something as simple as "a website that takes a single text input and displays a message based on that input" can be reasonably interpreted and implemented a hundred different ways.

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Conflict resolution as a life skill

I've always had an interest in understanding and practicing conflict resolution. In recent years I've realized just how important the ability to identify, mediate and resolve conflicts is as a skill in life and in professional development.

In our personal lives, being able to see conflict and move toward it with hopes of addressing/resolving it makes for better and deeper friendships, relationships, marriages and family dynamics.

In our neighborhoods and communities, being able to resolve conflicts without calling the police or filing a lawsuit is a way to build trust, connection and understanding with the people around us.

In our government institutions and with our elected leaders, the ability to engage in respectful dialog and work toward compromise around issues where we disagree prevents deadlock and leads to improvements in services, infrastructure and public life.

In our places of business, being able to see a conflict with a coworker or supervisor, actively trying to understand each others` underlying interests and needs and working toward a solution that is acceptable to all involved can mean the difference between being miserable or thriving in our careers and professional lives.

In activism and social justice work, the ability to speak clearly and boldly about the systems, laws and practices that are problematic and engage directly, respectfully and effectively with people who have a different point of view can be critical to making real progress.

Even in tech and software development, the concepts of conflict resolution can be essential for success. Maybe it's reconciling different approaches to software architecture, or moving toward the hardest, most complex technical problem to solve first so that you can untangle it and remove any unknowns or mysteries that might affect the rest of your project.

In these cases and more, it seems being able to handle and resolve conflict is critical. But I have also been learning just how hard this is for so many people.

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Getting notifications about my new posts

If you previously followed my writing on ChrisHardie.com via your WordPress.com account, you may have received notifications via email about new posts. I'm turning off that functionality, so you will not receive those emails after this post. If you use the WordPress.com Reader, you may still see new posts appear there. Note that I've also stopped using Facebook to share links to my site.

If you would like to continue to receive email about new posts, or just occasional summary emails, you'll need to subscribe to my mailing list. Follow this link to sign up for email about new content. I'll never share your email with anyone else. And if you've already been getting emails that say "There's a new post from Chris!" then you're all set up on the new list and don't need to do anything else.

Otherwise, you can use a feed reader like Feedly to follow my RSS feed, or just stop by my archives once in a while to see what you're missing.

I write here mostly for fun, but I want to make sure anyone who wants to follow along can do so relatively easily. Contact me if you need more options.

I'm new here, let's change everything

Does this sound familiar?

Someone is newly hired into a position of influence or leadership at an organization. One of the first things they do is propose investing considerable resources into making a big change.

The organization says "yes!" because it's new and different, instead of evaluating the proposal on its merits. Time and money is spent, things are changed. And then the new hire moves on to another organization, leaving things in turmoil. Maybe someone else is hired and the process repeats. Oh no!

Maybe you've seen it play out in these ways:

  • A new director of marketing wants to change the logo, tagline and reprint all promotional assets.
  • A new website manager wants to change the underlying Content Management System.
  • A new lead back-end developer wants to change the underlying software framework or database system.
  • A new lead front-end developer wants to redesign the website from the ground up.
  • A new CEO wants to change the company from distributed to centralized, or vice versa.
  • A new HR manager wants to switch to a new payroll system.
  • A new customer support manager wants to switch to a new support ticketing system.
  • A new office manager wants to install a new phone system.
  • A new finance director wants to switch accounting systems.

And so on.

Sometimes these changes are absolutely the best and most important things to happen at an organization. If it's been avoiding switching to better tools or processes because of apathy or fear, having a new voice in the mix can be just the thing needed to push everyone in a better direction.

But I suspect many times these kinds of changes are being used by the new hire as way to establish their value and power. They want everyone to know that there was how things were done before they arrived, and how things will be done moving forward. And if the new way is derived solely from their personality or preferences, everyone will need to depend on them to figure out best practices.

When these unhealthy dynamics are the driving force behind a big change it can be at best a huge disruption and waste, and maybe even an existential threat to the organization's work, services or products.

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