ET's R'n'R Gumbo

palmturk‘u birlikte kurup iki sene kadar birlikte yürüttüğümüz Selçuk Demiray sağolsun, 11 Eylül Komisyonu’nun raporunun e-kitap olarak yayınlandığından ve de ücretsiz bulunabileceğinden haberim oldu.

Hemen fictionwise.com sitesinden indirdim ve okumaya başladım raporu. Şimdilerde uçakların kaçırılması ve binalara saplanması kısımlarını yeni yeni bitiriyorum. Ve Amerika havaalanlarının güven(siz)liğinin ne seviyede olduğunu bir kez daha görüyorum. Tabi, otobüse biner gibi (hatta bizim memleketle karşılaştırınca ondan bile kolay ve rahat), elini kolunu sallaya sallaya uçağa binmek çok çekici. Hatta insan bu hali “medeniyet”in bir göstergesi olarak bile algılayabiliyor (ben kısmen yapmıştım, pişmanım ;-). Ama sonuçları korkunç oldu. İlk Körfez Savaşı sırasında Heathrow havaalanında herkesin elle didik didik aranmasına “muasır medeniyet” mensuplarının şaşkınlık ve hoşnutsuzluk ile baktıklarını, benim gibi memleketlerden gelenlerin ise umursamazlık ve hatta bir önceki tiplerin düştükleri durumdan hareketle keyifle izlediklerini anımsıyorum da. Bilmiyorum, ifrad mı, tefrit mi?

Raporu okumaya devam ettikçe izlenimlerimi aktaracağım.

Evet, tatilde Donald A. Norman’ın Emotional Design kitabını hızla okuyuverdim. Daha önce bahsettiğim gibi, kitabın birinci kısmı tasarımda duyguları irdeliyor ve “kullanışlı değilse at çöpe” yaklaşımının sertliği için biraz günah çıkarıyor.

İkinci kısmın ilk üç bölümü tasarımın içsel (visceral), davranışsal (behavioral) ve düşünsel (reflective) hallerinden/düzeylerinden bahsediyor. Bu sınıflama gözönüne alınarak nasıl iyi tasarım yapılabileceğini anlatıyor, vb.

Son iki bölüm ise Norman’ın yeni-zaman meraklarından robotik ve duygu üzerine yoğunlaşmış. Kitabın geri kalanından kısmen kopuk da olsa Ray Bradbury’nin Mars Yıllıkları’nda savaş sonrası Kaliforniyası’ndaki robot-ev öyküsü ile birlikte okununca (ki, ben tesadüfen öyle yapmış bulundum) eğlenceli olabiliyor.

Genelde Norman’ın kitabına “kaçırılmaması gereken” diyemeyeceğim, ama tasarım ile ilgilenenlerin, özellikle Norman’ın The Design of Everyday Things kitabını okumuş olanların, okumalarında yarar var. Kolay ve hızla okunuyor, ilginç bilgi ve fikirler içeriyor.

Norman’dan yapacağım en uzun alıntı iyi davranışsal tasarım üzerine: Norman bunun için yegane yolun gerçek kullanıcıların gerçek durumlarda ürünü kullanırken uzman kişiler tarafından gözlenmesi olduğunu söylüyor. Özellikle İBE (CHI) konuları mahallede ısınmışken Norman’a kulak vermeden edemedim:

“Good behavioral design should be human-centered, focusing upon understanding and satisfying the needs of the people who actually use the product. As I have said, the best way to discover these needs is through observation, when the product is being used naturally, and not in reposnseto some arbitrary request to “show us how you would do x.” But observation is surprisingly rare. You would think that manufacturers would want to watch people use their products, he better to improve them for the future. But no, they are too busy designing and matching the features of the competition to find out whether their products are really effective and usable.

Engineers and designers explain that, being people themselves, they understand people, but this argument is flawed. Engineers and designers simultaneously know too much and too little. They know too much about technology and too little about how other people live their lives and do their activities. In addition, anynone involved with a product is so close to the technical details, to the design difficulties, and to the project issues that they are unable to view the product the way an unattached person can.

Focus groups, questionnaries, and surveys are poor tools for learning about behavior, for they are divorced from actual use. Most behavior is subconscious and what people actually do can be quite different from what they think they do, We humans like to think that we know why we act as we do, but we don’t, however much we like to explain our actions. The fact that both visceral and behavioral reactions are subconscious makes us uınaware of our true reactions and their causes. This is why trained professionals who observer real use in real situations can often tell more about people’s likes and dislikes -and the reasons for them- than the people themselves.”

Aslında oldukça basit bir taktik, belki yarı farkındaydım, ama mahallemizin Migros’undaki son değişikliklerle birlikte okuyunca kıllanmadım desem yalan olur:

“Once the customer has learned the shop or shelf layout, it is time to redo it, goes this marketing philosophy. Otherwise, a shopper wanting a can of soup will simply go directly to the soup and not notice any of the other enticing items. Rearranging the store forces the shopper to explore previously unvisited aisles.”

Proje yönetimi ile ilgili iki ufak alıntı: Birincisi tek ir kafadan çıkan tasarım ile komite tasarımını karşılaştırıyor ve bence açık vizyon‘un altını çiziyor:

“If you want a successful product, test and revise. If you want a great product, one that can change the world, let it be driven by someone with a clear vision. The latter presents more financial risk, but is is the only path to greatness.”

İkincisi de takım olmak, güven duymak, başarı/başarısızlık üzerine:

“Cooperation relies on trust. For a team to work effectively each individual needs to be able to count on team members to behave as expected. Establishing trust is complex, but involves, among other things, implicit and explicit promises, then clear attempts to deliver, and, moreover, evidence When someone fails to deliver as expected, whether or not trust is violated depends upon the situation and upon where the blame falls.”

Son olarak Norman’ın Christopher Alexander ve arkadaşlarının tasarım örüntüleri ile ilgili Pattern 134: Zen View için yazdığı muhalefet şerhini aktaracağım. Norman, son derece doğru bir şekilde, bu şerhi uzun ve mutlu bir ilişkinin/evliliğin temeline de yerleştirmiş:

“For once you have learned how to look at, listen to, and analyze what is before you, you realize that the experience is ever changing. The pleasure is forever.”

İki haftadır dört gözle beklediğim amazon.com paketi bugün geldi. Bu yaz okumayı planladığım dört kitap içindeydi tabii ki:

• İlk sırada sevgili Peter Schwartz‘dan Inevitable Surprises var. Bas hocam (kendisi ne yazık ki bass diyor 😦 A. Murat Eren başlığa fena halde karşı çıktı, “Hiç inevitable olan şey surprise olur mu?” diye, daha doğrusu “Paradokstan başlık olmaz!” söylemi ile. Ama Schwartz zaten söz konusu paradoksun paradoks olmaması gerektiğini söylüyor, hem başlık ile, öyle sanıyorum ki, hem de kitap ile. Evet, The Long Boom kehanet açısından fazla başarılı olamadı. Ama önemli olan kehanetin tutmasında çok sistematiğin oturması (fazla gelcekbilimci mazereti formatında oldu bu cümle, değil mi ;-). Okuyup bitirince yazarım önlenemez sürprizlerin neler olduğu ve çalkantılı “zamanlarda zamanın ilerisinde düşünme”nin nasıl mümkün olabileceğini.

 

• Okumaya ilk başlayacağım sevgili Donald A. Norman‘dan Emotional Design. Kullanışlı tasarımın gözüpek savunucularından Don bu kitabı ile biraz günah çıkarıyor. Kullanışlılığın mutlak bir kavram olmadığını, olamayacağını; duyguların kullanışlılık kıstasları ve seviyelerini fena halde değiştirebileceğini anlatıyor. “Sevdiğimiz şeyleri daha kolay kullanırız” ana fikri üzerine çeşitlemeler sanırım, ama tabi Don ciddiyetinde ve atmasyondan uzak bilimsellikte. Herhalde The Design of Everyday Things‘e iyi bir zeyl olacak.

 

• Çok emin olamadığım, ama almadan da edemediğim bir kitap Benjamin R. Barber‘dan Fear’s Empire. 11 Eylül öncesinde Jihad vs. McWorld‘ü yazan adamın bu başlık altında ne yazacağını merak etmemem mümkün değildi. Yine diyalektik bölüm başlıkları ile karşı karşıyayız: Pax Americana; or Preventive War ve Lex Humana; or Preventive Democracy.

 

• Son olarak da senaryoculuk üstadı Kees van der Heijden‘den (ve arkadaşları) The Sixth Sense var önümde. Başlarını uçarak okuduğum ama ortalarında bir yerde duvara toslayıp rafta bıraktığım Scenarios‘un yazarı yine yöntem anlatan, biraz reçete formatında bir kitap çıkarmış ilk bakıştan anladığım. Ama yıllardır hobi olarak izlediğim bir konu kitabın alt-başlığı: Accelerating Organizational Learning with Scenarios. Almak zorundaydım 😉

Eşimin izin alması mümkün olur, benim işlerim de izin verir, zamanını da uydurabilir, tatile çıkabilirsek kumsalda güneşlenir (ya da gölgelenir) iken işte bu kitapları okuyacağım.

Bir çeşit “alternatif yönetim gurusu” olarak tanımlayabileceğim Tom de Marco’nun “Proje Yönetimi Hakkında bir Roman” altbaşlığı ile yayınladığı The Deadline kitabını okumayı yeni bitirdim. Her proje yöneticisinin ve elemanının dönüp dönüp yeniden okuması gerektiğini düşündüğüm bir kitap. Aslında deMarco diğer kitaplarında (orada bile hoş bir üslupla) daha teknik olarak verdiği mesajları bir kurgunun içine gömerek daha yumuşak bir şekilde paketlemiş The Deadline‘da. “Zamanım yok, okuyamam” diyenlere işte Webster Tompkins’in Günlüğü:

Safety and Change:

• People can’t embrace change unless they feel safe.
• Change is essential to all success in project work (and in most other worthwhile endeavors).
• A lack of safety makes people risk-averse.
• Avoiding risk is fatal, since it causes you to miss out on the associated benefit as well.
• People can be made to feel unsafe by direct threats, but also by the sense that power may be used against them abusively.

Negative Reinforcement:

• Threats are an imperfect way to motivate performance.
• No matter how serious the threat, the work still won’t get done in time if the time originally allocated for it was not sufficient.
• Worse still, if the target doesn’t get met, you may actually have to make good on your threats.

The Manager’s Essential Body Parts:

• Management involves heart, gut, soul, and nose.
• So,
• lead with your heart,
• trust your guts (trust your hunches),
• build soul into the organization,
• develop a nose for bullshit.

Battle Command as a Metaphor for Management:

• By the time the battle begins, the manager’s real work is already done.

Interviews and Hiring:

• Hiring involves all the managerial body parts: heart, soul, nose, and gut (but mostly gut).
• Don’t try to do it alone-two guts are more than twice as good as one.
• Ask new hires to undertake one project at exactly the level of competence they have already proved, to defer real stretch goals till the next time.
• Ask for pointers: The person you are most inclined to hire may well know of other good possibilities.
• Listen more than you speak.
• All these things work better if you stack the deck.

Productivity Improvement:

• There is no such thing as a short-term productivity fix.
• Productivity improvement comes from long-term investment.
• Anything that promises immediate term results is likely to be snake oil.

Risk Management:

• Manage projects by managing their risks.
• Create and maintain a census of risks for each project.
• Track the casual risks, not just the ultimate undesirable outcomes.
• Assess each risk for probability and likely cost.
• Appoint a risk officer, one person who is not expected to maintain a Can-Do attitude.
• Establish easy (perhaps anonymous) channels for bad news to be communicated up the hierarchy.

Playing Defense:

• Cut your losses.
• You can improve overall performance more by containing your failures than by optimizing your successes.
• Be aggressive about canceling failed efforts early.
• Don’t take chances on team jell if you don’t have to: Seek out and use preformed teams.
• Keep good teams together (when they’re willing) to help your successors avoid problems of slow-jelling or non-jelling teams.
• Think of a jelled team-ready and willing to take on a new effort-as one of the project deliverables.
• A day lost at the beginning of a project hurts as much as a day lost at the end.
• There are infinitely many ways to lose a day. but not even one way to get one back.

Modeling and Simulation of the Development Process:

• Model your hunches about the processes that get work done.
• Use the models in peer interaction to communicate and refine thinking about how the process works.
• Use the models to simulate results.
• Tune the models against actual results.

Pathological Politics:

• You have to be willing to put your job on the line any day,
• … , but that doesn’t guarantee that pathological politics won’t affect you.
• Pathological politics can crop up anywhere, even in the healthiest organization.
• The defining characteristic of pathological politics is that goals of personal power and influence come to override the natural goals of an organization.
• This can happen even when the pathological goal is directly opposed to the organizational goal.
• Among the bad side effects of pathology: It becomes unsafe to have a leanly staffed project.

Metrics:

• Size every single product.
• Don’t sweat the units while you’re waiting to achieve objective metrification, use subjective units.
• Form synthetic metrics from all the primitives (countable characteristics of the software) available to you.
• Collect archeological data to derive productivity trends from now-ended projects.
• Tinker with the formulation for your synthetic metric until its value gives the best correction to Effort for the set projects in your archeological database.
• Draw a trend line through your data base, showing expected Effort as a function of values of the synthetic metric.
• Now, for each new project to be estimated, compute value of the synthetic metric and use it to pick off expected Effort from the trend line.
• Use the noise level around the productivity trend as an indicator of what tolerance to apply to the projections.

Process and Process Improvement:

• Good process and continually improving process are admirable goals.
• They are also very natural goals: Good technical workers will focus on them whether you tell them to or not.
• Formal process improvement programs cost time and money; a given process improvement effort may well set project work back. Even if productivity gains materialize, they are unlikely to offset the time spent on process improvement for those projects that host the program.
• A project can hope to gain enough from a single well-chosen method improvement to repay the time and money invested in the change.
• Projects cannot realistically hope to accommodate more than one method improvement over their duration. Multi-skill improvement programs (for instance, increasing by an entire CMM level) are most likely to make projects finish later than they would have without the program.
• The danger of standard process is that people will miss chances to take important shortcuts.
• Particularly on overstaffed projects, standard process will be observed rigorously as long as it generates sufficient work (useful or not) to keep everyone busy.

Changing the Way Work Gets Done:

• There is no way to get projects to perform substantially beyond the norm without making large reductions in the total amount of debugging time.
• High-performing projects spend proportionately far less of their time in debugging.
• High-performing projects spend proportionately far more of their time in design.
• You can’t get people to do anything different without caring for them and about them. To get them to change, you have to understand (appreciate) where they’re coming and why.

The Effects of Pressure:

• People under pressure don’t think any faster.
• Extended overtime is a productivity-reduction tactic.
• Short bursts of pressure and even overtime may be a useful tactic as they focus people and increase the sense that the work is important, but extended pressure is always a mistake.
• Perhaps managers make so much use of pressure because they don’t know what else to do, or are daunted by how difficult the alternatives are.
• Terrible suspicion: The real reason for use of pressure and overtime may be to make everyone look better when the project fails.

The Angry Manager:

• Anger and contempt in management are contagious. When upper management is abusive, lower management mimics the same behavior (much like abused children who go on to become abusive parents).
• Managerial contempt is supposed to act as a goad to get people to invest more in their performance. It is the most frequent “stick” for the carrot-and-stick management. But where is the evidence that contempt has ever caused anyone to perform better?
• A manager’s use of contempt to goad workers is more a sign of the manager’s inadequacy than the workers’.

Ambiguous Specification:

• Ambiguity in a specification is a sign of unresolved conflict among the various system stakeholders.
• A specification that doesn’t contain a complete census of inputs and outputs is a nonstarter; it simply doesn’t begin to specify.
• Nobody will tell you if a specification is lousy. People are inclined to blame themselves rather than it.

Conflict:

• Whenever there are multiple parties to a development effort, there are bound to be conflicting interests.
• The business of building and installing systems is particularly conflict-prone.
• Most system development organizations have poor conflict-resolution skills.
• Conflict deserves respect. Conflict is not a sign of unprofessional behavior.
• Declare up front that everybody’s win conditions will be respected. Make sure that win conditions are elicited at all levels.
• Negotiation is hard; mediation is easy.
• Arrange up front that when win conditions are mutually exclusive or partly so, the parties will be expected to move into mediation to resolve conflict.
• Remember: We are both on the same side; it is the problem that’s on the other side.

Role of the Catalyst:

• There is such a thing a catalytic personality. Such people contribute to projects by helping teams to form and jell, and to remain healthy and productive. Even if our catalysts did nothing else (they usually do a lot else), their catalytic role is important and valuable.
• Mediation is a special case of the catalytic role. Mediation is learnable with a small investment.
• The small ceremony beginning, “May I help by trying to mediate for you?” can be an essential first step in conflict resolution.

Human Error:

• It is not what you don’t know that kills you, … it’s what you know that isn’t so.

Staff Level:

• Early overstaffing tends to force projects into shortcutting the key design activity (to give all those people something to do).
• When work is divided over a large staff prior to completion of design, the interfaces among people and among work groups are not minimized.
• This leads to increased interdependence, meeting time, rework, and frustration.
• Ideal stuffing requires a small core team for most of the project, and then significant numbers of people added late in the process (as late as the last sixth of scheduled time).
• Awful suspicion: Projects that set on to achieve ‘aggressive’ schedules probably take longer to complete than they would have if started with more reasonable schedules.

Project Sociology:

• Keep meetings small by making it safe for unessential people not to attend. A published agenda, rigorously followed, is the easiest way to make nonattendance safe.
• Projects have need for ceremony.
• Use ceremony to focus attention on project goals and ideals: small meetings, zero-defect work, etc.
• Take steps to protect people from abusive anger.
• Remember: Anger=Fear. Managers who inflict abusive, angry behavior on their subordinates are almost always doing it because they’re afraid.
• Observation: If everybody understands that Anger=Fear, anger will be a transparent signal that the angry person is afraid; since there is an inclination not to reveal fear, he or she won’t be able to vent the anger anymore. (This doesn’t solve the angry person’s problem, but it sure can make it easier on everyone else.)

Pathological Politics (again):

• You can’t expect to cure pathology from beneath.
• Don’t waste your time or jeopardize your position by trying.
• Sometimes, your only option is to bide your time, waiting for the problem to resolve itself, or for a good opportunity for you to move on.
• Miracles may happen (but don’t count on them).

Lean and Mean:

• Lean and Mean is a formula developed in failing companies by the people responsible for the failure.
• It is the opposite of any organization’s natural goal: to be prosperous and caring.
• Whenever you hear the phrase “lean and mean”, replace it with what it really connotes: failing and frightened.

Radical Common Sense:

• A project needs to have both goals and estimates.
• They should be different.