Just get it done!

So I'm on a project out here in San Francisco building Xcelsius Dashboards for a company... we're 3-4 weeks into this thing and all we have are demo's and prototypes, but nothing really to deliver since my part is done at week 9.  We've gone into analysis paralysis (this is a stage in software development where nobody can describe the final product, and we have to keep going back to gather realistic requirements).

So my manager of this project schedules a meeting w/ everyone and says, there's no methodology that is going to help us get this done, just do it and get it over with!  Of course there were some disagreements because in the process of developing software/products there needs to be some checks and balances, but I totally agree with him.  Just get it done! If it looks like crap, fix it!

I would disagree if we were building a rocket ship though =), but this is not mission critical stuff we're building here.

Why to say NO in I.T.

This was one of the most important things I first learned in the I.T. field... No is a viable answer!  My first ERP project was a failure at some point because I didn't know how to say NO to management.  Here are some pro's and con's from saying NO in I.T.

Cons- 

1. Employees will start to hate you because you've become the "NO" guy
2. Employees will call you LAZY
3. Employees will doubt your skill set since they don't think you have the ability to deliver
4. Employees will try to hire consultants to take your place when you have the ability to achieve their goals
5. Employees who don't understand I.T. or computers will try to haggle you to saying the magic word "YES" so that they can get what they want.

Pros-

1. You don't give the client a piece of CRAP at the end of the project
2. You let the employees know who's the boss and who really needs who in the organization
3. You take the time to think through if this project is really worth it
4. You don't crash and bring down the production system because of one minion's need 
5. You protect your job.  It's not about how many projects you finished, it's about how many successful products you've delivered that matters to the organization.

Everyone loved me when I was the YES guy at my previous jobs and I loved being the YES guy too because I love taking on challenges and receiving the praises/awards, but the reality is that NO is the best answer sometimes so that you don't screw up the system and regret it.  No doesn't have to mean no, it also means let me figure out an alternative route that will take some planning and time to get this thing done right.  

Tasty Dashboards!

There's this analogy in my field of work that says "Dashboards are like sausages, you don't want to know how they're made but are very good to look at".

In the past month after training, I've been developing SAP Dashboards (Formerly Xcelsius) and it can be a daunting task.  Here are the steps of how to solve complex problems when building a real enterprise dashboard with real data sets.

1) Draw out your solution on a piece of paper
2) Import your raw data from QRY's/QaaWS/etc
3) Start to normalize your raw data into data sets so that it can be easily linked to other components
4) Write out your formulas so that you don't get stuck changing hundreds of cells because of a logic error
5) Create your design after you've planned all of your details :-)
6) Put the finishing touches on it

Creating dashboards can be an easy task if planned out accordingly.  I spent 30 hrs on my first one but only 10 hrs on the rest of them because I was developing like a monkey at first lol.

My ISP - Century Link

IMO - This is the worst ISP EVERRRR... It should be renamed to Century No Link......... I get frequent disconnects, multiple outages in a month, and for 2 months earlier this year they said NC was going through an "upgrade" so there would be outtages out the whole month off and on that lasted for hours... If there is any other ISP's that are willing to come out my way, I will jump on your band wagon in a heart beat!!! (So would my neighborhood too)

The Internet - So close but also so far away

One controversial effect of the internet and cell phones is that everyone is so close but then so far away.  At a finger tip we can talk to our friends, family, and co-workers but studies have shown that we still feel distant even though we can communicate instantly.  Sociologist suggest that 90% of communication is through visual expressions of our body and 10% through hearing.

With the above being mentioned, my initial thoughts are will human kind lose the ability to smile as often one day as we become less visual creatures? Especially since we don't depend on these physical expressions to communicate but an emoticon :-) to express our emotions?

*True story*
So I use to talk to my wife via chat when we were dating and exchanged e-mails before cell phone plans were affordable.  It's funny cause I would ask her how she would be doing and she would always say fine or okay even if she was having a crappy day.  so I would just go with the flow and she would become very upset at me because I didn't know how to comfort her because I thought she was alright...
I believe my telepathy powers were too weak to sense her feelings :-) but point is, will humans begin to speak how they really feel online?

Ex: Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter... Status

The frontal lobe of the human brain deciphers what actions are appropriate to show in communication and which decisions one will make, but what if communication via internet bypassed this... this would be an interesting study to research about since the model follows this pattern:

1)Something happens
2)We post it instantly
3)Everyone sees it
4)It's recorded on tape on the internet foreverrrrerer

vs the physical world

1)Something happens
2)We think about it
3)We'll tell someone if we remember too... or call them
4)We forget about it :-)

Well...that's enough of my rant for tonight :-P

My New Blogging Home Page! :)

I decided to switch from word press to blogger because it's just simpler and faster to use :-).

The purpose of these blogs are to help me learn how to express my ideas so that I can become a better communicator ( I've always had a problem explaining what I thought. I tend to have the winnie-the-pooh effect where things sound so much better in my head =P ) and to just share my career goals and etc.