Thoughts from “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff at Work”

I've just finished reading "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff at Work" by Richard Carlson and wanted to post some of my favorite concepts from the book. This book is an easy read and broken down into 100 small chapters, each only 2-4 pages in length. Lots of great ideas in there and I highly recommend this and Richard Carlson's other books for motivational reading.

• Happy people are almost always the ones who love what they do. People who love what they do are highly motivated to continually better themselves and their performance.
  
• We dramatize deadlines. A lot of the stress comes not from the deadline itself, but from thinking about it, wondering whether or not we will make it, feeling sorry for ourselves and complaining.
  
• Bragging about how busy you are reinforces, to yourself, how stressed out you are. It keeps you overly focused on the most negative aspects of your work. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  
• Tell yourself you are going to learn something new from each meeting. Search for new wisdom, new insight, or a new way of doing something.
  
• Join the TGIT (Thank God It's Today) club. Members of this club are happy to be alive; rejoice in their blessings and expect each day to be full of wonder, surprise and opportunity.
  
• Everyone loves to be acknowledged. People remember acknowledgment and appreciate it.
  
• Brighten up your work environment. You spend an enormous amount of time at work. Why not take a tiny bit of time, energy and money to brighten it up a little?
  
• Pay less attention to what other people aren't doing and put more emphasis on what you get out of your own level of productivity. It's helpful to admit that you prefer to be a highly productive individual – it's your choice.
  
• Stay focused in the now – A focused mind is more relaxed, creative, and efficient than one that is scattered. A single hour or truly focused work is a least equal in productivity to a full day of distraction.
  
• Accept the fact that, every once in a while you're going to have a really bad day.
  
• Stop scrambling. When we're scrambling we waste precious energy and make mistakes. Because we are moving so quickly, it's easy to get stressed out, nervous, and agitated.
  
• Vince Lombardi once said, "When you're doing something wrong, doing it more intensely isn't going to help."
  
• It's easy to lose sight of the fact that we thing thoughts, not reality. We begin to treat our thoughts as if they were the real thing, allowing them to stress us out.
  
• Get it over with. Do you most difficult or uncomfortable tasks first thing in the day and get them out of the way.
  
• Prevent burnout – have a life outside of work.
  

Podcast Notes: Managing Software Development - Episode #3 Defects

The Managing Software Development podcast was by James Edgell and came out in 2008. I actually found it was a useful series of podcasts and was disappointed that the series did not run for very long.

I am combining my notes from this podcast with experience I have had. For about four years, I was in charge of tracking, prioritizing, assigning and testing bugs/issues at my organization. I actually had thoughts of creating a QA team, but changes in the organizational structure and my position have led me away from focusing strictly on testing and issues. However, I still am involved in this role on a minor basis every working day.

• Defects add risk to your products but can assist in making product improvement. – No client wants to have to deal with daily defects in a product. While no product is perfect, the more defects can be eliminated, the happier the clients are. Learning from defect resolutions allows you to develop a stronger product and avoid issues in the future.
  
• Defects can tell you a lot about a team. – I agree with this, but feel even more strongly that developer responses to defects can tell you even more about a team. Having developers that are interested in making the product as strong and error free as possible enables the testing and support and business development areas of the company also work more efficiently and with less stress.
  
• Daily or weekly bug meetings help you keep on track of open defects and making sure that impact and severity levels are set correctly. – Until a product is fairly stable, keeping on top of issues and resolving them in a timely manner is critical towards keeping satisfaction with the product at a high level.
  
• Prioritize defects. – Prioritization allows the testing team and development team to focus on the most critical issues at the moment. Putting out small fires is much easier than dealing with an out of control fire in a windy, remote location. The same thing applies to defects – take them in order and get the worst fires out and keep them from growing and engulfing all the efforts of your organization.
  
• Make sure defect resolutions are thoroughly tested before rolling out to clients. – You really don't want to let a client know that an issue is resolved, only to have them call you back and state that they still see it. Taking pride in your product and your work should show and this is one of the ways to make it shine.
  
• Having a "Monitor" state for defects when a defect is intermittent or cannot be reproduced. After x number of days, status moves to terminate. – This allows developers to focus on critical issues, but also allows you to keep track of potential issues, especially if they become less intermittent. On a side note – there is nothing like finally finding a way to reproduce a pesky issue. I can testify this produces shouts of joy and happy dancing all around.
  
• Having a "Terminated" state for defects – defect is being reported, but is actually working as defined or is a duplicate.
  
• If defects are not being found – testers are not doing their job. You shouldn't be releasing until the chart of defects starts to flatten out. – Does anyone really believe they have a perfect product and that there are no issues? If so – you might want to incorporate some drug testing for your staff members.
  

We still have not found a perfect method of tracking bugs, but there are many software programs out there that will help make this process more effective. Defects are inevitable – dealing with them is critical – avoiding them is just not allowed.

Book Review: 15 Ways to Take Control of Your Career Now

I love reading books and have started to spend more and more time reading business related books. It helps that I get a lot of free books on my Kindle that I can read through – but I also purchase a lot of books specifically related to my current career path.

One of the things I have found in this past year, is that I can glean some relevant information out of almost any business book (and often even out of fiction books) that I can apply to myself to help make me a better person or apply to my skill set and knowledge base so that I can become a better employee. It doesn't matter if the information applies directly to my current projects or position, what matters is taking the information and using it to help me improve my talents and skills and benefiting my employer.

In the past several years, my company has undergone some changes based upon ownership and leadership shifts. I have seen some co-workers choose to become significantly less productive and take a more negative attitude as a result of those changes. I'm sure almost anyone who has been in similar circumstances has seen the same kind of shifts. While I have had my moments of struggle, overall I have been able to adapt and grow as a result of accepting these changes.

When I downloaded '15 Ways to Take Control of Your Career Now', I did not realize that this compilation of articles was geared towards workers facing unemployment, but I found many concepts in this book that I can still apply towards my existing career and in my existing organization.

I particularly liked how the book related the concepts to kayaking. One of the things I am learning as I work more and more in Project Management is how to review the projects I am involved in and learn from each success or failure. I have a long way to go until I may ever be participating in a 'perfect project', but I think that the ability to look critically at the work I have done as well as my co-workers and assess how I can do things different or better the next time an issue arises will allow me to take a more positive and proactive role in my company.

I do recommend this book for all employees. It is an easy and enjoyable read.

Notes from BA Collective Podcast: Business Analysis Use Cases

What is a use case and how are they used?

• A Use Case is a detailed description of a user's interaction with a system
  
• The only requirements are an actor and an object to be acted upon
  

A Use Case consists of seven components:

• Name – represented in the form of an action
  
• Description
  
• Preconditions – criteria that must be met before the execution of the scenario
  
• Scenario – anticipated series of actions and responses
  
• Results
  
• Alternate Paths – variations on the scenario. Represent failures in the system.
  
• Additional Business Rules

Notes from BA Collective Podcast: Business Analysis Documentation

• When people don't read documentation, it's as much a reflection on the writer, as it is on the reader.
  
• When a BA creates documentation it needs to get not only the attention, but the respect of the audience.
  
• 1) Balance documentation style and substance
  
• Know your audience
  
• 2) Use Word to its full potential
  
• 3) Create a documentation platform and strategy
  
• Keep documentation up to date
  
• Keep historical documentation
  

  
   

Podcast Review – Product Management Pulse

This past week I have listened to 10 or so podcasts from the Product Management Pulse series. They were relatively insightful and I liked them because they were all 30 minutes in length. Much longer that seems to drag a topic on too long.

One of the books mentioned by an interviewee is The Product Manager's Desk Reference. This looks like a pretty good volume to purchase, and I have added it to my wish list for when I finish two of the books I currently have backlogged to read.

It was reassuring to me to find that a common thread in these podcasts is that there is no set career path for Product Managers and that the more diversified a career was before moving into this arena, the better rounded the Product Manager is. If that's the case – it appears that I am on the right track.

What is Business Stew?

I work for a small organization called HRN Management Group. I have been with HRN since early 2004 and been involved in almost all areas of the organization. That is one of the great things about working for a small company - you get a little bit of everything thrown at you.

I started out in Client Support, but was also involved heavily in the IT Department from the beginning because I assumed responsibilities for our database. I also functioned as a backup in Sales and Accounting and learned a lot helping out in those arenas.

My current title is Business Analyst. I am still learning what a Business Analyst is. I will also be learning how to do Product Management and Project Management. Again - I am not totally sure what is involved in both of those positions.

Working at a small organization does have the drawback that there really isn't a training budget. Most of my knowledge growth is done on my own free time and with materials I choose to purchase myself.

Since assuming this title in March, I have purchased several books and am reading through them. I have also started listening to podcasts, subscribing to newsletters and following blogs. Almost all of these areas have indicated that one of the best ways to grow is to share your knowledge.

As I was running last night, I decided it was time to start a business blog. I don't claim to know much about any aspects of my job. In many ways I feel like I am starting from scratch.

Since I am starting from scratch and not focusing on any one position title, I consider my job to be similar to a pot of stew. Hence the title, Business Stew. I will be throwing in a little bit of this and a little bit of that as I go along and hope in the end to have the most delicious pot of business stew you ever tasted.

Feel free to join me on my journey.