I just finished reading seb - Oct. 22 - blog post and mailing him back about it.  In the interest of transparency I would really like to say that I appreciate seb's honest, balanced and continued blogging.  It helps me particularily understand what is going on in the office that i of course am only physically in occasionally.

So this is my first management blog post and if it doesn't dazzle you with the glamour and highjinks of being a senior developer / manager at openplans, it's because there isn't much bondlike glamour or highjinks.  sorry. 

Seb gives us *way* too much credit for being shadowy ;)

Anyway, here's the general picture from my stoop::

UWS is really important.

like on the level of getting nui out the door important.  I don't think this message can be reemphasized enough.  working for mark is like surfing a good but intermittent break... when there are waves, you gotta make the most of them.

We would have preferred to do this in the style of having it run off the actual openplans website ala collab.nyscr, but due to the critical timing, the risk and the potential reward, we chose to pursue our current path.  This choice was highly informed by Luke's experience with collab.nycsr and streetswiki.

Rob Miller is the tech lead for this project and we should try to do whatever we can to help him steer it to shore.  IOW, if you find yourself either with spare time or needing a break from something else, see what you can do: user testing, bug fixing, etc.  As this week continues, we'll try to get some resources for starting points up (all and any help appreciated and desired in doing this too)... but don't let that stop you or slow you down.

LoINz

This is the last time I'm going to address zope replacement on my paid time until I'm asked too. but I think it's important and I do think that maybe my actions in this realm might be misunderstood a bit

One of the big things I did managementishwise last week in my mind is I posted an email in my free time suggesting the idea that the zope replacement effort might best be handled like an honest to god opensource project.   I also set up the lloyd project and signed up all the developers.  Anyone else is also welcome/encouraged to join.  Don't be frightened by the pictures tim coulter posted. 

I have a number of reason for believing this might work or be an important part of shaping our technologies.  From my developer hat, I see this as being kinda fun (I wouldn't have this job if I had not spent a ton of my own time working on opensource unpaid for the fun and learning experience). That work experience has always been really positive for me both to learn and build relationship with cool smart people all over the world, so to get a little of that infused into our team would make me happy.  From my management hat, I see it as a way to not let the current effort and excitement stale and make us better prepared for when we do get development time officially: so we aren't flat on our feet with all the knowledge stuck in a couple peoples heads. 

and very personally, frankly, I see those who whine about it as having to work in their free time sound like hypocrites to me, especially if they are also whining about having to work with zope (I love you guys but in my mind, you have no where earned the right to complain about zope any where that I can hear you. except for paul winkler and rob miller).  So if my attitude seems a little put up or shut up, you're probably reading me right (just remember, this is me as a developer to all of you as my co-workers, not 00-niner of the secret topp management cabal).

But I don't know... I don't get a free lunch everyday and maybe that makes me surly.   I do know that if we ever blame pylons the way we blame zope for stuff, we will be burning our credibility.  so  I want to see a little commitment from all of you that I can buy into, not just another iteration item for a couple developers.  I want to know that everyone is willing to put a little heart into this like they do their personal projects and make sure it comes off right.

For the record, I had a phone call w/ nick and pretty much reiterated what I had said in the email and above (before you assume anything, I would suggest you talk to me directly) both the management side and the personal one.   On the management side, it's an engineering level priority which unfortunately we don't have the luxury to deal with at our leisure and nine-five.  Personally my hope is that someday, we can engineer a workplace that allows us to satisfy all the funder priorities with one hand, and take care of shaving our yak and innovating with the other.  Or have a model to fund things like port our software to different platforms.  But we have to work with the situation we have as it is right now. 

a year and half ago when we were hiring all of you crusty first gen guys, rob and I were told by 001 and 002 that once you were trained, we would get to work on cleaning up framework issues and improving our open source contributions fulltime. I'm not complaining, just saying the future is a fickle mistress and I have not held this against jackie or cholmes because I understand our situation.

cholmes, I'm sorry I just called you number two...

At management level, there is concern that supporting it as an external opensource project might be too much of a distraction to day to day work.  I think it's already been too much of a distraction and this gives it a path forward and some closure on the blue sky period and actually making some forward movement. but we'll see.  let me or us know what you think and how you feel.

But so far, $0 have been spent on the new lloyd. what a bargain!

 

Communication

I think we all could have dealt with stuff better and had better communication (this is obvious to me by the lack of response my email got which I felt people would be psyched about).  We are a young team and we have to remember that in alot of way we have to substitute better communication for lack of experience.   If you don't understand what the hell management is doing, ask us.  it might help us figure out what we all are doing. ;)

Trust flows from good communication and good communication is pervasive, expressive and consistent.  I inherently trust seb more because I get a fairly constant update on his state of mind presented in a cohorent and entertaining way.  It also makes me feel closer to the office in a way that not much else other than being there can. 

This does require some effort, but part of why all of you got job offers was because we thought aside from your mad code chopz, we would also find you entertaining.  So don't be shy... we would all like to hear from us!

So, lets try to have one good meaty blog post every week.  If you like, we could make it competitive with prizes, or we could just try to make each other think and laugh and keep an eye on the big picture.  I'll be trying to do two of these a week: one for my management hat, one for my developer hat.  If I don't, shame me mercilessly and demand beer. 

 

Comments

I'm leaving this space for comments.  thanks for reading. -w