Recent Activity

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  Outcomes vs. Activity

  I tap myself on the head every morning and ask that question...from my experience though the really challenging question is "Will this outcome matter tomorrow".. I think clear outcome prioritisation is an essential addendum.. especially if you have tight resources.

  I found that I've personally wasted heaps of effort on things that at the time seemed 'outcome driven' but by completion don't matter anymore because

  1. the goal posts have moved
  2. The outcome wasn't as important as I originally thought
  3. Future outcomes render the present one redundant, so the effort is wasted

   I can't see any solution to this other then trial and error- but I think if you're aware of it you're more likely to learn from the errors

  A little mental arithmetic I've found helps me- what's the cost of doing X vs doing nothing or something else, and what is my expected return, and how likely is it that I'll achieve that return... (sometimes this can be very depressing)

  Posted 12 Aug 07

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  Want to bite someone? Yeah me too.. (Outsourcing work, Insourcing Frustration)

  This post is a bit of a rant about outsourcing development work... For the last 7 months we've been working with an external development firm that we picked up through elance. They had an excellent feedback rating, and overall seem like really great people... but the project has been something of a nightmare.. it was only supposed to be a 4 month job!

  Today, we've finally received our beta... and I'm at a bit of a loss. The quality is far below our communicated standards, and on a level that I would call alpha (the alpha delivered some months ago, was at a borderline 'conceptual' level.) so I should have expected it.. but ever the optimist I had hoped they'd just somehow mend their ways.... Anyway, 2 hours in to beta testing, I've got a list of 50+ bugs, and I'm not even half way through the system...

   If you're considering outsourcing, heres some tips:

  - Pay with a credit card (pref. amex). When problems arise, you'll sleep better knowing that if push comes to shove you can always do a chargeback...

  -  Be prepared to do ALL of the visual design work. Based on our experiences, a lot of these firms have a very different idea about what graphic design and usability should look like. A BA in IT, is not the same as a BA in Graphic design.. this is a difficult concept for some...

  - Be absolutely EXPLICIT in all of your requirements. Any gray areas will invariably bite you in the @ss as they take the path of least resistant, and totally ignore previously established design standards or functionality requirements. Review all of your requirements (technical, functional, visual) and look for assumptions. Replacec these with specific descriptions.

  - DON'T CUT CORNERS. This includes short cutting planning documentation such as business rules, project scoping etc. The super long-winded approach will save many headaches later.

  - Involve yourself daily in the work.. insist on it! I made the initial mistake of being 'hands off' and leaving it to the 'professionals'. IM at least once everyday to discuss the project.

  - Be careful about changes in scope/requirement. We got a nasty surprise when our firm tried to bill us for 'out of scope work' despite previous assurance that it would be included within the current project constraints. Once again, being very explicit would have helped avoid the problem.

  - Don't expect a great deal of 'value add' or 'creative input' like you would get from a local/internal dev team. These guys are are great at colouring in between the lines, but don't ask them to draw the picture.

   I guess the overall message I'm trying to get across is that you can't be too explicit, and the bigger the system, the more true this is. Don't leave anything to chance or the third parties judgement, and you'll have a much smoother ride... 

  If you're thinking about outsouring a project and feel like you want to have a chat to someone about it, feel free to drop me an email.Anyway... back to my beatiful website.. *sigh* "Bug #51..."

   

  Posted 19 Apr 07

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  Getting Started....

  My advice* is just start building, get your potential customers involved EARLY and worry about the money later...

  Each time our project was about to get canned through lack of money to move forward, money just appeared- connections got made, people became involved. Actually 'looking' for money was a total waste of time. The moment we stopped looking, it just seemed to be much more accessible...We're still undercapitalised, but we continue to have enough to push forward.

  Esp. if your idea is web based, get your potential customers in front of screen mockups and find out how they're going to use it... we didn't do this initially (were much too over protective of the concept in retrospect) and this cost us literally 10s if not 100s of hours of wasted development (stuff we thought was super... that no one else cared about..) 

  *My business is still in development, so take this advice with a grain of salt

  Posted 19 Apr 07

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  Pitch your idea

  Ok.. why not. Heres a breakthrough idea for someone I had this idea for a competitive debating platform.. could use the tangler technology come to think of it.

  There are a lot of opinionated people out there, who love nothing more than to clash with their opposite number- so the idea is to create an interactive environment where people can argue their point. People argue in 2s for a set period, and others can vote on the winner.   Depending on the outcome, one side is credited a win /loss... (ie we argue about an aspect of the war on terror. You're for, I'm against. You're voted the winner of this bout, so the 'For' side of the argument is credited with a win (being more right)... other staticistical elements could be captured also, so as to develop detailed user profiles...

  Posted 31 Mar 07

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  How do you feed yourself during startup?

  Hey guys. I'm finding a night job is a good way to keep the hounds at bay. Was living off the company for a while.. but being cashflow negative with only a small capital reserve really ups the stress levels IMO. Better to just get no sleep, have no spare time and be just barely cashflow neutral Nice to know theres a few extra bucks there for marketing too  if/when its needed Interesting feeling being boss by day, and pleb by night though  

  Posted 31 Mar 07