The Perfection Problem…

In this day and age, as Grandmother would say, people expect to be perfect.  They expect to be perfect because society suggests that perfection is the key to happiness… second, of course, to money…

Extrapolating on this… people expect to present what they do… to others… like a dramatic unveiling of perfection… the “look what I did” problem is what I like to think of it as… When we are children, we expect our parents to be in awe over the scribble we just made… and our parents usually “pretend” to be in awe and feed this desire to be presenting perfection… As a parent, I know I have done this a time or two… but it’s not fair to the child.  What do they learn from the pretense that what they did, with little effort – by scribbling for 10 seconds on a piece of blank paper?  They don’t learn to try to draw a straighter line or try to use their imagination… they learn that they need to seek “awe” for what they did.

These same issues encompass us as we grow into adults… and there is The Problem with Perfection... Like, it doesn't exist... 

 Software development, as I have observed over my years in testing, is ripe with this same mind-set.  While we like to poke fun at Microsoft, I really think they must have hit the nail on the head in the arena of not worrying about failure and more heading towards feedback, so they can meet the end-users needs.  Maybe they don’t always (or ever) really meet the end-users expectations… but they must be meeting a need.  Most folks are still using Windows OS’….  Microsoft Office… and Heaven knows what else that Microsoft puts out…

 Yes, we all like to mention the Blue Screen of Death... But we still use the products, even if it is because we “have” to per our organizations/needs.

Why do I care about perfection?

If you haven’t read Perfect Software and other illusions about testing, and YOU are a software tester/developer/manager… then you really must read it.  And, if you haven’t read it… do you really pay attention to the world of software development?  Sorry, but I have to admonish when I think it fits…

We are to release products/applications/systems that our end users/customers need to complete whatever it is they hope to address.  Most of us cannot really “eat our own dog food” ... At least not in the same way our customers will… we lack their minds/knowledge/actions…

This being said, we need to start realizing that Perfection is a lost cause…. And should not be our goal – either as individuals or teams.  Our goal is to release software, get feedback, and change – if necessary – what we “thought” our customers/end users wanted.  Our goal is to attempt to meet a need.  If we cannot fully understand what that “need” is, then we need to be brave enough to try… 

Again I find myself thinking about the teachings I have read from Seth Godin... Again I find myself thinking about my personal testing heroes:  James Bach and Michael Bolton... 

Again I find myself thinking about learning from failure and what a great teacher that is…

I am not just a tester… I am a consumer… as a consumer I have certain expectations… I expect someone to “hear” my issues if I have them.  I expect someone to make me believe my opinion counts… to give me a way to accomplish my own expected results… I expect to feel like I matter… But I don’t expect perfection… I venture to say that most folks, over the age of finding out that Santa Claus is not real, have pretty much the same expectations… we are past fairy tales…

In this day, where change is so very frequent… we need to work past the perfection pain points… and work towards meeting goals that matter.   I will never be, on a personal level, a super-rich, super model, with no cares in this life… The products I test will never be the bug free applications that meet every users needs…  

I guess my thoughts on this today are summed up as follows:

People… and what they do… will NEVER be perfect…

Products… considering how many diverse users they involve… will NEVER be perfect…

Technology… and its constant changes/needs… will NEVER be perfectly understood…

Our goal, as individuals and as people who provide services, should be to learn and try to understand what our own end users need/want/expect… we should hear them… they should know we hear them… then we should make the determination of whether or not we can meet these needs/wants/expectations… and preferably… let them know….

This gives them the power to “decide”, and people like having that option… and it usually makes them feel “heard”… sometimes this is enough, sometimes it isn’t… but none of us, nor any of our products are “Higher Powers”…

Failure to meet a goal/expectation is acceptable.  Pretending failure does not exist or is not an option is not.  "You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time...

Let's just get real... development is an ongoing process... whether it is for individuals or teams or products or beyond... 

 

 

A-Mazing Little Find…

It was a dark and stormy night… Okay, not really, it was just a bit of a stressful couple of days… but I always wanted to write that…

I had been thinking about some “pain points” that I felt my team was having at work.  I knew I had to say something about them, and I also knew I had to do so with some sense of decorum, to just the right audience.  Some days, you just have to bite your tongue, possibly until it bleeds, until you can speak reasonably about things… especially if you suspect you may have information that the audience may not have.  (This isn’t always easy, so it is a good thing to have a sounding board that you trust to hear it first… I am thankful I do when I do…)

Before I wax poetic… I shall move on…

My manager sent out an email for our weekly “QA” meeting this morning with just two words in it:  Productivity and Activity.  I admit, I initially rolled my eyes at the email… but then I thought, “Word game?”… “I’m in”.

I ran a search on the words in various combinations with other words… I stumbled upon Realize The Difference Between Activity And Productivity... 

Within this post was a link to a book I had never heard of: 

Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in your Work and Life

I clicked on the link to read what this book was about… I then thought that my manager “must be referring to how we adjust to change”.

So, I “replied all” with the title of the book… “Who Moved My Cheese”… (I still thought this was a word game...)

In the meantime, the B.A. of our team came in my office and I mentioned that I was going to buy this book to her.  She said that the original founder of our company made them read it back in the day.  She began a hunt of the older (as in how long they worked for the company) employees to see if someone still had a copy.

The “reply all” back from my manager said something like this:  “I don’t know what happened to your cheese.  Perhaps so-and-so moved it when you weren’t looking :P”….

An hour or so later and a copy of the book was on my desk… It only took my lunch time to read it, so I did just that…

What a wonderful allegory!  Not since I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull, when I was a slightly troubled teen, have I read such a book.

 With further research, I found there is a version of this book “for kids”.  I ordered enough books to give one to each of my 8-year-old daughter’s class. 

When kids get taught about “tools”, it usually implies shop-class items.  Or, as the saying goes, “WD-40, duct tape, and a big hammer will fix anything”.  There is limited teaching, unless you are fortunate enough to run into “teachers” along the way… on real life tools.

While it may seem obscure to some, and maybe a bit juvenile, I totally recommend the books I have written about today.  Tools come in many forms – words of wisdom are one of them. 

YOU are a Leader….

For many, many years, I have learned how to "self manage".... I have had to learn to do this because of the journey I have walked and because of my own level of pride… instilled in me partially from others and partially by design…

The other day, when I coerced my 8-year-old daughter to take our first walk of near-Spring, I began to think of my role as a Leader…

 I contemplated "leader" in a wide variety of circumstances/scenarios/situations… and realized… whether I want to be one or not… it is what I AM… And I venture to guess… that on some level… it is what YOU are too…

  

I thought of the military, of teachers, of civil servants, of parents, of owners of pets, of an individual running a scientific research project… alone… at a remote location… and I came to the philosophical conclusion that each is a leader… either of other beings… or, at the least, of themselves…

I found no “best practices”, no “rule of thumb”, not even a real “common ground” aside from the thought that we really should seek out information on being a great leader, no matter what ground that stands on…

This coerced walk taught me much…

First, let me fill you in on the background of the walk… A couple months ago, my daughter got her quarterly “progress report” from school.  This report is to show parents/caretakers how a child is doing in school.  For my area schools, this doesn’t mention grades for her level, but rather “Satisfactory” levels.  These levels are S+, S, and S-. .. Apply the word “Satisfactory” to each and you can gather as much info as I did. 

Needless to say, my daughter had only one “S-“, and that was in gym/physical education.  I was totally bothered by this grade… so I emailed her gym teacher. 

Why was I bothered? – I wanted to know if either she was having difficulty or she was slacking… I believe in balance… not “grades”… so I needed to know what was going on.  The gym teacher explained his grading system and where he thought my child was doing poorly… he also noted that in ‘all his years’ teaching in gym, I was the first parent to inquire…

I was understanding in his grading system… he wants the children to be at a certain level of physical activity at a certain age… I even understood why no one else ever inquired… “gym?  Who cares about that?”… Okay… I did not understand… or I never would have asked the question…  Balance in life is important…

I and my child committed to practicing the “test” for the issues involved in the “S-“.  It was a goal we had and we both worked to establish it.  Her next progress report proved we did what we set out to do… no more “-“ on the Satisfactory grade J

Back to the walk…

Our newest generation is used to being stimulated constantly by things that are technological… So few anymore are learning the simple things in life… While I vow to show these things to my youngest, I have much to fight to do so… 

I found a motivational device that I am going to try to use to help the walks to be more beneficial to my daughter… Others must have been in my same boat before…  We are trying this... A combination of physical labor… aka… walking… and technology.   Our goal is to walk 3 miles a day with no issue… I hope to let you all know how this goes… the goal is to do this by end of Summer…

But… how does this apply to being a Leader?

As a parent I know, because I have learned, that I have no choice but to consider myself as a leader… I have learned that my daughters “watch” what I do and how I handle my outcomes… What do I do when I succeed, fail, bang against a wall?  My dog does the same… he watches me… My co-workers/team do the same…

These thoughts/contemplations/opinions are why I believe we ALL are leaders… This, and the fact that I observe my own actions and test them, more than I do others… 

When I was researching things today on how to be a better leader myself today… I came across this video...  

  Please hear the message… and see that YOU are a leader…

And, please, if you have the time, read "Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?"... Cause I believe… YOU aren’t…