Re: Do you have a Knowledge Officer?



"Robert" <no@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:srmdg3l92coq5ifp54vg1ei1978fcbilu8@xxxxxxxxxx
On Fri, 05 Oct 2007 23:22:45 GMT, "William M. Klein"
<wmklein@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Pete Dashwood" <dashwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5mntnsFefolrU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


<docdwarf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:fe5uol$k5b$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <BMuNi.3425$bM6.496@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, tlmfru <lacey@xxxxxxx>
wrote:

[snip]

One man's experience is never adequate.

Oh, I *cannot* resist...

... seems like I've seen different attitudes manifested, say, by Mr
Wagner.


Why pick on Robert? You youself have manifested such an attitude, as,
indeed,
have I.

We all relate to our own experience; there's nothing wrong with that.

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."


Pete,
It seems to me that you, DD, I, and MOST of us USUALLY qualify our
statements
with phrases such as " in my experience" or "from what I have seen". This
is in
stark opposition to how RW usually (not always) makes his statements. I
believe
that he has even stated that something along the lines of "of course I am
expressing my opinion or my experience" and seems to expect us to "infer"
these
qualifications.

It is common for CLC postings to state a conclusion, unsupported by
facts/premises and
the canons of logic, much less citations. In those cases, added qualifiers
doesn't change
the opinions' essence, they just make the writer sound like a bureaucrat.

Exactly like the above paragraph, in fact :-)

So, perhaps a few examples of where a post has stated "a conclusion,
unsupported by facts/premises and
the canons of logic, much less citations", might improve the credibility of
the above bombastic statement?
..

I thought it was axiomatic, taken for granted, that everything posted here
is the author's
opinion, unless (s) he supports it with verifiable facts and credible
logic.

I'm sure you are familiar, Robert, with the old adage that "When you assume,
you make an "ass" of "u" and "me"...". Axiomatic means "self evidently
true", not "taken for granted", a slight but important diference.

Everything posted here may well be the author's opinion, but these are
usually "informed opinions"; very few people posting here don't know what
they're talking about, even though their opinion may vary wildly from
others. That's what makes this forum valuable (and fun:-))

We are back to form vs content. Some people think unminced words, spoken
directly without qualification and maybe hyperbolixed for effect, indicate
virile, no nonsense, straightforward thinking; others realize that no matter
what the form of the message, the content is what matters. This particular
form hides woolly and illogical thinking just as well as the weasel forms
you disparage below... the content is the only measure of value, but a
bombastic, overbearing form means people don't bother to look at the
content. (That's why both agression and wheedling are useless against a
trained negotiator; he sees only the content.)

The form of your posts irritates a lot of people here. I'm quite sure the
content of my posts irritates some here (although I don't post to be
irritating). (The point is you can't please all the people all of the time
and neither should you try to...)

What can be done about it?

It depends what you want. If you are seeking to persuade, rather than
coerce, you will modify the form of your posts. If you are posting just to
let off steam or voice an opinion, then you won't. :-)

There may be a Middle Path... don't wobble. :-)


--- Quotations ---
Weasel words are almost always intended to deceive or draw attention from
something the
speaker doesn't want emphasized, rather than being the inadvertent result
of the speaker's
or writer's poor but honest attempt at description.

Well, the "almost always" in the first sentence is exactly what the writer
is protesting :-)

I'm not going to debate the stuff you quoted because I doubt that minds will
be changed, but I will observe the following:

1. I use qualification in sentences not to deflect attention away from what
I "don't want emphasized", or to be apologistic for my argument, or to
dilute the meaning, or because I am a ***. I do it because it is logically
more accurate, and if you're going to debate something, you might as well be
accurate about it.

2. I use the passive voice (probably more than I should) for stylistic
reasons and not for dishonesty in argument.

3. There is no place in my philosophy for "weaseling". Neither in speech,
writing, thought nor action. I leave "weaseling" to Insurance Companies and
politicians, where it seems to be alive and well.


http://www.slate.com/id/2126636/

Developer Weasel Words
Thursday, June 21, 2007

As a development manager or project manager, you here a lot of weasel
words and excuses
from your staff or from external consultants who are trying to hose you
into believing
things are better than they are. In many cases, developers use these
phrases to even
convince themselves that things are better than they are, resulting in
chronic late
delivery and poor quality.


As you have never experienced late delivery, I'm surprised you took note of
this :-)

So beware the following phrases from your teams:

* It should work: this usually means that it doesn't. It also means
that it was
probably not tested properly as the result is current undetermined. The
word "should"
should be taken out every developer's vocabulary - it either does or it
doesn't.

A very Boolean aproach to Management and a less than useful one, I think.
There are shades of grey. ("it either does or it doesn't...sometimes.) I
also take issue with the stated interpretations of "It should work..." The
two meanings given are far from being the only ones..."It should work..."
because...
1. I spent the night fixing it and the tests were fine, but I have no idea
what Operations will throw at it...
2. It is using some components I haven't personally used before but they
work fine in X system and my initial tests looked good.
3. The guy who fixed it is on holiday but he is usually reliable.
....

* I just need: beware of that word "just". Its a belittling word meant
to make things
smaller than they are. Just take the phrase "I just need to write this
component" to be "I
need to write this component" and already the magnitude of the work
involved grows.
Developers tend to be chronic under-estimators and the use of the word
"just" is a sign of
that mentality.

Sometimes... :-)

* Almost done: this is also a weasel word. When a developer tells you
things are
"almost done" ask for the specific tasks that are left over immediately.
In addition, keep
in mind that projects do not progress linearly - the last 10% is always
about 40-50% of
the work of the total project. I've seen projects that are chronically
late be "almost
done" for 3 months.

Only when they're task, rather than goal, oriented. Evolutionary development
obviates this one; nothing is ever "finished", it is evolving.

* It was tested: this also usually means it that wasn't tested
properly. Ask for a
test plan and the specific tests that were done. If the developer cannot
produce these
with sufficient evidence that PROVES that it was tested, then it wasn't
tested.

Yes, that's fair.

* It must be an environment/configuration/deployment problem: this may
be actually
true, but it usually points to a larger stability problem. If you cannot
build and deploy
reliably then why would you have confidence that the code works?

Because the deployment package has nothing to do with the application code?
Duh!

* If things go smoothly: this I hear a lot, e.g. if we don't hit any
snags then we can
be done by Friday. Guess what - you're likelihood of hitting a "snag" by
next Friday is
probably high and given the lack of risk based management, the team has
probably got no
mitigation or contingency strategy. Then next week, you'll hear the next
phrase in our
list, "Yes, it could have been done if it weren't for that Snag we had".
* Yes, but, as in "Yes it can be done, but": this means it cannot be
done. Tell your
staff to just come clean and say, "No it cannot be done". Another variant
on this is, "Yes
it could have been done, if it weren't for marketing, requirements,
technical risk, etc."
This simply shows that your developers work in an idealistic world where
things never go
wrong.

Or it could be that it didn't get done because you were breathing down their
necks demanding test plans, "communication meetings" and "status updates"
every five minutes, and bullying them to show what a macho Boss you are


* We'll make up the time at the end: if you're already late by the end
of
requirements, you're likely going to be even later by the end if you
simply keep going on
the same track. In my experience, teams don't dramatically faster as they
hit their
stride. Even if there is some efficiency, its nowhere enough to make up
for lost time.

Not a problem with timeboxed development.

* I've got it done, but I need to build a few more components for you
to be able to
see it: then its not done! Encourage show and tells, code reviews, unit
tests, etc. so
that code is visible as soon as possible. Use slicing models so that you
can see pieces of
the application in weeks, not months. In addition, code that isn't checked
in should never
be counted - that means that someone cannot build it sufficiently to share
it. It only
counts if you can verify it. Ideally, its not "done" unless there are
sufficient unit
tests, a build script, and a document that someone walking into the code
repository could
check out the project run a build and have all the unit tests pass. Then
the code is done
- anything less is mythical.

The core processing is done.How long will the remainder take?

* I've got it done - I just need to integrate it: The word "Integrate"
is a big weasel
word. Think of a web service that adds two numbers together. The algorithm
is one line of
code. But the integration work is huge. In addition, integration usually
means the first
time that disparate teams are bringing code together which is always cause
for issues.
Don't under-estimate the integration, especially in today's world of
distributing
computing, web services, etc.

Yes, integration can be problematic. Nevertheless, it is still a fair
statement if the application is working. Again, "How long will it take to
integrate? What is problematic with the integration? Do you need help,
support, or tools to get it done faster?"

* It Worked on my Machine!: programmers use this excuse to downplay a
bug. The reality
is actually the opposite - it means that you have an intermittent bug
which is by far the
worst kind of bug to have in your application. You want bugs to fail
quickly and
consistently - any variant such as "That's Weird", "That didn't happen
yesterday", "That
must be a data problem", etc. is admitting you have a bug that cannot be
easily
duplicated.

Not necessarily at all. It may well have worked on a local machine and there
are simply configuration problems (permissions, authentication, logons, user
profiles, dozens of factors that have nothig to do with a bug in the
application code.) with getting it networked. It isn't necessarily an
excuse for a bug, it is simply a statement of fact. You can't expect
programmers to be network administrators and configurators, if you are
employing them to write code. That's why you have separate areas of
expertise.

My recommendations to reduce the amount of excuse making from your team:


Funny thing, I've never heard "excuses" from my team. I've heard about
problem areas and what is being done to fix it, I've had requests for tools
and expert support, but never excuses. Maybe because they know I can have
the truth, (even when it is sometimes terrible...:-)) and because I
cultivate a blame-free culture.

<Snipped good common sense ... we don't want any of that around here... :-)>

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."


.