Getting my Geek on!

Before I do anything I want to thank Jonathan Jones, +Brandon Linton, and +Brandon Jones for collective motivation to get out of my computer programming rut.  The last four years or so I have basically only touched a compiler when I couldn't get anyone else to do the coding for me.  I could give tons of cheesy excuses about changing job roles and raising kids, but the truth is I just got lazy.  Boy do I regret that!  I am behind in every possible way and this blog will just be one of the tools I use to start motivating myself to learn and get back my Geek standing.

Purpose

No one who has ever worked with me (except maybe my wife) is buying the lazy bit.  What I have been working way too hard on lately is shaping and managing projects.  What I would like to do with this blog is to mix in my tech R&D with some lessons learned as someone who has had to depend on other developers to deliver a product.  No one ever sent me to school on this or gave me anything that even smelled like an established process for Technical Project Management.  I have learned in the trenches with nothing but my thick skin and stunning good looks to get me through the hard times (you get which one is sarcasm right?).

Disclaimer

I apologize in advance to any future reader who stumbles on my musings and realizes a particular rant is about their project or even about them.  Of course they likely won't read this disclaimer and will flame away. The bottom line is that a few of the lessons I have learned in life have been the result of some fairly spectacular failures.  I will never apologize for being honest.

Hajime!

For the next several days, I will be standing up a Win64 ASP.NET and C# playground.  Why in the world would I pick that you ask?  Because it is something completely new and new is always good.  There is a second reason that I will share in another post.  Never fear though....I am also setting up an Ubuntu 12.10 dev environment to get back into some hard core C++ and maybe even contribute something useful to the open source community.

TPM Wisdom

You don't need PMI, ITIL, ISO, or any other established process to get through a project.  Sure they help, but everyone gets the basic concept of setting a goal and working towards it.  If you are an absolute n00b at project manager, just start with these two basic tasks:

1. Write everything down - I don't mean every word of every conversation.  But do write down the key steps and tasks along the way you did including roughly how long each step took.  Also write down notes about every lesson learned.
2. After Action Meeting - When all the dust settles, you either bought everyone a beer, or walked out the door with all your stuff in a filing box.  Either way, try to get with as many participants as possible and incorporate your writings from step 1 into a written plan for your next project.

Given enough time and projects, anyone will eventually become a master PM just by following those two steps.  Sadly, I have been amazed at how many projects I have watched where nothing is captured or learned from and then everyone seems shocked when the next project is just as screwed up as the last one was.  Baka!