Twin Cities Code Camp 2017 - After Action Report

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend Twin Cities Code Camp for the first time. Actually, despite being in the industry since before the Code Camp concept had even started, this was the first one I'd ever had the opportunity to attend. At the urging of a coworker who had attended a number of these events for the past few years, I loaded up my trusty steed and made my course north-east towards Minneapolis.

While the ride up and back is beyond the scope of this discussion, I do want to note that this was the first trip longer than a single tank of gas that I've made on my motorcycle. At almost two hundred and fifty miles each way, this made a good shakedown run for some of the longer rides I've got planned for later this year. I came away with a couple of items that I definitely want to adjust for next time, but overall the ride went well.

For code camp, I attended five sessions: Building C# and iOS apps with Xamarin, Augmented Eyes = Azure Cognitive Services + Hololens, Scratch: Programming for Kids (and Adults), The Importance of Networking (human, not computers), and Cool SQL Features Everyone Should Know About. Having previously worked on HoloStudio and Robo Raid, the Hololens talk was a personal highlight. The post talk Hololens play session where people were trying on the devices for the first time and experiencing Robo Raid was great. Watching other people have those "Whoa!" experiences for the first time is fantastic.

The Xamarin talk was another excellent one for me. I've been hoping to work on a personal project for mobile devices later in the year, and Xamarin is sounding very promising as a technology for me to use. Since I'm primarily a C# developer these days, the promise of being able to use what I already know to develop for multiple platforms sounds like a great time saver.

The most humorous moment for me came at the start of the Networking panel. Let's be honest, most of us in the software industry are introverts to one extent or another, and it was never more obvious than before a panel about talking to new people, when literally no one in the room was talking to each other! No wonder we need an extroverted placement specialist to help remind us why we need to be talking, making new friends, and keeping our personal networks up to date.

This isn't meant to slight the other two panels I attended either. While the SQL talk was a bit over my head (I'm still working on better understanding SQL), there was some excellent advice there. The Scratch panel was also fantastic, introducing me to a programming language I'd never heard of before,that it sounds like some of my kids will really enjoy.

It was a great use of a Saturday. I met some new people, learned some things, and came away with a cool new t-shirt. I'll definitely be back next year. If you're even tangentilly involved in software development, or interested in writing code, I highly recommend finding out if there's a code camp near you.

Productivity Update - Trello and Me

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been a procrastinator. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been able to time manage and plan when I absolutely needed to, but most of the time I could skate by with a last second effort. From time to time I’d make an effort to get organized though. Day planners, electronic organizers, notebooks, a Palm Pilot, more notebooks, various phone apps on Android, Windows, and iOS platforms, I’ve tried a lot of things over the last twenty years.

My Trello board overview and Pomodoro timer.

Nothing ever really took, despite my task load gradually increasing over the years. It’s not that difficult to keep all your organization in your head when you’re a sixteen-year-old kid with only school, a few chores, and a part-time job to deal with. College assignments added additional complexity, but everything was still manageable. But a good software job, five kids, and an aspiring side platform as a blogger/streamer/writer meant I just couldn’t keep all those balls in the air anymore.

Enter John Somnez’s blog on secrets to crazy productivity, and the introduction of Trello to my life.

I’ve been working in an Agile environment for years. Sprints, Kanban boards, and daily standups have been a part of my working life for a decade, but I’d never applied those principles to the rest of my life. With Trello, I started to.

John’s methodology involves assigning Pomodoro estimates to all of your tasks, then taking time at the start of your week to plan out what you intend to accomplish each day. For the first couple of months, I did exactly that. After a while I started to get a pretty good feel for how long common tasks will take, so I stopped assigning time estimates. I still do the daily planning though, which has become a vital component in my week.

Daily planning works like this: at the start of my week, I map out all the things I know I’m going to try to get done. Work tasks, workouts, writing time, Twitch streams, planned chores, and anything else I can think of goes somewhere in the Monday – Saturday list.

This serves three main purposes: first, it’s a reminder throughout the week of what I need to get done. I add new tasks as appropriate when I run into something new that I need to get done. Second, this serves to help me not bite off more than I can chew in a given week. For example, on a typical workday, I know I have time for my work tasks, a workout, and 2-4 additional Pomodoros worth of tasks before I call it a night. Anything beyond that probably isn’t going to get done unless I move an existing task out. Third, I try to list out tasks in the order and priority that I want to accomplish them. This significantly reduces the amount of time wasted on “What do I do next?” questions.

Big personal projects (the reclaimed shipping pallet wine racks I’m building, for example) I break out on their own boards. For these I do a task breakdown and time estimates, then pull individual tasks into my general week planner when I have capacity in my week.

The results have been nothing short of remarkable. You know that feeling of having forgotten something, or knowing that there’s some task left undone? For the first time in years I don’t go to bed feeling that. Closing a task feels good. Clearing an entire day’s board feels great. Pushing tasks off to the next day feels less good, but beats wondering three days later whether you remembered to set a youtube video to launch on time.

The Pomodoro component isn’t entirely flawless, particularly for some of my personal tasks. Exercise routines don’t work well with running a Pomodoro timer, nor do the few tasks where I’m able to legitimately multitask (for example, editing videos while logging elements of my sports card collection). However, for most of these tasks I’ve gotten a good feel for how long they take, which serves the same function of the Pomodoro timer for these things. Dragging a weightlifting task from today over to “Completed this week” means I spent two to three Pomodoros on it, regardless of whether the Trello board knows it or not.

I’ve been running this plan for several months now. My blog is updating regularly, I’m writing more, and more productive at work. Even better, interruptions to my routine have become much easier to recover from. For example, I recently returned from a conference that, between travel and participation, burned a week of my time. It was great, but threw my entire routine out. I was back on track by the end of the week. The previous time I attended a conference like this, I was off schedule for a month.

My next step is going to be teaching my kids to use this system as they start getting into Jr. High and High School. My education was excellent in many ways, but I wish someone had taught me some of these time management techniques a long time ago.

Every Once in a While, QA Gets a Trophy

They don't give out many trophies in QA. Oh sure, if you're with a company long enough, you might get a plaque or something for various work anniversaries, maybe something that says "I shipped this!" when a project ships, but awards are being handed out, there's nothing for "Excellence in Quality Assurance" or "Best catches of bugs so the public never saw them."

By its very nature QA is largely invisible to the consuming public, unless we fail at doing our jobs. There's an argument to be made that when something gets an award for excellence, QA shares in that award, but even so, that's not on the trophy/plaque/whatever.

But sometimes, we do get a personal achievement trophy.

Probably the closest I'll ever get to owing a Viper.

It was what the company called a "Bug Bash" with prizes for things like most bugs found, and best bug. I don't remember exactly which category I won in, but this was my prize. To be honest, I'd forgotten I still had this car until I unpacked it in a box that'd been sealed for the last four years.

This week, the car's going on my desk at work. Quality Assurance may not get much glory, but it's nice to have visual reminders of times when we do get positive recognition.