Embedded Muse 150 Copyright 2007 TGG October 11, 2007

EDITOR: Jack Ganssle, jack@ganssle.com

CONTENTS:
- Editor’s Notes
- Book Review
- Tools and Tips
- Open Spaces
- Jobs!
- Joke for the Week
- About The Embedded Muse

Editor’s Notes

Are you in the Seattle or Minneapolis area? For the first time I’ll present a public version of the Better Firmware Faster class in Minneapolis and Seattle, on December 5th and 7th. Registration and other info here: https://www.ganssle.com/classes.htm . You’ll earn 0.7 Continuing Education Units, learn a lot, and have more than a little fun.

My colleague Bill Gatliff has just announced some new dates for his highly-regarded Embedded Linux Jumpstart class. Bill is a professional Linux developer and tenured instructor at the Embedded Systems Conference, where his classes consistently rank in the top 5%. He's arguably the most sought-after embedded Linux instructor around. See his website at http://billgatliff.com for more information.

Book Review

I found “First, Break All The Rules” by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman to be a fascinating, important and easy-to-read book that every manager should study. The Gallup organization interviewed 80,000 managers and something like a million workers to find the essential qualities of leadership. This work distills the wisdom found in that study.

They found the best employees can positively answer twelve essential questions. The most important half-dozen are:
1) Do I know what is expected from me at work?
2) Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3) Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4) In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
5) Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6) Is there someone at work who encourages my development?

The most important four roles of the manager are:
1) Select people
2) Set expectations
3) Motivate the people
4) Develop the people

None of this is surprising or rocket science, but few managers make a concerted effort to practice these roles, and to ensure employees can answer all twelve questions affirmatively.

The book is a bit repetitious, and would be better if it were only two-thirds of its 271 pages. But it’s a very fast and interesting read. Highly recommended. If you’re not a manager, but suffering under someone who has poor leadership skills, slip a copy of the book under your boss’s door.

Tools and Tips

Open Spaces

“The key I believe is to keep the room silent. This is not an enforced rule and in fact is not a rule at all. But the students and workers here are all focused on what they are doing instead of a paycheck and that makes the difference. For a while this lab was also a meeting and conference room and that made things, literally impossible. But since we moved the conference room next door, the lab is an ideal workspace. I don't know how this would work in a corporate office or even an engineering one but I believe that the key to making it work is the quiet.”

Sharon Foster wrote: “Sometimes partitions only give the illusion of privacy and productivity. The noisiest, most disruptive environment I ever worked in had 6 foot high partitions. Since no one could see them, people felt free to talk in a normal tone or louder, whether they were on the phone or talking to a visitor. Some people used their speaker-phone feature to play back messages. Others carried on conversations with people three cubicles away. I hated it, and it was one of many reasons that I left engineering. In one of the software engineering books that I sold away,--possibly one of the Steve McConnell books?--there are statistics that show that interruptions take a lot more time than responding to the actual question or input. There's also the time it takes to context switch from what you were doing to what the person who interrupted you wants to talk about. And there is the time it takes to context switch back to what you were doing. That can take as much as 20 minutes. Longer if, as in your example, you were working out a complex piece of code in your head and hadn't written anything down yet.”

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous wrote: “In the latest issue of the Muse, you asked about people who have experience in working in an open office. Well, I have about 5.5 years worth of this "experience" in an open office while working for a large Japanese automotive OEM in North America. The original concept, of course, is to improve open communication. In Japan, this seems to work reasonably well. However, over there, children are taught from a very early age to get consensus on everything!!! For those of us who have not been trained like this, this takes some getting used to. Just to clarify, when I say I work in an open office, I mean it's completely open. There are no cubicles of any sort, no 1/2 wall dividers... nothing. Just a large open area filled with desks. When it does come time to get a group of people together to get consensus on something quickly, it makes it very easy to stand up at your desk, take one sweeping view of the office and decide if everyone that you need for the meeting is present. So, it does create communication, but to the opposite extreme where there is way to much communication that you don't need or want to know about...you know...they guy across from you arguing with his wife, the guys beside you discussing the latest changes and testing that needs to get done, the engineers behind from you discussing how the schedule just won't work, and of course, the endless interruptions from project managers who decide that every little schedule change needs to be personally broadcast as soon as it happens. Believe me, there are no doors to hide behind, no cubicle entrances to cover up, ...oh and headphones are not allowed since they prevent open-communication. For someone who appreciates a quiet environment when concentration is needed, it can be quite a challenge. As far as data on this issue goes, it appears that most people have realized that if you want to get a lot done, relative to normal productivity, come in early or stay late or work on the weekends. Based on conversations I have had with co-workers, we've unscientifically determined that we can double productivity if we work during hours that no-one else is around!!!”

Steve deRosier offered this: “Joel Spolsky has a lot to say about productivity and private offices. Here's how he designed his office:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BionicOffice.html

“On interruptions: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000068.html

“And on productivity of different programmers:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html

“Oh and on getting things done (#5 applies to interruptions):
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/printerfriendly/articles/fog0000000332.html and
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html (older
version, but the important item is at the top in this one "Smart and
Gets Things Done.")”

Rob wrote: “My manager is a good coder, and prefers to bounce his ideas off of me and my co-worker. While this is productive for him, it's absolutely destroying my ability to code. The biggest stretch I ever get is maybe 10 uninterrupted minutes, unless he's not in the office. *Walls* aren't the issue, it's distractions of any kind (interruptions, meetings, chit-chat).

“That said, there are definitely times where interaction is required: at the DESIGN phase.

“I should also clarify: I'm not talking about multiple people working on the same piece of code (extreme programming or agile), I'm talking about 2 or more people, each supposed to be working on different pieces (even if it's of the same system). The cards do collapse when you're interrupted. When I consulted from my home, my wife never 'got' that concept, and she interrupted me frequently throughout the day, then got upset when I had to work long hours just to get anything done.

“People who don't write code don't understand.”

Jobs!

Joke for the Week