Blaine on Business

Bugs can be features

Have you ever had a bad day?  A project gone south?  A home improvement fiasco?

Gretchen Rubin has a good write up on the art and science of "re-framing".  Great technique that I try to use when things happen that are not exactly great.  Even though at the outset it seems like one of those cheesy mind-over-mater things that sound good, but don't really work, I say so what.  If it makes you feel better then who cares how cheesy it may be.

The way it works is you take anything that isn’t how you want it to be, lets say you have too much work to do and not enough hours in which to do it.  That’s bad.  However if you think about all this work as meaning that sales are exceeding all expectations then this negative is spun into being a positive.

Of course I've always loved the extension of this re-framing concept by saying that software bugs are really just misunderstood features.

Client Expectation Management

Today I was reading through my email, trying to get my Inbox (down from 473 emails) and came across a reference to a blog post about managing expectations as a form of customer service. This really struck a chord with me because this is so important, but it is not often talked about. Whenever you hear about sales it seems like you should tell potential clients how your solution, service, or product will allow them to work the 4 hour work week, however once the sale is closed you must deliver.

With our services I always stress the value that we create. If we do not create value for our clients then we have failed, however at the same time we can't make our clients believe that we can make the world perfect for them either. There is a fine balance that must be achieved, like walking along a tight rope.

There is an old adage that I don't know where I first heard it from, but it has always stuck in my mind of "Under promise and over deliver". The way we usually handle this is through ongoing communication. We start with a rough estimate of a project and then as we proceed forward we are able to keep giving updates that have a smaller cone of uncertainty.

Meetings that Matter

When people think about meetings thoughts usually tend to be negative.  That’s because the majority of meetings seem to be a complete waste.  Many of the meetings I have been to I would leave more confused then when I came in four hours earlier.

Is a meeting really necessary?
Many times today we really don’t need a meeting.  If you have a quick question just call the person and instantly the issue is solved.  Even brainstorming sessions can sometimes be handled through the Web by using tools such as a wiki.  Brainstorming over a medium such as that has other benefits such as allowing people to think about the comments of others before adding your own thoughts.

Do the attendees really need to be there?
When a meeting is required to be held it's best to keep the amount of people attending to the bare minimum. As the saying goes, the more chefs in the kitchen, the less work that actually gets accomplished.  Sometimes the same people are always there because that is the way it has always been done.  Just because that was the way it was done in the past doesn’t mean it should continue.

Have an agenda
If a meeting is required, then an agenda should be used to outline what will be covered by the meeting.  Additionally it should be completed before the meeting and distributed to everyone that is going to be attending so they can be prepared.  This helps prevent problems in the meeting where people don’t have the required information available.

Set a time limit
Time box the meeting.  If it must go over then schedule another meeting with only the subset of people that will be needed for that specific item.

Record notes
Have someone take notes during the meeting and save them.  Ideally it should be posted on the internal company intranet so the people who need to see it can.

Those are my thoughts, if anyone else wants to add theirs I’m all ears. Perhaps we can even meet about it…

Space – The Final Frontier of Business?

I’m sitting here writing this entry watching coverage of the shuttle mission on NASA TV.  Space exploration for the last fifty years or so has been the realm of the government.Iin recent years though, the landscape seems to be changing towards the private sector.  Much like early flight seeing contests for R&D development and now seeing this in the space exploration sector is quite exciting to me.  Michael Griffin has a very well written piece on “Why Explore Space” that is a great read.

It makes me wonder what is the final frontier of business?

All I know is that when companies are starting to mine ore on the moon and beyond that I want to be creating cutting edge web sites that help market their ore here on Earth.

Planning Too Much - and the problems it causes

When you start thinking about starting a business pretty much everyone will tell you to write a business plan before doing anything else.  While the premise of creating a business plan seems like it would be beneficial you must be careful to strike a balance between too much detail and too little.

A business plan should act as a guide to your business, but it can not be your business, and in many cases you can miss the boat to your competition if you wait to actually start operating because you are too busy planning.

One of the areas that this hurt me was with Stoplight Tracking TM.  After sort of stumbling upon a problem and developing a solution for it for almost two years, I was not moving forward with the concept because I was scared to discuss it with others for fear of having the idea stolen.  During this time I had the privilege of being invited to attend a two-day workshop by the Indiana Venture Center and one of the things they discussed was that while there is always the possibility of someone stealing your idea, nobody probably wants to.  It requires passion to take an abstract idea through the hoops required for commercialization, and only the original idea creator would have the required passion to carry it through.

A business plan is based on assumptions.  Assumptions you make can take on many forms and can be thought in varying degree of details.  Every assumption may or may not be backed up by research and facts, which they themselves may be backed up by even more additional research.  While making wild guesses such as I can sell X items per month based on nothing but a whim is not a great idea, neither is spending months on working through every possibility.

Another adage that I’ve heard many times over the past five years is “The plan is nothing, to plan is everything.”.  It must be remembered that a plan can and indeed should be a living document that changes as your business changes.

Questions - Why so many?

Usually when meeting with a small business owner about a website the first thing they ask is “How much will this cost?” The problem with this is that at this first meeting with a potential client the only answer that I could tell them honestly is “I have no clue”.

Our niche in the market is that we really try to focus on delivering client value. Sometimes we will have a potential client come to us and ask for something such as a flyer to be designed. Sure we could get started right away and design a top notch flyer for them, however the problem occurs afterwards, when they have a great looking flyer that isn’t helping their sales out any.

At our company we want to truly learn about your business, and specifically how you make money. All businesses at their root exist to make a profit, and I personally see it as my job to ensure that we assist our companies on improving their profits and revenues. We will design a web site for you even if you don’t want to talk about profit, but it is so much better when we can truly engage the client fully. If my firm designs a site for you and it looks great, but it doesn’t help drive sales to you then the bottom line is I have failed.

I don’t like failing. Not at all.

This is where questions become so important to me. When someone from my company meets with a new client we are going to be asking you questions. Some of the questions are going to sound dumb, but most are going to be thought provoking and probing. It is not because we are nosy, but rather because for us we are looking as engaging you as not just a one time sale, but rather as a joint venture to make you more money.

One of the areas we focus quite a bit of time on is centered around two areas, “Who are your current customers?” and “Who are your competitors?” Competitive analysis is a fantastic way to start the development of a professional web site. Take five of your favorite competitors in your field and compare and contrast their web sites. Tell us what you and your customers would like and dislike about them. Learning from other people’s mistakes is not only fun and easy, but very smart and cost effective.

Lastly questions are a great way to open up a dialog and help you the business owner to step back from the day to day and see your business from another perspective.

Focus – Razor Sharp and Crystal Clear

As we reach the half way point of the year looking back at the last six months and the first thing that comes to mind is focus.  These past six months plans were not followed and my business has not grown the way it should have.  Thinking about the reasons for this I keep coming back to focus.  In these past months not only have I been working on growing a professional services firm that provides top notch graphic and web site design service, but I have also been working on a side R&D based project known as Stoplight TrackingTM and also on starting up another entity known as Dispersion MediaSM.

This three-way split has led me to not giving any of the projects the full attention they need.  As this second half of the year progresses though I have decided that the focus should be, and indeed must be on the primary business of website design.  Even once you narrow the focus to our core business, we still provide a multitude of services.  We design logos, develop web sites, promote web sites, program web applications, and do some more generalized consulting work.  While computers are fantastic at multitasking, it seems the human mind is geared more towards working on single tasks.  The problem with doing all of this is when I’m in that proverbial elevator with that great potential client, what do I say?

What I am finding through the school of hard knocks is that to excel one must narrow down what is being done.  In this age that we live in you must be the best of what you do, #1, as there is no room for a #2 provider.  Our goal has always, and will always continue to be the #1 provider.  Our focus is on providing business value to our clients.  This focus is something that I am going to be working to create crystal clear to our current and future clients as well as maintaining the focus on as sharp as a razor blade.

Extreme Programming for the Web

This was originally written on March 27, 2007; but for various reasons was not posted until today the 4th of June.

My friend and associate Joseph reminded today that when I posted about transparency I mentioned extreme programming, but did not elaborate on it.  To me XP (the abbreviation for Extreme Programming) is second nature so I don’t usually stop and explain it.  I’ll take a few minutes to do that now though.

Extreme Programming (XP) is basically a design methodology for software projects.  What we have done is taken the basic concepts of XP and made them even lighter for use in web site design.  XP was designed for software development which tends to have a longer lifecycle then a standard web site.  You can read much more information about XP than I could ever write HERE, HERE or HERE, or just use Google.

Basically though XP calls for a project to be broken down into iterations, which goes through the whole process of software, from requirements, to design, to coding, to testing, to customer acceptance continually instead of waiting until the end.  So instead of creating a full specification document and then creating a full design document you do bits at a time, and continually deliver software (or web pages) that the client can provide feedback on.  Providing feedback earlier is always cheaper and causes fewer gray hairs.

The basic concepts of XP include:

• Iterative Design
  • Client receives frequent small updates
• Ongoing Customer Involvement
  • Client feedback is encouraged on an ongoing basis, during development this is usually daily.
• Story Card  based Work Breakdown Structure – No massive specification documents
  • Requirements are recorded on index cards in a very basic form.  Details can then be communicated as needed verbally.
• Daily Stand Up Meetings
  • Every morning the development staff meets around a table to discuss what happened yesterday and what is planed for today
• Small Upfront Design
  • Structural work on the back end of the site is delayed as much as possible, and only created as needed.  This is done to allow for inevitable changes that must be made.
• Refractor Often
  • Working code is tweaked to make it run better, faster, and more securely.
• Automated Testing
  • Testing is automated as much as possible to allow for easier refractoring.

To deal with implementing XP into a website design company we made a few changes, notably on the timing of iterations.  Iterations are usually just a week and a complete release is done within a month, which is four iterations.  Of course projects with a longer scope will require additional iterations.

The other area where we have faced problems implementing XP is with the graphic design side of the business.  Coding, which as we all know is very hard to estimate, is still much more concrete than graphic design.  No matter how talented the designer is (and we have some very talented staff members) the design still must be approved by the client, and is very subjective.  Most of our revisions occur at this stage of the project really before any code is written for a web site.

Test fixtures were another obstacle we had to overcome.  Testing a website is not as easily done as testing an application programming interface (API).  This is an area where we are still working to improve.  The solution that would probably be best is to code all web pages using XML/XSLT which makes things much more testable; however on smaller projects this requires too much overhead so we usually end up just testing everything by hand.

If this brief overview was interesting to you then you probably want to read Extreme Programming for Web Projects, it’s a great book and is required reading for all new employees at my company.