Is this good for the company? - Day Camp 4 Developers #4

One challenge that many new CS grads come into direct contact with on entering the workforce is learning to reconcile their technical skills with the realities of their employer. For example, most technical folks when encountered with an old, aging, and/or decrepit application system will counter with the knee-jerk reaction of a rip and replace or a complete application re-write. But that solution may not make business sense, as the costs of such a move could outweigh the benefits. There are many other situations like this where combining technical skills with business intuition can help drive forward projects and advance your career. In this talk, I'll give pointers and direction on how to improve your business soft skills by learning how to decipher and deal with corporate culture.

Transcript

1. John  Mertic   https://joind.in/6149  
2. ¡  John  Mertic   §  Contact  Info   ▪  http:// jmertic.wordpress.com   ▪  Twitter:  @jmertic   ▪  jmertic@sugarcrm.com   (  SugarCRM  )   ▪  jmertic@php.net  (  PHP  )   §  Community  Manager  for   SugarCRM   ▪  http://www.sugarcrm.com   ▪  http://www.sugarforge.org   ▪  Twitter:  @sugarcrmdev    3/24/2011     @2011  SugarCRM  Inc.  All  rights  reserved.   2  
6. Peter  
7. Tom  
8. Lumbergh  
9. The  “Bobs”  
12. ¡  Know  the  people   ¡  Know  the  issues   ¡  Know  the  history   ¡  Know  the  process  
13. Your  keys  to  getting  stuff  done  
14. What  the  problems  are  
15. How  things  got  to  this  point  
16. The  ways  to  get  things  done  
18. ¡  For   §  Low  software  costs   §  More  control   §  Freedom  from  the  folks   in  Redmond     ¡  Against   §  Training  costs   §  Re-­‐write  legacy  software   §  Compatibility  issues  with   the  rest  of  the  business   world  
19. ¡  For   §  Can  design  better,  more   extensible   §  No  more  maintaining   legacy  hardware  for  it   §  Easier/cheaper  to  find   developers  for  newer   tools   ¡  Against   §  Time  to  do  this  can  be   long   §  May  not  provide  gain  in   productivity   §  Current  system  works   fine  
21. ¡  Costs  NOW   ¡  Costs  LATER   ¡  How  does  it  improve  the  organization  
25. ¡  What  you  do  now   §  What  are  the  pain  points   §  What  needs  done  to  improve  them   ¡  What  you’d  like  to  see  happen   ¡  What  it  takes  to  get  there  
27. ¡  What  you  do  now?   §  Limited  design  of  the  app   ▪  Difficult  to  extend  to  meet  future  needs   §  Requires  Legacy  hardware  and  tools  to  maintain   §  High  costs  involved  in  maintaining  the  app  as  it   stand  now.  
28. ¡  What  you’d  like  to  see  happen   §  Phased  re-­‐write   ▪  Phase  1     ▪  Phase  2   ▪  …   §  Will  enable  eased  transition  to  new  app  
29. ¡  What  it  takes  to  get  there   §  Time   ▪  Initial  requirements  rathering  –  2  months   ▪  Phase  1  –  2  months   ▪  Phase  2  –  3  months   ▪  …  
32. ¡  Accept  constructive  criticism   ¡  Don’t  take  it  personally   ¡  Recognize  you  may  being  missing  a  part  of   the  story   ¡  Find  common  ground   ¡  Lather,  rinse,  repeat  
34. People   Issues   History   Process