Another Pee in the Hall

I sit in the hallway,

Listening as you narrate,

You pull down your stockings and knickers,

And pee in a potty.

Focused on the moment,

You patiently pee.

How responsible you are,

At this age, already.

A quick wipe, pull and adjust,

You observe routine,

Perform mine, too, I must,

Pour, flush, wash, clean.

Observing with pride.

Continuous internal improvement

I believe that all developers thrive in a structured work environment. Since Blinker was launched a year ago, we have shed more and more of our agency habits in favour of development focussed processes. This is a trend that had started before the team split from Identum, in fact the need to focus more on development was behind the decision to form Blinker. The pace of that change has increased, and the Drupal team at Blinker is stronger for it.

As with all things, introducing new processes helps to a point, after a while though, the numerous guidelines each process brings can bog a team down. Over administration always leads to frustration. I think we are far from that point, thankfully, however it provides me an opportunity to reflect on one area of strength in our approach.

Of all the changes to our internal processes, the biggest impact has come from our regular internal improvements meetings. We regularly meet as a whole company (aside: something I like about a having a small team is that it’s easy for everyone to sit at a meeting and be heard) and review ourselves. Anyone can bring a topic to the table, from the newest junior to the CEOs - nothing is off limits - and we discuss it as a team. Pros and cons are deliberated over, and an action plan is formulated.

Internal reviews are not new to the team, but the regularity and flat structure helps to strengthen the team bond. Everyone gets heard, and the company improves in the image of its members.

The path towards more structure is something that emerged from these meetings. And I believe that long before we reach a point where everyone is frustrated with over administration, someone in one of those meetings will mention it, we will examine the situation together, and plot a path towards happiness.

A happy team is a great team!

Projects and time

I enjoy writing song reviews. I never would have known that had I not tried it; a friend invited me to join his team of writers for a side project he was working on and I tentatively agreed. I actually wish I could do it more. My analytical senses for music have been developed through years of recording, producing and of course listening to it, so analysing songs and albums came quite naturally.

Speaking of music: last week I agreed to produce some songs for an acquaintance of mine. After years of getting to know one another, I finally heard demos of his songs. I try to choose only those musical projects that inspire me in some way, and his work fit the bill. I’m looking forward to see how the project unfolds.

Spring is coming and the feeling of inspiration is stirring. I also committed to completing a keyboard project I’ve had on the drawing board for years. Since becoming a father, my time for projects has become even more limited. But I’ve found I’m a happier person when I have something to focus my free time on. I’ve had to adjust to the pace of progress though - I’m used to devoting a lot of energy and time to my projects, and so they tended to complete relatively quickly. That’s just not possible any more. Having a house and a daughter, on top of a full time job can make the experience of ‘free time’ a distant memory.

I expect that might add to the feeling of accomplishment. Hopefully it wont take long to find out…

Customer-centric Drupal

Of course every project is customer-centric - they dictate the expected outcomes of almost all project aspects. But clients can be their own worst enemies and often need the support of experienced professionals in order to be happy with the final product.

One of Drupal’s many strengths is that in creating the data structure of your site (the content types, taxonomies, blocks etc.) you are provided with the interfaces for managing the content for those structures. The out of the box content management experience is already very good, but with a little bit of effort you can go well beyond ‘good enough’.

At work, we try to understand why a particular feature request has been made. We look for oportunities to improve the already good content management experience and make it into something that is tailored for the use case. This might mean restructuring the default administration menu system, or providing custom views for common administrative tasks.

A little extra effort like this can make a huge difference in customer satisfaction, and Drupal makes this kind of improvement so easy, you should always be doing it!

Blog Post Title One

Obligatory first post. I’ve done this a half dozen times at least.