JanXL, agile adventures

What I did last year

2011-05-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

I've worked for nearly 1 year now at my current job, as head of IT. Time to make a summary of the improvements I have helped achieve (credit goes to as much to the team and the company as to myself!):

the team used have at least as many projects as there were people. Everybody basically worked on their own projects. I changed this by introducing two teams, one focused on front end work and one on .net project development. Every project was tackled by the team, not by an individual. The number of simultaneous projects became limited to a two or three.

the IT department had a bad name with regards to completing work. In fact, it was hard to name a project that was completed on time and on budget, if completed at all. There were projects of a couple of months running for over three years. Together with the team, I introduced Kanban, focused on limiting work in progress, made sure small pieces of business value were delivered as soon as possible, made work in progress visible. The IT mission statement became "we deliver" and the team set a target for the year in terms of number of rolled out projects which they though was ambitious, but which they had already made after the first 3-4 months.

Evaluations were a mess and severly demotivating for the team members. Basically, the former heads of IT would grade everybody once a year on 16 ill defined criteria, using an ill defined score between 1-10. That's 160 scores you have to give meaning to! I got rid of this pointless exercise by developing a 360 degree evaluation together with the team and carrying this out every quarter. This meant that team members gave each other a grade along with feedback, and also that the company at different levels gave feedback to the IT team as a whole. I as head of the department still give a grade on three criteria. This was a compromise as I would rather not have graded people at all, not even via 360, as grades are by definition demotivating.

Instead of a yearly evaluation, or even half yearly as it has become, I sit with every team memeber in a 1-1 every three weeks. this gives short feedback times and ample opportunity to discuss how things are going. By the time the evaluations take place, there are no surprises for anyone.

The salary increase process was unclear, there was no direct link to the evaluation process. I improved this process by making explicit what grade led to which salary increase, and by defining the various salary scales more clearly, especially how one moved from one scale to another.

The IT department was primarily being outsourced to another company for development. Although the company claimed that IT was one of the three pillars, there was virtually no interaction between IT and the rest of the company. I started up a process of developing an IT strategy together with the team and company, and created projects that focused on automating manual work that non-IT employees did, as well as projects that directly supported the main business of the company and their customers.

One of the main concerns the company owners had was that there were single points of knowledge/failure in the IT team. I resolved these bottlenecks by making everyone work as a team, doubling up the technical expertise, and promoting knowledge exchange.

The morale of the IT team was low. By introducing team sessions, retrospective meetings, 1-1 sessions, team activities, trainings, and conferences, the morale has improved dramatically. The team has clearer goals, more control over it's own work and planning, and it's work is more visible within the company.

I have grown the team from 6 to 8, with 2 people moving on in the mean time. I introduced a new interview process, consisting of a first meeting with me and HR, followed by a four hour hands-on workshop, and then a final meeting with the company owners. This process has served well to deliver good candidates.

By estimating projects before hand using story points, by reporting on the used up budget during the project, and by evaluating the final used hours vs budget afterwards, the estimation process has become much more transparent. By enforcing that all estimates are made by more than one person, and by people who will do the work, the budgets are beginning to be met. Before, almost all projects went over budget, although nobody talked about it.

The average grade given by company management to the IT team has increased by 45%

I arranged that we are now Microsoft Silver partner, and this has sigificantly reduced the licensing costs of the entire company.

Book review: Mindset by Carol Dweck

2011-04-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

This book is scary! If I had ever bothered to keep a dairy during my life, and managed to faithfully jot down my emotions and thoughts, then reflecting on those diaries now would I am sure have taught and shown me everything that Dweck has somehow managed to capture in her book. She has given words to thoughts and learnings I have only begun to learn for myself. This book has opened up a new world to me, a world that confirms more than ever just how similar we all are, and that feeling of being special is just an illusion we build to protect ourselves. It is an uncanny experience to read a book by a total stranger and to recognize almost every example in the book as something you have personally experienced. And yes, if you were wondering, I have a fixed mindset in many areas, or at least had to a high degree.

This is a must read for anybody who has ever been/felt a natural or a talent in some area. Most likely, such a situation will have fostered some form of fixed mindset thinking and most likely, this mindset will be blocking your further development in some way. This book will at least make you more aware of this, and hopefully give you a "mindset" to tackle and overcome these blockades.

This is not to say the book is The Truth. In fact, the simple split into fixed mindset vs growth mindset is I think a little over simplified. Personally, although I recognise most of the examples of fixed mindset in myself, I also recognise strong elements of the growth mindset in myself. Especially in different areas such as business, family, friends, etc different mindsets seem to apply, overlap, or flow into one another. For example, I tend to have a strong fixed mindset initial reaction to many things, but after some reflection and time, I tend towards growth mindset actions as a result. In short, it's not all as black and white as the book sometimes seems to suggest.

Book review: Management 3.0

2011-04-03T05:32:00.000-07:00

"Management 3.0" is written by Jurgen Appelo, a dutch author with an active blog.

If you take a look at the blog, you'll understand where the book came from, most of the content covered in the book is on the blog in some form or other.

So, what is the advantage of the book over the blog? Well Jurgen introduces his 6 views on management and gathers/aggregates his blog entries under these 6 views, splitting each view into a chapter on theory and a chapter on practice.

The book succeeds in presenting alot of information, from a wide variety of disciplines such as chaos theory and agile. Quite often Jurgen gathers existing models and combines/modifies them to build his own model. Generally the thinking is good and gives some new insights.

I found the book hard to get through at times (and in fact I didn't quite finish it). There isn't that much of a "story" in it, and I find it could profit from some more real life examples to spruce it up. I do think it makes a great reference. If you ever find yourself wondering about this or that model, and how it all fits together with agile/leadership/managemment, then this book is a good book to pick up and flip to the relevant pages.

ADAPT and Switch

2011-03-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

In Mike Cohns great book "Succeeding with Agile" he mentions the acronym ADAPT as the 5 steps necessary for an agile transistion in an organization(ie change). The letters stand for Awareness, Desire, Ability, Promotion, and Transfer. Very similar to Prosci’s ADKAR change model which describes the necessary phases for an individual to adopt a permanent change in their behavior and attitudes. The K an R stand for Knowledge and Reinforcement respectively. I guess in moving from an individual to an organization knowledge and reinforcement are replaced by promotion and transfer.

Anyway, I wanted to match ADAPT up with the steps in the great book Switch by the Heath brothers (see an earlier blog). So here goes,

Awareness

The reason why change is required should be clear (ie the problem that has to be solved).

This is related to "direct the rider", particularly "point to the destination". After all, the destination should be better than where we are now.

Desire

You may know a problem but still not want to fix it. Some unfinished chores in the house come to mind.

This is related to "motivate the elephant", particularly "find the feeling". Desire is after all all about emotion.

Ability

You may want to fix a problem, but simply lack the ability to solve it or make a positive change. Again, certain household chores spring to mind.

This is related to "Direct the rider, script critical moves"; after all, everyone can carry out simple instructions. But this is also related to "Motivate the elephant, shrink the change"; after all small changes are easier to carry out than big daunting overhauls. And finally, this is related to "Motivate the elephant, grow your people"; after all training, teaching and coaching will increase the ability of people and your organization.

Promote

In an organization, you need to motivate more than one person for a change to occur. This involves alot of communication (selling).

This is related to "Shape the path, rally the herd"; organizational changes require momentum to build up. Also, this is related to "Direct the rider, find the bright spots"; if positive change is working somewhere then celebrating it goes a long way to keeping momentum going.

Transfer

In an organization, having succeeded with change in one department, or team, or organization unit doesn't mean you are done. The rest of the organization will also need to adapt, otherwise organization gravity will simply drag the changed unit back down to the old state.

This is basically saying, iterate the ADAP steps again and again everywhere in the organization. In that sense, it relates to the Switch steps mentioned above. More generally, this relates to "Shape the environment".

Delegation checklist

2011-03-16T14:42:00.001-07:00

The following useful delegation checklist inspired on a similar checklist in the book "Management 3.0" by Jurgen Appelo (which I'm currently reading):

- are you delegating a discrete chunk of work? Is the work delegable at all?
- delegate to a person, or to a team? Explain why you are delegating to them.
- how much responsibility do you delegate? From "do it like this" to "do it anyway you want", with "let's work this out together" somewhere in between
- is the person(s) Aware of the problem or goal? Explain the why.
- does the person(s) have the Desire to carry out the task?
- does the person(s) have the Ability to carry out the task? Think skills, experience, but also tools and documentation etc.
- does the person(s) know when successfull? How are results demoed and how often. How is progress tracked?
- are budget, scope, time, and quality constraints clear?
- who is the problem/product/bsuiness owner to help out and answer questions?

When things do not work out as planned, don't shout at your team, find the item on the checklist you forgot (or add a new item to the checklist)!

A shorter version of the above is: is your delegated task SMART (specific, measurable, agreed, realistic, timebounded).

Switch (the book) and Agile/Lean/Kanban/Scrum

2011-03-09T11:27:00.000-08:00

"Switch, change when change is hard" is a great book about change (see an earlier blog entry). Now lean/agile/kanban/scrum (LAKS) is all about continous improvement, and all improvement is change (although not all change is improvement!). So after having read the book I started wondering which of the guidelines in the book are reflected in the LAKS way of thinking/frameworks. After all, LAKS is good at continous improvement so there must be significant overlap with the guidelines in the book. Here's a first stab (from my limited experience with primarily scrum and kanban).

Direct the rider, find the bright spots

In the retrospective, which is a meeting held regularly, what went well is a typical item on the agenda. This serves to assert the positive, but also triggers an awareness of things that are working and can be extended and improved upon for even greater gain.

Similarly, in the daily stand up team members tell what they did. This is an opportunity to share their work amongst the team, and thus also communicate about things that went well, problems solved, etc. Thereby creating awareness of the bright spots.

Direct the rider, script critical moves

During the retrospective, the most pressing problem is identified and tackled by defining (and carrying) out one (and only one) small step that will lead to an improvement. Typically this is *not* a complete solution to the problem, but just a first small step in the right direction.

Also, during the daily standup any impediments are identified with the explicit goal of getting these resolved as soon as possible with the product owner. This is an example of a scripted action that should lead to improvements (ie removal of the impediment).

Direct the rider, point to the destination

One of the goals of LAKS is to stabilize the velocity and then improve it. Having the velocity visible in charts (like the burndown) for all the team to see (and also the variability in the velocity) is key to making sure the team knows what they are aiming at.

Also the iterative development process with frequent demos and constant interaction with the customers and/or product owners ensures that the software that is being developed (the final destination) is constantly being realigned and redefined, and is constantly in the fore front of everybodys mind.

Motivate the elephant, find the feeling

Feelings in IT? Never! Still, nothing like a weekly demo for customers to cause a developer te break out into a cold sweat. Fear and the desire to please are strong motivators to deliver good software on time. Also, regular interactions with the customer and/or product owner go a long way to fostering and understanding of why the customer wants what he/she wants. Generally, this understanding will lead to improved software being developed.

Motivate the elephant, shrink the change

Refactoring and test driven development are great examples of shrinking the change. If you have unit tests in place, then improving your code (refactoring) is a breeze and nothing to be afraid of any more. In fact, it becomes a pleasure and something you do because it makes you feel good.

In general, LAKS avoids trying to "get it right the first time". Instead the focus is on building a small part as simple and as fast as you can, and then improve from there. A big software project is chopped into smaller user stories, all broken down into even smaller tasks, each task written test driven so that refactoring is easy going forward.

In terms of processes, LAKS provides a starting point only; a bare framework and a minimal set of guidelines. The whole point of LAKS is to begin with something (anything) and improve upon it continously. Finally changing the process into something unique that fits your business. The guidelines or framework are not contained in a complicated 400 page manual but typically fit on one A4. I'd call that shrinking the change.

Motivate the elephant, grow your people

LAKS is all about the team, not the individual. Team members are encouraged to become more multi disciplinary so that they can help out whenever bottlenecks occur and can cover for each other during holidays and illness etc. This requires growing both technical as well as team player skills.

Frequent interactions with customers extend the domain knowledge of the team, thus enabling them to build better software. In addition, code reviews and peer programming allow team members to learn from each other.

Typically, team members can pick their own work from the current queue of prioritised tasks. They are thus more responsible and have greater control over their own work. This is most often conducive to personal growth.

Shape the path, tweak the environment

The focus on the team typically means scrum or agile teams will be working together in team rooms. This fosters communication and mutual understanding, opening the road to frequent minor improvements, often too small to mention or pinpoint.

LAKS is often about making things visible, think kanban or scrum board (information radiators). This means that team members are confronted every day by the work in progress and waiting for them. They literally see it on the walls of their team room. Having the work visible makes it easy to talk about it, and this often leads improvements being discussed right infront of the board.

Shape the path, build habits

LAKS is all about habits. We have the daily standup, the retrospective, test driven development, refactoring, peer programming, code review, scrum planning meetings, demos, and more. As we have seen above, all of these habits are conducive to improvement. After all LAKS is a process, and a process is nothing more than a collection of habits we have all agreed to build.

Shape the path, rally the herd

The team focus instead of the individual focus is one form of rallying the herd. Peer pressure tends to drive people to carry out improvements they might not have done solely for themselves.

Also, the large and active LAKS community is a great source of motivation to improve should you find the team beginning to flag in enthusiasm. Nothing like a good conference or open space to get a team fired up again about making improvements.

LUMA Display Ad Tech Landscape

2011-03-08T07:05:00.001-08:00

A slideshare presentation of Terence Kawaja's famous tech landscape chart.

LUMA Display Ad Tech Landscape 2011-03-07

Being new to the online marketing game, this slide and it's categories didn't mean that much to me. So I went to the trouble of trying to define some of the categories used, a sort of glossary for the landscape. Hope it helps you! (apologies for anything incorrect and improvements are welcome)

advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion) for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services. An agency can also handle overall marketing and branding strategies and sales promotions for its clients

ad server
Ad serving describes the technology and service that places advertisements on web sites. Ad serving technology companies provide software to web sites and advertisers to serve ads, count them, choose the ads that will make the website or advertiser most money, and monitor progress of different advertising campaigns.

retargeting
Behavioral retargeting (also known as behavioral remarketing, or simply, retargeting) is a form of online targeted advertising by which online advertising is delivered to consumers based on previous Internet actions that did not in the past result in a conversion (in other words, the actions intended by the site owner, which typically include subscribing to an email list, registering for membership with a website, and/or making a purchase).

DEMAND SIDE PLATFORMS (DSP)
A demand side platform (DSP) is a system that allows digital advertisers to manage multiple ad exchange and data exchange accounts through one interface. Real time bidding for display online ads takes place within the ad exchanges, and by utilizing a DSP, marketers can manage their bids for the banners and the pricing for the data that they are layering on to target their audiences.
These are tools for media buyers: planning agencies, trading desks, creative optimization, data optimization, analytics and ad serving
Sometimes a DSP platform is white label and resold to others, for example Media buying desks.

creative optimization
dynamic creative production to enable real-time 1:1 personalized marketing. Automatically change background color, headline, steep discount, call-to-action, etc… for each targeted segment.

verification
A system that ensures every ad impression is a quality impression, every impression is compliant, and every ad was served and displayed exactly as intended.

media planning and (conversion) attribution
Media planning is generally the task of a media agency and entails finding the most appropriate media products for a client's brand or product. The job of media planning involves several areas of expertise that the media planner uses to determine what the best combination of media is to achieve the given marketing campaign objectives.

conversion attribution tracks all marketing interactions with users. To understand how users are engaging your company via advertising channels and how those channels work together to further your goals. In essence, you can begin to discover the proper Digital Media Mix that is required to make the most of your campaign budgets

measurement and analytics
Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage
Off-site web analytics refers to web measurement and analysis regardless of whether you own or maintain a website. It includes the measurement of a website's potential audience (opportunity), share of voice (visibility), and buzz (comments) that is happening on the Internet as a whole.
On-site web analytics measure a visitor's journey once on your website. This includes its drivers and conversions; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase. On-site web analytics measures the performance of your website in a commercial context. This data is typically compared against key performance indicators for performance, and used to improve a web site or marketing campaign's audience response.

ad exchanges
Ad exchanges are technology platforms that facilitate the bidded buying and selling of online media advertising inventory from multiple ad networks

DATA MANAGEMENT PLATFORM (DMP) and data aggregators
These tools apply to both publishers and buyers — data suppliers, data exchanges, data aggregators and tools to manage data
Segments help marketers reach highly qualified consumers based on specific interests and intent. Collecting targeting data (behaviors, demographic, psychographic, etc.), qualifying that data, and aggregating into actionable segments to bring audience targeting to a new level.

Data suppliers
Tools to manage data, analyze it, enrich it, build up customer profiles. Also providers that collect and resell customer data

Media buying desks
Company that help advertisers buy the right media for the right price to maximize conversion. More and more these are moving towards DSPs, or going out of business.

Ad networks
An online advertising network or ad network is a company that connects advertisers to web sites that want to host advertisements. The key function of an ad network is aggregation of ad space supply from publishers and matching it with advertiser demand
1.Vertical Networks: They represent the publications in their portfolio, with full transparency for the advertiser about where their ads will run. They typically promote high quality traffic at market prices and are heavily used by brand marketers. The economic model is generally revenue share. Vertical Networks offer ROS (Run-Of-Site) advertising across specific Channels (example: Auto or Travel) or they offer site-wise advertising options, in which case they operate in a similar fashion to Publisher Representation firms.
2.Blind Networks (Horizontal): These companies offer good pricing to direct marketers in exchange for those marketers relinquishing control over where their ads will run, though some networks offer a "site opt out" method. The network usually runs campaigns as RON or Run-Of-Network. Blind networks achieve their low pricing through large bulk buys of typically remnant inventory combined with conversion optimization and ad targeting technology.

Advertising Management Platform (AMP) / Targeted Networks
Sometimes called “next generation” or “2.0” ad networks, these focus on specific targeting technologies such as behavioral or contextual. Targeted networks specialize in using consumer clickstream data to enhance the value of the inventory they purchase.[1] further specialized targeted networks include social graph technologies which attempt to enhance the value of inventory using connections in social networks.
Advertising management and delivery software that allows publishers to sell, deliver, report on and bill advertising inventory.

Performance (based)
No cure no pay. Affiliate marketing.

Mobile
Platforms for mobile advertisements.

Ad ops / Infrastructure
Ad Operations (aka "online ad operations", "online advertising operations", "online ad ops", "ad ops", and "ops" in the trade) refers to processes and systems that support the sale and delivery of online advertising. More specifically this is the workflow processes and software systems that are used to sell, input, serve, target and report on the performance of online ads.

Yield optimization
Yield management is the process of understanding, anticipating and influencing consumer behavior in order to maximize yield or profits from publishers ad inventory.

SUPPLY SIDE PLATFORMS(SSP) (not mentioned in slide)
These are tools for publishers: ad servers and optimization tools as well as inventory tools for both yield optimization and ad networks;

Book review: Switch, a great book about change.

2011-03-07T17:44:00.000-08:00

Change is hard. Why? Because people resist change. Well this book is the answer. It provides a simple framework for achieving change, a recipe for change if you will.

There are basically three main parts the book focuses on: the rational mind, the emotional side, and the environment around us. For each part, three key criteria are defined that need to be dealt with to achieve change successfully.

Luckily, it's not all theory or psycho babble. The book is filled with great motivational examples of real life change, each illustrating one or more key criteria at work. This makes teh book a joy to read.

All in all, it's a must read for anybody interested in change, for example anybody in a leadership or management role within an organization.

Secrets of online marketing: cookie syncing, the real world

2011-03-07T11:18:00.000-08:00

This is a continuation of my previous blog post on cookie syncing, this time a real world example of cookie syncing as promised.

The actors:

Bluekai is a real world data collector. Very basically stated, MediaMath collects "users" who are planning to travel soon.

Mediamath is a (real time) trading platform, which allows advertisers to bid and buy advertisement space (banners) in real time.

Kayak is a travel site, where you can for example search for a flight from Amsterdam to London.

Now Bluekai and Mediamath have partnered to enable advertisers to target people about to travel. So, for example, if I were an advertiser for car rentals in Berlin, then I could use the services of MediaMath to show a banner to anybody that was interested in flying to Berlinin the coming two weeks.

And of course, Kayak.com has partnered with Bluekai to allow Bluekai to collect users who are about to travel and sell them off to advertisers.

And so the scene is set.

Under the hood:

Let's take a look at Kayak.com and what happens when you search for a flight from Londong to Berlin in the coming week. The goings on are a bit murky and mixed up but basically, a cookie sync is occuring. By the way, you can check all of what I list below for yourself using only your browser (for example Firefox with the firebug extension).

First of all when viewing the page with results for flights to Berlin, underwater the following pixel is making a call (unbeknownst to you):

http://pixel.mathtag.com/event/js?mt_id=10355&v1=28501&v2=9109&v3=&s1=XtDALg-AAABLlPip5c-45-fR5SVw&s2=6-Z3qLeFEKCCRzisN3PWrE&s3=London,%20United%20Kingdom&s4=Berlin,%20Germany&s5=20110309&s6=20110312&s7=,United%20Kingdom&s8=,Germany&s9=LON&s10=BER

Mathtag.com belongs to MediaMath and this pixel is actually a pixel "container" in that this one call triggers a whole lot of otheer pixels to be dynamically loaded onto the page:

http://ad.yieldmanager.com/pixel?id=729659&id=729660&
id=729661&id=268681&id=86164&t=&id=791551&id=791552&
id=791555&id=791556&id=791557&id=791558&id=791559&
id=1072039&id=1072040&t=2

http://pixel.mathtag.com/event/img?mt_id=101067&mt_adid=100224&v1=28501&v2=9109=&v3=&s1=XtDALg-AAABLlPip5c-45-fR5SVw&s2=6-Z3qLeFEKCCRzisN3PWrE&s3=London,%20United%20Kingdom&s4=Berlin,%20Germany&s5=20110309&s6=20110312&s7=,United%20Kingdom&s8=,Germany&s9=LON&s10=BER

http://designbloxlive.com/retargetTracking2.php?cid=125_378&passcode=LON::BER

http://pixel.mathtag.com/event/img?mt_id=101261&mt_adid=100224&v1=28501&v2=9109=&v3=&s1=XtDALg-AAABLlPip5c-45-fR5SVw&s2=6-Z3qLeFEKCCRzisN3PWrE&s3=London,%20United%20Kingdom&s4=Berlin,%20Germany&s5=20110309&s6=20110312&s7=,United%20Kingdom&s8=,Germany&s9=LON&s10=BER

http://action.mathtag.com/mm//KAYA//mrt?nm=FliSerR&v1=28501&v2=9109=&v3=&s1=XtDALg-AAABLlPip5c-45-fR5SVw&s2=6-Z3qLeFEKCCRzisN3PWrE&s3=London,%20United%20Kingdom&s4=Berlin,%20Germany&s5=20110309&s6=20110312&s7=,United%20Kingdom&s8=,Germany&s9=LON

http://bs.serving-sys.com/BurstingPipe/ActivityServer.bs?cn=as&ActivityID=90459&Value=&OrderID=&ProductID=6-Z3qLeFEKCCRzisN3PWrE&ProductInfo=XtDALg-AAABLlPip5c-45-fR5SVw&ns=1

http://px.admonkey.dapper.net/PixelMonkey?adId=kayakhotels&format=image&useReferrer=1&origin_city=London,%20United%20Kingdom&origin_state=,United%20Kingdom&dest_city=Berlin,%20Germany&dest_state=,Germany

http://tags.bluekai.com/site/1675

Ok, so one pixel triggers an avalanche of other pixels! But for the course of this blog, we'll focus on only the last pixel namely:

http://tags.bluekai.com/site/1675

This is a cookie sync call! Here we have MediaMath passing along the id it has stored in a cookie on your pc (1675) along to Bluekai so that Bluekai can now store the MediaMath id alongs with it's own id. This allows BlueKai to sell all of it's profile data (you are planning to fly to Berlin) to any advertiser (in this case via MediaMath).

Note that BlueKai has it's own pixel call (multiple actually) to place cookies on your browser with Bluekai ids. This allows BlueKai to sell your profile data to other parties besides only MediaMath of course. An example of such a pixel call is:

http://tags.bluekai.com/site/83?ret=html&phint=Product%3Dflight&phint=Class%3De&phint=DepartDate%3DMon%20Mar%2021%2000%3A00%3A00%20EDT%202011&phint=DepartureCity%3DLHR&phint=Destination%3DBER&phint=__bk_t%3DKAYAK%20Search%20Results&limit=10&r=301914

It should also be noted that although these parties are building up a profile about "you", they are not storing any information of direct personal information. Basically they are lumping you together into a category (with an id) that indicates you are interested in flying to Berlin. So in a sense it is "anonymous" although the cookie with the id is still on your pc (not so anonymous).

Secrets of online marketing: cookie syncing

2011-02-27T11:29:00.000-08:00

This blog takes a peak into the world of cookie syncing, sometimes also referred to as cookie matching. For those of you who think I'm referring to chocolate chip cookies here, I'm not. Cookies are small bits of information that your browser stores on your computer at the request of the sites that you visit. This allows these sites to recognise you when you come back a second time, allowing them to auto log you in for example. But that's not all cookies are used for. Cookies are what make the online marketing world go round. Cookies are the cash cow for internet banners. Without cookies, the "free" internet would probably rapidly become a lot less "free".

Why? Well cookies allow sites to keep track of you and your interests, and to remember what you have or have not done/seen. This allows sites to show you advertisements (banners) that are (hopefully) of more interest to you than a randomly select ad, thereby increasing the chances that you will click on the advertisement and end up actually buying something (and that's what it's all about after all).

You can check which cookies are being placed by which site using your browser setting/options/tools/etc and you can actually block cookies, thereby disabling your behaviour to be tracked and your ads to be more targeted. If you make the effort to see what cookies are being placed by whom you might be surprised/shocked. It's not uncommon for a highly visited commercial site to place over 30+ cookies for one page visit.

Why so many? Well, the site is not the only one placing cookies, there are plenty of online marketing companies hitch hiking along for the ride. These are cookies for "sites" you are not even visiting, and it is happening without you knowing about it (unless you have configured your cookies settings). Underwater this is achieved by what are called pixels, small pieces of html code that you do not visibly see on the site, but which underwater cause web requests to be made to servers of other companies, thereby allowing them to place cookies on your pc.

Why are these other companies hitching along? Well some (ad servers) are keeping track of the advertisements shown and/or clicked (see my earlier blogs on ad impressions and banner clicks). But others, let's call them data collectors, are tracking you to build up a profile of which sites you visit. So for example, if you visit a Toyota forum on a car site, and then visit a travel site to check out flight prices from Amsterdam to Rome, then a data collecting company will store that 1) you are interested in cars, 2) probably own a toyota, 3) are interested in flying, 4) probably want to fly from Amsterdam to London soon (and probably even more info).

How can they do this? Well they have deals with the car site and the travel site, ensuring that these sites will place data collection cookies on your pc, allowing the data collector to recognise you across different sites and link your interests together into a profile of "you". So these data collectors are like spiders that have spun a web across multiple sites in the internet, and any time you visit on of "their" sites you send a tiny trembling down the web. What's in it for the sites? Well they get money for allowing the data collector to collect this information.

But how do the data collectors make money to pay for all this? Well, this kind of information about you is worth it's (virtual) weight in gold. To whom? The companies advertising on the internet of course. For someone who has a car rental company in Rome offering Toyotas, you are now a prime target. After all, if you are indeed flying to Rome and drive a Toyota, chances are that you might want to rent a Toyota in Rome again. Or maybe you hadn't thought about it much, but if you sudddenly saw a banner pop up on a site offering you a great rental rate on a Toyota in Rome, it might not seem such a bad idea. Bingo!

Ok, so what's this cookie syncing? Well, there are some technical hurdles to be leapt when it comes to "sharing" or selling the profile data stored in the cookies on your pc. Cookies are set up that only the "owner" of the cookie can actually read the information stored in them. This (believe it or not) was thought up to protect your privacy. This means, for example that a data collector can place a cookie on your pc, but that the advertiser cannot read it.

So how does an advertiser know what your profile is if he cannot read the data collector cookie containing it? The answer is he can't. But what he can do is cookie sync. The concept is quite simple, here's how it works.

The goal of cookie syncing is that a common "id" describing you is shared between the data collector and the advertiser. This allows both parties to talk about you using this common id and thus for the data collector to sell your profile information to the advertiser.

One way this common id is achieved is for example as follows. The advertiser has a pixel on a site which you visit. The pixel places an underwater request to the server of the advertiser (ad server) allowing him to place a cookie with id1 on your pc. The ad server now redirects this request (302) to the data collector server (data server), passing along id1 as a value in the url. The data server now places a cookie on your pc with it's own id2, and also stores the mapping (id1, id2).

Voila! At this point, the data collector now knows both ids and id1 can be used as the shared id to communicate with the advertiser about your interests. The data collector can sell all the profile information it has for you (id2) to the adverstiser as belonging to id1.

Another alternative is the other way round, that the ad server learns both ids instead of the data server. But a symetrical option is also possible, in which both servers learn the mapping of the ids involved. In this case, after the first redirect with the first id, a second redirect follows with the second id being passed along. Anyway, which ever variant is used, the end game is that there is one id known by all that can be used to exchange the profile information and target you with more relevant ads.

A bit confused? In a subsequent blog entry, I will try to work out a real life example of the above to illustrate.

Secrets of online marketing: ad click

2011-02-20T11:28:00.000-08:00

If you click refresh a couple of times on http://auto.nl.msn.com/ you are bound to see the Ditzo car insurance ad. This blog entry attempts to detail what happens when you click on this advertisement banner.

The short answer is, of course, you land on the Ditzo site, on the car insurance request page. The long answer is a bit more detailled because under the hood alot is going on, and all of it in the blink of an eye. This blog entry will try to give some insight into all of the stuff that is happening, and can be seen as an continuation of a previous blog entry on ad impressions.

First off, the Ditzo ad banner is made in flash and is not a static image. In essence, a flash banner is just like a mini software program and thus when you click on the banner "anything" could happen. However, there are online marketing industry standards for flash banners so the "anything" is somewhat limited. Why these standards? Well the reason is that multiple parties and software solutions need to work together in order to show the flash banner, and the only way to achieve this is to standardize (see previous entry on ad impressions). This allows Ditzo to make just one banner and still have it display on any number of different sites, each site potentially using diffferent software to display banners with.

If you look at the source code of the banner ad page in your browser you should be able to find the flash banner which looks like:

<embed wmode="transparent" flashvars="id_part=3525&sitedom=bluemango.solution.weborama.fr&lien=47031&site=297163&id_unique=1297970156_1297970157873&target=_blank&crea=4332&
clicktag=http%3A//clk.atdmt.com/go/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1/01/%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A//bluemango.solution.weborama.fr/fcgi-bin/performance.fcgi%3FID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&clicktag1=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag1%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&clicktag2=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag2%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&clicktag3=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag3%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&clicktag4=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag4%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&clicktag5=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag5%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif" src="http://elstatic.weborama.fr/adperf/297163/3132/201101/19151118_300-250resdi110118form9v101.swf" swliveconnect="TRUE" width="300" height="250" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" quality="high" allowscriptaccess="always">

Ok, so this is alot of code, but most of it is the standard way to show flash in a web browser. The interesting part for our purposes is the clicktag parameter (I used url decode here to show it in more readable form):

clicktag=http://clk.atdmt.com/go/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct;wi.300;hi.250;ai.36901670.186089969;ct.1/01/?href=http://bluemango.solution.weborama.fr/fcgi-bin/performance.fcgi?ID=297163&A=1&L=47031&C=3132&P=3525&CREA=4332&T=E&URL=https://www.ditzo.nl/nl/Auto/Premie/BrowseCar.htm?utm_source=3525&utm_campaign=3525&utm_medium=BAC&utm_content=_backupgif

All flash banners have a clicktag parameter. It is a standardized parameter that determines the site url to which your browser will be redirected if you click on the banner. Why is this "click url" set via a parameter and not directly in the flash itself? Well the reason is that other parties can tweak the click url to suit their own purposes. To see why this is important let's break down the large clicktag above.

When you click the banner you initially go to the url (first part of the cliktag):

http://clk.atdmt.com/go/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct;wi.300;hi.250;ai.36901670.186089969;ct.1/01/

This an url of Atlas, the Microsoft ad server which msn.com uses. However, you will never see this page. Why? Because this url will simply reply with a redirect (302) telling your browser to go to the following url instead:

http://bluemango.solution.weborama.fr/fcgi-bin/performance.fcgi

Note that this is the href parameter (?href=) of the clicktag above. Now this url belongs to Weborama, the add server that Ditzo uses for it's banners. But again, you will never see this page because your browser is immediately redirected (302) to the following url:

https://www.ditzo.nl/nl/Auto/Premie/BrowseCar.htm

And this is the Ditzo page, finally!

Note that this is the URL parameter contained in the href parameter of the original clicktag.

So basically an url within a url within a url. This raises two questions: 1) why? and 2) how do the different parties achieve this redirecting?

Well to answer the second question first: this is the reason that the clicktag is standardized for flash banners. All the parties know that the clicktag contains the url for when the banner is clicked and this allows them to add their own url to the front of the clicktag, thus placing themselves in the click path.

So that leaves question 1) Why? Doesn't this all seem a tad complex just to show a banner? Well it's all about the ad servers and how they make money. Alot of advertisement is based on cpc or cost per click, which means that Ditzo pays msn.com not for displaying the ad banner, but only for each time the banner is clicked. This means that msn.com, or actually Atlas, needs to keep track of how many times the ad is clicked and it does this by making sure that when you click, you pay their site a quick, underwater visit.

So that explains the first wrapper url, now for the second one. Well msn.com may claim that the ad has been clicked, but are they saying the truth? Besides, Ditzo is paying Weborama to serve the ads, not Atlas (msn.com). So in order for Weborama to also track the click, you pay them a quick, underwater visit as well. Now both ad servers have measured the click, and thus Ditzo can pay Weborama, and Weborama can pay Atlas, and Atlas can pay msn.com, and everybody is happy.

But wait, there is more

But that's not all that's going on. Each ad server is also placing a cookie on your pc (browser). This cookie stores the fact that you clicked the ad. Why is this important? Well, it's all about retargeting and profiling. Storing the fact that you clicked the Ditzo ad on the msn.com site can be used by the ad servers to show you other car ads or insurances next time you visit msn.com, or a totally different site for which they happen to serve ads. The cookie can thus be used to (re)target the ads you are being shown, thus increasing the likelihood that you might click on them and thus make money for everybody involved.

The secrets of online marketing: Ad Impressions

2011-02-20T05:35:00.000-08:00

So go to http://auto.nl.msn.com/ and refresh a couple of times, you're bound to see the Ditzo auto insurance banner (or ad) at least once. This, in online marketing terms, is called an impression (ie you have been shown the ad). No big deal you might say, there are plenty of sites with banners, I see them all the time, so what?

Well the interesting stuff is what happens under the hood so to speak, cause there's alot going on, and all of it in the blink of an eye. In this blog entry I'll try to give you a peek at all of the stuff that's going on to show you the ad. Note: all of this stuff you can check for yourself just by poking around a bit in the html source of the web page, your browser, and with the help of some feeware tools.

First of all, the banner is shown in an iframe, or in other words, the banner is a "seperate" page loaded from a different server than msn.com but shown as part of the page you are viewing. The relevant html code (see the page source in your browser) is:

<iframe src="http://view.atdmt.com/NL1/iview/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct;;wi.300;hi.250/01?click=" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" allowtransparency="true" width="300" height="250">
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
document.write('<a href="http://clk.atdmt.com/NL1/go/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct;;wi.300;hi.250/01/" target="_blank"><img src="http://view.atdmt.com/NL1/view/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct;;wi.300;hi.250/01/"/></a>');
</script></iframe>

Don't be confused, this is simply an iframe which loads it's content from the following source (see the "src" parameter in the code above):

http://view.atdmt.com/NL1/iview/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct;;wi.300;hi.250/01?click=

Now the site msn.com belongs to Microsoft and uses Microsoft Advertising to show it's banners. Microsoft advertising use Atlas as it's server to load banners from (a so called ad server). Just typing in http://admt.com will take you the site of Atlas Solutions. So the iframe is simply loading it's content from the Microsoft ad server.

So far so good. Now you might think that the banner (which is flash incidentally, not a static image) would simply be loaded directly from the Microsoft ad server. However, this is not the case. In fact the content that is loaded into the iframe is the following javascript:

<iframe width="300" height="250" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" SRC="http://bluemango.solution.weborama.fr/fcgi-bin/adserv.fcgi?tag=47031&f=9&h=I&ef=1&clicktag=http://clk.atdmt.com/go/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct;wi.300;hi.250;ai.36901670.186089969;ct.1/01/?href=&rnd=853776281"></iframe>

So a second iframe is loaded into the first iframe! And this time content of the second iframe is loaded from the source (again the src parameter):

http://bluemango.solution.weborama.fr/fcgi-bin/adserv.fcgi?tag=47031&f=9&h=I&ef=1&clicktag=http://clk.atdmt.com/go/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct;wi.300;hi.250;ai.36901670.186089969;ct.1/01/?href=&rnd=853776281

Now Weborama is another ad server (a competitor of Atlas if you will). So why is there another ad server involved? Well the reasons are quite simple. Msn.com chooses to work with Atlas, but the company advertising (Ditzo car insurance in this case) chooses to work with a different ad server, Weborama. Why? Well one reason is that for msn.com it is easy to have to work with only one ad server instead of many, and the same holds for Ditzo. It is easier for Ditzo to upload and manage all of it's banners on one server as opposed to many. Of course this does require both ad severs to work together, and that is exactly what they do with this double iframe construction. But that's not the only reason, money is involved here. Ads are often shown on a cpm or cost per mille basis. This means that Ditzo pays money to show the ad one thousand times (whether the banner is clicked or not). This means that all ad servers involved need to be able to track and verify that the ad has indeed been shown. Having all the ad servers involved in showing the banner ensures they all know it was shown and can thus keep track of the cpm costs.

To continue with the second iframe (of Weborama): the content loaded into this iframe is a lot of javascript which I'm not going to bother you with but the upshot of the script once run is that the following flash banner is loaded into the second iframe:

<embed wmode="transparent" flashvars="id_part=3525&sitedom=bluemango.solution.weborama.fr&lien=47031&site=297163&id_unique=1297970156_1297970157873&target=_blank&crea=4332&clicktag=http%3A//clk.atdmt.com/go/msnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1/direct%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1/01/%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A//bluemango.solution.weborama.fr/fcgi-bin/performance.fcgi%3FID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&clicktag1=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag1%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&clicktag2=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag2%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&clicktag3=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag3%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&clicktag4=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag4%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif&clicktag5=http%3A%2F%2Fclk.atdmt.com%2Fgo%2Fmsnnkmnl001300x250Xnldhpr0000018nl1%2Fdirect%3Bwi.300%3Bhi.250%3Bai.36901670.186089969%3Bct.1%2F01%2F%3Fhref%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fbluemango.solution.weborama.fr%2Ffcgi-bin%2Fperformance.fcgi%3FZ%3Dclicktag5%26ID%3D297163%26A%3D1%26L%3D47031%26C%3D3132%26P%3D3525%26CREA%3D4332%26T%3DE%26URL%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.ditzo.nl%252Fnl%252FAuto%252FPremie%252FBrowseCar.htm%253Futm_source%253D3525%2526utm_campaign%253D3525%2526utm_medium%253DBAC%2526utm_content%253D_backupgif" src="http://elstatic.weborama.fr/adperf/297163/3132/201101/19151118_300-250resdi110118form9v101.swf" swliveconnect="TRUE" width="300" height="250" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" quality="high" allowscriptaccess="always">

Ok, this is alot of code, most of it standard html for embedding flash on a page, but the important part is:

http://elstatic.weborama.fr/adperf/297163/3132/201101/19151118_300-250resdi110118form9v101.swf

This, finally, is the Ditzo flash banner! Just copy and paste this into a new browser window directly and you will see the banner directly.

But, wait, there's more!

Now this is not the only thing going on. Not only do both ad serving parties work together to show you the banner, they are also keeping track that you have viewed it. This happens using cookies. You can check out the cookies using your browser settings or for example firefox (and the fircookie extension). This will show you that there are many, many cookies being stored while you watch the web page and the banner (38 cookies while I wast checking). Of these 3 cookies belonged to admt (Atlas) and 6 to weborama.

Why are these parties placing cookies on your pc? Well, if you browse to other sites that Atlas or Weborama serve ads to, then they will be able to recognize you as someone they showed a banner to on the http://auto.nl.msn.com/ site. This allows them for example retarget you and show you another car ad, even if the site you are on has nothing to do with cars. The reason? Well since you were on the http://auto.nl.msn.com/ site, you seem interested in cars, so showing you more car ads would seem more relevant (with a larger chance of you clicking on the banner and making a purchase and that is after all what ads are all about). Of course, there are more things they can do with the cookies, like avoid showing you the same ad again (or too often) when you return to a site, or building up a profile about you (ie you visited a car site, then went to airline site, so possibly you are in the market for a car rental, etc). But complete blogs can be filled with the world of cookies and this kind of profile building, so I won't go into any more detail here now.

So far this entry on impressions. In a later entry I'm going to try and give the details of what happens when you actually click on the banner!

Small barriers

2011-02-08T11:27:00.000-08:00

I'm a tall guy, so when I shower I move the shower head all the way up along the adjustable rail just so I can stand under it without stooping. Of course, not handy for the rest of the family who can't even reach the shower head to lower it when they want to shower. So my wife was constantly reminding me to lower the shower head back when I'm done, and I of course was constantly forgetting. But then I figured it out. My wife was always reminding me after I had left the shower and already dried off, so adjusting the shower head then would mean getting wet again (from the shower head dripping), and it was this small, teeny "barrier" that was blocking me from actually learning/remembering to do it myself. On the boundary line between concious/subconcious I was making a decision that I just didn't want to do it.

Once I became concious of the barrier blocking me, it was easy to fix. Now I lower the shower head before I leave the shower and dry off, so the dripping is not a problem as I'm already wet anyway. Now I always never forget.

Trivial? Maybe. But I happened upon more examples once I realized how such small barriers can control your behaviour. Another personale example is the garbage container. I have to roll it out on monday evening for it to be emptied by the truck on tuesday morning. Meaning that tuesday evening I have to go back outside to roll the now empty container back. Something I never relished doing, especially in the winter, when it's cold, and you're nice and cozy inside.

In this case the barrier is more obvious, the cold outside. But the solution less so. Funnily enough, I just started jogging again (yes, not easy to keep up either) and when heading back it suddenly dawned on me that since I was outside anyway, I might as well drag the container back in. Trivial? Duh! But still it was now almost a pleasure to do the task, whereas before it was always a chore I "forgot" every now and then.

Small problems, and even smaller solutions, but the impact can be big. I've seen that with agile as well. Using a kanban board to make the work and flow (or lack thereof) visible is a great information radiator which encourages lively discussions right infront of the board. Nothing like a bunch of blocked tasks (impeditments or barriers) to start a discussion how we can improve the process. And the solutions are often small, trivial steps that in themselves cannot be the complete solution, or so it seems. But quite often, just making one tiny step is all it takes. All the subsequent improvement steps you thought were goign to be needed fall by the wayside because the problem is gone, the flow is back, and the process is working acceptably again. Too often people think up elaborate plans to tackle a semmingly big problem and then get stranded. Kanban I find encourages you to identify the first small step and then do it, and then see what next. Works much better.

Law of victory

2010-10-03T09:50:00.001-07:00

- an unwillingness to accept defeat
- approach the challenges with the resolve to take their people to victory
- find a way for the team to succeed
- there is no plan B, that is why you keep fighting

3 components of team victory:
1) Unity of vision
2) Diversity of skills
3) A leader dedicated to victory and raising members to their potential

Law of solid ground

2010-09-21T11:54:00.000-07:00

Trust is *the most important* thing!
Trust is the glue that holds an organization together.
Trust is the foundation of leadership.
Trust is like change: every good decision is change into the pocket, every bad decision is change out of the pocket
Treat trust as your most precious asset

To build trust exemplify:
- competence (learning is ok),
- connection(takes time),
- character(every slip is fatal!)

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without strategy.

Character => Trust => Leadership. Character makes trust possible. Trust makes leadership possible.

Character communicates:
- consistency, you can't get much done in life if you only work on the days you feel good
- potential, no man can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character
- respect, without character within, there can be no respect without

Build trust by achieving results, always with integrity and in a manner that shows a real personal regard for people with whom you work.

Earn respect by making sound decisions, by admitting mistakes, and by puttings what's best for your followers and the organization ahead of your personal agenda

Don't lie, look out for number one, take the easy road, pass the hot potato, ignore followers, take the credit, pass on blame.

Warning signs: unrest, rumbling, relationship eroding.

If you lack trust, is it due to competence, connection, and/or character?

Measures of trust:
- how open are your followers with you:
* do they share positive as well as negative opinions
* do they give good news as easily as bad news
* do they let you know what is happening in their are of responsibility
- how much responsibility do you receive from colleagues and bosses

To develop character:
- integrity: make commitments and keep them,
- authenticity: be yourself with everybody
- discipline: do the right thing everyday regardless of how you feel

A DEFINITION OF CHARACTER:
- Making decisions based on what is best for the company versus personal gain
- Stating opinions honestly
- Delivering on commitments
- Taking a stand on tough issues
- Being approachable and asking for feedback
- Treating everyone the same
- Trusting and working collaboratively with others
- Being emotionally resilient in changing situations

THREE BEHAVIOURS THAT DEMONSTRATE CHARACTER:
- Break through negativity. It’s easier to question, dissect and disregard. Great leaders express excitement about the future and confidence in the ability of others
- Learn together. Typical leaders analyze decisions without the feedback from those most affected by the issue at hand. Inclusive decision-making shows consideration and respect for others, results in better decisions and stronger commitment, and more successful outcomes.
- Challenge the status quo. Get out from behind the desk. Leadership requires situational awareness and the courage to articulate what others are thinking. Get real by hanging out with your staff and peers and asking questions.

law of priorities

2010-09-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

Activity is not necessarily accomplishment.

Prioritizing requires you to continually think ahead.

The 1st responsibility of a leader is to define reality. For a leader, everything is on the table.

Pareto principle: focus on the top 20% of activities that give you 80% of the return
- if you have 10 employees, focus 80% on best 2
- if you have 10 todo items, the 2 most important ones will give you 80% return on your time

3R's

Requirement: What must I do that nobody can or should do for me? If it's not necessary, don't do it. If it's necessary but I don't need to do it personally, delegate.

Return: Focus your time on your areas of strength. Leader stays out of comfort zone, but in strength zone. If somebody else can do something at least 80% as well as yourself, delegate. If you have responsbility somebody else could do (or potentially do) at least 80% as well then train that person to handle it.

Reward:Do the things you love. They give you energy and passion in life.

Summary and notes on law of empowerment

2010-09-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

Antithesis of empowering leader: undermining other leaders and looking over shoulders of own people

Only secure leaders are able to give power to others without feeling threatened

"The best executive is the one who has the sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and the self restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it."

To keep others down, you have to go down with them. You lose the power to lift others up.

When a leader can't or won't empower others, he creates barriers followers cannot overcome.

3 reasons for failing to empower others:
- job security. Paradox = The only way to make yourself indispensable is to make yourself dispensable.
- resistance to change. "It is the nature of man as he grows older to protest against change, particularly change fo the better". Effective leaders are change agents (for improvement)
- lack of self-worth. "You can't lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse".

The greatest things happen only when you give others credit.

The window and the mirror (from "Good to Great"). When things go well, a good leader (level 5) looks out the window to see the environment and people responsible, when things go bad, he looks in the mirror. (A bad leader vice versa)

To empower people, believe in them. If you belive in others, they will believe in themselves.

Enlarging others make you larger.

summary and notes on law of connection

2010-08-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

A brief summary of the "law of connection" as detailled in the book "The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership" by John C. Maxwell.

To lead yourself, use your head; to lead others, use your heart. Heart before the head.

When speaking engage on a human level, don't give dry facts.

You must move people with emotion before you can move people to action.

Touch people's hearts before you ask them for a hand.

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Even in a group, you have to relate to people as individuals. Focus on talking to one person

Guidelines for connecting:

1) connect with yourself
Be confident, people don't heed the call of an uncertain trumpet.
Be yourself.

2) communicate with openness and sincerity

3) know your audience
What do they care about (instead of what you care about)

4) live your message
Practice what you preach

5) go to where they are
Physical location, but also culture, background, education, language, etc.
Adapt to the other.

6) focus on them, not yourself

7) believe in them
Do you communicate because you have something of value to say, or because you believe the other has value to add?
People care less for what they see in us than for what we can help them see in themselves. Everyone wants to grow.

8) offer direction and hope
Give people hope and you give them a future.
Do more than help others get to where they want to go.

Successfull leaders are initiators when it comes to connecting. They do not expect followers to connect to them because "they are the boss".

review: 21 irrefutable laws of leadership

2010-08-30T12:06:00.001-07:00

If I were to compile a list of 21 skills that:

1) I have little or no natural talent for
2) I am not currently good in (having not developed these skills actively)
3) I have never considered very important

then this list would look very similar to the skills listed in the book "The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership" by John C. Maxwell.

I love it! I'm like a sailor lost at sea who sees an unfamiliar coastline looming on the distant horizon. Land ahoy indeed!

Every single chapter in this book offers an opportunity for me to learn and grow. It's as if John Maxwell wrote down a self improvement program specifically tailored to me.

In the appendices, there's a questionnaire allowing you to quantify your leadership ability. I filled it in and identified the skills that I'm best in:

1) law of empowerment: delegating work to others, making sure they can do it, and then getting out of the way.
2) law of victory: doing whatever it takes to win
3) law of priorities: making sure you are doing only the important stuff
4) law of connection: keeping it human
5) law of solid ground: be open and truthfull always

In the coming weeks/months, I'm going to be focusing on developing these skills into strengths as the basis for my leadership. Of course they're only 5 of the 21 but as the book itself also mentions, always focus on the 20% that gives 80% of the rewards.

Themeparks, jogging, and life

2010-06-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

In the Efteling (theme park) they have a rollercoaster ride called "The Flying Dutchmen". The queue, which starts outside of the building, winds it way through a maze of small rooms inside until finally reaching the ride.

And this is annoying! Much more annoying than if the entire long queue were just visible at one glance. The reason is that each time you enter a new room, you hope that this is the last one. Then when it isn't you're dissapointed. But then of course you hope that this is really the last one... etc.

In contrast, when jogging you want a nice path winding through the woods with lots of twists and turns. Nothing is more discouraging than seeing an endless road stretch on before you into the distance, knowing that you'll have to run all that way. In the forest, you may have no idea how far you still need to go, but you can at least accomplish a smaller goal of reaching the next bend.

The difference between jogging and waiting in a queue? For the queue your goal is the ride, the queue is just an unfortunate necessity. For jogging, the goal is the jogging itself, where you end up isn't really all that important.

Ideally, life is like jogging in the forest, but all too often it feels like waiting in the queue.

SharePoint and automated testing

2010-06-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

SharePoint is a horrible platform to build applications on. And even more so to automate testing against, with the ui and the data layer so completely interwoven. Even more difficult is writing tests for code spaghetti already written on top of SharePoint by somebody else. Nevertheless, this is what I've been doing the last couple of weeks and actually having some fun with it too. Thought I might share some of the things I learnt.

As refactoring the existing spaghetti code was not an option, I ended up building automated acceptance and integration tests that had to deal explicitly with the SharePoint environment. There were few opportunities for unit tests but if I have time I'll definitely put them in place too.

TIP 1

First off, most existing spaghetti code on top of SharePoint will use the global SPContext.Current somewhere. Nasty, nasty, nasty... . Of course, this dependency should have been nicely injected into the object using it, but this is seldom the case. So to create a "fake" SPContext for testing purposes, use code along the lines of (see also here):

String url = "http://myhost.com/mysitecollection";
SPUserToken token;
using (SPSite site = new SPSite(url))
{
token = site.SystemAccount.UserToken;
}
SPSite site = new SPSite(url, token);
HttpRequest request = new HttpRequest("", url, "");
HttpContext.Current = new HttpContext(request, new HttpResponse(TextWriter.Null));
HttpContext.Current.Items["HttpHandlerSPWeb"] = site.OpenWeb();

Explanation: SPContext looks in the current HttpContext for a reference to the current SharePoint web site. We create a reference by using an existing site url, creating a site (collection) object for the url (impersonating the SystemAccount when we create it so that the tests will have access to lists etc), and finally getting the actual web site object for the url and storing it in HttpContext. Note: The HttpContext.Current we create is a dummy one but we do need an actual existing SharePoint site url.

Now this will get you started. Now you can create tests that call existing spaghetti code and not run into problems if this code calls SPContext.Current.

TIP 2

However, spaghetti SharePoint code often instatiates new SPSite objects left and right (to get access to lists for example) and this causes other problems.

Each time a new site is instantiated in the spaghetti code, it will "run" under the account you are using to run the automated tests. So not the SystemAccount we so nicely impersonated for the SPContext.Current above. Typically, the testing account will not have the necessary rights to do whatever the spaghetti code is trying to do (access lists more often that not). So, to solve this problem, run your test code with elevated privileges using code similar to:

SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate() {
// automated testing code that calls the existing spaghetti code
});

Running with elevated priviliges ensures that the test has full rights to do whatever it wants. Evil but it gets the job done.

TIP 3

A final tip. If you test code is going to get items from lists, update them and then save them back to the list, you're probably going to hit some errors regarding a HTTP GET not being allowed to do an update. This has to do with the fake HttpContext created above and the SharePoint security model. I didn't dive to deep here but the problem can typically be resolved by using code along the lines of:

web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
web.Update();

Here web is the web site you containing the lists you want to update. I just ended up adding this code to my automated tests if I hit the GET problem. But I'm sure there's a better solution out there (and if so, please tell me about it).

NOTES

1) A great thing about writing the automated tests was that I didn't have to attach my VS debugger to the wp3.exe process even once! I just ran (in debug mode if necesary) the tests, which speeded up my development significantly.

2) I initially built all my tests in vs2008 (using mstest) but at the end realized I couldn't run my test in acceptance environment without installing visual studio there completely! Since this is evil and NOT an option, I also made the tests run under NUnit as NUnit has a nice ui tool that can be easily installed (and deinstalled) on an acceptance environment. So I now had a test dll that could run in both testing frameworks and it cost very little extra work :-)

3) Of course, the above testing context is completely unsuited for testing any security functionality as it heavy handedly usurps full control to get the job done.

That's it for now. Happy SharePoint testing!

Freelance pitfalls

2010-04-01T05:17:00.000-07:00

Here a short list of some of the reocurring pitfalls that I have noticed during my 5 years of freelancing (a number of which I have fallen for at some point or another).

Taking the 1st job offer that comes along: ok, so you've just finished you're last job, or it's your last week, and there along comes a new job offer. Great! Grab it immediately and you're set for the next weeks/months. No financial worries, no need to network and do any sales. Great for business right? Wrong! If anything, if you find yourself always taking the 1st job that comes along then you're either not selective enough, not asking enough money, and/or have no long term strategy that you want to achieve. Besides, if you're like me, chances are one of the reasons you wanted to be a freelancer is to have more free time to do "stuff". If you're jumping from one job to the next without a break, you might as well get a full time job.

Trainings are a waste of time: Trainings are expensive! Not only do they cost money, they are also time you can't bill to a customer. That hurts twice as much (sort of like holidays). So, it's quite easy to skip doing any training and coast along on what you learn during paid jobs. If you find work then obviously there's no need for training, right? Wrong! Again, this is short term thinking. The most important asset in your company is you. If you don't invest in yourself then you are devaluating. Training broadens your scope, gives you new energy, and opens up new options. Would you work for a company that gave you no training. I don't think so. So don't let that company be you! If you realize it's been five years since you last took a training, then you're long overdue.

Fishing around for the perfect full time job: I used to have my c.v. on job boards while I was freelancing, just in case the "perfect" full time job came along. I mean, what could it hurt right? Wrong! This is an insidious one and it took me a while to realize it. It signifies you're not fully committed to freelancing and as a result, you will not achieve your maximum potential. The c.v. is a sort of safety net, if things go wrong I can always go back to a nice safe job. It's a placebo for freelance fear but a distracting one. What happens if a reasonable job comes along? It may not be perfecct but maybe you're inbetween work, or unhappy with your current customer, or... whatever. The job may suddenly seem tempting, and you go the interview, and you negotiate the price, and... then you realize you don't want give up freelancing and the freedom and the money, and.. then you start doubting, and etc... Basically, the c.v. is a distraction and a waste of time. It causes you to lose focus and will hamper your chance of success. Better to choose for freelancing and go for it 100%. That is the only way to make it work.

I want to build my own company: So there you are, a reasonably successfull freelancer for a number of years, with a couple of customers who like to use your services from time to time. But still, somethings missing. Wouldn't it be nice to have your own company, with employees working for you, so that you can grow, and get more clients, and take on bigger jobs. A company that you could sell when you get old to have a nice retirement pension. Great idea right? Wrong! Chances are that if you're a successfull freelancer, and you like it, then you're probably somebody who likes freedom and independence. This is the opposite of what a company brings you. Somebody who starts a company generally has a different personality profile than somebody who is successfull at freelancing. The urge for a company comes from financial fear for the future. What you really want is alot of money on the bank for your old age, not the hassle of having to run your own company.

Sticking around at a client: So you have a good working relationship with a customer and you've come back a number of times for jobs already but , the jobs are really not all that exciting. In fact, they're downright boring, you're not learning anything anymore, you're not really adding that much value to the customer, but you stick it out cause they pay well (and by the hour). Part of the job right? Wrong! You're the boss of your company. You determine what is part of the job. If you find that the desk chair is shaping itself to your contours and you've settled into a nice, cozy, safe routine, then it's probably time to move on. Otherwise, you're just a full time employee, only slightly better paid. Remember, a large part of your value as freelancer is being available!

Networking is scary: I'm a techy, geek, developer type and nothing scares me more than stepping into a room full of business suits and trying to mingle. I generally end up lost in some corner trying to look busy and/or interesting. Both of which I fail at miserably. Or at least, that's generally the mental image I have, and this is a big fat hurdle I have to overcome every time I go to anything remotely networkish. Stands to reason then that I find plenty of excuses not do to any networking. But you have too. And when you do, it always turns out ok. Maybe not brilliant but I find I always end up speaking to a number of interesting people, learning some new ideas, and gaining some energy. It may all not really help my business directly, but I always feel good afterwards. Sort of like fitness, which I never feel like doing, but I never regret afterwards.

Another 2 book reviews

2010-03-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

Lean software development: An agile toolkit, by Mary & Tom Poppendieck

Great book! Definitely choc a bloc full of really usefull information. This is a book I'll be returning to many times and each time I will probably learn something new. Alot of the stuff needs hands on experience first to really understand the value of what has been written down but I'm definitely eager to get started right away.

------------------------------

User stories applied: for agile software development, by Mike Cohn

A pleasant, easy read. Nothing very shocking but good to have on paper to grab for reference. there is quite a bit of padding to the book, it could have been a bit thinner without having lost value I feel.

Two book reviews

2010-03-15T12:46:00.001-07:00

Test driven development: by example (Kent Beck)

An easy read (also quite thin). Didn't learn too much new but the later sections/appendixes that list refactoring patterns were quite interesting (I hadn't read about them before but I sure recognised some of them!).

Growing object-oriented software, guided by tests (Steve Freeman, Nat Pryce)

Sometimes a tad theoretic, sometimes a tad too practical. The automated testing of the user interface (reading value of label for example) is too extreme for my tastes but it was impressive to see it done. Great book to learn about mocking and mock objects! After all, Steve and Nat helped build jmock. It also expanded my ideas of TDD. I was to focused on unit tests but this book broadened my scope to include tests at every level and not to get too hung up with terminology.

Birthday greeting kata in C# .Net

2010-02-23T11:17:00.001-08:00

One of the katas that I have recently had the pleasure of finding and trying out is the birthday greeting kata by Matteo Vaccari. It's a great exercise in what I have termed "refounding" of existing software (see an earlier post). Here is an opportunity to take existing code, refactor, and add unit tests.

Now I'm no java expert and although I had fun playing around with Eclipse, I felt more like a toddler learning to take it's first steps than a kung fu code master (not that I am that either mind you). So I decided to have some fun and port the code to C# .Net. If you're interested you can find it here (Visual Studio 2008 unit testing).

Have fun :-)

Refound your software

2010-02-16T01:04:00.000-08:00

I've experienced first hand how making any changes to existing in use software can be a nightmare. Complaints from the business that each new change seems to take longer, cost more, and lead to new bugs are well justified. Why is this? Well scrum has taught me all about technical debt, and how this leads to increasing problems as the life of the software lengthens. So obviously, next time I'll do it better!

But for now, for all those companies with existing software suffering from technical debt, what about them? Well, I like the concept of "refounding" or rennovating them. So don't throw the software away and start over. This is much to risky, costly, and time consuming. Instead, whenever a change needs to be made to the software use the following steps to refound safely:

- create tests (most likely not unit tests) for the code that will be changed and make sure that they run (green).

- refactor the code to improve the structure and allow unit test to be created (enabling mocking is an important one here). Do this is small steps and make sure that after each step all tests as still green.

- then make the desired changes that triggered all this (be it a bug fix or a new feature etc). Of course, use test driven development here, and again make sure all tests stay green during the process.

This way, the software is improved slowly step by step, but only in the areas a change was desired anyway. So the entire software is not refounded, only the parts driven by business value. Most likely, 80% of all the changes will focus on 20% of the code. So refounding is a low risk, driven by business values approach to improving existing software. I think this will go a long way to lengthening the life span of existing software.

Agile books

2010-02-09T11:33:00.000-08:00

My first agile/scrum book was "Succeeding with agile" by Mike Cohn. At the time, I was looking for an introduction to Scrum. This book was not it. The book is all about how to introduce scrum into your organization, so it assumes you know what scrum is and preferably have had some experience with it. That being said, I learnt everything I needed to know about scrum as I read it. In addition, as a bonus, I immediately also learnt the troubles one is likely to encounter in the "real" world with scrum: organizations that say "great, but not for us" or managers that are scared for their job, etc. So in short, it actually worked out for me.

Today I received my 2nd book: "Test driven development: by example", by Kent Beck. I'm very eagre to get started as test driven development is one of the key XP elements that works so well together with scrum, but one that few organizations (I have seen) are doing.

I have also ordered the following books to complete my agile library (for now, but I'm open to other suggestions!):

Lean software development: An agile toolkit, by Mary & Tom Poppendieck

Extreme programming explained: Embrace change, by Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres

User stories applied: for agile software development, by Mike Cohn

Test driven development workshop

2010-02-02T12:55:00.001-08:00

The company I'm currently working for is interested in starting up with Scrum but finding it difficult to make headway. As a start, they've decided to start familiarizing themselves with some of the agile and scrum elements. For example, they asked me to prepare a Test Driven Development (TDD) workshop for them so that they could gain a better understanding of what the benefits are.

Not being an experienced TDDer either, I googled the great StingCalculator Kata by Roy Osherove and prepared this. I found this to be a great kata for TDD because:
1) it allows for incremental building of tests and functionality (triangulation)
2) it quickly demonstrates the value of refactoring and reuse of code
3) you can easily hit red when going for the Obvious Implementation (fast) and so it forces you to go back to Fake It and Traingulation (slow).

I also made a short introduction to TDD and this Kata.

Scrum but not software

2010-01-28T11:24:00.000-08:00

During the scrum master course, Jeff mentioned that he was working with a venture capitalist firm that was using scrum internally. This triggered me because as a developer, I'm familiar with scrum for building software. But here was a company using scrum that was definitely not building software. Of course, I really shouldn't have been that surprised. Most of the principles underlying scrum seem to have come from how Toyota builds cars.

Intrigued, I read the paper by Jeff on this company: "Take no prisoners". From this I learnt that even project driven companies, with multiple project managers each working on their own project, can still benefit from implementing scrum. It's a bumpy road and things are much less clear than they are for a software company, but the principles stay the same.

The difficulties for the company discussed in the paper seem to center around getting "done" and "ready" defined. And to do this, they have had to reorganize the way they work. Obviously a commited team over there. Other problems center around creating overlapping expertise within the scrum teams. Initially, everyone has their own projects, so there is little or no overlap. But in time this seems to have grown and improved, allowing for greater efficiency.

The good news is that this company is seeing productivity double+ (and with less working hours). So maybe there's hope yet for all you over worked managers out there!

Certified scrum master!

2010-01-26T12:04:00.000-08:00

Five years ago I started my own IT company JanXL. Since then I haven't been without freelance work unless I chose to be. Which is great :-)

But I realized I hadn't been to a course in over 5 years as well. So it was time to talk to management (me). After all, a good company invests in it's employees. Luckily, it was an easy sell, which is why, come last thursday, I found myself in a room of 40+ IT people all hanging on the lips of scrum founder Jeff Sutherland.

It was great! Despite the course consisting mainly of 2 full days of slides , Jeff is the real deal and he told from personal experience which kept it interesting. Luckily, there were a few exercises and games. The scrum master course was organized by Xebia who also organize the scrum meetup nl (next one is februari 4 in Hilversum).

So now I'm a scrum convert, certified scrum master, member of the agile alliance, and eager to go out an preach the agile gospel.

Which is why I started this blog. To chronicle my agile adventures (or lack thereof).

Wish me luck :-)