Benefits of Hackathon and how to plan

Next week I am volunteering for the HackNight by Microsoft Ventures to represent NowFloats. I would have loved if the "word" hack means "share your idea" but unfortunately  it means "to reduce or cut ruthlessly". To etiolate it I decided to take some effort from my side. Hence sharing some thoughts around Hack days which can help others.  

The "word" Hackathon was coined by Sun Microsystems around 1999.Now most of the tech companies have Hackthon (hack day), but why?. Attending hacks makes one look geeky, get some goodies, a nice T-shirt may be, a photograph with tech magnet, this is obvious. Beyond this hack days helps techies in many ways. To make most of the Hackthon preparing well is pre-requisite.  

Benefits of hack day for techies 

1. Build Next Big What: Hack days are like going to place of worship. It builds a environment in which your thoughts is streamlined by like minded people. This will help you to refine your thoughts/ideas or may be give new direction to your thoughts. Who knows your idea is next big thing! GroupMe and PhoneGap came out of Hackdays! .May be you will meet your "Angel" there.
2. Ship it : There is lot of difference between having an idea or coding it and shipping it. In Hackday you have to Ship it. Hackdays helps you understand the importance of shipping the product in given time and the challenges in doing so.
3. Gulp More : Learning new technologies, new ways of doing things or other soft skills is also major benefit for techies attending the event.
4. Meet people : There are two kind of people whom you will meet in hack-days
1. Veterans/Experts/Evangelist in industry : There will be experts attending the event to enable you to do your Hack. Go and talk with them and connect with them during breaks. Also most of the hack-days start/end with interactive session with technical leaders. Students will get chance to meet potential employer.
2. Peer Group :You will meet lot of like-minded people. Meet new people and form teams. I am sure there will be a take away for you
5. Foot loose : It is a break from your daily routines. It is as good as going for fishing in a nearby lake. Just enjoy it even if you don't catch any fish.  

Preparing for the Hack day event 

1. Know it all : Understand well what is the intent behind the hack day. Prepare by making notes and how your idea is aligning with the scope and expected output.
2. Miniscule project scope: Keep it practical, don't dream of building complicated scenarios. Keep it very simple.  First make it work, keep a copy and make it pretty by adding features. If you ask me only one thing that should be taken care then it is this. The concept of MVP revolves around this.
3. Learn :Go through the API or Frameworks which you have to use in the hack-day if any. You might have to brush up technologies/framework to use in the hack-day.
4. Business value : The judges will ask usually questions regarding business value of the hack. So please prepare for that.
5. Preinstall :Preinstall any software you require. Also test any other devices like phone or any  hardware your planning to use.
6. Reuse :Try to use UI templates, library, your old code, open source or any code from other forums. Nobody is worried about originality of the code in the hack day.
7. Hack-mate: Find like-minded people and if possible with slightly varying skills like UI, Design other than coding skills. In hack day everybody in team should code.
8. Tummy full: Drink lot of water and eat food. Dehydration can affect your task in hand.
9. Connectivity: Usually the venue will get crowed and leads to Wi-Fi connectivity issue. Keep your mobile phone with data connection/data-card/other means as backup.
10. Last but not least :Take a print out of your registration notification/email if any so that you don't struggle once you reach the venue.

Beyond 24 hours of sweat: 

1. Connect with peers and take forward the Idea if you think it can go beyond Hack day. Most big companies got build under small ideas.
2. Send e-mail/Add to LinkedIn people you met in the event.
3. Add the Hack event to your resume.
4. Make a notes of things which you want to learn in detail after the hack day and learn it.

 

So best of lucks all the Hackers of the world!

Software development process in Startups

In software development we always start with “Hello World”. We never start with “ABC”. My little one was watching "fruit train" today and this made me think about it. Sometimes we jump into “Hello World” without learning ABC. A dev team for startup is different. How you build it defines most of the tech startups.  

When I thought about process of software development it got outlined as mixture of process and principles. Following is what I discovered.

Agile Process:

The mission statement of our dev team is “Quick with Quality”. We cannot choose one from either of them. This is also one of the reason “People matters” (See my earlier blog). Recruiting the right people will enable you achieve both.

Development process makes quality of deliverables from all the team members agonistic of quality of the people. Common mistakes are avoided by following process. I think if you have right team with business acumen, need for strict process reduce drastically. And building that team is what it takes.

Mostly testing is ignored in early stage start-ups which leads to demo syndrome* and poor quality. This also leads to team getting randomized with lot of bug fixes. Following will help to improve quality and efficiency:

Buddies in team:

1.       Testing each other’s code :Testing improves quality and product understanding.

2.       Avoid single point of failure: At least two developers knows the code and configurations. This will come handy for you in many ways in development and business practice.

Automate: Whenever you have time automate the testing as much as possible. Start by writing Build Verification Test (BVT) and move towards Unit Testing(UT). Start the practice before your code base becomes very large.

Sandbox environment: It is very important to build a sandbox testing environment. Everything works in developer’s box**.Virtual environments is means to reduce the cost.

Scrum: Daily standup meeting are very critical to keep the team focused and achieve the mile stones. As advocated by Scrum Gurus keep it brief and precise. Keep the sprints as short as possible. Maintain backlog of the all the requirements and feedbacks. 

Source control, reviews and testing should be mandated even for small teams.

Business validation process:

In startup the software development team should be integrated to product, customer engagement and sales team. Business development and software development can’t be separated. It is very important for leaders to define purpose and principles of the start-up and make sure that team knows about it. If developer is doing something other than core business, Stop!. It doesn't mean stop innovating, it means focus.

When you reduce the barrier between dev and other teams the inevitable side effect are following:

• Team getting randomized by others teams
• Lot of noise-business requirements from other team.

It is very critical for dev leader to make sure that it doesn't go to this extent.

When it comes to features to implement its a haywire. Pick your right battle at right time. Pick the "Right" features for the customer rather than allowing customer to pick the "Right" feature. This task is very difficult than most of us think, especially if your audience is diverse. The above doesn't mean you don't listen to customer. Following practice might help.

• Problem Validation: Does the problem exist for wide audience.
• Feedback Analysis: Filter the noise from customer feedback. And prioritize the feedback.
• Product Validation: Do you want to solve the problem now or guide customer towards some existing solution. It might include suggesting your competitor or other solution providers.This is tough for most of us.

In spite of the speed of development, uniformity among different components, intuitiveness of the eco- system, focus on the problem and value add should not be derailed.

Don’t develop features which you like. "Disconnect” yourself, listen to the market and solve the most important problem. After all you’re not going to use it, your customers are.

Continuous development process:

When you are travelling very fast small mistakes get amplified with time. Continues feedback and corrective actions doesn't have any substitute. Earlier you listen to feedback and fix it less catastrophic it will be.

Following helps in continues development and deployment:

Continues deployment: Integrate as often as possible in the sandbox environment. Let each developer take pride about not breaking the integration environment. There should be daily continuous deployments to sandbox.

Continuity plan: A startup needs business continuity plan. It can be simple but there should be a plan.

Enable the team: Once you have right team, enable the team. We don’t have robots to do software development yet. Come back to reality. Acknowledge that people make mistakes. They need higher purpose to work in startup. Allow them to make decisions, allow them to make mistakes, allow them to interact with business as required. Don't be overprotective about what you developed from scratch. The team should run without you …period.

Build Operable system: Build software which gives you continues feedback from system and business perspective. I have discussed this in detail earlier.

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* Demo syndrome : Your application never works when you go for demo with client or leaders..
** Dev box : Developers computer. 

 

 

Traits of Rock Star Software Engineer

Question: Who you want to hire for your team?

Answer: A Rock Star Software Engineer.

I am at a juncture where I started thinking about forming the “A team”. We all know the importance of “P”. Fortunately I have had the privilege to work with real “Rock Stars”. I pinned all the traits which is common to all those.

Tagline of great companies reflects what they stand for. Thought it will be a great Idea to map them to traits of a “Rock Star”.

I’m lovin’ it (McDonald's)

They love what they do. All good programmers are passionate artist. Artist’s gives utmost importance to the details, perfection and finishing touch. Takes pride in their code.

Look for good story tellers. When you read their code you feel like you are reading a story. Story will be very precise and concise. Good documentation, unit test and following fundamental principles of software engineering will be quiet natural for them.

Evaluation: Ask how you will mentor a new joinee into a good software engineer. Ask for importance of unit test, principles and a practical stories.

Just Do it (Nike)

For Agile working environment we need rock stars who can just do it. No non-sense. They will find ways to do it rather than ways of not doing it.

No reinventing the wheel. They will do it the smartest way. (Design pattern, framework, copy code)

Just do it also means they learn quickly and take tasks to the finish line.

Evaluation: Ask about application of patterns and reasons of selecting frameworks. Ask about an experience of doing something out of comfort zone.

Think Different (Apple)

They have business acumen. They are not code factory. They know what they do. They will have understanding of the bigger picture. They ask difficult questions and have to be themselves convinced before doing it. They think different and come up with simple and innovative solution.

Evaluation: Ask about projects end to end workflow and business value. Check if he is asking questions to clarify and does story telling. Give a problem which sounds complex and look for the approach.

Imagine it Done (Unisys)

Imagine it, consider it done. Great problem solving skills are essential. Approaching the problem in a disciplined manner is trait which make them different. No follow-up is required. They will make sure that the whole team is orchestrated and informed.

Evaluation: Look at the approach of problem solving. Ask about deployment and co-ordination with other teams.

Because You're Worth It (L'Oréal)

Confidence is the super trait they possess. They knows how much they are worth. You get what you have paid for. Money is not the only thing which attracts them they believe in something and they stand for it.

More number of developers are not equivalent to a Rock star. For that matter sometimes they are irreplaceable.

Evaluation: Is he begging Or He know what he wants. Confidence comes with knowledge and trust. Don’t confuse with great communication skills.

Betcha Can't Eat Just One (Lays)

They are curious people. They are aware of latest news in technology or internals of how things. They learned internals of operating system because they want to not because they have to. Data structures and algorithms will be in their blood (or will derive solutions from basic understanding towards existing principles).

When they don’t know they listen. They will not make others feel they know everything.

They will have projects which is not related to work. They always learn, imagine and innovate and do things differently. No complaints about absence of challenging work.

Evaluation: Ask problem solving question with application of data structures and algorithms. Observe if they listens, questions, and disagrees if required. Ask about contribution to open source or stretch projects or community contributions. (Gist?)

Connecting People (Nokia)

They are not ball of mud. They connect people. Rock stars believes that by mentoring and helping others you can add more brains and hands to yours.

They get things done. Again! They are not just code factory. They also helps software community in some way or other (Blogs, forums, open source).

But call them for a movie they might not come J

Evaluation: By now you know that.

Conclusion

You will get geeks, nerds.. but they are rare…The Rock stars!