3 ways to easily eliminate software bugs

Haircut for our software bugs?

Our chief nerd Comrade Carl Marks held an "all hands" meeting following the decision to resolve the Greek debt crisis. The moment that Comrade Carl read the news that the crisis was "water under the bridge on the Danube" , he took out his megaphone and  herded his motley troops into the "Comrade General Zhukov Conference Room".

Behind Carl on a huge screen was a chart listing the 48,955 software bugs, 45% of which impact client revenue. The chart was in Russian, Chinese, Urdu, Tamil, Hindi, Hebrew and German. Yes, we have a new nerd named Lisl from Munich.

And then Carl spoke:

Kibinimat, I demand that 30% of this software bug list be administratively reduced, while another 43% of the bugs be re-branded as features.

If the Greeks can do it, so can we. 

Let's all rebel against the list of bugs, and topple HR while we are at it. We have 4 good arguments on our side-

1. The bugs are defined by clients who lack sophistication. 
2. The bugs' impact  are amplified due to sommerloch.
3. These clients have add no real value to the technology supply chain.
4. Kibinimat, we need to innovate and not focus on satisfaction. That's HR and Sales' role.

Then Comrade Carl pointed at me and said, "Gloria is the greatest, but she should dismantle HR and go back to Canada, kibinimat".

All the nerds stood up and applauded. Many of these nerds did not understand the Comrade's speech, but nevertheless support his leadership, despite what is written in wimpy management articles.

Software products are like unripe bananas

Ripe and mature

Comrade Carl Marks astounded our senior leadership team today in our weekly meeting. On the agenda were the following issues

  1) Cost savings

  2) Restructuring of debt

  3) People Day picnic

  4) Why our sales team is so useless
  5) Digital detox

The comrade asked for "a few seconds" before we get down to the mundane agenda issues. Then Carl took out a megaphone, stood up and explained to all of the assembled that "good internet of things software is like an unripe banana.....it matures and become ripe after it is purchased. Kibinimat, why do we all talk about pleasing our unappreciative clients. We need to shape their expectations, using big data".

Now we were all in a small room and there was no need for a megaphone. So CEO Stan told me: "Gloria take that god damn megaphone away from Comrade Carl". I was texting my sister and did not hear Carl, who went on bellowing. 

I incurred Stan's wrath, which means anger. (Lots of people read my blog who don't speak English all that well).

Then Carl said, "HR's role is to recruit sales talent which can sell unripe bananas. Who cares about diversity? Who cares about payroll? Who gives a rat's ass about process or zenga zenga? If Gloria and her lackeys cannot recruit the appropriate sales force, I will set up a union. Kibinimat, HR and Sales is the root cause of our problems!"

Then Carl sat down, threw me a kiss, and offered all team members an unripe banana. This, he said, is in line with our core value of "inclusion".

Wrath, not Roth 

Leadership, zenga zenga and the blockchain

Zenga zenga-kibinimat

When I studied HR at the Secretary's Academy in Montreal, I also took a 2 minute online course about change management. So I was almost fully prepared for what happened last week.

Our chief nerd Comrade Carl Marks claimed that leadership was all about leading slowly from behind.  
However one day later, turning on a dime,  Comrade Carl Marks announced that he would quickly debug all our software within a week, hands on, "zenga zenga".

The change occurred when CEO Stan got a call from a Danish  client, who claimed that Comrade Carl's latest software release caused a 14 hour power outage all over Copenhagen. Carl's software release had 4,087,675 bugs, and the client demanded immediate action.  

Stan told Comrade Carl to "fix the god damn bugs or I shall deport you to Albania or South Africa, where YOU will live in darkness, you idiot. Now get the f—k out of my office and fix the bugs".

Immediately Comrade Carl urgently convened all his nerds and geeks (20% of whom speak English) for a "working lunch", to launch the Zenga Zenga Quality Software Campaign, or the ZZQSC.

Speaking with accent that vacillated between Russian and Egyptian, Comrade Carl started off introducing a musical video geared at increasing engagement, zenga zenga.  (I loved the music, in line with my core value of loving music).

After the engagement video, Comrade Carl gave what he called his zenga zenga pep talk in Russian-accented English, sprinkling Arabic words liberally throughout. 
The agitated nerds stopped texting and listened carefully, especially when the Comrade bellowed, "Pizdetz -eradicate all priority bugs, line by line, end to end, and zenga zenga".

Hugh White from Diversity told me that  Comrade was inspired by a famous speech in which a great (yet dead) leader vowed to hunt down rabble rousers "inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alleyway by alleyway ( زنقة زنقة ), or zenga zenga.

After his speech, Comrade Carl came into my room holding a book on blockchains, smoking a joint and said- "Christ, Gloria, I should get the Academy Award for that. By the way, HR is useless but you are the greatest slogan master ever. Help me with this zenga zenga campaign. Stan has a hormonal disorder, kibinimat".

I promised Comrade Carl that bots,  big data and AI  (our banner slogans) will be replaced with zenga zenga within 48 hours. This is in line with my core value of slogan replacement. 

I wonder what that blockchain book is all about!

Leading from behind

Leading from behind

CEO Stan asked all of us to "describe your leadership style" in our leadership team meeting. Stan was inspired by Wifey having read a new leadership magazine article and having been nagged all night by his brainy wife.

The first to speak up was Comrade Carl Marks, our chief nerd and "agile system architect" as he now calls himself. 

Comrade Carl has the tendency to speak for a long time, vacillating from an American to a Russian accent and then back, sprinkling his speech with references to internet of things and Russian swear words like kibinimat. 
After a few minutes of Carl's rambling, Stan started snoring and I began texting my sister.

However, I did pick up the essence of what Carl said.

• I see no problem that one software release has 45 different releases  for various clients. After all, the world is agile.
• Documentation does not need to be in English, especially since no one except HR and Sales speaks English. What's the problem with documentation in Hungarian, Danish, Turkish or Hebrew? Kibinimat, this is a global world.
• My style is leading from behind. My clients know where they want me to go. My nerds listen to client murmuring and they write code. I am a system architect, and I lead from behind. This is the beauty of my style.
• Zenga zenga is only for the hardware gang.

When Stan heard "leading from behind", he woke up and bellowed at Comrade Carl, "Jesus Comrade Carl, you sound like you are driving US foreign policy in the Mid East". 

Then Stan said to me, "Gloria, get Comrade Carl a new coach. Pronto." 

When I asked Hugh White (the straight white boy from Diversity) what he thought of leading from behind, he told me, "leave me out of this, Gloria"

Hugh was evasive

Religious holidays should not impact software delivery deadlines

Hugh White-intimidated

The hue of   Hugh White's skin (Head of Diversity) was whiter than ever when he left our CEO's office today. To quote White, "I prefer the bullying any day of my wife, Comrade Ludmilla White (nee Khrushchev), to the bullying of your poisonous boss, Ma'am". 

I may not have mentioned before that Hugh calls me Ma'am. Hugh is from Utah.

It appears that the naive Hugh updated CEO Stan about the various religious holidays negatively impacting our scheduled software deliveries. Instead of obfuscating issues with a few slogans, Hugh spoke truth to power. Armed with excessive details about North Korea's Communication Day (8/4) and Public Health Day  (5/4), as well as the Easter (universal) and Passover (Jewish) holidays, Hugh told Stan that next week is a "lost work week. But at least we are diversity compliant".

CEO Stan flew into a rage pretty which reminded me of the You Tube about  how angry Hitler became when Twitter went down. 

Stan threw Hugh out of his office, and called me to ask me if I like my company car (a Honda Insight) and my seat at the leadership table. Heavens, what a question. Is the Pope Catholic? Do the Faroe Islands belong to Denmark?  I replied in the affirmative.

Stan told me to "thin out the number religious holidays NOW, or your goose is cooked, Ramsbottom. This is not a temple, it's a system house that delivers quality software".

I walked back to my room pondering what Stan had requested. I passed by Comrade Carl Marks (our chief nerd) who was ranting and raving that "the domination of the west is over due to the spineless Americans. We should move our HQ to Tehran. Gloria, you will  need to cover your shapely legs up, because in Tehran women cover themselves and shut up".

On days like this, I wish big data had all the answers; I also wish Hugh was less "transparent" and more agile, and Carl was more normal.

Next year, in Tehran

Aligning with common sense

HR's role is to maintain a civil dialogue in English and ensure sanity.

The fact that our newest product is not "stable" is causing a non wow nightmare. Our product has 30,987 revenue impacting bugs. Most of our treacherous client base wish to uninstall it.

Chief nerd Comrade Carl Mark's personality was never all that stable to begin with. This crisis has made things worse. Comrade Carl Marks claims that product bugs are a result of rumor mongering, not big data.

And Comrade Carl  is convinced that the lack of product stability is a service issue, not an engineering problem. 

There is also a linguistic problem in R&D which impacts product quality, if you ask me. Carl's staff is 39% Russian, and the rest of the engineers are Indians, Chinese and Middle Easterners. Very  people actually understand the English language product specs.....and this explains a lot of product issues, from an HR perspective.

Two hours each day, Comrade Carl has been seen reading a book on the Mossad, which is a foreign version of the infamous and evil KGB, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the defunct Scorpions, and the beloved CIA. Comrade Carl apparently believes our clients can be "convinced"  into believing our product is "a pearl".

Our CEO Stan believes that an HR intervention is needed to "straighten Comrade Carl out" so that he will not wait for miracles, but fix the bugs! Stan instructed me to hire more English speaking engineers because he believes that "people who speak English well generally have more common sense." Hugh White (a white heterosexual) from Diversity disagrees.

The ladies of HR and Hugh White from Diversity started enforcing our global "English Language  Only" policy in the cafeteria, to get more traction around aligning ourselves with common sense.

I may need a vendor with a background in psychiatry and appreciative inquiry, who works pro bono.

On one hand-will Blockchain Andy solve this one for me?

I need to think-and it is painful.

Executive Vice President of R&D Comrade Carl Marks' personality started to disintegrate after the release of our newest product which has 55,988 revenue impacting bugs.
Comrade Carl said that our "product is a pearl :  unsophisticated clients can go fuck themselves". Then he decided to take two weeks off "to do some banking in the Caribbean. 

Our CEO Stan hopes that I can help "re-integrate" the Comrade back to reality, in line with my core values of realignment.  

In a rare moment of transparency, our CEO Stan sent me a text acknowledging a wellbeing issue: "what can be done with Comrade Carl-he made need help, such as cost-effective coaching!"

A word about Comrade Carl-Carl's R&D team consists of Indians, Thais, Israelis,  Russians, Ukrainians and one old South African comrade named de Villiers.  Only 74% of the team understand him sometimes. Why? Well, Comrade Carl is a weirdo! American born and bred Marks not only speaks Russian most of the time with his team, but even when he speaks English, he has adopted a thick Russian accent. (for example, he mispronounces big data as "pik dayta").  

I could go on and on, but I won't in line with my core values of not going on and on. Carl does indeed need help of the HR ilk. I have several options:

On one hand, I could help Comrade Carl by providing him with coaching with my bare hands. I am a seasoned HR business partner, and coaching could have been my middle name.

On the other hand, I could hire a cost-effective coach, who may prove to be disloyal and undermine HR's professional authority.

On the third hand, I could dither and  enable Comrade Carl to fail, in line with my core value of self preservation.

My Dad, Pierre Elliot, used to say, "Gloria, mon chou, people do not have three hands".

I will sleep on this for a while and consult my blockchain named Andy. 

My tendency is to let nature take its course, given Comrade Carl's non wow attitude to HR.

From a hostile to a civil working environment- in three short steps

Ms Axe has this sign on her desk

The results of the second quarter indicate that whilst out new product has been released, the number of purchase orders we have received is "semi-sustainable". 

To make matters even less wow, the number of bugs that engineering is dealing with is overwhelming. Some would call our situation "big data"-driven.

Instead of dealing this non now situation, Comrade Carl Marks, SVP Engineering, is said to be in Kiev learning Ukrainian. His personality appears to be disintegrating.

From an HR perspective, I must "adjust costs to reality" , as CEO Stan so aptly puts in. This is where having an HR business partner comes in handy!

My Cynthia Axe, who heads our Early Bird Retirement Plan, has thus received new quotas; she needs to fire 300 staff by the end of this week.  

I am not pleased by Ms Axe`s style as of late. One would think Ms Cynthia Axe is French, since she is threatening to ``strike``, not in the usual sense of the term.

Cynthia`s role has caused a "hostile working environment", claims a lawyer who has nothing better to do than sue us. I need to be in court on Thursday!

In order to promote a wow environment before I appear in court, I have introduced some process changes to ensure that our environment is civil.

1) Ms Axe will be holding her ax when each employee enters her room, so there is no undue anxiety due to dilly dallying.

2) A voice enabled Danish HR robot will have a `severance` discussion with each  employee to lessen anxiety.

3) In order to ensure Ms Axe works and does not send text messages, a new sign has been posted opposite her desk.

Causing a hostile environment

When a product fails, leaders often suffer from acute stress

Завтра завтра

Our beloved but eccentric Emerging Technologies VP Comrade Carl Marks, suffers from managerial hallucination and identity confusion. Why? Well, our new semi wow product hit the market with 39,986 revenue impacting bugs. The product collapses when more than 5 users are logged in.

Furthermore, we are getting semi wow press reviews. Due to customer complaints, our law firm has advised us that they will raise their retainer from 10 hours to 600 hours monthly.

In our management meeting today, Comrade Carl was mumbling to himself in Russian! 

Our furious CEO Stan asked Comrade Carl 3 questions in front of all of us:

  1-What is the detailed road map for bug fixes?

  2-When will Comrade Carl hire people who speak English?

  3-Comrade Carl, are you under the ``influence``?

Comrade Carl kept mumbling to himself in Russian, saying zavtra zavtra. No one knew what he meant. 

Stan told Comrade Carl to "speak English, for Christ sake, because no one speaks Russian except a few Russians and the Israeli foreign minister."

Comrade Carl got up to address the management team, and showed us all a slide which said: Завтра завтра, не сегодня" - так ленивцы говорят.

Then Comrade Carl said that he wants the management team to focus on the real issue: "what is the value of HR if they cannot recruit some service people to solve these minor service issues"?

Comrade Carl did not wait for an answer-he went to the parking lot, and smoked a joint with his team along with Sanjay, Sanjay, Sanjay, Svetlana, Svetlana, and Mike.

Stan sent me a text: "Glo, Comrade Carl needs coaching"

Ciboire, maison de fous

HR asked to deal with a "service" issue because Comrade Carl forgot his medicine this morning.

Another weekend is ruined

My dearest Gloria,

I never told you face to face, but I think you are both agile, wise and cunning, a smashing combination for an HR manager. This is big data!

In my opinion, HR brings more value than Supply Chain, thanks to your agile nature.

Our new product is about to be deployed; a quality audit suggests that we have a few bugs (34,980), of which only 8 can impact our clients' revenue.

I wanted to inform you that we in R&D have finished developing this product, and will transfer responsibility over to a new product deployment team in Customer Service. 

As our agile HR business partner, please recruit the appropriate nerds and staff up where necessary. I will lend a "helping hand" once you bring me a candidate to lead this effort. Basically, the product is now a "service issue".

In two weeks, my staff will hand over the product documentation, which is being written up by an engineer in Kiev who has some English skills. (I know this engineers' sister.)

Our CEO Stan thinks these plans of mine are "solid". Stan does not believe R&D needs to be involved in any more grunt work on this emerging technology.

Two more things, Glo. I think Cynthia Axe's cleavage is too pronounced. And don't you think that having a White heterosexual run Diversity is a bit biased? Spasiba!

Comrade Carl Marks

Senior Vice President R&D

Follow me @GRamsbottom

Looking for Japan Expert

I am a pleasure to work with

CEO Stan is off to Japan on a business trip.His mission (Stan loves that word which I planted in his vocabulary) is to convince a Japanese trading company to sell our "emerging" technology.

Stan believes that based on our axe-perience in Cuba, Bolivia, Chad, Pago-Pago and Indonesia, there is huge growth potential in Japan.

Stan called in a Japan business consultant who told Stan things he did not want to hear:

1-The utmost importance of quality

2-The use of a reputable reference point

3-Focus on building credibility, reliability and hard work, not bragging about a future technological capability.

Stan fired the consultant, using the services of an ultra cruel Ms Cynthia Axe, who chased the consultant out of our offices, whilst throwing rotten eggs in his direction.

I am now looking for a cost effective consultant who "mission" is "to convince the Japanese trading company to listen closely to Stan and take more risks." 

We pay by barter, within 120 days.