Posts Tagged Business
Why buy an iPad and where does it fit in to the market place ?
Posted by Craig_Strong in Product Reviews, Tech Headlines, Technology / Hardware on January 30th, 2010
Finally the long awaited iPad has has been released. For quite some time people had speculated what the device was going to be and what it would be capable of. This has been followed by some passionate underlying debates for what it should and needs to be for consumers. Well the device has been released, which has been met predictably by a mixed reception with continued debate. Following such debates, the key point of confusion standing out is people are unsure where an iPad fit’s into their lifestyle. This is the question I am trying answer from my own perspective and lifestyle, suggesting where an iPad would mainly suit me.
iPad doesn't replace PC's or smart phones
Being a Software Developer/IT Manager by profession I have pretty much access to a computer/device of some description most places I visit on a day to day basis. I currently use a ‘G1 Android phone’, have a ‘macbook’ for working on the move, iMac at home, and have a Vista machine at work, not to mention access to several remote linux servers holding my information. I also have an xbox360 which is linked to my media linked to the TV. With all these devices around me where would an iPad fit in and why would I want one?
To understand where an iPad would fit into my lifestyle, I have to look at my daily patterns and highlight where I waste time with a little ‘lean’ thinking. Pretty much most of the day I’m in front of a computer and I clearly don’t see and iPad as a suitable replacement/substitute for what I use these devices for. When relaxing in front of the TV, listening to music via the xbox360 and iMac, I don’t see and iPad offering anything against these devices. I certainly don’t want a 10 inch device to replace my mobile phone unless I was aiming to block out the sun. So what gap is leftwithin my daily lifestyle pattern?
Well looking at my daily patterns I quickly identified somewhere where I am wasting time which could be improved. As part of my day, I regular attend Scrum meetings, meetings with 3rd parties, and am often called for quick consultation from various parts of the business. Most of the time these can be quick meetings lasting no longer than 10-20 minutes. When called for any of these tasks, I find myself picking up my A4 notepad, rushing into a room and writing notes. Most of the time I then type up key points of the meeting on my PC. Sometimes however with interruptions I miss the odd one or two and end up being chased up by others where I have to then play catch up. For me, this is where I see an iPad fitting into my lifestyle.
If I could turn to the iPad rather than an A4 notepad this would mean I could take more information everywhere, makes notes once and most importantly of all for me is to free up my time. An iPad offers 10 hours of battery life and can stay on standby for a month! It is small, lightweight and quick to turn on and off which makes it a perfect fit to replace my A4 notepad replacement. I can make notes and pass it around the room with others to share information such as diagrams, images or notes, as easily as passing around sheets of paper. I have a macbook, but there is no way I could get it to fill this gap like an iPad could, otherwise believe me I would be already doing it. It’s overkill, less mobile, slower to turn on and involves launching full blown software packages. This is enough to say no and the A4 notepad has won every time. On the same note where I would use my macbook and smartphone, an iPad wouldn’t be a replacement for these. My macbook is good at being a macbook and provides me with the ability to have a mobile computer for developing code, running VM’s etc. My smartphone is too much of a compromise with such a small screen. Therefore I’m very glad Apple decided to make the iPad exactly what it is without a full OS trying to compete with the notebook/laptop devices. A purposeful and simple solution to fill an obvious gap in the market.
There are other obvious uses where the iPad would be a benefit and that is on the commute. I used to travel to work by train carrying at least one magazine, a book and a macbook every day. An iPad would have meant I could just carry a macbook with it, reducing the weight and giving me the ability to carry much more reading material. I don’t see the point spending on an ebook reader now when and iPad is just a bit more money for a lot more value in return. I could just pull out at any time to fill the short, but sometimes very long gaps between train journeys. If the train is 10-15 minutes late, I’m not going to boot up a macbook and find a place to sit on a very over crowded platform.
iPad replaces notebooks and ebook readers
Obviously my viewpoint above is selfish to my lifestyle. Who else could use an iPad ? Well looking at my circle of friends and family, unlike me most of them are not tech people. However, they all have computers and laptops and I know this as usually I’m contacted at some point if they run into problems. Looking at their use it tends to be mostly shopping online, social networking, emails and sharing photos. Most of them also seem to be intimidated and frustrated with their computers to various degrees. They look boring and a computer probably reminds them of the office they just left in the day. For these users an iPad could be a good option as it’s cheap ‘ish’, simple, secure and most of all friendly. It’s a device that can sit on the coffee table and be picked up and used anytime just like a magazine. For less tech savvy users this is far more inviting to use and therefore likely to get more use. This is why I’m glad they made it more like an iPhone than a notebook. It makes much more sense for this device to be app based and would be much more attractive to already proficient iPhone users.
I’m sure it won’t be long before we see Google responding with a slate device offering Android, not ChromeOS.
Scrum Teams – Lean, Mean developing machine
Posted by Craig_Strong in Development, Scrum / Agile on January 11th, 2010
In the past few years I have read about Scrum, Agile and watched many a tutorials and short videos on the benefits and how to implement it in the work place. After watching from a far I managed to get my hands dirty and get involved with applying it in the workplace. Over a period of many months, bit by bit we have implemented it into our development environment. I have to say it hasn’t been easy and it’s only possible with support from the business in my opinion. Developers and testers were the first to welcome the change as it empowered them and gives them recognition for their efforts as well as control. The business took longer as the change is drastic and involves them a great deal more in product development. However once involved, the agility and development speed and project transparency becomes something recognisable and desired.
During this implementation a common emphasis raised via many sources is to keep the teams small and focussed. Many comparisons have gone through my mind, including why and how to select certain people and create teams. One of the best comparisons and inspirations to make sense of this is to compare the military structure. The comparison that strikes me is that traditional waterfall teams which consist of large scaled divisions that progress in linear fashions with a great deal of resources and structure. They take a great deal of planning, authorisation and strategy to get momentum. When the momentum has started, it’s difficult to stop and change direction. These can be compared to a military invasion, invading in stages as one large force following months of planning and financial investment all moving towards a strategic location in mass. Scrum teams to me represent a different dimension to this, I see scrum teams as small, more precise well equipped units similar to special forces. Smaller teams which are empowered, focused and take more control over their missions who often find themselves more capable and agile. They can be deployed into many different environments, are quicker to adapt and are in and out of missions quickly, sharply getting maximum results.
When you have the balance in place and the team become used to this way of working, the business will benefit and get results. Results which require less investment over time and able to see the impact and return of having small, specialist teams. After all, we have all seen renditions of the battle of Thermopylae, which is basically a tale of a small force with superior weapons, training and passion taking on the might of an army. Although not a direct comparison I think there are similarities in structure do compare in very distant kind of way. The strategy depends upon the business’s plans and objectives, but ultimately every business wants to get more from it’s resources and wants to be able to be quick to respond to environmental conditions to stay ahead of the game.
PHP and the demand for frameworks from businesses
Posted by Craig_Strong in Frameworks on November 10th, 2009
Over the past few years PHP has matured somewhat. Object support continues to grow and more demands for advanced web based applications/software have began putting PHP into a light of it’s own. The once simple scripting language has matured into a powerful OO web scripting arsenal which when combined with the right environments can run with the best of them. Those who push pass the beginners boundary and delve beyond the simple tutorials and basic functionality, use the versatile properties of PHP with good design and OO knowledge who progress, achieve and develop great things and have fun in the process also.
With PHP being applied in new ways and object support it was only a matter of time before there would be an explosion of frameworks on the scene. Not least with such popularity and community support, the Frameworks that are out there are diverse and offer different development facets which can present developers and businesses many advantages in order to build complete professional solutions. With more and more enterprises demanding more from the web, frameworks are becoming more in demand and as such are snowballing in their release cycles to offer a toolkit that many developers and few workplaces can ignore. Many including myself having used frameworks find it difficult to develop without them due to the benefits on offer such as reduced development time and reusable code libraries
As a result of this PHP developers are presented with many frameworks to choose from, which can be a mine field. Although most frameworks are similar offering MVC based designs, some are quite different and vary in depths, versatility and complexity. These aspects should be considered by the developer when choosing the right framework for the job. I would personally recommend trying a few out to see what similarities there are, what suits your needs and what you feel you can mature with. I have tried CakePHP, Symfony and Zend Framework resulting in predominantly the later choice as I feel it suits my requirements as a developer better.
When choosing a framework in my opinion you should not only consider the current state of the framework, but also the support, community and demand for the frameworks you are considering from the business world. If your going to invest time learning, implementing and possibly contributing to a framework, knowing the demand from businesses should be an important factor as this could enhance your career prospects. This demand in turn can help secure a frameworks future as it influences support, training, functionality through corporate recognition.
To help recognise which frameworks are in demand from the job market, I have called in a few graphs of the more popular frameworks to see the differences of demand side by side. I found it interesting and I hope you do to:
Obviously these graphs don’t represent quality in any way, but they should provide a general overview of demands by employment. This can indicate relevance as in most cases (Not All), demand should reflect some the benefits on offer from the framework.
Woopra raises the bar for web statistics/analytics
Posted by Craig_Strong in Software Reviews on August 30th, 2009
I have been meaning to write a review on Woopra for some time, but wanted to try out Woopra for a while first to ensure I got more of an in depth experience whilst looking through the web statistics. It’s not easy for any stats package to get much attention with the likes of Google Analytics (which I currently use) to contend with, especially since most web statistics packages require the user to embed tracking code into sites which can impact page load times and is another stepping stone for integration. However I started to hear rumours there was a new kid in town by the name of Woopra and decided to give it a chance. I proceeded to set it up on this blog and another e-commerce site for a varied user base.
Live Statistics
One thing which stood out straight away using Woopra over other analytics packages was the ability to view live statistics from actual users on the site. I have to say I was a little pessimistic about this feature, having used similar features in the past. I was expecting, inaccurate details, delays and it being riddled with bot visits which would dilute the overall detail. To my surprise it was quite the opposite. I accessed the site from several locations using various devices, browsers and OS’s, then tracked my movements through the sites. Each time, it managed to detect my exact entry point to the site, the referrer I used (including the search engine search term) as well as my exact OS and browser. As soon as I started using this feature my mind was full of ideas where this feature could be a benefit to a website. My first reaction was that I could use Woopra to quickly identify bottlenecks in a system. By watching the flow of users through a site live, I could see any issues on a granular level. This could be very beneficial if you have changed a stage in a process, for example introduced or altered a stage in the checkout process. This feature will allow you to identify such areas quickly on a per user bases and could even be integrated with customer support to get more detail from the user allowing you to offer a better service at a time of need. You can offer a very proactive approach to usability and navigation by using such a feature.
Analytics Reporting
Looking through the quality of the statistics Woopra gathered through the live user tools as well as the historic analytic reports I was very impressed by the level of detail offered by Woopra. I did not see any evidence of bot contamination in my visit stats. I compared some of the analytical data Woopra had collected over a given time period with Google Analytics. I noticed that there were concerning differences in the details. To cross check both these I examined the actual access logs on the server to quickly identify which system was more accurate for example, by looking at the number of unique agents, visits and referrers. To my surprise the analytics seemed to favour Woopra in some cases although not all. There were areas of concern I noticed in Woopra particularly relating to the source by IP of the visitors. Although IP by Country seemed fine, I wasn’t confident that the IP to City locations were accurate and hence this affected some features which heavily integrated such data. Woopra had confirmed though the IP database being used in the beta program was being replaced and the current solution was temporary included due to financial constraints :
“We’re working up upgrading the IP address system. To save money, we went with an older, free version.” (twitter.com/woopra)
There were some differences where Google Analytics offered some data that Woopra doesn’t. However what I must say is where Woopra offered the same information as Google Analytics, I personally think Woopra presents the data in a more concise, detailed and purposeful manner. I started to find I had more interaction with the statistics offered on Woopra which allowed me to see some of the collected data in new ways. The level of detail shown particularly around referring domains and search terms in Woopra is excellent. You can instantly see a visual representation on a search phrase with the graphical detail helping you identify patterns and trends quickly. However there are areas which I didn’t test in much detail and that was based around PPC campaigns and such. It would be interesting to see what dedicated SEO specialists think of Woopra where PPC is heavily integrated into analytical campaigns.
Desktop Application & User Interaction
Analytics aside I was also very impressed with the desktop application to which I was using to retrieve statistics from my sites. The application is fast, well designed and offers a broad range of tools and filters which you can use to customise and extract data with. Since I have installed Woopra on my desktop I have actually found it to be quite addictive. It’s so accessible and easy to interact with I found myself constantly switching back and forth to find out more information.
Customer Feedback
As I have been testing Woopra out as part of the Beta program, I have been tweeting some of my finds on twitter. What impressed me was Woopra’s dedication to respond. I can confidently say that pretty much every tweet I mentioned, I had a direct response from @woopra with a constructive answer. This to me shows great product support and commitment by Woopra to make a strong product even stronger. This feedback and interaction process could really help Woopra get into a good market position quickly and I’m sure will also help the product develop into something the users really want.
Overall
To conclude this review, I was overall very impressed with Woopra. I would highly recommend anyone using or considering web statistic packages trying this out! The only issue I have left before fully committing to this package relates to the fact that this product is in beta and the final package price to my knowledge has not yet been released. Hopefully by spreading the word this could help reduce the price as I certainly want to carry on using Woopra. Watch this space, I think Woopra is going to be around for a good while!
Please feel free to add your comments to this post, I appreciate all feedback.
To find out more visit : http://www.woopra.com/
You can also follow Woopra on twitter at http://twitter.com/woopra
How to explain MVC to a business and convince them it’s something they need
Posted by Craig_Strong in Design Structure on May 17th, 2009
A common occurrence many development teams will encounter is a where an older system not designed to scale well, will need to consider scale to support business demands. Businesses need to move quickly and purposefully to cope with consumer demand upon services as well as innovation induced development to compete within the market place.
It could be that your current system was designed to meet previous business goals and the extent of the specification was simply to complete a given task. You might be finding that recent business demands are taking a great deal of time to implement and that the smallest change is having huge impacts on the existing code structure. This could be as it is in so many systems, a result of tightly coupled code which is infected with design debt, or it could simply be that the original design of the systems structure didn’t consider growth and re-usability beyond the scope of the original spec.
If this sounds familiar to you, you’re probably spending a great deal of time on system maintenance and testing. The smallest changes are having huge impacts not only with relation to system integrity, but having a negative impact on the professional image of the development team. Depending on how far you have gone down this road, the business could be seeing IT as a wasteful, incompetent resource.
As you’re reading this post, it is likely that you’re thinking that to make things better you are looking at introducing MVC (Model, View Controller) into your system architecture. This MVC structure maybe something that is being encouraged by a chosen framework or simply a structure you wish to introduce into your existing system whilst refactoring your code. Either way to gain project time in most cases the business have to recognise the need for such a change and allow resources to be allocated to move towards this place where the grass is said to be much greener.
Now you are in a situation where the business already blames development teams for slower production times and pretty much for all problems and bugs that are inherit from a system which may have been subject to the ‘Big Ball of Mud‘ scenario. How can you go to the business asking for more time and resources to work on a project which unlike a product development has no physical delivery. After all if you are moving your system to MVC and/or using a framework there maybe no physical difference in the end product initially. Why would the business want this? Where is the ROI?
Respect the old code and the business
When approaching the business it’s best to be honest and upfront. There is no gain to be had blaming individuals for the current state of the system. It not only looks as if you’re diverting attention, but your colleagues aren’t going to appreciate you pointing the finger away from yourself in their direction. You should also remember at this point that it’s this system which has supported the business to date and is likely to be the same system that is supplying the current revenue stream. Although the system may need work, it has done it’s job to date.
Don’t hide the facts and don’t cushion the blow
The first rule here is to respect the business and tell them the truth. I’m sure you will be surprised to how much they actually know and that could be your first factor in common to working together towards the solution. There are plenty of examples out there on the web of successful companies who are and have been in the same situation of introducing MVC and/or Frameworks. It would be a good idea to use some of these examples as this will not only provide a knowledge pool of what did or didn’t work well, but will reassure the business that the problem the system is suffering is very common and there are clear paths forward. There is no gain to be had by raising an alarm defining how bad the current system is without researching and demonstrating clear ways forward. This won’t aid your case of supporting the development of a new structure. Use real cases and put forward some other success stories where this change has been successful to inspire the business.
How did we get into this mess
The old saying ‘Learn from your mistakes’ is relative to this exact moment. However to learn from your mistakes, you must recognise that you have made mistakes.
There are thousands of reasons why systems can incur significant design debt. Many of these reasons are comforting to know as they can happen naturally by the very nature of simply being active within successful business. It’s very likely the reason your looking to for a framework or MVC structure is that you want to support growth. Business growth has taken you to this point in time and that business growth is a commendable asset and a reassuring factor to be presented with.
Common factors of business growth that influence systems and incur design debt could be the following:
- The business has grown so fast, very little resources have been available to maintain the design.
- Corners have been cut in development to ensure products are released in a short time and therefore generate income quicker. The short cuts have never been revisited and therefore they become permanent. Additional development therefore have inherited the previous problems.
- The purpose of the system today is very different to when it was originally designed and limited effort was proposed to make the transition. Instead quick fix cultures were applied to change the identity of the system.
- Customers have become larger. As a service grows you might have moved from B2C to B2B or both. This can drastically change the demands on the system and the original business intentions/system did not consider this change or scale of change
- Limited knowledge available. In fast growing businesses the developers are expected to know all the answers without been given time to research. Therefore applying solutions are done through a limited knowledge base which is not given time to increase through training and investment.
No matter what your reasons are it would be a benefit for IT and the business to share and understand some of the reasons. Both sides understanding these will help prevent mistakes being repeated in the future, but will also contribute towards design and research to be key elements in future solutions.
Remember if your system is cracking at the seems as it can’t scale well, this could be because the business is growing fast. You would do well to respect the business for this and at the same time use this fact as a reason for current system problems. If the business is successful it’s likely they will take this on board and appreciate that speed of growth has affected development. This could provide you with the opening of working with the business to get the systems into a more robust agile condition.
Introduce MVC
Remember the business are non-technical and using jargon like frameworks and MVC is likely to confuse the listeners and as a result put up barriers. The reason you are proposing MVC as a solution is that you probably want a clear system structure which will be provide an environment which is easier to develop and maintain. However before you start getting this message across you need to explain what MVC is and what benefits it will offer.
Define the existing structure clearly
One of the reasons you might be looking for an MVC structure is that your current code structure involves code where the interface incorporates business logic, or the business logic is coupled with system logic and so on. Ignoring the reasons for this as we have briefly mentioned them above, explain this is the case to the business. The better you get the business to understand this situation the more likely they will sympathise with you and understand why there is higher maintenance times and deployment issues.
Some further reading can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_code
http://www.laputan.org/mud/
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000589.html
Define MVC in layman’s terms
Remember you’re technically minded and close to the code. MVC to you is as clear as day, but saying to the business ‘Model, View, Contoller’ could give them the impression that you are suffering from some form tourette syndrome. MVC won’t mean much to the business even after you define them in relation to the code. To get the business to understand why this is the answer and least of all what it is, can be more of a task than expected in my experience. Even some fellow developers have difficulty understanding this on occasion.
To get the listener to understand what MVC is and why it works what I have tried in the pass is to apply MVC to a different industries where the listeners have had more involvement. An example that has worked for me in the past in a comparison to the property or even the vehicles. Most people have had dealing’s with builders, carpenters, plumbers, electricians or have watched the flood of property shows on the TV. This experience is a good platform to use and to explain why separation such as MVC works. I know you’re probably thinking that won’t work as it’s not the same as in software, but remember you’re not trying to train the business to become developers or have an in depth understanding of MVC, simply explaining to them that separation in production is required and that’s what an MVC structure offers.
To give an example of how you could describe this I have very briefly explained how separation works in property. Keep in mind this is focused on using the system not developing which could be a completely different angle of explaination.
View
The view in MVC is the presentation layer. This is what the end user of a product will see and interact with. A system can have multiple views of all different types ranging from command line output to rendered HTML. The view doesn’t consist of business logic in most clear designs. The interface is fit for purpose and is the area of interaction. Therefore you could simply output HTML for consumers to interact with or output SOAP/XML for businesses to interact with. Both use the same business logic behind the system otherwise known as the models and controllers.
In the world of property you could think of the view as the interior of a property or the outer layer of a property that the inhabitants interact with. The interior can be customised for purpose and the same property can have many different types of tenants. For example a property of a particular design could contain residential dwellings. The same internal space could easily be used as office space, where although in the same property has a different purpose. However the property structure is the same. Therefore the environment in which the users interact does not interfere with the structure of the building.
Controllers
The controller is where the magic happens and defines the business logic. This could be where the user has sent a response from the view, then this response is used to process the internal workings of the request and processes the response back to the user. Taking a typical response where a user has requested to buy a book. The controller has the user id, payment details, shipping address and item choice. These elements are then processed through the business logic to complete a purchase. The data is passed through the system into the model layer and eventually after the entire request satisfies the business definitions, the order is constructed and the user receives their item.
If we compare this to a property, we could compare the ordering of a book online to turning on a light switch. A tenant will flick the switch to on just like ordering a book. The switch itself is an element in the view layer which sends the request to the controller just like clicking a checkout button on a web site. The business logic in this case is what the electrician installed and are embedded within the property designs. The switch is flicked, which completes the circuit. Electricity runs through all the wires including the fuse box straight through to the light bulb. Just like the user receiving a book, in this case the tenant receives light. The whole process behind the scenes involving the electricity cabling is not visible to the the tenant. They simply interact with the switch within the space and from there the controller handles the request.
Models
The models in MVC are the bottom most layer and handle the core logic of the system. In most cases this could be seen as the layer that interacts with the data source. In systems using MVC, the controller will pass information to the model in order to store and retrieve data. Following on from the example above controller definition, this is where the order details are stored. Additional data such as stock levels, physical location of product of the book amongst many things are all stored here. If that was the last book in stock ordered, the next request for this item may check if it’s available and disallow the order as the item is no longer available.
Sticking with out example of turning on a light switch, this level in our structure could be the electricity supply. When the tenant flicks the switch, the internal circuit must request electricity to power the request which is similar when the user requested data from the database, as in data is needed to process a request. If the dwelling isn’t connected to an electric supply, it cannot complete the process.
Business benefits from using MVC
After you get the message across explaining what MVC is, you will then have to see what benefits can be obtained from it. I’m not going to go into a huge amount of detail here are I’m sure you can apply benefits more accurately which are directly related to you actual situation. To list just some of the common benefits of an MVC based system here are a few examples:
- Different skill levels can work on different system levels. For example designers can work on the interface (View) with very little development knowledge and developers can work on the business logic (Controller) with very little concern for the design level. Then they simply integrate together on completion.
- As a result of the above separation projects can be managed easier and quicker. The designer can start the interfaces before the developer and vice versa. This development process can be parallel as opposed to being sequential therefore reducing development time.
- Easy to have multiple view types using the same business logic.
- Clear route through the system. You clearly know where there different levels of the system are. With a clear route of the system, logic can be shared and improved. This has added security benefits as you clearly know the permitted route from the data to the user and can have clear security checks along the route.
- Each layer is responsible for itself. (Relates to point 1) This means that you can have clean file structure which can be maintained and managed much easier and quicker than a tightly couple system where you may have lots of duplicate logic.
- Having a clear structure means development will be more transparent which should result in reduced development time, maintenance problems and release cycles if applied properly.
Get the message across
If you’re still reading this article you maybe either thinking the example above is a good idea or that it’s just plain silly. No matter what you’re thinking, the goal here is to get your message clearly. If this example doesn’t work for you, try finding a solution which will have the same affect. The point is for the business to support you and to consider repaying the design debt you will need them to understand what problems the current system suffers from and how you can improve things. MVC is just one of many ways forward, but they will need to understand MVC to give you the green light and have time to implement it and factor it in future projects.
This has been written from my own personal approach. However if you have something to add to this post in order to give it value, please provide some feedback. It will only improve things for the next reader.
