www.woosabi.com was given a boost yesterday (in my humble opinion) when an article appeared by sion.barry@mediawales.co.uk in the Western Mail (South Wales, UK edition) highlighting the potential for the “Right” Business Management products for SMEs; it also told of  the success of a software firm www.onsho.co.uk (based in South Wales). Onsho provide bespoke-software management solutions to SMEs and their target growth market is SMEs in Wales; the company has been going a couple of years and has just hit £1million turn over (blinking well done you lot!!.[ writer attempts to hide his envy at this point!!]). However, where is the Public Interest Story here? Well done for hitting a million in 2 years but what is the real intention of this “story”? It could be argued, and it is only my “devil’s advocate” approach here (so don’t get all upset anyone in buisness), that the aim of the article is to get the company’s name higher up in the public profile league…………damn!!…it’s no good (here hit comes…an out-pouring of jealousy + envy…can’t hold it back…!!!)….well done Onsho in getting this profile….and the product seems right for the besp[oke market…..but next time it would be great to learn more about features and benefits of the product/service and less about the Millions….I can’t stand the envy-stress!! ..But well done anyway (no I really mean it…I do…honestly….)

In between developing the Woosabi product and building practice placement systems for Universities (www.inpractice.org) I’m trying to finish this book Dreaming in Code (this is why I’m doing my blogs at 6am in an attempt to claw some of my day back). The book documents the development of an Open Source Calendering/Personal Information Manager (PIM)/Email project that’s been in development for the past 5 years. It’s interesing in that it has quite a few functional similarities to Woosabi - I should stress that the similarities are quite generic and are shared by a whole slew of Web2.0 projects

One Vision

The main part we share is this vision (Vision):

Chandler - “Our goal is to serve the way people actually work, independently and together, particularly in small groups, a market segment we believe is underserved. Our belief is that personal and collaborative information work is by nature iterative and that the existing binary Done/Not-Done, Read/Unread, Flagged/Unflagged paradigm in productivity software poorly accommodates the reality of how people work.”

That could quite easily describe Woosabi, if we had sat down and articulated it that consicely!  But we never did and I’m hoping that where we succeed will be down to all the things we “didn’t do”. I’m not sure if that sounds dumb, belligerent or both as it’s 6am and my vocabulary is still sleeping downstairs (I’m in the attic) but bare with me and I’ll explain that bit of triteness (that’s the word I was searching for!)

God is in the (right) detail

The part of our little project that sets us free from the pitfalls of other large-ish development projects is we’ve thus far kept ourselves largely free from bureaucracy and the meeting moth syndrome - aka the overwhelming desire to plan and attend meetings, usually to discuss what you could be doing if you weren’t currently at a meeting and then to plan the next one, to usually co-incide with some large project milestone.

What we do have is a great development team that understand the product we are building. We didn’t spend months writing white papers and technical specification documents because we never had the luxury of time to waste on something that is superceded by working code and a usable product. Is that a chicken and egg situation? In my opinion, and I could be proved wrong if our product sucks, it’s not. If you have a development team that fully understand the goal (and it could be as simple as ‘to build a login screen” or as complicated as “build an email client”), you use your code as your project plan with the build’s usable functionaility as a meaure of progress.

Teamwork or no work

The one major document we do have is the product’s “Style Guide” which is totally indespensible and almost entirely visual (i.e.without text). This is pretty much the only document that the developers refer to (on a daily basis). Woosabi is lucky in that we’ve a very talented Product Designer who’s able to visualise with the developers the entire product before it’s built.

Which means the other thing your team needs is ‘trust’ which comes not from a creaking shelf of documents that people are pushed toward (”hmmm, it’s all in version 1.2 of the MRS+TFS, now go away I’m trying to look busy”) but from outward, visible signs of work.

Successful IT projects come from having the right people and a good product that is visibly improving. Getting there isn’t easy but in my opinion you need to trust in your idea and build your product.  Not just a dream of one.

So we’re just two days shy of March 1st - our target date for launching the product for beta testing (insert pun of choice using the word beta here). And using the immortal refrain of backseat drivers and children everywhere:

“Are we there yet?”

Before I answer that I just want to have a word about deadlines and whether they are helpful or not. Personally, I believe they are vital. They help focus everyone in a team. They also help you make difficult decisions, such as ‘will this bit of functionality make the cut’ aka ‘does the product really need this?’. If there’s not enough time, there’s not enough time - unless it’s a core part of your product. Deadlines also tell you an awful lot about the people in your team, their abilities and their thinking under pressure.

“Tea cups and tantrums”

The World Cup winning coach Clive Woodward hilariously and without any embarrassment calls this T-CUP, “Thinking correctly under pressure”. People under pressure will always fall in to two groups when confonted with a problem: one type will find a way to solve it and the other type will find a way not to solve it. The more important part is to realise that both types will try to ’spread’ their viewpoint throughout the team. One is positive, one is negative and pressure will show this up everytime.

I once inherited a development team (not as fortuitous as it sounds) which had a particularly lazy developer within it; when it came to Crunch Time he was totally unable (unwilling might be more accurate) to estimate any of his work and rather than aim for something and miss he completly froze. Instead, when asked how long a certain job would take, he replied with the following gem that has stayed with me ever since:

“It will be ready, when it’s ready. I work by the ID credo”

Which I suppose is fine if you are in fact working for ID, the developer of, at one point, the definitive First Person Shooters (Doom & Quake). Not suprisingly I met with the CEO and we made the decision that the programmer should contact ID games to see if they had any work for him. Even with a deadline looming, I felt it better to jettison deadweight and keep the team positive, if overworked! Negativity is a deadly cancer in a development team and must be cut out immediately.

“I love deadlines. I love the wooshing noise they make as they go by” - Douglas Adams

The other reason deadlines are important is that they a vital piece of external communication. They tell your customer when something will be ready. It also forces you to communicate with your customer during development if the date looks like it’s going to slip. Better to talk to them, get their feedback as something that is pushing the deadline back could be cut if they deem getting the product more vital than having function x working. Of course, by doing that you put pressure on yourself to deliver and that’s the nature of deadlines (the Etymology of that word is quite stark). Without being too glib, if you don’t like deadlines then product development is definately the wrong job for you.

So are we there yet?

Yes. Actually, after that massive preamble, ‘Yes’ doesn’t feel a big enough statement of euphoria really so feel free to insert the profanity of your choice here: #$%*** Yes!

It feels really amazing to say this. We’ve a few little glitches to sort (well, that’s what beta testing is for) and some polishing to do but amazingly we’ve hit our March 1st deadline. Which considering we only have two engineers on the project, one of whom is a recent graduate and the other has a full-time job, this is phenomenal. In fact, I’ll go further than that, it’s nothing short of miraculous and proves you do not need big budget development teams for startups. No, what you need are these two things (assuming you’ve the ability): Positivity and Dedication.

Okay, better crack on, I’ve got another project whose deadline is next week! Where’s that coffee!?

An exercise in CRM?

In the last few days I have been managing the leads, supplied by www.businessinfocus.co.uk Cardiff office, for our woosabi.com beta test programme; although an “almost ideal candidate” for the woosab.com product per se, www.cisscoassociates.com are not the ideal beta testers for woosabi!! (bit of a boo hoo here from me…I am easily upset you know!)

Why CisscoAssoc not right?… you may ask….the simple reason? Cissco Associates have their own web, e mail and IP support/supplier (possibly not giving the required CRM as they are looking for a provider of a CRM package); however, for the woosabi.com beta programme, it is essential that beta testers can set up their systems/businesses using the complete woosabi.com CRM programme. For sound commercial reasons (all Cissco Assoc Mktng/PR implemented + on a roll) Cissco Assoc not able to link fully with the beta programme.

I had the potentially unpleasant duty of informing Andrew of Cissco Associates of this fact….his response? Very professional and pleased that Woosabi.com communicated the detail to him. Furthermore, Andrew wants woosabi.com to keep in touch with its development programme as it could well be that Cissco Associates might well become a potential user of the www.woosabi.com CRM Management software system.

It could be argued: woosabi.com + cisscoassociates.com = an exercise in effective CRM

Just reading Eds blog again (50 Tricks to get things done quicker), I see one of the features included in the ”Golden Rule” —”do unto others as you would have done to you”— continues on my recent “reflection theme”. In R Branson’s activities for success in his book, Screw it Let’s Do It! isn’t it interesting that even the “great man” appears to relate to the Golden Rule with one or two of his own golden rules of success:   i) Consider the implications of your actions on others  ii) Do no harm 

In business, as in life, the approach of “do no harm” should be pretty well the upermost in an organisation’s priority list. I wonder how many companies profess to have the “do no harm” philosophy/culture in theory…but find it hard to put into working reality. Can you think of any CRM company that fits into the “Say doesn’t Equal Do” bracket (don’t publish it yet, lawyers + all that stuff!!)? Woosabi.com CRM, in its theory and reality, MUST fit into the “SAY = DO” bracket of the “do no harm” philosophy.

” The shooting down of a disabled spy satellite probably destroyed its potentially toxic fuel tank, a US official says.”

It’s all a bit hit and miss (oh dear).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7256741.stm

Spotted this post on lifehack.org which has some really interesting ideas. The ‘tricks’ are great but their application relies on  ‘you’ writing lists, arranging schedules, setting reminders etc in a particular way to attain your ‘life/work’ goal.

If these tips are ‘road signs’ then Woosabi would be your ’sat nav’. Rather than simply providing pointers, Woosabi lets you ’set your goals’ and then does all the lists, scheduling, reminders and so much more, all for you.

One tip which stood out for me as “this is Woosabi” was:

One Bucket: Minimize the places you collect new inputs in your life, your “buckets”.  Ideally have one “bucket” where everything goes.  Lots of people experience an incredible sense of relief when everything they need to think about is collected in one place in front of them, no matter how big the pile.

Have a read of the 50 tricks and mentally tick-off just how many of them are done ‘for you’ with Woosabi. I think you can be pleasantly ’smug’ when you tell your frinds and colleagues… “Yeh I’ve been using Woosabi for ages. It could help you so much too.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if someone reminded you that it’s been a while since you got in touch with the ones you care about.

And then helped you send them a text message or email or letter.

And then sent it for you.

Welcome to Woosabi.

No prize for spotting the deliberate speeling mistake!

Full size movie Click here

“it’s like bloody Greenland in here “ in Woosabi towers!

 Spare change to buy a programmer a hot coffee guv’nor!?

(the dark side of the office - including Woosabi blueprints)