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    <title>cmdnln.net_2007-07-11</title>
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    <outline text="Intro" Offset="00:17">
      <outline text="Fair Use Day">
        <outline text="http://www.boingboing.net/2007/07/10/happy_fair_use_day_j.html"/>
        <outline text="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070710-did-ya-know-its-fair-use-day-july-11-2007.html"/>
        <outline text="Good day to be mindful of your rights, on the balance from copyright"/>
        <outline text="Ars piece, in particular, explains the history of the day"/>
        <outline text="Third year celebrating"/>
        <outline text="Backed by the new US Pirate Party this year"/>
        <outline text="Encouraging folks to call in support for FAIR USE Act of 2007"/>
        <outline text="Talked about this act when it was proposed, again at PK CopyNight"/>
        <outline text="Act, do, but at least, learn"/>
        <outline text="http://fairusenetwork.org/"/>
      </outline>
    </outline>
    <outline text="Listener feedback" Offset="02:47">
      <outline text="Correction from Carey">
        <outline text="Article on searching for email addresses without warrants was wrong"/>
        <outline text="There is no 9th district court"/>
        <outline text="Number courts are always circuit courts"/>
        <outline text="Circuits do not overlap, so the 9th could not overrule the 6th, by definition"/>
      </outline>
    </outline>
    <outline text="Word of the Week: COBOL" Offset="05:56">
      <outline text="http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/C/COBOL.html"/>
    </outline>
    <outline text="Inner Chapter: Estimate" Offset="07:21">
      <outline text="The building blocks out of which project plans are made">
        <outline text="In its simplest, a project plan is just a list of tasks"/>
        <outline text="Estimates add a dimension of duration"/>
        <outline text="No high level activity can be meaningful without lower inputs"/>
      </outline>
      <outline text="Fallacy of estimation">
        <outline text="It will almost always take longer than you estimate"/>
        <outline text="The activity invites belief that estimates are accurate, for different values of accurate"/>
        <outline text="Astoundingly few projects are ever done, to design, on time">
          <outline text="Features, costs, time - pick two"/>
          <outline text="For internal, product development, cost is fixed by available resources"/>
          <outline text="For consulting, may be more flexible"/>
          <outline text="The fixed to inform the third"/>
          <outline text="If cost is variable, unrealistic values may squeeze it too high"/>
        </outline>
        <outline text="Historical data is a bad predictor"/>
        <outline text="Design, specification, implementation, testing all include discovery">
          <outline text="The earlier in whatever life cycle, the more discovery"/>
          <outline text="Even later phases though can reveal surprises"/>
          <outline text="Iterative, agile tries to limit risk by keeping the window for surprise short"/>
          <outline text="The idea is that the risk cannot be bigger than the iteration"/>
          <outline text="Can be a trap, though, as risk still abounds"/>
          <outline text="Pick up risk in a cumulative fashion, around inevitable integration"/>
        </outline>
        <outline text="Business needs fixed deadlines">
          <outline text="How do you manage without goals to work towards?"/>
          <outline text="Opportunities are pinned to achievements"/>
          <outline text="New sales, new internal growth"/>
          <outline text="External stake holders always want to know what is being done next, by when"/>
        </outline>
        <outline text="How do the two reconcile?">
          <outline text="If all work is late or less than expected, how can a business meet commitments?"/>
          <outline text="Honest communication helps"/>
          <outline text="Customers understand if you are forthright"/>
          <outline text="Where cost is variable, pre-set penalties or after the fact discounts help"/>
          <outline text="Internal projects more easily adjust to changes in scope"/>
          <outline text="Growth ends up being slower, perhaps this opens other opportunities"/>
        </outline>
        <outline text="The best you can do is track resources, progress"/>
        <outline text="Look out for people getting burned out"/>
        <outline text="Communicate risks, potential overruns or feature short falls early"/>
        <outline text="An experience manager will understand why this is fluid"/>
        <outline text="Project planning is really more about discovery and managing risk"/>
        <outline text="Not really about setting or meeting a target"/>
        <outline text="For business reasons, targets are usually fixed"/>
      </outline>
      <outline text="Getting the most out of estimation">
        <outline text="Relative estimates help gauge risk even if absolute are not accurate"/>
        <outline text="Past data can be helpful but not as much as you think">
          <outline text="Unknowns in part projects are really captured"/>
          <outline text="Variables between efforts differ widely"/>
          <outline text="Cost of capture can be prohibitive"/>
          <outline text="When in crunch mode, do you honestly keep capturing or use that time to code and fix?"/>
          <outline text="How do you index, search, sort historical data to be useful?"/>
        </outline>
        <outline text="From TAoPM, using confidence ratios helps"/>
        <outline text="For a well understood problem, with recent experience, estimates can be accurate"/>
        <outline text="For less understood or no relevant experience, confidence decreases"/>
        <outline text="Confidence is a good dipstick for risk"/>
        <outline text="Consider your other risks, from the business end"/>
        <outline text="Padding is your friend, use confidence to derive some coarse multipliers"/>
        <outline text="Always build slack into your schedules"/>
        <outline text="Testing, for one, should be a reasonable fraction of coding time"/>
        <outline text="Don't forget to build in infrastructure time"/>
        <outline text="Updating frameworks, tools, environments is never free"/>
        <outline text="Knowledge is a good dipstick for accuracy"/>
        <outline text="Also from TAoPM, the more, better knowledge you have, the better estimates will be"/>
        <outline text="Attack ignorance to improve accuracy, confidence"/>
        <outline text="Don't be afraid to ask hard questions"/>
        <outline text="Design and specification should be about reducing ignorance and  bounding open questions"/>
        <outline text="If ignorance is too great, don't be afraid to pull the whistle stop"/>
      </outline>
    </outline>
    <outline text="Outro" Offset="27:12">
      <outline text="Contact me">
        <outline text="Email to feedback@thecommandline.net"/>
        <outline text="Web site at http://thecommandline.net/"/>
        <outline text="IM to command.line@skype"/>
        <outline text="Listener comment line is 360-252-7284"/>
        <outline text="del.icio.us tag is &quot;for:cmdln&quot;"/>
        <outline text="http://twitter.com/cmdln"/>
      </outline>
      <outline text="I'd like to thank libsyn.com for AAC hosting and Wouter de Bie for MP3 hosting"/>
      <outline text="These notes and the show audio and music are covered by a Creative Commons license">
        <outline text="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/"/>
        <outline text="Attribution, non-commercial, share alike"/>
      </outline>
    </outline>
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