Paul Hammond's Blog

I was having a few issues at first though, with content not appearing at all - I tracked those down to a bad path in the site.config file.

I made use of the app_offline.htm file to take the site down while I upgraded - worked like a dream!

You can get the bits from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/dasblogce.  Full details of what is included in the new release are over on Scott's post about dasBlog 1.9.

John Mayer is releasing a new CD in September called "Continuum".  He recently did a very cool thing and hosted a show on an LA radio station (Star 98.7FM) where he played the entire record, speaking about each track in turn.  The whole show was very cool; being able to get an early listen was nice, and hearing John talk a little about each track was fun.

Overall, I think this CD is excellent.  "Room For Squares" is still my favourite "complete" CD, but there are a number of excellent tracks on this new offering, and I can see the whole thing growing on me more and more.  It is blues in places, soul in places, and all through it features his fantastic guitar playing.  His vocals seem very laid back, effortless; the song writing excellent as always. 

Track by track:

Waiting On The World To Change - a great opener, although it was apparently the last track he recorded for the CD.

I Don't Trust Myself With Loving You - a very laid back track, very soulful, with a great falsetto chorus, and some lovely harmonies.  His vocals in this track seem almost effortless.  Great use of keyboards for some of the musical themes (instead of the usual guitar).  Some nice little brass riffs and fills.

Belief - Ben Harper plays on this, and John says he made it "really gritty".  The acoustic guitar and melody working together remind me of something Sting might have put out.  This song has really grown on me a lot.

Gravity - written for record, but it was played live by the John Mayer Trio last year.  Still an excellent track though.

The Heart Of Life - this is a song that would appeal to anyone who ever had to deal with anything in life.

Vultures - another one that made into the Trio's live set.  John swears this is NOT about the record industry...

Stop This Train - James Valentine from Maroon 5 plays acoustic guitar on this track.  It has a mild country feel, and is about "begging to go back", slowing something down and returning to a place you feel comfortable with. 

Slow Dancing In A Burning Room - a song about the end of a relationship.  A nice ballad, with some excellent lyrics.  You'll relate to this if you are a person who has faced the end of a relationship where both people know it is the right thing to do, but it is hard anyway.  "The deep and dying breath of this love that we've been working on".

Bold As Love - this is a Hendrix tune, although John says he approached it as a song writer, not a guitar player.  A really excellent cover version.

Dreaming With A Broken Heart - This is about dreaming about someone special, only to wake up and remember it is really all over.  "When you're dreaming with a broken heart, the waking up is the hardest part".  It has a great piano intro, which is a break from the usual guitar.

In Repair - John says he doesn't really know the impetus for this song, but he did say it is a really likely candidate for a 15 minutes guitar solo at the end of the upcoming live gigs. 

I'm Gonna Find Another You - this is the after record mint; In Repair was going to be the last track.  This is total soul - the horns were arranged by Willie Mitchell (who worked with Al Green, among others).  Recording was done in a small studio in Memphis.  It has a great guitar and vocals intro and the lyrics are great.  Fantastic ending to a great record.

It's been 2 years since the last studio record, and this one has definitely been worth the wait.  It is out on September 11th or 12th (depending on where you live!), and I would highly recommend picking this CD up as soon as you get a chance.

I just read Sanaz's post on being in "Ship Mode" - the state of your mind in the period running up to a ship date.  In her post, she describes a state where you are working extra hard, often doing longer hours or weekend work, your inbox overflows, even your music style changes (r'n'b gives way to rock!) and other symptoms.

This represents many of the experiences from my software development career.  Sanaz's post implies that despite the hard work, she still loves doing what she does, and in this respect she is very lucky.  She works on a cool product and the satisfaction of that can be enormous; enough to overcome the stress of "ship mode".  In my experience, there have been many times when the teams I was working with have been in a much less positive mindset, instead death marching towards almost-certain failure.

However, whichever mindset you are in (positive or negative), being in "ship mode" is not congruent with idea of Sustainable Pace.  Unless you are working at a sustainable pace, you cannot guarantee any level of predictability or consistency, and therefore cannot reliably plan or execute against commitments you make.

In my team, there have been a few recent events that have created a real dilemma for us.  Environment outages, sickness and other issues have caused products to be at risk of being incomplete at iteration end, and many of the team members were chomping at the bit to "work whatever hours needed to get this thing finished.  After all, we're Microsoft employees, we are obligated to go that extra mile".

I couldn't decide what was "right".  After all, that is not sustainable, right?  It breaks the rules, goes against the philosophy.  Some people did work extra hours, things did get done.  I still wasn't comfortable.

My good friend Mitch posted about Breaking the Rules of Agile - Working Overtime.  The key sentence he wrote in his post that helped me find some clarity in my thinking was "teams work overtime when its needed, not demanded".  He goes on to talk about some situations where his team made pragmatic and collective decisions about working overtime to meet the commitments they made.  He summarises the post with:

If you find yourself in the position where your team (or a team you coach or "manage") needs to work overtime, have the team ask itself if overtime is needed.  If it is, talk about it, define the goals of what will be done in the overtime sessions (or weekends) and outline the exit criteria.  Follow this with a discussion on who is needed to do the work, and as a result, work the overtime.  Remember, this is a team exercise.

I will be working with my team to make this exercise a team norm in times of "schedule stress".