Midweek Q&A

Today I'm covering one very consumer question and the other work-related...

Q: I'm interested in buying a movie off iTunes - how much of my monthly internet quota will that use?

The amount of your quota used will depend on the movie and the quality you want. If you want to check, simply scroll down to the bottom of the movie details in the iTunes store and look for the 'Information' section. You'll see the available sizes listed there.

For some movies an HD (high definition) version will be available and this can be twice the size of SD (standard definition). If you're on a fairly low cap, you may need to compromise on the quality if you're purchasing or renting a few of these in any given month.

Remember too that you will use the same amount against your quota for every device you download to - for example if you're using both your iPhone and iPad or Mac.

Q: I need to put together some brand instructions for a vendor - how can I tell what fonts we already use on our website?

On Windows, in recent versions of the main browsers (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera) you can simply right-click on the text (or any other element) you're interested in and select 'Inspect Element'.

An area opens up with the source code for the page and another smaller area which tells you the specific styles applied. Look for 'font' and 'font-family' definitions. It will also show you the colour values and other information which you may want to pass on to your vendor.

Midweek Q&A

Taking a break from those overly serious management-style posts to talk about some practical technology.

Q: are those backup external batteries really useful?

Yes absolutely — in combination with the right cables — a power bank in your satchel or handbag can be a very convenient back up power supply for your phone, mifi or other USB-powered/chargeable device. These days they are increasingly good value for money and can often be found in your local dollar store.

I don't use my power bank devices as a source of charging so much as additional battery capacity, often continuing to run my plugged in devices rather than switching off and charging the on-board battery.

This cute little block stays in my handbag and has been used when I've been out and about and needed to give my pocket wifi a boost. So far I've not managed to drain it but have had more than two hours of additional wifi. This particular one I found at my local "123 Shop" for $8.90NZD.

Q: Is retina display worth the extra money on the iPad Mini?

My advice with any hardware purchase is to get the best you can afford at the time of purchase: whether that's in amount of disk space or the quality of the display. But in the real world we sometimes have to make a call about which features are most important to us. Whether you want to spend $149NZD to upgrade the display to retina or $199NZD to get cellular it's about what gives you best value.

My iPad Mini doesn't have retina display but that's only because I was an early adopter and retina wasn't available when I purchased. My eyes have had Lasik surgery so I consider that it's worth it for me to spend $150 to get a better display but harder to justify spending $599NZD to replace my current device especially as I have a retina display iPad generation 3.

Yes, you need a technical lead. No, it's not optional.

A little over a year ago I finished a contract on a project still in flow. I took two people with me into a meeting with the project sponsor to "introduce my replacement". The sponsor looked quizzically at the three of us and asked "so which of you is actually replacing Mia?" The answer was both: one as the project manager and the other as the technical lead.

Unfortunately, this situation is not isolated. Within the last six years I've stepped into three significant development projects where the lack of a technical lead has had a huge impact, quantifiable in the 6 figures, on the project constraints and product quality. And there are several others I've not been directly involved with or of a smaller scale which have suffered exactly the same.

All of these projects have had a plethora of capable technicians, architects and advisors so technical capability wasn't the core issue. It has always been about a single person with authority to make technical decisions on behalf of the organisation, someone to advise the project manager and steering board, someone to review the technical documents, set the standards and coordinate the activities of the technical team members. If we were building a house instead of software or infrastructure, this would be the foreman or site manager.

Separate the project manager and technical lead roles

Whilst there are a number of technical project managers in the market finding one with the right background as well as all the necessary project management skills can be difficult, so it's generally advisable to identify the need for a technical lead early in resourcing and budgetting processes. Additionally, the project manager is responsible for the project triple constraint — time, cost, quality — whereas the technical lead is primarily focussed on the product and the quality of that product. This creates a positive tension which doesn't exist if the same person holds both roles; so if I'd been staying to see the project through I'd have asked for a TL to be assigned or for me to formally take the role and release the project to another manager.

Create capacity to do the job

Whilst technical lead isn't usually a fulltime job, it is essential that if the lead is a team member, they are given the appropriate capacity to undertake this role and they attend project meetings and are present to provide advice when key decisions are being made.

The tech lead is a person

It is never wise to assign the lead role to an organisation, such as one of the suppliers in a multi-vendor arrangement: it should always be a person.

Vendors managing other vendors — unless they are a consortium with contractual ties — is also ill-advised. Vendors are often uncomfortable directing other vendors, particularly if decisions will entail additional costs or project delays, and rightly so. If the project involves multiple vendors, assign an internal technician or contract one in to represent the organisation.

Choosing a technical lead

When selecting a lead, don't necessarily look to the best technician. A sound understanding of all components of the solution is obviously required, but there are two parts to this role: technical and leadership. Often it is the second part which is overlooked. Remembering that other technicians and vendors are able to debate decisions and to carry out spikes to prove or disprove technical theory, the ability to engage these technician or "speak geek" is in fact more important than practical skills, as well as the ability to translate complex topics into chunks that the business can understand, and intellect to marry technical matters with strategic and business outcomes.

Whomever is the technical lead should carry authority because they are being mandated to make the call on a number of small daily decisions which together can amount to time and cost overruns or technical debt. That level of responsibility requires wide shoulders to carry and not everyone can step into that role easily and certainly not all technicians can set aside their philosophies to give unbiased commentary. I've been fortunate to work with a handful of excellent TLs and certainly notice the difference when a poor choice has been made. And certainly I'd go as far as recommending that if someone is stepping up into this role, they're paid some danger money for the effort.

Trust is critical

If the project manager is the senior officer on the field or the captain on the ship, then the technical lead is effectively the XO, first mate, the sergeant who sees to the day-to-day running of the (technical) troops. The troops need to be able to trust their XO and be able to communicate critical intelligence to them for escalation whilst accepting the chain of command and following orders.

The issues that can result from the absence of this role include:

• Poor procurement decisions where products or versions of products are selected which do not meet the business need or which require licensing or infrastructural prerequisites that inflate costs during implementation.
• Poor vendor selection where best practice standards are not evidenced during selection and requirements, design, modelling and testing activities are missed or not to the standard required during development.
• Loose integration between components that result in security holes often not identified until the product is under security review or in production.
• Duplication of effort as vendors develop overlapping or overly complex functionality.
• Product backlog grooming decisions which defer or remove architectural building blocks masked by functional stories, creating technical debt.
• Vendors making significant architectural changes which aren't apparent to business stakeholders and which open the organisation to technical, security and delivery risks.
• Technical team members all delivering to different standards or no standards at all.
• Debates on technical direction taking overly long or resulting in lack of coherent and articulated decisions.

If you are planning an ICT project, ensure you assign the technical lead role. If your project is already underway and appears to be drifting then maybe you need a technical lead or you need to give your TL authority to make decisions and kick ass.