I’m now part of 11.5% of all California workers looking for work. My organization decided strategically that they didn’t want to do in-house development, hence they didn’t need a development manager. I just wish I had gotten a longer chance to show the significant quality and cost benefits of maintaining a development team in-house.
There is shock as you realize your routine has changed. It settles down after a few days. Next came the silver lining that comes with this sort of change:
- Doing coding katas every morning to tighten up my programming chops. I’m alternating between doing solutions in Ruby, Java, and Groovy.
- Looking at options to do something I’ve been passionate about like Agile coaching, QA management, or old fashioned professional services.
- Attending some conferences and user groups in the Bay area since I have some travel time.
- Reviewing some open source projects I always wanted to contribute to.
- Catching up with friends in Sacramento over lunch.
- Hanging out with my two daughters including picking them up on bikes last week.
Sacramento isn’t the biggest tech market and it’s home to the state of California government and their massive budget issues, but I’m confident I’ll find a good opportunity.
Very sorry to hear that. But despite the current economic climate I am very confident that you will find something better very soon!
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’m sure I’ll learn some valuable lessons from the experience and end up better off eventually.
Sorry to hear about that Ed. I believe you have the right approach, transform the constraint into creativity !
I you happen to travel in the Bay Area, I hope you can make the next meeting of the bay APLN (http://bayapln.org/): Agile Learning games with Chris Sims. Should be fun and generally a good venue for networking.
Good luck, Ed. Wherever you end up, your colleagues will be lucky to have you there!
Thanks for the heads up about the APLN meeting, I may try to make it down.
hi Ed,
Sorry to hear this, but if you can publish a blog on “I just wish I had gotten a longer chance to show the significant quality and cost benefits of maintaining a development team in-house.” with data points, might help people to understand that -following the fashion of outsourcing for everything does not help..(though it benefits me out here in India in the short term ..but i am really skeptical about its feasibility in long term esp. in every department of development).
Thanks
Samant
hi Ed,
Sorry to hear this, but if you can publish a blog on “I just wish I had gotten a longer chance to show the significant quality and cost benefits of maintaining a development team in-house.” with data points, might help people to understand that -following the fashion of outsourcing for everything does not help..(though it benefits me out here in India in the short term ..but i am really skeptical about its feasibility in long term esp. in every department of development).
* BTW its 4th July, so Happy Independence day
Thanks
Samant
Ed,
I am sorry to hear about you being part of a downsizing and outsourcing of development. I have witnessed a similar trend where I work and miss the days when a small group of development folks can be in bed with the business and even know and anticipate their next move.
As you state the value of an in-house development team can be minimized. Sure – IT is turning into a utility in some sense. Working with an external development partner works best when the business knows EXACTLY what it wants. If not, it can be expensive to continually retool and pay a big rate for it.
Good luck with your search. I have been reading your blog for a half a year now and enjoy your insight – thanks!
Thanks for the sentiments. The work that goes into outsourcing your development well if often underestimated. And if your practices are immature it just becomes that much worse. I think it could be done well, but I don’t see a lot of examples.
I’ll try to work up a post on my thoughts on how to successfully look at outsourcing.