Microsoft Secrets

1. In the early years at Microsoft, what featuers got into the product often depended on who shouted the loudest. Strong willed developers or program managers often got features into a product that customers did not really need or could not figure out how to use properly. To solve the problem Microsoft adopted of feature selection and feature prioritization on a technique called activity based planning. 2. Activity based planning begins with a systematic study of user activities for actions. It then evaluates how well the features support important or frequent user activities. The benefits are rationally discussed and tradeoffs analyzed. The group focuses on whether a particular feature facilitates a particular task. Activity based planning analyzes a product in terms of user activities, product features, and interrelationship between activities and features. Program managers and product planners break down the user tasks into approximately twenty activities and then map the activies to current features in the product, as well as features in competitors' products. Big selling products add a small number of major activities on each new product version. Activity based planning encourage project to create more general-purpose features. 3. Market research support activity based planning. Activity based planning encourages developers to widen existing features to support as many activities as possible. Rather than thinking about and picking favorite features and crafting a vision statement around them, program managers and marketing personnel make a list of what activities their customers are doing. Then thye center the product vision statement on features that support those activities. 4. Contextual inquiry, go where the action is: 1. a project team selects a focus. 2. the team members visit the customer sites and simply observe the customers and their activities 3. the observers take extensive notes and draw diagrams and models that record activities in terms of physical environment, work context, activity flow, and dependencies. 4. A data extraction session where a dozen or so members discuss the site visit. Use Post it notes to build an affinity diagram that capture the activities they observed. 5. Microsoft organizes products by features and projects by feature teams. Program managers and developers divide a project into subsets of features for each feature team during each of the three or four major internal milestones. Changes in a product's functionality should not cause the underlying product architecture to unravel. The product architecture should be very flexible. Good product architectures reduce the amount of interdependencies among groups. 6. Feature teams are sized at 3 to 8 developers. Team size depends on how experienced the team lead is. The team lead as a broad view of the product and can best see interconnected problems. The Team lead is in charge of all the development work in the project. The team leads provide guidence

Let me start by saying that the only thing I regret about this book is that it's more than ten years old. Michael Cusumano and Richard Selby did a very professional and objective deep study about Microsoft in various dimensions: history, culture, organization, management, process, people. Of particular interest is the daily build process, the testing organization and process and the project structure. If you are a Software Engineer like myself, you are just going to love this book!

The GoodWhere do most of the worst business people come from? M.B.A. schools usually. Students with strong academic skills with the honored M.B.A. can do the accounting, statistical work, and market research analysis. But does that mean they have a "business mind," or good "business sense?" Absolutely not. (That's why a new test is being devised to determine the "common sense" abilities of MBAs). Gates is a perfect example of the many successful business people who didn't spend time in front of Ph.ds in ivory towers regurgitating "business theories and paradigms." A look into the technological and mainly business side of Microsoft, the author breaks down the organization into the "how's, why's, and what's" of MSFT.It's common knowledge that Gates is a genius in the technical realm, and MSFT is a behemoth organization that has the majority of market share. But how did Microsoft grow to where it is and thrive in this ever-changing and competitive industry? This book explains the business (more than technical) philosophy, model, and actual examples from products and projects. Interviews with former and current managers and employees are also included. Again, it's common knowledge that Gates is exceptional at business. Ask their competitors. Note that Steve Jobs had a better product that was on the market earlier but he lacked the business, marketing, and management acumen. Gates not only seeks out brilliant techno minds but considers their business sense equally important, and this is heavily weighed when he decides to hire prospective candidates. Those hired are also individualists who will challenge him and other superiors, and argue and debate with him, in the search for the best idea or model. An employee gets Gate's respect, the author writes, "when his employees yell back." If Bill is converted by their arguments as opposed to his, he likewise changes course, taking the best route. One of the most dangerous and damaging things to a company, and any organization, are "yes men." A company culture that rewards the "yes man/woman" mentality leads people to misrepresent themselves and their work, and the managers and ownership eventually become "out of the loop." This leads to uninformed decisions, cover-ups, resentment, and alienation that benefit no one. This is written for the laymen, but can be a bit dry. Things such as shipping strategies, keeping teams small on projects, constant self analysis and critiques, and the reliance on customer feedback, are some of the many interlinking factors of the organization. The company likes people and departments that are interdependent upon one another to be physically close to one another. I.e., in the same building or on the same property, so if there is a problem or a need for clarification, they can see each other face to face to discuss it, instead of swapping emails, voicemails, and engaging in converence calls from across the country. Again, it's common knowledge that a

It isn't hard to believe that Cusumano has a History degree and has written books in the style of a historian. In this book (which predates the Internet explosion), he attempts to describe almost everything about microsoft...from product development to organizational structure. Detailed interviews and memos add spice to the story.

You have to admit: you can adore them or you can hate them, but if your work is related to the IT you should care about Microsofties. They shape our lives each day, with their software, their operating systems and their languages and so you should know about them. And, between the books I've read about this subject this is absolutely the best. Well written, informative and not too caring about pleasing Microsoft (as other books, from people working for MS, could be). Beside the inside stuff (really useful, for example, if you plan to do a job interview with Microsoft) a lot of the technologies explained in the book for dealing with people, sofware development and organization could be adopted to your way of work, also if you're not Bill (but maybe you're planning to become one!). Highly recommended