Additionally, we ended up on the one mystery topic that has always eaten away at me. That mystery for me is simple:

Why does one person or team pursue excellence relentlessly while another hits the door at 5:01 and doesn’t think about software development until tomorrow morning?

I got into the same discussion with Ted Neward at the recent P&P Summit while playing pool. Heck, it was almost an argument. I said something stupid that night. I said, “It’s all about incentives.”

Wrong.

One Theory: Incentives

I have had the opinion for years that there must be some motivator, some technique, or some dynamic that will affect people positively to simply care. This is the whole idea behind coaching, after all. A well-versed and motivating individual comes into a team and works with them to get better results. This happens every day.

If this will really work, it necessarily means that people are motivated by incentive. What I mean by that conditions like salary, a great leader, wonderful co-workers, free pizza and soda (or something) will inherently motivate someone to care about excellence.

Certainly no one can deny that incentives like these contribute to an enjoyable workplace. Heck, I love visiting the Microsoft campus and downing those free V-8s. All of them combined though, probably cannot cause someone to ponder, read, and learn. Incentives cannot move someone to try a new coding technique just because it might be interesting.

The Irritatingly Simpler Theory that is Likely True

There is just something about unique about people who can’t stop trying to improve. It isn’t the great boss or the great office space that causes me to think about the finer points of TDD in the shower. It’s just because I can’t NOT do it.

Both my mom and Ted Neward tried to get me to see that incentives will get you behavior and results (sometimes the ones you actually want), but can’t create passion. That is something that is simply innately there or not there.

This isn’t to say that there is no value in the person who wants to do their bid and get fair pay for a fair day. That’s not what I’m talking about. I am talking about the fact that most genius is recognized by relentless pursuit, the kind we can’t define.

The Good News

OK. Uncle, I get it. The great news is there are so many of us passionate geeks out there striving to improve. You wouldn’t likely be reading this if you weren’t one. Heck, I even geek to work with some!

What’s your theory? Are passionate professionals just the obsessive-compulsive ones?

Recently, it occurred to me to ask her a seemingly innocuous question:

When a client asks you to make something you’ve never made before, what do you tell them it will cost?

“First of all,” she replied, “every single job is something I’ve never done before.”

Boom. I think we’re on familiar ground here.

I wrote some questions for her to answer in an email and this post shows her responses. Her answers appear in italics.

I find this a fascinating discussion of project estimation and craftsmanship.

What do you do when the client doesn’t know what they want?

There are two kinds of clients that fit into that category: 

1. Those who have some sort of unqualified vision and hazy idea of what they want, but lack the vocabulary and expertise to complete their thoughts
2. Those who want something different from what they have, and don’t really care much beyond that.

Customer  #1 is the most work of the two.  They deserve and require time, since they are paying me for my services.  It takes time sitting with these clients, talking through concepts, drawing things on paper, asking questions and offering ideas trying to get to the core of what they want, what they actually need and what’s physically possible.  I have found that it takes a high level of skill to create something that is perfect to someone else.

Customer # 2 doesn’t happen often, but is a lot of fun!  These are the rare clients that enable my inner artist to flourish and shine, with no constraints or outside demands.  These are the clients want something new and shiny, but don’t have a huge list of demands. They want some sort of element of surprise. 

Problems ensue when I think I’ve got a #2 and didn’t ask enough question to realize I was dealing with a #1. 

How do you charge your clients?

Certain jobs have a set fee.  These are tasks I’ve done for 20 years; I know how long they take, I could do them in my sleep, and they’re the same regardless of the client.  On the incredibly rare occasion one of these jobs isn’t what it appeared to be, my bad and I eat the cost (and I’ll pay more attention next time!).

Other jobs, the custom jobs, are harder to price out.  Now that I have a larger body of work, I have a better idea of how long things take.  If it’s something I’ve never done, I estimate my time in my head, and then (because I’m always overly optimistic in my estimation) I double that to come up with my estimated total of time.  Then I factor in  what my time is worth per hour. 

I also have to know what other professionals are charging for similar services, as it’s tough to get clients if I’m charging twice what everyone else wants for the same service.

Do you tell them up front what a job will cost?

If it’s not a custom job, I always tell my clients the cost up front.  I may adjust the cost of a task between clients, but I don’t change the price after I’ve quoted on non-custom jobs.

Pricing custom jobs is a lot harder.  I run my formula:  estimated time, doubled, multiplied by an hourly rate.  And I offer that as an estimate.  I explain to my customer that it is an estimate to the best of my abilities, and that the price could fluctuate up or down.  I’ve learned that I don’t want the clients who aren’t willing to work within this structure;  these tend to be the people who really, really want custom work and really, really don’t want to pay custom prices.

What do you do when it takes longer than you thought?

I’ve found that the bigger the project, the more willing the customer is to accommodate  an extended deadline.  At the first sign of missing a deadline, I call the customer. It helps a lot, at this point, to be able to show my customer what I have actually accomplish already.

Also, if it’s something I’ve never done before, I tell the client that I’ve never done a job exactly like that one, and my time estimate is only an estimate.

On a long or complex project, when do you consult with the client to guide your decisions?

If it’s a client #2, I don’t usually consult with them once I’ve started the project.  If I’ve come to a point where things veer wildly in opposite directions, I may have the client stop by to choose option A or B.  Usually, with customer #2, I do it how I want to do it.

Custom jobs for a client #1 elicit a lot of phone calls.  I like to check with the customer at each phase when I’m not completely sure what they’d choose;  a 2 minute phone call takes a lot less time than picking 150 staples out of someone’s wingback chair.  I have never had a customer be irritated with me for making sure I was meeting their needs.

We’re starting a software company!

Specifically, we have partnered together to open the doors on Guild 3 Software. Readers of Elegant Code are probably familiar with our writing and interests, so hopefully you can guess what we’re about.

Jarod, Jason, and I are strong believers in the ideals set forth in the Manifesto for Agile Software Development and in the Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship. Our shared appreciation for the craft of software development has always drawn us into a huddle at user group meetings and other places where developers gather. We are excited to bring this passion to our customers and our products. Accordingly Guild 3 is founded on four core values:

Integrity, Craftsmanship, Agility, and Community.

You can read more about these, our founding values, here.

But, What Are You Doing?

Several things.

We are working on some exciting, super-secret product opportunities. Maybe they’ll be more on that another time.

In addition, Guild 3 is a professional services organization committed to bringing the ideals of software craftsmanship to our work. We are already working with a few clients and delivering software, of course!

Further, we are participating in community events, conferences, and other opportunities to learn from our peers.

Regarding Elegant Code

To be very clear, ElegantCode.com is not a business. It is a blogging community of professional software developers who simply enjoy each other’s contributions. We will all stay actively involved in ElegantCode.com and will retain our blogging sites here.

Wouldn’t have it any other way.

On a personal note, this doesn’t change my status as a Pluralsight instructor. That’s still a large part of my life. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to visit your company some day.

Shameless Appeal for Work

Surely you saw this coming!

If you have any software development projects you think might be a good fit for an intensely focused group of software craftsmen, give us a ring.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is available on MSDN this morning. It will be more widely available soon. With a new look and feel it is off an running. After working with it for awhile, I can honestly report that it is a pleasurable product to use. Much attention has been paid to aesthetic, and the customization story for products like ReSharper and Code Rush is even richer. This means that companies have a great platform upon which to make our favorite development environment dance.

One change we see as part of the Beta 2 drop is the exclusion of the term “Team System”.

That’s right! Team System is no longer going to be used as a product name going forward, even though all the favorite tools are still in the box. So, what’s going on here?

We’ve been struggling with the following product lineup for several years now:

• Visual Studio Professional 2008 with MSDN Premium
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition with MSDN Premium
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Architecture Edition with MSDN Premium
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Edition with MSDN Premium
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition with MSDN Premium

There’s a mouth full, eh? Not so funnily enough, the more frequent questions I get from customers investigating Team System has been around licensing. Frankly, it is confusing. MSFT heard this loud and clear and has taken steps to rectify the situation with this release. Instead of continuing with the Team System brand, we’ll now be talking about fewer and simpler options for purchasing Microsoft tools.

• Visual Studio 2010 Professional
• Visual Studio 2010 Premium
• Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

OK, so fewer choices must be simpler, so what do I buy now? Well, this page shows the various tools available in the different versions. The truth is that there is still a decision process around what tools you want to pay for. Let’s take a look at just the testing tools available in Visual Studio.

If I want Code Coverage, I buy Premium. If I want Load Testing, I buy Ultimate.

Hopefully this packaging will actually be easier to understand and digest.

Kirstin Juhl

@kirstinj

We are excited to have Kirstin drop wisdom like she has been doing on her current blog: I [heart] Code. From her own bio:

I am a former engineer who writes code. I did Toyota Operating System, Kanban, and Lean in my factories a decade ago, and am fascinated by its use in software development today. You can take the girl out of the factory, but you cannot take the engineer out of the girl, and so I approach everything in life as a problem to solved or optimized. Including software development. I strive to be a craftsman.

I am a mom, and I take lessons from parenthood into my work everyday.

Jason Jarrett

@staxmanade

Jason is a big-time Silverlight maven and the developer behind StatLight, a set of unit testing tools for Silverlight. I knew he was perfect for the tribe when he said, “… and so I added automocking to Unity for Silverlight.”

Yeah.

Welcome all.

This can be a favorite move of vendors who give away thumb drives at conferences as swag. They want to launch their little demo app or whatever when you plug in the drive.

It can be very annoying.

I am trying to create a Win7 install thumb drive for my wife’s netbook and I have a great 4G thumb drive to hold the media. Unfortunately, my thumb drive had this U3 stuff on it and won’t work as a boot disc as long as that pesky software is on it.

The simple answer is this little utility: U3Uninstall.exe. After running this utility on the thumb drive I have a plain ole storage drive I can use as a Win7 bootable install disc.

Here’s a link to the screen cast.

Here’s a pointer to the article.

In this episode, Tommy visited with me about effectively applying Team System to some agile software development practices. This ranges from Continuous Integration to the tool aisle at your neighborhood Sears store, but I’ll leave that for you to discover.

• Tommy’s Blog
• Scrum for Team System
• Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship
• Visual Studio Team System

Get the show here

The slides from the talk are available below. The slide deck I am posting here is a bit larger than the one used in the talk. These slides include some interviews with the Starr kids that were left out of the slides at the conference for time reasons.

This episode is less rocket surgery, and more brain science. I hope you enjoy the show.

• IEEE Paper
• Slide Deck in PDF

Get the show here