1. I received a “Resurrection Scroll” from my friend to reactivate my account for 10 free days since it’s expired for over 90 days. But before then, not wanting to waste time downloading and patching, I decided to go ahead and download the WoW client first. The free trial client is freely available, so I figure I would just download that.
2. After fidgeting with it to get best download speed possible, I left it running on my Vista box before I went to bed. I was going to do it while I was doing something else, but because of lack of a throttle system, it sucked up all my bandwidth so I couldn’t let it run while I was working.
3. The next morning I had to rush out the door so I didn’t check if it finished. I came home from work late that night, only to find that it had crashed and only downloaded 810 MB of the 3+ GB.
4. So I restarted it again before I went to bed, luckily, it picked up where it left off.
5. The next night it’s all done downloading, so I went ahead to install it. It’s a heavy process that took about 30 minutes, probably mostly I/O. It made my top of the line machine crawl but I sat through that while doing some casual browsing.
6. Now that I see the familiar login screen, I typed in my username and password (still not reactivated) to see if I can get any patches before I do so. To my disappointment, yes I had to patch, the client I downloaded was not the latest. I had to patch from 2.0 to 2.2.
7. Downloaded the patch through the P2P downloader as usual. I don’t remember how long it took. It’s around 500MB. I didn’t sit through it. So goes another night.
8. Next night, at least the patcher started automatically after the downloader, so 2.2 patch is all done. I logged in, and oh noes, another patch. Luckily it’s a small one, only 8 MB, I sat through that, applied. And then I got another small one. I logged in and no more patch. I got the “account not active” message. So that means I am all patched up!
9. So convinced that I can reactivate and get in game right away, I clicked the link in the reactivation invite. Great execution on the web part. No fuzz there, very easily, just a few clicks and my account is reactivated with 10 days free.
10. During the process, I was told I needed the Burning Crusade client in order to play BC. My heart sank. But I tried logging in anyway. I logged in, and of course, it said my account is flagged to be able to play BC but I don’t have the BC client. So I clicked the link on the reactivation page to get the BC client. Another 1 GB+ download.
11. After it’s downloaded (it’s the weekend, so I sat through it doing something else). I had to sit through another install process, which took around 30 minutes. Then, I logged in and OMG, a patch. I restarted the client and the downloader started. Luckily, it just wants the 2.0 to 2.2 patch that I had previously downloaded (and good thing I didn’t delete it). It quickly gone through verification and went ahead to apply. My guess is that the previous time, since I didn’t have the BC client, it skipped all the BC stuff so now it wants it again.
12. And then of course, I had to restart again, for it to apply the 2.2 to 2.2.2 patch for the BC portion.
13. I logged in, and confusingly, I had to click on “Suggest Realm” in order to get to my characters. I suggested the realm that I have characters on. I know I had characters on Hyjal, they should have a button that let me pick it. For a moment I thought my characters were wiped!

In any case, I am finally at the character selection screen, and we will see where BC takes me. I have learned a lot of “what not to do” in this process, hopefully I can apply them! Overall, it’s a lot of waiting and patching. I can’t imagine a not-very-motivated user doing this. In the end, the process wasn’t hard, it’s just very tedious and frustrating. And if I started my trial the moment I got my email, I would have wasted at least three nights on it. If the resurrection email contained a direct link to download the complete and latest BC client, all of this would have been avoided and I would only have had to sit through one download and one install.

You can view the whole lecture on Google. A transcript and other information are available on his university website. You can also read more about him on his Wikipedia entry.

There needs to be a healthy tension between the ScrumMaster and the Product Owner. The ScrumMaster focuses inwardly, beating the drums of Scrum and guiding the team on the agile path, while protecting it from changes. The Product Owner, quoting an excellent article on Scrum Alliance by Roman Pichler, needs:

• a thorough understanding of the customer needs
• an active stakeholder management
• a basic knowledge of how software is developed and deployed

By me trying to fulfill two roles, the friendly tension and accountability between the two roles disappear. I am ending up not performing both at my satisfaction level. To compound the issue, being the functional manager for the team as well makes it even less effective, when the tendency is look at me for decisions.

I have come to the conclusion that at my current role in the organization, I am better fitted to the Product Owner than the ScrumMaster. I am most accessible to the team, and I have vested interest in the effectiveness of my team’s products (as a functional manager, I am most concerned about departmental resource allocations and utilizations). Now I just need to find a suitable person to be the ScrumMaster…

Voting has begun! Please go to Studio Amicus’s website for all the links. Thanks to everyone who have given us feedback and helped in making the video!

We’ve learned a lot about machinima and how badly written software can really drive you nuts

I have only been an engineering manager for two years. It’s not until recently that I really looked closely at my management skills and see what I can improve on. I talked with some attendees at the SD Best Practice 2006, some people might think they want to be a manager, unfortunately some for the wrong reasons. Here are some crucial things that you should consider before becoming a manager, let alone a successful one.

The one central element, above all else, that you must value and have, is the willingness and will, to help people succeed in life, not just work. Sincerely, without hidden agenda. Without this, you are one of the managers that are made fun of in corporate comics like Dilbert. I differentiated between will and willingness because, even if you are willing to do it (willingness), doesn’t mean you have the will to go through with it.

Here are some of the crucial elements expanded from the central concept:

• You must be willing to invest time into your employee’s future.
• You must be willing to groom your employees such that even if they leave the company, they will be well-off.
• You must have a geniune concern about their well-being as a person, even if that means moving the person to another department or going to another job.
• You must be brutally honest.
• You must be concerned about where they are going in life! Because often where they want to be in life directly influence where they want to be in career.
• You must be more interested in solving people and process problems over tangile and technical problems.
• Above all else, you must have faith in people, that they want to do a good job inherently, and believe that people have good intentions.

Management is often compared to parenthood. It’s a great analogy. This is not meant to scare anyone wanting to be a manager off, but rather, I sincerely wish that more managers will keep these in mind. With these as priorities, I find it much easier to deal with your employees, then to have projects before them. Because if you do the above, you build great rapport with your employees, that you really care about them, as people. With that, your employees will return your gift of care by producing great work.

Some might think that’s naive and stupid, but I wholeheartedly believe that your chance at having successful employees is much higher than someone who doesn’t understand those qualities I mentioned.