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Hanalei, Hawaii 9/2/2010
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Your Most Successful Project

Wednesday, September 10, 2008 -

Had a funny conversation with a colleague the other day where we talked about coding, project process, platform, etc. and we started talking about "Our Most Successful Project" and what it was and why. Interesting where it took us...

What Was Your Most Successful Project?
The first question that comes to mind, of course, is "what do you call success?" and it's a reasonable one. It's also not easily answered - what are your metrics? Are they:

  • Money - did you make some? A lot? Does this mean you wrote good software?
  • Time - did it come together like butta and sing its way to the finish line?
  • Completeness - did you nail every requirement? Was it bug free with 100% code-coverage?
  • Client-happiness - did your client get a promotion? Gush about you and your company?

Perhaps it's a mix of all four. And then again perhaps it's none of these - maybe it's just a "gut feeling" you have that you "nailed it".

I think about these things a lot - especially since I'm putting my bits on the block with the MVC Storefront and it better be good. But WTF is *good* anyway? Will it be *good* if the Alt.NET guys talk to me still? Is it *good* if Ayende says it is?

What if I can go to bed at night and feel like I didn't sell my soul to the Great Soul-Sucker, and people use it?

Meh. You can freak yourself out on this to no end. So rather than look forward and worry - I think it's better to look backward and reflect and ask yourself - What Was the Most Successful Project You Worked On?

Note that i'm not asking about code here - I'm asking about the SUCCESS of the project. Qualify it as you will - based on code, technology, client happiness, money - preferably a sweet mix of all 4!

I had a moment to think about this tonight as I pulled my kids around the block in their Red Wagon - what was MY most "successful" project? I'd say it has to be SubSonic.

My Most Successful Project
People use it, they like it, and it seems to be very useful - which is what I intended. This isn't supposed to be an ego-stroke post, but it's something I want to look back on so I can see what's important as I push ahead with other projects.

SubSonic isn't technically marvelous and exciting, by any stretch. The docs completely suck, the support is not where it should be (though I really, really try), and our test coverage is ... well I spose I shouldn't even use that word with respect to our unit tests :).

I didn't use BDD or TDD, I didn't follow BDUF or make Eric join me in weekly scrums. I didn't do any kind of focus group or marketing either - I just had an idea and it lit me up.

So I spose what I'm saying is that it was accidental :). It was inspired - to be sure, but really it was (as they always say) a matter of right place, right time, and right idea and I made something that people found useful.

Which is market-speak and has nothing to do with technical approaches or project processes. To be honest I'm OK with that - I'm working on 3.0 right now and so far have implemented what I think are pretty decent approaches (like I did with 1.0 2 years ago, and I'm sure I'll do again with 4.0 two years from now). The point I can't get away from is that, technically speaking, it's more about the itch that SubSonic scratches than the fluffy stuff that makes it up.

There's a messaging service out there that shows cats in servers and whales supported by birds (James and the Giant Fail Whale) but I'll be damned if I try to make a comparison there... not good...

I'm interested to hear what you have to say about this - how do you gauge the success of something you've worked on or created?

Related

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Mihai - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - Gut feeling and Number Of Calls from the Client after it was finished ;). Also it should be feature complete
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jgeurts - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - For me, it was a project called Property Center. I started it from scratch after speaking with a friend about annoyances he had with other software applications out there. When I started it, I thought I knew a lot about web programming, but it turns out that I learned quite a bit (still am) and became more humble along the way. I feel proud about what I built and how it helps people do their work a little easier, making it a success for me.



But I think there are many successes related to this. For example, just getting the project "live, in the wild" was my first success with the project. Another success was getting the project to the point where it generated a profit. And so on... It's comforting to know that there will be many more incremental victories/successes related to the project as time goes on.
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Dave Neeley - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - Successful Date = The first scheduled week long vacation after the release of the project, assuming my email inbox is relatively empty when I return.
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jkresner - Monday, September 22, 2008 - My last project, Preparty, was a disaster from the perspective of the business, but I learnt SO much technically, commercially and generally that in retrospect it was a great experience and easily the coolest things I've ever done.



My metric is "the general happiness" you can create from your work. If there was a way to record and quantify the emotion each of your users felt, the sum off this would be my number one measurement for success of the Project.



Hopefully now that I'm wiser commercially and skilled technically, my next soon to be launched personal project www.climbfind.com, a social networking site for rock climbers, which was built on a hybid of MVC Preview 4 and WebForms (only for validation purposes) will be a greater success!
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Mihai - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - Gut feeling and Number Of Calls from the Client after it was finished ;). Also it should be feature complete
Gravatar
jgeurts - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - For me, it was a project called Property Center. I started it from scratch after speaking with a friend about annoyances he had with other software applications out there. When I started it, I thought I knew a lot about web programming, but it turns out that I learned quite a bit (still am) and became more humble along the way. I feel proud about what I built and how it helps people do their work a little easier, making it a success for me.

But I think there are many successes related to this. For example, just getting the project "live, in the wild" was my first success with the project. Another success was getting the project to the point where it generated a profit. And so on... It's comforting to know that there will be many more incremental victories/successes related to the project as time goes on.
Gravatar
Dave Neeley - Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - Successful Date = The first scheduled week long vacation after the release of the project, assuming my email inbox is relatively empty when I return.
Gravatar
Jonathon Kresner - Monday, September 22, 2008 - My last project, Preparty, was a disaster from the perspective of the business, but I learnt SO much technically, commercially and generally that in retrospect it was a great experience and easily the coolest things I've ever done.

My metric is "the general happiness" you can create from your work. If there was a way to record and quantify the emotion each of your users felt, the sum off this would be my number one measurement for success of the Project.

Hopefully now that I'm wiser commercially and skilled technically, my next soon to be launched personal project www.climbfind.com, a social networking site for rock climbers, which was built on a hybid of MVC Preview 4 and WebForms (only for validation purposes) will be a greater success!