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Updating Your Utility Belt

October 14, 2013

Well, metaphorically speaking – every self-respecting geek has one.

Lately I've been trying to minimize what I carry around even further. After having children I've come to appreciate the value of less stuff in my life. So here's my everyday carry in 2013:

Compared to my 2011 everyday carry, I have managed to reduce in size almost everything on it:

Leatherman Style (smaller)
Nite Ize S-Biner #0 size (smaller)
iTP EOS AAA flashlight (smaller)
~~USB flash drive~~ (removed)

I have no idea why I was using a size #1 S-Biner for so long when the smaller size #0 model does the job just fine. And I gave up the USB flash drive altogether in favor of storing files on whatever smartphone I'm always carrying around with me anyway. (But if you need one, look at the USB 3.0 models, which are almost like little SSD drives in your pocket.)

I also flirted with the idea of dropping the standalone flashlight and relying on my smartphone camera flash as a flashlight, but in my testing smartphones make weak flashlights. It might replace one of those button battery style LEDs in an emergency, but it's not even close to what a decent AAA LED flashlight can do for actual nighttime navigation. It is interesting that LEDs haven't advanced much in the last few years on AAA flashlights. There are somewhat newer Cree XP-G2 models which I also experimented with, but I ended up preferring the minimalist, compact form factor of the iTP EOS. Don't forget the lithium AAA batteries to keep the weight down and runtime up, though!

The Leatherman Style is a fantastic new addition, because it keeps the core functions I used the most on the Leatherman Squirt and removes the extra stuff I didn't. Here's an expanded view of the other side.

So: scissors, knife, screwdriver. Hard to see, but detachable tweezers are also wedged in on the corner. That works for me. These are the functions I used the most on my Leatherman Squirt, by far. The Style is leaner, smaller, lighter … meaner.

(And there's also a nail file, on the other side of the screwdriver, but what is this obsession with nail files on multi-tools? Who are these people filing their nails all the damn time? I've never filed my nails once in my entire life! Can anyone mansplain this to me?)

I also purchased an updated Leatherman Squirt PS4, the one with the integrated scissors as well as the pliers. I'm showing it here fully expanded, next to my old red Squirt that didn't have the scissors.

The pliers are great, and probably the only reason to carry this slightly larger multitool if you need it. But I hardly ever did. The physical dimensions aren't terribly different, but the Squirt PS4 is 56.4 grams, versus the Style at 23.1 grams. Quite a weight savings.

(I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the Squirt and Style are only two of the literally dozens of great Leatherman utility tool choices, from pocket to multi-tool. I like the smallest ones in the model range for my minimalist EDC needs, but you might want more. Of particular note is the Style CS which adds an integrated clip and bottle opener, but bulks up to 41.1g)

So that's my updated utility belt in 2013. Less is more, folks.

But there is one more thing…

If you were worried that Haitz's Law wasn't working for us on these LED flashlights, have no fear. Because for $75, you can now own a compact, roughly AA-sized LED flashlight that produces an astonishing 850 lumens. (For context, the AAA flashlight pictured above produces around 90 lumens on its highest setting.)

I got this Fenix PD35 flashlight to play with, along with some rechargeable 18650 Li-ion batteries (think fatter AA, two CR123A batteries stacked on top of each other), and it is nuts. It's actually painful to look at when lit, and it gets pretty warm in your hands on the high and turbo settings. If you've ever dreamed of carrying a lightsaber, and I know you have, wielding this baby will make you realize that dream is closer today than ever before.

It's also a pretty nice flashlight. Just try to resist making lightsaber noises while using it.

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Estimating versus Timeboxing, part 1

June 10, 2009

As if delivering projects wasn’t hard enough. Delivering projects on time is even harder. As practitioners, we’re all responsible for measuring up the obstacles in front of us and are accountable to those measurements. At least, we should be.

One of those measurements is time. Time is a funny thing. People have a lot of interesting things to say about time. Some say that it’s one of the most valuable things that we have… but I’ll avoid diving into a philosophical discussion for now.

What I wanted to talk about was project estimation. Specifically, estimates for deliverables. For the past several years, our team has put a lot of effort into becoming more accurate in our time estimating skills. Despite analyzing how often we over and/or underestimate the time each of us believes it’ll take to complete a task, we find ourselves coming back to the drawing board.

A few things that we’ve learned.

Tasks that we believe will take a few days/week/more to complete are often underestimated
Tasks that we believe will take less than a few hours are often more accurate or overestimated
Too many tasks were completed with a bigger budget than was necessary (lower ROI)
A lot of time was spent working on requirements refining to get better estimates

When we began to step back from this and look for patterns, we found that several of the tasks that we would budget hours for (versus estimate hours for) were proving to be more accurate. This approach is most commonly known as timeboxing. With timeboxing, we can place a dollar value on a specific task and work within that constraint. For example, with our clients, both parties can come to the conclusion that, “we believe that it’s worth up to $800 to implement this new functionality.” With that, we’re able take that dollar amount and figure out how many hours to box ourselves within.

The underlying question to our client with each change/feature request is, “How valuable is this to your business at this point in time?” Whereas, with a typical approach to time estimates, a client comes to you with a list of changes/features and you provide them with time estimates. “We estimate that it’ll take 6 hours at $200/hour for feature X and we’d do it like this…” The client will have to evaluate your estimate and figure out if it’s worth $1200 and make a decision. They can respond with, “no, that’s too expensive, can we do it for less?” The following steps would entail your team trying to find ways to reduce your estimate.

While these two paths might seem very similar, it’s been my experience that the standard approach to estimating takes more time for negotiating the terms of the agreement.

However, with timeboxing, you are asking your client to provide you with an initial budget. This will completely change how you respond to the feature request. When you have a timebox, from the moment that you begin to evaluate the request, your brain will add the necessary constraints to keep things within scope.

Through this process, we’ve revamped our estimating process so that as we’re building our iteration costs for clients. For each deliverable, we break down a series of objectives/tasks and apply timeboxes to each of those while knowing what the budget is for the deliverable as a whole. Usually, the deliverable is directly related to the request that came from our client with a budget. The process is completely transparent and our team is responsible for working within those constraints.

..and as we’ve learned from Ruby on Rails, constraints can be extremely beneficial.

While I don’t have all the answers yet, my goal is to share some of my experiences and lessons on the topic. I’d love to hear about how you’re adopting timeboxing in your project planning and estimating process.

Anyhow, just some thoughts that I wanted to share. More to come…

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