Thesis Final Countdown

After a very intensive month and a few days of recovery, I’m back! A few notes for myself:

• Hard deadlines focus the team on what is important and what is not. It was amazing to see how our decisions improved the more closer the deadline was, and how fast we were able to agree on them.
• Working with teammates from different time zones require higher level of attention. It can create a 24h continuous working cycle or it can create a delay of 48h. It took us some time to figure it, but eventually it was awesome.
• I’ve found myself coding, running experiments and writing algorithms till 5 in the morning. A common misconception that I had in the past, is that if I work so late, eventually I will loose the day after and it just ain’t worth it. That’s incorrect. I’ve found out that when I’m in-the-zone working on a problem that I want to complete then it’s OK to burn some nights. I slept much better and I was fully motivated to get back to work the day after.
• Interruptions were reduced to minimum. Usually we had a Skype call and a few following emails in the morning (our morning, their morning..), everyone knew what they need to do , and then we were able to work with minimum interruptions. We had the unwritten rule of a “no-wait” policy. If someone get stuck, it becomes priority one to assist him.
• While I tried to maintain a backlog, it appeared to be a waste of time. In the last few weeks, I’ve opened new text file everyday for writing down tasks that we think that are the most important and feasible for today. In case of leftovers, I’ve sent them by mail, and deleted that txt file - if we want to add them tomorrow, we had to make a decision whether they worth it or not.
• It’s easier to get algorithmic progress when the architecture of the code is good. Yet, in research tasks, it’s hard to know whether something will work or not. Many times, I had to use the Blitzkrieg approach during the development process and just run for the goal without looking back (Git for the rescue). Overall I think it was worth it, although refactoring tasks became more complex and required better persuasion skills :)
• Working with a passionate teammates whose all teammate are excited from the project is so different from working with a team whose part of the teammates are excited and some get to work for the wrong the reasons.
• When you’re not working in an organization, some daily tasks should not be stopped - eating is important, sports is crucial (playing.. and watching!).
• It’s always better not to get to a situation that you have one month to complete such a big project.. but that’s probably the way life goes…