Customer Reviews

I Sing The Body Electronic

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Have you ever wondered how the teams at Microsoft work? This book is an inside glimpse into how a work group there operates. It is not a comprehensive view of Microsoftï¿ and in fact each group could be said to have its own unique dynamics, but this book will provide a brief and useful view of the process of creating and shipping a product at Microsoft. This book follows several members of a group within a now defunct section of Microsoft. They were creating a product, and the book documents each personï¿s feelings, opinions, and unique perspectives on getting their own jobs doneï¿ and how they have to work together to accomplish the ultimate goal of creating a product. Microsoft employees, it is shown, have a great deal of personal freedom and latitude in doing their jobs, but when it comes to working together in a team, their very idiosyncratic personalities often conflict. Add to this a very strange but not surprising element of artists versus programmers versus project managers. Add yet moreï¿ regular Microsoft employees versus contract employees. Whether the friction and problems the book conveys are real or not, they are perceived by many employees, which affects the work environment. An interesting aspect of the business model and organizational chart is that the employees are only a few levels (3 or 4) away from Bill Gates (or the highest level of the company). Most people at some point in their careers are required to present their work to Gates (or equivalent level) at some point. The book depicts Gates as a very temperamental and demanding person who will look at something which is next to perfect, get angry about its flaws, and yell at the creators insisting on something much better. And then when the presentation is over and the creators leave, Gates says something about how brilliant it was, but if people think he did not like it, they will strive to make it more perfect. The book might be dated by now. Organizations change a great deal in just a few years. Microsoft was not being threatened by the Justice Department when this book was written, and although MS was a huge company then it was not as big as it is now. The book is the first to point out the effects of organizational change, and Microsoft, like most large companies, goes through organizational change frequently. Interesting book... worthwhile read.

THe best book! Makes you feel comfortable if you are new working in a software development job. And how software development basically involves dealing with different kinds of people. ANd all the extremes in personality of the programmer. It also describes the rare and challenging lifestyle that the programmer pursues and chooses...

The real value in this book is the great work that Fred did to get inside the development team, and then observe. I've worked at R&D in Microsoft for long enough to know that he probably is telling it largely as it happened. I didn't work on this project but I got pretty damned close.

Yep, it sometimes is that chaotic. It's interesting to see in the book how Fred doubts himself, and says things like "maybe I'm going crazy, but it seems like these people just had another useful offsite, but they all think it went great." Fred, you ain't crazy.

The only drawback of this book is that in places Fred tries to read into situations a bit too much. He steps a little too far out of the observer role a few times, which brings the quality down a bit. Also I think he missed a great opportunity to describe the turn-around (well at least they shipped something) at the end. Maybe he got kicked out around then?

The book has lots of direct quotes and first hand accounts of what went on. Want to see the dark side of things going wrong at Microsoft?? Read this book.

I got a copy of "I Sing the Body Electronic" as well as another title by the author for my birthday, after a relative of mine happened to strike up a conversation with Fred Moody at the airport while waiting for a flight. My relative must have gotten on the topic of technology, because she mentioned she was looking for a gift for an engineer (me), and Mr. Moody suggested buying me his books (how egotistical).

Regardless, the book is horrible. A book about a year with the Pennsylvania Dutch farmers would be more captivating.

This book is supposedly textbook material for college project management classes, however I'd have changed universities if the one I was attending thought this is a worthy read.

The worst aspect is I have to keep the book on my bookshelf in case of a "drop in" from the person who gave it to me....sigh.

Very few detailed accounts of software projects are written skillfully, dispassionately and with deep understanding of the subject. Mr. Moody's book belongs to this small group. Aside from the disappointing Postmortem chapter, which is not a real analysis, but a feel-good ending note, Mr. Moody's work is a very worthy read. The author is an acute observer and a first-class journalist.

In the past I always assigned "Soul of a New Machine" to show my students what it's really like to work in a small project team with unrealistic deadlines (i.e. normal high tech). But the technology there is too out of date - 4.77Mhz, single boards for single functions, etc. So I have shifted to "I Sing," with generally good results. The book is 2x the length I would like so I assign selected chapters, but it reads easily enough that most students read the whole thing. They are always amazed by the level of chaos and conflict; in fact it makes them feel better about their own team design projects. The sequence of events is not easy to follow, there are too many characters, etc. so I provide some supplemental information on my web page. This is the best book I know of for a class on high tech development culture. There are plenty of case studies of the auto industry, but most of them are puff pieces and they are all about giant projects. Ditto for books about Boeing. The e-commerce stories are polluted by money and novelty issues (though I keep hoping to find one.)

Microsoft is one of the leading companies in the computer software industry and the most successful in software production. Bill Gates' company produces, among other products, MS-DOS, Windows, Word, Excel, Visaul Basic and Visual C++. It's rather interesting to "investigate" which techniques are used by Microsoft in order to produce such high quality products. An attempt to solve this "mystery" was made by Fred Moody, who wrote the book "I Sign the Body Electronic" after spending a year with the design team of Microsoft's Explorapedia [code named Sendak]. Amongst others in Moody's book there are details about Sendak's software development approach, how well the team managed to meet the deadlines and control the costs. Thus the result was another high quality product.

Probably the most important issue for the success of a software product is the software development approach. At Sendak, this approach was messy and chaotic, because of the project's size. The absence of deliverables, prototyping, and testing with users shows us that the Sendak team followed a version of "exploratory programming". This methodology, despite its disadvantages (not easy to monitopr progress, skilled staff needed). was siutable for the project because of its artistic nature, the well skilled stuff and the high ambitions the team had.The final result greatly proves the suitability of this approach.

When developing a product, not only software, you are mainly concerned to meet the final deadline and complete tasks and sub-tasks on certain dates. According to Moody's book, the managers of Sendak especially at the beginning of the life-cycle, seemed to be unable to lead successfully their team to the deadlines. This chaotic situation was caused due to the software development approach, the absence of a team leader, the different cultures excisting in the team (ie. designers vs developers) and the human nature, where everybody has his own personality. This situation is somehow solved when the team gets united and the project is moving forward. The union of the team, in such a project, is so important that one of Sendak's member (Ryberg), who may caused problems to the project was removed. At the end the project was shipped earlier, because of the team's hard work and the effective decisions of the new program manager and designer.Something else that is not least importance for the management of a project is the control of hardware, effort(of software designers), travel and training costs. The creation of several prototypes, the tests on children and the expert sessions are some facts which prove that the Sendak's managers team were not very concerned with the costs of the development and the production of the product. Probably the knowledge that they are working for one of the most rich companies of the world made them not to think that much for the costs.(ie. " ..well we've got money for mall intercepts."; Moody p.195). At the end the product is shipped earlier, before Christmas, and it decided to be released serially. Those facts determine a very good policy that lead the product to economic success.

From the beginning of the book it is mentioned that the Sendak team was really ambitious to produce a high quality product. In order to do so the team needed to achieve the following goals: (i) ensure that both users and buyers were satisfied with the product and (ii) ensure that the product's software and hardware were reliable, effective and fast. To meet the first object , the team created prototypes and asked from children and parents (users and buyers) to test and comment on them. Also there were "mall intercept staff" (ie. Moody p.199) and an expert review session (children's education and TV experts). As for the second goal it seems that the big battles in Sendak were all over code rather than content, interface rather than intellect. It is worth to mention that the procedures themselves are not the key to Explorapedia's high quality. This success is greatly related to the individual strengths of Microsoft's technicians and the limitless financial power of Bill Gates' company.

Could there be order in chaos? This seems to be the question that "puzzles" everyone involved in computer software development . According to Moody's "I Sign the Body Electronic.", he was witnessing a fail project, which finally turned out shipaple and of certain quality. So the anwer to the above question is YES, when you are working for Microsoft, where success and high quality is the final result

After reading "Dynamics of Software Development" by Jim McCarthy (a former Microsoftie) a couple of years ago, and actually tried some approaches described in that book, I have always wondered how Microsoft development teams really go about their software development process. And this book gives a realistic account of inside Microsoft. Basically, teams in Microsoft are just as chaotic as any other software development teams I have involved in and seen. The success of Microsoft projects, this case in particular, greatly attributes to their excellent technicians - which is something many smaller companies can't afford and duplicate. As the author said in the last chapter, he thought he was witnessing a fail project; the product turned out shipable and of certain quality really was because of the excellent individual team members' skills. As far as I can tell, very little, if any, of the project's success was due to the team structure and dynamics.

However, I don't know if I should be encouraged or discouraged by that revelation. What it means to me is that: no matter how many Microsoft software development books I have read, I can hardly reproduce the same results there, unless and until, I can assemble a high-caliber team like the one described in the book, whose individual skills can save the day.

All in all, the book is a very interesting read for people involved in software development. I finished it in record time.

Last note: the book is a required read for my MBA project management class. It sure beats reading a dry text book - I'll give you that.

It is remarkable that Fred Moody was able to gain the confidence of Microsoft's Explorapedia design and develpment team to the extent that he could chronical their process with all its warts. For anyone who has not had experience with the design and development process this book provides insignts that should both amuse and inform. For those who have been involved with the design and development process but have not taken the time to refelect on their own activities, this book may prompt them to ask the question, "What are we doing to ourselves and why do we do it?"

"I Sing the Body Electronic" is a success story. Fred Moody entertainingly describes the lifecycle of a product created by Microsoft. The mystifying part is how the success described in the story came to be. Moody vividly explains the socio-political inner workings of Microsoft by tailing a development team from the start of a product until its eventual completion. The team members come to life on the page, and the observations made by Moody add an intellectual quality to what would otherwise be a soap opera.

The book is gripping until the very end. The dialogue and writing are easily read, and well chosen. The chronological layout of the book, while necessary, is unfettering. All together the book is well written. Fred Moody ends the book with a provocative suggestion as to how a doomed project became a success. I wont spoil it by telling you what it is, but trust me its insightful.

I can't help but believe that Bill Gates traded in his families only possessions for some magic beans. Well it has certainly paid off for him, and Mr. Moody as well.