Pocketknife
During a recent interview one of my friends asked an IT candidate a question along the lines of “What is your favorite tool or utility that you carry with you to your next job?” The geek in me loved the question(1) because it sounded like a great water cooler geek conversation.
After the interview, my friend and I had a fun discussion about that question and how we would each answer it differently. For him, the answer is LogParser. Once he discovered LogParser, he realized that time after time he ran into situations where LogParser helped him quickly and thoroughly troubleshoot a server. He now keeps the capabilities and possible uses of this tool in that little recess of the brain that is ready to spring to action whenever a technical problem arises.
For me, the answer is also clear. My favorite “tool” in my job is FogBugz. We were a “FogBugz Shop” for several years before we really began to harness the product’s usefulness. But now, I can’t imagine getting by without it or something equivalent.
Being without FogBugz would be like carrying a pocketknife all of your life and then one day forgetting to carry your knife with you. You would feel naked and unprepared for the troubles headed your way. A day without your pocketknife would be a day full of packages that need opening, strings that need to be cut and drawers that are stuck and need to be pried open. A trusty pocketknife is the tool that appears at first to only have one purpose but becomes more useful as you get used to having it at your disposal.
In many ways, FogBugz is my pocketknife(2). Not only is it a part of our standard software development processes at my work, but I keep finding new uses for the tool and I’m always seeing how others that I interact with could be using FogBugz.
Not everyone in my office is on the FogBugz bandwagon, and it drives me crazy. I’m sure the other tools they are using are, for the most part, great. At least, those people that are actively trying to manage their projects. I don’t see how some people (specifically “knowledge workers”) think they can do their job without FogBugz or some equivalent system to manage their tasks.
And that, my friends, is one of the reasons that I’m starting this blog…
Welcome to my little Internet soapbox: Take control of your life with FogBugz.
(1) – Admittedly, I don’t know if that question is a particularly good interview question. It made sense in this case because of the specific information we wanted this candidate to talk about. But I could see the question just being a distraction in the average interview.
(2) – Please, don’t get too hung up on the analogy. If you think about it too long it breaks down. It is okay!
