What was achieved in 24 hours
In our previous post we had live coverage of the SYNAQ24 day. SYNAQ24 is an initiative for SYNAQers to spend 24 hours on any project / task that they want, all they needed to do was present the results the next day. The very next day we had a "show and tell" with everyone presenting the project that they worked on. The results were way beyond my own expectations and the day proved to be a great success (in terms of company improvements, morale booster and general fun).
Here is a summary of the results (scroll down for the more detailed results and pictures of everyone presenting their project)
- An improved and more secure way to access our central password repository including a new built in search functionality to find information quicker (Adrian)
- An automated way to perform a number of the manual preventative maintenance checks the technical team do on a monthly basis. The new changes are estimated to save the team about 20 hours a month (Bruford)
- A new agile development process and system that uses both an online tool and offline dashboard to track progress of sprints (Nic)
- A new feature in Pinpoint SecureMail that automatically builds an on-the-fly email subscription database for our clients (Gareth and Yossi)
- A self-help wiki for our clients to be able to easily access the information required on how to configure our products (and be able to share tips and tricks with each other). This should greatly reduce the number of support requests the helpdesk get (Obi)
- A new chalkboard wall for people to share ideas and information on (Liza and Holden)
- An automated reseller proposal summary builder removing the manual paperwork required to sign-up a reseller's new client. Estimated to save operations about 2 to 3 hours a week (Adi)
- Migration of accounting data onto online accounting package as a replacement for Pastel (Liza)
- Improvement to the SYNAQ monitoring dashboard so that we can quickly identify problematic servers (Jaco and David)
- A "life is too short for this shit" volunteer to help system (Sam)
All the work was done in 24 hours or less with most projects being 100% completed and some requiring ongoing development to be fully utilised and incorporated. Overall the innovations produced are expected to save the team (collectively) about 35 hours a month - not bad for a single 24 hour sprint and that excludes the other improvements mentioned above.
Below, more detail about each persons project with them presenting to the team:
1st up, we had Adrian take the stage and present his "Password database security and search enhancements" project. Adrian was cagey the whole time during the SYNAQ24 about what he was working on and wowed the team when he finally presented what he did.
At SYNAQ we use a central password repository to keep track of the passwords for all of our remote servers that we manage. The security and integrity of this repository is obviously of utmost importance. Adrian took it upon himself to greatly improve the security of this repository and how we access it. Some of the changes include integrating it with our central LDAP repository and building an additional password security layer ontop of the one we already had. In addition to this, the repository never used to have a search functionality so finding the password for a specific server was a frustrating process (we manage a couple of hundred servers so you can imagine). The new search functionality greatly reduces the time to find the server and password that you're looking for.
 Adrian presenting his password database security and search enhancements |
 Screen showing a new user group in our central LDAP database to provide people access to the password repository |
 The new search functionality built into our password repository |
Next up was Adi who presented her automated proposal summary builder for resellers. Currently the process is rather manual requiring SYNAQ to produce a proposal summary document with all the required information in excel, exporting that to PDF, sending it to the reseller, having the reseller sign it and fax it back to SYNAQ. It probably takes between 20 and 30 minutes each time so depending on how many orders we get per week it can be a painful chore (for both us and the reseller). The new Automated system aims to solve all of this pain and paperwork.
 Adi presenting her reseller proposal summary builder |
 Screenshot showing the reseller selecting the various products and quantities for their clients |
 The Proposal Summary sheet being automatically produced for the reseller to sign and send to us |
After Adi came Bruford's presentation. He worked on two projects, the first was a simpler way to check the latest BES logs (apparently the old way was a bit cumbersome). The second project was an automated script that performed a large number of the manual preventative maintenance checks that the technical support team perform each month on our clients infrastructure. When asked how long it took him to put the script together, he said "2 hours". When asked how much time it would save the team each month, he said "he thinks 30 minutes per server"... they check about 40 servers a month so that's 20 hours saved. For 2 hours of dev that's an incredible return! (one has to ask why he waited so long to build the script!)
 Bruford presenting his preventative maintenance automation script |
 Screenshot of preventative maintenance script doing its stuff |
 Screenshot of the new BES log checker for easier access to the daily logs |
Following Bruford came Gareth. He worked together with Yossi to build a new feature in Pinpoint SecureMail, namely, a subscription manager module. The theory behind the feature is that over the years thousands of people email your business on a daily basis, yet companies do not build an accurate database of those people over the years and are losing a real opportunity to better engage with clients that are already engaging with them. With this theory, they gave birth to Pinpoint Subscription Manager. An automated system that automatically emails a person (whose recently emailed your organisation) an invitation to subscribe to the organisations mailing list. If the person accepts such an invitation they then get added to the subscription list module (which can be exported to CSV and imported into products like MailChimp and ConstantContact). If the person doesn't want to receive such notifications they can 'unsubscribe' from receiving further invitations. The 24 hours didn't leave enough time for UI polishing but all the functionality and testing was completed.
 Gareth presenting the Pinpoint Subscription Manager module |
 The new mailing list module dashboard displaying number of successful subscribes |
 Confirmation screen confirming a successful new subscription to the company mailing list |
Obi was next to take the center screen and present his client self-help wiki. The idea behind it was that clients would make use of a central self-help (if it was available) as well as possibly add their own content and tips so that other people could benefit from their experiences. The end result would hopefully be less support requests reaching the helpdesk giving more time for the guys to focus on more complex and challenging requests. Obi built a wiki dedicated to do this with different sections pertaining to the various products that we offer. It's a great initiative and one that I'd like to see being worked on further and made available to our clients!
 Obi presenting his self-help wiki |
 Screenshot of the new self-help wiki |
 Example of how-to guide to setup calendar sharing in the self-help wiki |
Next up was Nic who spent his 24 hours working on a more formalised agile development process that incorporates both an online tool called PivotalTracker as well as an offline dashboard to monitor the progress of each development sprint. The guys were very impressed with the new process with the product dev team wanting to incorporate his process into theirs (Nic is part of the operations dev team). It's also the first time I've seen the dev guys so excited about a new tracking and project management tool so if you're in product development and embracing agile development methodologies then I'd seriously recommend checking out PivotalTracker. It passed the new benchmark test in ease-of-use and understanding, namely "Even Yossi can understand it", yes, it's that simple. Nic will be writing a separate blog post on his findings and new process (Stay tuned).
 Nic presenting on PivotalTracker and answering some questions from the team |
 The PivotalTracker Dashboard - looks impressive |
 Nic explaining the "offline" dashboard showing what tasks are in the next sprint and where they are in the process |
After Nic's presentation we turned to the new SYNAQ chalkboard that Liza and Holden slaved away the whole day on (they sure did a good job). The idea is to have a central space that people can share thoughts and be creative on.
Holden and Liza showing off their work of art :)
Liza then took everyone to her desk to show the team the work she'd done to get all of our data from Pastel into a new online accounting package called Xero. Xero will allow us to easily pull automated management reports that can be shared across the management team without Liza having to slave away at Excel spreadsheets every week. While Liza was explaining Xero and how we're going to use it, I couldn't help but notice a dazzled and confused look on all of the technical guys faces, now they know how she feels when they talk tech :)
Liza explaining the new financial system to a very confused bunch of techies...:)
Last, we had Jaco and Dave presenting their improvements to the SYNAQ monitoring dashboard. The old dashboard made it difficult to see which servers needed immediate attention (defeating the purpose of a dashboard), so the guys took it upon themselves to design a new interface that was easier to immediately identify which server needed immediate attention. In addition to this, they wanted a new design that was more "energy friendly" for our dear old projector (and the environment).
 Jaco presenting the old dashboard and explaining the reasons why it needed to change |
 David presenting the new dashboard and why it's a great improvement from the old one - once again using the new SYNAQ benchmark "Even Yossi can understand it" |
That covers everything that was presented. Overall SYNAQ24 was a smashing success, people collaborated, problems were solved, new solutions presented and a new energy and buzz was in the office afterwards with everyone agreeing that SYNAQ24 should be repeated again and become something of a SYNAQ standard moving forward. I'm sure it will be so keep watching this space!
Very cool and love the idea! I’m unclear on how you managed the 24 hours, did it start 9am in the morning and end 9am the next morning?
This is my second visit to this website. We’re considering starting a completely new blog inside the same category. Your blog site provided me with thoughts to work alongside. (Do not worry, I will not be copying you :)) You have done a fantastic job.
Glad we provided you with some food for thought.
Okay so the idea was to allow people to complete a task within the 24 hour period, we started at 8am in the morning and continued until the last person/ team completed their task. The last task was actually finished at 23:00 (so 9 hours short of 24, but within the time period). It was very productive and great fun.