Have a Plan Before You Go

I’ve heard many stories of people going on a trip with no plan and just winging it when they get there. That can be an exciting trip and I’ve done a last minute trip before where I planned the flights and everything a few days before we left. It worked out that time pretty well but much of the time traveling with no plan or research can lead to a mess in the end.

Travel Experiences

For us when we travel we are usually doing our research on the destination, purchasing flights, hotels and tours a few months ahead of the trip. We always start by of course where we want to go during a particular time of year. Rushing up to Alaska in mid January probably wouldn’t be the best idea for a stress free trip. If we decided on a international destination we do research to see what all we need to visit a particular country. Some countries you just need a passport and a plane ticket to visit it with an American Passport. Other countries you might need to apply for a visa ahead of time or fill out other paperwork before you arrive or you risk being sent back home. Each country has their own rules such as what you can bring into the country. Some common medications in the US for allergies are illegal in other countries and can cause you issues if they examine you medications. In some countries you should have certain vaccines to avoid diseases such as Yellow Fever or Typhoid. With unrest around the world there could be issues in a country we are looking to visit and we should wait until the situation settles down. We look at what safety is like in a country or area so we know what to be watching for and areas to avoid. It might sound overwhelming but firming up what we need ahead of time really helps make the trip better and more stress free once we get there. After our research we book our trip and usually get in on prices much cheaper than we had before.

This planning and research while it takes a little extra time has really helped us in the end. Just recently when I visited small Caribbean Nation of Saint Kitts I found that they have arrival paperwork that they require to have complete before going to passport control. I filled it in online and got a QR code for my wife and I. When we arrived over half of the people on our flight had not filled out the paperwork. They had to leave the line and go through the process in a side room while we went ahead and entered the country smoothly. While in this case it was just a inconvenience for those who didn’t know about the extra steps it could have caused them to be rejected from the country and sent back to the US.

We have also canceled trips after seeing situations becoming too dangerous to continue our trip. We have canceled trip due to hurricanes, unrest and violence in different areas of the world as situations change. If we did not plan and pay attention to details we could have gotten into difficult situations like we had in the past where we were stranded in different places due to storms or encounter even worse situations like violence. It is important to properly plan and adapt as needed before you travel.

How can these travel experiences translate to Software Engineering?

I consider the planning and research before the trip the requirements gathering phase of our trip. If you have a proper plan and know what is needed including a general knowledge of the software needed and the skills needed to complete the task. Like heading on a trip, you would want to make sure you are not bringing jackets and sweaters when heading off to Jamacia. I have seen in my technical career project teams rush through the requirement gathering phase to start the project quickly and figure things out as we go due to a tight deadline. The project ended up taking much longer than it should have since we just didn’t have what we needed and ended up doing a lot of re-coding in the end. The deadline was missed and everyone was un-happy. I’ve had other project teams have detailed planning and requirements and we got the project done early and everyone was satisfied.

Sometimes its ok to not have all the clarity you would like in a project. This is especially the case in agile development when your users and the project team might not know all the details but all stakeholders at that point will have to know that you are going to be iterating and won’t necessarily have everything you would like to have in the MVP (Minimal Viable Product). From a travel perspective this can somewhat be like flying standby. You know where you want to go but you might not get the exact flight you want to get on immediately. Its still though important to have a good foundation and a good understanding with your customers and team or the project will end up being a mess. Agile can become messy if the MVP is not agreed upon or scope creep come into play. That general plan and agreement of what the MVP would look like and how iterations in the future can look like are paramount in the agile process. Like when traveling if there are certain spots in a city or country a person absolutely has to see for them to be satisfied with the trip then you should have a plan to visit it or otherwise things might not really go as well as you would like.

When you are starting out a new software project or planning a trip I encourage you to take some time to do the needed planning so the project or trip goes more smoothly and you get the best outcome you possibly can!