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	TABLE OF CONTENTS Road Warrior You're Not Alone Out There A Shared Vision

A Shared Vision

Scott Westfall

Employer: SlickEdit Inc.

Job: Director of Software Development

DDJ: What do you do as Director of Software Development?

SW: I wear two hats: I'm the project manager, which means overseeing schedules, assigning work to team members, things like that; and I'm also the product manager, which is more about the actual products that we create, what features they contain, prioritizing defects, and planning the mix of features that will be in each release.

DDJ: What's particularly challenging about your job?

SW: It's the same thing I find challenging everywhere. Milestones are by far the most challenging thing. Programming would be great if we could just code for coding's sake, but the business of software development is about delivering a specified functionality by a planned release date. So I build schedules based on estimates and try to keep the work on track, but schedules are very often incomplete, and things go wrong, so hitting milestones is by far the biggest challenge.

DDJ: What have you found makes your job easier?

SW: My team. We've got very much a shared vision about what programming should be like and the kinds of things that editors should do for you. This group needs less management than any group of employees that I've ever worked with. I like to think I make a big contribution, but this team would be building great software even if I wasn't here.

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