Microspeak: The parking lot

re: Microspeak: The parking lot

xpclient — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:19:53 GMT

@Rangoric, it never happens with network drives all the time. Sometimes happens. And it doesn't happen with removable drives or the root of a drive either. But inside local folders, it happens all the time on any OS post Vista. It's design to make users' life more difficult by shuffling all the files around the moment you paste, rename or create them. Just kidding, may be not intentionally designed but after half a decade there should have been an option provided because hundreds of users are screaming in their forums. Read it about it: social.msdn.microsoft.com/.../27314d0a-9c70-4b79-93e7-23fe60e7e374 I must have started a hundred different petitions ever since Longhorn was in beta.

re: Microspeak: The parking lot

Rangoric — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:39:56 GMT

@xpclient

Have you tried Windows 8? I have been trying to figure out what you are talking about with the auto sort for a while, but it doesn't happen with network drives on win7 all the time (which is main time I view files at work), and it doesn't always happen with Windows 8 CP when I'm at home.

re: Microspeak: The parking lot

Joe White — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:18:20 GMT

I've even heard this outside the corporate world -- I encountered it at church district meetings seven or eight years ago. The meetings had an agenda, and a certain amount of time was allotted to each topic (because otherwise people would talk forever). If somebody brought up an idea that wasn't directly related to the current agenda topic, that idea was added to the "parking lot" page on the flip chart -- so it was only a few seconds' distraction instead of a fifteen-minute sidebar. Time was dedicated at the end of the meeting to revisit the topics in the parking lot.

I think it was pretty effective. Oddly enough, when we set aside time to talk about something, we spend less time talking about it than we do when we know it's not related to the topic at hand!

re: Microspeak: The parking lot

parking lot — Wed, 16 May 2012 03:27:19 GMT

definition: a pile to put the managers crappy ideas so he thinks you heard him and will get around to it but really your just going to wait until he is not looking and remove it in hopes he'll forget it.

Agile calls this the backlog which makes sense. If something is going to eventually ship it should go into the real "todo" list for the product. Everything doesn't have to be planned other than figuring out what because of dependencies has to go first. Otherwise your just grabbing things that will fit into the current cycle and have some combination of critical feature/nice feature for demoing as part of early preview/fun to work on working for them. Having a real spot where things disappear for a future release implies that you think you can plan all the features that you need to ship with before hand and anything else doesn't make the cut regardless of changing market, experience gained working on the project etc. Boo.

re: Microspeak: The parking lot

meh — Wed, 16 May 2012 01:03:53 GMT

I suppose this is the opposite of parking good ideas, but I first encountered the term as a verb while being coached for a skydiving competition, although it could apply for any timed sport. When you make a mistake during a dive, the best thing is to 'park it' and keep going. Dwelling on it can only negatively affect performance.

re: Microspeak: The parking lot

The Dude — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:55:42 GMT

We use it at work as a verb now: "Hey Jim, that's a great idea, but let's parking lot it for now and get back to the main discussion." Ugh. Effing idiots. Almost as good as "learnings." Which is ironically used here at at a place that provides education in exchange for tuition. Double ugh.

re: Microspeak: The parking lot

someone — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:48:02 GMT

>>xpclient, do you ever give it a rest?

>This blog is xpclient's parking lot for complaints.

Except that a parking lot is a place for off-topic ideas with merit.

re: Microspeak: The parking lot

xpclient — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:28:47 GMT

@Tim Hermann, Relax, and don't take it too seriously. @dave, nice one. :)

re: Microspeak: The parking lot

Dave Totzke — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:22:45 GMT

I've seen the term used (and used it myself) in a classroom situation similar to Bill C. In my experience it was a place on the blackboard (ya, I'm old) where you could park your name during lab time and the instructor would assist work through the list providing help to each person in turn. We always called it a parking lot but it was more of a queue really.

re: Microspeak: The parking lot

No One — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:07:30 GMT

@Carl D: The Microspeak articles aren't about terminology used /only/ at Microsoft, it's about terminology used at Microsoft in ways that might not be the norm everywhere else. So there is, inevitably, overlap.