Introduction to Gaggle dot Com
Gaggle dot Com is a small software company founded in June 2025. The staff consists of 3 rockstar software developers, the manager/founder (also a rockstar developer), a one-man sales and advertising team, and a graphic designer that is a consultant working on an as-needed basis.
Their primary product is GaggleMail, which is not a Gmail rip-off. Pinky promise.
The first version of GaggleMail was developed by the founder in four straight 24-hour days, while he was strung out on multiple cases of Red Bull.
After this coding binge, the founder saw that it was good. He then had to be medevac'd to the closest hospital on account of heart palpitations.
Once released from the hospital, the founder decided to hire 3 buddies who were also rockstar software developers. Getting this many rockstar developers in one garage can only result in the formation of a militia or the founding of a startup company. Fortunately for everybody else, the outcome was the latter.
The founder paid his team in the universal currency of software engineers: pizza and Red Bull.
Next, the founder asked his sister to design a logo for Gaggle dot Com and to produce some screen designs that the rockstar developers could implement. The screen designs were good, but the logo looked like it was made in Microsoft Paint.
The final logo was made by a freelancer on Fivver.com. It took the freelancer twenty minutes, and it looked like it was made using AI. That's OK, though.
The rockstar developers improved GaggleMail, incorporating the screen designs made by the founder's sister and the AI-generated logo. They saw that it was good and decided to tell the world about it.
They hired a sales and marketing guy named Bob. He had two tasks: advertise GaggleMail and raise venture capital.
Bob's first marketing campaign involved TikTok videos showing three geese swimming in a pond, each carrying an envelope, taped to their beaks. Just like in the logo. He was arrested on animal cruelty charges. The founder bailed him out, and the next advertising campaign’s TikTok videos were made using AI.
For the third campaign, Bob decided to repeat the classic "Turkey Drop" from that old TV show called "WKRP in Cincinnati." Bob knew that geese could fly, so he tied them up in rubber suits as seen in “Pulp Fiction” and gagged each of them with envelopes.
He hired an airplane with a banner that read "GaggleMail by Gaggle dot Com." He loaded the bound geese into the plane and had the pilot fly at an altitude of fifty feet above a shopping mall's parking lot.
He had one of his friends recording this on an iPhone.
Bob proceeded to toss the three geese out of the airplane. Splat! Splat! Splat!
Again, Bob was arrested for animal cruelty. The founder again bailed him out and made him promise to only use AI from now on to make his TikTok videos.
The video of the geese hitting the parking lot went viral! Gaggle dot Com was getting noticed!
Bob started raising venture capital and was somewhat successful, as long as he avoided the SPCA crowd.
Gaggle dot Com is now "ramen noodle profitable" and is poised to take the internet by storm. A storm of geese, but still a storm!
Problem Statement: Increase Quality!
With the boost following the "Geese Drop" video, the user base of GaggleMail grew rapidly. The GaggleMail product was performing well, until one day when the rockstar devs were inundated by emails from customers stating that GaggleMail was loading slowly and sometimes not even available!
Being only ramen noodle profitable, the manager/founder could not afford to hire customer service reps or a QA guy. Bob the sales and marketing guy was raising venture capital, and the manager/founder didn't want to take him away from that task. Besides, the manager/founder was tired of bailing him out.
So, the manager/founder led from the front! He took the following actions together with his 3-man rockstar developer team.
First, he chose one of the rockstars, the one who is a good writer, to craft emails that would be sent to the customers experiencing problems.
Second, he measured GaggleMail's response time and the percent of time that it was unavailable. The numbers looked bad: the response time was 15 seconds, and the uptime was only 75%. No wonder their customers were not happy!
Third, the manager/founder worked with the remaining rockstars to diagnose the problem.
It turned out that the problem was with the computer used to host Gaggle dot Com. That computer sat in his father's basement. He called his dad, and his dad was in a panic! "The server is melting, son!" He sounded like a goose with its head cut off.
Fourth, the manager/founder set goals for the metrics: he wanted a response time of under 1 second, and an uptime of 97%. Baby steps.
Fifth, the manager/founder worked with the 2 remaining rockstar devs (meaning, the ones not sending out apology emails) to calculate just how powerful a computer they would need to handle GaggleMail's current user base at the desired response time and uptime. They then projected how many users GaggleMail would have in a year, assuming that Bob does NOT make another viral video. They reran the calculations based on that number of people at the desired metrics.
It turned out the computer they needed was a top-of-the-line Mac Studio. The manager/founder bit his lip. "This is going to hurt!" he said. Fortunately, Bob, the sales and marketing guy, came through with some more venture capital! The manager/founder was very relieved: he didn't want his kneecaps broken by the local mob boss, again.
The manager/founder had the rockstar dev writing emails pause his work so he could join them at the Apple Store. This was going to be an experience that they would tell their children and grandchildren, and the manager/founder wanted all his friends to be there. Arriving at the Apple Store, they looked at all the computers.
There it was, the high-end Mac Studio! The four rockstars approached it, then hesitantly touched it, like those apes that touched the monolith at the start of "2001: A Space Odyssey." The Apple Store manager, concerned, approached them. Mac groupies sometimes needed a firm hand.
"Are you going to purchase that Mac Studio, or just drool on it?" the store manager asked.
The manager/founder stepped back… he was about to fulfill a lifelong dream…
He reached into his pocket. Then, in his best Cleavon Little accent, he said "excuse me while I whip this out!" He removed his wallet from his pocket and pulled out an Amex Black Card.
Half the store gasped in fear! Some of the old women even fainted!
The four rockstar devs took their shiny new Mac Studio over to the manager/founder's dad's house and replaced the old Gateway computer sitting in his basement. They transferred the Gaggle dot Com website and database to the new Mac Studio. They tested everything out, and all was well.
They returned to the manager/founder's garage then sent out a new email to the customers letting them know that all was well asking them to try the NEW! IMPROVED! GaggleMail!
Bob got that evil look in his eye. He wanted to make another banger TikTok video. "No! Don't you dare!" the manager/founder scolded.
They celebrated in the only way rockstar devs and sketchy social media influencers knew how: with pizza and Red Bull.
Ongoing Measurement
The rockstars learned a valuable lesson from all this: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So, they needed a way to prevent this problem from recurring.
The idea foremost in the manager/founder's head was the diagnostic process they used to identify the problem and the cure they used to fix it.
The problem was that customer demand exceeded the specifications of Gaggle dot Com's computer in dad’s basement.
One solution was to lay out considerable cash - unfortunately, Apple Store employees aren't fond of pizza and Red Bull. They prefer Starbucks and avocado toast.
Could this problem be anticipated? Could Ben Franklin's adage be made actionable?
The manager/founder gave considerable thought to the problem and how to anticipate it. His first idea was to purchase more Mac Studios, but there were two problems: their cost, and the very real possibility that his dad would object to the rising electric bills.
Then he hit on a compromise, sort of. The manager/founder decided that the best solution was to continually measure the chosen metrics AND the number of customers. This would allow him to do several things:
- Determine the growth curve for the size of user base
- Estimate the relationship between the number of users and the chosen metrics (response time and uptime)
- Predict the number of customers that will exceed even the immense power of that Mac Studio computer sitting in dad’s basement
- Only purchase computers on an as-needed basis
Lessons Learned from the First Problem
This was Gaggle dot Com's first major problem, besides Bob and his TikTok videos. The leader/founder wanted to record his thoughts. Here’s what he came up with:
- Pay attention to customer complaints and be prepared to address them
- Be proactive so the complaints were limited
- Choose appropriate metrics that are relevant to customers
- Determine the baseline and set goals for improvement of those metrics
- Continually measure these metrics with the goal of improving them
- Automate the measurement process
- Make predictions based on those measurements
- Pay your rockstar devs well: pizza and Red Bull are the coin of the realm
Quality Philosophy Used
Should the manager/founder's actions count as a "quality philosophy?" Yes and no: he concerned himself with customer satisfaction and continual improvements, but those two factors do not count as a complete total quality management (TQM) implementation. Let's go through the "8 Principles of TQM" as listed in Isolocity (2024):
- Customer focus – yes, customer satisfaction was the driving factor
- Leadership involvement – the manager/founder led from the front
- Employee involvement – they live for this stuff!
- Process approach – heck no
- Systematic management approach – heck no
- Continual improvement – yes, the manager/founder took actions to improve the relevant metrics and is considering how to continue the process
- Factual decision-making – how else could it be?
- Mutually beneficial supplier relationships – Gaggle dot Com maintains excellent relations with the local pizza shops and Red Bull suppliers.
So, the quality philosophy used was not full TQM – it included modifications appropriate to our scrappy software company. It allows Gaggle dot Com to retain its innovative nature required by all startup companies while preventing the (malignant) growth of bureaucracy that paralyzes and destroys such companies.
Quality Tool Used: Log Analysis
The quality tool used by Gaggle dot Com wasn’t one the usual quality tools, but it is certainly common and valuable in the software development industry: log analysis!
All computers running software like GaggleMail record some of the events taking place in that shiny new Mac Studio sitting in dad’s basement. The information recorded includes customers interacting with GaggleMail, database access, potential security concerns, system crashes, and so on. This is an incredible amount of information that not even our rockstar developers could make sense of it (really, they could, they just have better things to do).
Mundane events like customer login attempts, interaction with databases, and so on usually do not require immediate analysis. However, the data recorded is still valuable and is the foundation of relevant statistical process controls (described next).
However, a log analysis tool can immediately spot security problems and system crashes. How to act on that information? Usually, the log analyzer sends a text message to one of the rockstar developers who is “on call” so that he can diagnose it and fix it.
Something our manager/founder must consider is that for many rockstars, there is not enough pizza and Red Bull in the world to be on on call. So, the duty would fall on the manager/founder.
Statistical Process Control Used
One of the best statistical process control methods for a company like Gaggle dot Com to use are histograms of the hourly web traffic GaggleMail receives. This feature is usually part of system monitoring or logging tools and can be easily added to dashboards for use by all the employees at the Gaggle dot Com.
As a concrete example, consider a histogram that shows the number of GaggleMail users in each hour of the day. There would have to be adjustments for different time zones, of course.
The rockstar devs would look at the histogram to figure out when extra computers would be needed to handle the extra traffic. In the case of GaggleMail and their brand-new computer, the Mac Studio would have to be more fully committed to making sure GaggleMail customers are serviced during peak hours.
An “edgy” application of hourly web traffic is to enable or disable features in GaggleMail based on traffic volume – expensive (computer intensive) features could be disabled during peak hours. This would lower service quality, so must be considered as a last resort.
The manager/founder will look at the chart to figure out if it makes sense to continue to host the site on a single Mac Studio computer or move to a system like Amazon Web Services which includes "load scaling" – automatically making more computers available during peak hours and taking away those computers when not needed during off hours.
Bob, the sales and marketing guy, would use this chart to determine the peak hours that GaggleMail users check their mail. If Gaggle dot Com decides to sell advertisements on the site, Bob would use the histogram to set the prices the advertisers would have to pay. Ads shown during peak hours would cost the advertiser more than ads shown during off hours.
Conclusion
The manager/founder was happy with the way things worked out:
- He implemented a system used to measure the quality of GaggleMail
- He extracts usable information from that system
- He uses the information to predict growth and to financially plan for upcoming expenses
- This allows him to continually improve the metrics
- He performs competitor analysis to add desirable features
All of this is great: the customers are happy with existing quality of service, and the quality of service is always improving. In essence, he has moved from merely reacting to being aggressive, as all good rockstar developers should be.
Our manager/founder has no illusions about the future, however.
He and his team of rockstars will soon no longer work for pizza and Red Bull. Their standards are evolving! Soon, they'll want higher quality pizza (Nico's or Papa Johns) instead of that horrible Domino's. Also, their tastes will change from ordinary Red Bull to Fresh Squeezed Red Bull, then to Tropical Red Bull Margaritas, and maybe even all the way to Vodka Red Bulls!
That means that Bob the sales and marketing guy must continue raising venture capital, or worse, return to his shady past of abusing geese, all for the engagement. You can see it in his eyes - he wants those clicks!
The manager/founder knows that these events are on the horizon and must plan accordingly – again, he must not only be proactive but aggressive.
Bob could establish multiple revenue streams for Gaggle dot Com, like advertising, or somehow "gamifying" GaggleMail.
Gaggle dot Com's team is small, but this is made up for by the incredible power of rockstar developers! Archimedes once supposedly said “give me enough pizza and Red Bull, and some rockstar developers, and I will move the world.” This proves that rockstar devs have been around since about 230 BC.
It may seem that GaggleMail depends on having only rockstar programmers. It doesn't: non-rockstars are welcome and are valuable, so long as they fully understand their own strengths and weaknesses.
One event that would require the addition of more developers is if Gaggle dot Com adds more software products to their lineup besides GaggleMail. The manager/founder has been hearing complaints about Google Maps, and he has considered making something called Gaggle Maps (totally not a copy of Google Maps, really).
How to pull this off?
A single team of rockstar developers rightfully scoff at the whole agile development and scrum processes with its daily standup meetings and sprints and other bureaucratic bloat. But what about two teams?
Our manager/founder has read works about something called "scrum of scrums," a technique for combining and synchronizing multiple teams (Spanner, n/d). The problem our manager/founder has with this is that the basic frameworks of agile and scrum are flawed, and making a pile of them (as required by scrum of scrums) does not fix those flaws and, indeed, magnifies them!
Our manager/founder understands that forcing all available people into an organizational or team model should not be done. It is better to devise an organizational or team model that works for the people already there.
Then scrum and scrum of scrum advocates call for something called "work-life balance." Our manager/founder understands that work-life balance is a myth (Pontefract, 2024), and it is a reason for companies to not demand the best from its employees.
In fact, whenever he reads about scrums or scrum of scrums, our manager/founder wants to find a rope and a wobbly stool!
Still, the problem remains. All our manager/founder understands is that it is inappropriate to share expertise across different teams except in very specific ways: doing weekly "brown bag lunches" is great for sharing knowledge, but sharing a QA person or a project manager across multiple teams are causes of failure.
This is shaped by his experience: small teams work great but combining them by treating the team members as "human resources" is vile, disgusting, and downright repulsive. Unfortunately, our manager/founder has no practical experience in combining teams in a way that eliminates bureaucracy, maintains creativity and autonomy, and preserves dignity.
This failure to understand how to combine multiple teams must not be taken as a reason to stop asking questions. The future is wide open, and there must be ways for Gaggle dot Com to stay scrappy and not turn into another IBM!
Thus ends our story of pizza and Red Bull!
References
Goetsch, D. L. & Davis, S. B. (2021). Quality management for organizational excellence: Introduction to total quality (9th ed.). Pearson.
Isolocity. (2024). What are the 8 principles of TQM? https://isolocity.com/what-are-the-8-principles-of-tqm
Pontefract, D. (2024, 2 June). The fallacy of work-life balance. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danpontefract/2024/06/02/the-fallacy-of-work-life-balance/
Spanner, C. (n/d). Scrum of scrums. Atlassian. https://www.atlassian.com/agile/scrum/scrum-of-scrums
