Shimin asks, What do you mean by “peer review”? Here are my definitions: Peer review. An author asks a peer to read, comment, and critique a work artifact. If the work artifact is code, the reviewer will read the code, and may even develop and run some unit tests to check that the code […]
I’m reviewing my students’ updated plans for their projects. One team originally wanted full unit testing on the code as it was created, but added (my paraphrase) “if the project is late, some unit testing will be acceptable.” I responded that the farther behind the project was, the more review and testing is required.
Last week we held the AYE conference. Attending bloggers (in random order) were: Ron Pihlgren, Esther Derby, James Bach, Don Gray, Steve Smith, Tim Bacon, Rachel Davies, Dave Hoover, Dave Pickett, and Dave Liebreich. I hope I didn’t forget anyone. One of the highlights for me was the writing workshop. We practiced several timed writing
Student Syndrome occurs when the person with the task waits until the last possible moment to start. Some people spend their entire academic career waiting until the night before a project is due and then starting it, pulling an all-nighter, and getting some (hopefully adequate) grade. Student Syndrome isn’t for me, but I know lots
My PM students are articulating insights about projects that I’m happy to see. One project team said this in their charter, “The value of the product is moving the paper successfully across the room. The value of the project is in the journey, not the destination.” Some projects exist to see if the project
I asked my project management students to create a project dashboard for the projects they’re organizing, so we can talk about what happens when the indicators go up down or sideways. One of the teams came up with a “risk constellation” chart — which I thought was a brilliant way to show risks. (If
I’m teaching project management to graduate students this year. One of their assignments is to keep a project management journal. I explained it this way: PMs make decisions where the consequences — the results of their decisions — can be far removed from the decision. One of the things I want the students to
I presented a webinar today, Becoming a More Agile Tester. Here’s the PDF. (It’s a talk, so if you read it and think you’ve missed something, you have. Send me email with your question.) I’ve been thinking a lot about test assets these days, and here’s a highlight from the presentation, a comparison of
I’m at PNSQC this week. I gave my metrics talk yesterday, and something occurred to me: in traditional projects, we’re used to measuring what’s been done. In agile projects, we measure what’s left to do. I just realized yesterday that the difference in how we measure makes a difference in how people feel about
I’m teaching my older daughter how to drive, and I now realize why inexperienced drivers are so dangerous. They are inconsistent and unpredictable, because they are inexperienced. I can’t help her gain experience by making a list of all possible situations and explaining what she has to do. I have to generalize. Right now,