Matisse has an interesting post, Software is like Building Construction. He talks about iterative design and the interdependencies of people with deliverables as being common to construction and software. In my opinion, he’s not all wrong, but he’s not all right. I agree that there are plenty of design-build firms who wait until the […]
Via Keith’s A Few Good Posts by Ed Gibbs, I read Better Feedback Loops With One on Ones. Sounds like one-on-ones are helping Ed and his team. Last week, I had dinner with a manager (also using Scrum) who has had great results with one-on-ones. It’s always nice to hear positive news about a
I’m a big fan of continuous integration. For me, that means that as developers implement small pieces, they check in the changes, verify the changes with a local build and smoke test, promote the code to the mainline, check again, and they’re done. I’ve been having a long discussion with one of my clients about
Merlin’s been doing a series of posts about emptying your inbox. I decided he was right.Here’s the philosphical statement in Inbox Zero: Articles of faith that helped me see a new possibility: Admitting you simply don’t have the time to participate in a 10-times-daily email exchange with someone is difficult to admit. But what’s the
You may have noticed a long time between posts here. I was traveling virtually all of March, and had a tough time with finishing all my client work and making time to blog. Once I was home, I had a tough time with jet lag. I believe I’m unlagged and ready. I have ton of
If you haven’t read Amit’s review of Behind Closed Doors, ON THE BOOKSHELF: “SECRETS OF GREAT MANAGEMENT” FINALLY REVEALED take a look. A quote: So it’s a welcome surprise to read Behind Closed Doors (The Pragmatic Programmers, 2005), by management experts Johanna Rothman and Esther Derby, and to find that it’s full of realistic
I recently spoke with a manager who had too many projects and not enough people. (Sound familiar?) I suggested he organize two kinds of project portfolios. The first is organized with the weeks across the top and the people down the side, explaining which people are doing what in each week, and how much work
When I do assessments, I ask for lots of project documents and data. A few years ago, I was working on an assessment for a very large system, so I asked for an architectural picture. I was surprised–this million plus LOC system had no picture at all. No wonder it was so hard for the
I’m in Israel right now, doing an assessment. That means that I’m the one at “another” site for my US projects. Staying in touch is hard. I’m between 7 and 10 hours ahead of everyone I need to work with. Not easy to stay in contact. I do some reasonable things while I’m here: rent
I’d recommended a group consider pair-programming as a technique to help everyone learn more about the system. One of the developers came up to me later and said, “How do I give feedback while pairing?” I said “Nicely,” and promised more specifics. Here are my guidelines for pairing feedback: Explain the effect on me for