I’ve been looking for a way to wrap this up, when I stumbled accross and article titled “Process as a Substitute for Competance” that seems to do it for me […]
… I was wrong
A few weeks ago I put out a post on Elisabeth Henricksen’s 2002 presentation, “Why Are My Pants On Fire?”. My conclusion was that the sentiment was obvious, but people […]
Against Systems: Interlude …
More Against Systems to come, but first, a couple of things … 1) Jon Kohl points out that we only exist because of little systems like circulation, muscular, the solar […]
Against Systems – III
Did you know that honor codes that consist of a specific list can be gamed? For example, the US Air Force Academy Honor Code, at one time, was: “We shall […]
Three days in Indy?
I will be in Indianapolis on Thursday, March 22nd, Presenting Rethinking Process Improvement at a meeting of the Indianapolis Quality Assurance Association (IQAA), with a one-day workshop on software requirements […]
Intuition
James Bach is running a rapid software class over the web, and I am enjoying it. (You can take the course for $250 per session; read about it – here). […]
Great Writing
George Dinwiddie wrote this and it struck me as worth quoting… 5. In spite of a technical background that goes back to childhood, my sailboat has virtually no electronics. The […]
Standards – II
George Dinwiddie has a great response to my previous post on standards. In his post, George says: Why do people want to choose a standard before they’ve tried something to […]
Standards?
To paraphrase Tom DeMarco, I am all in favor of product standards. After all, Product standards are the reason that I can buy a Double-A battery from any manufacturer, plug […]
An Actual Job Description I saw today –
For a senior programmer/analyst type … Must possess a strong understanding of software engineering principles including data normalization, structured programming, and software development life cycles. How about this: Must understand, […]
Certifiable – III
I am drafting a reply to the agile-leadership group, but posting it here first. Several people (including me), asked what problem certification solves, or who the “customer” is for the […]
Housekeeping
I’ve had a couple (two) of spambot like comments posted to the blog in the past week. If it continues, I may have to turn off anonymous posting, or turn […]
Agile Metrics – II
I’ve been having an off-line discussion with Jared Quinert that follows-up my post on Agile Metrics. Specifically, he noticed that I refer to the state a project is in to […]
Choices …
Imagine, for a moment, a retirement home. Crammed full of people, they are told where to live, what to eat, when to eat … not even allowed to leave the […]
Allmost posted this …
I allmost posted this to my SW-IMPROVE discussion list, but it’s a little bit too saracastic. I figured this audience could appreciate it a bit more for what it is, […]
Against Systems – II
I’ve been complaining that people like defined systems – even when they stink – because they are easy. In fact, many people don’t even see the idea of craft in […]
Measuring Project Health
I’ve been known to say that explaining a single idea so well that it can’t be misunderstood takes me about 1,000 words. Well, yesterday, on the context-driven testing yahoo group, […]
Craft Appreciation
An article on Art Appreciation that is really about Craft Appreciation and skill building – from From Paul Graham: What counts as a trick? Roughly, it’s something done with contempt […]
The Age of Reason
I just finished reading Measuring The World which is a wonderful historic novel about the world in the 18th and early 19th century. In many ways, the book explores the […]
Certifiable – II
Another post, this one to the agile-management list … Ron Jeffries Wrote:A leadership certification, one would imagine, would perforce be far less specific and far more general, but just as […]